"To dare the incarnation; to take the road in silence,
To know the ascension; to will the resurrection.
The song shimmers in the golden people."
~Aidan Andrew Dun

Incarnation. Ascension. Resurrection. These are all
‘churchy’ words. They are not used in the course of conversation for most
people. But since I travel in ‘churchy’ circles I find they are often implied
if not always spoken. Incarnation: God with and within us. Ascension: a reaching
toward heaven. Resurrection: the life that comes after a time that seemed
hopeless and dead.

I have spent the last two days at a beautiful retreat center
in central Minnesota.
The days have been full of lively conversation, soul searching questions,in the
company of people I love and whose wisdom fills me to over flowing, that sustains
me along my spiritual path. Looking out my window on the landscape outside I
notice, not only the freshness of new snow and the steadfastness of the birch
and oaks, but also the tracks of the small animals that call this place home throughout the seasons.
Those who live year round in community here have been quiet hosts preparing our
food, simple and healthy, and have moved about in the shadows making our stay
comfortable and welcoming. As I have been aware, they have met in prayer twice
daily, and I have no doubt that they have prayed for all of us who have pulled
away from our busy city lives to get only a taste of their lives in this wooded
and sacred space. They have followed a call on their lives, just as each of us has, who will pack up in a few hours and drive away. The call is different yet stems
from the same source: incarnation.

While we have spent the last two days in conversation and
learning from one another, there has been laughter, much laughter. We have
listened to the deep questions of one another, been challenged by statements
that may have been outside our comfort zone, and embraced the passions that
bring life to one individual, passions that may not be our own but we share in
out of love for the other person. We have created art and been led by the
loving hand of those more skilled, making our work appear better than we could
ever have done on our own. We have reached toward heaven…….ascension.

Sitting in circle after circle we have shared those deep
parts of our lives that have gone fallow, the places where hurts have worn the
fabric thin with its presence. We have wondered about our futures, given advice
and encouragement, allowed silent prayers to rise for the places that bring us
the most pain. Staking our lives on the hope beyond hope that life will spring
from even the darkest places, we have ‘willed the resurrection’.

‘Churchy’ words for ‘churchy’ people? Maybe. But something
tells me that these are the words that fly just under the radar of every life
whether they are known or not, whether they attend church or not. Passing us
every day on the freeway, in the hallway, at the bus stop, in the checkout
line, are people who carry the spark of Divine within, who are reaching out for
a little touch of heaven, while staking their lives on the premise that, out of
whatever holds them captive, new life is just about to be born. We are all
golden people…..shimmering.

"There are years that ask questions and years that answer." ~Zora Neale Hurston

 We are now a full week into this new year. I have to admit that, for me, the last several days have been a whirlwind of activity and so this morning I sat down to reflect on what has already happened in this new year. My head is spinning with a flurry of meetings and activities that contained plans for many wonderful things scheduled over the next few months.This focus so far out into the year, all important work, has kept me from being very present to the moments that are passing right now. Moments not to be taken lightly for they will not be given to me again. 

So right now, in the quiet of this morning, this very moment, I am taking a breath and arriving. At the threshold of this new year, this new decade, I am taking a breath and simply being. It feels good. I have to admit to liking the sound of 2010 better than 2009. Perhaps it is the round numbers, the good, even numbers that instill some irrational sense of comfort and strength. Breathing in the hope and promise of what the year holds, I am taking time to honor the mystery of it. 

On New Year's Eve as we gathered in a quiet circle of friends, the full moon making an appearance outside the frosted window, I read the following poem written by Colman Barks to ring in the new year:

A child stood on his seat in a restaurant,
holding the railing of the chairback
as though to address a courtroom,
"Nobody knows what's going to happen next."
Then his turning-slide back down to his food,
relieved and proud to say the truth,
as we were to hear it.

I think I have probably shared this poem in this space before. I have to admit the words of it come to me many times during any given day, its truth always stunning me with surprise. We do not know if this will be a year that asks questions of us or if it will be a year that brings answers. Without a doubt it will bring both in small doses. But each year, I believe, does have the ability to be the one that dredges up the questions that live in our deepest, hidden places. Or the year can bring questions to us that are thrown our way by some outside force jarring us into awareness. Still others have a way of finding the smooth edges of answers that had only been just outside our reach, waiting for the perfect moment to arrive. 

