"Every long journey is made in small steps,
Is made of courage, the feeling you get
When you know it's been waiting, been waiting for you.
The journey's the only thing you want to do……..

~Ann Reed

I've been singing these words over and over in my head today. I know that it is partially because I am anticipating Ann Reed's concert at church tomorrow night.We are looking forward to her 'Songs of Hope' concert, an opportunity to bathe in words and music that will lift us above whatever is dragging us down.  I am singing them also, I think, because I am very aware of this journeying time we are in. The journey of winter to spring. The journey of Lent to Easter. The journey of darkness to light. So many journeys…..

Of course, we are all on journeys all the time. The journey of our day, our year, our life. We just rarely think of our living in quite this way. But when we really allow ourselves to be in the 'journeying mind' each day can be an adventure, a series of steps toward something more. Many people I know are on significant life journeys.They are dealing with illness, death, losses of many kinds, journeys they never intended to take. But life showed up and off they went, down the road. Still others are waiting for new babies, graduations, weddings, the joy and promise of birth. Perhaps more joyful journeys but filled with great change nonetheless. 

This journey becomes even a greater experience when we are awake and aware of those who travel by our side. Ann Reed's lyrics continue:" And we cannot know what you go through or see through your eyes but we will surround you with pride undisguised. In any direction, whatever you view,you're taking our love there with you."

Isn't that the blessing we all seek? To be understood for our unique experience and affirmed in it. No one can really know what our journey feels like, how the experience is for us. It is a great gift to be surrounded by people who are filled with pride at our triumphs and with compassion at our failures. It is a great gift to travel in the love of others.

Who are you surrounding with love this day? Perhaps it is a family member, a close friend or co-worker. But maybe, just maybe, it might be the overworked sales clerk, the harried teacher at your child's school, the bus driver. What might the world be like if we surrounded, not only those close to us, but those we simply encounter with the same compassion and love ? Like Tinkerbell sprinkling fairy dust, we have the opportunity to spread well wishes on the path of every fellow traveler we meet. I'd like that, wouldn't you? 

"Maintaining a complicated life is…..one of the best ways we have to avoid looking at some of the larger questions. ~Elaine St. James, from Living the Simple Life

Last week I was about to throw away a newsletter I'd received when I saw this quote at the bottom of the page. I had to smile. I thought I could get away with pitching this piece of paper but it wasn't finished with me yet. There was a little message meant just for me and it was going to find its way to me no matter what. I thought of all the ways I perpetuate the complicated life. Too busy for this or that. Saying yes to too many obligations. Allowing myself to be consumed by the seemingly urgent while ignoring what is truly important. It is a common dis-ease of our 21st century life. 

Creating a complicated life does, indeed, allow us to hedge the larger questions. If my life is too full, too busy, too overbooked, too….you can fill in the blank…..it is very easy to never get to the larger questions of life. It becomes, at least for me, easy to continually tick away at the to-do list than take the time to grapple with the bigger issues that press at my heart, that stir my soul.  It is also easier to continue to put off till tomorrow, when things are less complicated, those questions that really are calling to me at a deeper level, those experiences that bring me pleasure, fulfill me. Living the complicated life is, after all, exhausting. 

What is complicating your day? What is complicating your life? Are there dreams and goals you have been putting off until the time when life is less complicated? Sometimes we have no control over the complications that come our way. They simply need to be dealt with in the here and now.For those times we offer our prayers. But other times we create complications to keep us from taking the risk, seeing the bigger picture, taking stock, asking the hard questions. It is important to recognize the difference in these complications of life.

Nicola Slee wrote this grace for distracted eaters: "Today my food has no flavor. I do not notice what the weather is doing. I eat distractedly, consumed by my own absorptions. Still I make this prayer and my lips utter Thanks." Whether we describe our living as complicated or distracted, it is my belief that we all want to taste the glory that is our food. We all want to look outside our windows and notice the blazing sun and the melting icicles. We all want to arrive at the end of another day of life, which is pure gift, knowing that our mouths can form a 'thanks'. 

