We are approaching that oft ignored or minimized trinity of days: Halloween, All Saints Day, All Souls Day. Some ignore because of the sugar high. Others because of the pain and grief. Many because of lack of understanding the significance. Besides the treats and costumes, this is the time of year we remember. This time of year in this particular year I am not sure it could be more important. This year the memory of those who have gone before us as well as the struggling souls still living and stretching toward eternity may be that which gives us hope. Their lives, their faith, their endurance are not only models but tethers. We remain connected, the living and the dead in a cosmic resurrection process.   All Hallows Blessing by Jan Richardson Who live  in the spaces between our breathing in the corner of our vision in the hollows of our bones in the chambers of our heart: nowhere can they be touched yet still how they move us, how they move  in us, made from the t...

  Our true nature is stillness, The Source from which we come. . . . . The deep listening of pure contemplation Is the path to stillness. All words disappear into It, And all creation awakens to the delight of Just Being.                                                     —Thomas Keating, “Stillness” During our consideration this week of Jeremiah 5 we had a fascinating discussion of the word “listen”. God calls us to ‘hear’ and ‘fear’. The prophet explicitly and implicitly is speaking God’s word to anyone who will listen. Scripture calls us again and again to hear is we have ears! We seem to be missing understanding, comprehension, perception and reception.   In these days of chaos and confusion there is a lot of shouting going on as though the louder and longer, the better and convincing. But what if we are to “listen” with our entire being. What ...

  A s the election approaches and we sink deeper and deeper into the twin pandemics of racism and coronovirus, I am aware of losing focus, not to mention hope. I am seeking Wisdom. I have returned or am trying to revitalize my practice of Ignatian Spiritual Exercises, and finding the mere pause and turn toward this rule of life adjustment worth its weight in gold. The idea of an inner compass which we try to not only access but use as a guide, calls to mind a frenzy of ideas: direction, time, the holiness within, the holiness without, searching, finding, the center, the Center, paradox, lost, wilderness, found, grace...just to name a few! I am thinking that as the poet says “old maps no longer work” and our own “inner compass” offers a guide to creating a new map, one without cardinal or ordinal notation.  Margaret Silf tells a story in her book on these exercises entitled Inner Compass of a man named Wainwright whose instruction in a mountain hiking guide was “turn left at th...

  “..in liminal space, midway between tedium and transfiguration. Dark night and unitive dawn are no longer all that different; reality simply is as it is.” Cynthia Bourgeault Some call it the tragic gap, that in-between space rendered jaggedly open upon crucifixion. Some liminal space between this world and the next. What remains, for now is the time between the first and second coming. The gap called tragic is also that in which we live and move and have our being and thus is also holy. And hard.  I am not so much moved to describe this existence as to note that between the first and second coming is the Risen Christ. When we lean toward desolation there is the consolation of the Holy Spirit. The tragic gap then is the space of transformation as we are shaped to reach the shores of eternity. 

  I tend to pay attention to certain words which recur increasingly in a short period of time. I take this as a sign of no coincidences. In the last several days the word which is recurring is “falling”. Perhaps I am paying extraordinary attention because the sensation describes my own. Perhaps I am noticing a very simple word which usually applies to a gravitational phenomenon like leaves and apples, but recently describes a cosmic one. It feels internal and external. It feels personal and communal. It feels frightening and exhilarating.   Many have described a “falling” as though it were a documented psychological phenomenon, like depression, like grief. Others have noted its theological paradox often called “falling upward” as a counterintuitive formation of the soul falling away from its ego and falseness while tending instead toward holiness. Whatever it is, today I am reminded of a covenant or vow or promise I made to allow myself to “fall” into the arms of God when disc...

  “In a moment I suddenly realized that my final vocation is not only to return home but also to welcome people home by saying, ‘I'm so glad you are here! I’m so glad you’re here! Come now. Bring out the beautiful cloak, bring the precious ring, find the best sandals. Let’s celebrate because you’ve finally come home!’” Henri Nouwen, Home Tonight I am not sure any writing has had more impact on my life than Nouwen’s two elongated reflections on the Prodigal Son: The Return of the Prodigal Son and Home Tonight. At a time I was struggling with dislocation and geographical confusion, not to mention vocation, the words of welcome and home spoke volumes and resonated like a Brahms violin concerto in me.  Just imagine in all the isolation, brokenness, injury and dis-ease in the world today, saying, or even more hearing, those words: I AM so glad you are here! I AM so glad you are here! May that be our communal vocation to welcome all into the church of our hearts no matter where, no ...

