into the tides of life

photo by Yolanda Kauffman

readings

"Master, you are now dismissing

your servant in peace,

according to your word;

for my eyes have seen your salvation,

which you have prepared

in the presence of all peoples,

a light for revelation to the Gentiles

and for glory to your people Israel."

Then Simeon blessed them and said

to [Jesus'] mother Mary,

"This child is destined for the falling and the rising

of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed

so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed -

and a sword will pierce your own soul too."

LUKE 2:29-32, 34-35

God speaks to us as he makes us,

then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,

go to the limits of your longing.

Embody me.

Flare up like flame

and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.

Just keep going. No feeling is final.

Don't let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.

You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.

RANIER MARIA RILKE, the Book of Hours

tide in/tide out

Christmastide is the name given to this season of days which begins on December 25 (Christmas) and concludes on January 6 (Epiphany). I like the term for the way it conjures up the image of a seashore, and the tide rising and falling with the passage of each day. Ocean tides are one of those great and powerful cycles - like the phases of the moon, the cycles of the seasons, the wondrous rhythms of our bodies - reminding us that it isn't entirely accurate to say that life unfolds in a linear fashion, along a straight line of time. Life also circles-round, turns back on itself, and spirals its way around and through the Great Center that is God.

Christmastide rises and falls, year after year.

Sometimes we feel the push and pull of those swirling currents of a commercial Christmas, which now begins sometime around Halloween and abruptly ends once the wrapping is torn off the last present. The cycling of this "Christmas machine" as it has been called can leave us facing a post-Christmas dullness and depression once all of the lights are turned off and we find ourselves standing in a long customer service line of surly folks waiting to return and exchange gifts that just weeks before were purchased with relish and excitement.

This is not the cycle of Christmastide, just as red-nosed reindeer, five golden rings and partridges in pear trees are not the true heart of Christmas. Christmastide is about the ebbing and flowing of much deeper currents of life, death, and rebirth.

I am grateful that Luke includes in his gospel the story of Mary, Joseph and Jesus' encounter with the two seers in the Jerusalem temple, Simeon and Anna. These two wise ones are not movers and shakers; they are sideline people, prayerful observers, contemplative listeners. They possess the gift of insight, and they are the ones who are prepared to see, receive and bless what arrives in the temple in the form of this unremarkable, poor family from the countryside.

These seers recognize the incoming tide of God's love, even when no one else does in that busy, holy place of prayer and worship.

Anna is 84 years old, and since her husband's death many years before, she has been in the temple fasting and praying. We are not told Simeon's age, but his song of praise seems to suggest that he, too, is nearing the end of life: "Master, you are now dismissing your servant in peace . . ."

They have waited for this moment. And once it comes they are able to receive it, bless it, and let it go.

Simeon and Anna, holding the Christ child with their hearts swelling in praise and wonder, stand on the threshold, and the tides of life rise and fall within them and all around them.

This is how it is with each of us.

May God help us see this,

and receive it,

and bless it,

and let it go.

for reflection and prayer

• Take some time to read the stories of Simeon and Anna (Luke 2:21-40). Reflect on the "seers" in your own life. Who are the ones who are helping you see what is really there? Who are the guides whose insight you can trust? As you enter a new year, are there ways you might draw on the clarity of their sight?
• At this moment in your life, how is "the tide of life" moving? Do you sense an inflow of energy, of inspiration, and possibility? Do you sense a slowing down, a dying away, or a receding of energy? Or, do things seem still and unmoving with the tide in or out?
• What do you see and feel in your life or in the world around you that might be described with Simeon's words to Mary: a "sword piercing your own soul"? How do you want to be able to respond to this pain? Ask for God's help in this.
• What do you see in your life at the present moment that you might offer a word of blessing and praise for? How might you release this into the world for the benefit of others? Ask for God's help in this.

God takes us by the hand,

and leads us into life.

winter thoughts

morning fog ices trees,
geese cry from above low clouds -
winter thoughts travel far.

prayers for Gaza

Today marks the one year anniversary of the Israeli army's attack on Gaza. May we pray for the people of Gaza who remain under siege and who suffer the world's silence and blindness. May we pray for the leaders of the nation of Israel, that mercy and compassion might rule in their hearts. Let us pray for a land and for peoples whose lives have been wounded by violence for far, far too long.

To mark this anniversary, thousands will be joining marches and peace vigils at the entry points to Gaza from Egypt and Israel. For more on this witness for peace see the following link:

Gaza Freedom March

on this day

On this day new joy entered our world;

may we try by our lives to share joy with others each day.

