The Spiritual Journey

I don't have many words, and so here is an image from Purple that describes the spiritual journey:

Look

I learned this saying during my years of attending Al-Anon meetings, never realizing that Albert Einstein said these words (first?).

It is time for me to ponder these words again, looking at my life.

WHAT do I keep on doing and no change is in sight?

Friday Five: Good Things

Deb brings today's Friday Five for RevGalBlogPals:


In these last few weeks there's been all kinds of bad news. Tornadoes and a blizzard. Gun violence and a legislative body squabbling like toddlers over budgets, health care and who knows what else. For those of us in the US, it's tax season. Yuck.

We're only in the second week of Lent. Easter's a long way off. And here in the Mid-Atlantic region, the weather can't seem to make up its mind. Is it winter? Is it spring? Will it snow? Will it rain? Are my daffodils doomed if they actually BLOOM next week like they are threatening to?

So this week's Friday Five is courtesy of my good friends Frodo and Sam. Tell me 5 things that are good in our world. Or your world. Photos are a bonus.

1. Better Health:  The past two years have been a struggle with adjusting to the diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis and the medicines for that, along with shoulder surgery in January 2012. I am relieved that the pain and fatigue of RA is rarely present so that my rheumatologist and I are in the process of reducing my meds to determine the lowest amount I need to stay comfortable. This is a very slow process--in two month increments as that is when my scheduled check-ups occur. Thus far, my weekly dose of methotextrate has been reduced by three pills from the maximum amount of eight.

I am feeling much better and oddly my hair seems to be reflecting it: It's not curly anymore and is back to the way it used to look!

2. My Family: I could have filled the rest of the four categories by designating (2) My Husband; (3) My Children; (4) My Children's Spouses; and (5) My Grandchild, but I am lumping them all together to stretch my gratitude reflection to further reaches.

Avery

I am fortunate to be married to Chuck since 1971. He is a good man, who knows how to do almost anything, especially around our house. He works harder than anyone I know and always has. I think his family ethic of work has transferred to our children.

I am lucky to have four children between the ages of 32 and 22, who are good people with interesting jobs. Two are married to two nice people who add much to our family. AND we all love our amazing 2 year old Avery!

3. Chuck's Parents: Although an end of one form of life has come for Chuck's parents since they are leaving their only home, they are starting a new chapter in their lives in an assisted living residence. It is a relief to their children that they will be in a smaller place with care available when needed. They are moving into an apartment with potential for more care. They are social people who will find new friends in close proximity.

I am really grateful that daughters in Seattle (AE and KA) brought daughter MJ from Seattle to Bellingham to visit Grandma and Grandpa last weekend. They picked MJ up at Sea-Tac airport and drove up there for a visit, which was so nice of all of them.

Grandma, Grandpa, and MJ last weekend

 4. Trip to WA and UT: During Chuck's spring break from teaching at the local community college, he and I will travel to cold, rainy Washington to visit Chuck's parents and his family and help with the move as we can.We'll be there for one week and then on the way back, I'll get to spend a weekend in Salt Lake City with MJ, who is going to school there.

5. Friends: I am rich in friends. I'll be able to see long-time friends when I am in Seattle. Three of them were bridesmaids in Chuck's and my wedding way back in 1971. But I knew them before that in high school and college. I talk every Sunday with a friend I met in junior high in Japan and with whom I have made some wonderful trips--Nancy. And I have friends through parents of my children and through both churches I have belonged to in Corpus Christi, plus blogging friends!

Here is a small group of spiritual friends from both churches and also a glimpse of when I had curly white hair (back in September 2012):

Pam, Katherine, Jan, Mary Tom, Paige, Louise, Joan

Search for Love!

Doubts Help

by Alexis Gilliland

I try to remember that doubts are part of the faith journey. Frederick Buechner once said that "doubts are the ants in the pants of faith." And today I read more about doubting that helps me.

