"Within the circles of our lives we dance the circles of the years, the circles of the seasons within the circles of the moon within the circles of the seasons, the circles of our reasons within the circles of the moon. Again, again we come and go changed, changing. Hands join, unjoin in love and fear, grief and joy. The circles turn, each giving into each, into all"  Wendell Berry.

Things are changing…can you sense it? If you are awake early, and walk outside, there is the faintest scent of autumn, that crisp air tinged with moisture that signals the change of August heat into the coolness of September days. Walking in the evenings there is the sound of crickets creating a hum in the background that provides a musical score for the setting of the Sun, the changing of the season. Different bird songs are heard…there seems to be an urgency to their sound. Our pansies have finally faded, holding on longer than so many annuals to their sweet colors. Over the weekend I removed them from planters, replacing them with baby mums……the flower of fall. The squirrels in our yard are also busier than usual, running wildly, chasing one another, chewing noisily on the black walnuts they have knocked prematurely from our trees. They sense the change and are preparing. Each day is shorter than the one before, night falling while the air is still heavy with warmth.

The children, too, play more frenetically, riding bikes with abandon down the middle of the street. They know their freedom is coming to an end. A kindergartner across the street marched up and down the sidewalk last week wearing his new backpack, proud and excited with the change about to happen in his life. The backpack which dwarfed him now will give way in not so many years to larger containers that carry his belongings. This was confirmed by the truck next door packed with boxes, books, equipment….. and dreams of the young woman headed back to college.Soon we will load our own car with our son’s belongings as he heads to his second year away from home. Where did the summer go?

Change. We crave it. We long for it. We dream of it. We work diligently for it. It is woven into the very fiber of Creation. And now we have the privilege of being present to its arrival. It carries both hope and a bittersweetness. What has been will not be again…….what is to be is yet unknown.

May we be granted the eyes to see the beauty of it all and a heart to hold the gift of change, of changing.

"Listening looks easy, but it’s not simple. Every head is a world."   Cuban Proverb

Today will be another day guided, hopefully, by the wisdom of my horoscope. "You’ll learn all you need to know by listening more than you talk." read today’s message to me and those born under our sign. It is a message that conjures humility in an extrovert….an often opinionated extrovert….one who often thinks by talking. So today, I should be about the work of listening, you say? It will most surely be a welcome state for my colleagues and family.

Listening. As I read these words, I remembered a book I had purchased some time ago. Practicing the Sacred Art of Listening: A Guide to Enrich Your Relationships and Kindle Your Spiritual Life by Karen Lindahl. It is one of those books that looked so good at the time, one I could use in a class or retreat, but has remained unopened. "It happens at work and at home, with strangers and close friends, in heated debates and in quiet conversations, you hear someone speaking, but often you don’t truly listen." writes Lindahl. Perhaps I’ll get around to reading and using it sometime soon.

While in conversation, so many times, I am preparing my ‘brilliant’ reponse to what is being said. I am not truly listening. In conversation with my children, I am often trying to impart some words, thought to be wise, when what they really need from me is my full attention, my deep listening, rather than the words I ‘dreamed’ would inspire them or set them straight. Listening….it is one of the greatest gifts we offer another …the gift of our undivided, nonjudgmental presence to their words, their thoughts, their vulnerability, their strength.

When our children were in preschool, I remember the teachers saying "let’s put on our listening ears" as they began to give directions for a project or lesson. Today I plan to put on my ‘listening ears’ and walk out into the world. I know there are important words to hear, even more important lives to witness. Today, my prayer is that ‘listening’ will be my spiritual practice. I invite you to join me. Who knows what we may learn?

For most people in the Twin Cities yesterday was spent with split attention….part was on our work, caring for children, running errands, daily tasks….the other on the news of the bridge disaster….who, how, why? The television and radio coverage was filled with stories of near misses, extreme bravery, eye witness accounts and mostly reactions and feelings. In a state that doesn’t think of itself as very emotional, people had the need to talk about how this tragedy has affected them. There were poignant stories and informational ones. All offered with the best intent. Each one connected us in a deeper way….reminded us of what was truly important…..holding loved ones, kissing our children, climbing out of the sea of uncertainty toward understanding how to try to fix what has happened.

Prayers were offered all over the cities, in churches, on streets, in cars speeding to work and in those gridlocked in traffic created by others trying to find new roads to travel without the use of the bridge. There is a unification in this kind of tragedy….everyone realizes how much we have in common, rather than how different we are.The frivolous gets stripped away and we are left standing in our simplest forms….human beings who need each other for help, for healing, for hope.

