“God said,”I am made whole by your life. Each soul,each soul completes me.”
~Hafiz (1320-1389)

Thumbing through a monthly devotional magazine I receive, I saw this quote gracing the page. It was the only decoration for the page, a centerfold actually. No other words or adornments. Only these 15 words, a kind of 14th century Tweet. Hafiz, the Muslim poet known for his earthy, beautiful poetry of his experience of God, sent this out into the world for us to ponder, to try to make sense of in our own experience of the Holy One. It also seems to me a kind of challenge.

What might our lives me like if we believed we somehow completed God? What might our choices of daily living be if we believed that our actions made God more visible, more complete, in the world? How might we fashion our national lives if we knew our decisions, our legislation was a way of completing God, making God more whole?

Of course this very statement represents a theological understanding of God that will challenge many. This God of Hafiz’s experiences is not static, not bound by time or a particular telling in any sacred text. This is a God who is always growing and changing, becoming more with the birth of each day, each soul. This image may be difficult for some to embrace. Those whose faith is founded in a God who spoke once and for all will have trouble with Hafiz’s concept.

As I read his words I thought of the artists I know who express their living through painting, composing music, sculpting, dancing, all the many art forms. If pressed I believe many would say their creative work adds an element to their wholeness, completes them in some way. Why should the Creator of All not be also completed by the ongoing creation of the world and all it contains? Each creature, each plant, each tree, each sunrise and sunset somehow paint God’s Presence more completely to those who are looking, to those who have eyes to see.

Today we will walk out our door and into our lives. These lives will hold joy and sorrow, pain and ecstasy, challenge and triumph, the mundane and the mediocre. But, along with Hafiz, I believe we will be about the work of completing God. May each of us walk with purpose and humility knowing we are a part of something so much larger than the appointments we have made, the tasks we must complete, the chores we must accomplish.

We are helping bring to wholeness the face of the Holy in the world. May we be blessed with every breath.

“Spring shows what God can do with a drab and dirty world.”
~Virgil A. Kraft

This is that rare time in Minnesota when the sun can be shining and the warmth of spring is creeping into the greater part of each day while piles of still crusty, now black snow lies in piles on boulevards and street corners. I am looking out my office window right now at two such piles, still over five feet high and ugly beyond belief, that are not giving up the ghost to the emergence of the new season. They are holding on for dear life.

In addition to these horrible piles there is also the leftover stuff that somehow got swept up in the wind, the snow plow and the fury of winter.This ‘stuff’ includes discarded bottles of all kinds, wrappers from every manner of junk food, little bits of a fender or headlight lost in a collision of icy conditions. These are the normal things. There are also other odd things like the tiny tennis shoe lost perhaps in a mad dash for the car as snow took its owner, or its owner’s parent, by surprise.

Yesterday I saw a blue latex glove, several pens and cigarette lighters, a tiny, puffy black mitten, a pair of sturdy boxer shorts.  After a while it gets embarrassing to look down at people’s lost things that are now emerging from the mounds that have kept us company these many months. Perhaps the most depressing are the Christmas decorations that now stand askew. No white, shimmery back drop provides a context for the manger scenes, the Santas and the sad little reindeer. A few days ago I even saw a plastic ghost holding a jack ‘o lantern head. It had finally made a post-snow reappearing act either very late or very early for next Halloween.

Aside from the sheer messiness of this not-quite-spring experience, I have to admit to being intrigued by this leftover stuff from the season and its holidays gone by. It reminds me of all the ‘stuff’ of my own life that I sweep under the rug, under the piles until something melts and they reappear, whether I like it or not. I think of the grudges, the frustrations and the outright anger I manage to hide beneath a smile or words that have been chosen to not give away my true feelings. I am reminded of the garbage I carry from past wounds, from destructive behaviors or deep hurts that can stay hidden until just the right situation is created to bring all those old pains to the light of day. Any of this sound familiar to you?

