"Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?"  Matthew 20:22

Our cabinet is filled with mismatched coffee cups. While some have been a part of a set and have broken, the collection is really intentional. Each morning I open the cabinet and take out the one that fits my mood, my need in the moment. This morning I took out one cup only to return to the cabinet to choose a different one. Since the colors or styles don't differ greatly, it is some ways a strange ritual. And yet it makes sense to me and sets the tone for my day.

Some days I need the weight and strength of a larger cup, one with more clay per inch. I hold it with solid hands, grasping the fullness of its form. Other mornings I reach for the one remaining wide mouthed daintier cup. I hold its pale green close to my face while the steaming coffee warms my face.

In addition to being utilitarian, the cup is a wonderful metaphor. The fact is we don't always get to choose the cup from which we drink. Sometimes the cup of sorrow or illness chooses us. Sometimes we are forced to drink from cups too heavy or to fragile. It is the nature of living fully. Sometimes we choose a cup that is too big for us and we spill its contents unmercifully. Most often we underestimate ourselves and choose a cup that is too small to hold all we have to offer the world.

At some point of this day you will no doubt drink from a cup. I hope you will not take it for granted. If nothing else remember that it was formed by hands that you do not know, most probably by someone who was paid very little to create it. If you are lucky you will drink from a cup shaped by an artist whose passions still live indelibly in the shape and creativity you now cradle. Cups are not to be taken lightly so savor not only what you drink from the cup, but the cup itself. It offers itself to you for your sustenance and your enjoyment.

"Bestower of Life, Abundant Love, Trusted Companion, Eternal Wisdom, I pray your blessing to be upon this cup and upon myself. Make of this cup a sacred vessel as I pray with it each day. May this cup become my teacher, helping me to find my way to you. May this cup hold many messages of your wisdom and your comfort. May this cup connect me with life and create in me a generous heart. May this cup draw me ever closer to loving oneness with you."  ~Joyce Rupp

"Luckily some youthful dreams never see daylight. A world of nothing but firemen, astronauts and ballerinas would indeed be a nightmare. There's another dream in creation today, and this is one the world really needs."

This was my horoscope today. While it was meant for my 'sign', it seems to me it could be shared by everyone, no matter their birth date. Reading it I thought of the circuitous route my own life has taken. I assume most people can claim something similar. As a child I wanted to be a nurse,a librarian, an archaeologist, a dancer, an actress, an opera singer, a teacher, a writer. As I reflect on my life today, I probably have an amalgamation of all those in the work I find myself doing, the work to which I feel I have been called by a power that is greater than any career counselor, any interest assessment.

I believe each person has gifts the world needs. This is outlined in our scriptures and the wisdom stories of all cultures. How we are 'hardwired' for those gifts continues to nag at us until we answer the deep call within us to explore, develop, hone and share those gifts with the world. I often think that so much of the mental and spiritual anguish that exists in people's lives comes from never having the opportunity to share the deep gifts of that lie within.

Today is a good day to look within to see what those gifts are that simmer beneath the surface of our days, of our longings. Are we paying attention to the nudges, the Spirit touches that urge us toward our deepest dreams? What if….what if….only we can bring the most needed gifts to this day, this time, this place, our world? Would we want to withhold what has been given us to share? I don't think so.

January days are meant for ruminating, for dreaming, for looking deep within for the pearl of wisdom and warmth that needs to be born in winter's cold and dark. January days are ripe for looking for the 'dream of creation' waiting to be born. Are you ready to dream? Are you willing to share?

Enjoy the weekend……………………

"If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in
contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human
potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in
which each diverse human gift will find a fitting place."~Margaret Mead

"There are things your can't reach. But
you can reach out to them, and all day long.
The wind, the bird flying away. The idea of God.
And it can keep you as busy as anything else, and happier……."
~excerpt, Mary Oliver,'Where Does the Temple Begin, Where Does It End?

Yesterday started out to be like most other days. Rise early, read the paper accompanied by my morning cup of coffee, a little bit of this, breakfast, a little bit of that. Good morning and goodbyes to my husband and son, and then off to the office. Driving along between the Twin Cities, listening to the radio, half-listening really, not noticing much of anything that passed by me.

And then at the lip of the Mendota Bridge, my eyes were drawn skyward and there it was. An eagle, soaring above the bridge, floating on the gray mist of a Minnesota winter morning. It hovered a moment and then positioned itself to fly right across my on-coming path. I saw the definition of its feathers, the white of its head, the golden yellow of its beak, its strong, beady eye. I felt the fullness of its presence.

