Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Seize the Day

"In the silence of your hearts or in spoken words let us give thanks for the gift of this day and pray for the life of the world..."  J. Philip Newell


Recently I have taken up a new hobby.  Actually it is one that my mother tried to have me appreciate as a young child.  I am learning to play the piano.  

In our living room growing up we had a baby grand piano.  It was black and the piano bench held sheets of wonderful music.  But what I remember is that I loved to pick up the cover of this bench and let it slam shut.  Not hard, not enough to hurt anything, but surly enough to bother my mother.  The keys were tarnished over time and were a worn ivory color.  It was fun to sit on the bench and pretend that I could play beautiful music.  

My mother set up piano lessons with a Mr. Petillio.  He taught music on the campus of the school where we lived.  He was from Europe and had a very curious accent for a young girl.  In all fairness to this man, I don't think he was used to young children.  It is also important to note, no pun intended, that I was not a child with a long attention span.  As hard as I try, I have very little recollection of these lessons.  What I do remember is the regular arguing with my mother about practicing.  Siting in the passenger seat of our family car, driving up the driveway, knowing that I didn't know my lesson, was never fun.  Yet week after week, I would be relieved that that lesson was over and approach it exactly the same the upcoming week.  Needless to say, I never became a gifted musician.  At some point he must have convinced my mother that this was not working.  

Sometimes in life, it is so funny to look back.  Many of us spend a lot of time reflecting so that we can come to know ourselves better.  Healing and coming to terms with a difficult past involves remembering these events, telling the story and looking at ways to move on from  those places of brokenness and move into our lives today.  This is important work and very sacred ground.  But sometimes I find it really funny to look back at those times when life was funny, or I was mischievous, or even think, Wow, how did I miss that? 


Playing the piano is one of my favorite things to do these days.  I love to practice, I love to learn a new cord, a new song, or a new way of doing something.  I love the work I do. It is a blessing to know how God can best use your gifts and talents in the world.  My life has meaning and purpose.  But all that said it is very hard for me to play.  I am silly and often joyful.  The time I experience that most is during worship.  But I want to be able to play, be silly and relax outside of my work.  Ahhhhhh,  this is where the piano comes in.  


"When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.  From now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face.  Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.  And now fatih, hope and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love." 
1 Cor. 13:11-13 

Music is one of the ways that many are able to pray, play or grieve.  Music speaks to our hearts and our souls. It can sooth us, comfort us, it speaks to us in ways nothing else does.   Children experience faith on a very simple and authentic level.  As we grow older we gather defenses and ideas that complicate and confuse the way we experience the world.  Yes, it also informs the way we see the world, but sometimes don't we get in the way?

Going back to the piano at this point in my life has been a blessing.  It is a time of meditation and peace.  It can also be a time of fun and playfulness.  It is good to grow and learn.  I am no longer the child that cannot sit still.  The child that just couldn't find the discipline amidst the turmoil in my home to learn new things.  Today I smile when I look back and see her squirming on the piano bench, Today I have compassion for her desire to play and her complete inability to learn.  Today it is she that gathers her books and hurries to her lesson.  She hurries to her lesson with expectation and excitement.  

For some life is short, for some life is long.  The more people I meet and the more stories I hear, there is a common thread that jumps out.  Curiosity and the desire to learn feed the spirit and the mind.  

What are you curious about?  What is something that you  would like to learn or do? 

Today I give thanks for patienct teachers and joyfull noise.  

What do you give thanks for today?  

An excerpt from a favorite poem: 

" Of course I have always known you
are present in the clouds, and the 
black oak I especially adore, and the 
wings of birds.  But you are present 
too in the body, listening to the body, 
teaching it to live, instead of all 
that touching, with disembodied joy. 
We do not do this easily.  We have 
lived so long in the heaven of touch, 
and we maintain our mutability, our
physicality, even as we begin to 
apprehend the other world.  Slowly we 
make our appreciative response. 
Slowly appreciation swells to 
astonishment.  And we enter the dialogue
of our lives that is beyond all under-
standing or conclusion.  It is mystery.
It is love of God.  It is obedience. 

Oh feed me this day, Holy  Spirit, with
the fragrance of the fields and the 
freshness of the oceans which you have 
made, and help me to hear and to hold
in all dearness those exacting and wonderful 
works of our Lord Christ Jesus, saying: 
Follow me.  "  

From the Poem:  Six Recognitions of the Lord, by Mary Oliver





Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Great Moments

"When a great moment knocks on the door of your life, it is often no louder than the beating of your heart, and it is very easy to miss it." 
                           John O'Donohue

It has been a long time since I have posted here and it is so odd and wonderful that I have missed it.  Writing is one of those things in my life that I have such a love, hate relationship with.  Other things that come under that category are exercise, eating well, or overall self care as opposed to instant gratification or comfort.  Why is it that the very things that can help us to feel good, sometimes are the very things we most resist?  

Writing has come to be one of those places that allow me to look at the world through a specific lens.  Writing is a very significant way that I am able to stop and try to express the experience that we call life.  For many this is either not something that they need to do, or perhaps you do it in different ways.  Photography, music, painting, or other forms of the arts are common ways that people express who they are. 

Long ago I read that the best writers were avid readers.  Since I was a small child I have loved books.  I love the way some books look.  Open a book to a specific page and there, written down, are the very words that you were looking for.  Learning is something that in my early life I struggled with a lot.  I loved to escape to my room with a good book, to open the pages in the quiet and enter into the story that was before me.  As children in my family, my mother read to us before we went to sleep each night.  Looking back now, this went on much later than I would have thought.  We were in middle school I think when she finally stopped.  I remember this as a very calm and peaceful time.  A time when we were encouraged to relax and let our minds wander.  There were no expectations, no tests, just the voice of our mother and the story she held.  Recently, I have thought many times that I don't think it is any coincidence that both of my brothers and myself are avid readers. 

Everywhere I go books surround me.  I have books on theology of all different forms and from all different perspectives.  Fiction is one of the things I love very much, it continues to be a place where I can relax and breath.  Biographies are a wonderful way to enter into history and come to know the voice of people that become friends.  There are many other things that line my shelves, but what is important is the comfort and pleasure I find in writing.  

Anam Cara, A Book of Celtic Wisdom, by John O'Donohue is one of the books that I am reading right now. " Anam is the Gaelic word for soul: cara is the word for friend.  The anam cara was a person to whom you could reveal the hidden intimacies of your life."  As I begin to read this book a few different thoughts have come to mind.  The first is that over the course of my life there have been many people that have helped me reveal who I am and where the divine exits in the world.  These moments in time come back to me as times of grace.  

Who are the people in your life that have allowed you to  come to know the intimacies deep within your own soul?  

I am also reminded of what a life long journey this life is.  God is ever present and yet, ever changing.  Growing and learning about the interaction between our interior lives and the world around us is the very balance we seek. O'Donohue says: "since the birth of the human heart is an ongoing process, love is the continuous birth of creativity with and between us." 

This posting began with quote about great moments.  Today I am aware that one of the ways that I am able to see or be present in moments is to have the gift of writing about them.  Writing is a primary way that I am able to feel like I am part of the world around me.  Many times it is not until after I have written something that I am even aware that was in my heart or mind.  

What are ways that you feel part of the life you live?  How are you able to tell the stories that are hiding?  

What do you see through that window?  God is looking in with you or may be looking back.  Maybe both at the same time.  But we must look to know.