Blocked Channel

I have had trouble sleeping for the past three years.  I don't mean the occasional bad night; I mean strings of nights when I would wake after three hours and be up for 2 or 3, then back down; or not sleep again at all.  I had no awareness of dreams, nothing.  Sleep was hard.

Recently that has changed.  I have been dreaming more, and sleeping better.  This has coincided with some healing work, and I've been thrilled with the speed of movement of old blocks.

Then, this weekend the old pattern resurfaced.  I slept badly, I didn't dream, and I couldn't find anything to write or doodle about.  But I'm learning that this bad sleep might be resistance to something I don't want to know or feel, so I asked Mary to help me open up.  And sure enough, it showed up.  I don't need to tell you all about it; it doesn't matter.  What matters is that the channel was blocked, blocked so thoroughly I didn't know there was a channel there!  Now, as I excavate my past pain, I'm learning to look through the rubble for the channel.  And somehow, Mary is in this. Both Marys, actually, for Mary Magdalene is also in my prayer space and my heart, knowing a lot about loss and resurrection.

I'm writing this not to confess to you, but to offer this experience of a blocked channel.  Perhaps you have a place in your mind or heart that just feels dry and dead, dead ended or empty.  Perhaps it shows up as something else - lack of sleep, lack of energy or interest, lack of devotion, whatever.  If any of this rings a bell for you, know that you are not alone.  You are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, living and dead, who want to share your burden.  We can't take it from you, but we can walk with you.

Living the resurrection doesn't mean that crucifixion never happened, or never hurt.  It means that crucifixion is not the end of the story.  Something amazing happened in that tomb, that space that seemed blocked off and sealed up.  Just like the tombs, God can enter into our blocked channels and release us.  We emerge bearing the marks of our past, but no longer finished because of it.

May you know the power of Christ in your times of pain, and may you share the power of Christ as you find new life.  May all the saints surround and protect you, and may you know yourself to be one of them.  Bless you!

Channel of Peace

As I sit with Mary this morning, I see her open hands differently.  I often pray with my hands open, palms up, and I feel receptive - like I'm letting God place in my hands what she chooses, I'm open to receive.  That's how I saw this statue until today.  Today I see her quite large hands offered to God - not to receive, but to give and serve.  She is not holding them up to contain something.  She is showing them, offering them.

Sometimes I pray with my hands up and out - arms bent, palms facing forward.  At those times I'm connecting with the energy of the universe, letting it flow into me and back out.  I usually do this before doing laying on of hands, but sometimes during prayers for healing of others.  Sometimes it just feels right and I move into that posture.  I don't think of it as offering myself, but I see the resemblance to this Mary posture.  It's not enough to be open to receive; I need to be open to be used, to be a channel rather than a receptacle.  And when I do, there's a joy that's unlike any other.  It's real participation in the flow of creation, awareness of connection - no, more than connection, the reality of our oneness.  The energy is always there, whether or not I participate and notice.  But I have to offer myself to it to experience the reality and the joy of it.

How will you join in that energy flow today?  How and where do you offer yourself?  How and where do you notice the flow?

Lord, make us channels of your peace.

Willingness

Lately I’ve felt the need for greater relationship with Mother Mary.  I’ve made a small Mary altar by my chair (Jesus has moved across the room for now).  I have a picture of the infant Mary in the arms of Anna, her mother, and next to it a statue of Mary opening to God.   And that’s what struck me this morning, as I looked at her.  

Her downcast gaze is one we all know.  So many of us were raised on the ideal of Mary as the submissive, modest woman.  Whether we tried to be like her or spent our lives rebelling against that image, that was who she seemed to be.  But, as many other women (and men) knew, that was not the story of Mary.

When I see her standing with her hands open, her palms out, I do not see submission.  I see vulnerability and openness, willingness.  The difference between submission and openness is the difference between oppression and agency.  Mary is an active participant in what is happening in her life.  Not only could she have said, “No,” but she could have said “Yes” in a wrong tune.  She could have been grudging and resentful, a victim.  If she had, she would have raised a very different son.   Our history, our awareness of God through Jesus, might have been short-circuited by grudging parenting.

I know about saying “No” to the truth, and to possibility.  And I know about grudging submission.  Neither of them are the path of life.  Fortunately, many people teach me about saying “Yes” wholeheartedly, with palms open, standing up and ready.  They teach me to bring what I have, my gifts and my will and my wounds, and let God work in me and through me.  They teach me that vulnerability is a prerequisite for learning and growth.

Be with me, Mary.  Be with us all.  Show us how to be strong by being open.  Teach us the difference between submission and willingness.  Make us sites of creativity in a world of resignation, voices of freedom in a world of oppression.  Give us courage and joy in the struggle.  Amen.

Our September newsletter

Hi everyone,

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Happy October!

Follow the Call!

If you follow my posts at all, you know they’ve been few and far between.  I really want to write, I believe I’m called to share the gospel through writing, but something is always in the way.  I put writing times in my calendar, and then they get used in other ways.  People want to meet for discernment; we’re organizing covenant groups; a retreat needs preparation.  There’s always something.  And all these things are good, they are all ways we further the mission of CMA.  But I’m not writing.  I’m not writing large pieces, and I’m not blogging.  I’m not writing.

I don’t know whether this is resistance, or something else.  Resistance is possible; I’ve been doing a lot of inner work, and some part of me may not want to surface enough to share with others.  Or it may be that the personal journalling I’m doing is using up that urge.  But I don’t think so.  I think it’s some form of sinfulness.  It may be sloth - taking the easier road, doing the “urgent” task rather than the important one.  It may be vanity, doing what makes me look good in the eyes of others rather than the slower, harder work.  It may be a result of not knowing how to say no to others, letting them set my agenda.  Is there a name for that sin?  Whatever it is, I have a feeling I’m being unfaithful.  In the name of things I “have to” do, I’m abandoning the thing I’m called to do.

