Hope-filled Holiday

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anxious, Elizabeth, endure, Mary, Memorial Day, pandemic, persevere, re-connect, rejoice, St. Paul, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Zephaniah

Zephaniah, the ninth of the twelve minor prophets, is a rarely quoted text in the daily lectionary. Thus, it is a memorable moment when we read a message like the joyful one that is the first reading for today. Listen:

Shout for joy, O daughter Zion! Sing joyfully, O Israel! Be glad and exult with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem…Fear not, O Zion, be not discouraged! The Lord, your God, is in your midst. He will rejoice with you with gladness and renew you in his love. He will sing joyfully because of you…

It was significant today for me to read such an account of emotional experiences as I had just spent a heartfelt half-hour reading about families and other groups that have been spending this weekend re-connecting with loved ones. All across our country people are gathering in celebration of the incipient end of the pandemic. One after another, families and friends tell of the joy they have experienced upon spending time with one another. The stories are full of hugs, kisses, laughter and new stories from over the past year when such behaviors were not allowed. Love was the over-arching theme and the possibility of actually touching one another seemed almost miraculous. All of it gave credence to the second reading for this day from Paul’s letter to the Romans. We would do well to take his words to heart:

Brothers and sisters: Let love be sincere; hate what is evil, hold on to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; anticipate one another in showing honor. Rejoice in hope, endure in affliction, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the holy ones, exercise hospitality…

Above and beyond all that, there was the consummate example of love and hospitality—my favorite in the entire gospel (at least today…) where Mary “went in haste” to her cousin Elizabeth. Mary was a pregnant teenager seriously needing solace and she found it in Elizabeth (undoubtedly held tightly in her arms). How similar are some of today’s stories to Mary’s, how needy are we all of comfort after the past sixteen months!

May we find joy in the Lord as Zephaniah did, camaraderie as Paul and the early followers of Jesus did, and comfort at the possible end to the pandemic as Mary did in the person of her relative. And may we all remember on this Memorial Day to thank God for all the good that has been done for us.

Lost

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Good Shepherd, hopefulness, pandemic, Psalm 23, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Today our Church celebrates what has come to be known as “Good Shepherd” Sunday, a favorite of most churchgoers. This year we might take special notice of the hopefulness of the message in this reading, (PS. 23) if we have felt lost during the pandemic in any way.

I suggest we all do some sort of a visual exercise where we see ourselves being scooped up by Jesus and carried home to his heart. If possible, while being held, try to feel the heart of Jesus beating in your own heart.

Another wonderful exercise is to listen to the song, “Like A Shepherd” from the St. Louis Jesuits.  Whatever it takes, my hope is that you feel the great love of the Good Shepherd who is always with us, loving us more than we can ask or imagine.

Always Another Chance

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frustration, Jesus, Lent, Mark, one more chance, pandemic, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

It seems – in light of recent events – that there is no normal in our world and yet we continue to survive. We are in the midst of the most horrific pandemic our age that is taking lives wantonly…and yet now, less than a year into it, we have not one but at least three different vaccines that seem able to stem the tide of the disease. We have had four years of a government that had no preparation for governing, whose members floundered and then got replaced with others equally unqualified…and yet now we have a president prepared by almost four decades in national politics to repair what has been undone because he understands how to govern and is, in addition, a humane, upright individual who knows suffering and love and is willing to do his best for us all. It is as if we have been given “one more chance” and, when we fail to recognize it or to step up to the challenge, God says, “All right, I’ll give you another chance at paying attention…just one more time…”

When will we learn? The frustration of Jesus is seen this morning in Mark’s gospel (Ch. 8) when he says: “Do you not yet understand or comprehend? Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes and not see, ears and not hear? And do you not remember?…”

Lent begins tomorrow. Today is Mardi Gras…Will there be wild dancing, eating and drinking – regardless of the rules about masks and social distancing? Will we pay attention and perhaps take the forty days to come asking ourselves the questions that Jesus asked today? Do you not understand or comprehend?…Will this time be different?

