The Work of Christmas

"When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and the princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
to heal the broken,
to feed the hungry,
to release the prisoner,
to rebuild the nations,
to bring peace among brothers,
to make music in the heart.

by Howard Thurman

Autumn Prayer of Acceptance.

Autumn Prayer of Acceptance

Autumn God, earth teaches me by her natural turning from one season to another.  As she enters into the dying and rising cycle, she welcomes the changes.  May I be open to the teachings in this season of autumn and turn, as autumn, does, toward opportunities for my spiritual transformation.

When I accept only the beautiful and reject the tattered, torn parts of who I am, when I treat things that are falling apart as my enemies, walk me among the dying leaves.  Let them tell me about their power to re-energize the earth’s soil by their decomposition and decay.

When I fear the loss of my youthfulness and the reality of my aging, turn my face to the brilliant colours of October trees. Open my spirit to the mellow resonance of autumn sunsets.  Brush your love past my heart with the beauty of golden leaves twirling from the autumn trees.

When I refuse to wait with the mystery of the unknown and when I struggle to control rather than let life evolve, wrap me in the darkening days of November.  Encourage me to enter into the stillness and silent mystery, to wait patiently for clarity and wisdom.

When I grow tired of using my gifts to benefit others, take me to the autumned fields where earth freely yields the bounty of her summer. Let me become aware of how she allows her lands to be stripped clean so her fruitfulness will be a source of nourishment.

When I resist efforts to warm a relationship that has grown stale by my chilly indifference or resistance, let me feel the first hard freeze of autumn’s breath and the death that this coldness brings to greening things.

When I neglect to care for myself and become totally absorbed in life’s activities, let me see how animals gather sustenance and provide for their winter.  Take me inside the caves of those who hibernate and remind me of my contemplative nature.

When I fight unwanted and unsought changes and when I seek to keep things just as they are, place me on the wings of birds flying south for another season.  Gather their spirit of freedom into my heart.  Let me be willing to leave my well satisfied place of comfort for the discomfort of the long flight into the unknown.

Thank you, God of transformation, for all these lessons that the autumned earth teaches me.


Pg 212  Out of the Ordinary, by Joyce Rupp
http://www.joycerupp.com/ordinary.html

For Amy

Oct 2.


Like the delicate drops of dew upon the tender leaf
She was a delicate little beauty
Her time was oh so short
A little less than one year.
She was deeply loved
And is always remembered
As a precious little exquisite wonder.
On this anniversary
I  hold her family in the Holy Presence.


For my niece, Amy

Evening Prayer

Source of Transformation
there are seeds of new life
hidden in my deepest self.
Let me not run from the loss
that enables these seeds to grow.
Help me to access my resilience and courage
so I enter into the dyings that bring life.
I open the door of my heart to you.
I open the door.

from Joyce Rupp

From Joyce Rupp, Open The Door (pg 129)

Finding Our Way

"Should you not listen well to the questions you ask out of nowhere? Only in looking back do you find those crumbs you dropped that mark your way forward."
pg xxii
A Year In The World, Journeys of a Passionate Traveller, Frances Mayes

Keeping The Stories

The time had come to clean out the apartment and prepare it for the new owner. It was home for 7 years - a cozy sanctuary in the changes that had come in life. A friend has lived in it for a couple of years and has moved on to follow some exciting dreams. It would become home for another young woman and her dreams. In particular there were two cedar chests there that needed to find a home - one belonged to my Grandmother and the other was my High School graduation present. Both of these hold treasures that hold stories and history, dreams that were, memories and pieces of life that were passed along to me. They have kept ‘things’ that are pieces of stories. My Grandmother’s chest sits in storage waiting for the right space so it can be used again and the graduation present has gone into the first home that my niece has bought for herself. New stories will be unfolded and kept as she continues her life journey.