This morning we read the first seven verses of the letter to the Romans.  Paul is “called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God” (1:1).  We talked a little about the power of that clarity, and our awareness that we too are “called to belong to Jesus Christ” (1:6) and to “be saints” (1:7).  Paul is ruthlessly single-minded about what he’s up to.  Me?  I’m all over the place.  My mission is to proclaim the transforming power of encountering Christ.  There are lots of ways to do that.  But if I am evading the way I am to do it, I’m being unfaithful to my call.

So here I am.  I’m praying to rearrange my schedule and stick to it, because sharing with you matters to me.  I don’t know most of you personally, but I really feel it when I share and you click a like or write back.  Please pray that I will remain faithful, and that my words will be those I’m supposed to share.  

And let me prompt you: Is there something you are called to do that you are avoiding, or just not getting to?  If so, know that I will be praying for us all to follow our particular vocations.  I’d love to hear about your struggles and to know you are praying with me.  Together we can be more than any of us can be alone.  May God bless you on your journey.

One is Enough

I just got back from a week in Maine, a lovely vacation.  The week after Labor Day everything slows down and is less crowded, although some places close up or have reduced hours.  Since I mostly wanted to be at the beach or on a trail, that didn’t matter.  I came for the sunrise, sunset, and stars.

The first three days we had fog every evening, lasting through the night and well into the morning.  No sunset, no sunrise, no stars.  It was great weather for reading or doing a puzzle, or thinking, and I did some of each, but I was really put out about the skies.  The middle of each day was beautiful, but I missed my times!  My traveling companion was content to read those days, and it didn’t occur to me to go hiking by myself, so I was restless and frustrated.  By Friday morning I was considering leaving early for someplace with clear skies.

Then everything changed.  We went to the beach, and it was clear and beautiful.  The sunset that night was glorious.  The stars were out that night.  Next day, sunrise was awesome.  We found wonderful, magical trails through the woods that led to water vistas.  Tide pools showed their abundance of life and beauty.  

The next day was overcast, with a storm brewing.  I went down to the water at dawn.  There wasn’t much sunrise to see, but the waves at high tide were beautiful.  It seemed that, having seen a sunrise there, I could now appreciate the land as it was that day.  I could see the beauty.  There was not just one thing to see there; there was a multiplicity of experiences, involving smell and touch and sound as well as vision.  I had let down my expectations enough to encounter the world.

The next morning, our last morning there, we watched a subtle and lovely sunrise.  The water was flat, like I imagine blueberry Jello might look just before it sets.  As the sun rose, it glistened on the water.  I thought, “Once is enough.”  

I don’t need 150 sunrises or sunsets or nights below the stars.  I have this one, and it is amazing.  I can spend my time waiting for the next one, wishing for more, or I can be grateful for the experience and the memory of what is present before me.  I wasted the first three days of vacation - not because I didn’t hike or whatever, but because I was so set on my expectation of how things should be that I could not welcome the world I was in.  Now I know that a foggy sunrise is as much a gift as a full color panorama.  And I know that one is enough.

Today I’m back in Accord, at the computer, but my heart is full.  I can access the memory of any moment, I can open to God right now and find that same joy wherever I am.  

Loaves and fishes.  A little is enough when the heart is open to receive.

Live in the Light

I just returned from a week at Linwood Spiritual Center in Rhinebeck, NY.  It was a week of silence, broken only by a brief meeting with a director and Eucharist each day.  Each year vowed Companions spend one week in a directed retreat and another 5-6 days in a silent house retreat.  This gives us a chance to listen deeply for God, and for whatever in us is blocking the connection - or responding to the call!

I entered this retreat after recently beginning a new round of psychotherapy, of a sort different from anything I've done before.  It's opening up some places that have been locked down for years, making a safe space for remembering and integrating aspects of my life that I didn't want to face.  And with the remembering comes the questioning: Where was God?    When I was 11 I gave up on God, because I had no one to ask that question with.  Now I'm much older, I believe in God, but I return to the question:  Where were you?

I grew up hearing that God was all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving.  I took that to mean that God could have intervened to stop my pain.  Since God did not (at least not in any way I could recognize), I concluded that God either didn't exist, or didn't care, or didn't see, or couldn't help.  That's logical, but limited - just like the pubescent thinker I was.

Today I think God's goodness includes our freedom, even when God would like us to behave differently.
Where was God?  God was crying in the basement with me.
God was sitting next to me in school while I was zoning out, drawing at least a shield of wool around my bruised psyche.
God was pedaling along, trying to keep me safe while I was endangering my life with alcohol and drugs and sex and cigarettes and . . .
God was whispering in my ear at key moments, and speaking through the occasional voice of adult understanding and compassion.
God did not perform magic, God did not miraculously leave me unscarred by my experiences, but God did choose to share in those experiences through the life of Jesus and so many others.  God led me on to this place, where I can be with others on the journey to new life.

My retreat was huge, giving me an agenda for the next several months of spiritual reflection.  But in the end, God gives the growth.  My job is to be gentle, to let the work be done in me, to let God be God rather than demanding my picture of God - or myself!

If you are mad at God, if the state of the world has you wondering where God is or if God is, take some time to look - not just for the "bright spots," but for the compassionate presence in the darkness.  The light shines there.  Some day we will see it fill the universe.  Live in the light.

Peace be with you.