Maybe this is, at least in part, what Lent is about. We have the opportunity during these 40 days of reflection and spiritual searching to, slowly, allow the melting of the ice we can build around our true selves. As we face our wilderness companions, things that may not bring us life, practices that keep us from being a reflection of God in the world, we often recognize the junk that is hidden beneath the cold, hard surface with which we have been surrounded. As we walk further into the light, with the lengthening of days and the promise of the new life of Easter, we can anticipate what a spring clean up might look like: Prayers are said. Shoulders relax. Truth is spoken. Forgiveness is offered. Kindness becomes a gift. Hope is found. Justice becomes a priority. Love becomes more than a word.

Our days are becoming warmer and warmer. Rain is promised for later in the week. The clean up is beginning.

Today can only be described as gray. The skies are gray. The roads and pavements are gray. The now seemingly ageless snow is gray. Driving around this morning as I did my usual pattern of Friday errands, I looked around and thought: This is what the color gray looks like. This is the definition of gray.

I walked into the house after this thought and walked directly to the bookshelves that holds the dictionary. While it may be easier to look up definitions online these days, I still love the weight and the feel of Webster’s New World College Dictionary. Online dictionaries parcel out the words one by one, giving you only the definition of the word you have entered. The fullness of the heavy Webster’s allows you to make no mistake about all you do not know. For instance, looking for ‘gray’ allows you to also see ‘gravy train’ which precedes it and ‘gray-back’,’gray-beard’, and ‘gray eminence’ which follows. Opening the dictionary can lead to long, endless hours of exploration and humility.

Gray: a color that is a mixture of black and white, dark, dullish, dreary, dismal. Gray:Old and respected. Gray:designating a vague, intermediate area, as between morality and immorality. Who would have thought the definition of gray could be so wide, so far flung?

As I reflected on the gray of this particular day it might at first seem to be best defined by the first meaning….dullish, dark and dreary, someplace between black and white. Certainly the atmosphere is hanging low and the skies show no sign of a brighter more colorful light. But the gray of this day also points toward the age of the winter that has gripped us here in the Midwest. A winter that arrived early and is staying late. It has been a winter that has caused us to respect the push and pull and power of the seasons.

However, this gray day might also be described by the last definition…..’designating a vague intermediate area.’ Those of us who find our home in the Christian Household are mid-point in the season of Lent. This season, defined by wanderings in the wilderness and an anticipation of resurrection, might be described as gray. Lent represents a mixture of black and white, of making our way, of longing for the rebirth we know is possible but not yet visible.

Someone said to me yesterday that they believe people need Easter more than ever this year. It is not only the dull, steadiness of the weather but perhaps also the heaviness of the world’s turmoils that led to that statement. I will agree. We are longing for a movement from this blend of the vast extremes of the color palette. No more mixtures, just pure, brilliant color. No vagueness but a sure and certain promise of rebirth.

These gray days provide an opportunity for reflection and anticipation of all that is yet to be. In Revelation, John writes:”See, I am making all things new.” I am holding on to that promise with both hands.

Have a blessed weekend….

Over the last two days I have been in northern Minnesota at a clergy retreat. We were blessed to have been staying in a condo overlooking Lake Superior. To watch the play of light on the lake at various times of the day was a great gift. The coolness of color in the morning sun gave way to brilliance by noontime. As the sun began to sink farther into the horizon the richness of the many possible shades of blue began to wash the sky.

Yesterday morning I was laying in my guest bed looking out at the morning sky as orange,peach,pink and yellow wove a pattern resembling a swirling silk necktie along the horizon. I was laying there simply allowing this gift of color and silence to awaken me to another day. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a figure moving as if in slow motion, like a mime walking an imaginary tightrope. I moved to a seated position in the bed sitting cross legged as in meditation. Not more than six feet from the sliding glass door of my room stood a deer looking straight into my watching eyes. Trying to take on this creature’s ability to stay still, I quieted my muscles and my breath until we were both simply being, looking at one another face to face. There was no fear in this wild creature who must know instinctively to fear humans. In that moment of staring into its beautiful, brown, unblinking eyes, I had the overwhelming feeling of being connected to a fellow creation in a deep way. It was a truly holy moment.

