My car was very crowded when I departed for the Monastery on Monday morning. Not only did I have a small suitcase and a cooler filled with food for my two day sojourn, but I had also managed to pack at least half a dozen unresolved issues, a handful of serious worries, and a baker's dozen of seemingly important but actually irrelevant problems - all stuffed into the back seat, and clamoring for attention. David Crosby and Graham Nash squeezed into the front seat and kept me company until Cambridge. Once the snow flurries started, they got out and JT road with me through the flurries until I stopped just outside of Riggins for some huckleberries. He liked the look of the pie, and stayed on in Riggins, leaving space for Stephen Iverson to keep me company the rest of the way. We stopped at the Skookumchuck lay by and had some lunch, and the view so impressed the unresolved issues, serious worries and irrelevant problems that they got out to take a boat trip on the Salmon. Stephen and I waved goodbye and headed over White Bird Pass towards Cottonwood.
There is a place between Grangeville and Cottonwood where the Monastery Chapel towers come into view - each trip I find myself looking for them before I even realize what I am looking for. And then I see them, and take the deepest of breaths. I'm almost home.
I am often asked why I drive 4 1/2 hours to have time on retreat. After all, I can pray to God anywhere (true). And I can keep silent anywhere and listen for our still speaking God (also true). And I can have time for reading and contemplation anywhere (also very true). All God's creation is sacred space, so the square miles around the monastery aren't any more sacred than, say, Eagle Island State Park, or my own backyard. So why make the drive?
I park my car and come into the Spirit Center, see my room assignment, and take my things down to my room. Then I pull the rocking chair in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows, pull the blinds up and out of the way, and sit down and gaze out on the Monastery property, the Camas Prairie, and the Bitterroot Mountains. As I sit and gaze, I notice that slowly, over time, I completely slow down until I am moving at the speed of the Universe, and my heart starts to beat in sync with a heartbeat so much greater than my own. Then I am home.
This morning each scripture passage read during Morning Prayer came directly from the heart of God to me - it could not have been more of a gift if the passages had been wrapped in pretty foils and topped with bows - they took my breath away. My time with my Spiritual Director was life-giving. Meaningful books are being read. But mostly I sit and gaze out the window, and allow God to restore and strengthen my soul in ways words cannot describe - while the lone icicle melts from the railing of the foot bridge, and the morning star gets enveloped by light at sunrise, and the snow begins to melt into the parched prairie landscape, giving the earth a big long drink. I gaze, commune, and experience a refreshment similar to the parched ground.
And I give thanks for the opportunity to be loved unconditionally and accepted and cherished for who I am - and relish the moments to gaze into God's loving eyes, present to me through the love of the community, and in the mother-of-pearl/peach/steel blue colors of the sunrise.
This is why I go on retreat - I go to experience God's love and refreshment, and to deepen my experience with God. Upon return to Boise, I can share that love with others. The saying seems trite but is so true - you can't give what you ain't got.
When I drive back tomorrow morning I will not stop at the Skookumchuck lay by to pick up my original passengers. They can find their own way back to Boise. God always keeps my company on the drive back - and God is a fascinating traveling companion.
Drinking deeply,
Kim
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Sunday, November 4, 2012
by candlelight...
It is a profoundly simple ritual: Once a year (around All Saints or All Souls Day) we bring the purpose-made tray out of the basement and place it on the communion table in the sanctuary, fill the tray with sand, set out about 500 small white candles in baskets, and begin worship. After I talk with the children about "lifetimes" (death), the congregation is invited to come forward and light candles for loved ones who have died (and companion animals, and dreams - because they can die, too). In an instant this diverse congregation (diverse in age, gender identity, political views, theology, sexual orientation, and a zillion other identifiers) all stand on common ground:
We are people who love, risk, experience loss, and heal through love. Seeing others suffer as they touch that place of pain and loss causes compassion to arise within us. Compassion brings down walls, and helps us to heal (individually and as a group).
