Old Turtle spoke again:

The car is parked, I open the door and stand up.  The day is beautiful, the sun high in the sky and the air clean.  I begin the process of stretching my tired and tight muscles.  My head is busy with the messages of resistance.  I pull out the smart phone, get it ready to track my workout, and set an app up so that I have something to listen to instead of the noise in my own head.  I set off on this beautiful day for some much needed exercise. 

As I begin my very determined warm up walk, I glance to my left.  The noise in my head stops, the self absorbed fascination on my sore muscles disappear.  There is a large turtle working very hard, and there are two people watching.  Very uncharactic of me, I stop, take my ear phones out and walk over to where others are watching.  A young girl looks at me and says, "She is laying eggs". 

With a steady determination the turtle continues her work.  I find myself feeling like I am witnessing something very intimate.  Quiet respect is in the air that surrounds us.  I feel grateful to be present. 

I took some pictures with my smart phone, which always seems to have a use, even in moments like these.  Said a quick prayer of intercession and thanksgiving, and moved on to finish my workout with a new view of the day. 

Old Turtle and the Broken Truth, by Douglas Wood, is a wonderful book.  All day yesterday I found myself wanting to find it.  "Old Turtle returns in a timeless story about love, acceptance, and the nature of truth."  How do we see God in the world around us?  How do we listen to the wisdom of nature. 

"Old Turtle spoke again:

"Remember this also, Little One," she said.
"The Broken Truth, and life itself, will be mended
only when one person meets another-someone
from a different place or with a different face or
different ways-and sees and hears...herself.
Only then will the people know that every person,
every being, is important, and that the world 
was made for each of us." 

On this day, the sun is out, the air is clear.  Let us each stop and listen and look around the world this day.  Let us meet each other, all of God's creatures, and know that we are all loved. 

A Happy Life?

During this season of Graduations, transitions, and new beginnings, I find myself reflecting on what means the most to me.  As I look back, the thing that I most treasure is spending time with those I love. 

  It is those people, and those times that have formed me. It is my prayer that this  will continue to be true and when I forget what is really important God will place someone in my life to remind me. 

Anna Quindlen is a writer.  In 2000 she published a small book that are some of her reflections on
what it is to make a happy life.  I share the following thoughts.  Let her words remind us all today of what really matters to us. 

"Don't ever forget the words on a postcard that my father sent me last year: 'If you win the rat race, you're still a rat."

"Or what John Lennon wrote before he was gunned down in the driveway of the Dakota: 'LIfe is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."

"That's the only advice I can give,.  After all, when you look at the faces of a class of graduation seniors you realize that each student has only one thing that no one else has.  When you leave college, there are thousands of people out there with the same degree you have; when you get a job, there will be thousands of people doing what you want to do for a living."

"But you are the only person alive who has sole custody of your life,  Your particular life.  Your entire life.  Not just your life at a desk, or your life on a bus, or in the car, or at the computer.  Not just the life of your mind, but the life of your heart.  Not just your bank account, but your soul. "

"Turn off your cell phone.  Turn off your regular phone, for that matter.  Keep still.  Be present. "

"Get a life in which you are not alone.  Find people you love, and who love you.  And remember that love is not leisure, it is work.  Each time I look at my diploma, I remember that I am still a student, still learning every day how to be human.  Send an e-mail. Write a letter.  Kiss your mom.  Hug your dad. "

"Get a life in which you are generous.  Look around at the azaleas making fuchsia star bursts in spring; look at a full moon hanging silver in a black sky on a cold night.  And realize that life is glorious, and that you have no business taking it for granted.  Care so deeply about its goodness that you want to spread it around.  Take the money you would have spent on beers in a bar and give it to charity.  Work in a soup kitchen.  Tutor a seventh-grader. "

"All of us want to do well.  But if we do not do good, too, then doing well will never be enough." 

These are thoughts that remind me of the many blessings I have in my life.  The many lessons I continue to learn, and the loved ones that make it all matter.  What does it make you think of? 

"To whom do I belong? To God or to the world?

"To whom do I belong?  To God or to the world? "
Henri Nouwen

On this Tuesday morning, it is dark, overcast and cool.  After a beautiful weekend, one filled with a myriad of things, it is quiet, and that is good.  The world calls us to so many different things and places.  We have work roles, social activities, and family responsibilities.  We have life in the here and now.  There are times in our lives when we need to step back and listen, step back and look around us, step back and wonder.

"Often I am like a small boat on the ocean, completely at the mercy of its waves.  All the time and energy I spend in  keeping some kind of balance and preventing myself from being tipped over and drowning shows that my life is mostly a struggle for survival: not a holy struggle, but an anxious struggle resulting from the mistaken idea that it is the world that defines me."