On this day fresh hope entered our world;

may we bring hope to those who are heavily burdened.

On this day love was visible in a child;

may we show our love for others through friendship and service.

On this day the promise of peace on earth was proclaimed;

may we be lovers of peace and demonstrate this love

by reflective responses to life's challenges and trials.

On this day the Light of Love is incarnate:

the Christ in you,

and the Christ in all.

- adapted from the People's Companion to the Breviary, Vol. 1, p.274

advent 4 - into wonder

readings

And Mary said,

"My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked with favor
on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely from now on
all generations will call me blessed;
for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is God's name.
God's mercy is for those who fear God
from generation to generation.

God has shown great strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
God has brought down the powerful from their thrones,
and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and sent the rich away empty.

God has helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy,
according to the promise he made to our ancestors,
to Abraham and Sara and their descendants forever."

LUKE 2:46-55


Alleluia! light burst from
your untouched womb like
a flower on the
farther side of death.
The world-tree is
blossoming. Two realms
become one.

HILDEGARD OF BINGEN, 12th cent.


wonder

I recently listened to a presentation given by John Dear to a gathering at the Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe, NM.* Dear is a Jesuit priest, a peace activist, and a longtime prophetic witness in our age of perpetual war-creating. In his reflections he was focusing on Mary the mother of Jesus, and more particularly on the stories about Mary that appear near the beginning of Luke's gospel.

In the course of his presentation, Fr. Dear asked a compelling question: "Where did Jesus learn his nonviolence?"

I think the question is compelling in part because in the church we seem to speak of Jesus as if he was, from beginning to end, an all-knowing, all-caring, all-loving, all-peace-filled messiah. He didn't learn this stuff, he was born with it, right?

We treat Jesus a bit like the pill-sized capsules my son brought home one day. He filled the bathroom sink with water and dropped the capsules in. Within a few minutes the outer cover on the capsules dissolved and the tightly compacted spongy thing inside absorbed water and expanded into a large, colorful creature. Voila!

Do we assume that Jesus was something like this sponge creature, that he emerged from the womb with all the knowledge and love and peace of God packed and swaddled into a little package that only required a bit of time and TLC in order to become a full-blown messiah?

This seems kind of silly, really. If Jesus was fully human as we claim him to be, then he, too, needed the learning and nurturing required to become a human being who practices nonviolence rather than violence, and one who acted out of love rather than fear. This seems to me far more miraculous and wonderful!

Dear continued on in his reflections to suggest that it was Mary's openness, her capacity to un-self-consciously receive God, and her willingness to move from fear, to confusion, to trust and to action that helped teach her son a way of loving nonviolence as he grew.

To these I would add that it was Mary's capacity for wonder - to "ponder all these things in her heart" - that helped nurture nonviolence in Jesus.

Wonder is a powerful state of being in human experience, and an integral element in the cultivation of true and lasting peace - peace within and peace among.

When we experience wonder we are drawn beyond ourselves.

Wonder contains an element of disbelief. In our moments of wonder we tend to be freed from our need to answer or explain, our need to analyze or rationalize, or our compulsion to fit a moment or a person into previously assumed categories.

Wonder prevents doubt from deteriorating into cynicism, and keeps faith from disfiguring into fundamentalism. Wonder keeps doors open for the conservative, the centrist, and the liberal alike!

When we are open to wonder we are less likely to react or get defensive.

When we are open to wonder we meet the one whom we might have considered an adversary with an open mind and heart, and we may wind up finding ourselves grateful and inspired by the meeting. With wonder we live into experiences that we may have been dreading or fretting over, and perhaps find them leading us more fully into life and love.

Wonder knows how "the two realms become one."

* Fr. John Dear, "The Nonviolence of Mary"


for reflection and prayer

Wonder often comes unexpectedly; it finds us, sometimes when we least expect it and sometimes when we most need it. But we can also cultivate a sense of wonder in our lives, and help make it a possibility.

One practice that I've found to be consistently "wonderful" is simply looking where small children are looking. If you are around babies or toddlers in the coming days, even if you just cross paths in the grocery store, notice what these little ones are paying attention to. Follow their gaze and pause long enough to take in what they are seeing. What do you see there?

Our souls proclaim with wonder,
the greatness of God.

a last breath

A wing-caught breeze

lifts red tail and talons -

in the grass, a last breath.

advent 3 - into our true identity

readings

John said to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath that is to come? Bear fruits worthy of repentance. Do not begin to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our ancestor'; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham . . ."

