Off to Lebh Shomea

 Will the doves still be at Lebh Shomea?

I am driving to Sandia, Texas today to spend the next five days at Lebh Shomea, House of Prayer, retreat center. I have been going there since the mid-1990's and am sad to learn that Fr. Kelly Nemeck is no longer one of the directors there. I will miss his presence. He has been ill and has retired to a residence in San Antonio.

I hope that I will be able to write in the silence and absence from distractions like the internet.

Helping Friends

After my last post, a blogging friend and other friends have reached out to me to give me support and encouragement. Today I found these words from Diane Walker, both on her Facebook page and on her blog Contemplative Photography:

Back in the days when we lived in Vermont, there were lots of jokes about taciturn Vermonters interacting with that most dreaded of species, the New Yorker.  And the punch line for one particularly amusing one I remember, uttered by an old Vermont farmer in that lovely accent they put on for strangers, was "you can't get theah from heah."

... which was what I heard when I looked at this photo: I mean, the gateway and path issue a lovely invitation, and there's a pretty cottage off in the distance, but the truth is -- you can't get there from here. There's actually a very deep body of water between here and there, not to mention a field thick with dune grass and a broken-down boardwalk through a marsh.

... which reminds me a bit of the spiritual journey: there have been, in my lifetime, any number of appealing and inviting paths I've pursued, only to find myself blocked at some unexpected point -- and frequently having to retrace my steps.

... which is, perhaps, the universe's way of reminding me -- as it says in Logion 3 of the Gospel of Thomas -- that the goal, the end point of this journey is not somewhere else: it's really right here. "Divine Reality exists inside and all around you," says Yeshua. "Only when you have come to know your true Self will you be fully known-- realizing at last that you are a child of the Living One."


By Diane Walker


Thank you, Diane!

I feel stuck!

It is already February, and I feel stuck, stuck, stuck about my master of theology papers. There is a time crunch now and I have very little written. I am at a loss for words. . . .here. . . .there. . . .everywhere.

Empty!

by MonkiFenn

That's how I feel but am trying to remember:

"Ignore your inner nagging thoughts. They are seldom accurate perceptions of what you are actually achieving. It is deeply unfair to criticize your navigation skills when taking a journey into unknown territory. Try not to demoralize yourself. I call my first draft “the Lewis and Clark.” Any freaking way to the coast is the correct way! Do not criticize yourself for the odd wrong turn, the weather slowing you down, having to stop for supplies. There is no bad route when you are on a voyage of discovery. Just keep going!"
PEN DENSHAM

Just Keep Swimming!

My friend Nancy gave me a beaded bracelet with a fish for Christmas. It is entitled the "Just Keep Swimming Bracelet," which struck me as being odd at first. A day later, in our very quiet house, it is helping me to focus.

With our children back in their homes (in Austin and Houston, TX and Seattle, WA)--and at work today--I can see beyond the holiday to my commitment of finishing my master's degree in theology, a mind-boggling task for me in narrowing down topics to even begin. Nancy's gift is a physical reminder to keep on keeping on.

The bracelet came with this little aphorism:

"Life can be as hard to live as swimming against a tide. But at the worst of times, if you will just remember to keep swimming, sooner or later you will develop the ability to swim through life like a fish through the ocean."

It is too easy for me to sink into a muddle of doubt followed by old patterns of denial. My piano teacher points out that I start such waffling when I make a mistake while playing, which throws me so completely off-track that I am lost and can't find my place. This is a huge awareness to help me learn a new pattern of behavior. I think the fish will remind me!

Later? NO!!

My daughters AE and KA in Seattle like to create letterpressed items. They even have a shop on etsy.com.

They have spurred me on to be interested in such items, especially in cards, which I intend to write and mail off to friends and family. . . that is one aspect of my tendency to procrastinate lately, which includes blogging, exercising, letter-writing, working on my master's papers, and on and on.

I am stuck, but am earnestly sitting in meditation about the conflicting desires to proceed and to delay. Cynthia Bourgeault in her new book The Holy Trinity and The Law of Three: Discovering the Radical Truth at the Heart of Christianity advocates that the law of three produces an entirely new idea/way when opposing forces are held in tension. As I see the spring deadline for the papers completion approaches, there will be no alternative but go ahead!

