An Ordinary Day: Thursday's Reflection

NOTE: Don't be surprised by erratic posting in the next few weeks. I may post. I may not. With the arrival of Memorial Day comes changes in schedules and plans and the need and desire for flexibility and spontaneity. I will post as I can. OK?

I love the Annie Dillard quote, " How we spend our days is how we spend our lives."

Yesterday I started my day with writing time, as I have been doing since returning from my solo writing retreat. I am struggling to start a new chapter. Diving into the first draft is always difficult for me. I jotted some notes, looked through some other notes. Opened a new file on my laptop and wrote a few lines. Deleted them, and repeated the process. To be continued.

I wrote in my journal about my struggle with this new chapter. 

I sat in silence.

I whispered the words of Thich Nhat Hanh:

                              In; out.

                              Deep; slow.

                              Smile; release.

I dressed. I fixed my hair--a lost cause on this rainy day.

I made a grocery list. Our grandson will be here for dinner. Let's have tacos, I decided.

I grocery shopped and had a conversation with one of the men who bags and carries groceries to your car. He has worked there 40 years, but has knee problems and doesn't work as many hours now. He misses his friend who moved to Seattle and after work today will go to his church to be with some other friends. He repeated several times, "Have a good day."

I did another errand and returned home the long way, so I could see all the fluffy flowering trees. The crabapples and lilacs and the freshest fullness of greens. 

I moved laundry from the washer to the dryer. I fixed my lunch--an arugula salad--and sat in the snug to eat and started reading a memoir called The Bridge Ladies by Betsy Lerner. How tempting it was to remain in my Mama Chair all afternoon, I thought. My ongoing temptation.

I returned to my desk in the garret. It was time to check my email. I responded as needed and did a bit more work for a summer writing series I have helped organize at church. In Your Own Words: Writing as a Spiritual Practice. https://www.gloriadeistpaul.org/summer-writing/

I worked on this post. I returned to the first draft shuffle and made a bit more headway. Bruce and I check in with each other about our days and talked about plans for an upcoming trip to the North Shore. 

And the day continued with a walk before fixing dinner. While in the kitchen, I listened to Minnesota Public Radio, hoping nothing too awful had happened during the day. Pete arrived for dinner and approved of the menu. We talked about the remaining school days and then he and his Papa watched some episodes of "Flash." That's their thing. Not mine.

I returned to the snug and read not just the current book, but a few pages in Mark Nepo's More Together Than Alone, Discovering the Power and Spirit of Community in Our Lives and in the World.
                  The small things we can share and model
                  will make a difference. p. 72

Before turning out the light, I read in bed and then closing my eyes, I reviewed the blessings of the day and sent love and blessings to those in need of hope. 

Not everyday is the same, of course. Some days I meet with clients or go to a meeting or have lunch with a friend. Some days are more scheduled. Some days there is a special event like house guests coming or going to see a play or concert or attending a class or a lecture. Some days are reserved for worshipping with my faith community. Some days, some weeks are quite full, even too full sometimes, and some days are more memorable than others. More and more I understand how the pattern of my days is the picture of my life. 

How grateful I am. 

                    Each of us is an artist of our days; the greater
                    our integrity and awareness, the more original
                    and creative our time will become."
                                                  John O'Donohue

An Invitation

How do you respond to the Annie Dillard and John O'Donohue quotes? I would love to know. 

Morning Prayer: Tuesday's Reflection

I have been reading some old journals, as part of research for a new chapter of my memoir, and I found this entry written in May, 2001. My life today has a similar feeling.

I swept the kitchen floor,












opened the porch door,












straightened a rug,














plumped a pillow.














Settling in.
Starting the day.
Feeling my way.
Praying
Today 
I'll do some good,
Make a difference,
Move closer to wholeness,
Feel your presence.

Amen.

An Invitation
What is your morning prayer? I would love to know. 

To Be Read: Thursday's Reflection

I guess it is time to make a confession:  Books Are My Addiction. (Or at least my main one). 

I have stashes of books I have not yet read. More than one stash. 

One stash is on a shelf in the snug--mainly books I have found at Little Free Libraries in our neighborhood. 


Another stash is hidden from view--on the back side of a pillar in the garret.

And then there are the miscellaneous books stacked on other shelves throughout the house. I think I have actually read more books currently in the house than there are books waiting to be read, but I am not willing to do a count. 




And still I add more books, although not at the same rate as I did in earlier times of my life. Since January I have acquired eighteen books, and I confess that I purchased most of those. But not all, I hasten to add. 

I know I could go a long time--a VERY long time--just reading what I have at my fingertips, but sometimes my TBR (To Be Read) list tugs, and I yearn to wander the stacks in the library. There is a kind of thrill, a rush, when I find a book that is on my TBR lists. One list in rough alphabetical order is for fiction and the other, which is more random, is nonfiction. Both lists are on my phone--handy when the car stops all on its own by the library entrance. 