Stories passed from old hearts to younger hearts have been the way of protecting and keeping traditions and cultures. Yet if we stop speaking the stories it seems as if the silence begins to tear down the invisible treasure chest that held so much of who we are. Who will hold these stories and keep them safe, alive, vibrant and of value? Who will give the story tellers a voice of dignity? What will happen to the life line of hope and determination, ritual, and sacredness if we no longer speak the stories to each other?


One beautiful summer day a friend invited me over for brunch and as we sat on her deck in the sun, enjoying the beautiful food she had lovingly prepared, sipping chilled white wine, she shared stories of how many of her beautiful things had come to reside in this home. There are treasures that when spoken of, keep the stories of family, traditions and heritage alive. Her beautiful home was alive with stories that came out as we moved around the house and she shared her Arcadian heritage.

The necklace in the photo is a Celtic Love Knot, a circle that is joined yet it can open and look different but the circle of love does not come apart - always staying connected, always holding all the pieces of a full circle. It is the necklace my husband gave me on our wedding day. This photo sits on my dresser and every time I look at it I am reminded that his heart keeps my stories and my heart keeps his. Love is meant to keep the stories and hold them with honour always. Learning to do that is a life journey that the Spirit continues to teach - She is another keeper within us of stories, keeping all the pieces safe and sacred.

Cleaning out the apartment brought up memories of a place in the journey where I sat with those who showed me how to tell my own story. Telling the story in safe places unravelled so many threads within that were tangled and knotted and only by bringing them into open spaces could one begin to know the truth that comes when the silence is broken. I am so grateful to each person that sat with me in that season of life and the mentoring of how much treasure comes from the listening places and keeping the stories of others. Where would I be if I had not been able to put the stories out in the open and learn firstly to look at them myself and then to allow others to ‘see’ me through them? It is as if each listener put their hand over my heart as I opened it up to let in Light, truth, honesty and the fragrance of freedom. Those who hear our stories give us the courage to look within and begin the work, or continue the work, required in order for us to begin to live again. They encourage us to pull back the curtains and open the windows of inner rooms that have been too long without life, without the wind of the Spirit, and without the warmth of the Light.

A gentleman stepped into the small restaurant kitchen one evening to say hello. It opened up a flood of memories. His step sister Edith was my dear friend and mentor. She died at a time in my life when so much was unravelling and changing. Yet the wisdom she spoke is still whispered in my heart.

I am not sure that we can ‘save’ another by hearing their stories but we do often give the story teller visibility and help them look within to find the resources the Almighty has given them to begin to breathe again, to walk, to move through the darkness and into the Light, and find healing. It is not for us to hold them back, but to let them continue ‘becoming’ who they are. There can be a deep betrayal and re-wounding when those who held our stories have difficulty truly seeing us for who we are now.


Keep well the stories you have been given to hold, keep them safe, keep them within with dignity, hold them wisely, and honor the one who shared them with you. They are precious.

Evening Prayer

Dear Lord,
Give me a few friends
who will love me for what I am,
and keep ever burning
before my vagrant steps
the kindly light of hope...
And though I come not within sight
of the castle of my dreams,
teach me to be thankful for life,
and for time's olden memories
that are good and sweet.
And may the evening's twilight
find me gentle still.

Celtic Blessing and Prayer

Choices, Choices

Sometimes there are just too many choices....which of these beautiful bold colourful skirts should one choose? Glorious rich colours of smooth silk, saris that have been recycled into skirts. This lovely soft silk fabric swishes against your legs and gently swirls in the wind as you wear it. Choices choices.....

Morning Blessing

You are the peace of all things calm
You are the place to hide from harm
You are the light that shines in dark
You are the heart's eternal spark
You are the door that's open wide
You are the guest who waits inside
You are the stranger at the door
You are the calling of the poor
You are my Lord and with me still
You are my love, keep me from ill
You are the light, the truth, the way
You are my Saviour this very day.

celtic oral tradition - 1st millennium




Read more at: http://www.faithandworship.com/Celtic_Blessings_and_Prayers.htm#ixzz0z8VoJC8n
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution

Morning Stillness Musings

Good morning stillness, good morning on this brand new day. You have invited me to sit and be cocooned by the quiet as you are birthed and come into existence - this new day that has never been here before and will never come in this exact way again. Unique, always one of a kind, you are birthed every morning into the light, and you remain until darkness hides you and this one day becomes the past.