A year of questions? A year of answers? Nobody knows what's going to happen next. But we have been told, 'the truth will set us free." May it be so.

Have a blessed weekend……..

"The greatest prayer is patience." ~The Buddha

I received what may seem to many people an odd Christmas present. My husband gave me a set of Buddhist prayer flags, something I have wanted for some time. Several houses in our neighborhood have these flags strung on their porches or across a space in the backyard. I always love looking at them as they are lifted by the wind throughout the seasons. Mine are brilliant primary colors…red,green,yellow and blue.. and are the size of a small handkerchief. They are strung on a strong white rope like a clothesline and I have hung them at the edge of our deck on a tall trellis. Printed in each corner of the flag are horses that seem to be flying. The instruction card that came with the flags explained the belief that these flying horses carry our prayers toward heaven as the flags are borne on the wind.

Even for this good Christian girl, this is a lovely image, a comforting thought. Prayers carried upward, outward, on the wind toward the One who hears the cries and laughter of each of us. I also like to think of those prayers being carried on the wind toward the houses of our neighbors perhaps adding the prayers held within those walls as the wind and the horses fly by. I'd like to think that if I could listen closely enough, intently enough,  I could hear the prayers myself as they are carried on the wind.  

Our prayer flags right now are bright with the dye that created their color. But over time they will fade in the sun and elements. Their edges will no doubt tear and become worn and raveled. If you look at National Geographic photos taken in Tibet or other countries where prayer flags are prominent, you will see these weathered lines of cloth strung between ravine and gorge, on the highest peaks of mountains. All have been placed in precarious places to hold the visible image of prayer that binds a people together, that reminds all who see them that the deepest longings of our hearts caries great power.

These cold days are having their way with our prayer flags. They are being tossed and thrown about by the force of sub-zero winds.Sometimes it can seem as if all our prayers are being jostled in such a way. But the horses that continue to find their home in the corners of brilliant color look up to the challenge. I feel stronger when I look at them and am comforted by their brightness against the extreme monochromatic white of the landscape. It is a good thing to have such a visible reminder of the prayers that hold us all together….even when we forget they are riding on the wind.

"The heavens declare the glory of God; 
the skies proclaim the work of the Holy One's hands."
~Psalm 19:1

The cold has lingered for many days now in Minnesota. We are not alone in this. Indeed, it seems, all over the country the cold is holding even those unaccustomed to frigid temperatures in its grasp. I think it is safe to say that most people do not like the cold. I have to admit that I am one of those rarities….I do love this weather. 

I love how we have to dress with care, in layers, to ward off the danger of frostbite. There is something primal and exciting about it. I love how the temperature and its usually accompanying sunshine causes everything, trees, snow, sky, to be clear and crisp to the eye. I love how the cold causes the usually invisible exhaust of factory, heating systems and even human breath to become visible to us. Look! There is the heat….visible! Look! There is the very breath that gives me life……visible!

Yesterday I drove across the Wabasha Bridge in downtown St. Paul and saw the steam rising from the Excel Energy plant. This billowing cloud rose straight up in the air like a fountain only, instead of water, what escaped was a formation that danced and undulated with the wind, swirling like a painter's brush against the sky. As I watch the people walking to their individual destinations their heads are ringed in the cloud of their own breath encasing them in life itself. I am watching out my window right this minute as the steam of the heat that is warming the parsonage next door shoots up from the ground where the vent allows this exchange of air to escape.

I am reminded of the times when we speak of the definition of a sacrament: an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace. How like a sacrament this visible air is! Throughout the rest of the seasons these same things are happening. Heat is being produced. People and all living things are breathing. And yet this miracle is invisible to us. It is only in these days when the cold holds us captive that the invisible becomes visible. Perhaps this is not only a gift of physics or chemistry but also a gift of Spirit. Perhaps these days when life lies hidden below the many layers of snow and ice, when the greenness of living is either a memory or a dream,  is the time we most need to be reminded that the Breath of Life is still moving, still inhaling and exhaling.

There are so many things that are invisible to us and yet exist none-the-less. The blood is flowing through my veins right now for which I am thankful. I am also thankful that I cannot see this miracle being moved by my heart's steady beat. I am happy to simply trust its invisible work. People are praying for me, for you, for the world, right now, people I know and do not know. They are doing invisible work that may, through the grace of God, become as visible as the steam clouds rising all over this landscape. Others are giving their lives to acts of love and compassion, many invisible, yet whose results will be visible in the healing and hope they produce.

