On the Second Day of May

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creation, light, pandemic, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton, wholeness

Today feels like what Thomas Merton might describe as “the first day of Creation.” I feel the warmth of a sun that is already shining so bright and full through my window that I am unable to see my computer screen. I need to lean toward the south to shade the brilliance enough to type. It is glorious in both heat and light and leads me to shout silently to God that “this is what May is supposed to be like!” In my mind I am already out picking up branches that were victims of the wind these last three days. I can already imagine that by sunset there will be tiny leaves on branches everywhere—a gift from the mixture of sun and rain…just how things are supposed to be.

It’s difficult on a morning like this to remember words like pandemic. The reality slowly seeps in but at the same time I begin to wonder if there isn’t a way—or more than one way—to see a wholeness in what seems an overwhelming dissonance. Would I be able (or even willing to try) to maintain the lightness of being produced by the sun’s warmth and the consequent burgeoning of life in creation today while holding the reality of death and dying that is all around? It would seem an impossible task but I sense a worthy challenge in it for myself today.

A Consistent Voice

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gift of life, independent, living rightly, proclaim what is right, Sr. Joan Chittister, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, unity, we are all one, wholeness

This morning I woke up with Joan Chittister’s name front and center in my consciousness. I don’t think I was dreaming about her but I looked across to a little book of hers standing upright and face out on my bookcase across the room. “She must have something to say today,” I thought. My guess is that Sister Joan always has something to say and it’s usually important. The little book, entitled We Are All One, was written last year and contains the author’s reflections, as the subtitle explains, on “unity, community and our commitment to each other.” It could have been written by Lynn Bauman whom I quoted yesterday. It seems that many of us are waking up to the same or, at the very least, similar themes for living rightly in this world. Here’s a smattering of sentences from the introduction that sets out the foundation of all that follows. I believe the book will be among my reflection tools for the foreseeable future.

Life, we learn young, is one long game of push and pull. One part of us pushes us always toward wholeness…The other part, however, pulls us back into ourselves. It separates us from the universe around us and leaves us feeling distant and out of sync…We seek unity, yes. But lurking within every human act is the gnawing need to be independent, to think of ourselves as distinct from the rest of life…Is the purpose of the gift of life to consume it for ourselves…or is our purpose to join the human race on its way to fullness of life for everyone?

And then her conclusion: The choice is actually simple. We must only decide if we will go on lingering in the shadows of life, forever trying to choose between doing what a numbed world will call “nice,” or step up and, in the face of evil, proclaim instead what is right. (p.1-3)

Saturday at Dawn

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action, Book of Hours, Christopher Pramuk, Creator, God, Hagia Sophia, Holy Wisdom, hope, humility, joy, Kathleen Deignan, purity, reflection, silence, sweetness, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, Thomas Merton, wholeness

Although Saturday can be a day to catch up on all sorts of mundane tasks and chores, occasionally I savor the opportunity for a bit of leisurely delving into reflection on something found in one of the many alluring books on my shelves. This morning I returned to Thomas Merton’s Book of Hours, noting that I had not visited with him – or mentioned him here – for quite some time. Rather than quotes from his various texts, Saturday’s entries in Kathleen Deignan’s book of Merton’s writings are all parts of his amazing prose poem, Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom).

In a commentary on this text of Merton, Christopher Pramuk, a professor of theology and spirituality at Xavier University, writes the following:

For years I have been haunted by Merton’s prose poem “Hagia Sophia.” The poem seems at once to multiply and silence all questions about God. Rather than succumbing to tired theological categories and preconceptions, it breaks them wide open, making old things new, daring us to imagine and hope again.

See if you agree. (I just quote his beginning here. I believe it is enough for one day.)

There is in all visible things an invisible fecundity, a dimmed light, a meek namelessness, a hidden wholeness. This mysterious Unity and Integrity is Wisdom, the Mother of all, Natura naturans. There is in all things an inexhaustible sweetness and purity, a silence that is the fount of action and joy. It rises up in wordless gentleness and flows out to me from the unseen roots of all created being, welcoming me tenderly, saluting me with indescribable humility. This is at once my own being, my own nature, and the Gift of my Creator’s thought and Art within me, speaking as Hagia Sophia, speaking as my sister, Wisdom.

(I recommend reading this slowly and often, aloud if possible, to catch and feel the beauty and meaning.)

 

 

 

 

 

The Choice Is Ours

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chaos, choose, Divine Light, fear, humanity, Joyce Rupp, listen, love, Psalm 145, Psalms for Praying: An Invitation to Wholeness, spiritual eyes, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, trust, wholeness

In her book Psalms for Praying: An Invitation to Wholeness, Joyce Rupp has a stunningly beautiful rendering of today’s lectionary psalm (145) that seems quite apt for our time. Let it be our prayer and hope for this day.

Divine Light shines in those who live in Love. I shall uphold all who are burdened with fear, and raise up all who call to Me. The time is nigh for you to choose, for great is the new dawn that fast approaches; I call each of you to open your inner ears, to see with spiritual eyes, and to trust that even amidst the outward chaos, all is working toward the wholeness of humanity.