After several minutes of this encounter, the deer was joined by another and they walked slowly off into the woods toward the lake. I wracked my brain trying to remember the Mary Oliver poem where she writes so beautifully about a similar experience. I cursed myself for not memorizing those poems I love so much, for not being able to pull them up at will for such a time as this. But then I gently realized that the experience I had just had perhaps needed no words to define it. It was simply a true moment of being.

Back home I went to the bookshelf to look for the poem. It is called “Five A.M. in the Pinewoods” and in it she describes what may have been a dream about an encounter with two deer or a real experience. The poem ends with these words:

This is a poem about the world
that is ours, or could be.
Finally
one of them -I swear it!-
would have come to my arms,
But the other
stamped a sharp hoof in the
pine needles like
the tap of sanity,
and they went off together through
the trees. When I woke
I was alone,
I was thinking:
so this is how you swim inward,
so this is how you flow outward,
so this is how you pray.

Yes. Those were the words I was looking for to express my face to face encounter. I am glad to have found them. But what I am remembering are the beautiful, brown, unblinking eyes and the place they have made in my heart.

Every now and then in the novels I read a sentence will jump out and find a home in me. Right now I am reading a beautifully written book called Ahab’s Wife or, The Star Gazer by Sena Jeter Naslund. It tells the many layered life-story of the wife of Ahab in another novel, Moby Dick. It is a story of the love of the sea that is fueled by a home in a lighthouse and one young woman’s great courage to have a life of adventure and meaning. I highly recommend it.

A little more than a hundred pages into the book, one of the paragraphs begins:”I went to the window to inhale the world.” When I read these words a feeling of excitement swept over me. To inhale the world. What a joyous and exhilarating thought! I thought to myself: ” This is what I want to do.” Everyday. And so as I continue to wade my way through this quite long book, I return often to the page whose corner I turned down, to remind myself of my own endeavor.

This morning I was blessed to wake up on the North Shore of Lake Superior. I opened my eyes to look out the window that overlooks the water to see the waxing moon shining through the leafless trees making a pathway of silver light on the frigid water. I lay in the warmth of my bed trying to inhale the sight, its beauty, its stillness. I allowed my lungs to fill deeply with the power of the scene. Inhale.

Breathing out the shard of a disturbing dream I had had earlier, I breathed in the gift my window offered. The moon helped perspective float into my consciousness and I felt grounded in the ever-turning goodness of Creation. Out on the lake the shimmering ice chunks moved about, driven by a current I cannot see but whose presence is known. The Spirit and the unseen current have much in common. I inhaled once again allowing this truth to wash over me.

Of course, inhaling the world brings not only beauty and peace but also pain and uncertainty. To inhale the world I must see the fragile lives of people in turmoil and in harm’s way. It also means knowing the underbelly of a world often gone mad with greed, a world that forgets the intricate ways in which we are woven together..human..creature..soil..
water…life.

To truly inhale the world we must breathe in all of it. But that is really the beauty, isn’t it? To be touched by the deep wonder and vulnerability of being alive means to embrace and inhale the fullness of all life has to offer. It is in those experiences when we come face to face with the Mystery of the One whose exhale brought us into being. It is in those moments when our grateful hearts find a connection we often name as prayer.

Out on the Big Lake the sun is showing its first light, spreading a show of pale pink against an even paler blue. I am standing at my window. Inhaling.

“In the beginning,O God,
your Spirit swept over the chaotic deep like a wild wind
and creation was born.
In the turbulence of my own life
and the unsettled waters of the world today
let there be new birthings of your Spirit.
In the currents of my own heart
and the upheavals of the world today
let there be new birthings of your mighty Spirit.”
~J. Philip Newell

This was the prayer I read this morning as I began my day. Having just glanced at the morning newspaper and watched the television broadcast of world events, it seemed fitting. Sometimes the world seems more in chaos than other times. Today is one of those days when the upheavals of the world seem extreme. I realize that it is all a matter of perspective but it feels to me that things are more out of balance than usual. You may or may not agree.

