“In those years, people will say, we lost track
of the meaning of ‘we,’ of ‘you’
we found ourselves
reduced to ‘I’
and the whole thing became
silly, ironic, terrible:
we were trying to live a personal life
and yes, that was the only life
we could bear witness to.

But the great dark birds of history screamed and plunged
into our personal weather.
They were headed somewhere else but their beaks and pinions drove
along the shore, through the rags of fog
where we stood, saying ‘I’.”
~Adrienne Rich

It is often interesting to me how certain words show up just when you need them. These words of Adrienne Rich showed up in my email at some point of this week. I have been thinking about community a lot over the last several days. I have been thinking about the immense value I place on community and how that is different, for me, from the lesser value I place on institution. I recognize that for many people they are synonymous or at least connected in ways that for me they are not. These thoughts have been working their talons into my psyche and spirit as I have tried to come to grips with many of the complex issues facing our church and our world. Rich’s poem helped some of the scales to fall from my eyes.

While I have now lived the majority of my life in an urban setting, my DNA has its home in small town living. I know from personal experience the great gifts and curses of growing up where everybody knows your name, who your parents are, what your family stands for. This intricately woven fabric of community has held me, shaped my way of moving in the world and given muscle and bone to my theology, my God talk. The deep ways this is true come out to show their true colors at very important and sometimes inopportune times.

Those of us who call ourselves United Methodists are living in an institution that is struggling. Struggling to find its voice. Struggling to know its identity. Struggling to understand what it means to hold the whole world within its walls. Struggling with what it means to be welcoming of all people, when all really means all. It is a struggle we share with other institutions, many of whom have made deep changes that have brought pain and transformation and a crisis of faith. Others are entrenched in ways that are immovable. In my estimation, as an institution we have often reduced ourselves to a conglomeration of ‘I’s and have forgotten what it means to be ‘we’, if we ever truly knew.

What I took away from growing up in a small town was a clear yet unspoken understanding that I was connected to a whole bunch of people who had as many warts and beauty marks as I did. Somehow we were all in a common life together not because we were all alike but because in our differences we made a greater whole than any of us did individually. It is much like what the apostle Paul described in his visual of the followers of Jesus as a body with many parts, each with its own gifts and function. Each equal, each important, not because a doctrine or book deemed it so but because God did.

As I have wandered this wilderness of trying to make sense of these difficult times, I have come to see that it is the church as experienced community that sustains me and where I see the face of the Holy. The institution will continue to legislate and create structures that may support this experienced life or it may run counter to it. I may or may not have power to affect change in this structure. But by placing my energies in the on-going spirit of being present to the ‘we’ that is community I find hope and remember who I am.

For this I am fully and truly grateful.

It has been a practice of mine for some time to read the bumper stickers of the cars I encounter on the freeway and then to imagine the lives of the person who placed something of such permanence on their car. Since the ‘placer’ can’t actually see the message, it has always been clear to me that, while making a statement, their message carries an evangelistic bent. Its’ message is meant to influence others, bring them into the fold of a certain way of thinking or being. Specifically, the person who finds themselves following the message for a time. With the kind of stop and start traffic we are experiencing these days in the Twin Cities, with all the road construction that is both east and west and north and south, these bumper sticker messages can have a long time to work their magic.

The fact is I hadn’t seen any new rear-reading messages for some time. Until Thursday when I spent nearly twenty minutes following, stop and start, a car that had these words displayed proudly on their backside: ‘Positive Is How I Live’. My initial reaction was to smile broadly. What a wonderful thing to be sending these words into the Universe! As leader and follower inched along the freeway, dodging orange and neon yellow clad workers, I wondered if the person in the car in front of me was more patient than I. Were they taking advantage of our slow pace to listen to pleasant music or a book on tape, all the while not giving a hoot about the possibility of being late? Or, even better, had they left at an even earlier hour planning for how the ride would go? Were they, in fact, remaining positive?