And so, perhaps it is a good idea to clear out a little space where complications cannot live. Five seconds, five minutes, five hours, five days to rest in the larger questions. Whatever we can muster that will get us to that place called gratitude. I have to believe it will make a difference, not only to us, but to our world.

Yesterday morning I was making my way to the office along my usual route. I was taking in the piles of dirty snow and general grayness of day's beginning. I was listening to my usual radio station which was delivering its normal banter. I was thinking of the details of the day ahead with a certain 'ho-hum' nature. It was Monday after all and I knew what every Monday holds, which meetings will happen when, the cleanup of the aftermath of any given Sunday. Plainly put, it was shaping up to be a regular, normal, nothing-out-of-the-ordinary Monday.

And then, boom, my eyes beheld a giant lemon! Sitting in the driveway of a house I pass numerous times during any given week, there sat a giant lemon shaped structure. It was the size of a small camper or, dare I say it, ice fishing house! It was shiny and looked new. It sat on a nice green platform as if this giant lemon had fallen from an even more enormous lemon tree onto a bed of newly cut grass. The brilliant yellow of the lemon was such a shock to my eyes,now so accustomed to the blur of winter white, that I shook my head to see if I was hallucinating. But no, there is was a giant lemon showing itself on the first day of March. It seemed to say:"Look out! Summer is on its way!" On further inspection I saw a window in the lemon, obviously an entrance for people to order lemonade and an exit for the sweet, sugary drink of warm days. 

I laughed out loud. This unexpected sight set the tone for my day. It helped to remind me that there are surprises waiting to delight us, to jar us out of the routine we cling to. These surprises can bring us the gift of seeing what has been too familiar, boring even, in new and exciting ways. It is the basis of all creativity to see the world in this way. It is, I like to believe, the way children still walk in the world. It is a practice most adults need to recapture to help them see the world that has become too static in new ways. Seeing the giant lemon certainly did that to my usual Monday.

What surprises have you seen lately? What experiences have jarred you out of the routine of a typical winter, a regular work day? We cannot manufacture surprises and the gifts they bring. But we can all walk into each day with eyes wide open to what the world might bring. The giant lemon helped me to be open to other little touches that made my Monday, the first day of March, a day like no other. It was a day that held lots of laughter with my co-workers, big belly laughs. It also held a few tears as I met with someone who had lost a loved one, as we planned to keep their memory. As I read a wonderful book about feeding people and the true meaning of communion, I noticed that some refraction of light had caused a rainbow to form on the surface of my creamed tea. It was so beautiful and then I drank from my tea cup. I like to think that rainbow is now inside of me. I came home to find the amaryllis that is reaching toward its fullness even taller than yesterday. So many things to notice on any given day. 

And to think it all started with a giant lemon……..It was just what I needed.

"Mystery is at the heart of creativity. That, and surprise."~Julia Cameron

I had the privilege yesterday of spending time at two events led by J.Philip Newell, author, poet and former warden of the Iona community on the island of Iona, Scotland. I have long been a follower of his work which finds its home in Celtic spirituality helping readers to reclaim some ancient wisdom of the early faithful. It was an inspiring day, filled with hope and new insights for these renewing days of Lent. While most church leaders can paint a fairly bleak picture of the future of the faithful, Newell describes what he believes to be a 'New Pentecost'. From his eye view he sees the 'Spirit hovering over us bringing a 'new consciousness of Oneness.' His descriptions of co-leading retreats with Jewish and Muslim faith leaders are humbling. The ways in which he shapes words and stories to show the unity of different faith traditions rather than their division fills me with hope and excitement. Truly, as a world, we can no longer continue to further divide and alienate one another. We see the fruits of this kind of destruction all around us, in our churches, in our governments, in our warring, in our brokenness. 