Back to the picture--Unfortunately, the humor of these letterpress files listed are too true (but probably too much trouble to use):

1. maybe
2. sometime
3. never
4. unlikely 
5. later

Graduate?

by Bruce Tinsley, the conservative political cartoonist

Unfortunately, this seems to be my philosophy and I am much older than the guy pictured--so imagine a lady with white hair up there!

Oh, those papers. . . . after Alaska!

My Realization

WOW! I am seeing something about myself that was so obvious, but something I never realized to any depth at all. . . until now.

As mentioned in the post below, Ellie talked to me on Friday about my blockage in writing my papers for Oblate School of Theology AND for the Shalem Program for Spiritual Guidance. Although other people have told me at different times to write each day for a set-amount of time, I never did. However, Ellie told me why it is important to do this. By committing to write a certain amount each day, I will grow to trust myself--that I will keep my word to myself.

I have a long history of writing papers the night before, not revising, and getting A's. My husband sometimes brags about that ability. For research papers, I always did lots and lots of research, but still spent adrenalin-rushed periods of days and nights getting the papers written. All my papers from middle school through graduate school were written for deadlines, which I pushed to the limit. I always got them done in time and always got high grades.

So at this late date in my life, I realize that I never learned HOW to write. I just did it. I have had this conception that what I write must be perfect and finished, which is why I have been afraid to start these other two papers, which have tenuous deadlines. I haven't known exactly what I am writing about, so I cannot dash it off. And I only know how to write in that intense and panicked state and no other.

Committing to write each day teaches me that it is possible to write when I am not highly motivated or even when I want to. Limiting the time to 15 minutes this week, even when I don't feel like stopping, is proving to me that I am not a captive to my emotions. Eventually, Ellie told me that I will have time periods of 1-4 hours, which would mean that I had to write for at least ONE hour but not more than FOUR.

This is so new to me, which seems startling as I am turning 60 this year! It is never too late to learn, and I definitely have a lot to learn.

A Blank Page Is Prayer

I think I'll have to write more tomorrow about a big realization I've had about writing, thanks to many of you, especially Ellie. But what clicked it all together was a reading from Emilie Griffin's Lenten Book Small Surrenders (which has been reduced by 60% at Amazon), where she writes that a blank page is prayer.

Ellie advised me to write for 15 minutes (not more and no less) every day, which I began to do today. Part of the time spent is looking at the blank page.

Griffin quotes Murray Bodo: "Sometimes there might be no words, but only a blank page created by silence and space. . . . But you are in the process of praying." (83)

(Finding that link for Murray Bodo excited me when I learned that he is a Franciscan priest.)

Now for Emilie Griffin's words:

"Possibly the blank page is a test, a trial, a kind of formation." (84)

"Even more, we must come to understand that this emptiness, this blank page, is prayer. It is more than an invitation to pray. It is actually prayer. We are making a small and needed surrender to the way things are: we are relenting, we are unwinding." (85)

Griffin, Emilie. Small Surrenders: A Lenten Journey. Brewster, Massachusetts: Paraclete Press, 2007.

Lost on the Path

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again,
expecting different results.

That 12-step saying that "insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results" seems relevant to my feeling lost and stuck at the same time. Not knowing where to go has me not moving, which is a typical reaction, but not helpful. I am even finding it difficult to pray and sit with God.

And here is an interesting connection to all this from one of my Lenten readings:

Henri Nouwen writes:
". . . The descending way is a way that is concealed in each person's heart. But because it is so seldom walked on, it's often overgrown with weeds. Slowly but surely we have to clear the weeds, open the way, and set out on it unafraid.

"For me, this weeding out process is always related to prayer, because to pray is to make free time for God, even when you've very busy with important matters of one kind or another. Every time you make free time for God, you clear up a bit of the descending path, and you see where you can plant your feet on the way to love."

Nouwen, Henri J. M. Show Me the Way: Readings for Each Day of Lent. NY: Crossroad, 1994. 47.

So it is time to sit, perhaps followed by writing. . . . Then at 11 o'clock, there is the Lectio Divina group at FUMC, which will be a good place to be.

Letting Go of Our Fear of God

"We are afraid of emptiness. Spinoza speaks about our "horror vacui," our horrendous fear of vacancy. We like to occupy-fill up-every empty time and space. We want to be occupied. And if we are not occupied we easily become preoccupied; that is, we fill the empty spaces before we have even reached them. We fill them with our worries, saying, "But what if ..."