Following this message for as long as I did caused me to think about the act, and the art, of being positive and its cousin, being negative. I like to believe that I live my life someplace in the middle. But I do notice how easy it is in our culture to always go to the negative. We are bombarded daily with negative advertisements. So many statements made by politicians and preachers, newscasters and plain, regular people are placed in the negative. The rash of reality television is often astounding to me and almost all of it is negative in nature.

I think of the truly positive people I am blessed to know, those people who have the gift of being fully present as they speak and listen. Their positive energy and equally positive words have a healing effect and always leave me feeling as if I have been renewed. The words they choose are often filled with possibility and hope which can be contagious. It is something I aspire to.

Positive is how I live. I would like to get up every morning and, despite the circumstances, choose this as my mantra for the day. Instead of succumbing to the steady stream of negative energy housed in words, I would like to be flinging the healing balm of negative’s opposite into the world. How about you? Would you also like to carry the message ‘positive is how I live’ to anyone who will experience it?

Perhaps we might hold a revival. Perhaps we might pitch our tent in the open field and call out all the positive messages we can. People might show up. We could sing songs together, nice, beautiful songs. Songs that would make us laugh and harmonize. We’d spend time telling stories and listening to one another as if we had the power to change the world. And who knows? We just might.

In the meantime, out on the congested freeways there is at least one person who is declaring their statement of faith in a 4 x 12 inch rectangle. This person shared their gospel with me. And now I am sharing it with you. Like all good messages, it is up to us what we do with it.

“Once while Jesus was standing beside the lake of Gennesaret, and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of Gd, he saw two boats there at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore.”
~Luke 5:1-3

On Saturday I sat on a boat for four hours waiting for a bobber to slip under the water. With several others I was fishing on Lake Mille Lacs as we all quietly(mostly) sat and stared at neon hued balls of plastic dance on the waves of this beautiful lake known for its good old Minnesota walleye. It felt as if summer had begun.

Now I don’t claim to be a great fisher person though I certainly live with those who love it. While I love riding in any boat whose owner invites me, I am not always so patient with the act of fishing. There is, of course, the whole baiting the hook thing and then also the compassion I have for the fish itself. But I realize for some that fishing is sport, for others necessity and for still others it is hope. What I learned on Saturday is that it is also something else. It is an act of contemplation.

You see while you are sitting in a boat you are already suspended in a precarious situation. You are floating on water, water that laps and waves and has the ability to lull you into a certain primal rhythm. For the most part, if you are fishing you are not thinking about swimming, so the boat becomes your home for the time being. Floating along while holding a rod and reel, your main focus is the bobber. Staring at the bobber, while floating on the water, allows you to breathe deeply and be in the present moment. After all if you take your eyes off the bobber you just might miss the chance to see that neon globe go down precipitating a whole other set of events. While you are staring your mind can ponder all kinds of things or nothing at all.

The nothing at all was my goal this past weekend. After four days of our Annual Conference, four days of lots of words, lovely though they were, had left me ready for a little quiet time. And so I was quite content sitting, staring, waiting, hoping. It was a meditation of sorts. Though every now and then someone would call out “fish on!” and a net would appear to scoop up a wiggly, shiny finned-one, I was able to keep my eyes on the water allowing the words that had backed up into the crevices of my spirit to ooze out and fall beneath the waves.

It caused me to think of all the number of times Jesus got into a boat. The stories in the scriptures have him sitting in boats, standing in boats, telling his buddies to fish on one side of the boat or the other. These words also tell of him sleeping in boats and, of course, walking right over the side of the boat and onto the water. Somehow he must have gotten the whole contemplative nature of boat thing, too. What better way to clear your head and refuel your spirit after all the healing and storytelling and preaching and loaf multiplying?

So here’s a recommendation. If you have a big decision or a small one on the horizon, go out in a boat, throw in a line and watch the bobber. Just stay with it. You might catch something or you might not. Maybe it really doesn’t make any difference. Maybe it is the act of floating on water and quieting our bodies while focusing on one thing at a time that is the primary gift of fishing. Maybe it is about being present in the moment and not flitting from one shiny thing to another. Maybe it is not about hauling in a net full of walleyes.

