Monday Minutiae

What a silly image--a kitty on some teeth. So smile!

I haven't blogged for a few days and so am just going to put bullets below to tell you what is going on:

• Speaking of teeth, a 30-year-old crown fell of my last bottom molar on Saturday night. Somehow it popped off when I was flossing my teeth. Since then my tongue keeps groping for that jagged hole. Luckily, my dentist will see me in an hour. Because we don't have dental insurance anymore, I have not been seeing him as regularly as I should, which I will regret when he retires in the next few years.

• Husband CB's cold lingers on, with much coughing still. Two weeks of that, and hypochondriac me started feeling like I was catching it. However, I think (and hope) my allergies have acted up with the recent high winds blowing here in south TX.

• All Saints Episcopal Church has a new rector! Fr. Jonathan Wickham will begin at All Saints on July 1! God continues to bless our little parish. We love our interim priest Rick Dunham and look forward to having a permanent rector this summer.

• Being social introverts, my husband and I have two busy weekends coming up. This coming Saturday we are going to a friend's daughter's wedding in the hill country of TX. It will be fun to see children's friends and their parents among the throngs of others. Oldest son DC and his wife AA will be there, too!
• The second weekend in May is our youngest daughter MJ's graduation from Trinity University in San Antonio! It's a gala weekend, with dinners with her boy friend's family, a celebratory dinner/party, and a Mother's Day brunch for AA and me!  

• Now all four of our children have college degrees! Only our first and last children went through the graduation ceremonies. DC's was very long at the huge A&;M University in College Station; we were proud to see him dressed in his senior Corps uniform with the handsome high boots. Trinity is a much smaller school, and so it will be a different atmosphere, plus we are ten years older and MJ is our last child, which will cause us to feel more sentimental.

God Connecting

By Jean Denton

My Poem for My Pocket

let it go - the
smashed word broken
open vow or
the oath cracked length
wise - let it go it
was sworn to
go

let them go - the
truthful liars and
the false fair friends
and the boths and
neithers - you must let them go they
were born
to go

let all go - the
big small middling
tall bigger really
the biggest and all
things - let all go
dear

so comes love

~ e. e. cummings ~

(Complete Poems 1904-1962)

Poem In Your Pocket Day!!

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The idea is simple: select a poem you love during National Poetry Month then carry it with you on Poem In Your Pocket Day, sharing it with co-workers, family, and friends. Celebrate on April 26, 2012. Poem In Your Pocket Day has been celebrated each April in New York City since 2002, and nationwide since 2008. Each year, parks, bookstores, workplaces, and other venues burst with open readings of poems from pockets. Click a pocket below to download and print poems to share with others, or browse other poems for your pocket.

Memories

Today, April 24, is a day that holds many memories for me. Since it was my mother's birthday, I always remember her; in fact, this day causes me to recall more events than for just this day, because she died in 1992 when she was 73.

With my mother's wise, curious and creative personality, I had a wonderful parent and more of a friend as I became an adult. We were very close, partly because I was her only child. My love of learning, love for books and baking are from her.

When my mother was dying of pancreatic cancer in the summer of 1992, we celebrated our oldest son DC's 13th birthday up in Bellingham. DC acted disappointed with his birthday, which is perfectly understandable for an adolescent boy to feel with no friends around and far away from his home. I have felt sad for his disappointment for these past 20 years, and then today I described that birthday to him over the phone--AND DC does not remember that birthday at all! I am relieved that he hasn't harbored regret or resentment over the years.

This makes me notice how we remember events with higher emotional content than ordinary, everyday occurrences. I just read that either great joy or grief cause impressions on our memories.

• Emotionally charged events are remembered better
• Pleasant emotions are usually remembered better than unpleasant ones
• Positive memories contain more contextual details (which in turn, helps memory)
• Strong emotion can impair memory for less emotional events and information experienced at the same time
• It's the emotional arousal, not the importance of the information, that helps memory
• Found at Mempowered: Powering Your Memory and Mind.

I am glad that DC did not carry emotionally charged memories for his 13th birthday. I obviously did, but they helped me to remember that day more clearly. That is a benefit now, so many years later. Plus, now the memory will also be colored with gratitude.