Today, as I walk through this Dr. Zhivago world where ice and snow surround me at every turn, I want to notice each puff of steamy cloud that rises. I want to place my prayers on its flowing stream allowing them to rise ever upward and outward. If grace is the sacrament I believe it to be, perhaps the invisible will become visible in a sacrament of hope. I invite you to do the same. I am sure of at least this…..it couldn't hurt.

"Is my soul asleep?
Have those beehives that work
in the night stopped? And the water-
wheel of thought, is it 
going around now, cups
empty, carrying only shadows?

No, my soul is not asleep.
It is awake, wide awake.
It neither sleeps nor dreams but watches,
its eyes wide open
far-off things, and listens
at the shores of the great silence."
~Antonio Machado

These are the days to be awake, wide awake. As the cold temperatures try to lull us into a numbed existence, we are being urged to look for the ways the Holy takes shape in our midst. This is the season of Epiphany in the Christian church. It is a season that celebrates the Magi, those wise ones who traveled great distances to get a peek at the Christ Child. They loaded up their camels with their best gifts and followed a star hoping to be changed forever. We never really learn how it worked out for them but we know their fear of Herod led them to 'go home by a different way'. That change of route may have been enough to take them to places they never thought they'd go, meeting people that stretched their world view, giving new shape to their lives and their very souls. Each of us should be so lucky.

Too often I allow myself, instead, to be shaped by the 'beehives that work in the night' buzzing with useless chatter of the shoulds and oughts that plague nighttime. Too often I let the 'water-wheels of thought' spin round and round in the empty, shadowed places that rarely nurture my soul.  But in these days of Epiphany, when the brilliant sun shines down on the frozen images outside my window, I can shake my head and, if I am lucky, jar loose the cobwebs that have grown over these last weeks. In that shaking I become aware of my body and the soul that finds a home here. I can breathe deeply and allow that breath to ride softly from my toes to the top of my head and slowly out my nostrils. Yes, I am awake, wide awake. And with each breath I am nurtured and buffeted with the Spirit that gives life, new life even in a cold and frigid place like Minnesota in January.

Epiphany is a short season, only a little over five weeks, but if we stay awake it can be a time that can take each of us home by a different way. When we look for God sightings in the course of our daily lives, in the tiny details and the big stories that make up every day, we will make room for more light, creating more space for our souls. When we stay awake to the ways the Holy moves among us when we least expect it, we become even more aware of the ways we may offer our gifts to a world that needs healing and wholeness. 

It's all open to us, if we are awake, wide awake, fulling listening, embracing the great silence. And I can almost promise, there will be no camel riding required! 

"See, I am making all things new."  Revelation 21:5

 I read recently about an ancient Scottish custom. It called the celebration of "first-footing" and honors the first guest to cross the threshold of the house after the beginning of a new year. This guest is thought to bring good fortune and the custom is that the first-footer will bring with them a gift is helpful to the household. That person is then also offered a gift in return and invited with great hospitality to join in the celebration of the house for the new year.

 Over time I imagine there has been much planning as to who will be the first-footer to come through the New Year's door. It has probably become a ritual much like when Santa Claus visits some houses on Christmas Eve only preparing the children for the excitement that will happen while they sleep. But if we did not plan for it or in essence choose the first guest, we might do well to be open and aware to who or what it is that 2010 brings through our doors .What guest might we welcome into this year that will bring gifts we might not have imagined? 

As we look back at the guests who have crossed our paths this year, many have been welcome and many have not. Some have opened doors to find   illness,grief,disappointments, or sorrows knocking. Still others have opened doors to adventures, accomplishments, fresh starts, dreams fulfilled. Whether welcomed or not, all these have been guests, first-footers, in our lives. It is only in living into their arrival that we come to know their gifts. Initially we may not be able to celebrate their step across our thresholds. But with retrospect we can, through grace, mine the gifts they have brought.

Today we stand in the in-between place between the year that has been and the one yet to come. Guests have come and gone, leaving behind assorted gifts that have changed us and shaped us, preparing us for the newness of the year to come. In the reflection that will no doubt happen at some point of this day, it will be good to offer our gratitude for all whether welcome or not. And as we move into the darkness of this night which also offers us a Blue Moon, a blessed second full moon of this month, may we all find ourselves waiting with anticipation for the first-footer who will bring the first gift of the new year to our homes. May we open the door fully for all they carry and bid them a hearty welcome. 