This is of course only my opinion. If you ask a real fisher person, they may have a whole other take on it. For them, it might really be about the fish.

“It is in the depths of life that we find you
at the heart of this moment
at the center of our soul
deep in the earth and its eternal stirrings.
You are the Ground of all being
the Well-Spring of time
Womb of the earth
the Seed-Force of stars.
And so at the opening of this day
we wait
not for blessings from afar
but for You
the very Soil of our soul
the very Freshness of morning
the first Breath of day.”
~John Philip Newell

This morning I have to confess to a bit of fatigue. Coming off our annual gathering of United Methodists around the state, I am finding, today, that the lack of sleep and the intense schedule has caught up with me. I felt it yesterday but some of that sleep deprivation has crept into today as well. So I was happy to read these words from one of my mentors, John Philip Newell.

I have always loved this imagine of God as the Ground of all being. I believe it was the theologian Paul Tillich who coined the phrase. It makes so much sense to me, this image of the Holy as that which holds and encompasses all that has being, all that has has life. I am sure for many people this image lacks a definition that they need but for me the phrase hits the nail on the head. On the days when I have a depth of awareness of all things sacred and on days like today, when I am in more of a fog, that Ground of all being is present. It is a comforting and powerful image.

Over time human beings have tried with all their might to define this Holy One. For some their experience is of a divinity that is far out of human reach, the God of sky and clouds. This is often the God we are offered in Sunday School and the one to which we say our “now I lay me down to sleeps.” Some people find this transcendent God to be the one that satisfies their whole life long.

For me, I have needed that God who gets down in the dirt with me, is down in the dirt with me, on a daily basis. This God is the one I witness in the face of the friend and the stranger. It is the God who suffers by my side at the injustice of our world, our church, our nation, our relationships. This is the God who is immanent, right here, right now, as a part of every breath I take, every movement both sacred and profane.

Of course, in reality, the experience of the Holy is both, transcendent and immanent. For this reason we need as many descriptors as possible….Ground of all Being…..Well-Spring of time…..Womb of the Earth…Seed-Force of stars…..Freshness…Soil…Breath….Father…..Mother…..Creator…..Lover…..Giver of Life…..

How are you experiencing the movement of the Holy in your life these days? What words are you using to name this sacred experience? By what name are you calling out to the Holy?

Whatever your experience, whatever metaphor seems to work, whatever the name, I have to believe it is all good.

So be it and blessed be.

“At one community meeting, we ran into a high-conflict issue. We ran out of time and agreed to postpone this issue until the following week. All week, emotions ran high and opposing views intensified. We eagerly assembled at the next meeting, impatient to get this issue resolved. This was a Quaker community-each meeting began with 5 minutes of silence. On this day, the clerk announced that, due to the intensity of this issue, we would not begin with our usual 5 minutes of silence. We all breathed a sigh of relief, only to hear her announce: “Today, we’ll begin with 20 minutes of silence.”
~a story told by Parker Palmer

Not long ago I read this anecdote in a book I had purchased. It was one of those ‘ahhhh’ moments for me because I was about to go into a meeting that would be filled with just such tension a few days in the future. I so wanted to be able to do a similar thing. In fact even five minutes of silence would have seemed a great way to begin this anticipated gathering. Unfortunately, this kind of silent practice is so foreign to my community, to most communities, that I was certain those present would have thought I had taken leave of my senses and so I plunged into the electrified group with a mere prayer, heart-felt but word-full. No silence held us in its wisdom as we began.

I don’t know about you but I find there are many times in my days when a good dose of silence would be just what was needed to begin a conversation, meeting or interaction. There are so few places where silence is allowed to move in like a morning mist and fill these spaces between breath and body. If you are honest, can you remember the last time you sat comfortably and allowed the absence of words to have its way with you?

Last week I listened to an interview with a person who is an acoustic ecologist. His commitment to being present to the absence of words and other human made sounds that douse us every day is quite remarkable. As an acoustic ecologist his work is to preserve the beauty and gift of the sounds of the natural world which include bird song, rushing and lolling rivers, the slow, constant flow of wind and the presence of silence. He is not about shutting out the sounds around as much as being present to them in a very intentional way that includes the ceasing of his own chatter and those around.