  “Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery it is. In the boredom and pain of it, no less than in the excitement and gladness; touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.” Frederick Buechner, Now and Then: A Memoir of Vocation Serendipity sent this quote to me this morning; it was exactly what I needed. Too often I find myself throwing words at things or implementing some action plan to “cure” that which ails. In these uncertain times in which the accumulation of “pain” and suffering is almost too much, too long, even lament has not rendered visible results or alleviation. So I recommit to listen. To rest in God. “Fathomless” used to be threatening and today it is reassuring somehow! In my listening I cannot help but smell fresh baked bread. A shimmer of something. Hope is restored.  

  We may live between the many dualisms of our lives, thinking of them as spectra instead of distinct categories. I often think of the extremes of these spectra as guardrails. For instance, when we live between the guard rails of self-justification and contempt for others, we are not only fenced in but also miss that sacred journey along the path where the guard rails are defined more by love and mercy. The path we walk so guided is paved with humility.  

  Will you respect the dignity of every human being? I will with God’s help. BCP Baptismal Covenant It seems no matter what road I go down or path toward some solution or resolution, it is all about dignity. The human struggle, my struggles as a human, are grounded in a hope and wisdom of ultimate redemption. I imagine that redemptive space is a dignified collection of re-cognized dignities, integrated and whole, held in an integrated whole. Perhaps that is why it is so important everyday to renew the respect of the dignity of every creature and aspect of creation, including self. The failure to do so renders undignified obstacles in the path to glory. Indignity is to dignity as desecration is to consecration. Dignity makes reconciliation possible, the true recognition of the inherent worth of all points to only one answer: Unity.

  Blessed be God who animates our lives and comes to us in the revelation and recognition of beauty. AMEN Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness; let the whole earth stand in awe or as this psalm says tremble.  The chant from my childhood in the days when we did Morning prayer three sundays a month and chanted one of the canticles comes flooding into my memory. But I can only actually sing it in the solitude of my home. Sadness.  Nevertheless, just beyond the grief are the words of the psalm which was after all, a song and which we use as a time of reflection and response to readings as well as prayer and meditation.  The fuller used version comes from Psalm 95  Worship the Lord in the Beauty of Holiness Let the whole earth stand in awe of God For he cometh, for he cometh to judge the earth  And the peoples with his truth In fact one of the calls to worship for Morning PrayerI and II is Worship the Lord in the Beauty of Holiness. I am not sure there are...

  “Living is a form of not being sure, not knowing what’s next or how. The moment you know how, you begin to die a little. The artist never entirely knows. We guess. We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark.” Agnes de Mille So begins Pema Chodron’s book Living Beautifully: With Uncertainty and Change, never a more important title! As I pondered these words, and Chodron’s which followed, I was wrapped in insights of wholeheartedness and was consoled...even hopeful. This poem sprang from my changing heart: I am grieving the loss of illusion self-delusion really. I am letting go of things  as I wanted them to be, And opening to instability Impermanence With faith in a divine Controller. The coloured leaves are my assistants; They thought they were green. The wandering black bear is my model She gives in to sabbath rest. After all It is a sacred cycle Forever revolving and rotating. My suffering has been in resisting. May my consolation be in floating  Down th...

  Reverence may be that which so focuses our whole attention and awareness as to transform categories into holy spectra. Reverence pierces the backslash between dualities and blurs bright lines.   Reverence is defined as deep respect “tinged with awe”. It is that tinged with awe part that separates reverence from mere polite response. It is the awe part which recognizes the sacredness. Reverence recognizes (re-cognizes) the sacred and refuses to desecrate.  There are moments in that pause before lifting the chalice or in bowing to the cross or in lifting arms to bless when some Presence seems to overtake me and I become the vessel, the prayer, through which God may speak. God consecrates and reverence is our opportunity to engage and enter God’s holy realm. It is a piercing, awe-filled gaze into a sacred world.