Perhaps, like J. Philip Newell, we might embrace the idea, the hope, that we are in the midst of a 'New Pentecost'. Perhaps the Spirit is moving in ways that, like the story of Pentecost in the Book of Acts, shines the spotlight on people being able to understand one another even though they spoke different languages. Wouldn't that be wonderful? Wouldn't that be a sure sign of the kin-dom of God in our midst? I can imagine Israelis and Palestinians talking across fences seeing, not the long years of divisions, but the human longing in one another's faces. I can dream of seeing all the places of war in our world being healed by conversations about how both sides love their children, their partners, their homeland and each one understanding how more alike they are they they ever imagined. I can see our politicians opening their hearts, minds and very spirits to pursuing the common good, laying aside their party language for words that move toward healing and a renewed sense of what it means to be a nation that cares for the least, the lost and the left out. I imagine a time when young men won't need to join a gang to find identity and belonging but will be so secure in their home and school that they will stand strong in knowing they are unique and blessed children of God.

This kind of systemic change will take more than legislation. petitions and votes. It will take a 'New Pentecost', a stirring of the Spirit so full and vibrant that there will be no turning back. We will have understood one another so fully and will have seen the Holy in the other's eyes. I pray J. Philip Newell is right. I pray that what he has been speaking of and experiencing is signaling a new way of being in the world that allows us to see our unity, not only with one another, but with the One who breathed us all into being regardless of the color of our skin, the faith we proclaim, the political party we support, the size of our checkbook, the place we call home. 

As we finished our day with worship at the lovely Pilgrim Lutheran Church in St. Paul, we sang this chant from the ancient Gaelic writings Carmina Gadelica: 'May God's goodness be yours, and well and seven times well. May you spend your lives.' I woke this morning with those words still echoing in my head and my heart. Perhaps this new Pentecost will allow these words to be the silent greeting we offer to all we meet. May we spend our lives, literally, embracing the goodness of Creation that is our gift. And in this embrace may we hold one another dear, as dearly as we are held by the One who breathes over us. 

"When the day of Pentecost has come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them,and a tongue rested on each of them.All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.Amazed and astonished they asked, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? …..All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, "What does this mean?" Acts 2 selected

Have a blessed weekend………………………..

In this morning's Star Tribune newspaper, I was interested in Deb Brown's article debunking certain plant facts or fiction. I was particularly drawn to several paragraphs about talking to your plants. Now this is an idea that has been around for many years and I have certainly observed many people lovingly talking to their plants. I haven't,l however, ever done any hard research to see if talking while watering and weeding really makes any difference. I mostly have just thought it was sweet, a lovely thing to do between plant and gardener.

It seems, according to Brown, that it does indeed breed healthier plants. It does not really matter much what the love words you say are as long as you breathe long and hard on them. It seem the human's inhalation of oxygen and exhalation of carbon dioxide goes up against the plant's 'exhalation' of oxygen and 'inhalation' of carbon dioxide. As we are talking to these leafy ones, our breath feeds their need for CO2. It's kind of a mouth to leaf thing. 

Breathing is important business for people, plants and, well, all living things. But it is certainly something we take for granted, in fact, I know people who often hold their breath unconsciously when under stress. Breathing well regulates our hearts and calms our tensions. Breathing deeply lowers our blood pressure and can take us to a place of meditation. Paying attention to our breath can also help us connect to Spirit, allowing our prayers and our breath to unite. And it seems our breathing can also bring much needed greenness to the world. 

On this winter day, it would be a good thing to spend some time breathing…..just breathing….connecting with the Life Force that keeps us moving through this amazing and ever changing world. Breathing in, we are filled with the Spirit. Breathing out, we exhale a life giving form that causes plants to grow and flowers to bloom. Feels good, doesn't it?

"What can we do but keep on breathing in and out, modest and willing, and in our places?"  ~Mary Oliver

There is an interesting and somewhat dangerous experience that happens in the waning days of winter. In places where the pavement of the road contracts and is often pummeled with salt and other chemicals, large potholes grow at an alarming rate. We have now entered such a time. Most streets, having frozen and thawed many times over the last months, are now filled with gaping holes, some as large as several feet in diameter. Many streets are so laden with these potholes that one must drive at reduced speeds, swerving and swaying to avoid destroying their car or disappearing into the hole altogether. 