The situation in Japan continues to confound my mind and break my heart. For those of us of a certain age, the nuclear fears seeded in our childhood seem about to come to horrific fruition. Our country may soon be at war with three other countries. Countries whose mothers weep for their children as I often weep for my own. Countries whose fathers chests puff up with pride over the goodness of their children as my husband’s does for our own two beautiful sons.

In our own communities and throughout our country people continue to struggle to make ends meet and find meaningful work. Families live with uncertainty that renders adults immobile and children feeling frightened and vulnerable. Our leaders can’t seem to listen long enough to one another to remember their common hopes and dreams for a country they love equally and the people they propose to represent. Unkind words turn into outright meanness leading to stalemates that harm us all.

And yet at the beginning of our larger faith story, across traditions, there is a common telling of order coming out of a deep chaos. The Spirit that swept over the dark brewing waters at the beginning of time still sweeps, I believe, over the unformed possibilities of our time. We have seen this truth again and again in individual lives, in the life of the world and in the ever springing rebirth of Creation around us.

So my prayer this day is for new birthings of the Spirit. Birthings beyond my own small yet hopeful imagination. Birthings of new relationships that will mend war torn places. Birthings of new ideas to solve overwhelming problems. Birthings of a new goodness that reaches out through the hands and hearts of all humanity. Birthings of a humility that leads to deep listening and humble forgiveness. Birthings of a mighty, mighty Spirit.

Blessed be.

After six days of waking every morning to the singing of birds and sun and warm air flowing through our window, we will prepare to make a transition back to Minnesota. Tomorrow we will load our warm weather wardrobe into the suitcases, tuck the stones and shells collected as souvenirs into soft spaces for protection,and head back to the newly fallen snow that awaits us. In some ways we have received the gift of a glimpse of the spring that is to come….minus the sand and palm trees, of course. We have had a little break from pulling on layer upon layer and stuffing our feet into shoes that are completely utilitarian.With an assurance of what is to come, we will be privileged to come home and see the slow, gentle emergence of color, flowers,birdsong and new life that is only a few weeks away.

I was thinking about this transition as we walked yet another beach today. We had set the goal of visiting a different beach every day and we achieved our goal. Today’s beach, Coronado Beach, is graced by the exquisite Hotel de Coronado,whose white exterior and red roofs make a stunning statement on this stretch of the Pacific Ocean. We walked along watching children running and laughing as parents looked on from their beach chairs. Students wrapped in towels, perhaps on spring break, read books as they soaked up the much needed sun. One older gentleman was creating an amazing sand castle. Overhead jets flew low making an incredible noise as they executed maneuvers and headed back toward their base.It was a rich and beautiful scene which I reveled in soaking up.

And then I saw them. Three pairs of shoes lined up in a row heading out toward the water. The first pair situated nearest the land was a pair of brown winter boots. There they sat, empty, as if the owner had been lifted skyward out of their heavy leather so full of purpose. Within a few feet another pair of shoes stood in line, also empty,with no owner in sight. Running shoes. They were neatly positioned in line with the boots as if the wearer had discarded the boots and made their way into the freedom of these fast moving flyers.

But the topper was what came next in the lineup. A pair of flip flops sat even nearer to the waiting ocean. Boots. Running shoes. Flip flops. All lined up as if the wearer had gone from one to the other in the speed of a California minute. I laughed out loud at the thought of it.

Every time I visit a place where the seasons are not as pronounced as they are in my own world, I wonder what it might be like to have fewer times of transition. What is it like to have a more temperate climate for the majority of the year? What is it like to have fresh fruit and vegetables that have not traveled more than a few miles most of the time? Certainly those who live here notice changes that would be invisible to my nonnative eyes. Those who live in places where four seasons are not as pronounced may not notice the subtleties of the transition of winter to spring, spring to summer, summer to fall, fall back to winter. We all learn to see and know what the play of light is like in our own backyards and there is gift in being both native and guest.

I have worn sandals much of this week and my running shoes will carry home some of the sand that got buried in the tread as we fulfilled out goal of walking many beaches. But by Saturday morning my feet will be tucked back into my snow boots until it is time to make the transition. It will come when the time is right…..and not a minute before, I’m sure.

