"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

I grew up during great turmoil and great hope. When I was in elementary school I saw the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. I had been witness to their hopeful, longing, challenging speeches dreaming of a world where people could live peacefully regardless of race, color, gender, religion or creed. I was inspired by their words and then they were gone. I have no idea what the effect of their deaths had on my generation. I am quite sure about the impression their lives left on how I see the world and my responsibilities within it.

You see, while I know that not all people had this experience, I know that their words echoed the words I had heard on Sunday mornings in my little church. Their words, for me, were the same as those spoken in the scriptures by Jesus. They called for justice for all people…a time when "every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together." Jesus’ words, like theirs, ended up being dangerous words.His life, like theirs, ended tragically. That left a deep imprint on my young life.

And yet today, as we celebrate the life of Martin Luther King Jr., I still am captured by the hope of his message. In remembering, I find myself opening once again to that youthful, hopeful optimism that was the groundwork of my faith, my world view. Perhaps that is the role of the prophet….to continue to call us to our highest self, our greatest good, against all odds…..in life and in death. 

"I have a dream…" yes, a dream that is yet to be realized, but a dream nonetheless which continues to grab hold of our hearts, our faith, our political action, our work for justice. Dr. King also said "I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant."

And to that, let the people say,"Amen."

"When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free."
                             Wendell Berry

Yesterday I made my way to the place of wild things….away from the city, into the brilliant white of the country side. The still waters that surrounded me were frozen. Colorful ice houses dotted the surface of the clear, blue stationary waves. Leafless trees created a lacy background for the gray winter sky.It was a welcome, and needed, retreat from the concrete of the urban streets, from scheduled days,from the belief that I had much, too much, to do.

Being in this setting provided perspective. That is one of the amazing gifts of the natural world. If we allow ourselves to be present to its wisdom, the internal, silent rhythm of the Earth, teaches us. For all our scurrying about, for all our pressing deadlines, a day in the woods can tell us the truth. When we allow ourselves to look and listen to the movement of the work present in soil, water, air, sunlight, we are so small in the scheme of things.

This may not be a comforting thought to some but it is to me. The reminder that all my worries and despair are trumped by the work of a Creation and a Creator that so surpasses any little thing I can do somehow helps me to slow down, to come "into the peace of wild things." My heart rate slows, my blood pressure lessens, my breath becomes deeper, my eyes open wider, my heart is filled with a deep knowing: It is good, very, very good…..and it is not of MY doing.

And so today I come back to a day that has many tasks that need to be done. Calls to be returned, visits to be made, words to be written, laundry to be done, groceries to be purchased. But I approach those tasks today with a renewed sense of energy and freedom because there is much greater work being done by unseen forces. I will walk out of my door, get into my cold car, turn the key and begin again to live the life that is mine. But I will do so with a lighter step and a gentler heart because yesterday I rested in the grace of the world.

It promises to be a very cold weekend. And yet I still make this suggestion: Put on some layers and walk out your door. Feel the cold wind on your cheeks and breathe in its goodness. Open your eyes to the miracles that are all around just waiting to offer the perspective through their silent, effortless, grace-filled work.

Have a glorious weekend………………….

"O God, how majestic is your name in all the earth! When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established, what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than God…….O God, how majestic is your name in all the earth!"  Psalm 8

"Some say the creative life is in ideas, some say it is in doing. It seems in most instances to be in simply being. It is not virtuosity,although that is very fine in itself. It is the love of something, having so much love for something-whether a person, a word, an image, an idea, the land, or humanity-that all that can be done with the over flow is to create. It is not a matter of wanting to, not a singular act of will;one solely must."
                Clarissa Pinkola Estes, from Women Who Run With the Wolves

In my opinion ‘creativity’ has gotten a bad rap in our culture. To be creative, it is believed, is the privilege of painters, musicians, dancers. It is the landscape of only the artist. Or so we tell ourselves.Creativity is for the chosen few, those gifted and talented in ways that point toward extraordinary rather than the sacred ordinary.

But, I believe, creativity is the very art of living. Creativity is the DNA of who we are as those created in the image of God. So how do we live the Creative Life? What do each of us need to do to take the simple parts of our every day work life, home life, social life, spiritual life and create a masterpiece?

Over the holidays I had the privilege of speaking with several university students. When I asked what they were majoring in, I was very interested that they had chosen fields of study that were not defined by a particular profession. Romance languages, for instance. These students had chosen what they loved and were continuing on a journey of forming a creative life. I pray it will always be so.

I balanced that experience with the conversation with my six year old neighbor who told me about the five things she was going to be when she grew up. Veterinarian, artist, hair stylist, and two others. All possibilities-at the same time- when you are six. If only it were always so.

