Surprising Spirit!
Pentecost came this Sunday! I have been eager for its celebration this year, but I was finding few resources in poetry and picture that captured what to me was the most intriguing and hopeful gift that the Spirit brings--the element of Surprise. Our preacher began her sermon Sunday, and I was delighted to hear her reflect on her own disappointment and mine at the tameness and comforting words and rhythms that characterize our hymns about the Holy Spirit; as my theology professor used to … [Read More...]
Grace and Love
Grace happens, as surely as the other things that happen.The world is full of reminders of the Grace of the Holy, despite and alongside the illness and disorder of much of the created and human-made world. So today I celebrate a gift of Grace in my life--unmerited (as the Calvinists are fond of saying), unexpected and a continuing presence since I was a teenager. I celebrate the birthday of my life partner, who has been an agent of Grace for me most of my life. I celebrate the persistence of … [Read More...]
Eastertide III-V: Going Places
The post-Easter stories of the gospels are about moving out. Jesus tells his loved ones and to followers that they need to get going...to tell, to be, to share, to serve. And they do, they spread out all over the world! I watched in horror and then in gratitude this week after the bombs exploded close to the finish line at the Boston Marathon, horror at yet another act of violence, but gratitude for all those who got going to help and to heal. Running police and fire officers, bystanders … [Read More...]
Eastertide II: What is Blooming
My garden is a riot of color! My roses are blooming and blossoming in celebration of the Spring that has sprung! How fitting for the spiritual practice in Eastertide--to notice and to celebrate new life that is appearing everywhere. I was treated to a trip up the coast this past weekend, and even there in the midst of sand and cypress trees, flowers were coming out: lupine on the freeways, California poppies by the road and beach blossoms whose names I did not know proliferated along wood … [Read More...]
Eastertide: Slow Turn
I have been more than ready for Easter to blossom this year. The Lenten days were full of challenge and struggle, not so much for me, as for many people I love, to whom I am committed. My list of daily prayers seemed to lengthen exponentially every day. So I take heart from those around Jesus who had grieved deeply in his last days and death, and who are now slow to comprehend the changed reality that Death is not the last word; there are no final defeats, Christ is Risen! They need to live … [Read More...]
Holy Week: Staying Empty
Some closets are rearranged with things easier to find. Some drawers have order so that retrieving something I need is not like a dumpster dive. All this clearing out for Lent has had its effect in me and in my abiding place. And I have felt the necessity of that continuing process of clearing out, cleaning and discerning what has use and what could better be recycled or shared, in my soul, as well as in my bins of clutter. But those empty spaces now beckon with some magnetic pull, "Fill me up!" … [Read More...]
Lent 5 Hanging On
A parable had been unfolding in my front yard as I have been blogging this Lent. My liquid amber tree, never quite in sync with the other trees in the neighborhood, began shedding its leaves right after Christmas in lesser and greater amounts. As of the beginning of Lent, all the old leaves are gone, save this lone one. One can see the new green shoots and foliage begun to cluster farther down and above, but as of today, this leaf is hanging firm! In my mode of sorting, shredding, recycling … [Read More...]
Lent 4: Paying Attention
What all this clearing and cleaning and sorting of spaces during Lent is doing is teaching me something about what kind of consumer I am: an unconscious one! I find myself asking how is it possible to have three of the same oversize bottle of the same vitamin supplement, all partially used, two of which have expired? in what culinary concoction did I imagine I would use this exotic spice? when might I expect to use up the value-pak of various kinds of paper and notes I so earnestly purchased … [Read More...]
Lent 3 Sorting Memories
The clearing out of spaces continues this third week of Lent. It continues to be a spiritual discipline; it does not feel like accomplishment. And it continues to prompt interior reflection on what I have allowed to pile up in my spirit. What takes me by surprise from time to time is the power of the memories that are a sparked by inanimate objects: a teacup of my mother's; a merit badge from an earlier era; a careful rendered picture drawn by a toddler, writing her name for the first time. All … [Read More...]
Lent 2: Coming Clean
The clearing out of my spaces for Lent continues, and as it does, the realization that moth and rust have corrupted some things, dirt and grime have filtered in elsewhere, and some things need to go immediately to the washing machine, becomes irrefutable. Clearing out means tackling the dirt. It amazes me, (not amuses me), how dust accumulates, pieces get broken and fall off far from their objects of origin, and somethings seem to just decay of their own volition. They not only are tarnished; … [Read More...]
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