Recently, I made quite a haul at the library. Ten books--three nonfiction titles and seven novels. Once home I browsed my booty, both to determine what to read first, but also to make sure I wanted to actually read each one. In the process I realized that I have already read one  of the titles, The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin, and rereading the summary, I remembered enjoying it. Cross that off the TBR list--no one said my lists are foolproof!

I decided the first book I would read from this current treasure chest would be On Beauty by Zadie Smith, a writer I have heard about, but have never read, and I love this book. Now you know what that means--her other books are now on my TBR list! As luck would have it, a few days after I started On Beauty I spotted her book White Noise in a Little Free Library--no question about bringing that home with me. 

Has anyone read books by Maggie O'Farrell? Well, I checked out two novels by her the day I roamed the library--Instructions for a Heatwave and This Must Be The Place. I have no idea how those titles ended up on my TBR lists, but would you believe in the next couple days I heard glowing reviews of her books on a couple podcasts about books? I will read one of those titles next. 

I know there are people who do not keep a backlog of books, who don't worry about having a book for every mood, every reading emergency, and who only bring one book at a time into the house  and then read that one before getting another book, but that clearly is not me. Who are those people anyway? And I know there are people who have a philosophy of one book in/one book out. I do that with pairs of shoes and blouses, but not books. 

I am apologizing ahead of time to my family when it is time to dispose of my books. I have been trying to clear the space of other belongings, but that just is not going to happen with my books. Here's my suggestion: Invite everyone who comes to my memorial service to take a book or two or three. Open the house to everyone on the block and tell them they can't leave without an armload of books. You are smart people, and I know you will figure out what to do. 

In the act of confessing there is the underlying intention to do better, to change one's wayward ways. Well, I have another confession, I am not going to conquer my book addiction. I love having a store of books, read and unread, to remind me of all the beauty in the world, of how much I still need to learn and all the ways I need to grow, and to inspire me to stay awake to the glorious diversity around me. 

I have 20 more pages in On Beauty to read, and I am going to do that right now. 

An Invitation
What addiction do you have no intention of reforming? I would love to know. 

Ramadan Gathering: Tuesday's Reflection

  

"Happy Ramadan" 

"Ramadan Mubarak" (moo-BAH-ruk)

On Friday evening members of our congregation gathered in our Fellowship Hall for a time of learning and connecting. And feasting, but trust me, it wasn't our usual Lutheran potluck. The Turkish American Society of Minnesota were our hosts for Iftar, a breaking of the fast, and such delicious food they provided.

Before enjoying the food, however, we learned a bit about Ramadan, which began last week. This is the month in which Muslims believe the Qur'an was revealed to Muhammed, and they celebrate by fasting from sunrise to sunset every day of the month. Fasting, we learned, is one of the five pillars of Islam, along with testimony of faith, daily prayer, charity, and pilgrimage.

We also learned what it takes to be a Muslim.
1.     To accept God or to submit to the will of God.
2.     To accept the message of God and Mohammad, that there's an end to the world, a day of judgment, and to accept all the prophets, including Jesus, before Mohammad.
3.      To act as if God is always with you in your actions and can always see you. 

The five pillars are ways to experience and get closer to God. 

I sat next to a young couple from Turkey who have lived in the United States for many years, and he explained to me how easy it was to fast during Ramadan. "Something happens when you fast then. You want to fast. You want to experience God." He told me how even his young children have fasted at times and want to have that experience. 

He stressed to me that the fasting itself is a way to celebrate this time. I would have thought that fasting was a way to prepare for celebration. 

I've always thought of fasting as a discipline, a way to reveal what controls me and also a call to remember how I am sustained not by food, but by God's love. 

Richard Foster in his classic, Celebration of Discipline, The Path to Spiritual Growth, says, "we are not so much abstaining from food as we are feasting on the word of God. Fasting is feasting!"

Fasting as feasting. 
Fasting as celebrating. 
I now see some similarity between the two views. 

Before we ate, however, there was a time of prayer for our Muslim friends. Their prayer rugs had been arranged facing Mecca in our Colonial Room. At times standing and other times in a posture of supplication, they chanted and lifted their prayers. It was a holy time for them and for those of us who stood quietly in the back to not only observe this important ritual, but to hold the space for them. 

And then we ate and continued our conversations about our faith, but also about our work, our families, our concerns for this country. 

My only regret about the evening was that I had not fasted that day as well, and if I attend another Iftar, I intend to do that--both as a symbol of interfaith connection, but also to experience feasting in a new way. 


An Invitation
The last day of Ramadan this year is June 4. Is there a spiritual invitation calling to you during this time? I would love to know. 

