Ever Considered a Silent Retreat? (Wernersville)

I know I'm the last person online to supply the link, but the Wernersville Jesuit Center made the New York Times Travel Section last Thursday.  For my friends who aren't Catholic, or Christian, or "anything in particular," as the author describes herself, the piece may alleviate some of the sense of mystery that surrounds a silent retreat.

My favorite part of the article is the portion in which the writer describes the manner in which her spiritual director for her five-day sojourn addresses her quandry, using words of the life of the spirit rather than those of modern-day psychology, suggesting that she feels "forsaken," rather than that she has "abandonment issues."  

We westerners are all accustomed to the language of the therapeutic community, and I doubt that any reputable spiritual director would resist a directee's engagement in therapy.  But many of our challenges are more spiritual than psychological in origin, especially where great trauma is concerned. Perhaps, now that I think of it, also especially where the utterly trivial is concerned. There are few people to whom we can turn in order to say, "God has completely forsaken me," and be assured of a hearing, whether the source of our conviction is the violent death of a child or a series of endless days of seeming meaninglessness at work or home.  And even fewer who, instead of offering concrete solutions or emphatic exhortations, will send us off with instructions and time to sit with God in the silence.

It is, quite simply, the thing to which I most look forward when it comes to finishing my cancer treatment: my return to Wernersville.  The sooner, the better.

(And like my friend Michelle, I picked up a new word from the article: adytum.  At least, it was new to me.  So I'm using the connected photo ~ the Wernersville Chapel, 2010.)

Wild Geese

Many, many years ago ~ I am sure that it was October, 1979, so: 32+ years ago ~ I crawled through our small tent opening into the cold air of Isle Royale as skein after skein of geese rose into the sky above Lake Superior.  That I remember that moment with the clarity with which the tangerine colors of the sunrise pierced the darkness of the early morning sky is a testament to one of the few natural gifts with which I was born: a capacity to notice and appreciate that which I saw around me.  

It's no wonder that, when the time was right, it was the spirituality of Ignatius of Loyola, with his emphasis on words like repetition and savor,  that called out to me.

When my children were growing up, my approach to mothering was: Notice and Appreciate.  From what they tell me, I was not entirely successful in communicating that dimension of my interior life.  Their memories seem rather fixated on some of the daily expectations that were, in truth, the least significant things to me.  I suppose that the daily cycle of school, homework, soccer, and lessons did seem as if it were what life was made of, but what I was constantly aware of was the sunlight on blond hair, the giggles and meows in the hallway as cats fled to safety, the small bodies crouched over projects on kitchen tables and in creeks and lakes, the gleeful triumph when something was assembled or, much better, completely deconstructed.  I was never in any hurry for them to grow up, for school vacations to end, or for any of them to get on to the next phase, whatever that might have been.

The loss of that capacity, that ability to notice and appreciate, was the biggest consequence of the loss of Josh himself.  The entire universe, with its galaxies and colors and creative and loving people, went dim and flat three years ago. There have been moments, and even hours, of re-connection with hope and  joy ~ but the registry is at a level far below that at which I once lived.

This past week, in connection with the New Year, I've been thinking that I might like to recover some of my lost gift for awareness and gratitude. Or, perhaps more realistically, find a new version.  One of my friends just posted on FB that she loves New Year's and the way it makes her feel that anything is possible.  An entirely foreign thought to me. 

But maybe small things are possible.

St. Therese of Lisieux, the French Carmelite nun of the late 19th century, spoke of doing small things with great love rather than attempting great miracles.

Jean-Pierre de Caussade, an 18th century French Jesuit, focused upon The Sacrament of the Present Moment.

Franciscan  Richard Rohr's words have been making the rounds the past couple of days:  "Prayer is sitting in the silence until it silences us, choosing gratitude until we are grateful, praising God until we ourselves are a constant act of praise"  (Radical Grace: Daily Meditations).

And Mary Oliver, of course, in her poem "Wild Geese," reminds us that

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Last night I dreamed that I was at camp in North Carolina, visiting The Lovely Daughter during one of her stints as a counselor.  I was supposed to meet Josh later for a river tubing trip, but in the meantime I was helping LD with her laundry.  She had lost a t-shirt she really liked, and I was going through pile after file of folded towels and clothing, peeling each item away from the others, one by one, in search of the missing t-shirt. 

I didn't find it before I woke up. 

Awareness. Gratitude.  Small things. Wild things. This moment.  A willingness to sift through the laundry, piece by piece, for something (or someone) not recoverable.