Over the next days we will continue to watch and wait in some kind of solidarity with those families who have no answers.we hope, for their sake, it will not stretch into weeks or longer.  Our prayers will continue to surround them and hold them in our humble, human ways. We will watch as divers and engineers, firefighters and police officers do their difficult work…..work most of us could never imagine doing. We will listen as people try to place blame and second guess what might have been, what should have been. We will hear government officials make promises they hope they can keep.

But each morning as we leave for work, for school, for a long awaited vacation, for the weekly drive ‘up north’ to the cabin, we will whisper the words Anne Lamott  reports her church says to each person who goes on a trip: "Traveling mercies: love the journey, God is with you, come home safe and sound."

May it be so for you and for those you love. May it be so for all those we never meet.

Traveling mercies…..

"They say that one of the reasons for tragedy is that you
learn important lessons from it…appreciation for your normal life for one
thing….a new longing for things only ordinary…the feeling is that we are so
caught up in minutiae, slicing tomatoes, and filling out forms and waiting in
lines and emptying the dryer and looking in the paper for things to do, that we
forget how to use what we’ve been given. Therefore we don’t taste the plum. We
are blind to the slant of the four o’clock sun against the changing show of
leaves. We are deaf to the throaty purity of children’s voices. We are assumed
to be rather hopeless. Swallowed up by incorrect notions, divorced from the
original genius with which we are born. Lost within days of living this
distracting life. We are capable only of moments of single seconds of true
appreciation and connection. That is the thought."  Elizabeth Berg, Range of Motion

As I awoke this morning, after spending time into the late hours watching news coverage of the I-35W bridge collapse, I thought again of these words from a novel I read long ago. At the time I read the book, I was so struck with their truth that I copied them and have kept them for probably 10 years.

Tragedy. It has a way of waking us up and making us remember the vulnerability with which we walk in the world. It also has the ability to remind us of the gift of the simple, the gift of each ordinary day. And tragedy also puts into blinding perspective what is truly important. I knew this last night when my son called to let me know he was safe, as my family called from around the country unsure of our usual driving patterns, as friends around the cities checked in with each other with urgency, "Are you o.k.?". Tragedy, the great equalizer in the mountains of mostly unimportant worries and busy-ness.

Today, as those trained and knowledgable in recovery and cleanup in tragedies like the one we have witnessed do their work, our prayers are with them. May they be safe and have courage. Today, as the families and friends of those who were on the bridge begin to grapple with what happened, what to do now, how to take whatever steps must be taken, our prayers are with them. May they have comfort and peace. Today, as we walk into the world, vulnerable as we all are, may grace surround each of us…..help us to taste the plum, see the light, hear the children’s voices…..not hopeless, but thankful in our very bones.

"Continue in a society dark with cruelty to let the people hear the grandeur of God in the peals of your laughter…..Continue to remind the people that each is as good as the other and that no one is beneath nor above you…..Continue to put the mantel of your protection around the bodies of the young and defenseless….Continue to take the hand of the despised and diseased and walk proudly with them in the high street. Some might see you and be encouraged to do likewise…..Continue to plant a public kiss of concern on the cheek of the sick and the aged and infirm and count that as a natural action to be expected….Continue to ignore no vision which comes to enlarge your range and increase your spirit…..Continue to dare to love deeply and risk everything for the good thing……Continue and by doing so you and your work will be able to continue eternally."
                                          Maya Angelou, from Continue

Perseverance, I believe, may be one of the noblest of human qualities. Of course there are those who persevere for less than noble reasons, creating less than noble results. But perseverance toward the good is difficult yet rewarding work, work that connects us deeply with the Holy One.

A few weeks ago when I was given this quote by Maya Angelou, I was reminded of so many people in my life that have, in spite of all the obstacles placed before them, continued. Continued to feed the ever growing number of hungry on our streets…Continued to teach children to read and grow in healthy ways when budgets in the public schools continue to be cut…Continued to offer kindness and justice to the marginalized in our midst…Continued to offer hope to women and children who live on the edges, those who hang on from paycheck to paycheck….Continued to visit the lonely in nursing homes offering songs and laughter, sweet treats and a warm touch. Continued to offer a smile, a joke, their laughter in the middle of a stressful day. Simply continued………..

Perseverance and faith walk hand in hand. To persevere toward goodness in our lives requires faith that, indeed, our actions will make a difference…even ones we may never see or be aware of.

Each day we have the opportunity to wake up, get dressed, put on our shoes, brush our teeth and hair, and head out into the world…..to persevere, in faith, to offer ourselves to the world, to continue……..eternally.    

It is noble and important work.