I began this ritual sixteen years ago as I way to teach a deeply troubled church that what they share is greater than what divides them. It took some time (and a few additional rituals), but they gained a deep appreciation of this truth - and gave up war. There is such healing power in shared rituals...
...create sacred space, enter it together, be vulnerable and open, and watch Spirit work. I am awed each and every time it happens.
Last week I completely completed year one of my DASD/DMin. All my paperwork is in (the Presbys have a gift for creating paperwork - positively amazing), and the books for year 2 are looking at me (some excellent and very challenging topics, to be sure - I'll try to remember to put the reading list in the blog). People have been asking me what I will be writing about in my big project at the end of my DMin. The answer has been surprisingly quick in coming. In 2013 I will celebrate 30 years in ministry (20 of them in ordained ministry), and almost all of them working with highly conflicted churches. Both my physical and spiritual heart have suggested that, perhaps, my days riding in that particular rodeo are over. As a way of drawing that phase of my ministry to a close, I want to further research and describe what I've learned about liturgy and healing - about the amazing ways congregations can heal and grow when they enter that sacred space together, risk being vulnerable and open, and allow Spirit to work.
Many a wounded congregations found the way to healing and wholeness by candlelight...
Resting in the Mystery,
Kim
We are people who love, risk, experience loss, and heal through love. Seeing others suffer as they touch that place of pain and loss causes compassion to arise within us. Compassion brings down walls, and helps us to heal (individually and as a group).
I began this ritual sixteen years ago as I way to teach a deeply troubled church that what they share is greater than what divides them. It took some time (and a few additional rituals), but they gained a deep appreciation of this truth - and gave up war. There is such healing power in shared rituals...
...create sacred space, enter it together, be vulnerable and open, and watch Spirit work. I am awed each and every time it happens.
Last week I completely completed year one of my DASD/DMin. All my paperwork is in (the Presbys have a gift for creating paperwork - positively amazing), and the books for year 2 are looking at me (some excellent and very challenging topics, to be sure - I'll try to remember to put the reading list in the blog). People have been asking me what I will be writing about in my big project at the end of my DMin. The answer has been surprisingly quick in coming. In 2013 I will celebrate 30 years in ministry (20 of them in ordained ministry), and almost all of them working with highly conflicted churches. Both my physical and spiritual heart have suggested that, perhaps, my days riding in that particular rodeo are over. As a way of drawing that phase of my ministry to a close, I want to further research and describe what I've learned about liturgy and healing - about the amazing ways congregations can heal and grow when they enter that sacred space together, risk being vulnerable and open, and allow Spirit to work.
Many a wounded congregations found the way to healing and wholeness by candlelight...
Resting in the Mystery,
Kim
Sunday, October 21, 2012
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
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
Sunday, October 14, 2012
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
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
Sunday, October 7, 2012
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
- 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
Sunday, September 30, 2012
...and not only in South Dakota...
Hope breaks through when you least expect it. A conversation with a dear friend taught me about the South Dakota Conference UCC taking the bold stand to address a great injustice by releasing its claim to the land of the American Indian churches in the Conference. They are giving the land back to the congregations - a legal nightmare, but a moral victory. Great things are happening in South Dakota (of all places)! It almost makes me want to take a road trip for my study leave week...
It pays to be patient. To give things time. To resist the temptation to believe that when things are difficult and bleak that they will always be that way. To trust that God's grace is still operating and vibrant even when invisible.
Even in South Dakota. Have you been to South Dakota? I always thought of South Dakota as the back of beyond plus 500 miles, but amazing things are happening there - it is the cusp of transformative opportunities. And if it is happening in South Dakota, it can happen anywhere.