I have always liked to remember birthdays. Just today I was wishing I knew someone else with my mother's birthday, but I didn't until I looked at Facebook! FB "reminded" me of a young woman's birthday today, which I will treasure from now on. She is the wife of DC's best friend growing up. His best friend knew my mother, too, so this is a dear connection.

April 24 is a good and special day for me, for which I am glad.

Earth Day!

Acceptance and Gratitude

With thanks to Naked Pastor, David Hayward.

Friday Five: Internet Connections

From Studio North blog

I have vaguely been hearing about the coming trend of people using mobile internet devices rather than desktop computers. Having four adult children, I see them using cell phones, laptops, tablets, ipods/iphones/ipads instead of the desktop computer, which I am using right now.

So I am asking you to answer the following questions about whatever device you most often use these days, first by telling us what you have:

I have a desktop computer, an ipod, an old-fashioned (non-internet connected), and a Kindle Fire. I use the ipod and the desktop computer the most.

1. Do you use social connections, like Facebook, Twitter, Pininterest, Linked-in or whatever else there is? Describe how you use it/these.
 I go on Facebook, originally because I wanted to be connected to my children, especially to see their pictures (and my granddaughter's). I look several times each day, especially with my ipod. I like to see what friends, especially RevGals, post about. 

I recently got onto Pininterest and enjoy the ideas and connections I find there.

2. Do you text on your cell phone? Work, friends, family?
I do not text. The only time I tried to text on my phone was when my daughter-in-law was in labor with Avery almost 1 1/2 years ago. It took me over 30 minutes to write a couple sentences! I am ridiculous.

3. Do you play any games? Which ones?
I do not play games on the desktop, but I like two apps on the ipod--Words with Friends and lately Draw Something. I can also play Words with Friends on the Kindle Fire, but find that the Kindle Store does not stock Draw Something.

4. How do you predominantly use the various electronic devices you possess?
I feel most comfortable with the desktop computer, especially for writing comments for FB and blogs. It's also easier for me to write blogs and Word documents on the big computer. It's also easier to eamil on the desktop computer, just because I like the bigger keyboard. The ipod is fun to multi-task with when I am sitting around with my husband watching tv. I mainly play those two games on the ipod and check FB.  I use the Kindle Fire for some of those activities, but like it most of all for reading.

5. How do you feel about blogging? Are you as involved in blogging as when you first started? What facilitates your blogging?
I go through spurts where I want to blog more and less. Many of my original blogging (RevGal) friends have radically diminished their blogging, which causes me to lose interest, too. I am grateful for those subscribing to my blog and regular readers of it, so that sometimes I feel like I am writing a letter to them.


I am helped in visiting blogs by people leaving comments and by links put on FB about new posts. Also, favorites are listed in my blogroll so I see new posts on my dashboard.

Give Us Faith To Go

O Lord God
who has called us Your servants
to ventures of which we cannot see the ending,
by paths as yet untrodden
and through perils unknown:
Give us faith to go out with good courage,
not knowing where we go,
but only that Your hand is leading us
and Your love supporting us. Amen.

Lutheran Book of Worship, p. 153

Found in:
Soul Weavings: A Gathering of Women's Prayers. Ed. Lyn Klug. Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1996. 94.

Also posted today at A Place for Prayer, a ministry of RevGalBlogPals. 

Mind the Gap!

Today in our lectio divina group, someone talked of the advice her swami gave her awhile back--When obsessing about bad events, memories, or whatever, visualize them as different cars of a train. Then notice the GAPS between the cars--those are the spaces that were NOT bad. So there is happiness (or at least not unhappiness) amidst crises.

This reminds me of what I have been reading about Teilhard in Towards a New Mysticism: Teilhard de Chardin and Eastern Religions by Ursula King. (This is an out-of-print book, but reasonably priced used copies are available.):

Teilhard's time as a stretcher-bearer in the front-lines of WWI was his choice so as not to "enjoy the relative privileges of an army chaplain" (27) . "The immensity of the war, the daily life at the Front, and face to face encounters with death provided a catalysing influence through which the mystical seer turned writer" (27-8).

"It was here, amidst blood, death and terror, that his tremendous vision of mankind belonging together first began to take shape" (28).

In fact, "when Teilhard's war letters were eventually published in 1961, Francois Mauriac commented: ' The most optimistic view a Christian thinker has ever held of this criminal world was conceived at Verdun; this frantic cry of hope has been uttered from an abyss. . . The same sort of courage which was necessary to hold out in the trenches of Verdun, was also necessary for conceiving thoughts as joyful as these, so permeated with hope'"(28).