And the crowds asked him, "What then should we do?" In reply he said to them, "Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise." Even tax collectors came to be baptized, and they asked him, "Teacher, what should we do?" He said to them, "Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you." Soldiers also asked him, "And we, what should we do?" He said to them, "Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages."

LUKE 3:7-8,10-14


The sense of danger must not disappear:
The way is certainly both short and steep,
However gradual it looks from here;
Look if you like, but you will have to leap . . .

A solitude ten thousand fathoms deep
Sustains the bed on which we lie, my dear;
Although I love you, you will have to leap;
Our dream of safety has to disappear.

W.H. AUDEN, from "Leap before you look"


for reflection

One way of hearing John's words and interpreting his actions on the banks of the Jordan, is through the lens of identity. The identity of something is found in its distinguishing characteristics or personality, that essential nature that is present no matter the circumstance or moment in time. One might say that John's message and baptism is for the purpose of calling people to "turn again" (the literal meaning of repentance) to their true identity, to remember who they are, and whose they are.

We live in a culture and an age where there is so much that is trying to tell us and sell us who we are. If you want to "be all you can be" you should join the Army. If you want people to take you seriously, and make them a bit envious too, then drive a BMW. If you're a real man you need a Hemi under the hood and Viagra in your pocket. If you want to be successful then you must have this phone, that computer, this portfolio, and have your children in that school. If you're a true American you will support our nation's warmaking.

The church does not immunize us against this. In fact, the church and other religious institutions will frequently play the same game. "If you are faithful you will believe ______." "If you are a true Christian you will do ________." "If you are saved you will say ________." What goes into the blanks will likely be different depending on our upbringing and our particular stream of faith.

John confronts this when he warns people not to rely on their religious heritage or their spiritual path as some sort of holy merit badge that gets them a special favor with God. Perhaps we could adapt his words for today: "You think you're extra special because you're Catholic, or Mennonite, or Methodist or Baptist? You think you are especially favored because you're not like those fundamentalist folks across town? You think you have it made just because you're Christian, rather than Jewish, Hindu or Muslim? Let it go! God could raise up Catholics, Mennos, Methodists and peace-loving-progressives from the soil under your feet!"

John confronts the places where we have found safe or false identity; he names the stuff we have done or claimed for ourselves that are ultimately done or claimed for the sake of our own self-satisfaction. To meet him, one must leave home, travel beyond the city limits, and enter the wilderness. For those who go it is a literal and figurative letting go and leaping!

I imagine that John would understand Auden's poem very well. The Baptizer understood that for most of us the path of returning to our true identity in God (and the true identity of God in us) requires a great leap that we can only make once our dream of safety has disappeared.


for prayer

Consider making an imaginative journey into the Jordan wilderness with John. Take a moment to read Luke 3:1-17. Read it slowly. You might even read aloud if you are in a place where that is possible. Then take a few minutes to imagine yourself as one of those who left home and the city to travel out to the Jordan to see John. You might do this while quietly sitting, but you could also do this on a walk, imagining yourself walking that path out into the wilderness. Some possible questions to pray with:

• Why would you choose to go?

• Imagine your fellow travelers. Who are they? What are their needs and longings?

• Who are you? What are your needs and longings?

• What is your reaction to John's appearance? His harsh words?
  

• Along with those in the story, imagine asking John: "And me, what should I do?" What is his response?
  

• If repentance is a call to "turn again," what are you being invited to turn towards?

Close the time of prayer by giving thanks to God for being with you each step - and each leap - of the journey.

We are loved.
And now loved, we must leap again,
and yet again.

thrown in

You cannot cross a sea
merely by staring into the waters.
RABINDRANATH TAGORE

Once again, I find it unsettling to meet up with John the Baptist during the season of Advent. As a prophet he may "speak the truth in love," but he dispels any assumption we might have that this means speaking nice and soft. There is no coddling in John's message and he is a master at interventions, calling people on their stuff in a blunt and forceful way.

If the religious professionals of his day were content inviting people to stand on the shoreline and stare into the deep waters of the Divine (as religious professionals and institutions so often are), John took a different tack -- he threw people in. There is little theological discussion on the banks of the Jordan, no scripture study or midrashic imagining, John does not ask people how many times they've been to synagogue in the last month, and he asks them few if any questions, save one:

Are you prepared to let go,
and be forgiven?

Are you prepared to let go enough to allow the God in your neighbor to forgive you, the God in yourself to forgive you, and the God whose mercy is beyond your wildest imagining to forgive you in love?

