Lent...another period of waiting...preparation...
Weren't we just doing that for Advent?
If I'm honest, I am often tired of the waiting
For what's next...for the already not yet
For this to be over.
So we continue to wait
And be present
Attending to the small and the great things all around
As we continue to journey together.
More words that continue to sustain me... from people and places that inspire and move me.
Josh Garrels The Light Came Down was my steady music companion this past Advent and Christmas. I don't know if I'll be able to post every day during Lent but his closing song on that record feels like a good connection from Advent to Lent and a good starting place to begin this Lenten journey.
Lost and weary traveler, searching for the way to go.
Stranger, heavy-hearted, longing for someone to know.
May you find a light.
May you find a light.
May you find a light to guide you home.
There are weary travelers, searching everywhere you go.
Strangers who are searching, longing deeply to be known
To start with, a reminder of the importance of poets and poetry...
'The word workmanship (in Ephesians 2:10) is the word poema in Greek, from which we get the English word poem. We are God’s poem or poetry in the world. What a beautiful image! Whatever else the urban poor (and I would add, all of us really) need today, they need more poetry and less prose. Our exhaustive prose has become a millstone. It’s filled with monologue and imposes blame because it is so often derived from places of privilege and power. In this end, it suffocates, even when is aim is to liberate. Perhaps this is why the great Hebrew prophets were also poets. Perhaps this is why Jesus told riddles and stories. Poets let the air in, and create room for us to breathe again.' Meal from Below pp34-35 Kris Rocke and Scott Dewey
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| While the locals in Bermuda would disagree, there really aren't cold winter days, so I Included this photo of trees taken during a quick trip to DC in January this year. |
Winter Morning
When I can no longer say thank you
for this new day and the waking into it,
for the cold scrape of the kitchen chair
and the ticking of the space heater glowing
orange as it warms the floor near my feet,
I know it is because I’ve been fooled again
by the selfish, unruly man who lives in me
and believes he deserves only safety
and comfort. But if I pause as I do now,
and watch the streetlights outside winking
off one by one like old men closing their
cloudy eyes, if I listen to my tired neighbors
slamming car doors hard against the morning
and see the steaming coffee in their mugs
kissing their chapped lips as they sip and
exhale each of their worries white into
the icy air around their faces—then I can
remember this one life is a gift each of us
was handed and told to open: Untie the bow
and tear off the paper, look inside
and be grateful for whatever you find
even if it is only the scent of a tangerine
that lingers on the fingers long after
you’ve finished eating it.
for this new day and the waking into it,
for the cold scrape of the kitchen chair
and the ticking of the space heater glowing
orange as it warms the floor near my feet,
I know it is because I’ve been fooled again
by the selfish, unruly man who lives in me
and believes he deserves only safety
and comfort. But if I pause as I do now,
and watch the streetlights outside winking
off one by one like old men closing their
cloudy eyes, if I listen to my tired neighbors
slamming car doors hard against the morning
and see the steaming coffee in their mugs
kissing their chapped lips as they sip and
exhale each of their worries white into
the icy air around their faces—then I can
remember this one life is a gift each of us
was handed and told to open: Untie the bow
and tear off the paper, look inside
and be grateful for whatever you find
even if it is only the scent of a tangerine
that lingers on the fingers long after
you’ve finished eating it.
-James Crews
'Now if I hear the sound of the genuine in me, and if you hear the sound of the genuine in you, it is possible for me to go down in me and come up in you. So that when I look at myself through your eyes having made that pilgrimage, I see in me what you see in me and the wall that separates and divides will disappear, and we will become one because the sound of the genuine makes the same music.'
-Howard Thurman
(More from Street Psalms and Kris Rocke...Thurman was a contemplative activist through and through. He recognized that direct encounter with God and direct action with humanity is where the Gospel comes alive. Encounter and action is the way of Jesus.)
From my Meal from Below Lent series five years ago...still good words for today...
How do we embrace being fully human, open and mindful and present? Perhaps if we can't embrace it, we start by not judging...just being aware and attentive to all that swirls within and around us - the beauty and the brokenness...
We are forever running from and neglecting the deepest mysteries of our human lives-missing the truth that our humanness itself bears the gift of our salvation. As Paula D’Arcy observes, God comes to us disguised as our lives. God comes most naturally through broken people and broken places and well as our own broken experience to say, ‘I am here!’ This is the way of the Lord…God typically resists the spectacular appearance, knowing how prone we are to deny and escape these earthen vessels in favor of some heavenly vision. That is why TS Elliot claimed that the Incarnation is always in the ‘unattended moment.’ Meal from Below p 44 Kris Rocke and Scott Dewey
A liberated soul is a pierced soul, one that has experienced the piercing of its own violence, and one that has experienced the piercing of grace. The liberated soul is secure and at peace, held in mercy by the graceful One – Jesus, the Prince of Peace. This is our anointing. Meal from Below pp50-51 by Kris Rocke and Scott Dewey
God does not send us out into the desert to die. Though we may feel that we have been in the wilderness of Lent for a long time this year, we are not without lots of well-seasoned guides. It is reassuring to know that thousands have walked out into the desert, led by God, before us and not only survived but thrived and grown in intimacy with God as a result of their experiences.
