A “Merton Moment”

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creation, morning, presence, silence, spring, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton, Thomas Merton: A Book of Hours

We had tornado warnings last evening but only got torrential rains that seem to have washed away layers of distress and moved us finally into a glorious taste of spring. I thank God for windows this morning! The first blast of beauty that met me was the flowering cherry tree in the west corner that was glorious seen from above (the second floor). Downstairs there was a congregation of colorful birds on the newly washed deck – more variety than we have ever had! In addition to the ever-present yellow of the finches we have a second appearance of Baltimore orioles and, for the first time, a contingent of rose-breasted grosbeaks. They all know where the party is and it is a delight to watch them as they find breakfast, dancing and singing this early in the day to give me courage.

I sit here in the sun, feeling the gentleness of the breeze and imaging Thomas Merton on the tiny porch of his hermitage on mornings just like this one. The leaves on the trees still sparkle with the remnants of the rain as I turn to his words for a way to express praise of this wonderland of creation.

The most wonderful moment of the day is that when creation in its innocence asks permission to “be” once again, as it did on the first morning that ever was…There are drops of dew that show like sapphires in the grass as soon as the morning sun appears, and leaves stir behind the hushed flight of an escaping dove…Today, Father, this blue sky lauds you…The distant blue hills praise you, together with the sweet-smelling air that is full of brilliant light…I too, Father, praise you, with all these my brothers, and they give voice to my own heart and to my own silence. We are all one silence, and a diversity of voices…Here I am. In me the world is present, and you are present. I am a link in the chain of light and of presence…(Thomas Merton: A Book of Hours)

On the Second Day of May

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creation, light, pandemic, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton, wholeness

Today feels like what Thomas Merton might describe as “the first day of Creation.” I feel the warmth of a sun that is already shining so bright and full through my window that I am unable to see my computer screen. I need to lean toward the south to shade the brilliance enough to type. It is glorious in both heat and light and leads me to shout silently to God that “this is what May is supposed to be like!” In my mind I am already out picking up branches that were victims of the wind these last three days. I can already imagine that by sunset there will be tiny leaves on branches everywhere—a gift from the mixture of sun and rain…just how things are supposed to be.

It’s difficult on a morning like this to remember words like pandemic. The reality slowly seeps in but at the same time I begin to wonder if there isn’t a way—or more than one way—to see a wholeness in what seems an overwhelming dissonance. Would I be able (or even willing to try) to maintain the lightness of being produced by the sun’s warmth and the consequent burgeoning of life in creation today while holding the reality of death and dying that is all around? It would seem an impossible task but I sense a worthy challenge in it for myself today.

God’s World and Work

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Ancient Songs Sung Anew, creation, Creator, divine, Genesis, Lynn Bauman, psalm 93, sacred presence, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

There are great images of God as Creator in today’s lectionary psalm. Reminiscent of the first two chapters of Genesis, Lynn Bauman’s translation of Psalm 93* addresses God and ties the Creator to the creation in a beautifully lyrical manner. Listen:

O sovereign Lord, O ruler over all, you wear beauty as a cloak, and bind yourself in power as with a belt. Immersed in strength you take the world and make it firm so we can never move it…And in its youth you covered earth with waters deep; its voice, the pounding waves was speaking loud…Your sacred presence touches everything, and holiness becomes your house for evermore. (vs. 1,2,4,6B)

In the commentary that follows, Bauman notes: “It is quite natural for our conception of God to be shaped by images we receive in the creation.” His question that follows is quite apt for this Spring season of beauty in the Northeast of the United States but could be fitting for any location of the globe in some way, I believe. He asks: “What images taken from nature speak to you most forcefully of the divine?”

I’m already one half-hour into my answer and I’m glad the question wasn’t asked in a way that asked for only one simple response! I will surely be finding new answers as I look around me all day long!

*Ancient Songs Sung Anew: the Psalms as Poetry

Stillness

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be, creation, Romans, St. Paul, stillness, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Lent seems to be moving so slowly. Easter is late this year. I have to look diligently when outside for signs of spring – just the tiniest sprigs of green against the house – hoping that the still freezing temperatures will not overcome them. The view from my window is so monochromatic (whew! Where did that word come from this early?!) I’m not sure I can trust the sun this morning to effect a change. I feel as if the silence is so big everything would break if I moved more than my fingers on the keyboard. Traffic is silent. The birds seem to be hiding from the neighborhood hawk. Everything seems like that line from Paul’s letter to the Romans: “All creation waits on tiptoe to see the children of God coming into their own.”