Choose Hope

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Barack Obama, COVID19, do something, hope, pandemic, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Today is a day to choose hope. It is a day for us – the Sisters of St Joseph, Albany Province – to join together and try again for a virtual meeting, having had more or less success over the past 8 months to gather on Zoom and Vvoter to exercise our voices in the governance of our community. Because of the Covid pandemic we are not meeting in person, but life must go on so, as we have always done, we find ways to come together to govern ourselves. It is the way of things now and we accept the challenges before us, trusting that we will survive, and more…we know we will thrive and come through this time with confidence in a future not yet known to us but known to God.

From my new favorite resource (see yesterday’s post) I choose a quote from Barack Obama for this day. Won’t you join me in trusting the virtue of hope?

The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something. Don’t wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope.

Determination

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Brian Johnson, challenge, determination, keep going, Optimize, pandemic, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

When I was younger (much younger!) I used to be able and willing to run two miles with a colleague after school. When I moved to the country, I delighted in walking two miles down our road to breathe in the good air and watch the changes in the landscape in every season. That lasted a very long time. Lately, I have been disappointed to experience a diminishment that I am blaming at least partially on the pandemic. I find my capacity for foot travel woefully less than I ever expected. My goal is to strengthen my legs by exercising but that is not working very well in this long season of distress…

This morning I read something that may be a solution for me. I plan to try it anyway. It was in Brian Johnson’s daily post, “Optimize” where he wrote the following:

The next time life presents you with a challenge, don’t simply assume everything will work out. Don’t tell yourself you can’t do it. Just evaluate the situation. Figure out what you can accomplish right now. Then draw your line. When you cross that line, draw another one. And keep going.

In this difficult season, it seems important to me to remember that “small is beautiful” or “one step at a time” is the way to go. The determination not to take on too much is key. Wish me luck – or better yet – pray me along and join me!

Humility

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Beverly Lanzetta, coronavirus, humility, pandemic, slow down, Spiritual Practices & Formation for the Monk Within, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

As I was checking my e-mail this morning I found a message from yesterday that I hadn’t seen. It’s a great follow-on to yesterday’s post about love. The topic is humility. I learned long ago that humility is not beating yourself up and thinking less of yourself but rather is a recognition of who you really are, what capacities you possess and – most importantly – the willingness to embrace of the truth of yourself as a great gift, regardless of what/who you would prefer to be.

During this pandemic that we are all living in, many of us see ourselves as “less” than we thought we were: less energetic, less creative, less useful, less competent… We watch the days go by and the projects we planned either done poorly or not at all. We continue to plan but seem unable to achieve. For most of us it’s more of a “slow-down” than a failure, but we wonder, nevertheless, when we’ll “get back to normal.” A little humility, in the words of Beverly Lanzetta in a forthcoming book, may be helpful.

Humility implies radical trust in divine reality…Humility says, accept the limits of your situation and the fullness of your life the way it is. Humility says, be content with where God is taking you. Be content with what you are given. (Beverly Lanzetta, Spiritual Practices & Formation for the Monk Within, Forthcoming in late fall 2020)

Non-Labor Day

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fairness, Labor Day, pandemic, responsibility, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, workers

I have often thought that the holiday we celebrate today is named incorrectly because it sounds like just the opposite of what the intention is. The truth is that this holiday truly was initiated to protest unfair and unsafe working conditions for adults and even young children toward the end of the 1800s, at the height of the Industrial Revolution. There were many violent events in different cities that led to the idea of a “workingmen’s holiday” until Congress passed an act making Labor Day a law, signed by President Grover Cleveland on June 28, 1894.

Many of us have memories of history lessons in high school where names and terms like Eugene Debs, the Pullman Railway strike, or the Haymarket Riot of 1886 strike a chord. The story is often not as clear as the title, however, and the struggle for fairness practices overlooked as we eat our picnic foods and celebrate the end of the summer vacation season.

This year is different. There should be no large gatherings in parks or on beaches. We cannot celebrate in the same way because businesses are closing down and many more people find themselves unemployed by the day. The situation will not change until the virus which is ravaging the world is conquered. That will not happen until all people come to understand that we are each responsible for the health of all of us. Our “work” now is to care enough for the whole to discipline ourselves, to follow the instructions set out by health officials while waiting for a vaccine to be conceived and approved to end the pandemic.

