Julian Cell Reflections

February 8, 2012

2012-02-12T16:44:00.000-08:00

Love generously

Rachel Naomi Remen

When I imagine myself as an old woman at the end of my life and ask myself how I will evaluate my time here, there is only one question that concerns me: Did I love well? There are a thousand ways to love other people and the world – with our touch, our words, our silences, our work, our presence. I want to love well. This is my hunger. I want to make love to the world by the way I live in it, by the way I am with myself every day.

Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Reflection for February 1, 2012

2012-02-02T19:13:00.000-08:00

WEAVING IN AND OUT OF LIVES

I'VE COME TO KNOW

THE LETTING GO

AS THE SURRENDER IN THAT WAR

BETWEEN MY ROOTS AND WINGS.

Macrina Wiederkehr

"Seasons of Your Heart"

Reflection for January 25, 2012

2012-01-25T21:20:00.000-08:00

I am a little pencil

in the hand of a writing God

who is sending a love letter

to the world. Mother Teresa

Reflection for January 18, 2012

2012-01-18T19:03:00.000-08:00

What Can I Say - Mary Oliver

What can I say that I have not said before?

So, I’ll say it again.

The leaf has a song in it.

Stone is the face of patience.

Inside the river there is an unfinished story

and you are somewhere in it

and it will never end until all ends.

Take your busy heart to the art museum and the

chamber of commerce

but take it also to the forest.

The song you heard singing in the leaf when you

were a child

is singing still.

I am of years lived. So far, seventy-four,

and the leaf is singing still.

INTENTION - Kay Ryan

Intention doesn’t sweeten.

It should be picked young

and eaten. Sometimes only hours

separate the cotyledon

from the wooden plant.

Then if you want to eat it,

you can’t.

Reflection for January 11, 2012

2012-01-12T19:47:00.000-08:00

It's very important to experience doubt. I think faith without doubt

is either nostalgia or a kind of addiction.

Mary Gordon

As Gerald Haslam's father approached death, he asked

his son,"Do you really believe that stuff?"

He replied, "I consider the human mind to be

a distinctly limited instrument, and believe

life's meaning is beyond rational grasp.

I further believe there is a reality

dwelling beyond the cusp of the known and the

unknowable, and I willingly acquiesce to the

supernatural promise of Christianity.

'Haslam's Valley," Gerald Haslam

Reflection for January 4, 2012

2012-01-04T20:08:00.001-08:00

Song on the Feast of the Epiphany

Be bold like the Maji.

Do not tarry, settling into your comfort,

but rather set out

keeping the star in your vision.

It will lead you to a place

you are most in need of

the place where God is.

And if an angel warns you in a dream

not to return by the old way,

please listen.

From Luminous Night, Christine Rodgers

Reflection for January 4, 2012

2012-01-04T20:08:00.000-08:00

Reflection for December 28, 2011

2011-12-30T18:52:00.000-08:00

2012
It doesn’t matter how educated, moneyed, or smart you are: When your child’s footprints end at the river’s edge, when the one you love has gone into the woods with a bleak outlook and a loaded gun, when the chaplain is walking toward you with bad news in her mouth, then only the clichés are true, a nd you will repeat them, unashamed. Your life will swing suddenly and cruelly in a new direction, and if you are really wise – and it’s surprising and wondrous how many people have this wisdom in them – you will know enough to look around for love. It will be there, standing right on the hinge, holding out its arms. And if you are wise, you will fall against it and be held.

Here If You Need Me

Kate Braestrup

If only is like hindsight. A useless exercise. . . Who knows? . . . As for God, I frankly admit I find it easier to live with the age-old questions about suffering than with the many easy or pious explanations offered from time to time. Some of which seem to verge on blasphemy. . . . The one thing we should never say . . . is, “It is the will of God.” We simply don’t know enough to say that. . . . [When a tragedy occurs] I am convinced that God’s is the first heart to break. . . . Life is sweet. Beyond the pain, life continues to be sweet. The basics are there. Beauty, food, and friendship, reservoirs of love and understanding.

Winter Solstice

Rosamunde Pilcher

Reflection for December 21, 2011

2011-12-21T19:52:00.000-08:00

O Antiphon, O Rising Sun

Wednesday, December 21 — Winter Solstice

(Northern Hemisphere)

Reflection for December 14, 2011

2011-12-17T13:59:00.001-08:00

Isaiah 46: 25: In the Lord shall be the vindication and the glory of all the descendents of Israel.

THE INCARNATION

Now that the time had come when it would be good

To ransom the bride serving under the hard yoke

Of that law which Moses had given her,

The Father, with tender love, spoke in this way:

Now You see Son, that your bride was made in Your image,

And so far as she is like You, she will suit you well;

Yet she is different in her flesh which Your simple being does not have.

In perfect love, this law holds:

That the lover become like the one he loves;

For the greater their likeness the greater their delight.

Surely your bride’s delight would greatly increase

Were she to see You like her, in her own flesh.

My will is Yours, the Son replied,

and My glory is that Your will be mine.

This is fitting, Father, what You, the Most High, say;

For in this way, Your goodness will be the more seen.

Your great power will be seen and Your justice and wisdom.

I will go and tell the world

Spreading the word of Your beauty and sweetness

And of Your sovereignty.

I will go and seek My bride and take upon Myself

Her weariness and labors in which she suffers so;

And that she may have life, I will die for her,

And, lifting her out of that deep, I will restore her to You.

St. John of the Cross

Reflection for December 7, 2011

2011-12-09T18:33:00.000-08:00

… the angel Gabriel was sent to a town in Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin. …The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.” Luke 1: 26-28.

…

This air, which, by life’s law,

My lung must draw and draw

Now but to breathe its praise,

Minds me in many ways

Of her who not only

Gave God’s infinity

Dwindled to infancy

Welcome in womb and breast,

Birth, milk and the rest

But mothers each new grace

That does now reach our race –

Mary Immaculate,

Merely a woman, yet

Whose presence, power is

Great as no goddess’s

Was deemed, dreamed; who

This one work has to do –

Let all God’s glory through,

God’s glory which would go

Through her and from her flow

Off, and no way but so.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Reflection for November 30, 2011

2011-12-02T22:18:00.000-08:00

Jesus said to his disciples: "Be watchful! Be alert!"

We are called to consciousness, especially in this

dark time of year, to enter into a great mystery.

As fellow pilgrims, we accompany one another

on this journey called Advent. Paradoxically,

Christ is with us, yet is to come again. This isn't

simply an ancient event. It can happen now.

So we begin, nourished by scripture,

sensing the Light, moving toward

a holy birth and the renewal of hope.

Reflection for November 23, 2011

2011-11-23T22:57:00.000-08:00

When you have eaten and are satisfied,

praise the Lord for the good land

you have been given.

-Deuteronomy 8:10

... it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,

only kindness that ties your shoes

and sends you out into the day to mail letters

and purchase bread,

only kindness that raises its head

from the crowd of the world to say

It is I you have been looking for,

and then goes with you everywhere

like a shadow or a friend.

--from Naomi Shibab Nye's poem, Kindness

At this meditation on the eve of Thanksgiving

let us ponder and give thanks for occasions

of kindness given and received this past year.