On my way into the office this morning I heard on the radio of a link on Minnesota Public Radio simply called "Search Potholes". It allows people to report potholes on various stretches of road. An area map is then marked with an orange flag to show the egregious pothole. Supposedly drivers might steer clear of these hazards by knowing where they are located. Visiting the sight I saw that, at least in certain parts of the cities, it would be nearly impossible to drive any place!

"Search Potholes" got me thinking about these road nuisances in a more metaphorical way. I thought about the people I know who are experiencing some dangerous roads. Most of them did not know the 'potholes' that steered their life in a different way, or brought it to a halt altogether, were out there. They were simply going along in their usual way when 'BOOM' they hit a deep hole breaking their speed and their spirit. I am thinking of a woman I know who is doing mighty battle for a second time with cancer. She had no idea the potholes were ahead of her ready to zap her of her energy, her zest for living. I also think of those I know who are finding themselves out of work or under-employed, people who were just cruising along in their usual way and a big hole opened up in front them, threatening to swallow all they had known. Or then there are the people of Haiti whose lives have been turned upside down by the aftermath of the earthquake. As they literally pull themselves out of the mire, there must be so many days when they long to have had a sign, a warning of what was ahead. So many potholes.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if there was a way to search for the potholes that bring these kinds of stress and strain, even disaster, to our lives? Wouldn't it be wonderful to be able to go to a "Search Potholes" link and know which roads to avoid, which ones to take? Of course, there isn't. But there is wisdom to be gleaned from these pothole days. When you drive along a road with little knowledge of what it ahead, going a little slower,helps. It also is wise to drive with intention watching with wide eyes and an alert mind to the next pothole that might appear. It is also good to keep open and flexible, taking a turn that might result in a less bumpy ride. And it is really good to be gentle with yourself, snuggling deep into the padding of your car seat, finding a nice comfortable spot to protect you against the jar and jumble of the road. 

The good news is that soon, when the days get warmer and the sun is higher in the sky, those potholes will get filled in, patched over creating a smooth ride again. Sometimes it just takes a little waiting, a lot of patience and a good dose of prayer for those bumps in life to smooth out. And when that happens we might realize that the potholes had lessons all their own.

People in Minnesota and like climes are getting antsy for spring. I saw several people carrying bouquets of tulips over the weekend. No doubt they were bringing some signs of this longed for season into their homes to add color and promise. I also noticed that many of the conversations I had over the last several days somehow meandered their way to spring topics…..gardening, Easter, baseball. Even the birds can now be heard trying to usher winter out the door, throwing out their welcome mat of music.

We have planted several things indoors that are helping us gauge the coming of spring. We have a long silver planter filled with herb seeds beginning to show their lovely little, yellow green heads. We have another pot filled with paper whites reaching toward the brilliant February sunshine flowing through the window, reflecting off the still white ground.And on our kitchen table is the creme de la creme….an amaryllis bulb as big as a softball digging its roots into the dirt. Planted sometime last week it is now making a show of itself, green shoot pushing out of the gnarly bulb at what seems like an inch an hour. It is growing so quickly, it seems as if we could almost watch it, catch it in its upward movement toward becoming beautiful. 

These are the little tricks we winter people allow ourselves so we can hold onto hope, so we can remember what growth feels like, looks like. I recommend it. By the time spring actually arrives, which will be much longer than we'd like given March is our snowiest month, there will be the delicate flowers of paper-whites blooming in the family room. And if the amaryllis continues at the speed and power it has shown so far, our kitchen will be flooded with a flower the size of a dinner plate. These little signs of growth will carry us through the days when the melting snow will turn even dirtier as it reveals all kinds of hidden objects caught off guard by the falling snows of October. 