Then, having let go, perhaps we will be ready for the crossing, and receiving the Great Giveaway of God.

advent 2 - into the present

readings

By the tender mercy of our God,
the dawn from on high has broken upon us,
to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace.
LUKE 1:78-79


Out of kitchen table or chair
As if a celestial burning took
Possession of the most obtuse objects now and then -
Thus hallowing an interval
Otherwise inconsequent

By bestowing largesse, honor,
One might say love. At any rate, I now walk
Wary (for it could happen Even in this dull, ruinous landscape); skeptical,
Yet politic; ignorant

Of whatever angel may choose to flare
Suddenly at my elbow. I only know that a rook
Ordering its black feathers can so shine
As to seize my senses, haul
My eyelids up, and grant

A brief respite from fear
Of total neutrality. WIth luck,
Trekking stubborn through this season
Of fatigue, I shall
Patch together a content

Of sorts. Miracles occur,
If you dare to call those spasmodic
Tricks of radiance miracles. The wait's begun again,
The long wait for the angel,
For that rare, random decent.

- Sylvia Plath, from Black Rook in Rainy Weather


for reflection

I imagine Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, holding his newborn son tenderly in his arms as he sings the words recorded in the first chapter of Luke's gospel (verses 68-79). For him, the "dawn from on high has broken" and God is already at work guiding people onto the path of peace. It took some time for Zechariah to perceive this, though, about nine months to be more exact.

One day, approximately nine months before he held his newborn son, Zechariah was carefully fulfilling his duties as a priest in the temple when - to borrow the glowing words of Sylvia Plath - an angel chose to flare suddenly at his elbow. It was Gabriel himself, and the angel was bringing word to the old priest that he and his equally old wife would soon give birth to a son.

"But, I'm old," said the priest.

"But, I'm Gabriel," said the angel, "and I stand in the presence of God."

"How will I know this is true?" questioned the priest.

Interestingly, his question is the very same one uttered by Abraham when he was given a rather unbelievable promise from God (see Genesis 15). Zechariah, the religious professional whose job it was to help people remember what God had done in the past and help people hope for what God had promised to still do, couldn't quite accept that God was up to something right now.

We're told that as a consequence of his unbelief, Zechariah is struck speechless for the entire period of his wife's pregnancy.

I wonder, what would nine months of silence be like?

What would we notice or understand if we were silent for nine months?

It seems that for Zechariah, it was a reorienting time, a time to cross a threshold right into the present moment where God was already at work doing something wonderful. He came to recognize not only the God of his ancestors and the God of his future hopes, but Immanuel, "God with us."

For different reasons we may live with our focus primarily on the past. We may find ourselves lost in the regretful chorus of "should've, could've, would've." Or perhaps it is loss or grief that keeps our gaze fixed behind us. In religious communities it can happen when we put great effort into preserving former identities or traditions.

For many reasons we can live with our focus primarily on the future. We may find ourselves living out of an incessant wish for things to be different than they are, or a wish to simply get through the moment at hand so we can get to a moment in the future that we expect will be more pleasurable to us (how does the song go? . . . "everbody's workin' for the weekend"). In religious communities this sometimes takes the shape of end-time hopes and dreams for a final experience of release and salvation for oneself or the world as a whole.

The point here is not that remembering (looking back) or anticipating (looking forward) are inherently bad or wrong; they are vital impulses of our soul. But, to focus primarily on one or the other may be to miss those "spasmodic tricks of radiance," those miraculous birthings of God right here and right now!


for prayer

• Choose something that you do every day - eating a meal, drinking a cup of coffee or tea, changing a diaper, taking a shower, brushing your teeth - and try doing it from start to finish with wakeful attention. Simply notice and experience what you see, hear, taste, smell, feel and think as you do this common task with awareness. If your mind leaps backward or forward, gently bring your awareness back to what is right there going on in the moment: the texture of that next bite of food as it touches your tongue, the sensation of the water rolling down your back . . . No need to explain it, describe it or interpret it - just experience it with awareness.

• One very ancient form of drawing one's awareness to the present moment is by praying with the breath. A simple way of doing this is to sit in a firm chair with your back straight (without being uncomfortably or unnaturally arched). Either close your eyes or gently rest your gaze on a spot in front of you. Take a few moments to notice where tension points may be in your body and breathe deeply, stretching or massaging those places if you need to. With a word, or perhaps a simple gesture, invite God to be with you in this time of prayer. Then begin to draw your attention to your breathing. Notice it entering and leaving your body. Notice where you feel the breath in your body and on your body. Simply notice, and if you feel your curious and wondrous mind wandering, bring your attention back to the breath without any judgement. You cannot do this wrong! If you are not accustomed to silent, meditative prayer you may want to begin by doing this for 5-10 minutes, then increasing the time if you wish. Close your time by giving God thanks for the lifegiving gift of the breath and this moment of awareness!