Reflection for November 16, 2011

2011-11-19T09:33:00.000-08:00

Enough

Enough. These few words are enough.

If not these words, this breath.

If not this breath, this sitting here.

This opening to the life

We have refused

Again and again

Until now.

David Whyte

Music by:

Johnny Alston,

Lost Valley

Between Two Worlds

Reflection for November 9, 2011

2011-11-09T19:35:00.000-08:00

Reflection for November 2, 2011

2011-11-02T19:36:00.000-07:00

Dia De Los Muertos

To be of the Earth is to know

the restlessness of being a seed

the darkness of being planted

the struggle towards the light

the pain of growth into the light

the joy of bursting and bearing fruit

the love of being food for someone

the scattering of your seeds

the decay of the seasons

the mystery of death

and the miracle of birth.

Reflection for October 26, 2011

2011-10-26T21:02:00.000-07:00

Rules for the Unruly

The path is not straight.

Mistakes need not be fatal.

People are more important than achievements or possessions.

Be gentle with your parents.

Never stop doing what you care the most about.

Learn to use a semicolon.

You will find love.

Marion Winik

Reflection for October 19, 2011

2011-10-20T19:40:00.000-07:00

It seems to me that if a little flower could speak, it would simply tell what God has done for it without trying to hide its blessings. It would not say, under the pretext of false humility, that it is not beautiful or without perfume, that the sun has taken away its splendor and the storm has broken its stem when it knows that all this is untrue. The flower about to tell her story rejoices at having to publish the totally gratuitous gifts of Jesus. She knows that nothing in herself was capable of attracting the divine glances, and God's mercy alone brought about everything that is good to her.

St. Therese of Lisieux

Reflection for October 12, 2011

2011-10-15T15:45:00.000-07:00

Ours is a shape-shifting God,

a shit disturber,

insisting that we take

another look

anytime we refuse

to see the truth

or imagine that we

have things figured out.

This Holy One invites us

to find the light and love

in the darkest places

and holds us always

in the heart of healing.

Nancy Gibbs Richard

Reflection for October 5, 2011

2011-10-05T20:59:00.000-07:00

JVR

The poem is translated by M. Aryanpoor as:

Human beings are members of a whole,

In creation of one essence and soul.

If one member is afflicted with pain,

Other members uneasy will remain.

Saadi

Reflection for September 28, 2011

2011-09-29T06:49:00.000-07:00

Meditation

Sitting in Stillness

Listening within

Waking up

Staying awake

Being here right now

With the presence of the Divine

Getting more aware of the Essence within

Feeling the deep connection to all that is

Letting go and letting God

“All is like it is and is not”

And all is well.

Om /Amen

Namaste,

H.G.

Words to the sculpture:

She is sitting in the presence of the Sacred

She is a fountain and when there is no water

She is a container for roses, flowers and love.

Reflection for September 21, 2011

2011-09-27T18:40:00.000-07:00

Choose Life,

only that and always,

and at whatever risk.

To let Life leak out,

to let it wear away by the mere passage of time,

to withhold giving it and spreading it,

is to choose

nothing.

Sr. Helen Kelley

Prisms Yearbook 1974, CND/NDNU

Music: Aran Boat Song, Traditional;

Four Seasons, Vivaldi: Winter–Largo, Summer–Presto

Reflection for September 14, 2011

2011-09-27T18:38:00.000-07:00

I’ve decided that poetry is best considered as a science. So, just as hydrogen and oxygen are bound together to create water, the force that binds them can be compared to poetry. Poetry is an invisible energy that exists between everything, holding it together, giving it meaning. The job of every human being is to search for the poetry hidden within the midst of things. So, this brings us to the role of poets in society. Some people write poetry, and some people live poetry. The person who lives poetry is the greater of the two.

The Bread of Angels: A Journey to Love and Faith, by Stephanie Saldana

My note: Are there other words besides “poetry” which would fit? What do you think? Judy D.

Reflection for September 7, 2011

2011-09-08T20:10:00.000-07:00

JVR

Mary, render whole our grief

In peace

Replenish our earthly time

In place

Receive our quiet lament

In prayer

Reveal our love of life

Reflection for August 31, 2011

2011-08-31T20:47:00.000-07:00

My Life in Art

What makes up the painting of my life? The painters have been many and varied.

It started with the background color laid down by those who came long before me.

Outlines were drawn in by my parents. Bright colors were added by good friends and family in strokes broad and delicate.

Shadows and dark areas came from others.

To discomfort, sadness, loss, gain joy, and beauty I owe depth and texture.

Some came along and added stunning contrasts, others soothing neutral tones.

A Larger Hand seemed to have provided the overall composition.

I am not a passive canvas, but an active participant in this my life. At times I have been able to take a heavy dark line and transform it into a lighter, more balanced detail and other times have unnecessarily darkened a detail.

This work in progress has been made possible by many who have contributed in ways large and small. I thank them all.

Reflection for August 24, 2011

2011-08-24T19:24:00.000-07:00

Reflection for August 17, 2011

2011-08-17T18:32:00.000-07:00

To be alive

in this beautiful, self-organizing universe –

to participate in the dance of life

with senses to perceive it,

lungs that breathe it,

organs that draw nourishment from it –

is a wonder beyond words.

Joanna Macy

Reflection for August 10, 2011

2011-08-11T19:41:00.000-07:00

Restless for Peace

JVR

Grieving woman,

Color falls with you,

Attracting birds of peace.

Reflection for August 3, 2011

2011-08-04T06:38:00.000-07:00

Primary Wonder

Days pass when I forget the mystery.

Problems insoluble and problems offering

their own ignored solutions

jostle for my attention, they crowd its antechamber

along with a host of diversions, my courtiers, wearing

their colored clothes; caps and bells.

And then

once more the quiet mystery

is present to me, the throng's clamor

recedes: the mystery

that there is anything, anything at all,

let alone cosmos, joy, memory, everything,

rather than void: and that, O Lord,

Creator, Hallowed one, You still,

hour by hour sustain it.

--Denise Levertov

Reflection for July 27, 2011

2011-07-29T14:18:00.000-07:00

Rev. Susan Chamberlin Smith of Trinity UCC of Deerfield, Ill

March, 2010 - Sermon

Which brings us to Jesus and the parable of fig tree, a parable which seems, at first glance, to be about a tree that does not produce. Like most of Jesus' parables, however, it isn't at all about what we see at first glance. This parable is about God's grace, not about the net worth of a fig tree.

First, a bit of background on fig trees. Fig trees are high maintenance plants. When producing, they produce two crops per year, but the variety most common in the Holy Land usually does not produce fruit until its third year. On top of that Hebrew law required another three years of fruiting before the fruit was "clean" for human use, which meant that a gardener had to tend the tree six years before a single fig could be eaten! In addition, fig trees require regular watering, and they deplete soil nutrients rapidly, thereby requiring constant fertilization. The canopy of the tree provides thick, dark shade under which nothing else, including grape vines, can grow. The wood of the tree is practically useless for any kind of carpentry... In short, a fig tree which is not producing figs is worse than useless, it is a resource-consuming nuisance. The fruit is its one and only reason for being, at least from a practical point of view.

