Sweet Trail of "Snails"

It is April 30th and snowing in Cottonwood, Idaho.  I came up to the Monastery last Saturday, and in the words of James Taylor, I "looked like ashes and smelled like smoke."  A Sister was waiting for me, and got me settled into a room for some rest.  Rest is so healing, as are the "God with skin on" Sisters who live and minister here.  Whether it is triage, listening, or hugs, they are more than up to the task.

I was give a "Silent Retreatant" badge to wear so I didn't have to interact with all the other retreatants here (it is a busy time in the guest house), and have been going into the little chapel alone during prayer times instead of going over to the main church.  I take my meals in the little kitchen here - silence and solitude.  Time to think.  Time to pray.  Time to heal.  Time to grieve.  Time to let go.  Time to be open to my next steps.

I brought an odd assortment of things with me for this journey (a little light on clothes, but very heavy on reading materials).   I brought books of course, both fiction and nonfiction. I brought my journals from the last eight years, and read through each and every page.  Reading them made it clear that the current circumstances should come as no surprise.  But what did surprise me - and delighted me - was the clear trail marking God's presence throughout this span of time.  There was a trail of people, places, events that were resonant with God's signature.  Despite the pain, I could see that God as been present and with me all along!  What a hopeful discovery!

Trails figure prominently in the book I am reading (again), Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees.  I read it once ages ago, could not remember the plot very clearly, but knew grief figured prominently in the plot, and so it came with me.  And yes, there is an element of grieving and letting go in the book.  But the story line from the book that got my attention today involves graham crackers and marshmallows...

There is a character in the story who cannot stand to see anything suffer - or be killed - so when she would find a roach in the kitchen, she would make a trail of pieces of graham crackers and marshmallows that led to the door and outside - luring them out to safety before someone crushed them.    This odd trail to freedom becomes an important secondary theme throughout the book, and always made me smile.

Today I walked up to the Grotto in the Woods - an outdoor chapel on the Monastery grounds that is a special place I retreat to for prayer.  Dedicated to Mary, it has that creation/feminine energy that is so empowering - and healing.  I sat there pouring out my soul, and pondering my next steps.  After a time of silence and writing, I headed down the hill, and right into a snowstorm.  But it wasn't ordinary snowflakes, nor ordinary hail stones, but these solid-but-puffy snow/hail pellets (dare I call them snails?) that looked for all the world like small marshmallows.  I started laughing as this trail of marshmallow-like pellets rained down from heaven.

There will be a path - a trail.  And I will see it.  And it won't always be bitter - it may even be sweet.

Change is hard.  Hearts break.  Hearts heal.  God is faithful.  God is good.
Truth - time - and grace.

Healing,
Kim

Crack!

Despite the pain, I can so easily see God's gentle presence in every step this week - through the readings in the devotional that guides me through "pecking season," through the unexpected kindness of strangers and friends, through the actions and choices of others that serve as inspiration and encouragement, and through that abiding presence that can be felt and heard even through the roar of the waterfall.

The words in the devotional for today:  "An old Jewish proverb teaches, 'When you have no choice, don't be afraid.' A modern saying argues, 'There's no way out but through.' The straight and simple truth is that there are some things in life that must be done, even when we don't want to do them, even when we believe we can't do them."  (Joan Chittister).  

Wise guidance from counselors and friends and strangers and devotional books and hours of prayer and reflections and a waterfall of tears all became peck peck peck peck peck peck peck peck peck (until)

Crack!

And light comes in.  And air comes in.  And I rest in God's arms.  (to resume pecking after some rest)

I hear Leonard Cohen's voice singing - "There is a crack in everything.  That's how the light gets in." Light is good.

And it is dawn, Easter morning.

Life is hard.  Life is good.  God is good.  Amen.

Pecking Season

I like to mark the changing seasons with meaningful symbols.  Some symbols have obvious religious connotations, like the wreath and candles that come out in time for that First Sunday of Advent. Some connect more with nature's rhythms, like my beloved cloth stuffed pumpkins that I place on my Grandmother's buffet in autumn.  For Easter I bring out five beautiful hand painted wooden eggs that are a joy to behold.  I place them in a nest of Easter grass in the center of my prayer table, and smile every time I see their beauty.

Eggs are an enduring symbol of Easter - new life - new possibilities.  But this morning I realized that, for me, the intact egg is a symbol only of possibility - it doesn't become a symbol of new life or emergent life until the chick pecks its way out of the egg.

I remember being told long ago that if you try to free the chick from the egg, you can do more harm than good (so said a grade school teacher).  It is the act of fighting to be free from the confines of the egg that gives the chick the strength for life.  It must peck and push free of the egg to be free indeed.  Ditto for butterflies, that other abiding symbol of Easter.  When the time is right, the egg or chrysalis that isn't broken open from within soon becomes an unopened tomb.

Sometimes, when stuck, God answers the prayer "help!" by removing the obstacle.  Other times, we need to peck, push, and fight our way free, with God answering our prayer through unexpected grace and strength to aid us as we break the shell from the inside out.

I awoke before dawn feeling the shell pressing against me, and an unexpected flush of grace and strength.

Let the pecking begin!

Moving into Easter,
Kim

Walking on...

Last night I settled down in the wasteland just as I have done for too many nights to count.  Once I found a comfortable spot, I looked up at the sky, and savored the few stars I could see through the hazy night sky.  Each one brought me comfort - how I love the night sky!  I could even imagine the vast display of stars that were there hidden from my view.

Before night settled in I looked over at the pile of stuff I've recently accumulated.  Since I was no longer traveling out of the wasteland, I didn't have to limit my possessions to what I could carry.  In fact, there was almost enough stuff that I could build myself a shelter here - a home.

