"When God restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream. Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy; then it was said among the nations, ‘God has done great things for them’. God has done great things for us, and we rejoiced." Psalm 126

How often do you laugh during any given day? How often do you hear the laughter of others? A recent experience of laughter has been my food over the last few days. While nestled in the forest of the Pacific Northwest in what could be considered a truly idyllic setting, I experienced the intoxicating and healing power of laughter. One of my traveling companions has, what I believe to be, one of the most joyous laughs I have ever heard.

One afternoon I found myself enjoying a cup of coffee, reading a book in the sun, as I got in touch with my feline nature. Each of our group was off doing ‘their own thing’. Suddenly from what I knew was the front porch of where we were staying, I heard her laugh……at first just a loud chuckle and then uncontrollable, body-jarring, roaring laughter. It echoed off the tall pines and the hills around us. I am almost certain it also reached Pugent Sound as it continued, drawing me in. I had no idea what the joke was but I became filled with the joy of the sound. I stopped reading, set down my cup and allowed myself to be bathed in the sheer beauty of that uncontrolled music until I, too, was laughing.

As I sat there, now removed from my tasks, I imagined the cook in the kitchen halting his knife and slowly turning his head, a smile forming on his face, looking toward the sound of her glorious voice. Tucked in the woods, I thought of the author who was working on a book, stopping at his computer and throwing his head back in a moment of insight and transformation. A mile or so away, children playing on the playground at the Waldorf school, may have stopped and turned their heads toward the chuckles floating over the trails toward them. They, too, probably broke out into the kind of uncontrolled body shaking laughter available, it seems, to children.

That’s what happens with laughter…..it becomes contagious. I vote we all commit to doing more of it. In a world that is deadly serious, couldn’t we all use a daily dose of jaw-dropping, stomach-aching, exhaustion-producing laughter? Who knows what healing and hope it might invoke in the Universe?

Here’s to a weekend filled with just that!  Have a great one……………………….

"So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, "After I have grown old, and my husband is old, shall I have pleasure? God said to Abraham, "Why did Sarah laugh? Is anything too wonderful for God? But Sarah denied saying, " I did not laugh"; for she was afraid. God said, "Oh, yes, you did laugh!" Genesis 18

Today is a day of re-entry for me. Yesterday, my traveling companions and I rose early to take the ferry away from Whidbey Island, immersing ourselves almost immediately in the gridlock of Seattle rush hour and what is a closer reality of our daily lives. Cars speeding up, then halting, sirens blaring, lights flashing, we were headed back into a life that had become invisible to us for a few days. This is the true nature of retreat…..pulling away from your normal life so you can see it more fully, with greater understanding and hopefully, compassion. Unfortunately over the last several years we have thrown that word…retreat...around to mean many things but rarely what it truly is. In the corporate, educational and church world we often call day, or even week long meetings ‘retreats’. Don’t be fooled. It is not true.

Retreats are experiences that cause you to blink at speed when you come back into the world. Retreats are experiences that make you realize that,while eating a re-entry lunch, that you are taking twice as long as others, that your food seems to taste better that theirs. Retreats are experiences that cause you to question, to find answers, to lower your heart rate and increase your compassion, to breathe deeply and to simply stare into the middle distance with great intention. Retreats allow you to see the world with sacred eyes and to find your own inner rhythm once again. Retreats allow you to savor the world you re-enter as the extraordinary place it is….taking nothing for granted for awhile.

And so today, I will head out into the world knowing that I have been blessed to have been given a gift of time, of prayer, of companionship, of communion…..a retreat. In our culture it is easy to think of the retreat experience as nonproductive time, as ‘fluff’. That also is not true.

As people of faith, we have many models for taking time away from the regular patterns of our daily lives. "Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness….As he walked by the Sea of Galilee….That same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the sea…..Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a deserted place by himself….."Sit here while I go over there and pray"….Retreat.

Wherever you are today, I pray that you will have at least a few moments of retreat. In fact, I offer the next few moments to you. Close your eyes, place your feet firmly on the ground,breathe deeply,listen, really listen to your own heartbeat. Offer yourself these moments to rest in Spirit…through your breath, your presence, your intention, your communion. The world will wait….I promise.