Last week while I was in Chicago, I visited the Art Institute where I saw Monet’s various paintings of "Haystacks" or sometimes called "Stacks of Wheat". I have always been fascinated by these paintings…the subtle,yet rich colors…gold, yellow, purple, pink, blue, periwinkle, deep red….all seen as if through a veil of light. Until Wednesday I had only seen prints, never the originals. To see the various paintings, all of a haystack, yet painted at different times of day, in different seasons filled me with emotion. I can’t explain why. Certainly their sheer beauty was part of it but more than that I think it is the simplicity of the subject, given center stage in such a masterpiece. Hay….the food of animals…a covering for barn floors….elevated to the single subject, a thing of beauty, by such a wonderful artist.

Each painting captures the myriad of color created by the play of light on the haystack as Monet observed it throughout the day . The intensity of the light changed with the seasons….summer much different than autumn, even different as the snow of winter covers the scene. I imagined Monet trying to capture the colors of sky and land. His practice was to move from canvas to canvas at half hour intervals as the light changed. The colors he observed, then painted,  were those that the haystack absorbed through the shifting light of time and season.

Sitting on a bench where I could observe, from a distance,  six of the twenty-eight paintings Monet created of this scene, I was able to allow my eyes to drift slowly over each. I was able to enter into that scene in a meditative way. I wondered what might happen if I spent the same kind of intentional time observing a single object over the play of daylight, over the slow stretch of seasons. What might I learn about the play of light? What might I learn about the object? What might I learn about myself?

Light…it is a metaphor used by most faith traditions to describe the experience of the Divine. As the Light shines into our lives we are changed, transformed,revealed to be more than we originally believed. As we absorb the Light, we become not just mere human beings…..we, too, become works of art, masterpieces of the Creator.

"What has come into being was life, and the life was the light of all people." John 1:9

"Thousands of years of history have passed….and during all that time human beings have fought, killed, plundered and wronged each other in every possible way. Of such stuff history is made. But also during that time, other human beings have quietly and patiently persevered in the development of the arts, crafts, inventions, ideas and programs. From these millions of creative persons, most of them unnoticed and unknown in the upheavals of history, have come the good and lasting things in the sum of human culture." Barbara G. Walker

At a party this past weekend, I was surrounded by spirited and intelligent conversation. One woman and I were talking about all kinds of issues and subjects and in the course of the discussion she told me how, after the death of Senator Paul Wellstone, she fell into a state of despair. It seemed to her that so much was lost when his plane went down….his life, his enthusiasm, his message, her feelings of hope. She then told me about a wonderful task she assigned herself in those days to help her healing begin…….she began keeping a "hope journal", writing down those moments of hope she witnessed during the day.  Because I remember sharing her deep grief and sense of loss, I found this a compelling idea. A Hope Journal.

It is easy, I believe, to become fixated on the tragedy of our world. Our nightly news and morning papers remind us of all that is wrong with the world. It is rare indeed to see a story of all that is right with the world. Yet it really is only a small percentage of people who plunder, create havoc and perpetrate violence.  It is a vastly larger percentage of people who "quietly and patiently persevere" in their simple and humble acts of making the world a better, more beautiful, kinder place in which to live.We are surrounded by them every day….sometimes we, ourselves, are those bearers of hope.

I think of the people I know who give countless hours cooking and serving meals to the homeless. They set a beautiful table, invite their friends to provide music for dinner, some give hand massages to those people who have perhaps only known harsh and uncaring touch. I think of the artists who, each day, get out of bed to take up their work of creating beauty and awe-inspiring paintings or sculptures, music to be sung, poems to be shared. I think of the parents and teachers everywhere who patiently teach children to read, to play nicely with others, to develop as kind, compassionate people. I think of the coaches who inspire young athletes to excellence and to develop an understanding of the gifts and limitations of their own bodies. So many, so many people who inspire hope……quietly persevering all around us.

Perhaps each of us would benefit from keeping a Hope Journal. It would help remind us of the goodness that is lived out each day. It would help turn our eyes and our hearts from those situations and people that can bring out the cynic in each of us.

"The future will not belong to the cynics. The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams."  Paul Wellstone

I found a discarded fortune from a fortune cookie yesterday. The clear wrapper was nearby, the sweetness of the cookie consumed by someone else…..the fortune left behind. For me? Perhaps. "A day of worry is more exhausting than a week of work. " It seemed a perfect message for my day….one left behind by someone it didn’t fit for someone it did.

Worry. It is an exhausting state in which to live. Yet, I’ve found myself there a lot lately. There seems to be much to worry about…..the state of the world….the unending war…..upcoming elections….the state of the church….friends who are ill or injured…..change and transitions….our children, their future,their present….other people’s children, their future,their present….the list goes on and on. Even writing this, I can feel the muscles in my arms growing heavy with ‘worry exhaustion’.