So when the tree in the parable bears no fruit, it shouldn't surprise us that the vineyard owner in the parable says, "Cut it down! Why should we let it continue to occupy the ground to no purpose?" We can understand the frustration of the vineyard owner - all that waiting and still not a single fig to show for it. Fortunately for us, however, this is a story about the grace of God rather than the impatience of humanity. The gardener says, "aphes," "leave it alone" - the same word in Greek as "forgive" or "pardon."

This parable tells us that God is forgiving. Isaiah agrees, saying that God will" abundantly pardon," and Julian of Norwich, the 14th century mystic, proclaims that God has only one characteristic and that is love - a love so great that God really can't do anything except forgive our sins even before we commit them.

Reflection for July 20, 2011

2011-07-26T19:34:00.000-07:00

it is time for me

to see the flaws

of myself

and stop

being alarmed

it is time for me

to halt my drive

for perfection

and to accept

my blemishes

it is time for me

to receive

slowly evolving growth

the kind that comes

in God's own good time

and pays no heed

to my panicky pushing

It is time for me

to embrace

my humanness

to love

my incompleteness

it is time for me

to cherish

the unwanted

to welcome

the unknown

to treasure

the unfulfilled

if I wait to be

perfect

before I love myself

I will always be

unsatisfied

and ungrateful

if I wait until

all the flaws, chips,

and cracks disappear

I will be the cup

that stands on the shelf

and is never used

---Joyce Rupp

"The Cup of our Lives"

Reflection for July 13, 2011

2011-07-15T22:29:00.001-07:00

I said to the almond tree,
'Sister, speak to me of God.'
And the almond tree blossomed.

Nikos Kazantzakis

Greek Author, Poet and Playwright

Reflection for July 6, 2011

2011-07-15T21:50:00.001-07:00

"Pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy"

Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy

JVR

Between the arms of a giant Hope

Who wouldn't give up,

Care gave down

Sweet roots

Lavishing time with promise

Jane Vogel-Riley

Reflection for June 29, 2011

2011-07-04T16:37:00.000-07:00

Mother and God

Mother and God, to you we sing;

wide is your womb, warm is your wing.

In you we live, move, and are fed

sweet, flowing milk, life giving bread.

Mother and God, to you we bring

all broken hearts, all broken things.

Miriam Therese Winter

Is this not the fast that I choose:

to loose the bonds of injustice,

to undo the throngs of the yoke,

to let the oppressed go free,

and to break every yoke?

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,

and to bring the homeless poor into your house;

when you see the naked, to cover them,

and not to hide yourself from your own kin?

Then your light shall break forth like the dawn,

and your healing shall spring up quickly;

your vindication shall go before you,

the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.

Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;

you shall cry for help, and he will say, Here I am.

The Lord will guide you continually,

and satisfy your needs in parched places,

and make your bones strong;

and you shall be like a watered garden,

like a spring of water,

whose waters never fail.

Hebrew Scripture, Isaiah 58:6-9, 11

I have found powerful love among my sisters, I have shredded every veil

and still believe in them.

Alice Walker, Hard Times Require Furious Dancing

Reflection for June 22, 2011

2011-07-01T20:13:00.000-07:00

I surrender...

Reflection for June 15, 2011

2011-07-01T19:59:00.000-07:00

Sweet Darkness

When your eyes are tired

the world is tired also.

When your vision has gone

no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark

where the night has eyes

to recognize its own.

There you can be sure

you are not beyond love.

The dark will be your womb tonight.

The night will give you a horizon

further than you can see.

You must learn one thing.

The world was made to be free in.

Give up all the other worlds

except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes

darkness and the sweet

confinement of your aloneness to learn

anything or anyone

that does not bring you alive is too small for you.

– David Whyte, The House of Belonging

Reflection for June 8, 2011

2011-06-09T05:25:00.000-07:00

Deep Peace of the Running Wave To You

A Gaelic Blessing

To access the latest information on UN protection of the ocean

http://www.iucn.org/?7612/Breakthrough-at-the-United-Nations-hopes-grow-for-the-high-seas

Reflection for June 1, 2011

2011-06-04T19:22:00.000-07:00

Note: Richard Rohr’s book, “Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life”, speaks of the classical hero/heroine’s journey.

The first task, which the hero or heroine thinks is the only task, is only the warm-up act to get him or her to the real task. He or she “falls through” what is merely his or her life situation to discover her Real Life, which is always a much deeper river, hidden beneath the appearances. Most people confuse their life situation with their actual life which is an underlying flow beneath the everyday events. This deeper discovery is largely what religious people mean by “finding their soul.”

(Father Rohr would identify this as our task in the second half of life.)

No one can keep you from this second half of your own life except yourself. Nothing can inhibit your second journey except your own lack of courage, patience, and imagination. Your second journey is all yours to walk or to avoid. My conviction is that some falling apart of the first journey is necessary for this to happen, so do not waste a moment of time lamenting poor parenting, lost job, failed relationship, physical handicap, gender identity, economic poverty, or even the tragedy of any kind of abuse. Pain is part of the deal. If you don’t walk into the second half of your own life, it is you who do not want it. God will always give you exactly what you truly want and desire. So make sure you desire, desire deeply, desire yourself, desire God, desire everything good, true, and beautiful.

Reflection for May 11, 2011

2011-05-16T07:43:00.000-07:00

A Monk

Striking his bell day after day

a monk remains in his pale grey deep dream.

The traces and shadows of so many past years

appear in memory like a patch of incense smoke

that spreads everywhere in the old temple.

The remains of sorrow stay in the censer

together with the grief of devout men and women.

boredom meanders perpetually

round and round in the sutras.

Sleepy words trickle from his mouth,

a man talking in his dream.

His head nods along with his knocking

of the wooden fish,

both so empty yet so heavy.

Stroke after stroke, the hills and rivers

are lulled to sleep.

The hills and rivers sleep lazily in the afterglow,

as he finished tolling the funeral bell

of another day.

1931, The Han Garden

Pien Chih-lin

Pien Chihlin (born 1910) came from the Chinese coast near Shanghai, to enroll

at Peking University in 1929. He loved the ancient city, yet his verses were not

choked in its dust. Some of the passages seem obscure, but most of his poems

breathe a clear, pure air. They represent life through a series of impressions, often

quiet but never trivial as they may seem at first reading.

--Anthology of Twentieth Century Chinese Poetry, 1963

Edited by Kai-yu Hsu

- Wooden Fish: hollowed wooden box which a monk strikes with a stick while

chanting sutras. It owes its name to an old legend about about some original

Buddhist sutras being swallowed by a marine monster on their way to China.

Striking the wooden fish therefore, becomes a gesture demanding the monster

to disgorge the Word.

Reflection for May 4, 2011

2011-05-04T19:54:00.000-07:00

Embody peace___

become a witness

to the word.

Let it flow

from the core

of your being

out into the world.

Let every muscle,

bone, fiber, cell

speak

of the deeper truths.

Become

a prayer for peace.