"Round and round the Earth is turning, turning ever into morning, Round and round the Earth is turning, and from morning into night."   Chant

On Sunday evening, I was in the presence of whirling
dervishes. Really. At the retreat center where I am staying we were invited to
an evening worship experience with a community whose spiritual practice is this
form of dance, prayer, poetry and meditation. Finding its roots in the mystical strains of Islam, it is probably best known to us today as the practice of the poet Rumi.This slowly evolving process
leads individuals to an invitation to a whirling dance of prayer and sacred
communion with the Holy.

I admit to having gone out of curiosity. I mean when have I
ever received such an invitation and when might it happen again? So several of
us entered the hall where many were seated on sheepskins and others on chairs
in an outer ring around them.Unsure and a bit self-conscious, we chose the outer ring of seats. The music was
hypnotic and repetitious with a Middle Eastern beauty and simplicity. Those
gathered sang a simple two word phrase over and over accompanied by gentle hand movements. With
each consecutive chant the community moved more and more into dance. First they stood, then
added slow swaying motions, then circled in a walking fashion and finally moved into a
fairly traditional circle dance. It was fascinating.

Of course what became the most fascinating was the moment at
which certain people would move to the center of the circle and ever so slowly
begin to twirl, at first quite deliberate and then with grace and speed…..spinning,
twirling, whirling. One hand gently opened toward the earth while the other
reached up toward heaven, they whirled. Eyes closed, they whirled. Around and
around, in the same space, never stumbling or bumping one another, they
whirled. White robes, blue skirts, flowing outward, they whirled. As they whirled they seemed almost to not touch the ground, to float instead above it in the smoothest motions I have ever seen.

 I have never really watched as anyone entered deep into
prayer. Generally, in our common prayer life, we close our eyes, avoid looking at another, lest we invade their ‘private’ time, or we follow along with the words written on the page before us. It is simply a different prayer life. One might assume we are seeking a different kind of communion with God than those I witnessed on Sunday but I am not so sure. I can’t presume to know what they were experiencing. But I was drawn into the beauty, the warmth, the suspension of time, and held in something powerful by being in their presence.And I was sure of one thing….we were indeed in the presence of the Holy.

The poet Mary Oliver writes: "I do not know how to pray….I do know how to kneel down and kiss the ground." Somehow I believe that is what these whirling dervishes were doing……and I was blessed to share that moment in my own feeble fashion.

Through and through, great power is ours, such that all
creation, in all things, stands by us.         Hildegard of Bingen

Flying into Seattle on Thursday was an amazing experience. My colleagues and I were on a 757 Northwest aircraft….a big plane…..and yet as we landed the wind buffeted the enormous mound of steel like it was made of notebook paper.Several around me had eyes closed, the woman across the aisle gripped the armrests till I saw the true meaning of "white knuckled". As tires planted themselves, and us, on the runway applause broke out. It felt great to be on the ground!

Several hours later, we drove our cars onto the ferry at Mukilteo headed toward Whidbey Island. As we drove onto the boat we got a good glimpse of the water we were about to cross….white caps, huge waves, big winds. Curiosity getting the best of us we climbed the stairs to the deck to feel the full force of what we were about to be a part of….the power of the seas and wind making for a very rough ride. Those who worked on the ferry came around shouting "You must sit down. This is not a request, this is an order." As they were the experts, we certainly weren’t about to argue.

Later we would learn that the winds had reached 50 miles an hour over those hours of our travel. When we arrived at our destination on the island, the electricity came on for the first time all day. It was certainly a day of high winds and rough waters. And in the midst of it all, we Midwesterners had placed our lives in the hands of strangers who knew more than we, who had undoubtedly more skill and training, who knew the power and danger of these important earth elements and in whom we had placed our trust….and to some degree our lives. It is a humbling thought.

When we arrived at the cozy farmhouse that has been our home for the past days, we were welcomed with warm smiles, sumptuous food, steaming cups of coffee, a roaring fire. We had traveled far and long but had found a place to rest and call home for a few days, safe from high winds, rough waters.