If you would enter
into the wilderness,
do not begin
without a blessing.
Do not leave
without hearing
who you are:
Beloved,
named by the One
who has traveled this path
before you.
Do not go
without letting it echo
in your ears,
and if you find
it is hard
to let it into your heart,
do not despair.
That is what this journey is for.
I cannot promise
this blessing will free you
from danger,
from fear,
from hunger
or thirst,
from the scorching
of sun
or the fall
of the night.
But I can tell you
that on this path
there will be help.
I can tell you
that on this way
there will be rest.
I can tell you
that you will know
the strange graces
that come to our aid
only on a road
such as this,
that fly to meet us
bearing comfort
and strength,
that come alongside us
for no other cause
than to lean themselves
toward our ear
and with their
curious insistence
whisper our name:
Beloved.
Beloved.
Beloved.
- Jan Richardson
One of the greatest teachers God gives us is the place where we are. - Dwight Friesen
A good journey begins with knowing where you are and being willing to go somewhere else. - Richard Rohr.
(Overlooking Horseshoe Bay from the Fairmont Southampton, Bermuda)
Sometimes you have to let go of the picture of what you thought it would be like and learn to find joy in the story you are actually living. - Rachel Marie Martin
Growth is painful. Change is painful. But nothing is as painful as staying stuck somewhere you don't belong. - Mandy Hale
(the bench - part 2, Bermuda)
Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life's desire.
-John O'Donohue
- Anne Lamott, plan b
Let mercy lead
Let love be the strength in your legs
And in every footprint that you leave
They’ll be a drop of grace
-Rich Mullins
'In the season of Lent, I continually come back to my favorite devotion by the great theologian and mystic Howard Thurman who wrote, “How good it is to center down! To sit quietly and see one’s self pass by! The streets of our minds seethe with endless traffic; Our spirits resound with clashings, with noisy silences, While something deep within hungers and thirsts for the still moment and the resting lull.”
- Adam Russell Taylor
Like many on this official pandemic anniversary, I've been reflecting on the past year. Even as more people receive vaccines, as hospitalizations rates fall, as the light and warmth increase (in the N. hemisphere) promising spring and new life, I'm very aware of the grief and loss all around and as others have suggested, how we have no idea what to do with it. There is so much loss, so much to grieve and for some, there are significant things to be grateful for. Perhaps that holds part of the key to our healing - holding grief and gratitude together, individually and collectively.
I'm also aware that this is the 10 year anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan that left so much death and destruction there also. And Syria...and the Rohingya...and...there's too much. To consider it all is overwhelming and impossible so take and carry only what you can handle. Love and be kind to those around you and try to receive other's love and kindness in return.
From 2015... So if I stand let me stand on the promise that You will pull me through
And if I can’t let me fall on the grace that first brought me to You
If I sing let me sing for the joy that has born in me these songs
But if I weep let it be as a man who is longing for his home
- Rich Mullins
From 2014...
We start by being kind to ourselves, we breathe, we eat. We remember that God is present wherever people suffer...You take care of the suffering.
- Anne Lamott. plan b
May you know that absence is alive with hidden presence,
that nothing is ever lost or forgotten.
May the absences in your life grow full of eternal echo.
May you sense around you the secret Elsewhere,
where the presences that have left you dwell.
May you be generous in your embrace of loss.
May the sore well of grief turn into a seamless flow of presence.
May your compassion reach out to the ones we never hear from.
May you have the courage to speak for the excluded ones.
May you become the gracious and passionate subject of your own life.
May you not disrespect your mystery through brittle words or false belonging.
May you be embraced by God in whom dawn and twilight are one.
May your longing inhabit it’s dreams within the Great Belonging.
- John O'Donohue
I am really thankful I have multiple years now of past Lent posts as they are really good reminders...also goes to show that not much changes in the world when it comes to grief and loss and how to walk tenderly, gently...
- Anne Lamott
From 2014...
Good therapy helps. Good friends help. Pretending we are doing better than we are doesn't. Shame doesn't. Being heard does...distance, prayer and chocolate also help.
Respond to the kinder saner voice.
- Anne Lamott
'We live in an age where the amount of daily information we receive that should enrage or grieve us far exceeds our capacity to bear it. Only God can bear all the sorrows of the world. We, on the other hand, have to choose what sorrows to bear. This is complicated, but true.'