What do you do with the overflow of what you love? Do you love flowers and the beauty of summer so much that you dream of the garden you will create when the snow melts? Do you love cooking and entertaining people so much that you just can’t stop yourself from throwing dinners, parties, all to overflowing?

Whatever it is that you love, may it fill your life to overflowing until the creative life embraces you and holds you fast. May creativity be yours in doing and being…….because you simply must.

"Creativity is seeing something that doesn’t exist already . You need to find out how you can bring it into being and become a playmate of God."  Michele Shea

One of my colleagues has been entranced by an artist who creates shrines. I love watching him as he speaks about this art. His face lights up, his hands and arms become animated and, as he speaks, you can feel the energy change in him….and in the room. Clearly these creations lift him above the ordinary, which I believe is one of the intentions of art.

Shrines….it is not a word or concept we speak of very often in the Protestant church. I find this unfortunate. The truth is we create shrines all the time. In both of my sons’ bedrooms there are shrines…..honoring various soccer players, basketball stars…..and those that also mark the high points of their own lives, awards and ribbons lovingly and intentionally placed on a shelf, away from the clutter of their ordinary objects. Most homes have family shrines, those places where important family photos and heirlooms are arranged in a place of honor, a place of remembrance.

For me it all started with a tiny little icon painted on a small cylindrical piece of wood. Madonna and child, in diffused colors given to me by a friend who brought it back from a journey of his own, placed on a table. Then came the painting brought to me by a parishioner knowing that "you just love Mary." Soon there was another icon of a Madonna and child from another country purchased because it was so beautiful I couldn’t resist. Then, came the wooden statue of a farm woman dressed in a simple dress and white apron, arms lifted heavenward yet extending over a stalk of corn.A Grant Wood kind of Mary. Next there was my simple attempt at making a stained glass candle placed with intention right in the midst of it all. A shrine…..celebrating what? Honoring whom?

My friend was right, of course. Even as a good Protestant girl, I have always loved Mary…her fierce love of her son, her willingness to be a vessel of the Holy, her earthiness, her loyalty, unconditional love and ever-faithful presence. Mary was the one in the scriptures most like my own mother…..what is not to love? And so this shrine is the place I go to when my child or another’s is hurting, is in trouble, is lost. I go there and I light that candle created with my own hands. I light that flame and stand with all the women everywhere who have held on, stood watch, prayed throughout the night with the depth of love that comes from knowing the fragility of life, because they have carried it within their body.

So here is a question to ponder on these icy cold days……What are the shrines you have made that honor the life you live?

"Faith in not the clinging to a shrine but an endless pilgrimage of the heart." Abraham Heschel

"I would love to live
Like a river flows,
Carried by the surprise
Of its own unfolding"
         John O’Donohue

I learned yesterday of the death of John O’Donohue, poet, Celtic Christian, writer, dreamer, scholar,mystic. For more than ten years I have read and re-read his work. His understanding of Celtic Christianity, the unique beauty of the Celtic view of the world and the Divine, has informed my life, my theology and my writing. His death was a shock. His voice was gentle and lilting, full of Irish wit and charisma. To know that it has been silenced fills me with great loss.

I remember sitting at a conference at the College of St. Catherine several years ago. We were all held spellbound by his rich storytelling….making us laugh one minute and cry the next, always nudging us to look for the divine twinkle in the eye of Holy One.  His book Anam Cara taught me about the special relationship one can have with a ‘soul friend’, someone who listens with you for how the Sacred moves in your life. His writing called me to a deeper place of knowing…..myself, the world, the other, God. His wisdom invited me to hold the sacred both gently and lightly, a lesson it seems I need to learn over and over.

I did not know John O’Donohue personally but I have felt his imprint on some of the most important parts of who I am. So today I will celebrate his life, by offering a blessing he has written in his book Eternal Echoes:Exploring Our Yearning to Belong. If you have never read his work, I commend it to you. In that way his wisdom will continue to flow like a river into the world, unfolding over and over.

May you listen to your longing to be free.
May the frames of your belonging be large enough
  for the dreams of your soul.
May you arise each day with a voice of blessing
  whispering in your heart that something good is going
  to happen to you.
May you find a harmony between your soul and your life.
May the mansion of your soul never become a haunted place.
May you know the eternal longing which lives at the heart
  of time.
May there be kindness in your gaze when you look within.
May you never place walls between the light and yourself.
May your angel free you from the prisons of guilt,
  fear, disappointment, and despair.
May you allow the wild beauty of the invisible world to
  gather you, mind you, and embrace you in belonging.
                                         John O’Donohue  1954-2008

Amen, So be it.

"Snowflakes are one of nature’s most fragile things, but just look what they do when they stick together." Verna M. Kelly

It snowed in Baghdad today. According to reports, this has not happened in more than a hundred years. News reports show the delighted faces of children looking up at the puffs of white falling gently from the sky. Veiled women and men in dark clothing stood with umbrellas staring out from under their protective domes with eyes of wonder.