My word for this year, you may recall, is patience. 

I think that perhaps I will say a lot less and  photograph a lot more.
 

Image: Isle Royale Sunset, found here. 

Nearly New Friday Five

Over at RevGals, Sally writes:

A simple Friday Five for a busy part of the year; indulge me by sharing two fives:

As you look back over 2011 share 5 blessings; they can be as grand or as simple as you like; if your year has been like mine, they are probably a mixture!

As you look towards 2012 share 5 hopes- again, anything goes!

(Yeah, I went on to six.) 

B-L-E-S-S-I-N-G-S

1.  Ordination on October 30,

2. A congregation which stuck with me despite my diagnosis of breast cancer just as I was called ("It never occurred to us to do otherwise," one of the call committee members told me a couple of weeks ago),

3.  A husband, children, friends, and readers who have stuck with me through the good, the bad, and the ugly (and there have been a lot of the last two!),

4. A son and a daughter whose resilience and strength are getting them through law school and grad school in excellent shape,

5. Their studies in Russia and Guatemala and our family trips to Florida and North Carolina, all of them signs of the slow healing we are experiencing where we can, and


6. My week on retreat at Wernersville!

H-O-P-E-S

1. Mostly, I hope that all the members of my family who are alive today will be alive a year from now.  But also,

2.  I hope that my daughter graduates and finds employment,

3. I hope that my son hangs onto his scholarship for his third year of law school,

4.  I hope that my mother-in-law recovers quickly and fully from her holiday heart surgery,

5.  I hope that my congregation thrives, and, oh yeah . . .

6.  I so hope that the day comes soon when I never have to see the inside of a hospital as a patient again!



Image: Our Nightly Cedar Key (FL) Sunset a year ago.

2011 Highlight: Tiffany Gardens

My friend Wayne posted some images today of mosaics based on Tiffany designs.  At least I think that's what he posted ~ it's a Wordless Wednesday over at his blog.

His post reminded me of some wonderful artwork I never got around to sharing this past year.

When we visited the Biltmore Estate during our summer vacation in western North Carolina, we discovered that the gardens had all been planted to reflect Tiffany designs.

The photos don't do them justice; they were a delight!

(If you enlarge the bottom image, you will see a dragonfly spread across the diamond-shaped garden.)

Breast Cancer: Vulnerability

I'm experiencing what is, for me, an odd consequence of cancer:  a deep sense of vulnerability.

I doubt that it's an odd consequence of cancer itself ~ but for me, it's highly unusual to feel this exposed to danger.  I think that my mother's death and the resultant series of stepmothers taught me one overarching lesson, beginning with a seven-year-old version: You'd better learn to take care of yourself.

I've come to recognize this new reality, this new sense of fearfulness, over the past couple of weeks, as I've become increasingly reluctant to travel to my new congregation for overnights in the manse next door to the church.  Neither the the distance nor the time away from home seemed daunting back in early September as I prepared to accept the call.  The situation wasn't ideal, but at an hour-and-one-half's drive, it was an hour closer than seminary had been for three years.  After my surgery, however, that trip might as well have been to the west coast 2,500 miles away.  Even now that I can do it on my own, the drive is too tiring for a round trip in one day, and the overnights are lonely.

I looked the word up, of course.  www.dictionary.com tells me that vulnerable means "capable of or susceptible to being wounded or hurt . . . open to assault; difficult to defend."

Well, my body has been wounded and hurt, my experience of medical care is always one of assault, and it is difficult to defend oneself against a series of procedures when one's body's response each week is completely unpredictable.

Still, this is a new feeling for me.   I am generally an adaptable person; in fact, one of my faults is that I am too much so ~ too willing to accommodate, to make room, to abandon my own positions ~ sometimes at the potential expense of my own integrity.  But on the whole, I am adaptable in positive ways: able to move forward in the most impossible of situations; able to tunnel under, around, or through setbacks; resistant to surrender. 

But this, this experience of cancer has been different.  I was unable to make decisions about my treatment with confidence.  I have been in some degree of physical discomfort or, more frequently, genuine pain for three months running (one week off back in early November).  I often feel that I am not at all up to the task at hand where my family and work are concerned.  My energy is repeatedly sapped; I work up to a mile's walk over the course of a few days and then, without warning, I can't leave the house for the next one.

