A Year After the Murder of George Floyd

 Today we remember and we honor George Floyd.

There will be news programs and articles in newspapers and online venues to mark this day. Social media will burst with comments and analysis. Events and demonstrations, including one at my church this afternoon, are planned. This is an important day, not only to remember a man whose life was taken cruelly and unnecessarily, but also a day to measure what we have done to change ourselves and this country. 

One of the books I use in my daily devotions is Joyce Rupp's Fragments of Your Ancient Name, 365 Glimpses of the Divine for Daily Meditation. Each meditation explores a name by which God is known around the world and in many spiritual traditions. This is my second time around using the prayers in this book, and more than likely it won't be my last, for they so often are exactly what needs to touch or open or nurture my heart.

This is the prayer for May 21. 

                    Home of Good Choices

                Whether to keep or let go,
                To reach out or pull back,
                To rest or keep going,
                To speak out or be silent,
                To forgive or stay angry,
                To offer help or turn away.
                These choices and more
                Tumble and spin around in us.
                If we bring them to you,
                We will make wise decisions.

        Today: I include my Home in decision-making.

This past year has demanded that we make good choices, better choices. And there is always a choice. I believe that when we ground our decision-making in God as "home," it is more possible to make  good choices. Our choices determine if this year will be another of violence and trauma, of injustice and racial disparity or if this year will lead us closer to justice and equality, to love and compassion. 

The choice is mine. The choice is yours.

An Invitation
What informs the choices you make? I would love to know. 

Choices: Thursday's Reflections

I think of myself as a voracious reader, but lately, my reading has been scattered, and I have been yearning for a reading retreat. I fantasize about heading to the North Shore for several days to read. I would want a view of the water and a comfortable chair and ottoman because I like to read with my legs stretched out in front of me. A fireplace would be nice. Good simple food, hot chocolate, some wine, and a shawl wrapped around my shoulders. 

And, of course, a big pile of books. I would bring more books with me than I know I could read in the allotted time, but a book lover is always concerned about finishing a book and not having another one right there. Read the last page of one book and immediately open to the first book of another. Or there is the anxiety of bringing a book you are sure you will love only to discover you don't like it at all. Be prepared, is my motto, and bring a stack of possibilities. (I know that issue could be solved by reading E books, but I cling to the feel of a book in my hand.)

Louise deSalvo, author of The Art of Slow Writing, Reflections on Time, Craft, and Creativity, refers to "in and out" reading. Reading  a few pages in-between other activities. I think of that as "stolen reading." She recalls the luxury of falling into reading when she was a child, bringing home a stack of books from the library in the summer and sitting on her porch and reading as long as she wanted.  

The summer before sixth grade I read so much my mother said I wore out the upholstery on a chair. How delicious were those days of total reading immersion.

So what is preventing me from doing that kind of reading right now? I don't have the water view, but I certainly have more than one comfortable chair and ottoman in quiet spaces. Hot chocolate and wine are available. Plus, I have more than enough books to stack at my side, awaiting their turn. 

I have been making different choices about my time. I do read in the morning during my morning meditation and devotion time, and  usually I read a bit before turning off my bedside light, but more and more I put my head on the pillow and close my eyes as soon as I crawl into bed. What has changed in recent months is how I spend my evenings. We have been eating our dinner on trays in front of the tv (I can't believe I am admitting this!) and have immersed ourselves in one series after another on Netflix or Acorn. We just finished watching season one of The Great British Bake Off, for example, but we also loved Restless and George Gently and Foyle's War and Partners in Crime and Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries. Being able to watch one right after the other and as many as we want is seductive. One of us will say, "Just one more," and there we are for another hour. 

In conversations with others in our age category I have discovered we are not alone in this new attraction and I don't feel a need to justify it, but like everything else, when I choose to spend my time in this way, I am not choosing something else. 

Elizabeth Gilbert in her book Big Magic says, "If you can't do what you long to do, go do something else." I may long for a reading retreat, but I also know I don't want to take more time away from my writing. That happens enough as it is.  Going away for a chunk of time just isn't in the cards right now. That means it is time to make some different choices.