"With practice we discover that there are a number of doubters within us, and they are different. To our astonishment we realize that some of them are allies and friends on the journey of faith, not blasphemous enemies. Sometimes in the climate of prayer we discover that certain doubts are like angels, agents of the Spirit of truth who is struggling to strip away from us superstitious and immature beliefs. 'Doubting the divinity of Christ' for a time may be the only way the Spirit of Christ can get us to start again from scratch and believe in his total humanity. The divine Christ of many people's conventional faith is a fiction, a demigod, not the man who is the Word made flesh. Doubts about doctrines and moral rules may be the only way the Spirit of truth can get us to move from accepting Christianity at second hand, to appropriating it for ourselves in the light of our own experience and questions. The Spirit can work better with us even if our faith is stripped right down for a time, than if we are cocooned in a complacent religiosity which we are not prepared to have disturbed."

Smith, Martin L. A Season for the Spirit: Readings for the Days of Lent. Boston: Cowley, 1991. 124.

Kohlrabi

Kohlrabi

 

At last week's Farmers' Market, I bought three kohlrabi from a young grower who was enthusiastically extolling its virtues. I used the leaves as cabbage in a soup recipe. The leaves stayed dark green and more in their shape than cabbage does, but it worked well.

Now my friend Nancy in California bought kohlrabi at her much-more-abundant Farmers' Market. I will be interested to hear how she cooks it. When I asked various people how to use it, most just said to peel the bottom piece and chop it up for a salad or snack.

I am still waiting to do that!

Here is a picture of happy kohlrabi that I thought was cute:

Friday Five: Lent

1. Oddly this year, the second day of Lent was Valentine's Day. How was this for you? Was Valentine's Day any different being in Lent?

Valentine's Day is always a holiday I love, probably because I once was an elementary school teacher. I like sending and receiving Valentine cards, though I rarely get any in my own mailbox. However, this year I got four, including one "from" my 2 year old granddaughter Avery (thank you to her mom!).


It was cute that the Valentine I sent daughter MJ in Utah was the same one her boy friend sent her!

2. Did you celebrate Mardi Gras/Shrove Tuesday this year? Any memories of memorable celebrations past?
Although I love pancakes, I don't really like the ones made at churches. It isn't a "Fat Tuesday" celebration for me there. Usually, we attend to support the church youth groups who do this meal as a fund raiser. This year, I went out to dinner for Mexican food with my first friend in Corpus Christi in 1979, Lisa.

3. How about Ash Wednesday, past and/or present? 
On Wednesdays I lead a Lectio Divina group at First United Methodist Church and have done so for the past 15 years. So on Ash Wednesday, I always spend an hour in Lectio Divina and then go to the noon service to be reminded of my mortality. I also went to a much longer and melodic service at my church that evening.

4. Do you have a personal plan of give-ups, take-ons, special ministries, and/or a special focus for your own spiritual growth between now and Easter?
I am newly aware that springtime has a rhythm of renewal and growth and so this is a time of earth's resurgence. The old saying that an action takes 21 days of repetition to become a habit is a reminder that the 40 days of Lent can be the means for new habits to be established.


With the verses Matthew 6:19-21 for our Lectio meditation on Ash Wednesday, I am committing to ask myself at various time during each day, "What is my treasure right now?" or how am I living which indicates what I value?

5. Do you have a book or a website you are reading often during Lent?
I am taking Jane Redmont's online Lent retreat entitled "Thomas Merton, Companion on the Way."

Bonus:  Song, prayer, picture, etc. that sums up your feelings about this liturgical springtime.
I am borrowing Purple's poem here:


Easter
Sturdy, deep green tulip shoots.
How did they know
it was time to push up through the long-wintered soil?
How did they know
it was the moment to resurrect,
while thick layers of stubborn ice
still pressed the bleak ground flat?
But the tulips knew.
They came, rising strongly,
a day after the ice died.
There's a hope-filled place in me
that also knows when to rise,
that waits for the last layer of ice
to melt into obscurity.
It is urged by the strong sun
warming my wintered heart.
It is nudged by the Secret One,
calling, calling, calling:
"Arise, my love, and come."
My heart stirs like dormant tulips
and hope comes dancing forth.
Not unlike the Holy One
kissing the morning sun,
waving a final farewell
to a tomb emptied of its treasure.