Somehow Teilhard became aware of the Divine interconnecting the people, living and dying. The gaps showed him that surrounding each dark moment was Love.

So in our own visualizations of the difficult things we've endured or are worrying about, imagine each a railway car--So mind the gaps!

Remember that God is in the gaps.

Pray anyway/ any way

"Let your eyes look straight ahead, fix your gaze directly before you. 

Make level paths for your feet and take only ways that are firm. 

Do not swerve to the right or the left, keep your foot from evil."

Proverbs 4:25-27

Our lives are full of challenges...obstacles which God has already seen. Touching the heart of God through prayer on a regular basis will equip us to once again find the path when we have lost our way.

Please don't despair.

From Brother John, John Gaudraeu at Perfect Peace and Joy.

Go here to subscribe.

"Christianity After Religion"

The weekly Wisdom Class book study group at my church is halfway done with Christianity After Religion: The End of Church and the Birth of a New Spiritual Awakening by Diana Butler Bass. This week we discussed the fourth chapter which is simply entitled "Believing."

Bass chronicles the change in society's perception of the meaning of "belief" especially for Christianity--from relationship with Christ in early Christianity to relationship with God to the more modern rational belief/opinion. ("When people use the word 'believe' today, it is often for factually erroneous opinions, disconnected from any aspect of interpersonal trust or love." 119)

"Thus, in early English, to 'believe' was to 'belove' something or someone as an act of trust or loyalty. Belief was not an intellectual opinion. . . . . Indeed, in early English usage, you could not hold, claim or possess a belief about God, but you could cherish, love, trust in, or devote yourself to God." (117).

"From an ancient perspective--whether of Latin or Greek, of the creeds or the Christian scriptures--the words 'belief' and 'believing' implicitly carried within them relational and lived dimensions. Accordingly, you cannot 'believe' distinct from trust, loyalty, and love." (119)

It took me many years to trust that experiences of peace/love could be interpreted as from God, because in my early faith years, I thought I was supposed  to believe certain statements, even though some did not seem right within me. Prayer, study, and worship over the years have brought me to trust more in my perception of God, also validated and nurtured by community. Trusting that I do not have to KNOW all the answers helps, especially to questions about "WHY?" If I can remember, it matters more to me to ask myself, "WHO is with me?" Just as Bass writes, "Prayer transforms religion, doctrine, and dogma into vital spirituality" (130).

Next week's chapter is on "Behaving." The quality of one's life shows what one believes--or what one holds dear.

Meditations with Teilhard de Chardin

Meditations with Teilhard de Chardin, the short, sweet book of some of Teilhard's quotes in poetic form is available for sale (for only $10), which I did not know about when I wrote about it last week. I also liked it because it contained Jean Houston's story of meeting Teilhard when she was 14 years old, right before he died. That is a charming story.

Apps that Occupy Me!

My adult children introduce time-consuming and fun apps for my Ipod (Iphone for most people, but not me) that I certainly enjoy. The one that is the most fun at connecting me with others (most recently, my friend Mary Jane in CA) is Words with Friends. It is like playing Scrabble with a friend.

The one that my oldest son DC and his wife AA told me about over Easter is more infuriating at times than Words with Friends, but it is an enjoyable way to play a pictionary-like game, which is called Draw Something.

And still, the only spiritual app that I use is Equanimity, which brings me into meditation/prayer with a chime and ends whatever time I choose with three bells. I've used it to start and end centering prayer groups, also. In fact, our group at Lebh Shomea sat in centering silence with the aid of the Equanimity app each night.

 This image shows the different screens possible to look at for this app.

And here, there is the place to use it online right now on the computer, even with suggestions about how to meditate.

A New Email Devotional

" Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things. "

Philippians 4:8

Our spiritual journey allows us to learn by doing...also by being. Each contributes to the other.
Take time for both.

Last night I signed up for another email devotional that I found on blogging travels. This one sends a short scripture verse and even shorter thought with a lovely photo each morning (look above)--from Brother John, John Gaudraeu at Perfect Peace and Joy.

Go here to subscribe. 

If you would like to look at any of the daily messages that Brother John published since 2008, go here to look at the archives.

This is a lovely way to start the day! 