*CORRECTION: 10/27/16: Although I was holding the book Psalms for Praying in my lap as I wrote yesterday, I inadvertently noted the author as Joyce Rupp, whose writings I admire greatly. The author of the above quote is really Nan Merrill.

 

 

 

 

 

Sinners All

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blessing. wisdom. humility, divine love, failures, frailty, Jesus, Mark, perfection, PopeFrancis, righteous, sinners, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, unconditional love, wholeness

In today’s gospel (MK 2:13-17) when he is asked why he is eating “with sinners and tax collectors,” Jesus answers that “those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do.” Just in case they don’t get the point he adds: “I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.” I always wondered how the people at the table felt when he announced to the Pharisees and the scribes (who were not the dinner guests) that he knew he was eating with sinners. Most of us would be horrified to be put in that category; we would much rather believe that our sins are well-hidden. My perspective has shifted on this point, however, as I’ve gotten older and practiced letting go of what I consider to be my failures. The recognition that perfection might be a goal for the end of life, but only if it means “wholeness” as some have come to define it, is much less anxiety producing. A more sensible way to be is to live in the present, accepting myself as I am and trying to accept others that way too.

Although this way of being is more easily said than done, Pope Francis has been quite helpful in the consideration. When he announced to the world, “I am a sinner,” some could have thought he was just trying to help the rest of us think better of ourselves. I have come to appreciate that what he was really doing was embracing the totality of the human condition and acknowledging that no one is exempt from failure to choose the good – and even to be downright mean on occasion. If this holy man who has electrified the world with his loving, expansive touch can admit his frailty with an honesty that makes me believe he means what he says, why would I not follow his example?

Today I pray a blessing on Pope Francis for his wisdom and humility and for the genuine expressions of love that he pours out in word and deed wherever he goes. And I ask God’s blessing on all of us who are, indeed, sinners – that we might know the embrace of a God who longs to lift us from our sins with the message that divine love is unconditional and that we are, indeed, enfolded in that love.

The Constancy of Change

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birth, dynamic of change, fall, image of praise, maple tree, Meg Wheatley, perseverance, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, wholeness, winter, yin/yang

This morning I look out at our beautiful maple tree framed by my bedroom window and see that she is totally stripped of all her leaves, a sure sign of movement toward winter. The color that caught the sun for such a short span was magnificent and I am sad that it is gone so quickly, yet the remainder – the starkness of naked branches – has its own beauty. The tree, so tall and straight, offers me a vivid image of praise – every branch reaching upward, high into the sky toward God. No downward turn anywhere meets my eye as I scan upward from the ground. Even the smallest branches all lift and witness to the willingness of the whole tree to give itself over to praise in what seems a death but is only change.

I found a reflection from Meg Wheatley’s book Perseverance this morning that reminded me of the adage, “Change is the only constant.” She speaks of the Chinese yin/yang symbol as “the dance of opposition that creates wholeness, the dance that never ends.” Here is more of what she says, ending with a question that I think will keep me going when I am tired and wondering when a new spring will come or when I will experience the beauty of what will seem an endless winter:

One state gives birth to another. Whichever state is here at this moment, we can be sure that what’s coming next will be its opposite…At first, the new birth is just a sliver, a new moon glimmer of the future. But the dominant will now begin to wane and the new will grow. Eventually, it too will become the overbearing present and it too will give birth to the next newness. In this way, life’s ceaseless dynamic of change offers hope and caution simultaneously. Everything changes. Good times don’t last forever. And neither do bad ones. Whatever is happening now, good or bad, is giving birth to the next state, which will be its opposite. Does knowledge of this dance help us persevere? (p. 49)

Sacrifice

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Abraham, Genesis, God's love, holiness, holy, inner transformation, Isaac, sacrifice, The Sophia Center for Spirituality, wholeness, willingness

When I was young, if anyone ever defined the word sacrifice as to make holy I missed that lesson. It always denoted something I was supposed to give up, something difficult. In religion class I learned that it did involve God and adding that component made me more willing to do it but it was still hard. And then, I guess, I came to know that if I did all those hard things, I would get to be holy but I didn’t understand that it wasn’t the thing I gave up but the willingness to do the giving that would transform me.

This morning we have the story of Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac as a sign of his fidelity to God. (Genesis 22). There are many things in the Hebrew Scriptures that were part of that era and culture that do not, thankfully, exist in ours. Human sacrifice is one of those. In the end it was Abraham’s willingness that God wanted; that’s what effected his holiness. The covenant (that contract of loving fidelity) that God had made with him was so sacred to Abraham that everything in his life flowed from it. We could wonder at God’s purpose in the story today – or of how Abraham could possibly have been ready to kill his beloved son…I would never presume to explain either except to say that the God I know today would not ask such a thing or that perhaps the story was a metaphor for the lesson of willingness. My point in even considering it is to reflect on my willingness to put myself at God’s service, confident that God’s love is strong enough to see me through the most difficult events, and that holiness is the wholeness that will be the result.