Twelve Days and a White Christmas

The end of 2010 brought us a lovely surprise in the form of over three inches of snow in our back garden. Living near the South Carolina/North Carolina border means we get more of the North Carolina weather than our neighbors at church and my work get. It's lovely this second day of Christmas morning. Though there are some cars on the highway, for the most part, it's quiet and white blankets the landscape.

Of course, we Western and European Christians have this concept that Mary and Joseph traveled through the dead of winter to Bethlehem; that snow lay on the ground as the beautiful hymn, "Venite Adoramus" claims, and that the infant child though possibly cold in his meagre stable cradle, had a mother and father who tenderly took care of his needs while shepherds and angels called on the new family. This rather romantic view of the Incarnation gives us comfort in our own hardships, but perhaps it also helps us to render the struggles we face in life as unrelated to what God intended them to be. After all, it was a "silent night, holy night," and most of us don't think of our pain and struggles as holy.

Perhaps if we take a look at what the Catechism says about this wonderful birth, we can make the connection to Jesus a little more visceral, a little more profound. Jesus is an "in your face" kind of guy. The life he lived was for our benefit and example. Brother Gregory, OCSO, a monk at Mepkin Abbey, sent me this quote for Christmas and New Year's. "Go see in the arms of the Virgin, God became one of us, so that we might live his life." Living the Christ life is what being a Christian should be all about. We study the life of Jesus in the Scripture and other holy writings; we commune with Jesus in the Sacraments, and through prayer and contemplation, we look at the Lord of Life with adoration and with resolution. In the arms of the Virgin is our life. In the arms of the Virgin is our answer of how to walk day by day. In the arms of a Virgin is Love sent down at Christmas.

For me, it is critically important to keep all twelve days of Christmas. Doing so is certainly counter-cultural, and yet, it's what I need to remind myself that it's not about our packing up the decorations before New Year's day, or returning to work after a generous winter break, or once again becoming obsessed with our struggles and pain laid aside for a moment to remember the baby in the manger. Like the reformed Scrooge, keeping Christmas in my heart all year is vital because it means I will live the life that Jesus lived. I will love and pray, speak the truth, touch those in need, and ultimately die and rise in glory. Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote about this idea in the following poem:

Moonless darkness stands between.
Past, the Past, no more be seen!
But the Bethlehem-star may lead me
To the sight of Him Who freed me
From the self that I have been.
Make me pure, Lord: Thou art holy;
Make me meek, Lord: Thou wert lowly;
Now beginning, and alway:
Now begin, on Christmas day.

Hopkins gives God credit from freeing us from ourselves by giving us the opportunity to be Christlike. Being Christlike means living as Jesus lived. May God help us all to be about doing God's business: feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and visiting those in prison, with grace and compassion, the grace and compassion shown by our Lord as we, too, live the Christ life.

Traveling the Road

I’m old enough now that there are more than several anniversaries that I find myself marking. Obviously there is the anniversary of my engagement to my husband Michael, and of course, there is the wedding anniversary that we have faithfully celebrated for twenty-seven years. There are other anniversaries—our own birthdays, birthdays of our children, birthdays of our parents—and now the anniversaries of their deaths are times we remember as well. Even more mundane anniversaries like the surgery I had in 2001 or a particular personal triumph like my graduation ceremony in 2008 when I received my second degree from Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf School of English program are worth noting.

Robert Frost, who was long associated with the Bread Loaf Program, wrote a poem that most people can at least recite a few lines from. “Two roads diverged in yellow wood…” The roads taken and not taken are strong metaphors for my life, and the marks the journey has left on me come in the form of those anniversaries.

And so I think that what I am doing as I sit here writing tonight is marking the events of another December and considering how the road I’ve traveled has left its mark on me. Perhaps it’s not a bad exercise at all to allow one’s mind to wander back over the pathway of one’s life and to consider how one has been shaped by the journey itself. Nothing has shaped my life more than my journey in the Church.

It’s almost the end of the Advent season. Christmas Eve will be here in less than five days. We’re having a modest Christmas in this household for several reasons, but most importantly because both Michael and I have become acutely aware that the season is first and foremost a spiritual celebration. In the past, we’ve provided many gifts for our children, but now both of them are out of the home. I stopped trying to give gifts to my extended family once my nieces and nephews began having children. Here, at home, it’s just us and the dogs. My mom will have her traditional Christmas Day brunch, but for the first time in all these years of marriage, we have opted not to make the three hour drive there. Instead, we’ll attend Midnight Mass at St. James, where we’ll welcome the Christ child, and then we’ll sleep in on Christmas morning. We’ll have dinner with friends later in the day, and save our gifts for Twelfth Night.

In many ways, this way of doing Christmas will be a paradigm shift for me. So far, I haven’t felt any angst about not having gifts for people to whom I have often felt obliged to give something. Instead of shopping, I plan to volunteer at one of our local charities. My deepest desire is to “sit” with the mystery that is The Incarnation—to let the Christ Child be born in me in a new way, a way that makes the event a truly spiritual experience. I pray that you, too, will find your road to a joyful, peace-filled Christmas, and that ages hence, you will be telling your story, not with a sigh, but with the realization that you found the path that made all the difference.

A Meditation While Drinking Coffee

The steam rises from my coffee cup as I sit on my patio in the crisp October air. At one time I would have considered a Sunday morning vacation from church a big “no-no,” but not so much any more. Growing older has brought me to a deeper acceptance of my introverted, eremitical self, and sometimes, at least for me, that means community worship will take a back-burner. I reflect on the beauty of my surroundings: maple leaves turning yellow-gold, the browning lawn, and blue skies infused with wisps of pink and gold left over from the sun rise. This morning, I cannot help but think of stories from the past.

Just yesterday, I drove through what is left of the little town that I first called home. Several members of my extended family lived in Miley when I was young, and both my grandfather and my father worked for the Lightsey Brothers Saw Mill. My grandmother’s name was Queen Esther Cook Roberts. She was born of Irish stock, worked alongside my grandfather in the field, and raised ten children to adulthood. She was a devout churchwoman, but sometimes she, too, took a Sunday off from worship. She used the excuse that she had to cook, and then she would tell my granddaddy to make sure he brought the preacher home for dinner.