Nancy Gibbs Richard

From: A Small Steadying Sail of Love

Poems, Meditations and Photographs

Reflection for April 27, 2010

2011-04-29T15:17:00.000-07:00

“…the angel spoke, and he said to the women, “Thee is no need for you to be afraid. I know you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here, for he has risen…..”

Mark 28:5-6

There must be always remaining in everyone’s life some place for the singing of angels, some place for that which in itself is breathlessly beautiful and, by an inherent prerogative, throws all the rest of life into a new and creative relatedness, something that gathers up in itself all the freshest of experience from drab and commonplace areas of living and glows in one bright white light of penetrating beauty and meaning – then passes. The commonplace is shot through with new glory; old burdens become lighter, deep and ancient wounds lose much of their old, old hurting. A crown is placed over our heads that for the rest of our lives we are trying to grow tall enough to wear. Despite all the crassness of life, despite all the hardness of life, despite all the harsh discords of life, life is saved by the singing of angels.

Deep is the Hunger by Howard Thurman

Reflection for April 20, 2011

2011-04-20T19:16:00.000-07:00

The Vessel

Formed from the earth (clay)

Trusting our vision……………………………….our intuition

Having courage……………………………………..taking risks

Saying yes, to helping hands

Turning upside down …………………………... different perspective

Creating what we like ……………………………daring to think large

Right timing to polish the clay with smooth stone until it shines

Repetition.………………………………………….……like a long mantra

Going through fire.……………………………….. becoming more solid

Coming to the right place.…………………………. community effort

Arms digging a grave and gentle laying down the clay bodies

Being together in the same hole.………..leaning on each other

Trusting my choice of adding sea wheat, orange- and banana peels

to the saw dust and fire wood layers that fill the grave

Trusting others and the experienced teacher

Blessing ritual and letting go!

Surrendering all creations to another fire (in the ground)

Waiting with patience………an evening and a whole night!

In the morning taking away the cover…taking away the stone

Looking what’s left in the ashes

Many hands carefully lift up, what we had given up

Hearts beating …… hands working ……eyes looking

Hallelujahs ___ sounds of joy and amazements

Seeing the images of transformation

Forming our stories

Do you see what I see?

Reflection for April 13, 2011

2011-04-13T19:26:00.000-07:00

Nurture You

Nurture the World

Reflection for April 6, 2011

2011-04-07T21:05:00.001-07:00

It's possible I am pushing through solid rock

in flintlike layers, as the ore lies, alone;

I am such a long way in I see no way through,

and no space everything is close to my face,

and everything close to my face is stone.

I don't have much knowledge yet in grief-

so this massive darkness makes me small.

You be the master: make yourself fierce, break in:

then your great transforming will happen to me,

and my great grief cry will happen to you.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Reflection for March 30, 2011

2011-03-31T21:22:00.000-07:00

ORDINARY MYSTICISM

What the medieval mystics found is our invitation too. Not to seek out dramatic experience for the sake of dramatic experience. But to look at what is around us, to look again, to look more closely, to open ourselves to the God who lives among all this and who invites us to see differently.

In her essay on mysticism, in Amazing Grace, Kathleen Norris writes, “I find that I appreciate mysticism best in it’s most ordinary manifestation, as a means for tapping into the capacity for holiness that exists in us all.”

BLESSING

In the midst of your life:

the daily of it,

the ordinary of it,

the noontime and night of it,

let there be moments

that open to you

the hallowed and holy of it.

Jan L. Richardson, In the Sanctuary of Women, A companion for Reflection & Prayer: The Book of Hildegard of Bingen(Nashville, Upper Room Books, 2010), p.191.

Reflection for March 23, 2011

2011-03-23T20:09:00.000-07:00

What is a blessing? A blessing is a circle of light drawn around a person to protect, heal, and strengthen. Life is a constant flow of emergence. The beauty of blessing is its belief that it can affect what unfolds.

To be in the world is to be distant from the homeland of wholeness. We are confined by limitation and difficulty. When we bless, we are enabled somehow to go beyond our present frontiers and reach into the source. A blessing awakens future wholeness. We use the word foreshadow for the imperfect representation of something that is yet to come. We could say that a blessing "forebrightens" the way. When a blessing is evoked, a window opens in eternal time.

Our longing for the eternal kindles our imagination to bless. Regardless of how we configure the eternal, the human heart continues to dream of a state of wholeness, a place where blindness will transform into vision, where damage will be made whole, where the clenched question will opening the house of surprise, where the travails of a life's journey will enjoy a homecoming. To invoke a blessing is to call some of that wholeness upon a person now.

John O'Donohue

To Bless The Space Between Us

Article at the end of the book, "To Revive the Lost Art of Blessing"

Music: In The Moment

Alasdair Fraser

Natalie Haas

Reflection for March 16, 2011

2011-03-16T20:40:00.000-07:00

She who reconciles the ill-matched threads of her life

And weaves them gratefully into a single cloth

It's she who drives the loudmouths from the hall

And clears it for another celebration

Where the one guest is you.

In the softness of the evening

It's you she receives.

You are the partner of her loneliness,

The unspeaking center of her monologues

With each disclosure you encompass more

And she stretches beyond what limits her,

To hold you.

Rilke

Reflection for March 9, 2011

2011-03-09T20:31:00.000-08:00

ASH WEDNESDAY

-for Jerry

All year I've had your ashes

here on the living room hearth

in a box artfully crafted

and lovingly finished;

it's time now to return the box

to the woodworker and return you

to the ground out of which you came.

We will bury the ashes here

in the garden where you,

over the years, dug resting places

for one small dog and another,

and keep your ashes sealed so that

when the angels come for you

at the Resurrection

they will find you all of a piece.

Everything of life points to endings

and beginnings. We live the in-between.

I hold you there. You

created one summer night on the prairie

from the rise of familiar desire; you

brought home from the hospital to

sleep four-in-a-bed in a homesteader shack;

you formed over the years

by love and hard work

and faith in the everlasting.

The box is borrowed. It's all borrowed.

We claim what we can.

I will keep your ashes in the garden

and mark them with something that grows.

—Donna Hardy March 2011

Reflection for March 2, 2011

2011-03-02T16:29:00.000-08:00

The Word That is a Prayer

One thing you know when you say it:
all over the earth people are saying it with you;
a child blurting it out as the seizures take her,
a woman reciting it on a cot in a hospital.
What if you take a cab through the Tenderloin:
at a street light, a man in a wool cap,
yarn unraveling across his face, knocks at the window;
he says, Please.
By the time you hear what he’s saying,
the light changes, the cab pulls away,
and you don’t go back, though you know
someone just prayed to you the way you pray.
Please: a word so short
it could get lost in the air
as it floats up to God like the feather it is,
knocking and knocking, and finally
falling back to earth as rain,
as pellets of ice, soaking a black branch,
collecting in drains, leaching into the ground,
and you walk in that weather every day.

Ellery Akers

If the only prayer you ever say in your whole life is "thank you,"

that would suffice.

Meister Eckhart

Reflection for February 23, 2011

2011-02-23T17:08:00.001-08:00

Late Fragment

And did you get what

you wanted from this life even so?

I did.

And what did you want?

To call myself beloved, to feel myself

beloved on the earth.

