Blessing the Neighborhood

 I tucked our palms from Passion Sunday into the birch basket on the front door. The forsythia branches in the basket signal spring and new growth. I like to think the palm branches, which scripture tells us were spread on the road as Jesus entered Jerusalem, wave blessings into the neighborhood. 

                            This blessing 
                            is making 
                            its steady way up 
                            the way 
                            toward you.
                                        Jan Richardson
                                        from Circle of Grace

This blessing is for you if you are Christian and moving through Holy Week towards Easter. Or if you are Jewish and in the midst of Passover. Or if you are Muslim or Hindu or Buddhist.

And yes, it is a blessing if you know yourself as an unbeliever or one who is unsure of your beliefs. Blessings know no boundaries, and it is good to remember that during these days of pageant and ritual. 

Here's what is most important to remember:

    An American rabbi was once asked what he thought of the
    words attributed to Jesus in St John's Gospel, "I am the way,
    and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except
    through me" (John 14:6). The rabbi replied, "Oh, I agree with
    these words." To which the surprised questioner asked further,
    "But how can you as a rabbi believe that Jesus is the way, the 
    truth, and the life?" "Because," answered the rabbi, "I believe that
    Jesus' way is the way of love, that Jesus' truth is the truth of
    love, and that Jesus' life is the life of love. No one comes to the
    Father but through love."
                                p. 119 A New Harmony, The Spirit, The Earth
                                and the Human Soul
                                John Philip Newell

The only way to God is through love. The only way to live, whatever your faith or unfaith, is through love. 

And that's the blessing the palms are proclaiming.

                            This blessing
                            looms in the throats
                            of women,
                            brings from the hearts
                            of men,
                            tumbles out of the mouths
                            of children.

                                        Jan Richardson

An Invitation
What happens when you extend a blessing? I would love to know. 

Spring and Our Own Growth

 A friend wrote that the life of faith is linear because "life with God moves always forward." Yes, but more and more the movement of my life with God feels circular, cyclical. 

Saturday we drove into the country on unfamiliar roads. Maybe we had been on some of them before, but not at the same time of earth's unfolding. The fields had an almost scrubbed clean look, steady and quiet, but I imagined the soil actively warming itself, preparing to receive the seeds of new growth. 

I saw trees at their barest, skeletal branches open to the sun, ready to welcome their own greening. They've done this before, but still it feels new. Against the unadorned landscape was the occasional hard to miss surprise of willow trees, forsythia yellow in color, leading the way into the exuberance of spring. Don't you love the reminder that not everything happens at the same time?

I saw an eagle's nest and caught a glimpse of a white head, like a ping pong ball, poking out from the nest. Eagles return to the same nest year after year. Some years their young survive, but not always. I think about how often I see eagles, even in my own urban neighborhood, but each sighting thrills me. In ponds and small lakes, wherever there was open water, I saw swans swimming, a fairy tale ballet with spring as the encore. 

We've been here, the tip of spring, but it feels stunning, astonishing every year. And we are part of that miracle, for we have moved forward from where we were a year ago to where we are now. We are not the same. Perhaps we look basically the same, but we know underneath the surface we have changed. 

We may have suffered losses. We may have worried and wondered and waited. We may have raged, but also been resilient. Perhaps even as we have recited litanies of what we miss, we may have found spaciousness and even focus for our energy, our gifts. This has been a time like no other, but even in that otherness, we may have experienced the movement of God and glimpses of who we were created to be. 

At one of our stops, an antique shop, I bought a bundle of twisty, curly pussywillows, another one of those signs of spring I count on. Normally, I buy them in the grocery store's flower section, and they are quite domestic looking, manageable and straight. This bunch of pussywillows, however, looks wild and unexpected. I can almost hear them whispering, "Spring will return, as it does every year, but maybe it will feel different, be different. Maybe you are different."

Here's what I think about moving forward in my life with God. Each single step feels like I am moving on a linear path, but when I look back after taking many steps, I see I am on a curve. The curve doesn't lead me back to where I have been, but rather carries me through the cycles of life, the cycles of the universe and invites me to find new growth. 

