Little Christmas

Tags

blessings, Eckhart Tolle, epiphany, gratitude, present moment, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Eckhart Tolle has an appropriate message for today. His “Present Moment Reminder” says the following:

When you make the present moment the focal point of your life instead of past and future, your ability to enjoy what you do – and with it the quality of your life – increases dramatically.”

That seems a perfect corollary to the celebration of the Epiphany, the date of which is usually January 6th but has sometimes been changed to accommodate the faithful whose work schedule is Monday – Friday. I think of the song from the movie “Mame” that shouts out how “we need a little Christmas, right this very minute…we need a little Christmas now.” It was difficult to have a “normal” Christmas this year so maybe what we ought to try is a “do-over,” spending some time on this day when we celebrate the manifestation of Christ to the world to consider how we see Christ in those people who cause gratitude to rise in us whenever we think of or encounter them – and all of the blessings – spiritual and physical – that we have been given over the past year.

A State of Grace

Tags

desire to please, Eckhart Tolle, grace, life, lightness, present moment, resistance, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

After reading over what I wrote on Saturday and lived through yesterday that provided me no time to write, I am convinced that I am finally coming closer to understanding how to BE in the face of this existence we call LIFE. I have known for a long time that I am not in charge of my life but only responsible to respond to it as it unfolds. I can do that with resistance or acceptance, tightening or loosening my hold on it as I go. Tightening only gives me pain as muscles are not flexed but stiffened. Allowing what comes to wash over me with openness and deep breathing is a better stance. Conveniently—and no longer surprising to me—I find Eckhart Tolle’s “Present Moment Reminder” today quite apropos. He says:

To offer no resistance to life is to be in a state of grace, ease, and lightness. This state is then no longer dependent upon things being in a certain way good or bad.

Do It Now!

Tags

Advent, Eckhart Tolle, possibility, present moment, St. Paul, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, waiting

It appears that I was correct when I “woke up” (read: “was shaken out of my lethargy”) yesterday about the possibility, the inevitability of never going back. I should have known when I read Eckhart Tolle’s Present Moment Reminder earlier this morning. He said this:

Give up waiting as a state of mind. When you catch yourself slipping into waiting, snap out of it. Come into the present moment. Just be and enjoy being.

It took the Sunday lectionary readings from the U.S. Catholic bishops to recognize how late it is. Did you know how soon the season of Advent is upon us? With all the consternation about the danger of traveling for Thanksgiving, have you even thought about readiness? Internal readiness, I mean…

St. Paul reminds the Thessalonians today that “You, brothers and sisters, are not in darkness…for all of you are children of the light. Therefore, let us not sleep as the rest do, but let us stay alert and sober.” It’s as if he is saying, “There has been enough hand-wringing and lamenting about the state of our country and the world. It’s up to each one of us to take charge of our situation because the healing will come from the inside.” It is true that we are in a season of distress, the like of which most of us have never seen before, but if we wait, let it be in a state of active waiting. Give up passivity and step into possibility and trust. Love as you have never loved before – not just for your own well-being but also for that of those who walk with you. Be here now and love the opportunity to BE!

What To Do?

Tags

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.

Of Sun and Wind

Tags

blessing, centered heart, inspiration, Macrina Wiederkehr, pandemic, present moment, seven sacred pauses, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

The wind has been roaring mightily since late yesterday. The sky is very gray. A few moments ago as I looked up and out my back window I saw what seemed like a capture of the sun by the sky. As I watched (it was only a few seconds) a light appeared over the mountain, delineating the movements and the thrust of the wind. Suddenly the sun appeared in the midst, a small circle of hope seized and muted by the clouds, taken prisoner and being shunted along across the sky. Just as suddenly he was gone, having fallen back into the depths of the wind carrying the entire retinue northward.

This little drama seemed indicative of what the day might hold. The lack of sunlight challenges my desire for moving forward with any worthwhile project. The wind makes me wonder if the earth is keening for us in this pandemic. I turn to Macrina Wiederkehr for a good prayer and find what may be my best companion for the day.

I long to live in the present moment. I want to stop trying to control the hours so that new paths of inspiration are free to unfold within me…Take my scattered thoughts, my fragmented moments. Breathe into them and draw them into your centered heart. Open my eyes that I may see the grace that waits for me in every moment. You are the Source of every moment’s blessing. Teach me to live awake. (Seven Sacred Pauses, p. 83)

A Pause That Refreshes

Tags

breathe, chant, mantra, pause, present moment, relax, silence, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

Many times during the past week, the members of our assembly have been invited to take a short pause, sometimes as brief as two minutes, to gather ourselves and breathe into the present moment. The silence at those times is deep and palpable. Occasionally, as an additional prompt to renewed consciousness, we conclude the silence with a chant that has a become a beloved mantra for us during these days and, I trust, for the days going forward.