  There are endless couplets which we treat dualistically: good/bad, right/wrong, light/dark, sacred/profane, infinite/finite, to name a few. The world however opens up when instead of treating these as self-defined categories we look at the relationship, the spectrum of possibilities...what happens at the backslash. This is non-dualistic thinking or “both/and” consideration. The ultimate way for this transformative thinking is contemplation which means gathering things together.   I find myself playing with these couplets in my imagination sometimes, revolving and rotating them until they blur. I am not entirely sure what the inspiration for being called to this exercise might have been. Perhaps it was Galatians 3:28: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond not free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” (KJV!) Or perhaps it was the revelation so many times that the Kingdom is here and yet to come, the tug and push of it all... ...

  "Somewhere in us a dignity presides..." Another line from John O'Donohue and one which recalls our baptismal covenant: to respect the dignity of every living creature (my extension). He goes on to say "that is more gracious than the smallness that fuels us with fear and force, a dignity that trusts the form a day takes." For me this is the essence of sacramentality. To respect dignity, to become attentive and aware of essential wholeness, is to mark, make visible the inherent, invisible grace within all creation. The rising and setting of the sun, such common occurrences, are gifts of extraordinary meaning. To fail to recognize this grace is to fail to recognize the immensity of microscopic grace and to be in danger of falling into fearful and anxious insignificance. To engage in this re-cognizing is to be transformed.  The Inner History of a Day Born quietly from deepest night, It hid its face in light, Demanded nothing for itself, Opened out to offer each of...

  Blessed be God who animates our lives and raises up Saints like Francis that we might not only study the Gospel but know it in our lives AMEN I am sorry I could not be here last week to bless the animals on the day which has traditionally been associated with St Francis and his love of creatures great and small. I am however happy that we can move this celebration and thereby become a little more intentional and aware of St Francis in a larger context and mark his love of all creation, animate and inanimate. It seems to me that Paul’s words in his letter to the Philippians provide a serendipitous link between the Gospel and St Francis, between all divine teaching and our common life and mission today.   Protection of our environment has never been more critical, and by environment I mean not just the obvious climate change issues and scarcity of food for all, but also how we live and with whom and what reverence we practice in relationships. During these pandemics in additio...

  May this be my prayer today: Gratitude Gratitude is not a passive response to something we have been given, gratitude arises from paying attention, from being awake in the presence of everything that lives within and without us. Gratitude is not necessarily something that is shown after the event, it is the deep, a priori state of attention that shows we understand and are equal to the gifted nature of life. Gratitude is the understanding that many millions of things come together and live together and mesh together and breathe together in order for us to take even one more breath of air, that the underlying gift of life and incarnation as a living, participating human being is a privilege; that we are miraculously part of something, rather than nothing. Even if that something is temporarily pain or despair, we inhabit a living world, with real faces, real voices, laughter, the color blue, the green of the fields, the freshness of a cold wind, or the tawny hue of a winter l...

  If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough. Meister Eckhart.   While many of us are missing the bread and wine consecrated in remembrance at the Eucharist, I find it consoling to remember the meaning of eucharist (from eucharistea) which is giving thanks. I look around at the despair and chaos in the world right now and find myself as I descend into a darkness of desolation somehow finding something to catch my fall. It is gratitude, not the sacharine type but the real kind which fills and often kindles hope. The pause to remember and appreciate may require some swatting away of pesky self pity but usually unfolds to reveal the loves of my life. They are enough. 

  Not all radiant moments which defy words are joyful. Sometimes the Radiance illuminates loss and grief which, if one stays with it, transports to a place where tears are no more, loss is gathered up, all becomes One. Shortly after the Vietnam War Memorial was installed in D.C., I made the trip and began walking down the green alone. As I began the journey on a brilliant day I could not see the memorial; I could only trust that it was where the map said it was. I walked expectantly but at first, mindlessly. I was vaguely aware of the trees and the birds and the children, when I noticed ahead of me in the direction of the monument, or where I thought it might be, a thin black line appearing on the horizon. As I walked, now more slowly, the line thickened and rose above the lush green, starkly contrasting with anything gentle or colorful. Yet it glistened. Suddenly, and without any build-up I could control, I literally fell to my knees weeping. When I was able to rise and continue, ...