This morning, I stayed home from church for no good reason. Sure, I wanted to make soup, but like my grandmother I can cook circles around many people, and what I really wanted was to be alone. Perhaps it was an epiphany, but I realized that’s why my grandmother also took a Sunday “off” from church now and again. With ten children running around, and all the chores she faced day in and day out, no wonder she sent the entire family off to the church while she stayed home and perhaps breathed a sigh of relief.

I believe God meets us in any number of ways. I’m not advocating staying home from Sunday worship on any kind of regular basis—and for some that is simply not an option. Being fed by being with other Christians worshipping God together is a vital part of life. On other occasions, doing something for no good reason—like sitting on the patio and sipping coffee—and enjoying God’s presence in the quiet of an early morning feeds the soul and refreshes one’s spirit for what lies ahead. May God give us many moments of quiet joy and the wisdom to recognize those moments as a gift.

Homecoming: Sacraments and Intimacy with God

The following article was previously published in EDUSC's Crosswalk magazine.

“Be known to us in breaking of the bread.”


When I was twenty-two years old and a senior in college, I had pretty much given up attending church. I had begun my faith journey in a congregation that emphasized the preaching of God’s word and missionary work, but I never felt a sense of God’s mystery—and I found myself yearning for something more as I was beginning to mature in my faith. It always seemed to me that the preacher and church elders had God all figured out, but I was not making the connection to God through the particulars of that faith expression. And then, one Sunday morning, I awoke with a strong desire to go to church. I asked my roommate if she wanted to go with me, and she asked me where I intended to go. I responded with,

“How about that Episcopal Church where you interviewed for the daycare job? It’s just up the road, isn’t it?”

“Have you ever been to an Episcopal Church?”

“Well, no, but how different could it be?”

Of course, I was in for a [very pleasant] surprise because, yes, the service was very different from anything I had ever experienced previously in my life, but I was also overwhelmed with a special sense of having come home. The liturgy of the table spoke to me in a way I had never experienced God before. When the priest put the small wafer in my hand and said, “The Body of Christ,” I experienced a sense of God’s affirmation; I experienced God’s touch in the mystery of bread and wine given to me by another human being.

The Eucharist and all of the sacraments are, in fact, a way for God’s Holy Spirit to touch believers so that we know the reality of God in body and soul. The common thread interwoven into the fabric of sacramental action is proper and caring human touch. That felicitous touch, evident in all seven sacraments, is what captures my imagination when I consider how the sacraments provide an inward transformation of one's whole life—and the life of the community.

At the heart of our sacramental theology there is a core belief—that we are a community. God came to us in the human form of Jesus, who as a First Century rabbi in Palestine, prayed that his followers might be “one as we are one” (John 17:22). When we come together in community the sacraments focus our hearts and minds so that we are clear as to our purpose as followers of the Christ in this world. We continue in the teaching and fellowship of the Apostles (creed) when we share the body and blood of Christ and when we gather to baptize a new believer. While baptism is about cleansing away sin, primarily Episcopalians see the sacrament as incorporation into the body of Christ. We tell the newly baptized who has just been lovingly held over a font and touched with water and the oil of chrism, “We receive you into the household of God. Confess the faith of Christ crucified, proclaim his resurrection, and share with us in his eternal priesthood” (BCP, 308). Baptism makes us part of the family.

The so-called “lesser” sacraments—confirmation, reconciliation, healing, marriage, and ordination—also incorporate the human touch that symbolizes God’s touch. When the Bishop confirms, he or she lays hands on the head of the candidate. Reconciliation of a Penitent provides for the priest to lay [her] hands on the head of the one making confession. Healing provides for the laying on of hands and anointing with oil. Marriage is effected when two people join hands and make promises to each other, while Ordination is accomplished when the Bishop and all the presbyters lay hands on the ordinand and say, “Make him/her a priest in your church.”

In today’s culture, it is simply too easy to respond to the idea of human touch in a jaded fashion. It seems we far too often hear of some child who was abused by a person of authority, or we learn of a church staff member who has overstepped the boundaries described in “safe church” training. Too many of us have a distorted sense of intimacy fueled by a negative personal experience or by the media. And yet, how many of us long to be held in the hands of a loving God? How many of us desire an intimate relationship with God, but cannot make that connection?

The Gospels point to a Jesus who was not squeamish about touching others. In a culture where touching the dead made one unclean, Jesus touched the Widow of Nain’s son and brought him back to life. He touched the blind man and gave him sight. He blessed the woman with a flow of blood through touch, and he took Jairus’ daughter up by the hand and said to her “Little Girl, get up” (Mark 5:36-43).

There are several saints who serve as models for us when we consider the idea of human touch at the core of the sacraments. Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Catherine of Genoa, and of course, Francis of Assisi, all expressed their love for others through human touch. For each of these saints, human touch, both as a simple invitation to come into the family and as an expression of sacramental presence, reached across the boundaries of racism, sexism, classism, fear, and inordinate pride affirming the human dignity of those who most needed to be reminded of their humanity.

The sacraments—and regular practice of a sacramental lifestyle—can help foster that healing of intimacy that so many of us seek. The little Episcopal Church that I attended that November morning thirty years ago introduced me to the joy of coming to the table to share bread and wine with others who also wanted to know and be known in the breaking of the bread. Later in the year, I was confirmed in that church, and I have continued to experience the sacramental expression of the spiritual life that God brought me to through that community of believers.

On Sunday we baptized two babies at St. James. I say we because while I didn’t actually pour water on an infant’s head, I stood there with the congregation and wholeheartedly welcomed that child into our family—our community—and I promised to support that child in his faith journey. After the liturgy, I took that baby from his daddy’s arms and held him in my hands making my commitment real. Human touch. God’s touch. The sacraments remind us that God’s love is real and meant for our healing and blessing.

