Check Your Hearing

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compassionate, Ezekiel, listen, open our hearts, pay attention, sharing, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, understanding

There it is again: Ez 18:31 – today as the verse before the gospel. “…make for yourselves a new heart and a new spirit,” he says. We just heard (and I wrote) those words four days ago for your consideration. When I see things repeated that quickly in the lectionary, I always take note. So today I say: Pay attention if you didn’t before! We are likely at a crossroad—or on the verge of something. We are being called maybe to a new moment of maturity. It seems as if it’s a call to creativity. Soon everything may be allowed to go back to the way things were…but is that even possible? Might we have learned something about suffering? Perhaps about death that comes “like a thief in the night,” as the Scriptures say? Are we called to be more compassionate now because we share in the loss of a half a million people? Can we enter into the sadness of one another without getting swallowed up by their grief? Rather are we called to a posture of sharing—understanding, perhaps, like never before?

So much has changed. Are we ready to open our hearts just an inch? Can you hear the beating of the heart of someone new today? Perhaps it is your ears that must be engaged. Think about it.

Take Heed!

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harden not your hearts, hear God's voice, Hebrews, listen, pay attention, Psalm 95, St. Mark, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

The readings from today’s lectionary read like a cautionary tale. . . It might be written as “Wake up!” or “Pay attention!” or even “Can you not hear me when I’m talking to you?” The repetition makes me wonder what was wrong with those people!

1. First reading: The Holy Spirit says: Oh, that today you would hear God’s voice, “Harden not your hearts…in the day of testing in the desert when your ancestors tested and tried me…Take care, brothers and sisters, that none of you may have an evil and unfaithful heart…” (Heb. 3:7-14)
2. Psalm response: I said: “This people’s heart goes astray, they do not know my ways. Therefore I swore in my anger: “They shall never enter into my rest!” (PS. 95)
3. Gospel: The story of a leper made clean by Christ who told the man not to tell people what had happened but only to go, to show the priest and offer the prescribed donation for the healing. The man went immediately and did the exact opposite: to publicize what had happened so that Jesus could no longer enter a town openly to do his mission. (MK. 1: 40-45)

I say this is a cautionary tale whose theme might be: If today you hear God’s voice… “What was wrong with those people?” I asked. I might have said instead: “What is wrong with our world today?” We know the rules, the laws, the best behavior. We see what has happened in our country when people live only out of their own greed and headstrong actions. Do we stand apart from the crowd, complaining about “those people” or do we speak from what we know to be God’s voice in us?

We need a course correction. Each one of us must ask how we are living up to our call. If today you hear God’s voice, harden not your heart.

From Day to Day

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COVID19, day night, listen, pay attention, psalm 19, routine, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, time

I met Sister Paula in the kitchen awhile ago and we began musing on this “time out of time” that we are experiencing now. It started simply enough with both of us looking back to the weather systems of our childhood. I am certain (well, not really…) that “April showers bring May flowers” was a true statement then. Now, just past the middle of April, it’s snowing and yet it threatens the daffodils and forsythia and all the already-flowering trees that have been blooming for weeks but will undoubtedly be gone soon if this weather continues.

We moved on to talk about the virus that is taking the lives of so many people. The division in our country and the world about how to deal with it is monumental. This week the divide is about economy vs. possible infection rates. Eventually our question came round to levels of consciousness that play into how to proceed.

Our cat was waiting in my bedroom for my return and, because I was still drinking coffee when I came upstairs, I agreed to share my seat with her for awhile. That made it impossible, of course, to create a blog post. As I sat with her on my lap and did nothing, I thought about what I ought to do today. It’s Saturday but now that doesn’t seem to mean as much as it did two months ago. The routine of the days has become quite different. Some would call it restrictive while others name it full of opportunity. I prefer the latter, having the leisure of sitting quietly with the cat, watching at least one of the many online offerings of conferences by spiritual leaders and/or old movies that I never take the time for, making phone calls…

As I sit here, Psalm 19 runs through my consciousness: Day pours out the word to day and night to night imparts knowledge…Through all the earth their voice resounds and to the ends of the world their message.

It strikes me that these are not empty days; rather we make of them what we will, or simply experience them as they pass. I wonder if my ability to discern will deepen – in the days, during the nights or both. It seems that it’s time now – more than ever – to pay attention, especially to the subtle voices speaking all around and in us.