Thinking about this over the past few days, I have thought about how many times we are the actors in this recurring play. From the danger of life’s high winds that blow us about, that sends our nerves and belongings flying, we find…or are found by, a place to rest and recover. When the waters that hold our lifeboat threatens to throw us overboard, to drench us with its cold, icy spray, someone throws out the ring that will pull us safely home. The scriptures are filled with these stories. The sacred stories of our lives are also made up of these rescue tales.

Today might be a great day to remember a story of high winds and rough waters from your own life. It could be a good time to give thanks for those who waited on the other side to welcome you home with warmth. Or maybe you are in such a windswept story right now. If so, may you travel with those who have the skills and training in which you can place your trust. May the Spirit of the Wind and Water be calmed by the One who guides each of us to the place of welcome and safety.

Today I am headed out of town for an island adventure. I will be traveling with several clergy who have, over the years, become friends, colleagues, wisdom, and God-with-skin-on to me. We are headed to the Pacific Northwest to the Whidbey Institute on Whidbey Island. It will be a time for leadership training, renewal, fun and retreat. We all feel greatly blessed to be making this trip especially in the presence of one another.

Whidbey Institute is described as:’"a place of deep inqiry and inspiration dedicated to the transformation of heart, mind, and culture for a more sustainable, just and fruitful future for all. We are committed to the emergence of a new and right relationship between the natural and social world through the development of vital communities and the formation of courageous,creative and competent leadership on behalf of the whole earth community. We ground our work in the ongoing development of a deep and spacious spiritual core and cultivate practices that inform and sustain learning and hope."

In the planning of this trip, the image of island has become important to me.I think many of us often feel like an island within the church, within the world. Have you? It is an often lonely place. Yet, what always brings me back from that loneliness is community and my experience of the Holy in the faces, the life stories, the challenges and the mountaintop experiences I have the privilege of being witness to in the life of others. And when that doesn’t work, it is the experience of God-with-leaves, God-with-blossom, God-with-wings, that pulls me back and into the Circle of Life.

And so it is right that as we travel to an island, we go in the presence of one another, carrying with us the prayers and blessing of those on larger land. It is indeed a gift to make this journey and I ask for your prayers for traveling mercies.

If there is internet service available, I will write from the island. If not, I will share the stories of our insights when I return.

"All
mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one
chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better
language; and every chapter must be so translated…As therefore the
bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon
the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all:….No man is an
island, entire of itself…any man’s death diminishes me, because I am
involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell
tolls; it tolls for thee."  John Donne

"We look with uncertainty
Beyond the old choices for
Clear-cut answers
To a softer, more permeable aliveness
Which is every moment
At the brink of death;
For something new is being born in us
If we but let it.
We stand at a new doorway,
Awaiting that which comes……
Daring to be human creatures.
Vulnerable to the beauty of existence.
Learning to love."
                            Anne Hillman

As our community has been exploring what it means to offer radical hospitality, many of us have bumped our heads on our hardened hearts. We have come face-to-face with those places within us that have closed up shop, given up on certain people, refused to listen, turned our backs. It is a humbling experience. I have had more than one conversation about how difficult it is to be hospitable to those who badger us with their ‘rights’ and ‘wrongs’, those who wear their certainty like armor, those who claim to have the answers with which God is most pleased. Most often, as the conversation plays out, we all realize that we, too, have done the same thing……I believe some might call it self-righteousness……and , if we are self-aware, we  see more similarity than differences in how we have waved our flags in certain situations.

‘Daring to be human creatures’ is risky, messy, work. It requires listening, openness, awareness, and the willingness to soften our hearts to the pain, the alienation, the loneliness, the vulnerabilities of others…and ourselves.

Calling upon the words of three Hebrew prophets,Jeremiah,Ezekiel and Joel,  David Haas has written a song that is a favorite of my worshiping community: "Deep within I will plant my law, not on stone, but in your heart. Follow me, I will bring you back, you will be my own, and I will be your God. I will give you a new heart, a new spirit within you, for I will be your strength."

Each day we are confronted with those with whom we disagree, politically, theologically, socially,morally. Perhaps their very presence in our lives is a gift, one that invites us not to hearts of stone, but hearts that are learning to love. For some, learning to love takes a lifetime. But with each new day, the Holy offers us another doorway…….and the strength to step through.