Henri Nouwen

The Return of the Prodigal Son, A Story of Homecoming, by Henri Nouwen, continues to be part of my daily spiritual reading right now.  As I wrote previously, I am very drawn to the idea of home being the image or reality of resting in God palms.  Home being the reminder that we are in fact originally loved and brought forth by a divine source that loves us beyond our wildest imaginings.

The reflections of today talk about why we all feel so called into the world around us, why we so often, even without our own permission, turn away.  It is so easy to want to be successful and secure in the many ways the world defines that.   We look around and see cars we wish we had, technology that would "fix" us, cloths that would tell the world we are terrific.  Each of these things when looked at from the right perspective are fun and human.  But when we allow ourselves to become so lost that we believe that our well being rests on the thoughts and reactions of others, we have left home.  We are on the lonely road of looking outside ourselves for the self worth and purpose that comes from being a "Beloved Child of God."

"As I look at my spiritual journey, my long and fatiguing trip home, I see how full it is of guilt about the past and worries about the future.  I realize my failures and know that I have lost the dignity of my sonship, but I am not yet able to fully believe that where my failings are great,  grace is always greater."
Henri Nouwen

My human experience tells me that my walk with God is one that is in constant flux.  Not because God goes anywhere, or because there is any inconstancy in the message of faith.  The ebbs and flows originate directly from that place deep within us that questions our worthiness.  We know our longings, our desires and our shortcomings.  Those is our lives that love us the most know some of these places and walk the journey too.  I believe that we all have those human, broken or weakened places.  But, when I sit or walk and get really quiet, when I spend my time with God, I want to be some much more than my brokenness.  One of the most difficult and powerful elements of a life with God, is that of being vulnerable and open to love and forgiveness.  

"Receiving forgiveness requires a total willingness to let God be God and do all the healing, restoring, and renewing. As long as I want to do even a part of that myself, I end up with partial solutions, such as becoming a hired servant.  As a hired servant, I can still keep my distance, still revolt, reject, strike, run away, or complain about my pay.  As the beloved son, I have to claim my full dignity and begin preparing myself to become the father."    Henri Nouwen

Today, let us remember that "grace is always greater."  We are the beloved children of God.  We are wonderful and wounded.  We are faithful and flawed.  We are blessed to be on the journey of faith and know that home is just the next breath away.  

Today, let us remember that home is where God is, and God is everywhere.  Let us try to imagine God's loving arms reaching our to welcome us home.  

Home

Return of the Prodigal Son - Rembrandt

The Return of the Prodigal Son, A Story of Homecoming, by Henri J.M. Nouwen recently jumped off my bookcase and into my hands.  This is an common occurrence for me.  Many of you might think that I am once again exaggerating this experience.  On the one hand you may be correct, the book did not actually fly into mid-air, float an undetermined distance and find my open hands.  Over the years I have become accustomed to the experience of picking up a random book, opening it up, and knowing that the message within is for me at that time.  This book, at this time is one of those moments. 

Henri Nouwen is one of the most spoken of, read and beloved spiritual /religious writers and teachers of our times.  I remember years ago in my first class in seminary, being assigned, "Life of the Beloved."  The Reverend Margaret Bullit-Jonas was the professor.  Years later I came to know that Henri was one of her closest friends. 

The result of opening the pages of this book was the peeling away of yet another layer of resistance, denial and self-loathing.  Many times in the last 13 years I have given this book as a gift.  Each time I write something inside.  One of the things I find myself saying over and over is that as I began to read these pages, I had the emotional and physical sensation of taking a warm, loving bath in the spirit.  How can we be wrapped in the warmth of God's love through the written word?  When God's deep and profound love for us is broken open, is expressed in a way that speaks to those wounded, painful places.  Henri speaks of God and our journey in faith in a way that is vulnerable and raw. There is no defense to God's grace. 

This famous and well known scholar, teacher, preacher and priest speaks openly and honestly about his struggles, our struggles.  The path of loneliness, insecurity, fear and inadequacy.  We live in a society that tells us repeatedly that with the correct partner, pill, outfit or education we can be perfect.  We can feel whole and well and loved.  We will feel and be "part of".  As with so many things in life this is just false advertising. 