Just As You Are

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be where you are, God is with you, Holy Spirit, pay attention, St. John the Evangelist, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, wisdom

The Episcopal monks of the Congregation of St. John the Evangelist offer an online meditation each morning (ssje.org). It is always brief and simply expressed. Today I thought it perfect for this Friday as we contemplate how we might incarnate the gift of the Holy Spirit in our lives – just as we are, in the uniqueness of our own lives – in preparation for the great feast of Pentecost. Entitled “Now,” it reads as follows:

To cultivate wisdom you need not read another book, nor watch another Ted talk, nor earn another academic degree, nor visit another monastery, nor travel to the ends of the earth. Be where you are, which is where God is with you. Say “yes” to life on the terms that God is giving you just now; pay attention to your life. (Brother Curtis Almquist, SSJE)

How’s Your Hearing?

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attentiveness, focus, harden not your hearts, hear God's voice, listen, pay attention, Psalm 95, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

The refrain from Psalm 95 reverberates in my ears and in my heart this morning. We read it and sing it from hymnals and it would behoove us to take a moment to ask ourselves, “Am I listening?” As soon as I read it as the psalm refrain this morning (If today you hear God’s voice, harden not your hearts!) The melody began to repeat in my head. Then I got to the verse that said, O, that you would hear his voice! as if the psalmist were pleading urgently for us to pay attention. It made me think that hearing God’s voice isn’t just work on God’s part (to talk to us), but rather a question of our willingness and the recognition that we need to really pay attention in order to hear. Multi-tasking is not helpful here. Sometimes we need to put down the hammer or the book or turn off the television or our iPad and focus!

So today’s a day to turn up our “hearing aids” of attentiveness and listen for the words of love that will soften our hearts and keep us on the path to God’s house.

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.

Family Ties

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Australia, bring your entire self to the moment, close family, family, Jesus, Mark, mission, pay attention, right relationship, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, will of God

Yesterday my sister forwarded an e-mail message she had received from our cousin Chris from Australia that included a family photo from 2013, celebrating the 99th birthday of the patriarch, whose wife (only 93 years young) sat beside him. Now Aunt Dory is the last survivor from that generation. The picture is symbolic of a happy reconnection with the Australian branch of our family that began during “The Troubles” in Ireland in the 1800’s. Two of my grandmother’s elder sisters accompanied a childless neighbor couple to Australia to become a family with a chance for a better life – a huge sacrifice for my great-grandparents but a blessing for the two girls. As I scanned the photo trying to see in the 60-something cousins vestiges of the children whose pictures we kept in shoeboxes with our own during my young life nostalgia settled in and I vowed to rekindle my correspondence with my cousin Rosemary, sitting there with her husband, children and grandchildren. The internet will make reconnection easier; I hope I will keep my promise.

Things are different now than in the time of Jesus – as well as in the generations before my parents. People were more often born and buried in the same town and it was rare for families to live as far apart as we do now. My nuclear family is a good example. In the years before my parents’ deaths we were one each in New York State, Virginia and California with two in Florida. for a close family like ours that was and is quite a challenge. Our lives have been full and primary commitments keep us busy. Visits are rare but we continue to value the successful jockeying of schedules that brings us together.

I think all of this helps me to understand the situation of Jesus (MK 3:31-35) when the crowd around him said that his mother & siblings were outside to see him. His response of “whoever does the will of God is my brother, sister and mother” points up to me the willingness of Jesus to follow the path before him, the mission he had been given, with an understanding of right relationship. He did not send his relatives away; my guess is that they had a wonderful visit after the crowd had dispersed. I think what he was saying to the crowd was something like this: “Pay attention to what you’re doing and do it until you finish. Then do the next thing fully – bringing your entire self to the moment. In that way nothing is wasted and no one is ignored.”

Pay Close Attention

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Elijah, God, Kings, pay attention, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, voice of God, whisperings, whispers

This morning’s first reading (1KGS 19:9-13) tells the story of the prophet Elijah when he took shelter in a cave on Horeb, the mountain of God. There God spoke to him  saying, “Go outside and stand on the mountain before the Lord; the Lord will be passing by.”  The rest of the reading tells of all the ways one might expect the voice of God to be heard in all its majesty – strong and heavy winds, earthquake, fire – but, the reading says, the Lord was not in any of these. After the fire there was a tiny whispering sound (sometimes translated as a gentle breeze). When he heard that sound, Elijah hid his face in his cloak and went and stood at the entrance to the cave. Elijah knew the power of God – that no one could see the face of God and live, thus he covered his face to approach God. He also, however, knew enough to expect God to visit him, not necessarily in such a powerful manifestation but perhaps in the gentleness of a breeze or a whisper.

Today as I go about my life, I will consider the many ways in which God manifests in my world as well as in the larger reality of our world and the cosmos. I will try to really pay attention so I don’t miss the tiny whisperings while I’m waiting for the thunderous moments of this magnificent, personal, kind and gentle God.