Too Small or Just Right...

By far one of the best newsletters I receive is the Canticle of St. Gertrude: A Journal of Our Life (published by the Monastery of St Gertrude up in Cottonwood, Idaho).  I am always inspired by something I read within its pages, and this month the Prioress introduced me to the poetry of David Whyte by sharing the following lines from his poem "Sweet Darkness":

When your vision has gone

No part of the world can find you...

...Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet

confinement of your aloneness

to learn

anything or anyone

that does not bring you alive

is too small for you."

These words have been rumbling around in my soul for the past several days, as I have reflected on what brings me alive...and what doesn't...and what is too small for me - and how to make peace with the judgment that statement implies...

What brings you alive?  Are there things in your life that are too small for you?

Pondering,

Kim

Brick Wall Olympics and Left Turns

Wisdom came to visit me today, aware that, perhaps, I had exhausted myself enough that I could now listen to her voice.  She wanted to talk about the brick wall that had become the focus of most of my energy.

The wall arrived in December, and has been the dominant feature on my landscape since its arrival - mostly because of my conviction that the road for my journey continued on the other side of the wall - heading due north.  In a manner consistent with my training and personality, I've approached the wall like an obstacle to my progress - a challenge to overcome.  And for these many months I have resourcefully and tenaciously sought to defeat the wall so I could continue with my journey.

I tried to go around the wall (too wide), made many attempts to climb over the wall (few hand holds and very slippery), and resourcefully tried to tunnel under the wall - but the wall continued underground.  I beat on the wall, screamed at the wall, hated the wall for being an obstacle in my progress, and finally resorted to the only recourse I knew - I repeatedly ran head first into the wall, hoping that, over time, I would crack the wall and break through - and free.

But the wall just absorbed the blows, leaving me more tired than when I started.

It is so easy to continue with futile action, and so hard to stop and regroup...

Wisdom waited quietly and patiently (and with no small amount of heartbreak) until I had exhausted myself by running into the wall.  And when all my striving was expended and I sat quietly in the pain, Wisdom finally had the space in which to speak:

Perhaps the wall isn't an obstacle keeping you from continuing due north on your journey.  Perhaps the wall is the very hand of God, telling you that your journey doesn't take you due north.  Look in the other directions and see what is there...


So instead keeping my tunnel vision I looked to the left, and to the right, and saw vistas of possibilities in either direction!  And I laughed - one of those deep soul laughs - as I realized that I was missing the very guidance I had asked for because instead of turning my head, I insisted on ramming it into yon brick wall.

The path heading west looks very interesting, so I think I'll head that way for awhile.  Before I set off I went up to touch the wall one last time - to touch the hand of God and say thank you for the boundary.

It will take a little time to heal - even my hard head is sore from my latest contact sport.  And travelling this unknown road will take a bit of adjustment...and flexibility...and some time for it to feel familiar.  But even though it is unfamiliar, it looks very inviting.  I confess to being a bit excited to see what awaits me, as I journey in a new way.

Brick walls can be the Hand of God - my, my, my... and Wisdom can help us discern when the obstacle needs to be overcome, and when it is a source of redirection.

With gratitude to Wisdom, and a tired by joyful heart,
Kim

Flap Less - Soar More!

Each day, if I'm lucky, I get to watch a young hawk practice flying and soaring.  I'll see him or her perched in the very top of a big tree in the farm field visible from our back yard.  Hawkie will sit and sway in the breeze (or gale) until ready to leap in the air.  What follows could be made into a Looney Tunes cartoon (the old kind - not the new versions), or a Sesame Street skit for the letter "U".  Yon Hawklet flaps frantically while flying straight up to the right...then catches the updraft and starts to soar for a second...and then frantically flaps while flying back down and then starts back up again and catches that updraft...then panics and frantically starts flapping and heads straight down until catching the updraft...

...and Hawkie will do this over and over again, tracing the letter "U" in the sky.  Eventually my winged tutor starts flapping a bit less and soaring a little bit more...until it is time to rest on the top limb of the tree and squawk for mom or dad...and then off to practice once again!

I resonate with the "frantic flapping" part of this learning curve...it takes much practice, time and trust to learn how to relax into the air currents and soar.  Hawkie is teaching me self patience, for I often fault myself for not being "there" yet, and feel frustration at the time required to master a new skill.

But I've seen the parents of Hawkie, and their flight is a sight to behold.  Hawkie will get there...as will I.