Poverty of Spirit

The following article recently appeared in Desert Call, the journal of The Spiritual Life Institute. The Spiritual Life Institute is the community that has the Nada Hermitage in Crestone, Colorado, where I spent my two week retreat this past summer. For more information on the community and their publications, please visit http://www.spirituallifeinstitute.org/Nada.html

The poems I love the most are written by the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke. His words have given me comfort in times of sadness and have bolstered my conviction that God is present, even and especially in the darkness. The one poem that has helped me come to terms with the assurance of God’s indefatigable love is I.17 from The Book of Hours:

She who reconciles the ill-matched threads
of her life, and weaves them gratefully
into a single cloth-
it's she who drives the loudmouths from the hall
and clears it for a different celebration

where the one guest is you.
In the softness of the evening
it's you she receives.

You are the partner of her loneliness,
the unspeaking center of her monologues.
With each disclosure you encompass more
and she stretches beyond what limits her,
to hold you.

This poem above all other writing has assured me over and over of Jesus words, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

The past year has been one of sadness and sometimes overwhelming fear as I’ve watched the two bookends of my life disintegrate. My father had several strokes a few years ago and began to deteriorate with vascular dementia shortly after we returned from a family trip to The Grand Canyon in the summer of 2007. Last spring he “got in the hospital bed” (my mother’s euphemism) where he spent the last ten months of his life. His dying was a slow process, but my family did what we could to ease his last days. He died at home on January 1st at the age of 75.

My son who served in Iraq for fourteen months came home in 2008 addicted to pain killers. Between the time he returned home and today, he has gone through a marriage, lost the home he bought with his bonus, wrecked several vehicles and his life. He currently serves as an inmate in a correctional facility for trying to steal drugs from a pharmacy.

The fact that this double trauma happened to me simultaneously sent me into a deep state of anxiety. At one point, our son was living with us, and I was taking him for daily Methadone treatment before I went to work each day. My husband and I were being held prisoners in our own home by a son who had an arsenal of guns hidden in the bedroom closet, and he knew how to use them. One day my husband drove him to the clinic, but it had already closed. Our son tried to break in and was picked up later and put in the local jail for fifty days. We lost track of him until he called us from the jail in the town where he committed his last crime by which time we had exhausted our financial and emotional resources to help him. We made the difficult decision to let him go to trial with a public defender as his attorney.

All of my son’s drama did not lessen the fact that I had a dying father and an exhausted mother three hours drive away. My life certainly was full of “ill-matched threads,” and it was taking everything I could muster to keep them woven into a single cloth.

That’s when I picked up my copy of Rilke’s poems once again—a dog-eared and marked up copy—and sought comfort in the poet’s words. Rilke, even at a young age, seemed to know that God knows. I realized by re-reading his poetry that what I had to do during this extremely stressful time was to take good care of myself and allow God to take care of me as well. I had to recognize my poverty of spirit, and come to rely more and more on the “partner of my loneliness.”

Rilke’s poem speaks of driving the loud mouths from the hall so that the woman in the poem can focus on God and the kingdom. One loud mouth that I had to drive from my hall was the crystal clear voice of “but you should have…”. I should have been there the moment my dad breathed his last breath; I should have been in the courtroom when my son was sentenced. I should have tried harder to get him into a rehab that would have “fixed” him. I should have taken more time off from work and spent it with my mom and dad.

In those moments where I could and did make room for God, “in the softness of evening” or in the early morning moments of meditation and prayer, I soaked up as much mercy and grace as I could manage.

It has been six months since my father died and almost a year since my son was locked up. I finally made a retreat in a place where I could come to terms with the losses and absolute inability to have done anything to change my circumstances My heart is broken, but I am stretching “beyond what limits [me] to hold” God.

I do go visit my son in prison. His dad and I have committed to giving him one weekend each month. He has a ten year sentence to serve, so I will be spending a great many weekends in prison. It’s true what they say about a man’s family serving time with him. But I am coming to believe that my son is living his own dark night of the soul, and it’s best if I let it happen for him.

The experiences of losing a parent and, in effect, losing my son have caused me to pay careful attention to my experiences, the relationships I cherish, my vocation and most importantly the time I make for God. It is only by loving God and accepting God’s love in return that poverty of spirit can be filled with the promises of the kingdom found in The Beatitudes.

Ways to Honor Sabbath

The following article is one I published in EDUSC's Crosswalk magazine. I thought I'd post it here because I'm off today to look at leaves on the Blue Ridge Parkway. I told my husband just the other day, that when I die, I'd like my ashes scattered on the Parkway. He said, "You just want to get back to your Cherokee Land." I think he's right.

Out the road from Juneau, Alaska (the only road into or out of town), is a spot where one may pull the car over and take in the view. At mile marker thirty-three, the side of the road drops at an angle into Lynn Canal. I’m in the Tongass National Forest, a temperate rain forest, and I’ve come with my friend to watch whales. It’s an afternoon for holy leisure. My friend, Maggie [Ross], is a fisherwoman. She heard about the location of the whales on her marine radio. We find a place to sit, and I wait in expectation when one of the whales swims up to my left still far enough away that I need to use binoculars to see it clearly. Up and down, its blowhole sounding the sneeze-like release of air, the whale seems to be getting closer when suddenly, it surfaces right below me—not twenty feet from where I am sitting on the rock outcrop. The whale stays there for about five minutes feeding along the edge of the estuary before it goes further out into the cove. I follow the whale with the binoculars, and I am so excited I find it hard to believe that another one has surfaced not far away. All in all, five or six whales come to the surface during the afternoon while we sit there experiencing what it means to have Sabbath time.

What brought me to Alaska was a summer of study with which I would renew my teaching license. I had a long list of books to read and copious papers to write. In the midst of all that work, however, I also had the opportunity to experience some of the most amazing scenery and to observe wildlife that I’ve only seen in books. The time was a life-renewing gift to me.

Sabbath time, or Shabbat, is that time-honored practice in our Judeo-Christian culture that allows for the renewal of life—what I experienced in observing the whales, eagles, and other wildlife in Alaska. Unfortunately for most of us, Sabbath is not as accessible as it once was. That’s why we must have intentionality in our practice of Sabbath. That intentionality is really as simple as taking a walk.

Walking and sitting meditation is a form of prayerful awareness that has come to western Christianity through the Buddhist tradition. It involves “mindfulness” and can be practiced in twenty minutes. Choosing to walk the labyrinth as a form of prayerful meditation also provides Sabbath time. Many retreat centers and churches now have labyrinths on their property making them more accessible to the average person.