This week we are eating at the dining room table, and after dinner I gather my current pile of books and move into the room we call the Snuggery, our sun porch, and I read ALL evening and even read more when I crawl into bed. It is divine. I am immersed in a novel called The Tortoise and the Hare by an English writer in the 40's and 50's, Elizabeth Jenkins, previously unknown to me, but I am also reading Mary Karr's The Art of Memoir and a memoir by Sandra Gubar, Memoir of a Debulked Woman, Enduring Ovarian Cancer.  I have another book in the stack, The Last Gift of Time, Life Beyond Sixty by Carolyn Heilbrun, but haven't started that. Yet. 

I am not saying this is what I will do every evening, but I listened to my yearning and realized what I needed in that moment was to make a different choice. I did that, and I can do that in the future. 

An Invitation
What different choice could you make right now that would touch a yearning within you? I would love to know. 

Tuesday's Reflection: Choosing the Next Book to Read

Sunday morning before getting up and ready for the day I finished reading our current book club selection, Only the Dead by Norwegian author Vidar Sundstol. I has happy to finish the book, for it had not been particularly satisfying, especially since it is the second part of a trilogy, and there are many questions yet to be answered. We will discuss this book and the first in the series, The Land of Dreams, at our next gathering. As always, I look forward to being with our book group because I know I will understand and probably appreciate more about the books than I currently do. Those lively discussions broaden my perspective and encourage me to read more carefully and critically, and that increases my reading pleasure. 

As I finished the last page of the book that morning, I realized I didn't know what I was going to read next. That is not normal for me and was a bit unsettling. True, I am in the midst of reading other books, but they fulfill other functions. I am reading a couple books as part of my meditation time and a book while I am on the exercycle and a book about writing as part of my writing routine, and I am reading Azar Nafisi's The Republic of Imagination: America in Three Books on a here and there basis, but what novel will I pick up next? What book will I read when I put my feet up on the ottoman in the room we call the snuggery and what book will I carry with me to bed to read before lights out? What book will I eagerly turn to when I need a break from the day's list? 

I recently read two engrossing books, The Paying Guests by Sarah Walters and Florence Gordon by Brian Morton, and sometimes after such absorption, it is hard to make a transition into the next book. Of course, it is not as if I didn't have choices in front of me. I have piles of books waiting to be read and a long list of books on my iPhone I want to read. Just the other day I requested a few titles from the library, but there are other people ahead of me in the queue for each title. I didn't have them in my hands. 

What to do? First, I gathered a stack of possible books and sat with each one. I read the back cover and the inside flap and I read the first page or two or three. Yes, there were good possibilities, but nothing grabbed me solidly. It was time for a step back. A deep breath. I entered a time of discernment.

 Now I know choosing the next book to read is not on the same level as making decisions about when or where to retire and what to do when retirement is a reality. This is not in the category of life-changing decisions we made earlier in our lives--whether or not to have children, for example, or which career path to follow, but more and more I realize that even the small decisions in my life offer opportunities to listen, to pay attention, to receive guidance from the movement of Spirit.

I have been reading about discernment for a writing project, making me aware of how the process of discernment lives in my life. The word "discernment" comes from the Latin word discernerer: dis meaning "to separate" and cerenere, "to sift." On a minor level that's what we do when we choose the next book to read, but when the decision has greater import, such as whether or not to say yes to a volunteer opportunity or to put your house on the market and downsize into a condo, the process of discernment has more relevance. 

As part of my research about discernment I read an article called "Seek Your Calling and Your Calling Will Seek You: Exploring Discernment as a Way of Life  (Presence, An International Journal of Spiritual Direction Volume 18, no. 1, March, 2012) in which Monika Ellis, OSD,  says one can develop a skill set for discernment by creating space to be with oneself, making time to center and connect to our inner depths, and being quiet in order to listen. When one does that, 
       Discernment eventually becomes a way of living, a way
       of walking with one's heart, ears and eyes wide open, all
       in readiness for receiving God… p. 41

As I intentionally develop the skills  and context for discernment, I  hope I will become more aware of what is going on inside, and how to uncover what to accept and when to create change. How to move forward and what  to release. JaneVennard http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/teachers/teachers.php?id=307 in her book Fully Awake and Truly Alive, Spiritual Practices to Nurture Your Soul says, 