I gazed long and hard in all directions - I have been here long enough that the scenery is familiar, and oddly comforting.  All that time and effort - all those years wandering through the wasteland heading for that promised land seemed now to be a fool's errand.  Perhaps it would have been better just to accept this as home and not try to find my way through.

Content enough with life as it is, I settled down to sleep.  But my sleep was fitful and dream-filled, and I awoke with a soreness in my hip and lower back that felt like I'd been sleeping on a rock.  I reached down to rub my hip and felt something deep in my pocket - it was my compass!  I thought I had lost it a while ago, which made leaving the wasteland seem impossible!  But there is was, and in perfect working order.

I sat there for a long time...looking at the compass...drinking in the vastness of the wasteland...studying my pile of stuff accumulated during this stop on the journey...wondering what kind of fool would leave the safety of the familiar to head into the unknown toward a destination that she has never seen with her own eyes and can only accept by faith...

...what kind of fool?

This kind of fool!

With effort I got to my feet, used the compass to point them in the right direction, and started walking again.  The stuff?  It would only weigh me down. It is time to travel light.

Walking on,
Kim

Tufts of Grass

A wise person recently reminded me that most of Biblical Palestine was desert.  Not vast expanses of verdant pastures bordering deep still waters, but arid wastelands.  Sheep and goats would find tufts of grass to nibble, and then be led by shepherds through vast expanses of nothingness in order to find a few more tufts of grass.  His message was clear - notice and value the tufts of grass when they appear, and nourish yourself when you can.  It may be a bit of a walk until the next meal.

I prefer my more romantic rendering of the land of Psalm 23, but confess that this part of my journey more accurately reflects the less welcome wasteland image.  Perhaps making a mental shift will take some of the sting out of the journey (it is a wasteland with occasional tufts of grass vs. why can't I find the miles of promised green pastures).  Acceptance by any other name?

No!  I want more than acceptance.  I want to learn to love the wasteland and savor its vistas.  I want to  celebrate the dryness and delight in the presence of that unexpected splotch of grass in the middle of nowhere.  Can I let go of the cinematic picture that plays in my brain causing me to long for something that does not exist, and instead call this sojourn into my Mojave home?

I don't know if I can, but of this much I am sure:  when you find that tuft of grass, its sweetness far surpasses any illusion that the Department of Would, Could and Should might provide.  It is even better than anything propaganda flick offered by the Office of What If.  

Thank you, Confirmands, for soul sustenance.  The retreat was an oasis.  Completely unexpected.  Totally delightful.  Bread of heaven - with fizz.

Deep gratitude,
Kim

The Lessons of a Mobius Blanket

Easter Sunday came and went with its signature beauty, wonder, and exhaustion.  My grandmother used to make sure that there was a nice Easter dinner prepared for the family, and this is a custom that, every year, I tell myself I'm going to observe.  I also tell my son this every year (he is 31), and he reminds me that in his lifetime we have never had Easter dinner, and that I will not make it again this year.  His prediction, based on his lifetime of watching his minister mom, was as follows:  I will come home from church mid afternoon on Easter Sunday, get into the recliner, and slip into a Holy Week/Easter worship-induced coma.  In this altered state of consciousness I will dream in large psychedelic Easter symbols and keep waking up thinking that I have to go and lead a service someplace.  I will mumble incoherently about flowering crosses, babies and bunnies and may even say something both odd and memorable (due to its oddness).  I will have no interest in Easter dinner.  By Monday, most of the stress hormones will have burned off and I'll be feeling more "normal."  On Tuesday I'll be ready to cook Easter dinner, but won't cook it because it is Tuesday, not Easter.

He was mostly right.  The part that neither he nor I expected is that Easter came and went, but my heart stayed in Lent.

Sometimes the heart doesn't read the calendar.

Lent brought with it some unexpected personal grief work and an equally unexpected personal reality check that was neither welcome nor pleasant.  Enlightening?  Absolutely!  Growth-promoting?  Without a doubt!  Welcome?  Hardly.

I talk often (some might say ad nauseum) about the importance of growing edges, but here is their problem:   They hurt.  Pain-free growth is a myth.  The liberation that comes from awareness has a cost, and even when we are willing to ante up, we often forget that sometimes the cost is dear.

For a brief second I almost lost patience with my heart for putting temporary roots down in Lent when the rest of me wanted to drag it kicking and screaming into the joy of Easter (you will be joyful)!  But instead, I opted to show the same compassion to my heart that it would show to any grieving person I know.  I gave it love and warmth and space - and some structure (routine is good).  And I took it back to the most healing place I know - a loom.

I have a really cool project on my large Macomber - a double-sided blanket woven in the style of the old Grandholm Mills of Aberdeen Scotland.  My mother-in-law gave us two of these blankets when we were married, and I always marveled at the differing color patterns on either side - one blanket where each side looks completely different, yet is the same blanket.  It has become my "both/and" blanket (for banishing either/or weaving)!   It took a bit of time to figure out how to weave it, but I was pleased to see that I can still find my way around a loom!

The weaving goes very slowly because it involves three shuttles, and I can only see the color combinations of the side facing me (consequently mistakes on the back side are not seen until it is too late to correct them).  Much of this blanket is woven by faith and trust.  Every once in a while I pass a mirror under the cloth to make sure something ghastly isn't happening on the side that I cannot see.  So far, so good.

The experience of weaving this both/and blanket is a bit like moving through this time of grief and loss - letting go, acceptance, faith, trust, and learning to see and appreciate the beauty that unfolds at its own pace, in its own way.

It is a gift to allow life to unfold this way, growing edges and all.   No judgment.  Heaps of compassion.  And a favorite loom holding a mobius blanket.

Leaning into Easter while standing solidly in Lent,
Kim