Another way to be intentional about Sabbath time is to simply go to a favorite place to be quiet. Perhaps that place is in your own home, a room set aside for quiet, meditative practice. Perhaps it’s the local park that provides the space for rest and renewal. Whether that practice is strictly contemplative, or whether it involves writing, reading, or playing music, it can be a place where Shabbat is experienced.

Sabbath is so important to our overall health that taking a retreat at least once a year, if not more often, is vital. My favorite time of year for retreat is the week before Christmas when we are deep into Advent. Retreats can vary in length and design, so it’s best to ask a trusted friend who has taken retreats regularly for suggestions that best suit the needs at hand.

The most important piece to remember about Sabbath is that it is NOT business as usual. We don’t take a Sabbath day to cook for our family or to do the laundry, nor do we take one to write a long overdue article or catch up on paperwork—if the intention is simply to do more, or a different kind of work, that’s not Sabbath. Rather, Sabbath time is time spent with God. Sabbath time includes worship as well as leisure. Attending the liturgy is certainly an important way to find rest and renewal and to honor God. The Church provides for those needs on Sundays and other days, but we can also pray one or more of the Daily Offices either alone or corporately giving us time to experience little Sabbaths with God.

One of my favorite ways to spend time with God is in my garden. When the irises and day lilies are blooming, I enjoy sitting on the porch or walking around gazing at them. Of course, I enjoy getting my hands dirty pulling weeds and planting new additions in the beds as well. Taking a drive in the mountains or going on a hike are also ways to experience Sabbath time. Walking slowly, paying attention to what’s underfoot, and stopping to look at each flower and tree adds to the benefits Sabbath time. Just try naming the trees in the woods! It is important to appreciate each plant and animal with which we share the natural environment.

A regular practice of Sabbath helps to keep us from becoming the slaves of too much work. In today’s society, we all have far too busy schedules, but giving a little space for personal restoration and acknowledging that God is present even in our busyness is far too important to ignore. Like God, we should be able to stop and rest and say, “It’s good.” It seems to me that what most of us really want to experience in life is a sense of contentment—an ability to live in the present moment—without fear or anxiety. During that summer in Juneau, I had several opportunities to go out on Maggie’s boat to fish for salmon. While trolling on Auke Bay, the world slipped further and further away. We were surprised occasionally by sea lions and dolphins, but fishing was at the heart of that Sabbath time. We would bait the hooks, set the downrigger, and send the line into the deep unknown waiting to see what would happen. That’s what Shabbat is for—a time to bait the hook, then wait for God’s surprises, fully expecting God to bless us in ways which, in retrospect, will be more than we can ask or imagine.

Job: My Side of the Story

Here are two "new" poems--actually ones I spent a little time revising today. I found them in a stack of papers that I've been going through. The stack is getting considerably less, but finding a way to organize them has been interesting, to say the least.

Job: My Side of the Story

My children are gone; dead and buried
preceding their parents to the grave.
All my wealth swept away
like so much dust in the wind.
In the end, I could do nothing,
but put my hand over my mouth.

Life is damned crazy.
How could I be blamed
for wanting to cling to
one more shred of control?
My trust and innocence stolen
then the very definition of self
stripped away by questionable friends

Sometimes I wake at night
in a cold sweat
I dream that I am a ghost
haunting someone's house
A ghost walking through the evening
seeing my life floating as from above.

None of us can help
the tragedies that come to us in life;
but in choosing to leave
the scent of bitterness behind
I seek not to lose my true self forever.

Prophet's Vision

A wind
speak a word
a word of peace, of healing

make these dry
bones rattle

give a vision
of new flesh and sinew
of life returning
and then

speak the Word
"BREATHE!"

Take in the life, be filled with
the Spirit of Yahweh

Go out, prophesy bones
like parched branches
in a desert landscape

waiting, waiting
for the breath
and the command
to rise from brown earth

to live once
more

Ruminations on Cultural Enrichment

Last night, Michael and I made Pad Thai for the first time. It’s not a particularly difficult dish to create, and the two of us worked together gathering our ingredients while he chopped the peanuts in our coffee grinder (very effective!), and I chopped green onions in the more conventional method using knife and cutting board. We rather effortlessly created what turned out to be a scrumptious dish. We even made rice stick noodles which I had only eaten in a Chinese restaurant once or twice. When the Pad Thai was done, we put it in bowls, took out the chopsticks, and sat in front of the television to watch a DVD of Law and Order.

Since that kitchen experience, I've been reminded of how world culture can infuse our own "American" culture making it richer and "tastier." I am a teacher of AP and World Literature, and I revel in the stories of Ancient Greece, Rome, and Israel. There are stories I also enjoy from India, poetry from China and Japan, and the wonderful tales from the tribes of Africa are often very funny and teach rich lessons about living life to the fullest.

When one studies these cultures, the "spectre" of religion often comes up. I say spectre because in many, many cases, discussion of and thinking about other religions is seen as taboo and dangerous, especially by many Christians. After all, Christianity is called "The Way," and many Christians believe that Jesus is the only way to an eternal afterlife. Does that mean that no Jew will ever be in Yahweh's presence, no matter how devout he or she may have been in life; that no Muslim will ever see Allah, and that certainly no Hindu or Buddhist will ever arrive at his or her own understanding of the state of bliss? Taken to the extreme, it means that reading the poetry of Saadi or Rumi is anathema; that sitting meditation (based on Buddhist thought) or contemplative prayer is a questionable practice, at best, and that exploring archetypes from psychology based on the ancient Greek religion is foolish.

Jesus came to earth to teach us how to live. In that teaching, he lived a full life which ended in the ultimate sacrifice. That's an important key to the way I read holy scriptures. I think something very different goes on in the Gospels and especially during the Triduum than apparently most people think happens. If we look closely at his life, Jesus modeled so many practices that are holy and loving. He fed people; he blessed their lives with presence; he healed; he prayed. Very often, we just don't get it, and if there was atonement on the cross, the atonement was for our stupidity in not seeing how we are supposed to walk this labyrinth we call life.