Rachel's Words--Remembering Rachel Held Evans: Thursday's Reflection

Too soon. The writer Rachel Held Evans, died last week at the age of 37 from brain swelling. Along with her husband, who must be in deep grief as he tends their young children, ages one and three, who must wonder where Mommy is, hundred of thousands of her readers mourn her loss. 

I've never met Rachel or even heard her speak, but I feel as if I know her and can call her by her first name because I have read her blogs, seen her comments on other people's blogs and am familiar with her books, especially Searching for Sundays Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church. 

That title fits parts of my journey over the years and while our experience was not the same (She was raised in the South as an Evangelical Christian. I am a genetic Lutheran --and for a short time, an Episcopalian.) I felt her pain about so many of the same issues--the role of women in the church, for example, the literal way of reading scripture, LGBTQ issues and others. 

After learning of her death I paged through my copy of Searching for Sunday. These quotations will give you a flavor of why I resonate with her.
                 ...I realized that just as I sat in church with my
                 doubt, there were those sitting in church with 
                 their sexuality, their race, their gender, their depression, 
                 their addiction, their questions, their fears, their
                 past, their infertility, their eating disorder, their
                 diagnosis, their missed rent, their mess of a marriage,
                 their sins, their shame --all the things that follow us
                 to church on Sunday morning, but we dare not 
                 name. p. 61

                 Whenever we show others the goodness of God,
                  whenever we follow our Teacher by imitating his
                  posture of humble and ready service, our actions are 
                  sacred and ministerial. To be called into the priesthood,
                  as all of us are, is to be called to a life of presence,
                  of kindness. p. 116

Rachel was a wise woman, but she also had the wisdom to call upon other wise women and reading this book is like sitting in a circle with other women I love. In this book you share a glass of wine with Barbara Brown Taylor: ("To be a priest is to know that things are not as they should be and yet to care for them the way they are."p. 117), Madeleine L'Engle ("the great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been."p.179), Nora Gallagher, Sara Miles, and Lauren Winner. 

As I mentioned in Tuesday's post, our granddaughter Maren was confirmed on Sunday, and as I reacquainted myself with Searching for Sunday I discovered two references that seem especially relevant. In the first Barbara Brown Taylor reminds us that Jesus gave things for his disciples to do--not just to think about. At the Last Supper he said, "'Do this'--not believe this, but do this-'in remembrance of me.'" At Maren's confirmation service Katie LeClair, the director of youth and family ministries, reminded us of Jesus words, "Follow me." Not just put up your feet and wonder what is going to happen next.

The other reference is a story shared by Lauren Winner about a pastor responding to his daughter who was not sure she believed everything she was supposed to believe, or so she thought, before being confirmed. He said, "What you promise when you are confirmed is not that you will believe this forever. What you promise when you are confirmed is that this is the story you will wrestle with forever."

Rachel Held Evans was a wrestler. 

I am so sad there will not be more books by this "prophet of the pen," as a USA Today writer called her or as a writer in The Atlantic called her, "the writer who sat by the church door," but tucked away on my "to be read" shelves is her book Inspired, Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again. I look forward to this time with Rachel.

But oh, too soon we say goodbye. 

An Invitation
Who has left life, but remains in your heart too soon? I would love to know. 

I Believe: Tuesday's Reflection

Sunday our granddaughter was confirmed in the Lutheran Church after four years of weekly confirmation classes. At one point in the Sunday morning service, each confirmand is blessed by one of the pastors as family and friends surround her and lay hands on her. Yes, it was a two-hanky day!

Another memorable part of the day was to see the Credo Projects, created by each of the young people. These statements or experiences of their faith journey were on display for all to see, renewing our hope for the future of the church and beyond that, the world. Perhaps some day I will share Maren's words, with her permission, of course, but for now, know that I am incredibly proud of her.  

Seeing all those projects reminded me of my own credo project, a list of "I believe" statements I wrote in my journal when I was  training to be a spiritual director. Here's a selection:

*  I believe in the power of a quest and that the Holy is my partner on the quest.
*  I believe there are many ways to approach and experience God.
*  I believe God is mother, father, neither.
*  I believe God has carved my name in the palm of her hand and knows me completely.
*  I not only believe I am a child of God, but that God encourages me to be an adult of God.
*  I believe a hug can restore hope and courage, especially if followed by a chocolate chip cookie.
*  I believe God is always with me, even when I feel only absence.
*  I believe to know God we must know God with body, mind, and spirit.
*  I believe that out of the many choices in front of me at any one time, more than one choice is the right choice, a good choice, a  choice that will lead me to a deeper relationship with God.
*  I believe one thing leads to another and looking back, I can see how the dots are all connected.
*  I believe in the activity of solitude.
*  I believe in my child within and sometimes I need to let her play.
*  I believe the cure of the common cold--and so much else--is a good book, an afghan, a Snickers bar and an afternoon on the couch.
*  I believe I am called to be a spiritual director and that my job is to help others rest, reflect, renew, rejoice on this path to God.
*  I believe I am the crack of dawn, nurturer, wolf, companion and companioned, open and opening, journeying, love, mirror and winter. 
*  I believe I am called into community, as much as I am called into solitude. 
*  I believe I am called to be a hometender, a creator of sacred, nurturing space, a haven, a sanctuary.
*  I believe I must pray when I am afraid to pray.
*  I believe in the power of sharing one's beliefs. 
*  I believe I will run out of time before I run out of the desire to create. 
*  I believe, not only in seeking God, but in waiting for God.

This is my credo project. Or at least the rough draft for one. 

An Invitation
What do you believe? I would love to know.

,

Literary Dinner Party: Thursday's Reflection

One of my favorite sections in the Sunday New York Times Book Review is the "By the Book" section. Each week an author responds to a number of questions, such as "What books are on your nightstand?" or "What books would you recommend that the President read?" 

My favorite question is "What writers, living or dead, would you invite to a dinner party?" The answers are often quite esoteric and eclectic: Marcel Proust, Ovid, William Faulkner, Margaret Atwood, Charles Dickens, Harper Lee. 

I love gathering people together for good food, drink, and conversation, and love imagining favorite writers seated at my table. Wouldn't I love to have Jane Austen, Willa Cather, Louise Penny, Louise Erdrich, Jacqueline Winspear, Barbara Kingsolver, and Ann Patchett at my table? But why stop there? I wonder if Doris Kearns Goodwin, Taylor Branch, Kent Nerburn, David Brooks, and Blanche Wiesen Cook are available next Friday night. 

At the top of my list right now, however, are Barbara Brown Taylor, Reeve Lindbergh, and Joan Chittister. What a scintillating time that could be, and I have a feeling we would all get along tremendously well. 

Earlier this week I heard Barbara Brown Taylor speak at theWestminster Town Hall Forum , and she was warm and witty and clear and strong, and inspiring. Her most recent book is Holy Envy, Finding God in the Faith of Others, in which she reflects on her experiences teaching a "Religions of the World" class at a small, private liberal arts college. The book is not a textbook, however, but instead is an invitation to discover the spiritual riches God offers us in the faith of others. I loved this book. 
                 
                 Holy envy may lead you to borrow some
                 things, and you will need a place to put them, 
                 You may find spiritual guides outside your box
                 whom you may want to make room for, or some
                 neighbors from other faiths who have stopped by
                 for a visit. However it happens, your old box
                 will turn out to be too small for who you have
                 become. You will need a bigger one with more
                 windows in it--something more like a home
                 than a box, perhaps--where you can open the 
                 door to all kinds of people without fearing 
                 their faith will cancel yours out if you let them in.
                                                                p. 210

Last night I finished reading Forward from Here, Leaving Middle Age--and Other Unexpected Adventures by Reeve Lindbergh, and I wish we were neighbors. This book was published in 2008 when she was turning 60, so she is my age. I resonate with so much of what she says about this stage of life. Like me, she is a "left-handed person with questionable motor skills," and she often spends her time reading a book when she should be sitting at her desk writing one.
                   Getting old is what I want to do. Getting old,
                   whatever the years bring, is better by far than
                   not getting old. Or, in the words of Maya 
                   Angelou, "Mostly, what I have learned so far
                   about aging, despite the creakiness of one's
                   bones and cragginess of one's once-silken skin,
                   is this: do it. By all means, do it." p. 23

                   I understand at the age of sixty, at least for a
                   blessed moment now and then, that all I really 
                   can do with the rest of my life is to laugh at 
                   myself when laughter is called for, weep when 
                   I need to, and feel all of it, every bit of it, as 
                   much as I can for as long as I can. So that's 
                   what I think I'll do. p. 199

Dare I hope that she is working on a new book about turning 70? I would so welcome that.

And then there is dear Joan Chittister, who is a constant in my life and whose books I turn to so often, especially The Gift of Years, Growing Older Gracefully. Some days I need her wisdom about regret or fear or forgiveness or letting go or sadness, and she is always there with wisdom and openness. 
                     Each period of life has its own purpose.
                     This later one gives me time to assimilate
                     all the others. The task of this period of life,...
                     is not simply to endure the coming end of time.
                     It is to come aline in ways I have been alive
                     before. p. xv 

I am planning the menu (risotto with asparagus, maybe?) and ironing the white damask napkins. I have opened my heart to these women and am ready to open the door an welcome them to my table. 

An Invitation
Who would you like to invite to a literary dinner party? I would love to know.