Worry…"to feel distressed in the mind, be anxious,troubled or uneasy" is the most common definition. But also, worry means "to pluck at, push on, repeatedly, in a nervous or determined way"….or…." to harass or treat roughly with or as with continual biting or tearing with the teeth". Most often, at least in my case, worry begins with the second definition as I pluck or push on a detail or feeling in a determined way leading to the second….a nagging feeling of distress and anxiety. And before I know it there is gnashing and tearing, perhaps not of  teeth, but of spirit and soul. It is a vicious cycle, one that is almost always self perpetuated, one that is always self-destructive.

The root of worry is, I believe, a lack of feeling in control….of a situation, a feeling, another person. And while I have learned over time that it is an exhausting,harmful, distracting and in the end, useless, state of being, I still find myself there sometimes.  Do you?

In what was perhaps him most famous sermon, Jesus talked to ordinary people:"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Look at the birds of the air, they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet God feeds them. And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your space of life? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these." Matthew 6

Thanks to the person who left their fortune behind. It was a gift. Today I want to learn from the birds at our feeder and the lilies blooming brilliantly in our garden. Today I will trade worry for faith. Join me?

Have a wonderful, worry-free weekend………………………

It is always good to get a change of scenery. I’ve just returned from three days away from the regular rhythm of my life. It is strange how just being in a place that is unfamiliar can help boost your energy, open your eyes and help you refocus what is important,how you go about your living. It is very easy for me to rarely take the time to break up the normal pattern of my day. I can move through the work, family,home and ‘real’ life with very little variance only to find myself sometimes bruised and battered and often a little bored by the sameness of it all.

So, it is good to go to a place you’ve never been, into a neighborhood you don’t know well, even down a street that is unfamiliar.Observing others in their ‘real life’ somehow helps me see my own with added appreciation, wisdom.  When we do this we look with ‘new eyes’ at the world. We see things from our place of original wonder, innate curiosity. We become adventurers, explorers, ready to discover new things….about the place…about ourselves.  I have the notion, perhaps a romantic one, that many children still live this way.Certainly many of the artists I know live this way…each day is an adventure, a door that opens to…who knows what? Only walking into the sunlight will begin to uncover the answer to this daily miraculous question.

Most often, in the change of scenery,  we like what we see,……sometimes not so much. In both experiences there is learning. Perhaps we will return to this place again because here we found….peace…joy…beauty….freedom…..you can fill in the blank. A change of scenery is good for the soul and I am thankful to have walked in different paths if only for a short time. Now I can look at my days with the addition of those experiences to add spice and color and texture. Pure gift!

"Waking up this morning, I smile, Twenty-four brand new hours are before me. I vow to live fully in each moment and to look at all beings with eyes of compassion."  Thich Nhat Hanh

"Spirit of earth, take root in me; strength of fire, enliven me; power of wind, blow through me; blessing of rain, fall on me. Wisdom of blood, flow through me; promise of seed, unfold in me; endurance of story, speak through me; spiral of time, remember me."  Jan L. Richardson

This past Sunday I was privileged to be a part of a worship service at a church in one of the northern suburbs of St. Paul. This church has a beautiful building and also a rare, outdoor chapel. From Memorial Day to Labor Day, they worship in a grove of oak trees that joins the back of the parking lot. A fire pit sits at the center of the grove and around the fire, small rustic, brown benches of varying heights form a circle around the fire. Birds sang in the trees providing music that rivaled anything our human voices could produce. It was a beautiful, holy place.The space itself required simplicity in liturgy,music and dress…..

Certainly the ancients worshiped in just such a place. They gathered around the fire and told their stories, offered gratitude for the day’s gifts, perhaps shared with one another and with the Holy their joys and sorrows. Standing in that outdoor chapel I was overcome with a keen sense of being connected through time with all those who have gathered, placing the fire of God at the center of their lives.Like Moses, I wanted to "take off my shoes" for I was, indeed, "on holy ground." The enduring story of our faith moved through this group of 21st century people in much the same way it has moved before…..providing a common thread for us to hold as we move in our own day, in our own life experiences….praying with deep hope that we are remembered and held close by the One who created us.

I love our churches with beautiful and artistic stained glass windows, often recounting the stories of our faith.. But there is something deep and powerful about standing on the Earth, no colored glass to hide the dancing leaves and the waving branches and, without walls, to offer our worship.To raise voices with those that fly is sweet music.And let all Creation say: "Amen."