~~ By Raymond Carver

Reflection for February 16, 2011

2011-02-23T10:36:00.000-08:00

What's Really In My Heart,

a mural project with the young women at Las Guilicos Juvenile Hall,

will measure 4'x32' and be installed on a fence in Santa Rosa being tagged.

Tools for creating

What's Really in My Heart

(reflection altar)

Reflections for February 9, 2011

2011-02-10T12:49:00.000-08:00

"I am a verb. I am that I am. I will be who I will be. I am a verb!

I am alive, dynamic, ever active, and moving.

I am a being verb."

The Shack by Wm. Paul Young

Reflection for February 2, 2011

2011-02-04T16:27:00.000-08:00

ARISE

FROM

YOUR

ASHES

BRUSH

THE SOOT

FROM

YOUR

EYES

STRETCH

YOUR

STRESS-WORN

MUSCLES

AND

ALLOW

YOURSELF

A COOL

DRINK

OF WATER

Reflections for January 26, 2011

2011-01-26T13:14:00.000-08:00

A Garden For Daily Living

PLANT THREE TOWS OF PEAS:

Peace of mind

Peace of heart

Peace of soul

PLANT FOUR ROWS OF SQUASH:

Squash gossip

Squash indifference

Squash intolerance

Squash selfishness

PLANT FOUR ROWS OF LETTUCE:

Lettuce be faithful

Lettuce be kind

Lettuce be just

Lettuce truly love one another

NO GARDEN SHOULD BE WITHOUT TURNIPS:

Turnip for service when needed

Turnip to help one another

Turnip the music and dance

TO NURTURE A GARDEN YOU MUST HAVE THYME:

Thyme for others

Thyme for self

WATER with patience and CULTIVATE with love

author unknown

Reflection for January 19, 2011

2011-01-19T13:31:00.000-08:00

What's In The Temple?

In the quiet spaces of my mind a thought lies still, but ready to spring.

It begs me to open the door so it can walk about.

The poets speak in obscure terms pointing madly at the unsayable.

The sages say nothing, but walk ahead patting their thigh calling for us to follow.

The monk sits pen in hand poised to explain the cloud of unknowing.

The seeker seeks, just around the corner from the truth.

If she stands still it will catch up with her. Pause with us here a while.

Put your ear to the wall of your heart.

Listen for the whisper of knowing there. Love will touch you if you are very still.

Tom Barrett

Reflection for January 12, 2011

2011-01-13T22:46:00.000-08:00

To be tormented by restlessness is to be human. But in accepting, truly, that humanity we become more easy in our restlessness. Why? Because, as Karl Rahner puts it, in this life there is no finished symphony, everything comes with an undertow of restlessness and inadequacy. Peace can come to us only when we accept that fact, because it is only then that we will stop demanding that life – our spouses, our families, our friends, our jobs, our vocations, our vacations – give us something that they cannot give, the finished symphony, clear-cut pure joy, complete consummation.

Ronald Rolheiser, Against an Infinite Horizon

The one journey that ultimately matters is the journey into the place of stillness deep within one’s self. To reach that place is to be at home; to fail to reach it is to be forever restless.

N. Gordon Cosby

Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee.

St. Augustine, 355 – 430

Reflection for January 5, 2011

2011-01-05T14:19:00.000-08:00

EPIPHANY CELEBRATION

This is the link to the u-tube that was presented during meditation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAVjF_7ensg

Be sure to hit the screen twice in order to fill the entire screen with the picture.

Reflection for December 29, 2010

2010-12-30T16:45:00.000-08:00

Some don’t believe in miracles.
The say, “What happens is by chance”
They rush through God’s creation,
Without a passing glance.

But for those that look and listen
Throughout each precious day
They will find the tracks of Angels,
As they move along their way!

Andie Hellem

May you create a wondrous
2011 full of fun, joy
and laughter.

Reflection for December 22, 2010

2010-12-22T16:11:00.000-08:00

And then that girl the angels came to visit,

she woke also to fruit, frightened by beauty,

given love, shy, in her

so much blossom, the forest,

no one had explored, with paths leading everywhere.

They left her alone to walk and to drift

and the spring carried her along.

Her simple and unselfcentered Mary- life

became marvelous and castlelike.

Her life resembled trumpets on the feast days

that reverberated far inside every house;

and she, once so girlish and fragmented,

was so plunged now inside her womb,

and so full inside from that one thing

and so full – enough for a thousand others—

that every creature seemed to throw light on her

and she was like a slope with vines, heavily bearing.

Rainer Maria Rilke

Reflection for December 15, 2010

2010-12-15T20:21:00.000-08:00

WHEN I WAS THE STREAM

When I was the stream, when I was the forest,

when I was still the field, when I was every hoof,

foot, fin, and wing, when I was the sky itself,

No one ever asked me did I have a purpose,

no one ever wondered was there anything I might need . . .

for there was nothing I could not love.

It was when I left all we once were that the agony began,

and the fear and questions came and I wept. I wept.

And tears I had never known before.

So I returned to the river. I returned to the mountains.

I asked for their hand in marriage again. I begged––I begged

to wed every object and creature.

And when they accepted,

God was ever present in my arms.

Meister Eckhart

(1260-1328)

Reflection for December 8, 2010

2010-12-08T20:22:00.000-08:00

Meditations with Meister Eckhart

What good is it to me

If this eternal birth of the divine Son

Takes place unceasingly

But does not take place

Within myself?

And

what good is it to me

If Mary is full of grace

And if I am not also full of grace?

What good is it to me

For the Creator to give birth to his/her Son

If I do not also give birth to him

In my time

and my culture?

This, then,

is the fullness of time:

When the Son of God

is begotten

In me.

We are all meant

To be mothers of God.

God does not ask anything else of you except

That you let yourself go

And let God

Be God

In you.

Every single creature is full of God

And is a book about God.

To grasp God in all things,

That is the sign

Of your new birth.

Reflection for November 24, 2010

2010-11-26T19:50:00.000-08:00

Thoughts on Gratitude

While we cry ourselves to sleep,

gratitude waits patiently to console and reassure us;

there is a landscape larger than the one we can see.

Sarah Ban Breathnach

Darkness deserves gratitude.

It is the alleluia point at which we learn to understand

that all growth does not take place in the sunlight.

Joan Chittister, Uncommon Gratitude

To speak gratitude is courteous and pleasant,

to enact gratitude is generous and noble,

but to live gratitude is to touch Heaven.

Johannes A. Gaertner

Let us be grateful to people who make us happy;

they are the charming gardeners

who make our souls blossom.

Marcel Proust

Reflection for November 10, 2010

2010-11-12T18:19:00.000-08:00

Welcome Morning

There is joy

in all:

in the hair I brush each morning,

in the Cannon towel, newly washed,

that I rub my body with each morning,

in the chapel of eggs I cook

each morning,

in the outcry from the kettle

that heats my coffee

each morning,

in the spoon and the chair

that cry "hello there, Anne"

each morning,

in the godhead of the table

that I set my silver, plate, cup upon

each morning.

All this is God,

right here in my pea-green house

each morning

and I mean,

though often forget,

to give thanks,

to faint down by the kitchen table

in a prayer of rejoicing

as the holy birds at the kitchen window

peck into their marriage of seeds.