Quiet still mornings like this always remind me of that hot summer day as I wandered along on the Island of Capri into a small art gallery and came upon a painting that occupied the whole wall of a tiny gallery. It was the sunrise in this distance, bold, bright, sensuously rich in colour, with a small Juliet balcony in the foreground where the artist stood unseen. The shop keeper commented that it was such a splendid view of a new day being born. Today I have had the rare gift of being awake before the dawn, and allowing myself to just sink into the stillness and await the arrival of the light, and to be present for the birth of this new day. I feel welcomed by an old familiar friend that I have missed sitting with, this silence, this gracefulness and tenderness of the early morning.

For so many years the early morning has been a friend that welcomed me into her presence, a place where I could find the Holy One. I have missed visiting, waiting, letting myself be loved here. It has become more difficult to come to this place of being awake and present as a new day is born since working in the restaurant. Late night hours, then the winding down when I get home, means that much needed sleep takes priority and I have missed seeing the dawn arrive. I have always been a morning person but this is a season of late night hours and sleep keeps me oblivious to the birthing process that comes when each morning is born.

A cup of hot tea to sip on, a blanket wrapped around my legs, the cat asleep on the chair at the window and I can hear the soft snoring of my beloved who is asleep upstairs. How delightful to have been here at the birth of this new day. My simple request - Holy One, help me unwrap this day, to embrace it, to feel the life that is held within it and to hear the name that You give it.

Good morning dear friend, thank you for moving me from the darkness into the Light.

Daily Prayer

Lord have mercy
Speak to my condition
Bring transformation

Amen

When Beauty Speaks

It speaks in a soft gentle voice, never shouting, never angry, but always opening my senses to what is, here and now. Beauty knows every language and speaks in them all fluently, intimately and tenderly. She speaks to brokenness and hopelessness, despair and anxiety. She is never in a hurry, waiting always for you to stop, look, listen, smell, taste, touch and be present.

I cannot explain why she is speaking so gently and tenderly to me in this present place in life but I cannot ignore the voice that is so visible in every single day. Nor can I explain why my soul is so eager to become more familiar with this voice except for the fact that it is in beauty that the Almighty places the most healing messages of hope, love, awakening and redemption. It is in beauty that I encounter Sophia, Lady Wisdom, who constantly invites me to the simplicity where She holds out her treasures for me to encounter.



Dostoevsky says that ‘beauty will save the world’. What does he mean? I do not know what he meant but I do see that beauty, being very present to all that is living now, within, around, and unfolding, is so very redemptive. It offers hope and wonder and a return to living simply, sharing all that is around you. Can that save us? It could be a start.

Dan Allender wrote that ‘beauty leads the heart to hope’. What is hope? What do we wait for or long for that is to be changed? Could hope simply be allowing the beauty of the ordinary becoming a balm on the wounds and letting us see that what lives is what will speak to us and call us to awaken?

Becoming aware of beauty often involves motion and stillness being held together. Awareness of beauty can depend on pain, woundedness, healing, open heart, stillness, sensuality, connectedness. Perhaps my soul has begun to hope in a way that it never did before. I know my heart is learning to live as it never has before. It is mysterious and continually invites me to find the Almighty, The Beloved in a place of no words, no defined sounds or expressions, a sweet language that I can hear but not necessarily speak.

Beauty speaks in the midst of death, of loss, of pain and anguish - yet how do I hear it? I often hear it in the fatigue, in the stopping, and watching. I hear it in the limitations. What is mysterious, and what is Divine are realities. This language of infinite patience and tenderness continually catches me by surprise. I watch a friend bravely living vibrantly in the knowledge that her cancer diagnosis has given her a shorter time to live. She radiates beauty in her living! Conversations that are hard to have, that speak truth, hold beauty when they call us to offer life to each other in spite of differences.