- Brian Zahnd
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| A very trivial mistake to be sure, but there's a reason it's called Soda bread and not Powder bread. Fortunately I had planned to do two batches yesterday and the one with baking soda worked the way it should. The other one, not so much. |
In our grieving and loss, we take fragile, small elements (flour, salt, oil, in this case buttermilk and maybe a few raisins) and we form something tasty, beautiful, nourishing that we in turn break and eat giving us strength for the journey.
From 2014...
Continuing with my Anne Lamott Lent journey and on this day remembering my Great Aunt Mary, her love for all things Irish and her great soda bread.
"Bread is as spiritual as life gets. Rumi wrote "Be a well baked loaf." Loaves are made to be eaten, to be buttered and shared. Rumi is saying to be of service, to be delicious and give life." - Anne Lamott
Simone Weil wrote, ‘Two things can pierce the human heart – beauty and affliction.’ If Weil and the mystics are right, the desert experience of the soul holds the possibility for a shift of entirely different magnitude – tearing open the human heart….But the wilderness lures us into unguarded spaces…Beauty breaks our various falsely constructed selves and lays open the possibility of discovering our truly created and unfolding self. Beauty compels desire for beauty, into which we are becoming. Meal from Below pp 101-103 Kris Rocke and Scott Dewey
From 2020...
Jumping on fb for a minute to say amidst all the good corona virus practices to also remember what has built and sustained your resilience in the past...people, place, practices...be still, be active, breathe, move your body, serve others or keep good boundaries, return to your favorite book or movie that you can read and watch over and over again, call a friend, cook, eat, stay hydrated, journal or don't, but above all be kind...whatever works for you! Today I baked my great Aunt Mary's soda bread and that was good enough for today.
WHEN YOU MEET SOMEONE DEEP IN GRIEF
Slip off your needsand set them by the door.
Enter barefoot
this darkened chapel.
hollowed by loss
hallowed by sorrow
Its grey stone
Walls and floor
You, congregation
of one
are here to listen
not to sing.
Kneel in the back pew
Make no sound,
Let the candles
Speak.
- Patricia McKernon Runkle
there is a very real sense in which we are all ghost towns.
filled memories of those we love and those we have lost.
faint images and scenes that remind us of paths we have walked and down which we have fled.
these places and people may no longer be present, with us...but the aroma, the scent
of what was remains...indeed, they haunt us until we grant our souls the permission
to reconcile these shards of shattered hopes and dreams as a part of who we are
becoming: a people redeemed by the Shalom(wholeness/peace) of Jesus.
filled memories of those we love and those we have lost.
faint images and scenes that remind us of paths we have walked and down which we have fled.
these places and people may no longer be present, with us...but the aroma, the scent
of what was remains...indeed, they haunt us until we grant our souls the permission
to reconcile these shards of shattered hopes and dreams as a part of who we are
becoming: a people redeemed by the Shalom(wholeness/peace) of Jesus.
-Jonathan Heppner
How the Light Comes
I cannot tell you how the light comes.
What I know
is that it is more ancient
than imagining.
That it travels
across an astounding expanse
to reach us.
That it loves
searching out
what is hidden
what is lost
what is forgotten
or in peril
or in pain.
That it has a fondness
for the body
for finding its way
toward flesh
for tracing the edges
of form
for shining forth
through the eye,
the hand,
the heart.
I cannot tell you
how the light comes,
but that it does.
That it will.
That it works its way
into the deepest dark
that enfolds you,
though it may seem
long ages in coming
or arrive in a shape
you did not foresee.
And so
may we this day
turn ourselves toward it.
May we lift our faces
to let it find us.
May we bend our bodies
to follow the arc it makes.
May we open
and open more
and open still
to the blessed light
that comes.
- Jan Richardson
10 quotes on grief...
If grief can be a doorway to love, then let us all weep for the world we are breaking apart so we can love it back to wholeness again. Robin Wall Kimmerer
I sat with my anger long enough, until she told me her real name was grief. CS Lewis
Grief is the reminder that love was present and that even if it's no longer in its original form, that love still exists. Michelle Maros
Grief is the last act of love we have to give to those we loved. Where there is deep grief, there was great love. (unknown)
To be grateful for a love that was lost is a beautiful sorrow and a savored gift. Emilia Stoneham
It's ok to grieve something and not want it back. (unknown)
The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not 'get over' the loss of a loved one; you will learn to live with it. You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same, nor would you want to. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
Grief, after the initial shock of loss, comes on in waves...When you're driving alone in your car, while you're doing the dishes, while you're getting ready for work...and all of a sudden it hits you - how so very much you miss someone, and your breath catches and your tears flow, and the sadness is so great that it's physically painful. Nicole Gabert
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.