So while I think of it,

let me paint a thank-you on my palm

for this God, this laughter of the morning,

lest it go unspoken.

The Joy that isn't shared, I've heard,

dies young.

~ Anne Sexton ~

(The Awful Rowing Toward God)

Reflection for November 3, 2010

2010-11-03T11:13:00.000-07:00

The Reike Ideals
(Rea-Key means Universal Life Force)

Just for today - do not anger.

Do not worry, and be filled with gratitude.

Devote yourself to your work.

Be kind to People.

Reike Founder - Usui Mikao

Quilts by Larissa

Reflection for October 27, 2010

2010-10-27T11:09:00.000-07:00

Celebration of 'Day of the Dead'

Remembrance of loved ones; they continue to bless our lives.

Reflections of October 6, 2010

2010-10-06T13:51:00.001-07:00

THE SACRAMENT OF WAITING

Slowl
She celebrated the sacrament of letting go
First she surrendered her green,
Then the orange, yellow, and red
Finally she let go of her brown.
Shedding her last leaf
She stood empty and silent, stripped bare.
Leaning against the winter sky
She began her vigil of trust.

Shedding her last leaf
She watched its journey to the ground.
She stood in silence
Wearing the color of emptiness,
Her branches wondering;
How do you give shade with so much gone?

And then,
The sacrament of waiting began.
The sunrise and sunset watched with tenderness.
Clothing her with silhouettes
They kept her hope alive.

They helped her understand that
Her vulnerability,
Her dependence and need,
Her emptiness,
Her readiness to receive
Were giving her a new kind of beauty.
Every morning and every evening they stood in silence
And celebrated together
The sacrament of waiting.

Macrina Wiederkehr

From drkirkwebb.com

Reflection for September 29, 2010

2010-09-29T10:30:00.000-07:00

Salutation to the Dawn

Look to this Day!
For it is Life, the very Life of Life.
In it’s brief course lie
All the Verities and Realities
Of your Existence:
The Bliss of Growth,
The Glory of Action,
The Splendor of Beauty.
For Yesterday is but a Dream
And Tomorrow if only a Vision:
But Today, well lived, makes
Every Yesterday a Dream of Happiness,
And every Tomorrow a Vision of Hope
Look well, therefore, to this Day!

From the Sanskrit

Quilt of the 'altar' made by Judy D

Reflection for September 22, 2010

2010-09-22T18:50:00.000-07:00

"When will justice come to Athens they asked Thucydides. He answered.

"Justice will not come to Athens until those who are not injured are

as indignant as those who are. Anonymous

Never doubt that a small group of committed persons can change the world;

in fact that is all that ever has. Margaret Mead

Unless souls are saved, nothing is saved; there can be no world peace

unless there is soul peace. Fulton Sheen

Reflection for September 15, 2010

2010-09-15T18:06:00.000-07:00

For Retirement

This is where your life has arrived,

After all the years of effort and toil;

Look back with graciousness and thanks

On all your great and quiet achievements.

You stand on the shore of new invitation

To open your life to what is left undone;

Let your heart enjoy a different rhythm

When drawn to the wonder of other horizons.

Have the courage for a new approach to time;

Allow it to slow until you find freedom

To draw alongside the mystery you hold

And befriend your own beauty of soul.

Now is the time to enjoy your heart’s desire,

To live the dreams you’ve waited for,

To awaken the depths beyond your work

And enter into your infinite source.

John O’Donohue

To Bless the Space Between Us

Reflection for September 8, 2010

2010-09-11T11:58:00.001-07:00

"All living creatures are, so to speak, sparks from the radiation of God's brilliance, and these sparks emerge from God like the rays of the sun."

Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1178)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingua_Ignota This is the web site about her 'Mystical Writing"

Reflection for September 1, 2010

2010-09-01T20:13:00.000-07:00

Instruments of God

A small, wooden flute,

an empty, hollow reed,

rests in her silent hand.

it awaits the breath

of one who creates song

through its open form.

my often empty life

rests in the hand of God;

like the hollowed flute,

it yearns for the melody

which only Breath can give.

the small, wooden flute and I,

we need the one who breathes,

we await one who makes melody.

and the one whose touch creates,

awaits our empty, ordinary forms,

so that the song-starved world

may be fed with golden melodies.

Sr. Joyce Rupp

May I Have This Dance

Reflection for August 25, 2010

2010-08-25T16:31:00.000-07:00

Ukraine Orthodox Angelic Icons

I thank God for this day, for bringing me together with this space, for allowing me to be a clear and present vessel for Your energy.

I ask that I am able to detach and release from all that no longer serves.

I ask that I am able to detach and release from the outcome of this, my prayer, so that all may be offered in the Highest Good.

I ask for this or something better with all my brothers and sisters.

Amen

Song sung after meditation - Bread and Roses
by James Oppenheim (1882-1932)

As we come marching, marching, in the beauty of the day,
A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill-lofts gray
Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses,
For the people hear us singing, "Bread and Roses, Bread and Roses."

As we come marching, marching, we battle, too, for men --
For they are women's children, and we mother them again.
Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes --
Hearts starve as well as bodies: Give us Bread, but give us Roses.

As we come marching, marching, unnumbered women dead
Go crying through our singing their ancient song of Bread;
Small art and love and beauty their drudging spirits knew --
Yes, it is bread we fight for -- but we fight for Roses, too.

As we come marching, marching, we bring the Greater Days --
The rising of the women means the rising of the race --
No more the drudge and idler -- ten that toil where one reposes --
But a sharing of life's glories: Bread and Roses, Bread and Roses.

Reflection for August 18, 2010

2010-08-18T21:05:00.000-07:00

When Death Comes

When death comes

Like the hungry bear in autumn;

when death comes and takes all the bright colors from his purse

to by me, and snaps the purse shut;

when death comes

like the measles-pox;

When death comes

like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:

what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything

as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,

and I look upon time as no more than an idea,

and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common

as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth

tending as all music does toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something

precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say; all my life

I was a bride married to amazement.

I was a bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it is over, I don't want to wonder

If I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,

or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

Mary Oliver

From: New and Selected Poems by Mary Oliver

reflection for August 11, 2010

2010-08-17T20:01:00.000-07:00

It is never my responsibility to:

Give what I really don't want to give.

Sacrifice my integrity to anyone.

Do more than I have time to do.

Drain my strength for others.

Listen to unwise counsel.

Retain an unfair relationship.

Be anyone but exactly who I am.

Conform to unreasonable demands.

Be 100% perfect.

Follow the crowds.

Put up with unpleasant people.

Bear the burden of another's misbehavior.

Do something I cannot really do.

Endure my own negative thoughts.

Feel guilty towards my inner desires.

Submit to overbearing conditions.

Meekly let life pass me by.

Reflections for August 4, 2010

2010-08-04T14:58:00.000-07:00

Matins

i
The authentic! Shadows of it
sweep past in dreams, one could say imprecisely,
evoking the almost-silent
ripping apart of giant
sheets of cellophane. No.
It thrusts up close. Exactly in dreams
it has you off-guard, you
recognize it before you have time.
For a second before waking
the alarm bell is a red conical hat, it
takes form.