2010….here we come!

"Out of clutter, find simplicity." Albert Einstein

I received an email from a friend who was basking in her acts of de-cluttering. Over the past few days, I too, have been making plans to clean out little spots that have collected more than they need, more than they can hold. Yesterday our youngest son cleaned and organized a kitchen cabinet that had been neglected for far too long. This morning as I opened it to take down the coffee for my morning cup, I could almost feel the fresh, opening breeze blow out and over me. 

There is something about these days that create a certain urgency for de-cluttering. Our house, like many, has taken on the extra 'stuff' of Christmas decorating making for a 'fuller' household than usual. With all the regular furniture, books, photos and artwork, we have added a large tree, wreaths, extra candles, garlands and much more. At some point after the Christmas celebration, this all begins to make me feel a little claustrophobic.  I begin to count the days when it can all be put back in the boxes for storage until next year when I will once again long to deck our halls.

De-cluttering is most often associated with material objects, things that can be discarded into the trash or given away to someone who has need of them. But there is also the non-material de-cluttering that calls to me in these days, at the eve of a new year. There are those attitudes and opinions I have carried that have cluttered my mind with breed negativity. There are angers I have harbored allowing them to dig a deep trench in my spirit. There are habits that I have adopted that are no longer helpful, even harmful, that need to be shed to make room for better practices. Perhaps I am the only person thinking in this way today but somehow I don't think so. De-cluttering is called for not only in the stuff that has accumulated in my living space but also in my heart and my spirit. And the turning of the year is the perfect time to give them attention.

Today, on this eve of New Year's Eve, I want to sit awhile and reflect on what clutter has taken up space in my life. I want to ask myself questions like: What needs to be boxed up and discarded? What is best forgotten without a glance backward? What room can I make for what really needs to be a part of my life right now? These are my questions. I am sure you have your own.

Whatever the clutter in your life, I pray you will have the will and the courage to sort through it, making room for whatever brings you life and propels you with joy into these new days which are pure gift. So be it. Amen.

I have a daily meditation book called The Celtic Spirit. Its pages are filled with beautiful, wise and often playful words encouraging the reader to stay in tune with the daily transitions of the year and how, if we awake, we find the Sacred in the midst of the ordinary. It is a book I return to over and over again.  

Today's reading had to do with our heart's desire. I believe it was written to coincide with the coming New Year and the traditional practice of making resolutions. These things to be 'taken on' or others to be 'let go of' frame how we enter the next year we will travel round the sun. I've never been much of a resolution maker having learned early in life that it can often be a deep, dark pit of disappointment. But that doesn't keep me from thinking about this transition of year's end and noting the possibility that new things can happen that will be for the good. By this, I mean, that small intentions I can make as I enter 2010 will have the potential to move my life in a way that will more fully realize who I was born to be. And, after all, isn't that the point of our living?

The writer of this daily meditation book, Caitlin Matthews, makes a clear distinction between our wishes and our heart's desire. I can wish for all manner of things….a new car, a slimmer waistline, that lovely sea foam green angora sweater I saw in the store window…..but these things are fleeting in their ability to bring happiness. But my heart's desire is the connection with that deep seed of hope that was born with me, that seed which I nurture or neglect. Coming to know my heart's desire means focusing inward for what will fulfill and bring my given potential to the world. This becomes not only the fulfillments of my heart's longing but also, I believe, the longing of the One who breathed me into being. This work is much more difficult and requires more commitment on my part than the wishes I harbor. It also allows me to connect with the Holy that rests in the heart of that deep seed. Matthews writes: "If we can commune deeply upon our heart's desire, rather than upon our fantasies, if we can envision it with every cell of our body and call to it, then we send a true song to make the pathway between ourselves and our heart's desire."

What is your heart's desire? What is the seed that lies deep within that is calling you to sing your true song? How will the pathway between your self and your heart's desire be paved this coming year? These cold winter days can provide the perfect environment for looking within to re-member our deepest self and set our intention for how we may live into the new year with clarity and vision. There are a few days left in 2009, good days to contemplate our heart's desire.