And when your eyes
freeze behind
the grey window
and the ghost of loss
gets into you,
may a flock of colours,
indigo, red, green
and azure blue,
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.
When the canvas frays
in the currach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.
May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.
- John O'Donohue
You who live in radiance – hear the prayers of those of us who live in skin
We have a love that’s not as patient as yours was, but still we do love now and then
Did you ever know loneliness – did you ever know need
Do you remember just how long a night can get
When you are barely holding on and your friends fall asleep
And don’t see the blood that’s running in your sweat
Will those who mourn be left uncomforted
While you’re up there just playing hard to get
- Rich Mullins
waves crash, hearts shatter
each next breath is love's labor
ebb, flow, sob, laugh, waves
- Kathy Escobar
You got to walk that lonesome valley
Well, you got to walk if for yourselfAin't nobody else can walk it for you
You got to walk that valley for yourself
- Mississippi John Hurt
Only by going alone in silence, without baggage, can one truly get into the heart of the wilderness. All other travel is mere dust and hotels and baggage and chatter - John Muir
Just because you carry it well, doesn't mean it's not heavy.
A good friend of mine said, "You are married to sorrow." And I looked at him and said, "I am not married to sorrow. I just choose not to look away." And I think there is deep beauty in not averting our gaze.
No matter how hard it is, no matter how heartbreaking it can be. It is about presence. It is about bearing witness.
I used to thing bearing witness was a passive act. I don't believe that anymore. I think that when we are present, when we bear witness, when we do not divert our gaze, something is revealed - the very marrow of life. We change. A transformation occurs. Our consciousness shifts.
-Terry Tempest Williams (via Joan Halifax)
Though There are Torturers.
Though there are torturers in the world
There are also musicians.
Though, at this moment,
Men are screaming in prisons,
There are jazzmen raising storms
Of sensuous celebration,
And orchestras releasing
Glories of the Spirit.
Though the image of God
Is everywhere defiled,
A man in West Clare
Is playing the concertina,
The Sistine Choir is levitating
Under the dome of St. Peter’s,
And a drunk man on the road
Is singing, for no reason.
Michael Coady
The world did not choose you to save it. You fell in love. You fell in love. The world in all is beauty and pain is where you met God - Sarah Steinke
Be still, my soul, and steadfast.
Earth and heaven both are still watching
though time is draining from the clock
and your walk, that was confident and quick
has become slow.
So, be slow if you must, but let
the heart still play its true part.
Love still as once you loved, deeply
and without patience. Let God and the world
know you are grateful.
That the gift has been given.
-Mary Oliver
To be here is immense.
- Rilke
Sometimes the thing that you think is the end of your life is actually the beginning of you understanding the outrageous love of God that smiles at us even when we are on our face
- Sheila Walsh
Please understand this: Bad chapters can still create great stories.
Wrong paths can still lead to right places.
Failed dreams can still create successful people.
Sometimes it takes losing yourself to find yourself.
- Cynthia Thurlow
Heartbreak and hope are not mutually exclusive. We can be angry and sad and filled with longing for something we cannot have, and simultaneously we can be grateful for what we've got - aware for reasons we'd never choose, of what really matters and what doesn't. - Lennon Flowers
And once the storm is over you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, in fact whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won't be the same person who walked in. -Haruki Murakami
And then it happens...
One day you wake up and you're in this place. You're in this place where everything feels right. Your heart is calm. Your soul is lit. Your thoughts are positive. Your vision is clear. You're at peace, at peace with where you've been, at peace with what you've been through and at peace with where you're headed.
(one of those quotes that litter the internet but no one knows exactly where it came from.)
perhaps in all of our searching for grace and the strength of her touch;
perhaps she can be found only in the dark hidden-ness of our lives,for ‘tis there she is needed most
bless the dark places,
those places from whence calls the still small Voice;
the Voice that invites us to leave that which is safe,
easy;
that which holds us in the cell of complacency.
-Jonathan Heppner
I carry hope in my pockets
like forgotten coins
that sing a melody made
by my footsteps
what captures me
is that even if I find myself caught
in storms of dread,
all i must do is keep walking...
and in the walking reach my hands
into these pockets filled with truth:
even in a sky crowded with darkness
there is always room
for a sunrise.
-Jonathan Heppner
good friday
Death is a part of life. My prayer for you this season is that you make time to celebrate that reality, and to grieve that reality, and that you will know you are not alone. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust - Rachel Held Evan's last blog post words.
Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out
- Vaclav Havel.
Memory produces hope in the same way that amnesia produces despair. - Walter Brueggemann
Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song - Pope John Paul II
and ending with a link to the song that I began this series with...https://www.youtube.
-Duncan
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