Over the last few weeks I have found myself in some gatherings than have been challenging. It is interesting to me how anxiety and fear can become palpable in a room and begin to take over what seems to be the good common sense of people. What does this mean? Something about situations that are fraught with contention and diverse opinions seem to cause us to turn ourselves inside out until we don’t recognize our own faces in the mirror. We cease to remember who we are and allow the pulse of this anxiousness to cloud our deepest goodness. It is a curious thing.

Just today I was in what could have been such a setting. A huge, divisive issue was before a large group of people. You could feel the tension beginning to mount and walls being erected as the issue began to unfold and the conversation began to take on a life in front of our eyes. I felt my chest begin to tighten and I wanted to flee the room while at the same time knowing that I needed to be in that space more than any other. I worked at slowing my breath, intent on being only in the discomfort of the present moment.

That was when our leader called for prayer. But instead of a prayer filled with words that might pull us one way or another, she simply allowed us first to sit in silence. More than seven hundred people sitting in silence together…..what a sound. The longer we sat the more the electricity in the air seemed to feel less jagged and become more of a gentle quivering. It seemed to me we nearly became of one breath. When the words of her prayer came we were finally ready to hear them with new ears and softer hearts.

Although I am a great lover of words, I have also come to see the deep need we all have for five minutes or twenty minutes of silence. Silence that descends at just the right time and enfolds us, reminding us who we really are.

Woke up this morning in St. Cloud where I am present for the gathering of United Methodists around the state of Minnesota. It is an annual gathering of both clergy and lay delegates for doing some of the work of the church. It is a time to meet old friends, worship together and be reminded of the broad swath of theological, social, political, economic and life experience tapestry we are when woven together. For me, personally, it is always a humbling experience and one that is a yearly reminder that this church which I chose at a young age is a complicated one, as all churches are.

The hotel room where I am staying faces east and since I had not pulled the shades before going to sleep last night, I was awakened early to the sun shining brightly through the window. Even though I could have slept later, I decided to get up early for a long morning walk along the river. Heading outside I was welcomed not only by the sun but also by the sound of the many trains that follow the paths over the river near the River’s Edge Civic Center. I do love the sound of a train so it had already started out to be a comforting morning walk.

But as I walked, I realized I was having an unusually intense feeling of comfort. What could it be, this sensation of calm and contentment? Then it hit me. In the air was the strong scent of bread baking. Looking ahead I saw that the Country Hearth Ovens buildings were just ahead. All around me bread was being baked on this sunny morning! I breathed in the sweetness and the fullness of the smell.

I have been told by those who should know that our sense of smell is the one that holds our deepest memories. I recall a conference years ago on the subject of children’s spirituality. People were asked to tell stories of their earliest spiritual experiences. I was struck with the number of stories told by people who had grown up in the Roman Catholic tradition, how the smells of their liturgy were so deeply meaningful. They told wonderful stories of how those scents shaped their experience of the Holy, how they gave meaning to their young understanding in ways words could not. I remember feeling sad for those of us who grew up in traditions that had chosen to remove the sense of smell from the actual practice of doing church. It seems a great loss.

My sense of smell is not one of my more developed senses. Our younger son has one of the most well honed senses of smell I have ever encountered. He can walk into a room and say ‘it smells like Mamgee in here’ and break out into a smile thinking of his grandmother. His deep ability has often helped trigger my own sense of smell. At his prompting I am able to smell aromas I might otherwise ignore. It is always a blessing.

How is your sense of smell? What scents trigger memory for you? Which smells bring comfort or the sense of a loved one unseen but now present because of this invisible component that rides on air? What smells repel you and cause you to want to flee?