          I used to think that discernment was problem solving
          with a spiritual dimension. I thought we were simply 
          to include God in the process of rational decision 
          making. We might consult others and gather as much
          information as possible and then pray for clarity. Or we 
          could list everything in favor of one possibility, list
          everything against it, and then pray for guidance. I 
          have discovered that discernment is much more than
          learning to make wise decisions.
              The practice of discernment is the willingness to 
          listen deeply, engaging the body, mind, and feelings
          to help us pay attention to the possibilities and choices
          before us. It is more about being receptive than about
          taking action. Spiritual writer Wendy Wright imagines
          discernment as the movement of the sunflower turning
          to the sun… or like being grasped in the spirit's arms 
          and led in the rhythms of an unknown dance.  p.132  

Perhaps discernment is another word for mindfulness. I don't know, but it seems to me that when I attend to the process of discernment, I move closer to the person I was created to be. May it be so. 

An Invitation
When have you invited the process of discernment into your life? Are you making room in your life for quiet, for time and space to be alone and connect with yourself? What are the fruits of doing that for you? Are you considering a decision, a potential change, or call in your life? If so, how are you approaching it and what spiritual practices are you using to lighten and enlighten you? I would love to know.

Oh, and by the way, Sunday afternoon my husband and I spent time at Birchbark Books, http://birchbarkbooks.com a wonderful independent bookstore in Minneapolis owned by the acclaimed author Louise Erdrich, and I spotted a book I had purchased a month or so ago, but had not read yet. In that moment The Children Act by Ian McEwan moved to the top of the pile, a most worthy selection. Needless to say, we didn't leave the store without additional books for our existing piles. Happy reading!

It's Easier Not To, a Post by Nancy L. Agneberg

Earlier this week I had second thoughts about going to the Booktalk session I attend, even though we would be discussing one of my all-time favorite books, Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. The morning was gloomy with heavy rains and an unspringlike temperature, and the temptation to stay home and read and write was strong. Attendance is not taken. No one in particular in the large group of 50 or so people would be waiting for me--and there would aways be next week. Wouldn't there? 
     However, I remembered a conversation I had recently with a good friend. She and her husband had just returned from a month-long winter vacation in warmer weather. They had an opportunity to attend an event they both knew they would enjoy, but it was not in familiar territory and would take an effort to make it happen. They almost didn't go, for as she said, "It's easier not to," but they did go, and they had a great time and loved talking about the experience. 
     I went to the book discussion and, of course, had a great time, learned a lot and enjoyed the facilitator's insights and what everyone else added to the conversation. I am so glad I went, but "it would have been easier not to go." 
     I love my solitude and am generally content with the company of my books and my writing projects. I love the quiet of my days, the long stretches for solitary activities. I am rarely bored and in fact, there are not enough hours in the day for all the ways I want to use the time. I know how easy it is for me to just stay put, how often I build a fence around myself, and how much easier it seems to stay inside the fence. At the same time I know how I benefit and grow from being in the flow of the world with its unexpected interactions, the gifts of others' experiences and knowledge and perspectives, the potential heart connections, and the opportunities to stretch and grow. 
     For some the choices beyond the fence may be the easier choice, and it is much harder to choose quiet, alone time. The struggle is the same, however -- when to push beyond one's comfort zone and when one's first inclination, whatever it may be, is the wiser choice for one's spiritual growth. 
     It seems to me that the small, daily decisions are just as important as the big ones, for they are ongoing reminders of our values. The decisions we make uncover the contradictions within ourselves and expose how complicated we are and provide opportunities to wrestle with our fears and perceived limitations.  
     How do you know at any given moment what to choose? 
     Nancy Bieber in her book Decision Making and Spiritual Discernment, The Sacred Art of Finding Your Way talks about "open listening" and "expectant listening" as ways to listen with the intention of receiving whatever comes. She says, "The Spirit nudges us toward being more authentic, growing more into our true self." 
     For me, clarity and choosing what is life-giving is more possible (Notice I say "more possible," not "always possible.") when I adhere to a regular practice of meditation. Meditation helps me sort through the conflicting voices and observe when the thoughts are a form of defense and when a thought prevents me from being the person I was created to be. The form of meditation may change--centering prayer or just sitting quietly with my eyes closed and focusing on my breathing. Meditation helps me listen to my authentic voice. 
     Meditation helps me recognize when I need to move beyond the fence.