How difficult it is to remain still and just BE. There is always so much to do. I’m sensing that the impulse of being is more important now than ever. Can you feel it? Can you allow your body and mind to acquiesce to it in hopes of learning some new truth? Let us breathe…and hope.

Merton’s View

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creation, hope, nature, praise, spring, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton, Thomas Merton: A Book of Hours

Up early, I am sitting in the quiet darkness. Feeling the need for someone else’s words to get me going into this day I turn to Thomas Merton, whom I have not visited lately. I can feel him sitting on the porch of his small hermitage taking in the very early morning and putting pen to paper with these words.

I am under the sky. The birds are all silent. But the frogs have begun singing their pleasure in all the waters and in the warm, green places where the sunshine is. wonderful. Praise Christ, all you living creatures. For Him you and I were created. With every breath we love Him. My psalms fulfill your dim, unconscious song, O brothers in this wood. (A Book of Hours, p. 93)

It must have been summer or later morning when he wrote those words as we have a long way to go until the sun appears today, but the hope of the meteorologists and their listeners is exactly that for a second day in a row. That would be enough, I think, to convince us that spring is truly not far off and the “warm, green places” will soon grace us once again.

One More Wake-up Call

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creation, defense, Genesis, hear, Herod, Jesus, Mark Divine, Noah, Pharisees, see, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, understand, voice

The lectionary readings for today are a little scary. In the first (from Genesis 6&7) God is lamenting that he created humans at all because of how wicked they have become. The only solution, God thinks, is destruction of all humans. animals and birds. “For I am sorry that I made them,” God says. Thank heaven that Noah showed up as the one shining creation, enough to save the world because “he did what God commanded him.”

In the gospel the disciples misinterpret a warning from Jesus to watch out for the leaven of Herod and the Pharisees. Because he used the word “leaven” to describe their wickedness, the disciples thought that Jesus was upset because they had forgotten to bring enough bread for all of them to eat. (MK 8:14-21) When Jesus realized their conclusion, he reacted with what sounds like uncharacteristic vehemence and frustration in a torrent of questions: Do you not yet understand or comprehend? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes and not see, ears and not hear? Do you still not understand?

Most of the time I do not consider God to depend on our strength or weakness, wickedness or upright behavior, perceptiveness or lack of understanding. I consider God (and Jesus while he lived among us) to be all knowing and loving, forgiving us everything. These readings have not changed my opinion but they do seem to have the effect this morning of making me want us to do better. It isn’t enough today for me to wring my hands at the political climate in our country and the world. And how many more “active shooters” will it take before I add my voice – not just in my home but to my Congressional representatives – about gun control? What is the purpose of reading these texts every morning if I simply put them aside and go on with my day? I don’t think it’s just up to me to save the world but if I’m not willing to make a little noise in God’s defense, how can I expect anything to change?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And Again…

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caretakers, creation, environment, foraging, Genesis, save the planet, solution, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

As I read the second half of the first chapter of Genesis this morning about the creation of all the sea creatures, the birds, the “creeping things” and wild animals, I saw in my mind’s eye the vivid red of cardinals and woodpeckers on our deck vying with the squirrels for the “breakfast” seed before it disappeared under the snow that had just begun to fall. Next I was reminded of the polar bears cited on yesterday’s news, sad that a state of emergency was declared as at least 52 of them were spotted in residential areas on a remote archipelago in the Arctic Ocean north of Russia. It seems that rising global temperatures have contributed to a reduction in the size of polar bears’ sea-ice habitats, forcing them onto land for longer periods of time. (Time.com) There are pictures of these beautiful creatures foraging in garbage dumps for food, a sad commentary on the lack of care and concern that science tells us is the result of human disregard of warnings about the environment.

As I wrote that last, I was jolted into recognition that humans have also been reduced to the same kind of foraging for food – and livelihood – as they actually live on the edges of garbage dumps (see La Chureca in Managua, Nicaragua).