Over the weekend, our opossum returned to the backyard. This time I wasn't even concerned. I just smiled at his seeming eagerness for spring as well. He loped around the backyard looking not quite so confused, more awake, as he munched on some stray birdseed. The squirrels didn't even give him so much as a look. Perhaps we are all just getting used to one another, waiting for winter to be finished with us.

Spring is not here yet but we are having glimpses and that can make all the difference. On Sunday at church someone requested the lovely song by Natalie Sleeth, "Hymn of Promise". We began our singing clothed in the grays, browns and blacks of our winter state of mind. Our voices joined together: "In the bulb there is a flower, in the seed an apple tree; in cocoons, a hidden promise: butterflies will soon be free! In the cold and snow of winter there's a spring that waits to be, unrevealed until its season, something God alone can see."  When we finished singing, our cheeks were rosy with the promise of what is to come.

This spring we long for will be revealed in its own time, like all good gifts. Our work these days is to wait……and watch. And not get too antsy.

"The day of my spiritual awakening was the day I saw-and knew I saw-all things in God and God in all things."  ~Mechtild of Magdeburg

Here we are two days into Lent. How is it going for you? Some people I know give up things for Lent…chocolate, wine, television, mostly things that give them pleasure. I've yet to hear of anyone giving up say, spinach, brussel sprouts or exercise. Why do you think that is? There is a movement I've also heard of this year to give up driving to reduce one's carbon footprint. Not a bad idea but one that would take, for most people, an incredible amount of re-orchestrating daily movement. I am sure these sacrifices all have meaning to the people who are embarking on them. I personally have never found this kind of practice helpful to my spiritual life which is, I think, the purpose of giving something up for Lent. 

Instead, for me, Lent has always been a time of taking on something, something that will in some way lead me into a deeper relationship with the Holy. Taking on a new dimension of life has more power for me than giving up something like chocolate which, for me, would only make me crabby and obsessive, waiting so much for those Cadbury Easter eggs that I would miss Lent altogether. Different strokes. One year I prayed a novena every day using a book by Joan Chittister,OSB called Life Ablaze. One Lent I made a promise of writing a poem everyday.(Nominal success,leading to some pretty bad poetry.) Another I did lectio divina, a practice of reading scripture slowly, meditatively, looking for the phrase or word that seemed to speak directly to me. Of course, all these practices had limited success in living them out as most life changes we make. But I do believe they served to give a certain intention and focus to this season which can shape us in new ways if we let it.

This year I have decided to read through the book of Ezekiel and try to create something visual as a daily practice. Ezekiel has always been one of my favorite books of the Bible. It contains the resurrection story of the Hebrew scriptures, the story of the dry bones scattered in the wilderness waiting for the Spirit to breathe over them bringing them to life once again. It is a good story to walk with in Lent, in winter days. In the midst of February and March, two of the coldest months of the year,who can not identify with the white bones, lifeless and without form? These months are filled with waiting for new life.

Lent can be,if we allow it, a time set aside for creating a practice to wake us up to the presence of the Holy. It can be a time to wander in the wilderness like Jesus did further honing our identity, getting to know ourselves in new ways. In the process we may just come to know God in new ways as well. This might happen through giving up something. It also might happen by committing ourselves, like Mechtild, to seeing God in all things and all things in God. As I read the scriptures it seems pretty clear that this is what Jesus did. He walked around looking for God in all things…people, places, fish, bread, wine. And in the process enfolding all things in God. 

Whatever the practice, or lack of one, may our walk these days lead us to a fuller knowledge of the One who walks with us, even when we do not know it.

Yesterday I was standing in line at a neighborhood post office. I love going to this particular post office because it is like taking a side trip to the United Nations. There are so many different cultures represented, faces of people who have made their way to this country from lands far away who now call the United States home. As we all stand waiting to make connections through the United States Postal service, I always find myself imagining where their letters and packages are headed. My mail, in comparison, always seem so boring, so routine. I listened to the different languages being spoken and then the broken English that was conjured up to communicate with the postal worker. It was wonderful to watch the interchanges on the faces of both the worker and the sender as they maneuvered through language and body language to get to a certain destination: their mail sent. 