As I think back to my earliest experiences of church it is probably not completely true that my olfactory nerves were not engaged. There was of course the smell of starch in the dress I was wearing and the Baby Powder my mother poured down my back before the scratchy but frilly fabric was buttoned up. There was the sweet scent of my mother’s perfume and the gentle odor of my father’s Old Spice wafting down the pew. There was the earthy, sweaty smell of my brother sitting next to me and all the various powders and perfumes of the full-bosomed older women whose warbling soprano voices hung in the air. In the summer when the windows were open in the church, there was the sweetness of apple blossoms and the pungent yellow smell of forsythia. There was the smell of cigarette and pipe tobacco lingering on the men’s clothes and yellowed fingertips, a smell both repulsive and rebellious. There was the smell of the peppermints my mother kept hidden in her purse within easy reach to pass to us when we fidgeted.

These smells may not have been frankincense or myrrh and they certainly were not swung in a fancy, gold sensor during procession. But they still evoked holy in their own way. Perhaps they still do.

On Saturday the Trivia question on the board at my neighborhood coffee shop read: “What was the original name for Memorial Day?” Someplace in the recesses of my caffeine deprived mind, the wheels began to work. “My parents always referred to it as Decoration Day.”, I answered. Ding, ding, ding! Correct answer, the barista replied.

I sat down to enjoy my morning coffee in the chair that has become familiar to me. The one that allows me to see the early comings and goings of those in the blocks that ring our little homeland. My body was in the chair but my mind was on time-travel mode and I was hurdling back to those sweltering,southern Ohio, May days of my childhood. Those days in which school was on only perfunctory attendance, a time for cleaning out desks and little celebrations of another grade completed. Those days when summer and all its promise loomed just within my reach.

But first, before the summer, came Decoration Day. There were flowers to be purchased or wreaths to be created. My mother was always very particular about what was appropriate to be laid on the graves of my grandparents, my uncle. Nothing too gaudy or showy but still colorful. The procession to the various cemeteries was a family affair. There was no chance of ‘getting out of it’ unless you were ‘on your death bed’. This was the day set aside to decorate the graves of those who had died and everyone’s presence was needed.

We visited my maternal grandmother and grandfathers’s grave first. This idyllic setting with its wooden, white church was set in a rather hilly area. Most of the gravestones carried the stamp of their Welsh heritage: Jones, Davis, Evans, Williams, Howell,over and over. My Gram and Pappy with the name Lambert seemed kind of exotic. As we placed the flowers, we also looked around the gray stone for stray weeds that the caretakers had missed. There would be the requisite clucking of tongues in invisible reprimand. While there at the graveside the adults would sometimes fall into conversation with others decorating graves nearby. It became a kind of reunion of people who may just have come to town for the weekend or an extension of a conversation that may have started in the grocery store between people who saw one another nearly daily. Yet everyone was there for the decorating.

After that there was often a parade. Short and consisting of the high school marching band and the veterans that marched in their uniforms from whatever war they had been involved in. As a teenager I was a part of this band but as a child I was just a bystander like everyone else. The parade ended at another cemetery where my paternal grandparents were buried along with an uncle who had died when I was in kindergarten. It was at this place where the full ceremony to honor the military dead took place. We all gathered around the flagpole for the gun salute. I never became accustomed to those gun sounds. They always jarred me to my marrow. Particularly during the Viet Nam war, the sound of these guns shooting so near by brought tears and rage to my young body. Too many from our town had served and too many had returned scarred for life in visible but mostly invisible ways. Finally there was the playing of taps, that mournful trumpet sound with its echo played from a far off place, over a hill in the distance that capped the drama we were all playing out.

As a child I did not understand what all this meant. As a teenager and young adult, I came to understand it all through the lens of the turbulence in which I was being shaped, by a world that was becoming less assured of what war and its consequences meant. As an adult that confusion continues.

My children and many of their age have no idea what Decoration Day is. They have no memory of visiting cemeteries the way one might visit a relative’s house. They may never worry over what wreath or what flowers to place on a grave. I am not sure what to make of all that. Whether it is simply the evolution of the way in which we honor those who have gone before or a silent act of the avoidance of death. All I know if that these were acts, rituals, that shaped me somehow and I am thankful for them. They helped me sort out some important things and tied me to a community, both living and dead, that I treasure. Whether Memorial or Decoration, it is an important day.

“Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.”
~ Mary Oliver

Tucked within a poem series simply called ‘Sometimes’, Mary Oliver offers these four lines, these instructions for living. Over a lifetime we receive many people’s opinions for living life. I am thinking of all those who are donning graduation caps and gowns these May days. Whether graduating from preschool or high school or college, advice for how to live this thing we call life will flow from well meaning speakers. I have been one of those and know the gift and challenge of trying to shape words that might mean something to people sitting in those odd, yet traditional shrouds of swishy fabric. If only I had read these thirteen words before I, no doubt, bored a group of high school seniors on the night of their graduation.

Every day my life is filled with distractions. Is yours? The act of paying attention is an art. An art I have been trying to perfect for some time. While I know it is as elusive as my being able to play a Chopin concerto or dance in the ballet, I keep practicing. The message I continue to send myself is that this life goal may never be completely accomplished but with intentional practice I might actually get better at it.

And so each day, I vow to pay attention. More and more. More often. With greater intention. With a fiercer intensity. And the month of May is such a fabulous time to be about the work of paying attention. The world around is coming alive and being so bold in making a show. At our home we have been living in ‘iris season’ as the color purple in a myriad of tones is shooting forth color into the world. Whole days could be spent staring into the face of an iris. We have also been holding our breath as the first lupine blooms a brilliant pink in a slow meditative way from its bottom blossoms to the tips of its cone shape. All this while other sweet, less showy flowers begin their summer lives near by.

In the air over these works of art birds fly and sing and swoop. Paying attention leans into astonishment. At their ability to take to the wind, something I cannot do without the help of a multi-ton vehicle. At their sheer beauty and diversity…..feathers of simplicity and color which causes my heart to pull in my chest. At their vulnerability and fragility yet boldness in making music and risking life and wing to fuel themselves with food and feed their young.

Paying attention and being astonished in the month of May can be a full time job. In addition to the flora and fowl, there are children to be observed. How they open themselves to the freedom of warm weather, shedding the clothing that held them captive in winter, the sound and sight of their bare feet,much larger than a few months ago, as they make a flat, flapping sound on concrete. And there are the first foods that are arriving, greens and reds and earthy tasting. And the feel of the sun. And the smell of rain. And the morning mist it creates.

And so I am telling you about it. Because I can. And after all, isn’t this the role of the human? To be present to the glory of Creation, to marvel at the gift of Creator and then to spread the gospel of it all? I think so.

I think so.

“My life flows on in endless song
Above earth’s lamentation.
I hear the real though far-off hymn
That hails a new creation.
No storm can shake my inmost calm,
While to that rock I’m clinging.
Since love is lord of heaven and earth,
How can I keep from singing?”
~Robert Lowry (1826-1899) 

Here is one thing I know for sure: singing with people is powerful work. Those who sing in choirs know this to be true. Those who are blessed to be a part of a faith community that really sings together also know this. I grew up on singing. It was part of my life from as far back as I can remember and probably even in the places of memory that are unconscious. My mother is a singer and sang to all of us while rocking us to sleep and in the car when going to and from places. Songs like ‘Beulah Land’ and ‘Always’ float through the membranes of my memory like a comforting blanket.

On Monday evening I had a unique experience. A member of our church had told me about a gathering for Irish singing at a pub in Minneapolis. It is an establishment that is a favorite but I had never been there on a Monday evening. It was the eve of my birthday and I invited those who could to join me for this adventure. I had no idea what to expect. I only hoped it wouldn’t be an awkward, unpleasant experience. I couldn’t have been more pleasantly surprised.

Gathered in a large room were people of all ages. Children to elders lined tables, some eating their supper, others just nursing a glass. One man seemed to be the keeper of the lineup of songs. He moved among the ever-growing crowd of people writing down  titles in a small, black notebook. Every now and then he would, himself, teach a short phrase and others would come in on the refrain of song. Without introducing who would be the next singer, he must have given them some visual cue that was subtle and the next song would begin. Each tune was a sea shanty, a love song or a mining song. Some were quick and lively. Others were more melancholy as Celtic songs can be. Many there knew all the words and joined in quickly. Others, like myself and my friends, learned as we went along. All of us threw in harmony with wild abandon. At the end of the first hour the children and parents left to go home. Others filled in their seats and the singing continued for another hour. Nearing nine o’clock, one man came into the center of the room and began what was clearly the last song of the night. Everyone stood without invitation and sang this final song. It was a ritual moment.