"It is very hard to allow emptiness to exist in our lives. Emptiness requires a willingness not to be in control, a willingness to let something new and unexpected happen. It requires trust, surrender, and openness to guidance. God wants to dwell in our emptiness. But as long as we are afraid of God and God's actions in our lives, it is unlikely that we will offer our emptiness to God. Let's pray that we can let go of our fear of God and embrace God as the source of all love."

~~Henri Nouwen

From the free daily message found at the Henri Nouwen webpage. Subscribe.

I really needed to read this today. I met with a teacher friend who is helping me "write" my thesis paper. Today CS guided me through the supposed introduction to the realization that I don't know what I am writing about! So I am in that emptiness again. . . .

Speechless, but writing

• Well, I can croak a little, but not much. It is especially difficult to talk on a cell phone; I guess that's because I always think I should be speaking loudly and can't do that right now.

• There is snow in Dallas, which is way north of Corpus Christi. We had two inches of rain today, which set a record for February 11. Maybe the drought is decreasing.

• I like writing these bullets. They make me feel like I have more to write than I really do!

• Father M, whom I wrote about here, kindly emailed me and reassured me about my quandary concerning "innovative" and "ground-breaking" research for my master's paper:

"By "innovative and creative" does not mean that you come up with a new idea. Actually, since the time of St. Augustine, there has been no "new" idea in the western thought! I had a professor in Rome who used to say: Book comes out of Books! So, innovative and creative means that you develop an idea that someone has suggested but not developed! And you try to develop that idea with some research."

• Wonderful Father M has encouraged me. So once I recover from this cold, I will try to find some undeveloped topic, though I love to read too many "developed" ones.

• Tomorrow DC and AA will decide if they are coming to visit us this weekend. This all depends upon CB's and my health. He has improved greatly, and I don't feel that badly, except for not being able to talk.
  

I'm floundering in deep water

Well, that's what I feel like at times, though it is a sunny and beautiful day here in south TX. I am always surprised at the way God startles me in our weekly Lectio Divina group. This does not happen every week, but I was overturned with the memory and invitation I received two days ago. The scripture was Luke 5:3-6 (the entire lectionary reading is Luke 5:1-11):

5:3 He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat.
5:4 When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, "Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch."
5:5 Simon answered, "Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets."
5:6 When they had done this, they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break.

In the silences I kept pondering "out into the deep water." Suddenly I was surprised by a forgotten memory. I grew up on different military bases, which always offered swimming lessons for base children in the summertime at the pools on base. When I was about 11 years old, in between 6th and 7th grades in Yokosuka, Japan, I was in a small group of kids that was being taught to dive. I was terrified, not realizing until much later that I had been warned against diving ever since I fractured my skull in first grade. The instructor kept demanding that I try again and again until I did it. The authority of this young man and probably the peer pressure of the other kids prompted me to keep going. I recall fear, anguish (and crying) and eventually triumph. And I see how I needed someone to call me to account.Well, the floundering is connected with my pull to deep water, which is something I have been avoiding for years. As mentioned in intermittent posts (especially this one from June 27, 2009), I have never written the final scholarly papers to receive my Master's degree in Theology from the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio. In fact, I think the last class I took there was the month-long trip to Zambia in 2006.

A new friend at church CS, a former high school English teacher, offered to help me get going on this project a month ago. She suggested that I contact the school and find out what needs to be done to get going again. I never did anything until the Lectio group a few days ago. I certainly tend to let things slide when left on my own. . . .

I emailed a friend at OST, who then referred me to the registrar, who then sent me to consult with the advisor for lay persons in the MaTH program. The latter finally told me that he was the one who could decide on an "extension" for me. He sent me the newest guidelines, which showed that now I only have to write ONE paper and not three.

BUT he reiterated the one guideline that stumped me all these years: "Please be careful to note that the topic must be innovative (break new ground in research) and so focused that issue is nearly exhausted in 20 pages." HOW CAN I BREAK NEW GROUND??

I am stuck because I don't feel innovative and questioning enough to come up with an idea that "breaks new ground in research."

That is why I am feeling like I am in deep water, not knowing what to grab.

The only thing I am sure of are the invitations that God keeps extending for people to help me. Can I be humble enough to tell them I am lost?