And then someone said it:"Perhaps this is a sign of peace." For those of us who live several months out of every year with snow piled all around us, it seems like a ridiculous thought. Snow is most often a nuisance to us. But, why not? For those who have lived all of their lives in a state of war and fear, why couldn’t these miraculous bundles of ice be a sign of what they long for so deeply? Manna from heaven in the form of snowflakes, each a unique fanciful creation of beauty, each a magical sign dropping from above.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if, instead of being a possible sign of climate change and its results, this snow falling was a sign of peace to come? Oh, to stick out tongues and feel the cool, melting presence of peace, and swallowing its refreshment. Wouldn’t it be wonderful?

In her poem "Amazing Peace: A Celebration" Maya Angelou speaks of the Christmas season in this way: "It is the Glad Season. Thunder ebbs to silence and lightning sleeps quietly in the corner. Floodwaters recede into memory. Snow becomes a yielding cushion to aid us as we make our way to higher ground."

Any effort for peace is founded on higher ground. On giving up our need to control. On relinquishing our fear. On allowing that we do not have the full picture of any situation. On humility, compassion, empathy, and a great love. It is as fragile as a snowflake.

A sign of peace? Only God knows…..but we can pray it is so. As for me, I don’t know that I will ever look again at a snowflake without thinking, "I remember when it snowed in Baghdad one day."

Have a blessed weekend…………………

As of last evening, we have another son in our home. For the next ten days we are hosting a young man from Guadalahara, Mexico. Esteban will live with us, no doubt observe us, hopefully come to, at least, like us and take this little snapshot of life in America home with him. Not many families would want to be seen as the ‘typical American family’, the family by which the world knows all American families. Our hope is that he has enough experiences going from house to house of other host families so we will be only one of many pictures he takes home with him. Hopefully he will also come to know a little about our life and we, his.

One of the great things(and there are many) about hosting someone from another country in your home, is that you see your world through their ‘fresh eyes’. Your daily routine, which you rarely think about, becomes something you reflect upon. The rooms in your home, where people normally sit to read the paper or do homework, get shifted around as you take another person in to account. And then there is the little subject of snow…ice…snowmen….Christmas lights still up well after Christmas…..why almost all Minnesotans take their shoes off when they come in the door.

Watching this group of young people from Mexico realize right away that a ritual of coming into someone’s home means also creating this mini-shoe shrine made me think back to the my first winter in Minnesota. My Ohio roots never prepared me for taking off shoes as you came into the house….no salt or sand had ever clung to my light weight, year-round shoes. Now, I too enter and remove just like I was born and bred here.

Hopefully our ‘fresh eyes’ will also include learning about how he spends his days at home, what foods he loves and which he’d rather not see on his plate, what he dreams for his future, how he likes to spend his vacations, what his family values. My personal hope is that I may come away with a few words of Spanish that I can actually use in my daily walk. Hardly a day goes by when I don’t think of all those around the world who learn to speak my language and I know almost none of theirs. It throws a mirror up to my humble eyes.

I am reminded of the early Celts who were tribal people. In an effort to ensure that they were not a warring people, families would turn their children over to families of other tribes to live in their homes, be cared for by other adults. It was a preventive measure.It was a way of building bridges between cultures and a way of praying for peace with their very living.

And so last night two other parents that we may never meet entrusted their beloved child to our care. While we slept a bridge was built between our house and a house where the sun is warm and people are wearing their shoes.

"After Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea,, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking:"Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? We observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage." Matthew 2:1-12

What star are you following? In our worshiping community we have been asking one another this question and will continue to do so during this season of Epiphany. Epiphany…an appearance or manifestation of God…the revelation of Christ in our midst…..a moment of sudden intuitive understanding…a flash of insight, says Webster. Epiphany….a realization that the Holy One is indeed all mixed up, at the center of, our very living, our one and only life….says I.

I don’t know about you but I often am blinded by lights that are not so helpful in my life. Success. Things I can buy. Power. Control. Greed. Economic security. Self-centeredness. To name only a few. I can hitch my dreams to any of those stars and follow until I am all used up.   When I am busy being led by those light beams, I am often unable to see the revelation of God that walks with me, that wrestles with me, that nudges me to wake up, to see.

It’s important, I think, to take stock of what stars we follow or we can be led into places that can keep us from the rich experiences of being awake to the sacred. The magi can be metaphor for us of the wise, yet humble, ones who put aside what they knew, personal comfort, common sense, all to follow a star that led them to a deeper understanding of how God breaks into the world."They set out and there ahead of them went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy."