This is nothing at all like the devastation I felt after Josh died.  Then, and for months afterward,  I felt as if I weren't even alive, unless you consider the sense of wandering in an endless and empty universe and having been utterly abandoned by God as a form of life.

These days, I am plenty alive.  But I am, as it turns out, unable to protect myself from even small, hidden harms.

This feeling of vulnerability is not one that I recommend.  I'm not at all confident about how to navigate this one.  

I hoping that I will be surprised ~ in good ways ~ by the journey.

Image: Wernersville Jesuit Center (July 2011)

Christmas

Before we headed down to my Small Church on Christmas Eve, my husband suggested that we surprise the congregation with luminarias on the walks.  His idea; the kids' execution, as he took off to see his mother, re-hospitalized for complications of her heart surgery two weeks earlier.  (She's expected home again tomorrow.)

I was very grateful that he made it back and that my family was with me for both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day services.  The people at church loved the lights and responded with enthusiasm to both services.  I know that I'm still in my honeymoon period as their pastor, but it's wonderful to serve a congregation that expresses its appreciation at every opportunity.

We spent Christmas evening at the dinner hosted by the family who took over our 20-year tradition after Josh died.  We haven't been here for the past three years, but the combination of cancer and calendar conspired to keep us in town this year. The evening was beautiful: the house, the tables, the food, and the friendship.  I came home pretty early, exhausted by the previous two days, but everyone else was there for hours more.

It was hard ~ all the other young men were there, those who live here and those who live in Boston and Portland, and the one who brought his wife and baby home from Chicago, which I see as the future that was intended for us ~ but I guess that I'm getting used to it.   Christmas will never really seem like Christmas again, but then, neither will anything else.

And so . . .  a blend of melancholy and gratitude, missing my boy and yet grateful that I have been given work that forces me out of myself to think of others and their longings.  I am well aware that I'm not alone.  My husband's brother is confronting both his family's grief over his mother-in-law's death a week ago and his own mother's medical situation, two women in my congregation are making their way through their first Christmas as widows, and several others as fairly recent widows, and a friend from my home church stopped me in the grocery a couple of days ago to say that she wished that the Blue Christmas service had been held again this year.

I have to admit that I am grateful that next year's calendar will permit an immediate post-Christmas Eve escape!

Christmas Morning Sermon

For Christmas morning, we gathered in our fellowship hall for a light breakfast, followed by a service of alternating readings from Luke and traditional carols.  Bits and pieces of the short message from the pastor went something like this:

As I put today’s bulletin together, I found myself thinking about my girlhood ~

Growing up in a household that was neither religious nor musical ~

But we did have a piano and a book of carols ~

And I used to play through them, every single verse, in an order of my own liking, making up a Christmas pageant in my head

What I didn’t realize was that ~ 

In learning those songs ~

I was learning Scripture ~

A week or so ago, several of us were engaged in a couple of discussions on the internet ~

About our favorite Christmas songs ~

And about seldom heard verses ~  

Which often contain the densest Scriptural and theological allusions ~

Look at some of this morning’s lines:

Not just O little town of Bethlehem ~

But God imparts to human hearts the blessings of God’s heaven ~

God delivers straight into the core of our beings the gift of God’s kingdom

               

Not just While shepherds watched their flocks ~

But Good will henceforth from heaven to us begin and never cease ~

History has been interrupted and has begun anew; God’s kingdom will never end

And my favorite from childhood:

Not just It came upon the midnight clear ~

But The new heaven and earth shall own the Prince of Peace their King ~

I didn’t know it when I was ten, but those words are from the Book of Revelation and from the prophet Isaiah

These songs?

We sing them every year.  We hear bits and pieces of them on the radio and in the malls and stores. If we’re really lucky, we participate in choir concerts and get to rehearse them for weeks ~

But even then, do we know that in listening to them, and singing them,

               We are learning the story in the first words in which it was told.

               We are learning the Scriptural version of Jesus’ birth.

               And we are learning, perhaps without any awareness at all, of the great hope those words express.

I personally happen to think that music is the best part of worship. 

               In music we find our Scriptural texts

                              We find our sermons

                                             And we find our hearts and minds raised and filled

                                                            With the hope of a new heaven and a new earth

And most especially at Christmas, when that hope comes in the form of the baby whose birth became The First Noel. Which we are about to sing ~

And which, by the way, tells us that the star shone both day and night.  Imagine a star – other than the sun around which we orbit -- that you can see in broad daylight!

               That would be the other Son, the Son of God.  Amen!