Monday, Monday…

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Acts of the Apostles, grief, loss, love, Meg Wheatley, perseverance, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Here we are in the second week of Easter, moving on (some of us) as if all had been resolved and we have come back to normalcy (as if we could even define what that means.) Christ is alive. We have assurance of that and of what it means from the Acts of the Apostles. (As they prayed, the place where they were gathered shook, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness…” Acts 4:30-31) But are we ready to get back to the place we left over a year ago when everything abruptly shut down and a new reality was presented to us? Is it even possible to do that?

In the midst of that musing, I opened Meg Wheatley’s little book, Perseverance, and found the exact word that we need to consider, I think, at this juncture. See if you don’t agree. The word was Grief and the reflection said the following:

If we are able to give ourselves to the loss, to move toward it—rather than recoil in an effort to escape, deny, distract, or obscure—our wounded hearts become full, and out of that fullness we will do things differently, and we will do different things. Our loss, our wound, is precious to us because it can wake us up to love, and to loving action. (Norman Fischer, Zen teacher)

Searching for the Truth

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John, love, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, truth, truth will set us free

I was just reading an article from the news about the absolute blockage in the Senate. I feel it’s my duty to keep up at least a little with the governance in my country. Today it is as if there is absolutely no “give” as the 50/50 split seems impossible to overcome. Then I look down at today’s readings and see that John’s gospel sets a very high standard for decision-making. Jesus says, “if you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

How does a person find “the truth” today? Life is so complicated and there are so many voices giving so many messages. What about this one: “Love and do what you will.” That certainly presupposes good faith on all sides. But can we trust that everyone is acting out of that kind of mindset? How do you decide? So many questions…Where does your answer lie?

Compassion Anyone?

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Becoming Wise, compassion, Krista Tippett, love, Meister Eckhart, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Some days now I can hardly see what to write that is anywhere near relevant to the world, our country, faith or this time of our life. Today I picked up the book that my book group is reading because we meet tomorrow. The book is Becoming Wise by Krista Tippett—not the easiest book to read or to use as a guide, but a really great read! I pulled the scrap of paper that is doubling as a bookmark and found out why it has avoided the trash for so long. I don’t know where it came from or who wrote it but the words written there are surely worth our notice—and our reflection. Take it slowly and savor the message.

Title: Compassion is the expression of love

Love is the inner feeling and compassion is its expression. It doesn’t see the faults of others. It doesn’t see the weaknesses of people. It makes no distinction between good and bad people. Compassion cannot draw a line between two countries, two faiths or two religions. Compassion has no ego; thus there is no fear, lust or passion. Compassion simply forgets and forgives. Compassion is like a passage. Everything passes through it, nothing can stay there. Compassion is love expressed in all its fullness.

That quote puts me in mind of a saying of Meister Eckhart that has hung in my bedroom for years and today seems a fitting conclusion to this reflection. It says: “Whatever God does, the first outburst is always compassion.”

Awakening

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Acts of the Apostles, awaken, awakening, heal, love, Macrina Wiederkehr, open the door, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

As we seem to crawl toward the beginning of spring on this cloudy morning where snow flurries and a temperature of 25 degrees (F.) persists, I open Macrina Wiederkehr’s text, Seven Sacred Pauses, for some encouragement. She never disappoints. Here is what she tells me for today (beginning with my favorite verse from the Acts of the Apostles!):

O Morning Song of Love, O you in whom we live and move and have our being! We have been asleep too long. Heal the unseeing part of our lives. Lead us to our awakening places. Awaken us to the new light. Open the doors of our hearts, the windows of our souls, the walls of our minds. Awaken us to hope. Awaken us to joy. Awaken us to love. Awaken us to new insights. Make our hearts ready to receive the brightness of your presence. To you we give praise.(p. 61)

Love/Mercy

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Cynthia Bourgeault, God's mercy, Helen Luke, Hosea, love, mercy, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Interesting to the readings this morning are the words love and mercy, used interchangeably from the first lectionary reading to the psalm. In the first reading from the prophet Hosea, (6:6), we read, For it is love that I desire, not sacrifice…Fast on the heels of Hosea—and referencing the same, we have the Psalm whose refrain states four times: It is mercy I desire, not sacrifice. So which is it? Love or mercy that God desires?

As soon as I wrote that question, I was catapulted back to Cynthia Bourgeault’s book, Mystical Hope, chapter two—a brilliant explication given by author Helen Luke and referenced by Cynthia, of the word “mercy.” (I’m sure many of you have heard me explain this before but it bears repeating.) “In her book, Old Age, Helen Luke explains that “the word “mercy” derives from the ancient Etruscan word merc; the words “commerce” and “merchant” share this same root. And so at heart, mercy means some kind of exchange or transaction. It is a connection word…The root meaning of exchange persisted and developed in another context, its meaning deepening through the French merci to a grateful response and kindness of heart, and finally to the compassion and forgiveness, including all our shades of darkness, where we are able to open ourselves to the Mercy”…(Bourgeault, p.23-24)

Although that sounds like love to me, the next page “seals the deal” with the following: So when we think of mercy, we should be thinking first and foremost of a bond, an infallible link of love that holds the created and uncreated realms together. The mercy of God does not come and go, granted to some and refused to others. Why? Because it is unconditional—always there, underlying everything. It is literally the force that holds everything in existence, the gravitational field in which we live and move and have our being. (p. 25)

Sit with that, if you will, and see if it doesn’t call forth a hearty “Thank you” to God.

