Waiting…Again!

Tags

change, sadness, surrender, tension, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, waiting

“Blessed are all who wait for the Lord!” (Psalm refrain for today’s liturgy)

Recently I echoed in this blog the question of one of our Sisters who asked repeatedly: What are we waiting for? I was surprised when I put that question to myself just now and was greeted by several responses. The big things like: I’m waiting for the pandemic to cease, for a vaccine that stems the tide of deaths, for an end to racial violence in our country. I’m waiting as well for January 20th, Inauguration Day in our country when a sense of stability might return to us…slowly but surely. In a more personal way, I’m waiting for someone to hug me—safely. I’m waiting to go to a celebratory liturgy in a real—not virtual—church, and the privilege of travel to meet my cousin Molly’s new twin girls, born this past week.

I could go on…but each of us has our thoughts on that subject. The tension, sadness or frustration that can arise when contemplating this kind of thinking comes partially, I think, from the helplessness we feel because of our inability to change the situations. We are unable to change any of the things mentioned and many more. In our country, as in many places in today’s world, we are not schooled to patience. It is not in our make-up any more to wait because waiting implies surrender and that is not the American way.

What would it cost you today to surrender to “what is” and allow God to work with your helplessness? Might you get to a place of willingness? A place where you let go of your plans and move toward something deeper? lighter?

Decisions, decisions…

Tags

flexibility, let go let God, plans, spiritual practice, tension, The Sophia Center for Spirituality

This morning I sit waiting for the snow/sleet/rain that has been predicted. Nothing is happening outside and there is no sound except one mourning dove and a small cheeping bird of some kind. I am supposed to leave in an hour to be part of a work detail helping friends to pack up dishes and other belongings in preparation for a move to a new home. It’s one of those days when everything could be tinged with tension if we go ahead with the plan, knowing that the return home could be difficult because of slippery roads. Why not wait until tomorrow when there will be clouds but no precipitation expected? But we had this plan…

Flexibility is so easy for some people and so difficult for others. I credit spiritual practice for any melting of rigidity in my life; letting go usually means letting God do the deciding. You must have heard that phrase: Let go and let God, yes? Easy to say but sometimes difficult to achieve. If we start with the little things, however, like allowing a schedule change when an alternative presents itself without a problem, we can learn to deal with the bigger things with less distress. Staying in touch with God is key.

Crowds

Tags

Ancient Songs Sung Anew, crowds, inauguration, Jesus, march, Million Woman March, peaceful change, Psalm 40, temper, tension, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, violence

I just read the gospel this morning with the directive from Jesus to his disciples about getting a boat from which he could preach on the water so he would not be crushed by the crowds. It put me in mind of the two events happening tomorrow and Saturday in Washington, DC. Although all reports say that the crowd at the Presidential Inauguration will be “smaller than usual” that still means a huge turnout. And Saturday will see the “Million Woman March” – not only in Washington but at other centers around the country. The followers of Jesus could never have conceived of the crowds we will surely see during these days.

Even in the time of Jesus, large crowds have always held the potential for tension and the need for crowd control, especially in situations where there are supporters and opponents of the reason for the gathering. When people are being jostled and “personal space” is non-existent or when chanting becomes a shouting match by the different factions present, tempers can flare and the danger of violence grows.

My prayer this morning is that all of the participants in the weekend events will remember the privilege we have of living in this country and that peaceful change is possible if cooperation is based on higher purpose. Whatever our political leanings, may we be guided by the reminders in the prayer of the psalmist this morning.

O Lord, my God, all that you do is marked with good, and all the things you have in mind for us are incomparable. O that I could speak it for everyone to hear and know, but it is vast and overwhelms the soul. Yet I know this, for you have made my inner ear to hear, that it is never bloody sacrifices that we burn for sins you want or need from us. For even in the scroll of Torah, the book you wrote, it is said that I should simply do your will. That is it, your whole desire which has now become my soul’s delight. So from my heart I keep your ways, your law of life. (PS 40: 6-10) Ancient Songs Sung Anew

 

 

 

 

 

Two in One

Tags

divisions, duality, Gospel of Thomas, Jan Phillips, No Ordinary Time, one, opposites, separate, spring, tension, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, unitive consciousness, variety of solutions, Western society

All during this week in a great variety of circumstances I have been engaged in conversations about unitive consciousness: the effort needed to grow in the realization that ultimately “we are all one.” I began this week by writing about it. I sat with people in individual spiritual direction considering practices that help us to move toward it. I participated in a study group on the Gospel of Thomas (logion 22) that considered the dual roles of effort and the energy of inspiration in pursuit of it. And yesterday in the midst of my scheduled day I spent an hour outside breathing in the peace and loveliness of a perfect spring day to remember the possibility of it.

None of these events took away the consciousness that there are deep divisions in our society and in nations around the world as well as in the personal lives of everyone I know – including myself. If, however, I maintain the hope that ultimate unity is the achievable goal, I am able at some fleeting moments to sense it within the distress and sometimes even the chaos of separation. I call on No Ordinary Time for some words of Jan Phillips and those “lights” on whom she depends to give credence to my own thoughts this morning. Listen:

If we can stay with the tension of opposites long enough – sustain it, be true to it – we can sometimes become vessels within which the divine opposites come together and give birth to a new reality. (Marie Louise von Franz (1915-1998)

Can you evolve your own thinking process beyond duality, beyond “right and wrong,” beyond “good and evil?” Can you accept that we are all right, only partly so? That we need to mix our thoughts up with others to come up with the greatest variety of solutions, the highest synthesis of consciousness? (Jan Phillips)

We grow up in a world that keeps things separate/Science is a thousand miles from faith/The right wing and the left are far divided/Though the angel cannot fly without them both. (Jan Phillips)

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise. (F. Scott Fitzgerald)