"The road of life can only reveal itself as it is traveled; each turn in the road reveals a surprise." Anonymous

This was my weekend message on my desk calendar. It was quite appropriate to the train of thought I’ve been having over the last days. I have several high school and college aged people in my life.Perhaps it is because of them, their conversations, their struggles, that I have been thinking about what path we expect our lives to take when we are younger. Most often as I gather with friends, conversation shifts instead to the surprises our lives have taken, how what we thought we might be doing at ‘our age’, is quite different than what we are actually doing. Through twists and turns, unexpected opportunities, successes that didn’t seem possible and what seems like sheer luck, we find ourselves living a vocation that we would never have imagined at twenty. Doors opened….and often doors closed…..and here we are.

It is the door closing part that most fascinates me. I think of the doors that have closed for me in my life, how devastated I was, the tears that were shed, the angry words I flung into the air, the ‘why me?’ and the ‘how could they?’ shouted at deaf ears. And yet now, as I look back, it is the closed doors that have made the biggest difference, that have led me to right place, at the right time, walking the road it seems I was called to travel.

Over my life I have witnessed people I think of as great, have doors closed on what they believe to be their ‘road.’ Jimmy Carter, Maya Angelou, Al Gore, to name only three. And yet as the door closed, they have been led to perhaps the ‘surprise’ of something different they were called to do in their lives. Habitat for Humanity, Author, Poet, An Inconvenient Truth………

What doors have closed in your life? What doors have opened as a result? What surprises have been revealed to you on the road you have traveled so far?

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
and sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood
and looked down one as far as I could
to where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
and having perhaps the better claim
because it was grassy and wanted wear;
though as for that, the passing there
had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
in leaves no feet had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —
I took the one less travelled by,
and that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost

"Bless the Lord, O my soul. My God you are great, You are clothed with the energy of atoms as with a mantle from a cloud of whirling cosmic dust… as on the potter’s wheel you began to tease out the whorls of the galaxies… the gas escaped from your fingers condensing and burning….. you were fashioning the stars. You made a splatter dash of planets like spores or seeds and scattered comets like flowers….." Ernesto Cardenal

Today has been set aside as Blog Action Day….a day when bloggers are encouraged to write about the environment and what threatens it. This is not a new concept. As people, we are fascinated by the idea of what might happen if a really large number of people set an intention toward something…..peace….awareness…..healing…..whatever, and everyone participates at the same time. There have been sit-ins, marches, and now a form of this same kind of action has arisen in the realm of technology, on what is known as the ‘blogisphere’. From the spiritual viewpoint, those who study such things, say there can be actual, measurable shifts in energy when large groups of people pray at the same time. I am sure I have been the recipient of that kind of focused prayer and I am grateful for it. It will be interesting at the end of the day to hear what people will say has shifted, has changed, has been opened as a result of this ‘blogging intention.’ For what it is worth…here are my two cents.

It all begins with awe. That’s how I see it. That’s how the sacred writings begin, isn’t it? This incredible story of God’s creating the Universe…from darkness and chaos….to beauty and light….is where we begin. It is where all human stories begin, Judeo-Christian or not, with a story of awe and amazement. After the act of creating, the Holy One declares the Creation to be very, very good. As a part of that Creation story humans are introduced into the mix and given a responsibility as caretakers…….of plants, animals, things that fly, things that creep, the soil and sand, the air and water….all of it. Not as consumers or rulers but as cosmic parents, if you will…..those who nurture, support, encourage growth, protect, adore, love beyond measure. When we look around, hear and see the impact of global warming, the reality is that we have not been very good parents.We’ve been neglectful, abusive, squandering our inheritance,the gift entrusted into our care. We have closed our eyes, our hearts, our minds to the state of original awe.

I walked into a hospital room this week and witnessed two parents holding a young one only hours new to the world. What look, what emotion, was etched across their face? Awe…amazement. Looking down at this beautiful, unbelievable miracle, their faces were full of deep awe. I came to stand in the circle of that same awe, suspended in the amazing circle of Creation that continues to happen each and every day with newborns, with season changes, with the rising of the Sun.

If this is the place we begin, how can we continue to act as we have been? These invisible lines of connection that hold us together in the great Web of Life ask us to stand in awe….and to then act to preserve, to nurture, to support and to love beyond measure. To do so may very well make all the difference in the world.