She is so mysterious - she only reveals this moment, waiting for us to encounter her. Beauty holds so much more and invites us to seek, to linger, to let go, to heal, to hear the Beloved speak of love that will always remain.

Kindness

Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.

~ Naomi Shihab Nye ~

(Words From Under the Words: Selected Poems)

for my daughter....

Clarity is Freedom

CLARITY IS FREEDOM

I had tea yesterday with a great theologian,
and he asked me,

“What is your experience of God’s will?”

I liked that question –
for the distillation of thought hones thought in others.
Clarity, I know, is freedom.

What is my experience of God’s will?

Everyone is a traveler. Most all need lodging, food,
and clothes.

I let enter my mouth what will enrich me. I wear what
will make my eye content,
I sleep where I will
wake with the
strength to
deeply
love


all my mind can
hold.

What is God’s will for a wing?
Every bird knows
that.

~ St. Teresa of Avila ~

God With Me - Celtic Prayer

God with me lying down,
God with me rising up,
God with me in each ray of light,
Nor I a ray of joy without Him,
Nor one ray without Him.

Christ with me sleeping,
Christ with me waking,
Christ with me watching,
Every day and night,
Each day and night.

God with me protecting,
The Lord with me directing,
The Spirit with me strengthening,
For ever and for evermore,
Ever and evermore,

Amen.

Chief of chiefs, Amen

Words from Henri Nouwen forToday

August 22, 2008

Jesus says, "Cry over your pains, and you will discover that I'm right there in your tears, and you will be grateful for my presence in your weakness." Ministry means to help people become grateful for life even with pain. That gratitude can send into the world precisely to the places where people are in pain. The minister, the disciple of Jesus, goes where there is pain not because he is a masochist or she is a sadist, but because God is hidden in the pain.

Henri J. M. Nouwen
Nouwen Centre

Words for Today

It's not magic; it isn't a trick.
Every breath is a resurrection.
And when we hear the poem
Which is the world, when our eyes
Gaze at the beloved's body,
We're reborn in all the sacred parts
Of our own bodies:
the heart
Contracts, the brain
Releases its shower
Of sparks,
and the tear
Embarks on its pilgrimage
Down the cheek to meet
The smiling mouth.

~ Gregory Orr ~

(Concerning the Book that is the Body of the Beloved)

The Voice of Love

from Psalm 29

The voice of the Beloved is upon the waters;
Love's voice echoes over the oceans and seas.
The voice of Love is powerful, majestic is the voice of Love.

The voice of the Beloved breaks the bonds of oppression,
shatters the chains of injustice.
Love invites all to the dance of freedom,
to sing to the Beloved's song of truth.

The voice of Love strikes with fire upon the hearts of stone.
The voice of Love uproots the thorns of fear,
Love uproots fear in every open heart.

The voice of Love is heard in every storm, and strips the ego bare;
And in their hearts all cry, "Glory!"

The Beloved lives in our hearts;
Love dwells with us forever.
May Love give strength to all people!
May Love belss all nations with peace!

from Psalms for Praying
a translation by Nan C Merrill

Someone Untied Your Camel

I cannot sit still with my countrymen in chains.
I cannot act mute
Hearing the world's loneliness
Crying near the Beloved's heart.

My love for God is such
That I could dance with Him tonight without you,
But I would rather have you there.

Is your caravan lost?

It is,
If you no longer weep from gratitude or happiness,
Or weep
From being cut deep with the awareness
Of the extraordinary beauty
That emanates from the most simple act
And common object.

My dear, is your caravan lost?

It is if you can no longer be kind to yourself
And loving to those who must live
With the sometimes difficult task of loving you.

At least come to know
That someone untied your camel last night
For I hear its gentle voice
Calling for God in the desert.

At least come to know
That Hafiz will always hold a lantern
With the galaxies blooming inside
And that

I will always guide your soul to
The divine warmth and exhilaration
Of our Beloved's
Tent.