How does all this square with the conclusion that God looked at everything he had made, and found it very good? How have we lived our responsibility as caretakers of creation? Is it too late to “save the planet?” Perhaps on this day when many of us are housebound because of extreme weather conditions, we might take some time to consider the best way to participate in a solution to what has become a major crisis in our day. May our efforts be blessed!

Who Are We?

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Ancient Songs Sung Anew, caregivers, creation, earthly concerns, global warming, mortal, psalm 85, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Psalm 8 is a lyrical reminder of our place in creation, calling us again today to our duty and privilege as “caretakers” of all God has made. In one lovely but haunting translation that calls us to recognize “the book of beauty that God’s fingers wrote,” the psalmist asks: “Who are we to stand before all this and see?” The answer comes as gently as the question that has been asked.

We are mortal beings set in this world, below the splendor of transcendent space…You placed us here and gave the earth into our care. You bid us cherish all this that’s ours, all the beasts and creatures of the wild. The birds of air, the fish of sea, the plants and everything that lives and moves are we here to know and love…*

My question as the images of all these creations pass before my inner eye is one of evaluation, knowing the effects of global warming and destruction of habitats causing the increased extinction of entire species. How well have we cared? Who are we in the role we have been given? Who are we?

*Ancient Songs Sung Anew, p.16)

Thanks Be To God!

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creation, give thanks, God, psalm 139, thank you, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

I smile each time I read Psalm 139 and get to the lines: Truly you have formed my inmost being; you knit me in my mother’s womb. I give you thanks that I am fearfully, wonderfully made; wonderful are your works. (vs. 13-14) First I give thanks for my mother and how well I was loved from the beginning of my life. Then I think of my friend who did workshops on positive thinking who used to ask: “How many of you get up in the morning, look in the mirror, smile and say ‘WHAT A WOMAN!’ or ‘GOOD MORNING, HANDSOME!’ Everyone used to laugh until she said she was serious and that God would want us to remind ourselves of the marvelous creation that we are. We could all do well to take her advice. Why not find a mirror somewhere and try it until you believe it and end the exercise with a hearty “THANK YOU!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bless You!

Tags

ancestral clearing, Ancient Songs Sung Anew, barakah, blessing, creation, divine Source, God bless you, grace, Jewish, John Newton, Muslim, power, Psalm 103, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Psalm 103 calls for blessing not only for us but from us and from all of creation. We are to bless the Lord as the Lord blesses us. In addition, we ought to be sending out blessings to all people not just in God’s name but in our own. “God bless you” has been a familiar phrase throughout my life but what has sounded like shorthand for that (“Bless you!”) has recently gained new significance for me.

John Newton (www.healthbeyondbelief.com), on his webcasts for ancestral clearing, ends his conversations with people who call in by saying, “Bless you” and many respond, sometimes in addition to “Thank you, John,” with “Bless you!” I thought perhaps that John was just being sensitive to all the ways callers might name their “higher power” rather than God – as is clearly true in his conversations. This morning, however, in a commentary on Psalm 103, I was suddenly brought to a fuller awareness of the power of that phrase of blessing, as parents who bless their children as they send them off to school have known for generations. I’m grateful for that inspirational moment (a gift of Pentecost, perhaps?) and offer two paragraphs in hopes that some of you may share in my experience.*

The word barakah is Hebrew for blessing. It means something more in Hebrew than it does in English, a power and grace that flows from one being and place to another through the universe from its divine Source. Interestingly it flows both ways, from the divine Source to ourselves and from ourselves back to the Source. Apparently we are catalysts in the flow of blessing.

The subject of blessing is much neglected in  modern theological and spiritual thought. It does, however, continue to have a strong role in both contemporary Jewish and Muslim thinking. In both traditions blessing is a power that flows and is available to human beings. The source of this energy is transcendent and is not subject to the normal laws of cause and effect. It can flow backwards in time, for example, or appear instantly across great distances in time and space. It is as though the universe is a body with barakah (blessing) flowing through its veins. Envision this if you can, and open yourself to its flow. (Ancient Songs Sung Anew, p.260)

*A visit to John Newton’s website may be in order for your further information and inspiration.

Bless you all today!