As the events of Christmas week are fading into the distance and those of the New Year are moving into focus, I have finally had the time to reflect on what is often the frenzy that is Christmas Eve. The snow that was predicted did, indeed, arrive though not to the debilitating degree that was expected. Most people still made it out for both afternoon and evening worship services. Parties still happened though the traveling from place to place took more patience and time.

When I think back on Christmas Eve, one of my favorite memories is of our labyrinth service which is held amid candlelight and quiet music. People of all ages showed up this year for this more contemplative service of poetry and carols. Nearly 50 people walked their prayers while gently singing familiar songs, stopping to gaze upon the beautiful art that surrounds the room or squeeze the hand of a fellow walker, a prayer companion.  As I watched the different people slowly make their way around this ancient prayer path, I began to notice their varied walking rhythms…..some slow and deliberate…..others quicker and confident. Still others made smooth, dancelike movements as their bodies twisted and turned in the circuitous path. All these individual ways of walking were also affected by several small children who moved among and around the adults. Their energy provided a certain electricity that added something special to this particular Christmas Eve celebration. At one point almost all the people were on one side of the labyrinth at the same time, something I don't think I've ever seen before. It was as if they all needed to be close, to walk their prayers together and not alone.

We are coming to the end of not only a year but a decade. It is a decade that has held the joys and sorrows, challenges and successes of any collection of years. And yet, this decade began with the events now known simply as 9/11 and those days and all they held have shaped the years that followed. We carried into the successive years the vulnerability and wounds we experienced in the early part of this ten year cycle. I heard a commentator today refer to this a 'the lost decade'. His implication was that we have spent so much time trying to recover, repair and prevent another act like 9/11 from happening that we have wandered in the wilderness instead of making any particular progress.

Lost? I'm not sure if I completely agree but it is worth some further thought as we reflect on the ending of this year, this decade. Certainly 9/11 has shaped us but have we been lost because of it? This concept will give me something to ponder as I move through the snowy days at the end of this decade. But for now, at least, I will remember those people carrying their prayers on their faces as they walked a path traveled by other pray-ers for thousands of years. Each step,each sole laid down, represented a hope, a hurt, a promise, a prayer for what has happened or is yet to be. They were individuals, yes, but they held the collective energy representative of a people who wake every day to a new day, a gift as great as any. And in the walking, in the praying, they….we...walk to solve whatever problem, whatever challenge is before us. And in the walking, in the solving, we are held by a Love that will not let us go. And that for me is one of the greatest reasons to know that, even when it seems like the wilderness, I will not be lost forever.

Most Minnesotans and other Midwesterners have been spending the last day watching for updates to an anticipated Christmas Eve snowstorm. We have listened as the meteorologists have reported the snow arriving in a few hours from 'watch' to 'warning'. That always sounds so ominous to me…..WARNING! Snow coming! We are, of course, watching with more intensity because we observed the East Coast get hit just a few days ago with a storm that crippled travelers and left many stranded. And so, on these most busy and traveled days, we are rearranging plans, thinking of a 'plan B', and generally watching the skies turn grayer and grayer as the threat seems to grow all around us.

For those of us who work in the church, we are paying particularly close attention. Since Christmas Eve services have been planned and music rehearsed for weeks, even months, the question as to whether or not we will be 'snowed out' or not is floating all around us. We spent considerable time yesterday going over all the possible scenarios that might occur: People will come to only the earlier services  trying to miss the impending blizzard. Others will stay home and skip church all together. And then there will still be others who will see this as a challenge to be met….to Christmas Eve services or bust! In the end our message to one another was 'be safe' as we silently hoped that message would span out into the community. 

I have to admit I find it interesting that in the Advent when our community chose as its theme "Welcoming the Wild One" we find ourselves waiting for a storm this Christmas. Instead of the soft falling Hollywood  flakes that become visible in the movie White Christmas, we are battening down the hatches for a full out blizzard. It seems to me quite appropriate that this Christmas in particular finds us held in the balance of what happens when wildness comes to call. Here we are waiting to welcome a tiny child who would turn his world upside down, who would challenge the powers of injustice in his time and invite all manner of people to his table. By choosing to follow his example, we are urged to do the same in our time…..welcome the outsider, lobby the rich and powerful, rebel against systems that continue to oppress. 

It somehow only seems appropriate that when we chose to welcome the Wild One we would find ourselves waiting for a storm.