"I have come to terms with the future. From this day onward I will walk easy on the earth. Plant trees. Kill no living thing. Live in harmony with all creatures. I will restore the earth where I am. Use no more of its resources than I need. And listen, listen to what it is telling me." M.J.Slim Hooey

"The reason mountain climbers are tied together is to keep the sane ones from going home."

This anonymous quote arrived this past week on a bookmark sent out by the Minnesota Council of Churches. I read it over several times discerning its meaning. I knew my heart was drawn to it but I needed my head to catch up. Since I cannot imagine myself ever mountain climbing, I needed to put it in a context I could understand. It did not take long. It is something I think each of us do most every day. We awaken with the sun and tie ourselves to one another and head out into the world. In our families….in our work….in our country…in the world. We tie ourselves together and pray that when we are frightened or frustrated, when we are weary or wise, when we are joyful and just, we can pull one another along.

Our oldest son who is in college has taken up rock climbing, which I realize is different from mountain climbing. As a parent who is far away from observing this new found physical challenge(not that I could watch), I do know that it involves harnesses and ropes….and climbing with other people. This child who was always at the top of every jungle gym, without a fear of falling, sometimes jumping to the horror of other adults around, has taken to putting his faith in the safety of ropes and friends to scale rock walls. May God continue to keep him sure of foot and balance.

And isn’t that our real prayer as we head out into the challenges of each day……that we are held by the invisible ropes of those around us, that we have the strength and courage to hold others, that nothing comes our way that can’t be solved collectively with the creativity, sweat, faith,imagination and commitment of our fellow ‘world travelers’? Isn’t it our deepest prayer that we need each other so much that we will find a way to solve our differences, share our wisdom,our resources and our hope? And through it all God will keep us sure of foot and balance?

There is so much that could and does divide us. But I continue to hold out hope that in the midst of all this, the Spirit will move through our conversations, our arguments, our rhetoric, our fears, and remind us that we are indeed tied together. And in that moment we will tug the rope and give the signal that says " let’s go….I’m holding you…let’s climb."

"Awe came upon everyone, because many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles. All who believed were together and had all things in common;…Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day God added to their number."  Acts 2:43-47

Have a wonderful weekend…………………….

I have always felt the living
presence

of trees the forest that calls to me
as deeply

as I breathe,as though the woods
were marrow of my bone

as though I myself were tree,

a breathing, reaching arc of the larger
canopy

beside a brook bubbling to foam

like the one deep in these woods,

that calls that whispers home

                                    Michael S. Glaser

Tuesday morning there was a lovely article in the Star Tribune called simply ‘Divine Shelter’. It told the story of a young Polish-born Jewish boy who escaped the death march to Auschwitz and found a home with a family in Czechoslovakia. Though he lived in the attic of the family’s home, at the sound of the approaching army, he would hide in the trunk of a hollowed out thirty-three foot high birch tree…..once for nine hours. Having survived the horror of those times, the now eighty-three year old man lived to see the tree that held his life named a ‘righteous tree’ in Israel’s Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem. Jakob Silberstein said, while in the tree he found hope by looking up to the open sky from the confines of the carved birch. "I had someone protecting me from above".

The family who had hidden Jakob had always held the tree in sacred trust, never entering it, never allowing harm to come to it. They held his story, his life and the life of the tree in their care. What a blessed responsibility!

These days we are all witness to the changing life of trees. As vibrant colors turn to brown, as oak and birch leaves let go their firm grip on life, giving in to gravity, do you ever wonder what life the trees you watch have saved? Do you ever wonder if a marriage proposal was offered under the spreading branches? Did someone lean against the firm trunk struggling for a last breath? Whose strong, nimble legs climbed toward the highest branches to declare themselves "King…or Queen..of the World?" What young family spread a blanket, laid an infant down for a nap and watched the slow,steady rise and fall of its chest with vigilant gaze?

Like Jakob Silberstein, perhaps others have had their lives saved by a ‘righteous tree’. If not an actual tree, I am certain we have experienced "Divine Shelter." As the leaves float softly to the awaiting ground, may we have the grace to offer thanks for all those people and places that provide a safe place for us….those that ‘whisper home.’