Advice from Mother Earth

Tags

courage, lament, love, Mother Earth, Peace, preparedness, sorrow, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, unexpected

All the news over the past few days has been about mass shootings. As a nation, we still expect peace and are surprised by the ever more frequent attacks on groups of innocent victims. Each day it becomes more difficult to trust in a day ahead that will be peaceful. And yet…and yet we do. I am sitting here running through a list in my mind of the tasks to be done, determined not to forget anything that can’t wait another day. I do that without even a thought that violence could interrupt the flow of my day.

Where is the balance between trusting in life and preparedness for the unexpected? And how does one prepare for what is unknown? How would I react to a violent attack? There is good evidence, if one can believe the interviews with people who have just experienced such a situation, that courage mixes with fear in moments like that and usually triumphs. People help each other, care for the wounded, mourn those lost and are forever changed as part of a collective sorrow.

Yesterday we had three storms: torrential rain, thunder and lightning, wild wind. It was as if the earth were lamenting with us, for us, and cleansing the atmosphere for a new day. “We are all one,” Mother Earth seems to say. “Lament is necessary to our survival, but so is courage. Band together to help each other when the courage is demanded. Love each other at all times and you will be prepared for anything. Be at peace. In your hearts and in your homes, always be at peace!”

Limitation Lessons

Tags

being, doing, illness, lament, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, yield

Today is Friday, an absolutely glorious summer day so far. I would like nothing more than to join the team of those working outside, making ready to greet our weekend guests later this afternoon. But I have been grounded. I was also supposed to be cooking this weekend for the retreat group but I have been relieved also from that work. I thought I would be able-bodied by now after flirting with a cold all week, doing everything one is expected to do in order to avoid what can be devastating to one’s schedule, not to mention the egoic need for usefulness! So now, I yield since I cannot speak (laryngitis), can hardly swallow (sore throat) and have the energy of a three-toed sloth! This is a strange viral onslaught, unlike anything I have ever experienced, and I am not happy it has chosen me.

There are lessons here. I know I did everything possible to avoid this situation, so why do I feel a need to make amends for my inability to help? There is no value in lament here so I will finish this sentence, sit on my mat and remember that I need to practice becoming not a perfect human doing, but rather a somewhat imperfect (as most, if not all of us, are) human being. And I will give thanks for the folks who are out there doing the work.

Standing With Each Other

Tags

courage, helpless, Holy Week, lament, loss, Notre Dame, Our Lady of Guadalupe, pain, pray, presence, suffering, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

This morning as I read the psalm of the day (69) on the USCCB website I was reminded of the prayer service that we prepared in December for the feast of Our Lady of Guadeloupe, a prayer of lamentation for the caravan of migrants streaming toward the southern border of the United States. Bereft and sorrowful because of great loss, God’s people are searching for comfort and consolation in the present in the same manner as has been true throughout the ages. This seeking, I realize, can be an inner or outer experience – or both – and I find it again appropriately expressed in the paragraph below that was an introductory reflection for our prayer service in December.

Lament is a tool that God’s people use to navigate pain and suffering. Lament is a vital prayer for the people of God because it enables them to petition for God to help deliver them from distress, suffering and pain. Lament prayer is designed to persuade God to act on the sufferer’s behalf. Lament is often most effective as a communal activity. Reading and reflection are intended to express empathy for people suffering as a result of great loss.

Today the flames that devastated the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris have died out but the reality of the loss as seen in the photos rends our hearts. As was true at our prayer service, I believe that the spontaneous gathering of thousands in the Paris streets – inhabitants and visitors alike – who stood and wept, prayed and sang as the cathedral burned must have felt the power of community in that excruciatingly helpless moment.

On this middle day of Holy Week, I wonder if Jesus felt the lament of the few faithful ones who remained with him at the cross. Can we feel the reality of his suffering as present in the world today and enter in a true and visceral way to stand with those who deserve our presence and courage?

Too Deep for Words

Tags

body of Christ, crucifixion, Good Friday, lament, pain, silence, sorrow, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Today, sorrow and lament fill the praying world as ritual attempts in word and song and sometimes even gesture to reach the depth of pain that is recalled to us from across the ages as “the scandal of the cross,” the suffering and death of Jesus. If awake enough, we see this suffering repeated again and again in our own time and know it as a vivid manifestation of the pain body of Christ. In that way it becomes our pain as well since we are not separate but merely different cells in that very real and present body.

There is nothing we can say that approaches the profundity of that truth, that mystery. There is only silence…