Alleluia

"Life itself is an exercise in learning to sing Alleluia here in order to recognize the face of God hidden in the recesses of time."  Joan Chittister

 

It is an Alleluia view of every present moment, a view that welcomes it's complexity and subjects it to the more lasting view, the long view of life." 

Joan Chittister

Sitting here in my warm and comfy kitchen, I look out the window and snow covers the backyard.  I live in New England, I love the change in seasons.  Without doubt, by the time spring comes I am beyond ready for the cold to disappear and the hits of a warm breeze to sneak in.  Recently, I was remembering being a child growing up in a small town in Maine.  My grandparents owned an operated a dairy farm.  They grew corn, hayed the fields and in the spring, boiled maple syrup.  The buckets would be hung from the trees and the sap was would drip from a metal spout that had been inserted into the trunk.  It was never my thing to help collect or do any of this.  I loved the smell of the boiling sap, the smell of the wood burning and the cozy little building that housed the necessary equipment.  As a young child my mother and grandmother would make homemade donuts and we would go over and dip them in the freshly boiled syrup.  One of the other fun and exciting elements of this time was the very muddy road that lead to this place.  We used to talk about mud season, it was a very real time of year.  We would get special boots because your feet could sink so deep in the mud that you couldn't pull your foot up.  You can imagine the fun a child would have pulling their socked foot out of the boot and having to walk in the mud. 

It is fun to remember these times in childhood. Often in our lives, we remember those times that were painful, those places and people that left an imprint on our lives that we struggle to change or remove.  Why sometimes is it easier to remember the times of suffering than the times of joy.  Why sometimes is it easier to remember the times someone did something that was painful, than the times of joy or peace?  Perhaps an important part of our healing journey is remembering and healing from those places.  I know that has been incredibly important for me.  But as I sit here, I am reminded how seldom I have thought of those very special times in my childhood that were fun or comforting They seem so magical and special now.  But then, it was what I knew, it was just another day.  There were other things that were distracting me, other things that my mind was always struggling with.  Being in the present was not something I even had language for.  Some of that was developmental, a longing to be somewhere else, to be something else.  But how often do we miss life as it flies by, struggling to be in the moment?  How I would love to remember how it felt to have my feet squishing in the mud.  

"Uncommon Gratitude, Alleluia For All That Is."  By Joan Chittister, Rowan Williams, is a book that I had been suggested to me.  It came yesterday.  I must admit that the idea of coming home to a box with new books on my doorstep is really wonderful.  In just starting these reflections, I am very grateful for the reminder  to look for God in the present.  We are in those days after Easter in the year of the church and Jesus keeps appearing and the disciples don't recognize him.  Hummmm,   Would I?  Would you?  

I leave this today with a reflection from the book, written by Joan Chittister: 

 "Every segment of life is both gift and challenge, both endowment and responsibility.  It is the warp and woof of the fabric we call time.  The delicate interplay between the two has the power to rock us back and forth between total confidence and abject despair.  We lurch through life between doubt and faith, between security and cloying uncertainty, between the enrichment that comes from differences and the divisions that come from fear.  It is learning to cling to a sense of alleluia for both that carries us through life to that moment when everything in us has come to fullness and our only next step is immersion. in God."