Strange Thought for the Day

Tags

A Deep Breath of Life, Alan Cohen, breathe, COVID19, ending, flow, normal, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, trust

A common question these days for many of us is: “When will this be over?” or “When will we get back to normal?” Everyone knows what we’re talking about. People are busy making masks and scouting stores for much needed cleaning products and trying not to talk politics. The surprising thing for me is how little of what I plan to do is achieved in a day. Especially now that the temperatures outside are so stifling, there seems little energy for all the cleaning projects around the house or the phone calls that have fallen by the wayside. The answer to my first question seems to be the same each day: Nobody knows when or if there is an ending point to this “season” that we’re experiencing.

While I hesitate to do so, I want to share a short paragraph that Alan Cohen wrote long before we ever heard the term COVID-19. I do so because of the frustration hidden in every day when I come to the evening annoyed by my failed attempts to get anything done. It has given me this morning a chance to hit the re-start button on the day and a determination to be where I am rather than where I would choose to be. I hope you are similarly blessed by his wisdom when trying to see it as valid even now.

Trust that you have enough time to do everything that needs to be done. Love does not worry or force: it flows. Relax into what is happening, and the peace you enjoy will be accompanied by the clarity and efficiency you gain. (A Deep Breath of Life)

I never would have ascribed those thoughts to what we are experiencing now but, having read them earlier, I have begun to feel their relevance. Just breathe into the thoughts and see if you are able to see the value in it at all.

What Time Is It?

Tags

decisions, ending, expectation, future, gratitude, letting go, live in the present moment, memories, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, timing, unknown, Wisdom School, wisdom way

I have started this post three times in the past two minutes and am grateful for the technology that includes a “delete” button. It’s not that I have one thought stream; rather, there are too many words rumbling around in my head with no clear way to express anything. This happens sometimes when too much is going on and especially as I prepare to travel. It’s as if I need to be sure I have everything taken care of before I leave, especially remembering (of course) what needs to go with me.

Today is a moment when memories and expectations abound and I will need to remain fully conscious of the present. At noon we will close what has been a six-year series of “wisdom schools” and this evening I will leave for a meeting in St. Paul, Minnesota that is preliminary to decision-making about our (Sisters of St. Joseph) future. It is as if I am in a room with two doors leading in different directions, knowing that it isn’t time yet to open either one. Behind the first door is an immense quantity of gratitude for the work we (my colleagues Bill and Deborah and myself) have been privileged to do, tinged with a bit of sadness for the ending, although the timing is surely correct. Behind the other door is the unknown future of our dynamic, yet aging, community of women who sit in a moment of “not yet” and try to envision a worthy future for us and those who will be called to join us.

It isn’t always easy to let go of outcome and just live in the moment we are experiencing. Today that will be my most important task and it begins right now. I trust that these years of training and practice in the “wisdom way” will serve to allow both doors to open in their own time and that life will go on as it should. Amen. (So be it.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

How Does It End?

Tags

arrival, death of Jesus, ending, faith, giving up control, heart of God, hope, journey, resurrection, suffering, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, trust

I’m the kind of person who could never leave a story in the middle. It always amazed me that people could get up in the middle of a movie on television and say, “I’m going to bed” or – even more seriously – walk out of a movie theater when they have paid for what they’re leaving! I always wanted to know the way things would turn out. As I write this today I realize, however, that this is not as important to me as in the past. I wonder what that means. Am I more interested in the journey than in the arrival? Do I have more trust that everything will be resolved in situations? It’s such a new thought that I don’t have the answer but I have a suspicion that it has at least something to do with giving up control. When I think liturgically about the next few weeks, I realize that we already know “the rest of the story” of the sufferings and death of Jesus, i.e. the Resurrection. What must it have been like for the companions of Jesus? We only know a few of those stories and no matter what the struggles were almost all get resolved in the end when they see him again. Every year I ask myself where I would have been during all those events: hiding my identity as Peter did? helping to carrying the cross or stepping up to wipe the face of Jesus along the way? staying at the tomb with Mary Magdalene and “the other Mary”? It’s impossible to know the answer. Maybe a better question for today is this: how strong are my faith and hope in God as I face the events of my own life without knowing what will happen in the end? I now recognize it’s that ability to let go into the heart of God that will determine the answer.