Yesterday I spend some time observing dozens of seals. I stood with nearly the same number of humans overlooking a cove in La Jolla, California that is the resting spot of these amazing creatures. They lay nestled in the warm sand, their brown, gray, black and speckled bodies sunbathing in the blazing light. Out on a large rocky area the seals were nearly invisible until the ocean water pounded over the sea wall startling them from their basking. As the water shot out and over their rocky bed, the seals moved both their heads and tails to form the letter ‘C’. It think they were trying for the letter ‘O’ but never quite made it.

On the softer, sandier ground, mother seals cradled small pups in the crooks of their bodies warming them in safety. We watched as one small gray pup was nudged and prodded by the adult. Out into the water but not too far it went, closing monitored by the parent. What was going on here? A swimming lesson? At one point another adult seal got involved in the action coming toward the tiny pup as if to add their own instructions. The mother seal turned quickly on the other adult, hissing and clearly pointing out who was boss. Talk about your Tiger Mom!

Nearby another mother lay sleeping, her somewhat older, maybe teenaged pup snuggled near by. The younger seal was sleeping so soundly. I remember my own teenaged sons sleeping this kind of sleep that cannot be disturbed by noise or movement. At one point the adult slowly opened her deep brown eyes, her lovely long eyelashes blinking toward me. We seemed to share a knowing look.

What amazing creatures seals are! Watching them yesterday I thought of the ancient stories of selkies so prominent in Britain. Selkies, humans who had at one time been seals, were said to have come to land to become human, giving up their seal skins and often their souls as well, in an effort to become something other than who they were. Their stories are full of romance, melancholy and often tragedy.

Watching the seals yesterday, I imagined those early storytellers spinning the tale of these beings who came to live on land. The seals moved gracefully through the water, diving deep and coming up in places far from where they had begun. I can imagine those land-livers with vivid flights of fancy wanting to be able to do such wild and amazing acts and creating stories that would merge the life of land and sea. But observing the seals while on land was something completely different. It seemed neither their front flippers nor their back ones were quite strong enough to move on land. Here their movements were instead clumsy and labored, almost painful to observe.

As I watched these endearing creatures, I thought of all those who want to be something other than what they are. Many of us wish to embrace the wildness and grace of the seals in the sea. And at the same time we wish to have the assurance of the ground beneath our feet. There are sacrifices inherent in both. Often we give up great parts of ourselves without weighing all the odds. The selkie was often seen standing on shore looking out toward a life that had once been, unable to find the skin that would have allowed them to swim with grace once again. They had lost their uniqueness and were able to go home.

Today I am thankful to these beautiful beings for all the gifts they offered. The gifts of awe, beauty, joy, grace, and even mystery. As a land-living storyteller I was also blessed with the reminder to honor being comfortable in my own skin and to celebrate the unique and diverse beings with which I share this path of Creation.

One of the sure places to come face to face with your place in the Universe is when you stand on the shore of an ocean. I began my morning standing on the beach looking out at the endless horizon as waves made their way toward my minute presence. High tide had receded by about two hours so the gifts of that morning’s sea riddled the sand beneath my feet. Stones of a myriad of colors. Seaweed and kelp. Shells, both intact and broken. And, thankfully, only a few pieces of garbage returned from the careless toss of someone who had momentarily forgotten their role as steward. Sandpipers skittered across the dark, wet sand while overhead gulls and pelicans soared into the morning sunlight. The humans who made their way in the evolving light were mere actors in a play so vast we had barely remembered our lines, if we had ever known them. Over and over,the waves continued to roll sending sparkling spray that was nearly invisible into the blue of the sky. Squinting, I tried to commit to memory this scene.

Once, years ago, I had what can only be described as a mystical experience on this very beach. It had been a troubled year filled with illness, surgery and fear. I stood in the morning light much like this morning’s staring out at the sea rolling toward me. I stood trying to take in the beauty, the power. And then someplace deep within me a voice not my own spoke confidently: “This is the Womb of God.” I remember being shaken by the message so much so that tears ran down my cheeks. Only my young sons were with me and they were busy playing in the sand and surf, collecting shells and stones to fill their burgeoning pockets. The other adults had made their way on down the beach. No one heard this message but me and my experience stayed secret for some time. I simply did not know what to make of it. I only knew it was significant and it brought me a comfort and assurance I could not describe.