The authentic! I said
rising from the toilet seat.
The radiator in rhythmic knockings
spoke of the rising steam.
The authentic, I said
breaking the handle of my hairbrush as I
brushed my hair in
rhythmic strokes: That’s it,
that’s joy, it’s always
a recognition, the known
appearing fully itself, and
more itself than one knew.

iii

The new day rises
as heat rises,
knocking in the pipes
with rhythms it seizes for its own
to speak of its invention—
the real, the new-laid
egg whose speckled shell
the poet fondles and must break
if he will be nourished.

A shadow painted where
yes, a shadow must fall.
The cow’s breath
not forgotten in the mist, in the
words. Yes,
verisimilitude draws up
heat in us, zest
to follow through,
follow through,
follow
transformations of day
in its turning, in its becoming.

Stir the holy grains, set
the bowls on the table and
call the child to eat.
While we eat we think,
as we think an undercurrent
of dream runs through us
faster than thought
towards recognition.
Call the child to eat,
send him off, his mouth
tasting of toothpaste, to go down
into the ground, into a roaring train
and to school.
His cheeks are pink
his black eyes hold his dreams, he has left
forgetting his glasses.
Follow down the stairs at a clatter
to give them to him and save
his clear sight.
Cold air
comes in at the street door.

The authentic! It rolls
just out of reach, beyond
running feet and
stretching fingers, down
the green slope and into
the black waves of the sea.
Speak to me, little horse, beloved,
tell me
how to follow the iron ball,
how to follow through to the country
beneath the waves
to the place where I must kill you and you step out
of your bones and flystrewn meat
tall, smiling, renewed,
formed in your own likeness.

vii

Marvelous Truth, confront us
at every turn,
in every guise, iron ball,
egg, dark horse, shadow,
cloud
of breath on the air,
dwell
in our crowded hearts
our steaming bathrooms, kitchens full of
things to be done, the
ordinary streets.
Thrust close your smile
that we know you, terrible joy.

Denise Levertov, “Matins” from Poems 1960-1967

Reflection for July 28, 2010

2010-07-28T18:10:00.000-07:00

I remember taking up meditation in a formal way when I found I was unable to watch a sunset. Looking out over the interminable blue and gold interior of Queensland with the last parrots sweeping home, I could assess, comment, have opinions, but was unable to let the landscape and the vanishing light simply act upon me; my disorderly awareness deprived me in the midst of plenty...Meditation then is a fasting of the heart in which, for a time we do not go with our wanting and our fear. We cease to attach so strongly to the things of our lives. This is not because they lack worth, but because, when we are full of them, there is too little of us; we cannot discriminate between things, or love them enough.

The Light Inside the Dark--Zen, Soul, and the Spiritual Life
by John Tarrant

Reflection for July 21, 2010

2010-07-24T09:14:00.001-07:00

I AM that I AM

Reflection for July 14, 2010

2010-07-20T15:56:00.000-07:00

Reflection for July 7, 2010

2010-07-20T15:46:00.000-07:00

LESSONS FROM GEESE - BY MILTON OLSON

1. As each bird flaps its wings, it creates an "uplift" for the bird following. By flying in "V" formation, the whole flock adds 7% greater flying range than if the bird flew alone.

LESSON: People who share a common direction and sense of community can get where they are going quicker and easier because they are traveling on the thrust of one another.

2. Whenever a goose falls out of formation it suddenly feels the drag and resistance of trying to fly alone and quickly gets back into formation to take advantage of the "lifting power" of the bird immediately in front.

LESSON: If we have as much sense as a goose, we will stay in formation with those who are headed where we want to go and be willing to accept their help as well as give ours to others.

3. When the lead goose gets tired, it rotates back into the formation and another goose flies at the point position.

LESSON: It pays to take turns doing the hard tasks and sharing leadership. With people, as well as geese. we are interdependent on each other.

4. The geese in formation honk from behind to encourage those up front to keep up their speed.

LESSON: We need to make sure our honking from behind is encouraging and not something else.

5. When a goose gets sick or wounded or shot down, two geese drop out of formation and follow it down to help and protect it. They stay with it until it is able to fly again or dies.

LESSON: If we have as much sense as geese, we too will stand by each other in difficult times as well as when we are strong.

Reflection for June 30, 2010

2010-07-01T18:08:00.000-07:00

Reflection for June 23, 2010

2010-06-29T19:36:00.000-07:00

Psalm 139

O LORD, you have searched me
and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.

You discern my going out and my lying down;
are familiar with all my ways.

Before a word is on my tongue

You know it completely, O LORD.

You hem me in—behind and before;
you have laid your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.

Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?

If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, [a] you are there.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,

even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.

If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,"

even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.

For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and

wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.

My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,

your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

How precious to [b] me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!

Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand.
When I awake,
I am still with you.

If only you would slay the wicked, O God!
Away from me, you bloodthirsty men!

They speak of you with evil intent;
your adversaries misuse your name.

Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD,
and abhor those who rise up against you?

I have nothing but hatred for them;
I count them my enemies.

Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.

See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.

Reflection for June 16, 2010

2010-06-16T17:37:00.001-07:00

Holy as a Day is Spent

Holy is the dish and drain

The soap and sink, and the cup and plate

Warm wool socks, the cold white tile

Showerheads and good dry towels

And frying eggs sound like psalms

With bits of salt measured in my palm

It’s all a part of a sacrament

As holy as a day is spent

Holy is the busy street

And cars that boom with passion’s beat

And the checkout girl counting change

The hands that shook my hands today

And hymns of geese fly overhead

And spread their wings like their parents did.

Blessed be the dog, that runs in her sleep

To chase some wild, elusive thing

Holy is the familiar room

The quiet moments in the afternoon

And folding sheets like folding hands

To pray as only laundry can

I’m letting go of all I fear

Like autumn leaves made of earth and air.

For the summer came and the summer went

As holy as the day is spent

Holy is the place I stand

To give whatever small good I can

The empty page, the open book

Redemption everywhere I look

Unknowingly we slow our pace

In the shade of unexpected grace

And with grateful smiles and sad lament

As holy as the day is spent

And morning light sings “Providence”

As holy as a day is spent

-Carrie Newcomer

(From the CD: A Gathering of Spirits)

Reflection for June 9, 2010

2010-06-09T18:24:00.000-07:00

In a game of cards or tennis there may come a moment when you

see you cannot possibly win. The same can happen with your hope

of a happy marriage or a brilliant career. Can you go on playing still,

with no expectation of a win? Play not for the victory, though you have

to strive for that, but for the game itself. Playing is a form of worship.

John Donne and George Herbert were ambitious men. Both hoped

to serve the state in some high capacity. Both were disappointed.

Both became clergymen. A cynic might conclude that they had settled

for a second best. But can a second best turn out better than the first?

Can defeat be met in such a way that it yields a greater prize than victory?

Most of us are destined to failure, which is a form of suffering. How to

use our suffering, how to turn the lead of our defeat into the gold of

something else, is the object of religious alchemy. Not the only one, but

one that most of us are interested in.