My Intro to Teilhard de Chardin

Looking through Google Images, I was entranced with this photo of Teilhard de Chardin looking at the skullcap of Peking Man. He was there when that was being authenticated in China in 1940.

As mentioned in yesterday's post, Teilhard's words and life are inspiring me. While at Lebh Shomea this past week, I perused several books about him. At times, I wondered if I could ask Father Kelly Nemeck to recommend some books for me. That was a possibility, but one that I kept talking myself out of--we're supposed to stay quiet at Lebh Shomea; Fr. Kelly is usually not around or is busy; mealtimes do not seem a time to interrupt him in the silence, etc., etc., etc.

The morning I left, I walked out of the main building and there was Fr. Kelly in a golf cart, which was at a standstill. I walked over and quietly thanked him for my time at Lebh Shomea and then asked if someday he would recommend some books about Teilhard.

Fr. Kelly asked if I would be around much longer and if I could meet him in the library in ten minutes! I did not expect such hospitality.

At that time, he took me to the Teilhard section and silently looked at the books, pulling one and another to look at. These are the ones he suggested I read:

• Album by Teilhard de Chardin; preface by Andre George. Designed and edited by Jeanne Mortier and Marie-Louise Aboux from the publications and letters of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and from papers preserved at the Foundation Teilhard de Chardin.

• The Divine Milieu by Teilhard de Chardin. To be read slowly, according to Fr. Kelly.

•  Writings in Time of War by Teilhard de Chardin. Early writings from Teilhard's time of being a front-line stretcher bearer in WWI. To be read along with:
• The Making of a Mind: Letters from a Solder Priest 1914-1919 by Teilhard de Chardin.

I ordered used copies of the first and last books.

I will see about the others, as I am currently reading the one I mentioned yesterday from the Maryknoll Modern Spiritual Master Series, which has selections from different essays and books (including those above).

AND I have just found the site of Internet Archive, which has links to DOWNLOAD-able copies of Teilhard's works!! Go there and get a taste of him.

Gift of Teilhard de Chardin

Being at Lebh Shomea this past week brought a renewed interest in Teilhard de Chardin. I looked through/skimmed two books in the large section about him in the Lebh Shomea library, which spans the complete first floor of the Sarita Kennedy mansion:

• Meditations with Teilhard de Chardin arranged by Blanche Gallagher: Sadly, this book is out of print. The author arranged some of Teilhard's writings in poetic form, such as:

The creative operation of God

does not simply mold us like soft clay.

It is a Fire that animates all it touches,

a spirit that gives life.

So it is in living

that we should give ourselves to that creative action,

             imitate it, and

                   identify with it. (31)

Nothing is precious

except that part of you which is in other people

and that part of others which is in you.

            Up there

                     on high,

                                everything is one. (99)

• Spirit of Fire: The Life and Vision of Teilhard de Chardin by Ursula King: This is a biography, interspersed with many photographs and quotes from works of Teilhard. A few quotes:

". . . Nowhere is this vision more radiant and empowering than in the description of his mystical experiences. They truly express a vision of fire that filled him with wonder and amazement, ecstasy and joy, and made him see the world burst into flames. It is this fire that he wanted to pass on and kindle in others." (58)

"Always interested in the most recent developments in science, psychology, sociology, and religion, he was forever questioning established orthodoxies, whether scientific, religious, or political." (213)

Teilhard died on Easter day in 1955; King writes of his last years:

"He (Teilhard) was growing old, but he could still see his vision with full strength. Death held no fear for him; he saw it as a passage to seeing more, to a fuller vision." (224)

Tomorrow I will write about Father Kelly Nemeck's recommendations for my first readings about Teilhard, although serendipitously, I found an unread book on my own bookshelf that is about him: It is a Maryknoll Modern Spiritual Master Series book, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin by Ursula King, which I am now reading.

Doves at Lebh Shomea Retreat Center

Lebh Shomea is a silent retreat center south of Corpus Christi where I live--in Sarita, TX. "Lebh Shomea" means "listening heart." Since 1973 it has been a retreat center with single dwellings and rooms available in the old Sarita Kennedy mansion, all managed by Oblates of Mary Immaculate (OMI) order, with Father Kelly Nemeck being the main representative of OMI there.


I spent three days (Monday-Thursday) there this week; two with friends from my Renovare Group and one on my own. I came home yesterday afternoon.