What causes you to frantically struggle - what are you striving to achieve?  Do you grant yourself grace and time?  Do you reflect patience and acceptance towards yourself as you face your learning curve?

Flap less - soar more!
Kim

Open-hands-holding

Storage units are an invention that can help us to hold on to the past.  When I moved to Scotland there was so much I just couldn't let go of, so my son stored it for me.  I have a very kind and understanding son!  Now it is time for him to move and pare things down a bit, so he asked me if I wanted some of the things in the storage unit...or if I was ready to let go...

...and I found that I could indeed let go, simplifying both of our lives!  I probably could not have let go five years ago, and know I could not let go thirteen years ago.  Wise voices from many places and traditions tell us that letting go and simplifying our lives is the next step in our journey, but they forget to tell us that letting go takes time!

Having access to the things we hold on to is not required for holding on - I have watched people lose precious things and relationships, and yet they hold on to them as if the lost object or person was still there.  I have listened to people explain disappointments to me as if they happened earlier in the day, only to learn that the event happened decades ago!

Letting go can take time...sometimes lots of time.  But when the time is right, letting go can feel very good - liberating.  It can bring a greater sense of freedom, and freedom is one of the "tells" that I look for to know that God is at work in my life.  Greater freedom usually means a greater attunement to the Divine.

Thoreau wrote:  "Simplicity is one of the most valuable lessons we can learn from nature.  We experience a certain freedom traveling lightly on the path, unencumbered by unnecessary food, clothing, or gadgets.  We need to adopt an inner simplicity by also leaving behind confused thoughts and agendas.  Each day we carry an enormous load of emotional and material baggage.  The weight prevents us from straightening up to see and experience the beauty of each moment.  Worries and anxieties give us spiritual cataracts.  Simplify, simplify, simplify."  (as quoted in Susanne Vanzant Hassell's Pilgrim Walk in the Woods.


What baggage did you carry today?  Do you need it?  If you do need it, you can choose to keep carrying it.  Perhaps if it is heavy, you can set it down for awhile and rest.  You can pick it up again if you must, or, maybe...

...you can let it go.  Or hold it with open hands until you are ready...

Blessings,
Kim

Whale time

I love summer worship.  There is nothing to coordinate - it is simple.  I'm blessed to work with an amazing, intuitive, brilliant musician, so together we weave a tapestry that unfolds in real time - very freeing!  Although what we do in worship during the program year is wonderful, there is something about summer... I look forward to the experience every year!

Sadly, I will miss most of August this year.  I will take my remaining vacation and one of my two weeks of study leave and do some serious medical interventions.  I'm barely keeping up right now; I will be under water before September even gets here unless I'm feeling better.

Under water...walking through water...treading water...head under water (thank you Sara Bareilles, and you were right - the breathing does get harder).  It is an odd time right now, when the air feels thick like water and every effort brings physical resistance.  I'm tired.

But I'm also fully here - present - feeling the resistance.  Feeling the frustration of having to schedule myself oh so carefully so I get everything done...feeling the relief when things get done, and nothing major falls through the cracks (major means anything larger than a grand piano).

Feeling the delight in listening to the children explain to me (in an impromptu conversation) what is cool in their world - and they became what was cool in my world today.  Feeling the sacredness of the moment as I sat in that liminal space with someone who is dying, and experienced the depth of the emotion of the person's loved ones as they embraced love, and loss, and longing, and relief, and fear and love and loss...

Feeling the weight of the bird seed container as I go out to feed my beloved red-winged flying pigs, who hit the bird feeders like little vacuum cleaners.  Feeling the warmth of the sun on my face - feeling fully alive.

Knowing that in the moment, when I can change very little of what is happening, one thing I can do is be present and feel it - every bit of it.  Good and bad, even the fatigue, which, as I think about it, is less like water and more like trying to move in glue that is almost set.

What will this experience reveal?  As I can't make it go away right now, what can it teach me?  Am I able to stop resenting it enough to listen?

What teachers are in your life right now (translation:  what circumstances are present that cannot be altered, push your buttons or invite you to struggle, but remain despite your best attempt to change them)?

I picture Jonah beating against the inside of the whale until he was exhausted...and then sitting down, taking a deep breath, and accepting that the ride was under way, and he was not traveling in First Class - he was cargo.

I guess if I'm going to be under water for a period of time, the belly of a whale isn't the worst option...

