It’s Like This…

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distractions, good life, pick up the shovel, shoveling, snow, spiritual life, temptations, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

We have 30 inches of snow on the ground this morning, more than any time since 1961. I am itching to get out and shovel some of it. I made it about 20 feet yesterday afternoon from our door to the edge of the driveway, but that effort was tiny compared to what lies ahead on the driveway itself – and the back deck and  the roof…Happily we have a faithful “St. Joseph” who will arrive soon to begin digging us out.

This may sound contrived but I actually had thoughts this morning that compared our situation to the spiritual life. There are sometimes “mountains” of distractions and temptations to laziness or worse in the everyday. Trying to figure out how to plow through them all sometimes seems too difficult and the effort too exhausting. Just picking up the shovel is a major achievement. Once the first step is taken, however, the next seems less monumental. That happened for me yesterday as I stood on the front stoop and lifted the first shovelful of snow. It was very light and fluffy! “Great,” I thought. “I’ll make quick work of this!” I was dismayed as I progressed because there was so much to clear away at every step and bend-and-lift got more tiring as I worked. Miraculously, I succeeded in opening a somewhat narrow path to the driveway and felt rather pleased with myself. Looking out this morning I see that there is still evidence of my work although it will take a second round to make it passable again. No matter. The effort was its own reward.

There are so many comparisons one might make in attempting to live a good life. Mine may not speak to anyone else but whatever gets us to “pick up the shovel” is worth consideration if it moves us just one more step toward God.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Still Searching for Light

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A Deep Breath of Life, Alan Cohen, being, breathe, Centered Living, distractions, enlightenment, letting go, light, Peace, quiet, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Well, the storm that promised my “play date” in Latham took a breath yesterday and allowed me to travel home in safety. Overnight, in a second wave, what we had expected finally arrived so that schools are closed and the directive is for all of us to stay home today. Still looking for light (see yesterday’s post), I turned to a new book by Alan Cohen, A Deep Breath of Life, subtitled Daily Inspiration for Heart-Centered Living. I wasn’t disappointed as the selection for today began with a man looking for a lost key under a streetlamp. When a helpful friend asked if he knew where he was standing when he lost the key, the man indicated a tree 30 feet away. “Then why are you looking here?” the friend asked. “Because there is more light over here,” the man answered.

Cohen is suggesting that we tend to look to easy answers for things rather than confronting our deeper issues. He says, “Enlightenment is an inside job. Doing more in the outer world will not result in more peace; only being more will get us what we want. Peace is attained by letting go of everything that distracts us from it.” The thought for the day in bold letters at the bottom of the page is the simple sentence that I was looking for as a guide for this snow-covered day.

In quiet I look within and discover the light I am.

Now Is the Time!

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conscious work, Corinthians, distractions, Hallelujah Farm, incognito, instant communication, nature, Paul, pay attention, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, wisdom, Wisdom School

I arrived home last night in a torrential rainstorm after four days in Chesterfield, NH, just over the border from Vermont. Hallelujah Farm is one of those hidden jewels of retreat into nature that is the perfect setting for a “wisdom school” – our purpose for the visit. We were blessed with glorious days of sunny, breezy weather and a show of natural splendor on Friday night when the thunder rolled, lightning lit up the sky and rain cleansed the earth for the next day’s gardening. It all sounds idyllic, doesn’t it? And so it was for the 21 of us who had deep discussion, deeper silence and delicious food to sustain us. There was just one issue that jarred our habitual selves. The farm has two buildings, one up the hill from the other. At the lower farm, where we were gathering, there is virtually no phone service and absolutely no internet. A trip to the upper farm (available only in the afternoon “free time” from 1-3PM) was the only way to “get connected” – unless before 7:00am when our prayer began…The stewards of the farm, Sandy and Roger, were gracious in offering their Upper Farm phone for necessary calls home to check-in and to take messages for emergencies, but for the rest, we were incognito except to God and to one another.

I was thinking this morning about how accustomed we have become to the possibility of instant connection and how difficult it has become not to have that access. In his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul says, [N]ow is the acceptable time! (6:2) He’s talking about the necessity of paying attention to God no matter the trials or sufferings that endeavor entails. It seems to fit what we were trying to get to in our silence in prayer, at some meals, in our “conscious work” as well as in our times of conversation. To be totally present to the moment we are in allows us to become more conscious of God’s presence to us and the need for us to be present in return. Not distracted by our usual ability to connect with the world, we were more able to focus on what was happening where we were when we were there. We learned once again how difficult that is because we still had our thoughts to contend with in the silence. It was a wonderful exercise, however, of delving into what wisdom lies within ourselves both personally and corporately and an opportunity to grasp the beauty and importance of living in the present moment.

Paradise Found

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distractions, farm, Kathleen Deignan, know, merchandise, paradise, secret, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton, understand, wisdom

Here is an unspeakable secret: paradise is all around us and we do not understand.

It is wide open. The sword is taken away, but we do not know it:

We are off “one to his farm and another to his merchandise.”

Lights on. Clocks ticking. Thermostats working. Stoves cooking. Electric shavers filling radios with static.

“Wisdom,” cries the dawn deacon, but we do not attend.

~ Thomas Merton
(from Thomas Merton’s Book of Hours by Kathleen Deignan)