The silence was deep and wonderful. Days seemed longer, with more opportunity to pay attention to God. I sat in silence much more frequently. On Monday and Tuesday nights, my friends and I sat together in centering prayer in the community center, which is near the dovecote. It was lovely sitting in silence, with the coos of doves in the background. I am grateful that I was newly invited into daily meditation by the Holy One.

One morning I was trying to take pictures of the doves through the screen of the dovecote, when one of the workers there approached me and asked if I would like to go in with the doves! He (Joe) found the key and let me go in and see them more closely in the environs that a former hermit Sister Maria had planned and cared for.

Formerly, Sister Maria was my spiritual director, but when she came down with Alzheimer's, that was discontinued. Then she disappeared, and I wondered what had happened to her. . . .but I never asked anyone. I asked Joe, and he told me that Sister Maria is in a nursing home in Kingsville and is very happy. He and his wife visit her, and she remembers them. She has formed a friendship with two other older ladies, and they do everything together, even sometimes getting intro trouble!

The news and the surprising opportunity to enter the dovecote were gifts, all because Joe took the time to notice and pay attention just as I had the time be present to those moments. How each of us wants to be noticed!

Here are some of my pictures of the doves:

Friday Five: Missions

Revjkarla brings today's RevGalBlogPals Friday Five:

1. Have you ever been on a mission trip, as a participant or adult chaperone? What was it like?
My most recent mission trip was going to Russia with members of First United Methodist Church to put on a seminar for a district's clergy and laity, as well as to see what the Methodist Church is doing in Moscow, Vologda, and St. Petersburg. I presented three talks connected to prayer; it was a new experience to speak with a translator. The young woman translating was very gifted so I could speak several sentences at a time. We were told ahead of time to estimate the time speaking would be twice as long as only in English so as to gauge the length accordingly.

Most of the Russians could speak a little English, while I could barely speak Russian. I noticed my introversion came through. However, I was blessed by one quiet pastor who told me he'd given up contemplative prayer, but had been reminded of its efficacy by one of my talks.

2. What was the worst thing that happened to you/your group?
The worst thing that happened for me was hurting my shoulder on the train ride from Vologda to St. Petersburg. I was in a top bunk during the 13-hour trip. I fell getting out of it in the middle of the night, catching my arm/shoulder on the top rung. It hurt but not as badly as it would after I returned to the U.S. A. The month after the trip, I learned that I'd torn my rotator cuff and needed surgery, which occurred on January 4.

The worst thing that happened to my little group was our arrival in Moscow when three of us had to catch a later connecting flight. When we arrived in Moscow, no one was there to meet us! We didn't know what to do and wandered around for almost an hour until one of the original group found us. It turns out that they had been upstairs in a waiting area, being told by the Russian guide that our plane was late even though it had arrived. It was really scary to arrive like that, not speaking the language and having no way to connect with anyone. It seemed worse because we were tired, but it all turned out well.

3. If money were no object, where would you want to go to help and serve? What would you do?
In 2006, I was on a month-long mission trip to Zambia with four Roman Catholic Religious (two prospective priests and two sisters) so we visited OMI (Oblates of Mary Immaculate) missions. I was sorely touched by the many orphans due to AIDS and those suffering from AIDS. One Incarnate Word sister had a ministry for providing weekly rations of formula (or powdered milk when the formula ran out) to caretakers of infants, mostly whose mothers had died from or were suffering with AIDS. We visited an orphanage, where there were three new babies lying on a twin bed--I wanted to hold and cuddle them. I would like to go back to work with the orphans.

4. What would be your advice for someone who will be sleeping in a gym with 20 other people for a week?
First off, I'm glad I don't have to be there! Take ear plugs and perhaps a battery powered fan. A packet of wipes is refreshing to have on hand.

5. Any parting thoughts, stories or questions you have around the whole theme of Mission Trips?
It is helpful to plan a time for reflection or devotion each evening--ahead of time, dividing up the days with members to contribute. For personal survival, I always find this prayer necessary: "Bless ____________, change me."

Live the Questions

Thanks to Diana Vogel Ferri, I am reminded that the priest who married CB and me in 1971 gave me this quote just a few years ago when we reconnected:

"I beg you to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer."

Rainer Maria Rilke

(Is this the same as "Fake it till you make it"?)