Bank Balance

Act 1

I got a call from a friend I met in Durham in August, who asked me if I've read Barbara Brown Taylor's book Leaving Church.  "You have to read it - I just know you have to read it," she said, with so much conviction in her voice that I knew I would find a copy of the book.

Finding a copy wasn't hard, because our Monday group at church had read it during the past year, and copies were in the library.  I resisted reading it back when our church group was discussing it, because I was "neck deep in alligators" (as they say), and didn't want to read "swamp draining instructions." But now the time felt right, and so I began reading this most unsettling book.

Act 2

I haven't been up to the Monastery for a long, long time (almost a year).  Health concerns kept me in Boise during the winter and spring - thank goodness I could talk with my Spiritual Director via telephone!  But I missed the deep peace - the extended time for prayer - how God would speak through the liturgy and in nature in ways so powerful that it would take my breath away - the way conversations with the Sisters would clarify vocational issues that seemed unsolvable this side of the Camas Prairie, but would come into clear focus as I descended White Bird Hill into Grangeville.  Many a church drama was resolved through the wisdom of listening to a perspective steeped in prayerful reflection.  Benedictine women have done some remarkable work with leadership paradigms, and at almost ever visit I borrow a copy of a book (not available in print anymore) that addresses issues of women in leadership of communities.  This book acts like a prism that brings into focus different aspects of leadership - always keeping me on the edge of a new revelation.  I made arrangements to go up to the Monastery for retreat as I normally do in October, shaking my head as I looked at my calendar and wondered how in the world everything would fit into this finite space of my work life!  I wondered if perhaps I needed to give up the "luxury" of time in contemplative silence...

Act 3

"My quest to serve God in the church had exhausted my spiritual savings.  My dedication to being good had cost me a fortune in being whole.  My desire to do all things well had kept me from doing the one thing within my power to do, which was to discover what it meant to be fully human."  Barbara Brown Taylor, in Leaving Church (p127)

Ouch!

A quick check of my spiritual bank account showed a fairly serious level of red ink.  Knowing that I cannot give what I do not have, I will retreat to the Monastery to pray - and remember why I do what I do, and who does it with me.  It will be a quick trip (up Tuesday and back on Thursday), but it will be more than enough.

It is always enough.

Not willing to stay overdrawn,
Kim

Four Simple Game-Changers...

Why is it so easy to complicate things (concepts, relationships, plans, opportunities) and so difficult to keep things simple?

While in Durham one of the doctors recommended reading The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz, and so I picked up a copy of the little book expecting it to be "insight lite."

I was wrong.  The four key concepts are indeed simple, like the beauty of a rose is simple:

* Be impeccable with your word.
* Don't take anything personally
* Don't make assumptions
* Always do your best.

"Ho hum," I thought, as I read these four "agreements" on the inside front cover of the book.  "There isn't much depth to this at all."  And then I started trying to live them - one at a time - and discovered how profoundly difficult they could be!  Difficult - because these simple ideas challenge so many of the patterns of behavior that are part of modern life.  We make assumptions all the time, take a great deal personally, live with the concept of "truth that is fluid," and often do no more than what is expected or required.  What happens when we try to live by this guidance?

What happens when we accept that we have made agreements with ourselves, others and God that may not reflect the values modeled by Jesus of Nazareth...agreements that are rooted in fear, not freedom.  Instead of these four core agreements, we have many, many more beliefs that lead us in a very different direction - fear.  Facing fear and moving towards love isn't easy (and sometimes isn't pretty), but it is movement in the right direction.

I am in the process of confronting and moving through a fear that has imprisoned me for most of my life.  The fear is based in the life experience of a child who had every reason to be afraid.  But the fear - and the agreements that secure it - are not helpful to me as an adult.  I don't need to be afraid in order to be safe.  There are other ways...ways that lead to freedom.

I smiled as I noticed that the small publishing house for this book is in San Rafael, the town next to San Anselmo (where I go each January to work on my DMin).  Perhaps this January when I make my trek west I will meet some new kindred souls who are trying to release unhealthy and unhelpful beliefs in order to create room for these four transformative agreements.

Taking them one at a time,
Kim

Surrender

"We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us."
                                                               - Joseph Campbell

It has been a very quiet, healing, week - my last week of study leave for this year.  I am pleased to share that nothing much happened.  I spent the week finishing remaining paperwork for the first year of my DMin, started next year's reading list, rested, and did a bit of pre-winter "nesting".  It feels like autumn - my favorite time of the year.

I always liked autumn, but didn't love it until I spent those seven years in Scotland learning to accept the descent of the long nights.  Learning to embrace the darkness made it possible to love this time of year - while looking forward to the the shift in December when the light triumphs over the darkness.

I cannot celebrate the return of the light until I embrace and celebrate the coming of the darkness.

And look - here it comes - a bit closer every night - with a chill in the air and its good friend Jack Frost decorating all creation before the sun rises.  The nights lengthen...fighting this is futile...this is the season of surrender...

...and I light the fire in my soul, and bundle up before the fire to stare up into infinity while I dance with the stars.

I love this time of year!

Rejoicing,
Kim