And just like that, what had been ordinary became extraordinary. I had been blessed by the flight of an eagle. How could anything else in my day go wrong or be better? Later in the day, as I took a quick trip to a sandwich shop for lunch, I was once again not completely present to my surroundings. Turning a corner onto a snowy street, the red flash of a cardinal swooped over my path. He flew close to the ground, seeming to say:"Look at me! Look at me!" And so I did. Brilliant red against the whiteness of nearly everything else visible.

So what started out as a typical Tuesday morning became a day to be blessed by birds. I began to wonder what these winged ones might be trying to tell me. What might their offering be to someone bundled up in down and wool, now entrenched in the throes of winter? I'm still reflecting on their gift of wonder, of beauty, of wildness. Somehow the mere memory of their presence lifts me above the frozen landscape. Maybe that is gift enough.

“Life can only be understood looking backward. It must be lived forward.” from 'The Curious Care of Benjamin Button'

A button is not something we think about much these days. Buttons are utilitarian, a must. We lose them. We find them. We sew them back on and away we go.

But yesterday as I watched 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button', the opening credits held a frame with a cascade of buttons of all shapes and sizes. One by one they fell, until the whole screen was a sea of buttons. The movie was lovely and I recommend it. But my memory today is not of Brad Pitt or the amazing actors who told this unusual story originally created by F. Scott Fitzgerald. My memory is of my grandmother.

My grandmother was poor by the world's standards. Her house was small, warmed by coal heat as so many were in the area. It had been added onto once or twice, not by architects who measured and planned well, but by regular folks who knew how to build what needed to be built to serve a purpose. I would go to her house for over -nights and we would  make fudge and work thousand piece puzzles, snuggled by the coal burner. She lived most of the life in which I knew her, alone, my grandfather having died when I was very young. I looked forward to those visits because they often included playing with the button box.

The button box was kept by her sewing machine. It contained hundreds of buttons…small ones, large ones, mostly ordinary ones. But nestled in the box were also buttons made of mother-of-pearl, or rhinestone buttons that looked like diamonds. There were colorful buttons in the shape of flowers, or little sailboats for, perhaps, a sailor dress. I would pour the buttons onto a tray and look at them, like someone panning for gold. Often I would ask if I could take a certain one home and, being given permission, would tuck the treasure in my pocket.

Buttons are ordinary things. But my grandmother's button box provided, for me, a glimpse into the mystery of her life before her face was loose with wrinkles. As I fingered those rhinestone buttons, I imagined what she must have had that carried those shiny ornaments. Where did she wear it? What was she like when she was young and wearing glamorous clothes?

As children, none of us can really know our grandparents or parents as they were known by their peers. We cannot imagine them carefree, or cool,or staying out all night dancing till dawn in the arms of someone we've never met. We can only see them through our relationship with them.Those of us who are parents are reminded daily of this fact.

The button box now lives in our attic. It is one of the only things I asked for after her death. I'm glad I have it for it holds the ordinary and the extraordinary, the known and the mystery, the plain and the fancy, all a part of my grandmother's life. Just as it is for each of us.

"The journey we begin as we answer the call is long, and filled with all that we have been and all that we will become."  Cairistiona Worthington

Do you remember those little plastic puzzles that had movable squares within the frame? The point was to move the small squares until you could form the complete picture that would become visible as you moved pieces around and around trying to find the perfect maneuver that would spell success.. When that happened…voila! Your picture was complete. That's how these days after the Christmas season seem to me, as we move the tree this way so we can put the chair back over there. The table goes to the side so we can put the box that holds the things that only come out at Christmas where the table sat. And so it goes….on and on until, eventually, order is restored and the picture becomes complete again.

I love the feeling of Christmas in our house. The twinkling lights, the smell of evergreen, the decorations that we have collected over the years, all holding their own history, their own story. But I am also glad when it is time to take the tree down, put away all the 'extra', and work from a cleaner slate. It somehow fits the spirit of a new year. "The ordered space is the ordered mind.", someone said. And, for me, that is true.

Each new year is also like those plastic puzzles. There is the frame of what is to come and the little squares that we are called upon to move this way and that way until things begin to become clearer. Ahh…we say…so this is how it's going to be. The picture of this particular year in our lives becomes visible to us in small increments, sometimes becoming very clear and other times all in a jumble, waiting for a few more moves to get any sense of where we are headed. This is the gift of a new year.

The boxes are on their way back to the attic now, safe until next year when they will be unpacked to help us create a Christmas scene. By that time next year, the small squares of 2009 will have been moved into near completion and the surprise will be over, the puzzle solved.

I hope the task of creating the picture, of solving the puzzle, will be mostly filled with good times, happy times and I will be given the gift of patience for the work of its creation. I pray for courage and tenacity for those moments when the puzzle becomes too difficult and I want to give up in frustration. 

This is my prayer for us all……………