In the book about the Prodigal Son, Henri calls it a story of homecoming.  Early in the book he speaks about the word homecoming assumes that there has been a leaving.  Leaving home, walking away from the warmth and security of all you know.  When we leave home there are many ways to do this.  There is a gathering of lessons, a developmental desire to embark on our own, a need to make our own way.  We are each created to be our own whole and individual spirit in the world.  We are each created to live into the life we are given.  Maturity and healing come when this is done in the context of the whole.  We are not an island, we are all formed by those around us.  Whether healthy or not, full or lacking, we are formed. 

In the story of the Prodigal Son, the youngest son asks his father for all that is his, he doesn't want to wait until the father dies.  This is rude and inappropriate now.  But in those days it was beyond reproach.  This would be unthinkable.  It was as if the son was wishing his father dead.  The context of this must be taken into account.  The son receives his inheritance from his father and leaves.  We get no sense that he turns to look, that he even winces as he leaves.  We are told that he goes forth and squanders it.  In the painting above, we see Rembrandt's vision of the father welcoming home the wayward son. 

"Rembrandt's painting of the father welcoming his son displays scarcely any external movement. In contrast to his 1636 etching of the prodigal son-full of action, the father running to the son and the son throwing himself at his father's feet-the Hermitage painting, made about thirty years later, is one of the utter stillness.  The father's  touching the son is an everlasting blessing; the son resting against his father's breast is an eternal peace."    Henri Nouwen

Henri reminds us that in the parable of the prodigal son we are drawn yet another picture of the boundlessness of God's compassionate love.  How do we leave home in our lives today?  How can we feel on the outside, how can we go forth and squander the love and abundance that God has blessed us with? 

"Leaving home is, then, much more than an historical event bound to time and place.  It is a denial of the spiritual reality that I belong to God with every part of my being, that God holds me safe in an eternal embrace, that I am indeed carved in the palms of God's hands and hidden in their shadows.  Leaving home means ignoring the truth that God has 'fashioned me in secret, moulded me in the depths of the earth and knitted me together in my mother's womb.' "  Henri Nouwen

We live differently, we love differently, we experience the world differently when we are able to remember that we are God's beloved, that the spiritual reality is the one true way of being. 

As I continue to read this book I will be reflecting on the many ways we are pulled away from the home of our being.  The many temptations that lure us away from the loving messages that are God. 

"Yet over and over again I have left home.  I have fled the hands of blessing and run off to faraway places searching for love!  This is the great tragedy of my life and of the lives of so many I meet on my journey."  Henri Nouwen

In this day, as the rain comes down, the sun hides behind the clouds and the radiators creak, let us take a deep breath.  Let know and remember that we are God's beloved child.  We are home when we are not lured away by messages from outside our hearts and souls.  Let us also be gentle on ourselves as we are reminded that we all turn and leave, we all walk away.  But let us also remember that waiting for us, with loving arms, is the God that weeps with joy at our return. 

Can you appreciate the ride?

The sun is out and the birds are singing up a storm.  The dog and I just got back from a wonderful walk in the woods.  Everything was alive and green, the water was running over rocks and branches that have fallen into the stream during the winter.  I find myself wondering how many colors of green there actually are.  I am sure that I could google it, and that someone out there has made a study of this.  For today, I don't want to know the number.  For today I want the magic and mystery of many shades of green to linger in their homes.  

Recently I have found myself talking to people that are feeling very stressed and wanting to go on vacation.  People that know that they need to slow down their minds and relax and yet, don't know how.  During these conversations I have found myself laughing at myself and also reflecting on how hard we work on relaxing.  Why is it that our brains work so fast?  How is it that we have adopted the belief that we are never "done"?  So many believe that if and when a project is completed, it is still then not good enough.  Of course the irony of this is that with all our technology and techniques to "Getting Things Done," a great book by David Allen, we do far less than our ancestors.  

As a society we have created tools that we can use to relax.  Sometimes all this does is make us feel like if we don't use the tool correctly we will not relax and then the task is not complete.  There are two different kinds of people that are going to read this.  Some of you are going to be shaking your heads in identification and hopefully some laughing at ourselves.  Others may be shaking your heads with  wonder and concern for the rest of us.  Both of these make me smile, as there are times when I find myself in both camps.  

We are a people that has more opportunity and blessing that ever before.  With this comes choice and opportunity.  When I find myself in times of racing from task to task, times of feeling like that gerbil on the wheel, I know that I must step back.  It is at those times that even though for the most part my intentions are good, my belief is that I am doing or being what I am supposed to, I am really taking myself too seriously.  It is at those times that somewhere along the line I have taken on God's job and jumped right in the drivers seat!!  