An Invitation
Spring is just beginning here in Minnesota. You may be in a different stage of spring. What are you noticing this spring? I would love to know. 

NOTE: It has been a heavy week. I invite you to pause and lift these names:        Soon Chung Park, 74;
                    Suncha Kim, 69;
                    Yong Ae Tue, 63;
                    Hyun Jung Grant, 51;
                    Xiaojie Tan, 49;
                    Delaina Yaun, 33;
                    Daoyou Feng, 44
                    Paul Andre Michels, 54.

One More Note: We celebrate our son Geof's 42nd birthday today. He is a blessing in our life. 

The Pandemic and Walking A Labyrinth

The labyrinth is an ancient meditation tool, a path to prayer, a path of prayer. Meditation in motion. A container for reflection and an intentional way to connect with God, the Holy, the Sacred.

Living during this pandemic reminds me of walking a labyrinth.

When I stand at the threshold of a labyrinth, I sometimes feel anxious, for I have no idea what my experience might be, and that is exactly how I felt a year ago when life changed so dramatically. The path ahead was an unknown, and all I could do as I tried to look ahead was take a deep breath and ask for guidance. 

Tentatively, I took those beginning steps, asking what was required of me. How am I to live during this time? The walk towards the center of the labyrinth is a time to release. And isn't that what we were asked to do? We put on our masks and released our normal ways of living and moving in the world, experiencing losses along the way.

Along the way, we adapted, finding ways to manage the challenges. Zoom meetings with friends and family. Online church services. Ordering groceries online or shopping at times that weren't busy. Our day to day rhythms changed, and we relaxed into a slower pace. 

And yet, daily we yearned for this time to end. 

On an actual labyrinth, there is the moment when the center seems close. That was where we wanted to be. Home and safety; a feeling that we made it. But the labyrinth plays a trick on us: the curving path swings us away from the center and we go round and round yet again. 

Life during the pandemic turned out to be much longer than imagined.

And reaching the center was not what we wanted it to be. We thought once we arrived in the center, the pandemic would be over, and we could return to our normal ways of living. No such luck.

Being in the center may have felt like nothing was happening, but on good days we felt this was a time to receive --greater clarity about what is important to us; an awareness of our own resilience and who we are; gratitude for our health and the love and support of our dear ones; and an appreciation for stillness and solitude. Perhaps we accessed our contemplative side and noticed the movement of God in our lives. 

Now that more and more of us have been vaccinated, we are ready to resume movement and the path away from the center is a time to return. That is a long path, too, however, and no less important than the walk to the center. This path is a time to ask ourselves new questions.

    How have I changed since I first stood on the threshold?

    What do I bring with me from the hibernation time in the center? 

    What has changed in my life and what are my intentions for life after the pandemic? 

    What have I learned? What choices have I made that supported 
    who I was created to be? 

Eventually, we will cross the threshold and leave this particular labyrinth, this specific time of our lives, but the lessons, the learnings can remain with us and prepare us for the next labyrinth in our life.

A Prayer from Henri J. M. Nouwen

        The choice for your way has to be made every moment of my
    life. I have to choose thoughts that are your thoughts, words
    that are your words, and actions that are your actions. There
    are no times places without choices. And I know how deeply
    I resist choosing you.
          Please, Lord, be with me at every moment and in every
    place. Give me the strength and the courage to live this
    season faithfully, so that, when Easter comes, I will be able
    to taste with joy the new life which you have prepare for me.
    Amen. 

An Invitation

What stage of the labyrinth are you on now? What are you learning? I would love to know. 

Book Recommendation: Caste by Isabel Wilkerson

I am not a white supremacist.

I suspect, however, as much as I don't want to be, I am a racist in some of my behaviors and attitudes. I am trying to become aware of those behaviors and attitudes. 

What is clear, especially after reading Caste, The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson, is that I am a member of the dominant caste. And I am in the dominant caste because I am white. 

Normally, this is the kind of book in which I would underline line after line, paragraph after paragraph of relevant and well-written content, but in this case there would be little left unmarked. I marveled at the superb writing and agonized at the overwhelming examples of caste throughout the history of the United States. And I remain deeply saddened by the ways caste, mainly the division between the dominant and the subordinate castes, remains a firm reality today.