But Jesus wasn't the only great person who has shown us how to live a sacrificial yet full existence. I have a friend who says, "Jesus was a person and Christ is the process he taught us. The spiritual life is about becoming en-Christed, not re-Jesus'd. We don't even know who Jesus is, but we do know what he taught us about becoming Christ." Jesus didn't have the market cornered on holiness, but he did call all people to be holy. In their own ways, so did Muhammed, Ghandi, Prince Sidhartha, and others.

Just as we can receive nourishment from the food of other cultures, and be entertained by their stories, so can we learn from the wisdom of both east and west--cultures close to our own, and those that seem very foreign. Having an open mind and an open heart can delight the senses and draw us closer to holiness--and to God.

Retreat with a Purpose

Just why would anyone want to be in solitude for fourteen days? What attraction does a sparsely equipped hermitage in the desert hold? What lessons are there to learn in the silence that isn't really silence; in the stillness that is left after the whirlwind and earthquake?

Some might speculate that a person chooses to go on a retreat like this one to seek healing and peace after traumatic life events occur. That's very probable and was certainly on my agenda when I made plans to go to Nada. I was fairly sure while preparing to be in solitude that I would think about my dad's passing and my son's troubles and all that means to me in my current situation. I also knew I was going to explore my decision about vocational discernment, and about what it would mean to stay with teaching young adults for up to five more years. Surprisingly, I spent only a little time dealing with those hurtful places, and the vocational discernment just felt more and more "right" as I thought about the ministry that I could now do because my life would not be consumed with becoming a priest.

Mostly, however, I just stopped to listen. Sometimes a thought would "pop" into my head or an angel would whisper a sweet remembrance in my ear of a God who loves me. It only took a day or so, and prayer became deep and rich and filled a longing in my soul that I often don't take the time to nourish when I'm "doing" life. One night at Nada when I was awake because I had taken an especially long and satisfying afternoon nap, I sat in the window seat gazing at the moonlit landscape. The moon was full and outshone many of the stars in that amazing sky, but there were also clouds that would occasionally cover the moon as she traveled slowly across my line of vision creating an other-worldly effect.

Earlier in the day, I read the Elijah and Elisha cycles in the Book of First and Second Kings. These stories are really entertaining as well as insightful. Of course, Nada, is a Carmelite Community which harkens back all the way to Elijah and his school of prophets on Mt. Carmel in northern Israel. I was especially struck by God's coming to Elijah on Mt. Horeb. God wasn't in the strong wind, nor earthquake, nor fire. God was in the gentle breeze and spoke with a still, small voice.

God is present in the hermitage in the same way God was present to Elijah on Mt. Horeb. The gentle breeze, the amazing sky, the moonlight, the desert flower, the gentle rain all contributed to my recognition of God's presence in and around me there in that place of solitude. I heard God speak in my heart, and the words were about love. When my prayers had words to them, I prayed for strength to remain present and to meet Love with love. And that became my work in the hermitage.

In the past, retreats have afforded me the opportunity to go to liturgies as early as 3:20 AM and to fill my days with the rich prayers of Trappist tradition. This retreat allowed me time to simply be. I didn't fast; I didn't have a set schedule of waking and resting. I didn't even have a set schedule for meals. My only "discipline" was to sing Compline (from memory) each evening, and to wash the dishes as the sun set in order to see it from my kitchen window. I somehow realized I was ready to give up the illusion of being a spiritual athlete and to simply be gentler with myself.

Of course, my ego tried to shoulder its way into the hermitage. It's still fighting for an identity I've decided not to give it, at least not in the most accepted form of that identity. Knowing that God loves me is all that I can promise my ego at this point. Loving us, however, does not mean giving into our every whim or granting wishes like the magic genii. It's up to me, through prayer, to figure out where Love extends and when the magic thinking takes over.

I believe my retreat at Nada has allowed me to become truer to myself. I am growing older, and my circumstances are changing. But external expectations can no longer be the basis for my decisions in life. From now on, my decisions will be based on who I am and who I want to become as I continue to grow more and more in the image and likeness of Christ. That's what I learned at Nada. That was the purpose of my retreat.

Desert Baptism

During my retreat at Nada, I celebrated the anniversary of my baptism. I can remember the actual event since I was baptized as a teenager in another Protestant expression of our faith. I even remember what dress I wore, and how it felt to be "dunked," as we used to say. Baptism by immersion, of course, is the preferred method of baptism, even in the Episcopal Church, but so many of us have never even seen a baptismal pool in a church. The first summer I studied in Santa Fe, the Cathedral where we worshipped did not have a baptismal pool, but when I returned to visit four years later, I discovered they had built a pool right in the center of the church. It reminds all who enter that there is a sacramental method and means for entering into the Christian community.

That particular morning was quiet. It was so cool that I had turned off the small electric fan I was using to circulate the air. Occasionally, the glass or the roof of the solar passive hermitage would "pop," or I would hear a bird chirp, but not even the wind was stirring. There were large cumulus clouds draped over the tops of the Sangre de Cristo, as well as clouds gathering over the San Juan Range, but otherwise the sky was that incredible Colorado blue. Because there had been rain the last two afternoons, the nights turned off cool enough to sleep under a quilt.

I lay down to rest about 3:00 in the afternoon, and shortly afterwards, it began to rain. I thought of Langston Hughes who said, "Let the rain sing you a lullaby." At first there were just a few sputtering drops which dried quickly upon hitting the sand, but then a heavy rain with lightening, thunder and hail began. I moved to the window seat so that I could see what a real desert storm looked like. After a while, the pounding rain let up, but a gentle shower continued to fall. I went out for a walk and found standing puddles on the driveway and foot path between my hermitage and Agape, the main building. The air was cool and clean and smelled of fresh pine.