I walked into the rest of that day with an assurance I had not had in some time. I was connected to something so large I could not name it or find words to tell others. The waves that swept toward the shore that morning held and continue to hold me in the Mystery that brought me life and renews my life with the waxing and waning of the Moon and the rising of each day. I can’t be sure what the meaning of that message was, I only know it brought me an enormous gift. A gift that felt like promise, connection, and perhaps even resurrection.

Returning to the beach this morning I was reminded once again of how small my story is in the grand telling of this Life Story of which we are all a part. We are woven together with earth, water, air and the warming fire of the Sun. We are walking beaches and mountains, roads and river paths in partnership with those we know and those we will never meet. We continue to live our lives in their uniqueness and their similarities held on this spinning planet by gravity and the sheer force of will. We are minuscule and yet we long to live large, to find our place in the patterns and the chaos. All the while, I believe, that Mystery which whispers in our ear and sometimes roars in our hearts is reaching out to speak volumes to us. If we have the ears to hear.

“For the sense of smell, almost more than any other, has the power to recall memories and it is a pity we use it so little.”
~Rachel Carson

I find myself surrounded by incredible scents. We have just arrived in San Diego for a few days vacation and time with family. As quick as our legs would take us upon our arrival at the airport, we walked outside to just smell the warm, moist air. The ocean was not far off our noses told us. As our eyes took in the green grass and the swaying palm trees, we were also flooded with a wash of flowery scents. It was a delight after so many months of frigid, sterile Midwestern air. And so have found myself walking up to nearly every green and blossoming plant, not only drinking in the color, but absorbing the richness of scent. Ahhhh……..

It is said that our sense of smell is most tied to memory. Most recently I was walking through a store and got the overwhelming sense of my grandmother who died over twenty years ago. I still don’t know what the smell was but it was some mix of flowery, sweetness that sent me back to times snuggled safely in her tiny house as we sat at a card table tackling the challenge of a jigsaw puzzle. The scent of memory has the power to conjure up so many experiences.

I recall a conference I attended many years ago on the subject of the spirituality of children. The opening ritual invited those in attendance to share their earliest memory of worship. I was struck with the memories of those whose traditions involved the sense of smell….sweet oil, incense, candles. Their memories were described in rich detail and represented experiences of a much earlier age than those whose tradition had abandoned these worship practices. I remember feeling sad that my own tradition had, over the years, been stripped of these practices.

And yet I perhaps will never smell the perfume Evening in Paris(do they still make this?) without thinking of worship services in my little church in southern Ohio. Positioned between my mother and my brothers I could smell the exotic, fruity scent of my mother’s perfume wafting in the humid, heavy air. My father’s Old Spice aftershave was no doubt filling my brother’s head with equally tranquilizing thoughts. These scents were not created for liturgical means but they provided the backdrop for the scripture and prayers of our tradition to be seeded in our hearts and minds. These seemingly elegant smells relegated to dress-up clothes and special occasions were not the scents of our every day. Combined with the peppermints we were secretly handed from the hidden treasure chest of my mother’s purse,we were kept quiet and attentive in worship by perfume and candy. Though not traditional elements of worship, they make up my sense memory to this day.

The power of our sense of smell gets neglected during Minnesota winters. But as the snow continues to melt and the Earth once again comes to life before our eyes and under our noses, the memories of experiences planted deep within us will float to the forefront. They are to be celebrated and honored for the gifts they continue to offer. Gifts of the present and also days long gone by.

Today I will continue to add to the my bank of scent memory. The native Californians may notice a woman stopping to smell every colorful flower she sees. Like the humming bird I saw yesterday hovering over the red flowers of an azalea bush, I will be collecting. Collecting the memories of scent to store away for another winter when I will need their sweetness and their assurance of life renewed.