Those that have heard me preach know that I believe without a shadow of a doubt God has a tremendous sense of humor.  With that comes compassion and a tremendous capacity for forgiveness.  Much like a mother with her children.  In my minds eye I can imagine a smiling, loving God letting me go ahead and drive for a while.  Maybe at times having a Dr. Phil moment and asking, "How's that working for you?"  But even in those times, there is a loving and knowing smile.  

When this awareness rises to the top and I am able to stop and slow down I can hear:
 "Be still, and know that I am God,"  Psalm 46:10.  There are times when I hear these words in my head that I have a physical reaction.  My shoulders release, I take a full breath and release it, my muscles that I had no idea were holding on tight, relax.  

"Be still and know that I am God"  

God is found in those times when we are present to the moment.  When we are in conversation with someone that we care about, when we are meeting someone new and are encountering their story.  God is present when we are opening our hearts, minds and spirit to the world around us.  We cannot do that when we are racing around, even if it is in the name of God, or for the betterment of the world.  

What are the ways and places that you relax?  How can you find times of peace and joy?  Take some time today to be still, to take a deep breath, to let God be God.  

Gracious God, Thank you for all the blessings of this life.  Thank you for food, clothing and shelter.  Thank you for our loved ones, known and unknown. Help us to be ever mindful of those less fortunate.   Please help us be present in this day with open hearts and open minds so that we can go forth into the world able to be the instruments you most need us to be.  

Gracious God, help us appreciate the ride(:  Amen

Whose kitchen table can you picture?

Returning from vacation is often a mixed bag of feelings.  On this day I am wondering about which direction to take, which task to approach first.  It is amazing how we can see the world differently when we are not exhausted and empty.  We are physical beings that are comprised of so much more that just skin and bones.  Each of us knows that and yet the concrete realities of life get our attention and sometimes seem more urgent than the effuse things like tending to the soul or spirit.

Recently I have been mindful again of the role the arts play in the tending of my spirit.  What difference does it make to spend time with broken glass?  How could playing with fabric, making them into designs, south the soul or mind?  Why would anyone want to work with water color pencils?

Growing up I remember sitting at my grandmothers kitchen table.  It is located against the far wall of her kitchen.  This is the gathering place, the place where all important functions of the house take place.  A wood stove is on one side wall and the warmth that emanates from that makes the room toasty.  To my left is a big picture window.  The Saco river and the mountains stretch out as far as the eye can see.  But all I am aware of at this moment is my grandmothers full attention, she is teaching me to sew.

Years have passed since this time.  We spent many afternoons in this space, learning how to use the sewing machine that she eventually gave me.  Learning how to thread the needle, thread the bobbin, press open seams and sew a straight line.  Right sides together, putting in a zipper, and learning to hand sew the hems.  Yet, even with all the years that have passed, each time I pull out the sewing machine I use now, each time I press open a seam, I am brought back to those times.

Whether it is knitting, sewing, working with glass or paints, there is a quieting of my mind that allows me to sit with the spirit in a way few other things do.  These are the times I am able to remember that it is God who forms me, remember what I value and cherish, remember how and through whom God forms me.


Psalm 139

Lord, you have searched me out and known me;
you know my sitting down and my rising up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.

You trace my journeys and my resting-places
and are acquainted with all my ways.

Indeed, there is not a word on my lips,
but you, O Lord, know it altogether.

You press upon me behind and before
and lay your hand upon me.

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is so high that I cannot attain to it.

Where can I go then from your Spirit?
where can I flee from your presence?

If I climb up to heaven, you are there;
if I make the grave my bed, you are there also.

If I take the wings of the morning
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,

Even there your hand will lead me
and your right hand hold me fast.

If I say, "Surely the darkness will cover me,
and the light around me turn to night,

Darkness is not dark to you;
the night is as bright as the day;
darkness and light to you are both alike.

For you yourself created my inmost parts;
you knit me together in my mother's womb.

I will thank you because, I am marvelously made;
your works are wonderful, and I know it well.

My body was hidden from you,
while I was being made in secret
and woven in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes beheld my limbs, yet unfinished in the womb;
all of them were written in your book;
they were fashioned day by day,
when as yet there was none of them.

How deep I find your thoughts, O God!
how great is the sum of them!

If I were to count them, they would be more in number
than the sand;
to count them all, my life span would need to
be like yours.

What helps you to quiet your mind?  What in your life helps you to tend your soul and your Spirit?  We are each marvelously made, we are each here to live out the story that is being written through us.  Who are the characters in your life that have been important?  Who's kitchen can you picture in your minds eye?

Today I give thanks for my grandmother and mother that were both very gifted and talented in the fiber arts.  I am grateful for the passion and creativity that they have nurtured in me.