When I got back from my walk, I put on water for tea, and sat in the rocking chair just enjoying the sound of crickets, the daily visit of the birds, and the squirrel who came to see if I had "accidentally" dropped another apple core on my front stoop. Seeing so much beauty was a feast for my eyes. The rain had baptized the desert, and I could not help but think of Psalm 107:35. "He turns a desert into pools of water, a parched land into spring of water." More than the Psalms, however, Isaiah resonates with water imagery. In Isaiah 35.1, the prophet says, "The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus." It did seem to me that the blooms of wildflowers grew more vivid after each rain and danced happily in the breeze. In Isaiah 35.6, we hear "then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy. For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert." When I read this verse, I could not help but think of the deer that made it's bed outside my kitchen window that night. And in Isaiah 43.19, "I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert." Read allegorically, this verse promises renewal for the one who finds life has become a bit of a dry desert. I will put you on notice, however, that even what seems like desert can be a deceptively beautiful place once you learn to read the signs and pay attention to the springs of water!

Being Present to God—Part II—God in Nature

After a couple of days in solitude, I began to notice things about my environment. There actually is much more to the desert than sand. In the apparent barrenness of the desert, there is life. A flock of blue-gray birds with which I am unfamiliar made daily stops in front of my hermitage. There must have been a 100 or more of them, and they frolicked and played in the Piñon trees and searched for insects in the sandy ground. Chipmunks and brown squirrels skirted to and fro in front of my window, and the landscape was blooming with varieties of cactus and thistle and wildflowers. Surely our Celtic forbears would have connected the beauty of nature with the presence of God and bless God's goodness in providing a world filled with creatures lovely to behold. "When we love the world that God loves, we love God, because it is God's Spirit that holds all creation in existence" (Fr. Eric Harrar).

I also noticed signs of death-in-life. There were bones of animals either killed or that died naturally in and around the gully in front of my hermitage. I'm pretty sure they were the remains of a large animal--perhaps a deer--since there were several live ones in the area. One evening as I was taking sunset photos, a deer came out from behind my hermitage and walked within ten feet of me. She was not frightened by my being there, and casually strolled over to a bush and began to eat berries from it. Eventually she walked back toward the hermitage--by this time I had been driven inside by the mosquitoes--and she bedded down under a tree right outside my kitchen window. I made a point to do the dishes at 8:30 each evening so that I could watch the sunset over the San Juan Range. Now I had a deer silhouetted in the foreground of the gloriously colored evening sky. Even washing the dishes became a mystical experience.

Part of my meditative practice during the solitude of my retreat was to create a mandala out of natural objects in the area surrounding my hermitage. I went out several mornings to collect these items. I ended up with pebbles, seeds, grasses, pine and pinion cones and nuts, and a feather. I also picked some cactus leaves. I had no ideas what the mandala would look like or what I was trying to say through creating it, but I am very happy with the outcome. Here's a photo:

Being Present to God—Part I

Being in the St. Thérèse hermitage here at Nada makes me think of the beach on the South Carolina coast. There are miles of sand creeping right up to the door, blowing in through the screened windows and leaving a gritty coating on every surface. It’s difficult to walk in as well. Unlike being at the beach, however, there’s no ocean just over the ridge; no salt smell in the air. Walk as long as you care to, and you’ll come to verdant pastures a lot sooner than you’ll arrive at an ocean shore. Life’s journey is somewhat like that. We become dissatisfied with the sand that banks around our front steps and aggravated at having to sweep and wipe up the grains on the floor and furniture, so we set out to climb the ridge and search for the ocean.

That search, or pilgrimage, is an attempt to travel to sacred places looking for whatever our restless hearts think will satisfy the longing we feel. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, for even great saints like Augustine declared, “God, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you." While I think going on a pilgrimage is a wonderful idea, I would like to suggest a different approach. Granted, I traveled quite a distance to discover these ideas—more than half way across the country—but once I was there, I stayed put for thirteen days. Fr. Eric Haarar, a resident priest at Nada says, “Yes, God is present everywhere. But we are not. We are the ones who are so often absent. Sacred times and places do not make God more present to us, they make us more present to God.” Staying put in a small hermitage that had a micro-kitchen on one wall, a desk on the opposite wall, a bedroom large enough for a single bed and table, and a bath was the setting I needed to make myself more present to God.

And, so, I ask myself, “How do I make myself present to the God that I know is present in me?”

While on retreat, I had copious opportunity to read, write, pray, and meditate. I decided to consider what the early church fathers and mothers said about being present to God. For example, Isaac the Syrian said, “The ladder of the Kingdom is within you, hidden in your soul. Plunge deeply within yourself, away from sin, and there you will find steps by which you will be able to ascend.” Gregory of Nyssa said, “All the heavens fit into the palm of God’s hand. And though [he] is so great that [he] can grasp all creation in [his] palm, you can wholly embrace [him]; [He] dwells within you, nor is [he] cramped as [he] pervades your entire being.” God is so big that God is beyond our understanding, rational minds, yet God fills us completely and makes that presence known through the God in us, or the Holy Spirit. St. Teresa of Avila, one of the patrons of the Carmelites said, “Within oneself, very clearly, is the best place to look for God… and it’s not necessary to go to heaven, nor any further than our own selves; for to do so is to tire the spirit and distract the soul without gaining much fruit.”

Maybe that’s why our hearts grow restless. Looking inside oneself can be a struggle because sometimes I think, very often, we don’t think we will like ourselves very much. Morton Kelsey tells a story about a patient of Carl Jung. The man was a minister who was exhausted from overwork. Jung instructed him to limit his work hours and to spend some time alone each day. For a number of evenings the minister went into his study, played the piano, and read books from his library, but several days later returned to Jung feeling no better. Jung asked him what he had done to follow the simple prescription, and when the minister told him, Jung replied, “But you didn’t understand! I didn’t want you with Hermann Hesse or Thomas Mann, or even Mozart or Chopin. I wanted you to be all alone with yourself.” At this the minister looked terrified and gasped, “Oh, but I can’t think of any worse company!” to which Jung replied, “And yet this is the self you inflict on other people fourteen hours a day.”* It doesn’t have to be that way. We can cultivate a friendship with ourselves, and ultimately with the God within. God wants to fill the God-shaped hole, and frankly, only God can do that.

I thought it would be hard sitting in a hermitage with only myself and God for company, but as it turned out, the days went by far too fast. At the end of my retreat, I felt a new freedom and a deep sense of trust that God would lead me where God wants me to be.