So, what star are you following? My prayer is that the star that leads you will bring you to a place, a flash of insight, an Epiphany, that will find you standing, looking up to the heavens, overwhelmed with joy.

"Every man, plant and creature in Existence, Every woman, child, vein and note is a servant of our Beloved-a harbinger of joy, the harbinger of Light."   Hafiz

"Those who in youth and childhood wander alone in woods and wild places, ever after carry in their hearts a secret well of quietness."  W.B. Yeats

The powers that be, I believe, are conspiring to remind me that I am taking myself too seriously these days.They are putting little hints in my path….little bits of words here and there…so I will get the message. Lighten up. Play more.Remember the joys of your childhood.It seems no matter what I pick up to read, there is some overt message about letting go of the seriousness of life and finding ,what in fairy tales, is often referred to by Caitlin Matthews as the "well at world’s end." It is the place that one comes to after searching,working, being tricked by this creature or another until we arrive by drawing on our deep instinct, finally drinking from the pure waters. Refreshed.

I am reminded of the times that I have observed my children or other’s playing. The freedom they moved with from swing to swing, from wall to tree, running, jumping, full of the freedom of sheer play. Imagination took them from superhero to warrior, from circus performer to animal, endlessly moving from one playful moment to the next. There was never the sense that anything was impossible to become. I want to remember how to be that way.

A few months ago, I talked with a mother whose son ran up and down our church hallways. Jeans and teeshirt were accessorized by,what else? A cape. As this young child moved through his play he was both boy and so much more. Who knew when he might be called upon to save the world? As the mom and I talked,I told her how I’d like to keep a cape in my office. On days when I felt I needed a little ‘something more’ to get the job done, I’d wear my cape.I’d put it on and walk about the office, solving this problem and the next with the toss of my cape.My office friends would see me coming and breathe a sigh of relief. I could also keep it in a special place, easily accessible, for my colleagues to borrow when they, too, needed a little more power to deal with what needed to be done.

Those tricks of our childhood run deep within us and are told over and over again in the stories we cherish and tell our children, our grandchildren. Dragons can be slain, trolls that hide under bridges cannot harm us because we know the secret word,nourishing wells can be found at the end of a dangerous journey, a journey we have used our wits and courage to complete. Stories of heroes and heroines, stories of hope and triumph, stories that hold happy endings.

Now all I need is a really cool cape……………..

"Religion has not tended to create seekers or searchers, has not tended to create honest humble people who trust that God is always beyond them. We aren’t focused on the great mystery. Religion has, rather, tended to create people who think they have God in their pockets, people with quick,easy, glib answers. That’s why so much of the West is understandably abandoning religion. People know the great mystery cannot be that simple and facile. If the great mystery is indeed the Great Mystery, it will lead us into paradox, into darkness, into journeys that never cease….That is what prayer is about." Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs

If you receive the Star Tribune newspaper you may have read an editorial this past Saturday by an English teacher at St. Thomas Academy about "Why I assigned reading over the holiday break." It was an article that made my heart sing. It did so not only because it was well written and carried a message I believe in…the importance and power of reading…but also because it held a deeper truth about how we live out our spiritual lives. I made it ‘required reading ‘ for the two young men who share our home.

In the article Christine Brunkhorst explains that she gives her students the vacation assignment of reading a novel, any novel, and then discussing it with an adult in their home. She says she does so because she is "concerned for their imaginations, which in some cases are sorely in need of exercise." Ms. Brunkhorst goes on to explain a lesson in which she asks her students to imagine being driven to school where they go to class and then after school the basketball coach comes into the classroom to show the players films of players running drills. This is followed by going home, eating dinner, watching basketball players play games on television. They do this day after day. Then she asks the question:"Will you become a better basketball player?"

The answer of course is no. Muscles grow weak, flab sets in around the middle, eye/hand coordination loses its response, it isn’t so easy to see the quick move that will create a winning game. The same is true with our imagination. Without exercise our imagination grows stale,docile, unresponsive.

Of course, Ms. Brunkhorst’s goal was to help her students exercise their imaginations through reading, through entering into the lives of others through stories that open their world. The same can be said of the church and our spiritual growing. If we continue to worship in the same way, sing the same songs, pray the same prayers, observe rather than going out on the limb of participation, our spiritual imagination grows stale, docile, unresponsive.

For me, the great gift of the scriptures, the great gift of the life of liturgy, is that it invites us to be continually using our imagination, asking ourselves "Where is God in all this? How did the Holy show up in my life, in this story, today? What is Spirit nudging me to discover in this situation?" The stories of scripture beg us to interact with them, to question them, to look for the missing pieces, to use our imaginations. When we do we become actors in a Great Mystery play in which the curtain never falls. When we do, our very living, becomes a prayer…..an on-going act of communing with God.

What a big idea!