© Joyce Rupp
Easter 2001

Happy Valentine's Day!

Ash Wednesday

"We are not converted only once in our lives but many times,
and this endless series of large and small conversions,
inner revolutions, leads to our transformation in Christ."
~~Thomas Merton

One of the Lenten readers I am traveling with this Lent is by Emilie Griffin: Small Surrenders: A Lenten Journey. I have always liked her writing ever since I read Clinging: The Experience of Prayer, where she wrote that she noticed she was reading more about prayer than actually praying--that's a (sometimes) description of me, too.

Griffin writes:
"We are converted not only once in our lives but many times. And the conversion is little by little. Sometimes it is as imperceptible as grass growing. But Lent gives us a time to move the process along. Intentionally. By small surrenders." (6)

"Lent is our chance for a fresh start, a new page. We consciously let down our defenses against the grace of God. We admit to ourselves our need for improvement. We notice how hopeless we are. We tell God we're doing out best but we wish we could do better. We put ourselves in God's hands." (4)

I am facing this Lent with more intentionality, partly because Ash Wednesday is the anniversary of my father's death (in 2002). This is a symbol for me of the healing of my relationship and memories with him, which has been progressing in the past eight years. The death of a friend's father last week at the age of 97 brought this realization (of an inner revolution) forth, which I am marking with love today with the ashes.

Some Lent Resources

•  40 Ideas for Keeping a Holy Lent

• Looking at Lent Through Pagan Eyes

• Anglicans Online with various links

• Creighton University Lent 2013

• United Methodist Lent and Easter

• Pax Christi Lent 2013: Bread Is Life

• Christian Aid Weekly Lenten Devotions

• Bread for the World Lenten Resources

• National Catholic Reporter online Lent Retreats

• Episcopal Credo Lent 2013  

•  Lent 2013 Calendar

• Lent for Non-Lent People 

• Beliefnet Lent Resources 

• House for All Sinners and Saints 40 Ideas for Keeping Lent 

 

• Atheism for Lent (thanks to my daughter AE)

Fasting

Fasting and Feasting

Fast from judging others; feast on the Christ indwelling them.

Fast from emphasis on differences; feast on the unity of all life.

Fast from apparent darkness; feast on the reality of light.

Fast from thoughts of illness; feast on the healing power of God.

Fast from words that pollute; feast on phrases that purify.

Fast from discontent; feast on gratitude.

Fast from anger; feast on patience.

Fast from pessimism; feast on optimism.

Fast from worry; feast on divine order.

Fast from complaining; feast on appreciation.

Fast from negatives; feast on affirmatives.

Fast from unrelenting pressures; feast on unceasing prayer.

Fast from hostility; feast on non-resistance.

Fast from bitterness; feast on forgiveness.

Fast from self-concern; feast on compassion for others.

Fast from personal anxiety; feast on eternal Truth.

Fast from discouragement; feast on hope.

Fast from facts that depress; feast on truths that uplift.

Fast from lethargy; feast on enthusiasm.

Fast from suspicion; feast on truth.

Fast from thoughts that weaken; feast on promises that inspire.

Fast from shadows of sorrow; feast on the sunlight of serenity.

Fast from idle gossip; feast on purposeful silence.

Fast from problems that overwhelm; feast on prayer that undergirds.

- William Arthur Ward

(American author, teacher and pastor, 1921-1994.)

First Words

Here is a breakdown of a child's first words:

Mindful

Mindful

 

Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less

 

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

 

in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for -
to look, to listen,

 

to lose myself
inside this soft world -
to instruct myself
over and over

 

in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,

 

the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant -
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,

 

the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help

 

but grow wise
with such teachings
as these -
the untrimmable light

 

of the world,
the ocean's shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?

 

~ Mary Oliver ~

 

(Why I Wake Early)

 

Friday Five: What's Sneaking Up?

Revjarla brings today's Friday Five to RevGalBlogPals:

Who knew it was the Second Friday of the month?   

Thank goodness something reminded me, but my apologies for the late post.  I have been busy getting ready for Blizzard Nemo (really, 24 inches in Boston?  Why on earth don't I have a snow blower???) and pondering life transitions--oh, but enough about me.  