(Kelsey, Morton. The Other Side of Silence. New York: Paulist Press, 1976.)

Nada Hermitage Retreat

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View from St. Therese Hermitage at Nada Community in Creston, Colorado

I returned home today from a two week solitary retreat in a hermitage at the Nada Community (http://www.spirituallifeinstitute.org/Nada.html). The photo above is what I saw from my hermitage each morning. I can't really say much right now about my time away, for I must sit with the experience for a while longer. After reflection and taking time to look back at my journaling, I will share some of what I believed I heard and saw. For now, please enjoy a few of the photos that I took while traveling through New Mexico to Colorado.

God In a Box

For the past several weeks I have been reflecting on the theological issue of the centrality of Jesus Christ in our faith. When Jesus is central in a person’s theology and heart, then like the labyrinth, the path radiates and spirals inward toward the heart and outward toward the world. Journeying on this path provides growth and transformation. According to Caroline Adams, this journey continuously expands our vision of what is possible, stretching our souls, learning to see clearly and deeply, listening to our intuition, [and] taking courageous challenges at every step along the way (http://www.lessons4living.com/labyrinth.htm). On this journey believers become pilgrims who grow more and more into the likeness of Christ. Additionally, symbols become richer and more useful in our prayers as we begin to include the wisdom of those who call God by other names. This idea is the story of Pentecost, a story that takes us beyond our own borders to the fertile ground found in other nationalities, languages, and cultures.

To deliver his message effectively, Jesus used such symbols as sheep, fig trees, and lost coins. Not only our culture, but many world cultures are rich in symbols. As one of my friends says, “A Buddha [symbolically] reminds me to ‘choose peace’ which leads me directly to ‘the peace that passes all understanding’ and ‘Be still and know that I am God’.” Writing in the first century, Saint Paul said, “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things” (Philippians 4:8, NIV).

Can we find Jesus present in places that are outside the four walls of the church? In his book, Christ of the Celts, J. Philip Newell describes the Celtic pattern of worship that included gathering around “high standing crosses in the context of earth, sea and sky. The emphasis was that the creation itself was the Sanctuary of God” (Newell 110). Besides the natural world, I find Christ present in the poetry and novels that I teach in my high school classroom. I find God present in the community that forms around the preparation and sharing of good food. I even find Christ present in principles I learn from philosophy and the practice of yoga.

Let me illustrate with an example. In the fall I had a student with whom I had several conflicts. During this time, The Center for Spiritual Development sponsored a retreat that included a presentation on Akido, a Japanese martial art. One of the principles of Akido is that when people are engaged in conflict there is wasted energy because the two parties are pushing hard against each other. Instead of engaging in the conflict, one should attempt to turn the opponent in the same direction. In Akido, this turning is done physically, but after hearing the presentation, I realized that I could end the conflict in my classroom by turning my student in the direction I wanted him to go. A few days later, I talked with my student, and it wasn’t long before other students in the classroom were commenting on how much more enjoyable class was since that particular student had stopped acting out. To put this scenario into a Christian context, one can remember the words of John of the Cross who said, "Where there is no love, put love, and there you will find love."

Being confident in one’s own standing with Christ allows a person to color outside the lines. Spiritual growth results from being challenged and provoked by new ideas—or even old ideas that have to be rediscovered. These ideas lead to connections and revelations that if grounded in prayer and discernment will always return us to the Trinity. With Carl Jung we can affirm, "Summoned or not, God is present.”
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Newell, J. Philip. Christ of the Celts: The Healing of Creation. San Franciso: Jossey-Bass, 2008.

Summer Reading

My summer break officially began today, and I promptly arose and marched outside to confront the army of weeds and nut-grass that has taken over my gardens. Armed with my weed-eater and a newly charged battery, I took out legions of unwanted growth that were choking my day lilies and irises. After about an hour of that work, I watered the plants on the front porch, visited the vegetable garden to find some zucchini and a few more green beans, then I came inside to fix a light breakfast and took it to the patio to enjoy the breeze and cool temperatures. The dogs spent the time with me by frolicking in the too high grass which my husband would get to later in the day.

Now it’s late afternoon. We’re having leftovers for dinner. My daughter and her fiancé were here for Sunday dinner yesterday, and there is plenty left for the two of us to eat tonight. I’ve been reading this afternoon, and I thought I’d share a few books that might be interesting to some of you for summer time reading. These three books have been meaningful to my journey, and I hope that they may feed you as well.

The first offering is Scarred by Struggle; Transformed by Hope by Joan Chittister, OSB. Joan is a fellow struggler in this life journey and in this book she shares her own journey and what she has learned from it. She says, “…[W]e have overlooked those things in life that are really the ground of our truest strengths: the possibility of conversion, the call to independent thinking, faith in the presence of companioning God, the courage to persist, surrender to the meanings of the moment, and a sense of limits that leads us to take our proper place in the human race.” Some of the chapters include “The Struggle of Change,” “The Gift of Conversion,” “ The Struggle of Isolation,” “The Struggle of Darkness,” “The Gift of Faith,” and “The Gift of Courage.” May your hope grow as you look at the struggles of life with Joan in this wonderful book.

A second book that I have found useful on my journey is Richard Rohr’s The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See. This book is about being spiritually awake and is specifically for those who are interested in contemplative Christianity. At the same time, Rohr offers some excellent guidance in nondual leadership in the chapter, “What Every Good Leader Knows.” Rohr says, “When you are ready, you will know you are standing under the same waterfall of mercy as everybody else and receiving an undeserved radical grace, which gets to the root of everything. Without that underlying experience of God as both abyss and ground, it is almost impossible to live in the now; in the fullness of who I am, warts and all, and almost impossible to experience the Presence that, paradoxically, always fills the abyss and shakes the ground.” The great mystics of every tradition invite us to know better and Rohr shows us ways to do so.

Finally, J. Philip Newell’s book, Christ of the Celts: The Healing of Creation is simply beautiful. He takes us to Iona where he was warden for a time and also to New Mexico where he is now residing. Newell touches us with stories of Julian of Norwich, George Macleod, and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. He speaks of the brokenness of our world, the discords in our communities and the struggles of the most important relationships of our lives. He also discusses how true union sets us free to be radically ourselves. He states, “It is in relationship that we find our wholeness, not in separation. For we are one.” If you are interested in healing—the healing of all creation—then this book is a must read.