Fully present in whale time,
Kim

Beholding

I love being surprised by a new idea, or an old idea formulated in a new way so that it shakes me out of my complacency and causes me to encounter a familiar word anew.  Mark Epstein did that for me in the closing chapters of Open to Desire.  His passing comments on the familiar word beholding captured my attention and provided a launching point for some creative thinking:

In an apocryphal statement attributed to James Joyce, he once described the attention that is necessary to look at a work of art as "beholding,"  If the viewer gets too close to an artwork it becomes pornography or if he gets too distant it becomes criticism.  Beholding art means giving it enough space to let it speak to us, to let us find it, even if we do not completely understand what we are looking at.  (p182).

I dare say that this description of beholding applies to more than art appreciation; it certainly applies to the relationships with one another and with God.

What would it be like to behold God - to give God enough space to let God speak to us, to let us find God, even if we do not completely understand what we are looking at?  Epstein continues:

When we discover that the object is beyond our control, unpossessable and receding from our grasp, we have the opportunity to enter the space that Joyce was referring to...we learn to give the object its freedom.

We are familiar with the ways we try to control, possess and grasp hold of one another.  Are we aware of the ways we try to do these things in our relationship with God?

I love this concept of "beholding" - both with one another, and with God.  Just the right space allows for the grace of perspective - to be able to truly see and appreciate the other.

May you find that space - and grace.

With love,

Kim

Job One

This is Take 2 for my post tonight.   I just deleted the first draft, which was (in my opinion) clever, fairly well written, just insightful enough that I was impressing myself with it...

...and total self-serving crap.

Now I'll try again to say that the human soul has amazing tensile and compressive strength yet can be as fragile as a snowflake.  Today I moved among souls facing pain and loss so intense that it could suck all the oxygen out of the room (and off the face of the planet).  I marvel and weep over what the human heart can withstand, and what, over time, can be transformed.  I am simply in awe of God's ability to be in the midst of even the most convulsive, raw pain, and stay in that space until life emerges once again.  God never walks away or gives up.  Resurrection is all around us - we are steeped in it, and often do not even know it.

I live as a witness to resurrection who, when asked, can testify that there is reason to hope.  Anything else I do pales in comparison to this one calling.

Hopeful,

Kim

Serenity Prayer Reprise

Welcome back, dear reader.  I hope that during the past two weeks you have been invited into a deeper awareness of the ever-present loving God who exhales the breath of life into us each time we inhale.

My time away was mixed.  Traveling east to watch my son receive his Ph.D. was simply indescribable - I can remember so clearly when he was first learning to read, and now he helps students learn to think critically about our American experience, both within a religious context and without.  I felt every cell in my body release one deep collective sigh as he was handed his diploma, while simultaneously wanting to jump for joy at his accomplishment.  Meeting his partner's family was also a precious gift as I watched our families grow closer together.  Nectar for the soul...

Within the joy, I had to also face some painful realities about aspects of my health and subsequent limitations, make careful adjustments/accommodations, and quickly reach a level of acceptance about current limitations that, well, runs counter to my emotional wiring - seriously counter to my emotional wiring.  My mother use to have a saying she would tell me when I was a child (that ended up being the subject of many a psychotherapy sessions later in my life):  When you meet an obstacle, climb over it, or race around it, or tunnel under it - and if none of those things work, plant dynamite under it and blow the damn thing up.  She did not like the Serenity Prayer.

Acceptance is easy when the topic of acceptance is joyful; more of a challenge when it is something you do not want.

And so I have been thinking about the lesson of acceptance in light of the Serenity Prayer and its most recent personal applications.  The distinction between what can and cannot be changed - not always a clear black and white distinction.  When do we push, fight, rail against the gates of hell and turn the world upside down in order to bring about the desired change, and when to we accept and settle into the changes that this acceptance brings?

When indeed...

The second topic that has been on my mind (as I write my last paper for this year's DMin requirements) is desire - specifically, desire as a guide to deepening our spiritual journey.  Many teachers have been prodding my thinking, and right now I'm finishing some time with Mark Epstein and his book "Open to Desire."  Very interesting stuff - to be explored in another post.

I hope this has been a blessed time for you.  For the next several weeks I plan to write this blog on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays - my own adjustment to being on a summer time schedule.  This will free up a bit more time for reading and creative endeavors - which I hope will benefit us all.

May you find your path as you discern what requires acceptance, and what invites change.

With love and prayers,
Kim