• Another way to pray into the present moment is to pray with a breath or mantra prayer. One example of this from the Eastern Orthodox stream of Christianity is the Jesus Prayer, also known as the Prayer of the Heart. This prayer, in a simple form, is as follows: Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy upon me. The prayer can be repeated, aloud or silently, as one goes about the tasks of a day. You might try this prayer or create your own mantra prayer, such as: (breathing in) I live this moment, (breathing out) in your love, O God. Or, a prayer like this one might shift and change in a day as you encounter a new situation: (breathing in) I live this moment, (breathing out) to share your love, O God. Invite God to help you find a simple mantra prayer to take into your day. What do you notice?

May the peace of the Luminous Darkness

be with you in this Advent season.

a good laugh

What refreshing grace:

meeting one who made a mistake,

then laughed at herself!

advent 1 - into the dark

Note: Each Wednesday, beginning December 2 and concluding January 6, I will be posting a midweek seasonal meditation which will follow the themes of Advent/Christmas/Epiphany. My hope is that these will simply be nudges and promptings for your own contemplations as together we watch and wait for the God who crosses the threshold and draws all things together in love.

readings

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. GENESIS 1:1-4

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. JOHN 1:1-5

a story

The Sufis tell many stories about the wise fool, Mulla Nasrudin. In one of these stories we find Nasrudin crawling around his front lawn, nose to the dirt, looking for a lost set of keys. After watching him for some time, a group of neighbors decide to see what's going on.

"Nasrudin, what are you doing?" the neighbors ask.

"I'm trying to find my lost keys," he replies.

"May we help you look?"

"Surely! I would be grateful for your help," says Nasrudin.

The neighbors get down on all fours and join in the search. After many minutes pass with no sign of the keys, a woman speaks up: "We've searched your entire yard and garden, Nasrudin, are you sure that this is where you lost your keys?"

"Not at all," Nasrudin replies, "In fact, I am quite sure that I lost them somewhere inside my house."

Shocked, and more than a little annoyed, the neighbors cry out, "Then why in the world are we looking for them out here?"

Nasrudin shrugs and says, "Well, it's dark inside and so much sunnier and brighter out here. This is a much nicer place to look!"

for reflection

How tempting it is to look for what we've lost, or for what we most desire, out in the sunshiny places where life seems warmer and brighter! It can be difficult and discomforting to look in the dark, into those places within us and around us that may be shrouded by our fear and loss, or shadowed by our failings and our wounds. Or, for some of us, "the dark" might include the inner places where the soul-deep questions reside, places we might be afraid to venture into because they force us to admit that we do not have all the answers and we are not in control of everything.

And yet, what if this is precisely where we must go - into the darkness - in order to find what has been lost? Can the deepest human longings for peace, for justice, or for wholeness find satisfaction without looking honestly at what is most broken and unformed?

In the beginning . . . These two "genesis stories" speak of God as one who is already there, moving in the darkness. God does not begin in the places that are already bright with cozy completeness. The darkness where the Word of God is uttered is an uncertain and unfinished place, and it is precisely here that the Light is declared and defined; it is here that we encounter the advent of life and love.

Once again, those of us in northern climes enter this season of Advent as the days are growing shorter and the nights longer. The rhythms of night and day accentuate the rhythms of this season which invite all of us to move into the dark, trusting that God is already there, ahead of us, waiting to do something new in love.

for prayer

• What have you lost? Where are you looking for it?

• For what are you most longing? How are you seeking to satisfy this longing?

• If there is one soul-deep question you could ask of God in this moment - a question for which you have no answer - what would it be?

• Consider taking a few minutes in the night this week, perhaps before you go to bed, to read the first five verses of the Gospel of John. Read the words slowly and reflectively. Then, if you feel able to do so, turn out the lights and sit in the quiet and in the darkness. Try to simply notice, without judgement, the feelings and thoughts that arise. Invite the God of Light and Love to be with you in these moments. What comes? Conclude by lighting a candle or turning on the light and reading the first verses of John's gospel once more. Give thanks to Immanuel, God With Us.

The light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness does not overcome it . . .

walking Newton at night

if not for the thousands of square miles of prairie

on all four sides

i would swear that the

downtown crossing signal

is really a buoy

warning all sailors and dreamers:

now leaving safe harbor