Like here. A woman attended church today who was raised on a Reservation in (wait for it ... ) South Dakota. It is American Indian Ministry Sunday, and my sermon celebrated this wonderful news from South Dakota, and included acknowledging the cruel injustice perpetrated on the Native Peoples by the American government and the churches. Today was the day she came to visit, and to hear words she had never heard before - a white church acknowledged the depth of its sin against the Native Peoples, and celebrated new stirrings of justice. She had a powerful healing experience today, and we had the opportunity to participate in a moment of grace that is beyond my comprehension. Not only is God busy in South Dakota, but grace is breaking through right here -
- even here in Boise. Even during "buy a truck, get a gun" month. God's grace just keeps breaking through!
What is God doing in your world?
With deep gratitude,
Kim
It pays to be patient. To give things time. To resist the temptation to believe that when things are difficult and bleak that they will always be that way. To trust that God's grace is still operating and vibrant even when invisible.
Even in South Dakota. Have you been to South Dakota? I always thought of South Dakota as the back of beyond plus 500 miles, but amazing things are happening there - it is the cusp of transformative opportunities. And if it is happening in South Dakota, it can happen anywhere.
Like here. A woman attended church today who was raised on a Reservation in (wait for it ... ) South Dakota. It is American Indian Ministry Sunday, and my sermon celebrated this wonderful news from South Dakota, and included acknowledging the cruel injustice perpetrated on the Native Peoples by the American government and the churches. Today was the day she came to visit, and to hear words she had never heard before - a white church acknowledged the depth of its sin against the Native Peoples, and celebrated new stirrings of justice. She had a powerful healing experience today, and we had the opportunity to participate in a moment of grace that is beyond my comprehension. Not only is God busy in South Dakota, but grace is breaking through right here -
- even here in Boise. Even during "buy a truck, get a gun" month. God's grace just keeps breaking through!
What is God doing in your world?
With deep gratitude,
Kim
Sunday, September 23, 2012
Re-entry Blackout
I have vivid memories of watching the Apollo space flights. Take-off was great, but all the excitement and high drama involved re-entry and the splashdown. Do you remember the communication blackout during re-entry - that time when the capsule was hurtling back to earth and communication was impossible? We would sit and watch and wait, listening to the commentators talking about the intense heat that was being deflected by the heat shield...how tragedy could strike at any moment...how all we could do was hope and pray until we either saw the streak of light in the sky and parachutes deploy to help gentle the capsule into the ocean, or hear the confirmation of splashdown. We would wait until the astronauts were helped from the capsule into the awaiting "whatever" that would bring them home. And all would rejoice!
The last twenty-eight days have been my own experience of re-entry black out. Being back has not been an easy adjustment. What was so simple and intuitive to do when I was back in Durham working the program has been extremely difficult and challenging back here in Boise. Finding a new rhythm and balance that takes into account all the new lessons and the reality of my working life is not a seamless fit. But the stakes are too high to get this wrong.
Big questions have emerged in the midst of re-entry - questions involving the heart and soul of my vocation. This once again is proof that vocational questions provoke wresting matches "from the forceps to the stone", as Joni Mitchell would say. I find myself to be strangely unsettled - a sure sign that God is at work in an unexpected way.
I keep coming back again and again to the issue of balance - of how to create space for all the healthy parts of my life to emerge and grow, while providing helpful containment for the less healthy parts. Structure - plan - objectives and goals - in some ways I have become my own project!
I sense my role shifting and changing, but am not sure what that means. In the meantime, I work my program - one day at a time - and try to get that right.
Today I offer thanks for kind words spoken to me by members of the youth group, for a hug from a little girl who has seen too much misery for her young age, and for the joy of watching people growing into their vocation, I saw some blue sky today (thank you, brief rain shower). And the winter gathering of Quail has begun in our backyard - over 25 and counting! Seven quail hopped up onto the porch swing - they balanced on the back and arms with a few on the seat, and their movement got their new perch to start swinging. What a sight!
Balance and momentum - hmmmmm....
How blessed I am to witness such magic. The rest will sort itself out - in time - one day at a time.
Working life's program,
Kim
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