Sydney Carter, Dance in the Dark

Reflection for June 2, 2010

2010-06-02T18:16:00.000-07:00

Good Judgement comes from Experience;

Experience comes from Bad Judgement

Reflection for May 26, 2010

2010-05-27T18:31:00.000-07:00

THE RHYTHM OF EACH

I think each comfort we manage—

each holding in the night, each opening

of a wound, each closing of a wound, each

pulling of a splinter or razored word, each

fever sponged, each clear thing given

to someone in greater need—each

passes on the kindness we’ve known.

For the human sea is made of waves

that mount and merge till the way a

nurse rocks a child is the way that child

all grown rocks the wounded, and how

the wounded, allowed to go on, rock

strangers who in their pain

don’t seem so strange.

Eventually, the rhythm of kindness

is how we pray and suffer by turns,

and if someone were to watch us

from inside the lake of time, they

wouldn’t be able to tell if we are

dying or being born.

Mark Nepo

poet laureate of Bread for the Journey

Reflection for May 19, 2010

2010-05-20T20:04:00.000-07:00

Musing On the Seen & Unseen

Martha D. Peterson

March 18, 2010

Recently I had time to kill while waiting for a doctor’s appointment, so I bought a coke at the hospital lunchroom and decided to sit outside in the sun. Hovering above me was a fruit tree in full bloom. The white fluffy blossoms rested against a pure blue sky, causing me to think there was a message for me in this beautiful tableau of Nature.

Then the words came...” The seen comes from the unseen.”

Immediately I started to ponder...Where do the roots, blossoms, bark come from? I know the DNA has the plan, but what about the substance, where does that come from...to form leaves, blossoms, bark ...and all the seen objects ...and...babies...and planets. I could go on and on. The answer is: all that appears comes from the invisible. Then Bible verses started pouring through my mind. It’s all in the Bible, the Book of wisdom.

Einstein could only take his numbers so far, then arrived at the wonder of the Invisible which he acknowledged as God.

Here are the verses to ponder upon:

Hebrews 11:1, 3 Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen....the worlds were formed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.

Isaiah 44:2 and Isaiah 49:5 Thus saith the Lord that made thee, and formed thee from the womb...

Isaiah 55:11 So shall my word be that goeth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.

Genesis 1:3:26 And God said, Let there be...and there was... light, firmament, waters, grass,stars, moon, fruit trees, creatures in the seas and sky, and Man, created in His own image and likeness.

Psalm 139:15, 16. My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being imperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet thee was none of them.

Ecclesiastes 11:5 As thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child: even so thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all.

Jeremiah 1:5 Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee and I ordained thee a prophet...

see also I Corinthians 2:9 eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.

Matthew 15:13. Every plant , which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up.

John 1:3. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

It seems that the intangibles, Faith, Truth, Love the Word, have the power to bring forth whatever is needed. Those blossoms came forth from the vast Invisible Substance. Isn’t it wonderful!

So let the mind of Christ be active in you to learn the mysteries of Life.

Reflection for May 12, 2010

2010-05-12T09:55:00.000-07:00

The Master sees things
as they are,
without trying to control them.
She lets them go
their own way,
and resides
at the center of the circle.

Lao-Tzu. Tao-te-Ching

〄

Music from the CD 'Unwind'

Reflection for May 5, 2010

2010-05-05T21:02:00.000-07:00

Listening to God with Taize Chants

Singing is one of the most essential elements of worship. Short chants, repeated again and again, give it a meditative character. Using just a few words they express a basic reality of faith, quickly grasped by the mind. As the words are sung over many times, this reality gradually permeates the whole being. Meditative singing thus becomes a way of listening to God.

From the booklet "Taize: Songs for Prayer"

Reflection for April 28, 2010

2010-04-28T20:46:00.000-07:00

Dirge Without Music

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the

hard ground.

So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:

Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned

With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.

Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.

A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,

A formula, a phrase remains,—but the best is lost.

The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,—

They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses. Elegant and

curled

Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not

approve.

More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the

world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave

Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;

Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.

I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.

Edna St. Vincent Millay From Collected Poems

Reflection for April 21, 2010

2010-04-21T17:54:00.000-07:00

I have arrived.

I am home

in the here and now.

I am solid.

I am free.

In the ultimate

I dwell.

Thich Nhat Hanh, The Long Road Turns to Joy

Reflection for April 14, 2010

2010-04-14T20:28:00.000-07:00

Do you have hope for the future?

Someone asked Robert Frost, toward the end.

Yes, and even for the past, he replied,

That it will turn out to have been all right

For what it was, something we can accept,

Mistakes made by the selves we had to be,

Not able to be, perhaps, what we wished,

Or what looking back half the time it seems

We could so easily have been, or ought . . .

The future, yes, and even for the past,

That it will become something we can bear,

And I too, and my children, so I hope,

Will recall as not too heavy the tug

Of those albatrosses I sadly placed

Upon their tender necks. Hope for the past,

Yes, old Frost, your words provide that courage

And it brings strange peace that itself passes

Into past, easier to bear because

You said it, rather casually, as snow

Went on falling in Vermont years ago.

“Thanks, Robert Frost” by David Ray

in Poet’s Choice, edited by George Murphy

Reflection for April 7, 2010

2010-04-08T06:46:00.000-07:00

Northwest Indian

Memorial on Death

Do not stand at my grave and weep.

I am not there.

I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow.

I am the diamond glint on snow.

I am the sunlight on ripened grain.

I am the autumn rain.

When you awake in the morning hush,

I am the swift uplifting rush

Of birds circling in flight.

I am the stars that shine at night.

Do not stand at my grave and weep.

I am not there.

I do not sleep.

-- author unknown

Reflection for March 31, 2010

2010-03-31T17:37:00.001-07:00

The Bread of Life

Serving one another bread is glimpsing life’s heart – let us not forget that.

When the bread is broken the hands of the one holding the loaf part

and her arms are open to share food and life.

Bread gives in each step of its creation:

to the one who makes and touches and waits;

to the one who breaks and serves;

to the one who receives and eats.

Then this precious vehicle of life is eaten and becomes, somehow us.

So the cycle continues.

The God that was there in immortal wheat is there in sharing bread.

Isn’t this what the Eucharist symbolizes:

that all meals are sacred;

all food is holy;

that companionship is sharing the promise of life and strength.

Joy Mead

…The One Loaf

Reflection for March 24, 2010

2010-03-24T10:17:00.000-07:00

REVELATION

(After Juliana of Norwich)

then showed me he

in right hand held

everything that is

the hand was a woman's

creation all lusty

a meek bird's egg

nesting there waiting

her word and I heard it

newborn I make you

neostling I love you

homing I keep you

Daniel Berrigan

Music - "Faur'e", Chamber Music

Reflection for March 17, 2010

2010-03-17T21:23:00.000-07:00

This little piece of SOD from Ireland looks quite barren, as of course it is. But if a seed was planted within it and watered, the sod would become the protector of the seed until it grew into the blossom it was meant to be.

Perhaps some of us have been feeling barren and empty during these days of Lent. But deep inside our soul is the seed of FAITH, that nurtured by Christ’s Love, will grow and become a beautiful blossom when our Lenten Journey ends and we again celebrate the Resurrection of our Lord, Jesus.