My prayer for this day is that we will all come to recognize that this “work” is necessarily shared by all of us and it will be a united effort or we will fail. I am reminded of a song. We know it. It goes like this:

What the world needs now is love, sweet love. That’s the only thing that there’s just too little of…

Clear Seeing

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George Floyd, Holy Spirit, pandemic, protests, seeing clearly, Sisters of St. Joseph, St. Anthony of Padua, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

I just cleaned my glasses so I would see clearly what to write – or, eventually, what I have written. As I was doing that, I looked out my newly cleaned bedroom window and noticed that I missed a rather large smudge on the bottom left area of the glass pane. I wonder how many days it will be before I clear that distraction. And then I wonder what unplanned-for things will happen today. It is an important day for the Sisters of St. Joseph, Albany Province. Today we choose those five Sisters who will comprise our leadership team for the next five years.

It is a monumental moment for two reasons. Because of the COVID-19 strictures, we cannot have our election as usual so we will be gathering “virtually” on our computers, iPads or cell phones to cast the first electronic vote that, just like votes for our civil leaders, must be “secret”—something that could not have been thought of earlier in our lives. Secondly, we do this in a tumultuous moment in our country’s history. We are diminishing in numbers (although not in spirit!), we are in the middle of a pandemic, and the country is in upheaval and still seeing daily protests (on day 19 today) in the wake of George Floyd’s murder and the issues of police brutality.

Seeing clearly will be imperative today for all of us – those who select and those who are selected. I can feel the stirrings of the Holy Spirit already as I prepare for the privilege that is ours today. We may be surprised by the Spirit in the selections but I never worry as we have always had what we need to persevere. We will listen to each of the nominees this morning and then, in the midst of prayer, we will vote this afternoon. I am pleased to recall that today is the feast of St. Anthony of Padua whose life was changed at an ordination ceremony where no one was prepared to speak. Franciscanmedia.org says that the humble and obedient Anthony hesitantly accepted the task. The years of searching for Jesus in prayer, of reading of sacred Scripture and of serving him in poverty, chastity and obedience had prepared Anthony to allow the Spirit to use his talents. Anthony’s sermon was astounding to those who expected an unprepared speech and knew not the Spirit’s power to give people words.

How could I fail to trust the process that has been prepared for us and the women who offer themselves to the service of God and our Congregation? The Spirit is moving. Now it’s time to be sure that my technology is operating as well! God’s blessing on us all!

Breathing Lesson

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breath, exhale, inhale, pandemic, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Sometimes a few words can be more powerful than an entire book, perhaps because the briefer the message, the longer our memory of it. This morning I found that the team at info.franciscanmedia.org had opened a treasure chest of such brief messages in addition to longer writings — all offering different perspectives of how to meet life in a time of a pandemic. It’s worth a trip to their website to find your favorites. Here is one of mine.

Before we succumb to someday, let us inhale this day. (This Is the Life by Terry Hershey.)

Have a good day…and remember to both inhale and exhale!

What To Do?

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coronavirus, pandemic, prayers, present moment, thank you, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, to do list

The sun is playing hide-and-seek outside and everything is still. No movement in the trees, hardly a peep from the birds. That’s how it feels inside too…I am wanting only to hold on to what feels like nothing. (How can that make sense?) I ask myself if that means I have moved to another stage of this new mode of living, settling into what will surely be called “pandemic mode” but just as surely could be named listlessness or exhaustion. When I knew we were going to spend more than weeks in “quarantine” (the “just stay home” order), I had a vision of clearing away all sorts of excess in my living space and lack of order in my spiritual and physical routines. Now after almost two months of this new kind of opportunity, I see little progress.

We don’t have any idea of what the future holds and can’t hold on to any past certainties so have been told repeatedly to “live the present moment.” Therein lies the rub on days like today when I have a list of tasks in my head but no sense of how to go about them.

So finally I picked up a little, lovely, home-made book of prayers that our friend Carolyn created a couple of years ago and sent as a gift. There I found near the end of her prayers a possible way to meet each hour of this day. Carolyn speaks:

Dear Jesus, I inhale your words and exhale doubt, fear, anger, judgment and despair so your breath may reach my heart whole, clean, unencumbered, pure, alive and joyous. Thank you.

And I say, “Thank you, Carolyn” for a way through this day, this collection of present moments that I can use as an offering that becomes my best gift of self today.