Standing in front of me in the line was a man who had earphones on, listening intently. I assumed he was listening to his ipod trying to tune out the jumbled sounds of voices and interchanges that were giving me such pleasure. But then he turned to me, a smile spread across his face. "Do you want to know how Lindsey Vonn did?" I was startled out of my multicultural experience. "Yes. " I replied. He then smiled even wider and put his fist out toward mine. "Gold!" he said and moved his fist closer as I returned his fisted salute, bumping our gripped hands together in celebration. 

Now I have to admit I have seen many people do this fist bump greeting but I have never participated in it. And as I did this with a total stranger it filled me with such joy. Here was a man so into the Olympics that he was walking around listening to broadcasts while he did his errands. At that moment he needed someone to share his joy over a gold medal won by a fellow American on the other side of the country. I happened to be the lucky one standing behind him in the post office line. 

These Olympic games have the ability to galvanize people of all walks of life, don't they? I find myself talking about them with people I know and don't know, sharing what we thought, felt and believe about these athletes. Even people who never talk about or follow sports, somehow get drawn into the thrills and the defeats of these games. Yesterday I watched as the young Georgian luger's body was returned to his country and my heart ached for his family, for the people of his homeland who had followed his career as we have followed our country's athletes. Such loss, such hope, such opportunity all crammed into a couple of weeks in February. 

And what a gift they are in these February days when we ourselves are tired of snow and long for summer sunshine. To see others taking on the cold and the snow in ways that defy the odds and sometimes even sanity is a bright spot to lift us above the ordinary. While I can never imagine doing any of the skateboarding or figure skating moves, I can appreciate and cheer for those who have the skill and gifts to create such speed and beauty. Plus it gives us something to talk about at work and in the post office line besides the weather. And that is always a good thing. 

"The Olympic Games are the quadrennial celebration of the springtime of humanity"~Pierre de Coubertin

"All we have in life is life. Things-the cars, the houses, the education, the jobs, the money-come and go, turn into dust between our fingers, change and disappear….the secret of life….is that it must be developed from the inside out." ~Joan Chittister, Illuminated Life

 I don't know about you but when I see the words ' the secret of life' I always perk up. Finally, someone's going to tell me the answer! Of course, we all know, in part, the answer to the question 'What is the secret of life?' But we mostly want to find a short cut, a Cliff-notes version that is easier, takes less time, can be completed with fewer headaches and heartaches. Mostly we want to stay on the surface and glide along with few bumps and bruises.

But if we are really honest with ourselves we know that anything that really matters takes time,effort, commitment, sweat and a few well shed tears. And since life really matters,the secret to its living should be no exception. Do you agree? Instead of living our lives like little water bugs flitting across the surface of the water, we must go inside, deep inside, to develop the gifts of this living.

The season of Lent is an invitation to going inside, to taking the time to search within to find what has been hiding there. Lent asks us to stop what we have been doing and take a look in the mirror, perhaps take off the masks we've worn for too long and see ourselves in new ways. These forty days give us the permission to stop clinging to those things outside us that seem to give us definition(do they really?) and remember the soil in which we have been planted. Lent is not so much a time of self denial as it is self assessment. What temptations are luring me? What roads am I willing to walk down? How might I be more authentically both my human and divine self? 

Lent is where the rubber meets the road. If we allow ourselves to be swept up in the gifts of this season, in this time of the year, we can come through these forty days a fuller picture of who we were born to be. And wouldn't that be a good thing? I think so. I believe the Holy One would agree. My mother has a saying: 'No one ever said life would be easy. But it will always be worth it.' She also says: 'A hundred years from now, you'll never know the difference.' But that is a thought for another day.

For this day, this first full day of Lent, I plan to allow myself to look inside. I pray I find some beautiful secrets there waiting to be discovered, secrets that will lead me to a fuller picture of my life.