It’s All About Love

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accepting, Jesus, love, Mark, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Jesus is very clear this morning about the most important of the virtues. It is, of course, love. So much over the centuries has been written—in poems, stories and human interest pieces in newspapers—that we couldn’t miss the importance of love, even if we tried. The answer that Jesus gave when the scribe asked him about the greatest commandment (MK 12:28-34) always presents to me an image of an adult with a child. The adult says things like: “I love you to the moon and back!”—while hugging the child—or hugs the child so tight that the child protests saying, “Stop! I can’t breathe!” There’s also the truth that love springs from inside us, often unbidden, when we least expect it. Love is difficult to explain and more likely to be left with the words, “It’s complicated!” And so it is.

I sometimes ask myself if I truly do love God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength, especially when I remember that the measure of that love is reflected in how we treat our neighbor as well. What might that mean? Perhaps it’s a question of acceptance. Do I allow every person a place in my heart or is that door closed to some for one reason or another? What are my criteria for letting someone into my life? How willing do I have to be? Do they always have to be pleasing to me or can I also accept faults and failings (maybe like my own…?) We might talk the talk but when push comes to shove how do we walk the walk in the manner of God’s love for us?

So many questions…with answers deeper than words.

The Gift of Creation

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care, creation, Creator, favorite, joy, love, psalm 8, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

I love Psalm 8, the lectionary gift of today. I know I often say, “That’s one of my favorites!” and really mean it, but this one is really special to me, my most favorite of all. Just listen to these few lines. Repeat them aloud:

Lord, our God, how wonderful your name in all the earth! When I behold your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you set in place—who are we that you should be mindful of us, that you should care for us? Yet you have made us little less than the angels and crowned us with glory and honor…

If you’ve ever looked out on a star-studded sky or watched a rainbow appear after rain…if you’ve ever seen a field of sunflowers turning toward the sun or smelled a rose in her fullness, you will understand my bow to beauty. If you have watched from a screened-in porch the power of a storm and heard it announce itself in peals of thunder, counting the seconds between it and the lightning to determine your distance from the eye of the storm, you will feel the exhilaration of nature’s power…or if you have stood ankle deep in the ocean or on the edge of a placid lake at sunset, you will know the peace that overtakes you. If you lean down to study an inch worm or watch a grasshopper jump, you may have been able to share a smile with God who is delighting in the creation much more than you, yourself. And then there is the possibility of looking into the eyes of someone who loves you and whom you love, finding there the wonder and deep meaning of the word “love.” Then you may be grateful as I always am when this psalm shows up in prayer, expressing the immensity of the Creator’s love, the One who plays in joy at the amazing diversity of the creation that is ours and offering it to us as gift.

Becoming Real

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love, Margery Williams, real, reflect, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, The Velveteen Rabbit

After hours and hours of news that is not only horrific but hardly believable coming from our nation’s capital, I found myself asking myself a question this morning. “What is real?” I immediately found myself in another universe where the question kept spinning out in the following conversation:

“What is real?” asked the Rabbit of the Skin Horse one day…”Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.” Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit. “Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real, you don’t mind being hurt.”

“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up?” he asked, “or bit by bit?” “It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

I suggest a period of reflection on these words from The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams to see if you have learned the most important lessons of love. I presume that, if you are reading this, you have worked hard at that task, likely for a long time. Following that conversation with yourself, you might want to reflect on what is happening in our world or our country and even the place you live to consider whether you know any people like those in the reading who have not been loved enough, especially the ones who are always trying to look like something they are not—that is, hiding from themselves. They need our prayers, so I would suggest that you see what you can do for them in that department.

Overwhelming Challenge

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Capitol, challenge, consciousness, grace, hate, John, love, Peace, reconstruction, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Never has it been more difficult to open my computer to consider what to say for a blog post. After yesterday, there seems no way to express the feelings that I now I share with all those in the U.S. who witnessed the wanton destruction that took place in Washington, D.C. yesterday. We now know some of the horror, sadness and upheaval that so many lands live with all the time. How are we to face what has happened and move beyond blaming to a consciousness of what has happened, in order to find peace and reconstruction of our government and our hearts?

As it happens, I found in my mailbox at noon today an answer that posed a gigantic challenge for me. Join me, if you will, in what will likely be a very difficult process of effort at healing. You see, I doubt we will be able to explain away the violence and if we do not meet it head on (the reasons for it, I mean) it will remain in our collective consciousness to our detriment. So here is what I found when I opened the devotional pamphlet that gives me hope for every day. It’s called Living Faith and that seems more essential today than ever before. Here is what awaited me of the actual lectionary readings for today. It was shocking in its challenge but struck me as exactly what I needed.

If anyone says, “I love God,” but hates his brother, he is a liar, for whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.” (1 JN 4:20). Consider that with respect to the events of yesterday and pray for grace.

New Vision

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healing, John Lewis, love, New Year, Peace, shine, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Last night, just before midnight, I read the quote that follows here. It made sense to me to send it out today as a call for a new year, a new way to be. It came from a man of extraordinary courage, John Lewis, and I have no words of my own that even come close to what he left us as a challenge. So take a breath, Everyone. Slow down and do not skim over the paragraph that follows. Savor the sentences, repeat each word aloud. Honor John Lewis and all the people who have loved this country and who hold on to what is best in it. Pray for healing for what needs to come alive again and be willing and ready to be a light shining for the world.

Study the path of others…Lean toward the whispers of your heart…Know that the truth always leads to love and the perpetuation of peace. Clothe yourself in the work of love…Hold only to love, only peace in your heart, knowing that the battle of good to overcome evil is already won…If you shine like a beacon for all to see, then the poetry of dreamers and philosophers is yours to manifest in a nation, a world community, and a Beloved Community that is finally at peace with itself. Across That Bridge: A Vision for Change and the Future of America, John Lewis.

Blessings for the New Year!