I thought of all the places around the world where such singing happens. Those places without trained musicians and with no accompaniment. People making music for their own enjoyment, mimicking the voices of those with wings. People telling the stories of hard work, lost love, life’s ups and downs, their faith and doubts, their wildest dreams. People telling tales of ships on the sea, love of the earth, death and grief, some ancestor story. I felt sad that there are fewer places to do this work, that we have allowed those with training to do so much of this for us.

The energy of that song circle has carried me through this week. Looking at the faces raised in song, standing firm in the power of their own voice. A few singers admitted that this was there first time to stand and sing and they were nervous.  It seemed to me that the group only undergirded their sound with even greater spirit. As it should be. To have been in that circle seemed a primal thing, something that connected me with an ancient droning that goes very deep.

I am grateful to have learned of this opportunity and hope to attend whenever possible. In many ways it was a kind of worship. Unscripted, free of the trappings of traditional church, but full of a dancing Spirit that could not be denied.

Even
After
All this time
The sun never says to the earth,

Look
What happens
With a love like that,
It lights the
Whole
Sky.
~Hafiz

Last night the sun was spreading its love all over the sky. Yesterday we were witness, if we chose to notice, to a partial eclipse of the sun. Here in the Midwest, the light show began a little after seven in the evening and continued on for about an hour. Those who were watching may have noticed how incredibly bright the sun’s rays were. You could not, and should not have, looked directly into its light.

A little after seven my husband and I headed over to the bluff that looks over the river. At the street that runs along this high point, people had already gathered. Several had set up impressive telescopes, the better to view this heavenly phenomenon. As we arrived so did a couple of minivans. Small children unloaded their lawn chairs and spread blankets for their comfort while waiting and playing in between peeks at the sun and the moon dancing together. Several groupings of men stood around the various telescopes talking the lingo of such devices……words like lens, aperture, scope and some numbers were being tossed about with ease. I hadn’t a clue what they were talking about. But I so loved watching the camaraderie they showed one another, how they had all gathered round, friend and stranger alike, to have this common experience.

What surprised me most, I guess, was how gracious and welcoming they were to those of us who only had a lowly piece of paper with a whole poked into it. Our pitiful excuses for eclipse watching learned in an elementary classroom. Those with telescopes invited us to look. “Do you want to see? Just be careful not to move anything.”, they cautioned the novices.

And so I looked. I have never been very good with telescopes or binocular or most things with lenses. Maybe it’s something genetic. It always takes me a long time to find my object and sometimes by the time I do, it has flitted away. But I took my time noticing that this eclipse process moves at a pace for even those of us who are challenged by such gadgets. I adjusted my eye, moved my head back and forth and then side to side, never touching or bumping the finely calibrated scope.

Finally,there it was. The brilliant, shining sun with what looked like a round bite out of it. But it wasn’t a bite at all but the moon making its way into the path of this other sky light. I smiled and shook my head ‘yes’ to the telescope owner who shared in the wonder of the moment with me. I stepped aside so another human could take my spot in the place of awe.

Something about this whole experience touched me deeply. I looked up and down the walkway at the people who had gathered to see this gift of Creation offered without admission. I did not know them when we arrived and I still do not know their names. But for that hour of time we were united in a sacrament of wonder. Unlike our ancestors who must have been terrified by such a sight, we knew what was happening but it didn’t lessen our amazement at it. We stood, tiny in our place on one planet, looking toward the two lights by which we see our days and our nights as they moved and made a shadow play for our pleasure. In all the ways in which we have progressed as upright creatures, in all the brilliant things we have created and produced, we were still, like those ancient ones, filled with awe at the sight of it.

As with every sacrament, I could only say, thanks be to God.