So there are three books you might look into for summer reading. I’ll post more titles here from time to time, but these are a good start. If you read them, please return to this post and comment on your experience and what you received from them.

The Garden

The air is cool this morning. I love stepping out onto my patio to watch the sun come up changing the clouds from one lovely pastel shade to another. Sometimes the pinks are more predominant; sometimes the yellows stand out. Too soon, though, there’s the ubiquitous pastel blues and fluffy white of clouds. And the bird song, ah, how wonderfully melodic!

I missed our hummingbirds this year. I put the feeder out shortly after our friend, Barbara, left, but it has remained untouched. The geraniums in the window box are gorgeous, and Monday, I picked a "mess" of green beans from our garden in the back. We have tomatoes on the vine, squash, peppers, carrots, watermelon, and cantaloupe. I felt so blessed to be able to eat beans last night that I had grown. Somehow it connects me to my grandparents who were subsistence gardeners (in order to feed their ten children), and gives me hope for the future metaphorically of inner growth and expressing my creative energies in new and different ways.

The rains have been much more normal this year. That doesn’t mean that I can let my careful gardening slacken off, however. There’s grass growing between the rows of veggies that needs pulling, and I still need to water every other day for now. Inside all the houseplants are thriving thanks to a recent dose of plant food. The dogs enjoy going out early and late with me to run and play. The trees we planted four years ago are finally showing a lot of growth, and my dreams of a little backyard Eden are looking more promising everyday.

Sometimes in the dry months, we wonder where God is—why God doesn’t send rain when we need it so badly. We want to know why there’s no obvious growth and the plants are withering and stunted. In this season of water, however, it’s easy to see the blessings of a healthy biosphere where sun and rain work together to promote growth.

What metaphor is present in that bit of rambling for my own life? What sympathetic and empathetic lessons can I find in the backyard garden I’ve struggled to grow for six years now? For me, the answer lies in patient waiting for the fruit to be gathered, and then to rejoice in the harvest—however small it may be. This season, I’ve seen copious irises, my rose bush was ablaze with color, and the Ligustrum next to the house is full of little blooms each filling my breathing with fragrance. And God has been present in that fullness just as God was present in the dry months of the past years. During that time, perhaps God was working even harder at sustaining my natural and spiritual environment so that I could return to this fullness with joy and certitude. Thanks be to God!

I, Jacob

A friend was talking with me about being wounded by life's events and how we carry those wounds all of our lives. I think Jacob is a Biblical character who exemplifies carrying the wound into wisdom.

I Jacob
deceiver of my father
cheater of my brother
ultimately more clever than my uncle
and yet afraid
afraid of the consequences
of retribution for the places where ambition took me
I dreamed of a ladder to heaven
where angels
were ascending and descending
and I was afraid

In the darkness on the Canaanite plain
I wrestled with God
my strength held for a while
and after all I had done
I dared to ask for a blessing
God sighed as if God felt enough were enough
and God changed my name

But
I will always
walk with a
limp

Barbara Crafton at St. James

Now that I have begun to wear reading glasses—or when I wear regular glasses which have bifocals—I understand much better the phrase “not seeing something right under one’s nose.” This lovely mixed metaphor (which should more accurately read “not smelling something right under one’s nose) indicates that something is RIGHT THERE in plain view. It’s a reminder that something one can’t find is actually there.

Lent has come upon us, once again, and perhaps we find ourselves reminded that we need God in a real and palpable way. Rainer Maria Rilke, a Bohemian-Austrian poet said,

That’s when I want you—
you knower of my emptiness,
you unspeaking partner to my sorrow—
that’s when I need you, God, like bread.

To experience God in a way that feeds our souls like bread feeds our bodies, we have to make the effort to connect to the divine spark in order to receive that nourishment. Lent is a time to take on the gentle disciplines of watching our “spiritual diet,” if you will permit me to stretch Rilke’s metaphor. In our parish at St. James, Fr. Geoff has suggested that each of us take on the “gentle discipline” of saying a single prayer together each morning and each evening. The church office printed cards for us to carry in our pockets with the prayers printed on them. Adding a mid-week service to our discipline or joining a book study is another way to feed our souls. Accepting the discipline of self-examination and perhaps speaking to a trusted friend about the sins that hinder our ability to love is yet another way to make that connection to the Divine.

On Saturday, March 20th, the Reverend Barbara Crafton will be at St. James to lead a Lenten quiet day. Barbara is an internationally known writer and preacher. She is also the author of The Almost Daily eMo, an emailed meditation that goes to the inboxes of those who sign up to receive it. Barbara’s website is http://geraniumfarm.org/home.cfm, and you can find many resources there to help you in your spiritual journey. Barbara says,

“If it’s true that everyone really has only one sermon, here is mine: Life is hard, but God is good. I have been thinking for some years about the emotional rhythm of human life — the normal rhythm of it, as well as the rhythm of its disturbance. My most recent book, Jesus Wept, deals with the manner in which the life of faith interacts, for good as well as for ill, with clinical depression. We will look back at our lives, the joys and sorrows of them, and come to terms with the presence of God in it all.”

I invite you to join The Saint James Center for Spiritual Development in experiencing this quiet day. We are RIGHT HERE for you to help you in your spiritual journey, to provide events and quiet days that nourish your soul and help you find the God that joins us in our struggles and successes. The schedule for the quiet day will be as follows:

8:30 Registration and continental breakfast
9:15 Welcome and first meditation
10:30 Reflection time
11:00 Second meditation
11:45 Noonday Prayer followed by lunch
1:00 Third meditation
1:45 Reflection time
2:30 Small group discussion
3:45 Eucharist

There is scholarship money to help if you are in need of assistance thanks to a generous member of St. James. The registration fee of $75 includes continental breakfast, lunch and a book written by Barbara. To register, pick up a registration form after any of the three services on Sunday from the table in the narthex. You may also download the registration form from the Center’s website: http://saintjamescenter.org/default.html.