Here is one paragraph I did underline:

    What people look like, or, rather, the race they have been
    assigned or are perceived to belong to, is the visible cue
    to their caste. It is the historic flash card to the public
    of how they are to be treated, where they are expected
    to live, what kinds of positions they are expected to hold,
    whether they belong in this section of town or that seat
    in the boardroom, whether they should be expected to
    speak with authority on this or that subject, whether
    they will be administered pain relief in a hospital,
    whether their neighborhood is likely to adjoin a toxic
    waste site or to have contaminated water flowing from
    their taps, whether they are more or less likely to survive
    childbirth in the most advanced nation in the world,
    whether they may be shot by authorities with impunity. 
                                                    pp. 18-19

I am white and in the dominant caste, and if you are a Black American or perceived to be black, then you are in the subordinate caste. And being in the subordinate class means you are considered less than. You are considered not quite as human as I am. 

We have all been shaped by this rigid caste system.

Wilkerson compares the caste systems of the U.S. to both India and Nazi Germany. When Martin Luther King, Jr visited India in 1959 a principal of a high school introduced King to his students, saying, "Young people I would like to present to you a fellow untouchable from the United States of America." Wilkerson also documents how the Nazis studied the racial systems in America to plan their outcasting of the Jews.

As example after example is given of how African Americans are mistreated and abused mentally, physically, and spiritually, including the author herself, I find it hard to imagine how this long-standing system can be dismantled. I know that can't happen, however, unless we confront the truth about ourselves as white people, as the dominant caste--even those among us who are more aware and are working actively for racial and social justice. 

        Radical empathy, on the other hand, means putting in
        the work to educate oneself and to listen with a humble
        heart to understand another's experience from their 
        experience from their perspective, not as we imagine
        we would feel. Radical empathy is not about you and 
        what you think you would do in a situation you have
        never been in and perhaps never will. It is the kindred
        connection from a place of deep knowing that opens
        your spirit to the pain of another as they perceive it.
                                                p. 386

This week the trial of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin accused of murdering George Floyd begins. What needs to be on trial is the racially disportionate treatment of Black Americans by the police--treatment that is caused by the caste system. 

Wilkerson's previous book, The Warmth of Other Suns, is brilliant as well, and I hope you will read that, too, but this one does more than enlarge your knowledge of history. Caste opens your heart.

An Invitation
What have you learned or experienced recently that has cracked open your awareness? I would love to know. 

 

 

Being Present Via Zoom

One afternoon this past week my writing group met. On Zoom, of course. Before the pandemic we gathered in my living room. We each had our self-assigned seats and after years of meeting, I know their beverage preferences. I provided some sort of treat, usually homemade, but sometimes bowls of popcorn or nuts. Before receiving each others' writing, we checked in about other our lives and our concerns about current events in the world. 

Later in the week I participated in another kind of Zoom meeting. This was a group of women from church who had agreed to share insights about the challenges and gifts of these pandemic months and how the Third Chapter, Spirituality As We Age committee could address our needs as elders during the pandemic. 

Oh, how I wished we could have gathered in my living room, instead of on a screen, greeting and hugging one another. I would have added chairs to enlarge the circle and offered something to eat and drink before we settled in to share our wisdom, our insights, our concerns, our losses, but also our joys. 

In addition, I met with clients this week on Zoom, and Bruce and I had a fun screen time conversation with good friends. 

In each of these cases, I missed welcoming them to our home, to being together in the same space, but I was also aware of our ability to adapt to what is required. I was grateful for the willingness to connect even when it doesn't feel quite the same. 

Being on ZOOM or FaceTime takes a different kind of energy than being together in person, and so I think carefully about when and how often I will use that energy. However, would I have preferred not being in communion with these loved ones because we couldn't meet in person? Absolutely not.

We were able to be present to each other, even though we were not physically in the same place. We felt the presence of God in each other's presence. 

                  any thing, any person, any situation 
                  is a word addressed to me by God.
                                 Brother David Steindl-Rast

Any situation. Even Zoom.

An Invitation
Where have you experienced the presence of God in a new way? I would love to know.