How about you?  (NO SNOW in south Texas!)

1) What is sneaking up on you, and what have you been thinking about?

Both Valentine's Day and Lent are sneaking up on me. Since I am committed to writing every day with the Month of Letters Challenge, I've been planning on sending lots of Valentine cards, as usual. BUT I had overlooked it being Ash Wednesday so soon! 

2)  What will you have for lunch today?

Maybe today is the day for a chicken breast sub at Subway with my husband Chuck. We like to split a foot-long, with him joking that we should measure it. . . .but we don't.

3)  If you were to get snowed in for two days, and you need to hunker down, what essentials and treats would you store up?

Soup making items and good mysteries!

I discovered a new mystery writer who writes fun, fluffy mysteries that take place in Australia in the 1920's--with a rich, smart and outrageous flapper named Phryne Fisher by Kerry Greenwood. While I was feeling unwell in the past week, I read lots of these from the library. Plus, I learned how easy it was to buy cheap ebooks on my Kindle, which reminded me of how cheap paperbacks seemed back in the last century.

(And the first Phryne Fisher book Cocaine Blues costs $0 for the Kindle right now!)

4) Tell me a story about one awesome thing you have experienced in the last couple of weeks. 

I am appreciating God's inspiration in getting me back to the discipline of daily meditation/centering prayer.

5)  What is your favorite office supply to splurge on? (now THAT is random, right?)

Not necessarily an office supply, but what I love to buy are cards and notecards! Always have and always will, as it does not seem like the end of written mail will occur during my lifetime.

Month of Letters!

Well, it is February 7, and I continue to write a card (and one long letter!) every day. Silly though it is, I am excited at the award badges I have received at A Month of Letters Challenge:

Remember!

I need to remember this, especially in connection with myself!

All Religions

All religions, all this singing
One Song.
The differences are just
Illusion and vanity.
The Sun's light looks
A little different on this wall than
It does on that wall,
And a lot different on this other one,
But it's still one light.

We have borrowed these clothes,
These time and place personalities
From a light,
And when we praise,
We're pouring them back in.

~~Rumi

Downton Abbey Preferred

Here is a description of how both Chuck and I spent an hour of the Super Bowl--We chose "Downton Abbey" instead!

ABC's to Live!

By Connie (Mamma) Winger

And I especially like Y: YEARN FOR GOD!

Today's Mail!

Trying to clean off some of the piles of papers on my desk, I resurrected three U.S. postcards that were printed in 1988. The postage was only 15 cents, but the newest rates for postcards is 33 cents. I found some extra stamps in our stamp box to add 18 cents to each little plain postcard so that I could write notes on them and mail them to friends today. The decor for the cards were the various colors of stamps that cover the top of these "antique" postcards were sent to Seattle, Cincinnati, and Zionsville. I wonder how long those skinny little white cards will take to get to their destinations.
They were fun to send, eespecially using my printing from when I was a second grade school teacher--that printing seems mostly legible.

I am trying to mail one letter or any other form of mail each day during this month of February. It's fun to send the notes and cards I have meant to send and never did. Now is the time!

Groundhog Day!

Groundhog Day

Celebrate this unlikely oracle,
this ball of fat and fur,
whom we so mysteriously endow
with the power to predict spring.
Let's hear it for the improbable heroes who,
frightened at their own shadows,
nonetheless unwittingly work miracles.
Why shouldn't we believe
this peculiar rodent holds power
over sun and seasons in his stubby paw?
Who says that God is all grandeur and glory?

Unnoticed in the earth, worms
are busily, brainlessly, tilling the soil.
Field mice, all unthinking, have scattered
seeds that will take root and grow.
Grape hyacinths, against all reason,
have been holding up green shoots beneath the snow.
How do you think spring arrives?
There is nothing quieter, nothing
more secret, miraculous, mundane.
Do you want to play your part
in bringing it to birth? Nothing simpler.
Find a spot not too far from the ground
and wait.

~ Lynn Ungar ~

(Blessing the Bread)