~ Hafiz ~

(The Gift -- versions of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky)

Palm Sunday Memories

Celebrations can so beautifully awaken memories, and touch places within you that brought about change within. Traditions and celebrations can be so different, yet they all hold the potential to be incredibly powerful and draw out what is good in our human family, what is that image of God, our Creator that lies within each person.

In our recently Palm Sunday celebration here on the West Coast of British Columbia I was transported back to 2002 where we celebrated Palm Sunday in Pazardzhik, Bulgaria. It was the most glorious Palm Sunday I have ever experienced, and the wonder of it is still strong as I hold the memories.

I had travelled to Bulgaria with a team of women from Linwood House Ministries where we visited various cities in that country. There was an air of oppression permeating life there. The only way I can describe what I have experienced in the Post Communist Eastern European countries I have visited is that it felt like the soul of these places had been anaesthetized. Walking down main streets there was little laughter, little colour in buildings inside or out, very little vegetation of any sort, and things that were broken had not been repaired. Women especially seemed to wear a veil of despair, wrapped tightly around them removing their inner passion, removing their innate feminine sensuality. They had spent so many years in a political system that demanded they suppress their own nature so that their unique gender qualities almost became lost within their soul. These people who had so little generously opened their homes for us to stay with them. My friend Carol and I stayed with an elderly couple who had no heat, no hot water and very limited running water. This sweet elderly lady would bring each of us a beer bottle of hot water each evening (she had boiled the water) and this was our water for bathing. This selfless hospitality is imprinted deeply on my soul.

On Palm Sunday we attended one of the local churches to celebrate with them. This was the first Sunday I had experienced this kind of celebration in a faith community. As I write I step back into that place. It was a large church with broken windows, no heating, old wooden benches, cold cement floor, and no colours whatsoever inside it, and all conversations echoed through the building. It seemed bleak, foreboding, and so harsh. Yet that was the structure. The people were warm and loving and so eager for you to experience their homes, their life, their faith, in an exuberant way that was totally beyond the sparseness, and the harshness of the environment. From a tiny room in the back with a two burner hob, food was brought in and prepared and at long wooden tables at the back of the church we ate our meals in community as a team of travellers with our hosts, the pastor and his family. This was a culture, a society, where tenderness and compassion had been dispensed with and in its place a hardness had gripped its soul. These were people of faith who had paid the price of isolation and persecution to believe in Jesus and to live out a life of faith. They were learning how to live out a life where you could love openly and this was a painful journey for them. We could see their pain, but looking back I realize we had no idea of their struggle to break out of the constricting bonds of oppression, and to walk, live, love, laugh and embrace this new fledgeling freedom in their current political climate combine with continued poverty. They were learning the difficult journey of trusting that love will set you free, truth will set you free. We are all on this road together to freedom.

With all this background, what made that particular Palm Sunday 2002 so awesome? Even to write that there are tears in my eyes because I experienced Holy Awe that day. There was standing room only and our little group of women did not speak Bulgarian and only a few on them spoke English. We stood together raising our voices in two languages singing together songs that renewed hope, that acknowledge pain and suffering, that reminded us that we all loved the God who never forgets any of us, and that Jesus was the One who could see us all and love us well. The only way I can describe what I felt that day is that it was as if the roof of this old broken structure was gently lifted off and the Glory of God, a powerful peace, a sense of love that made all of life seem to be just as it should be at that moment, and a sense of oneness with this whole community and the presence of the Holy One was tangible within me and around me. Never before had Holy Presence felt so exhilarating and filling as in that moment on a Palm Sunday, thousands of miles from home, in a church that was so different from my own faith experience. It is a piece of time that is a solid rock point in my walk with the Almighty.

As I write of it in 2010 I can see the faces of all age groups enjoying this Sunday that start of a Holy Week in our Christian faith. I remember them and hold them in the Light. I remember this precious piece of my own faith walk with Jesus and the opening of my soul to celebrating in a new way. I remember the group of women who didn’t know each other that travelled together for an adventure with God.