Sacred is our call. Awesome indeed the entrustment. Tending the Holy. Tending the Holy.

Yesterday we reached the mid-point of our time here in St. Louis. Our reward for work well done is an entire day to pause and relax and become tourists, regrouping for the second half of our work. So I’m off to meet my sisters from New York and Hawai’i, likely meeting up somewhere in the city others from Japan and Minnesota, California and Peru! And in our “play” we will, of course, be tending the Holy all day long.

The Present Moment

Tags

A Deep Breath of Life, Alan Cohen, calendar, mindfulness, present, present moment, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, time

When thinking about the necessities of life lately, the first thing on my list is my calendar. I used to be able to keep track of a month’s activities so I would be where I was supposed to be, doing what I was supposed to do, only checking my calendar rarely for exactitude. Granted, that was when I was teaching high school and living a relatively stable routine. Now my activities vary so much from day to day that I sometimes am not sure what the day will bring until I look at my calendar for a reminder and sometimes I’m looking just to see what day of the week today is! I use the excuse that my activities are much more varied these days and that there is lots more “stuff” crowding my brain. While this is true, I suppose it has something to do with the aging process as well. Today I’m considering this situation as a call to live in the present moment.

Alan Cohen has reminded me of the value of this kind of thinking in an anonymous quote for today from his book, A Deep Breath of Life. He writes: The past is a canceled check, the future is a promissory note and the present is cash in hand. So with my bankroll of 16 hours or so in my pocket before I go to sleep again, I hope to set forth mindfully and treat each moment of this sunny day as priceless.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Living in the Present

Tags

change, conscious awareness, constant, present moment, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, time, year

I’ve been astonished lately by the swiftness of time passage. I can hardly believe that May is waiting in the wings, appearing just after the coming weekend. I see or hear news of young people going off to college when my last marker was their sixth-grade band concert; trying to guess anyone’s age is a futile occupation lately. At the same time, the turning of the year seems so long ago in this season of never-ending winter. (I dare not say that aloud as it might jinx what looks like a true spring finally appearing!)

Time seems a concept less understandable than I formerly thought and, although there never seems to be enough of it for the important things, my sense of what is truly important has shifted lately. What appears now to be most crucially important is what appears before me – or within me – at any given moment. I am coming to understand that just as change is the only constant, presence is the only way to meet the changes happening all the time. The present moment is the only one we can be sure of, thus the necessity of attending to it with gusto. I am coming to realize that knowing this and choosing to practice conscious awareness so as not to miss the moment is enough. Now comes the task of staying awake…

 

 

 

 

 

Rhythm

Tags

chanting, conscious work, dancing, knowing, openness, present moment, rhythym, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, universal peace, wisdom, Wisdom School, wisdom work, worhip

As I try to stay in the present moment this morning, I am aware that today is the last full day of our leadership training event. I can feel myself almost physically leaning forward as at the starting line of a race, even while attempting to be present to my typing. One of the words that we have heard often in the last three days as we process the sessions of our time together is rhythm. The word itself is a rare combination of consonants with only the  y to act as vowel. I hear the singsong “a,e,i,o,u and sometimes y” English lesson of my youth and still wonder why that function is only “sometimes.”

I am glad for the “y” in this word as it made me curious enough to look up the word “vowel” on the internet. In a flurry of words, I learned (or learned again) that a vowel is a sound produced with an open vowel tract where some of the air must escape through the mouth. It is frictionless and continuant. Unlike with consonants, there is no build-up of air pressure along the vocal tract. Also noted is that the vowel forms the peak of a syllable. The word rhythm obviously needs that letter y!

That seems to me a perfect description of the way we have been proceeding through these days. There is a felt sense of openness among the participants and no pressure for anyone to act in any way that is other than authentic, whether we are speaking, chanting or moving around the room in a dance of universal peace. We have been blessed with good weather, the only rain a swift downpour in the middle of Thursday night, that has allowed us to exercise our powers of conscious working together – in rhythm with one another – outside stacking wood or inside chopping vegetables. We have recognized the wisdom in the group in such an organic way that our purpose has already been fulfilled, it seems. The challenge will be to stay in the moment for this last day and a half so as not to miss those moments of pure knowing which are sure to come in our interaction and especially in our worship together. I trust, when we are taking leave of each other tomorrow noon, our sense and perhaps our parting words will be the familiar: “It is finished in beauty.”