Saturday, October 13, 2012

Thoughts on Marriage...10 Years In

I am here in Mystic, CT in the morning hours, with my husband still sleeping.  This house was built in 1710, says the owner of this bed 'n' breakfast.  I look around at the high wood beams, the creaking floors, the black stone fireplace....everything that has stood the test of time... and wonder what care has gone into preserving a home this long.

At our 10 year anniversary mark, our marriage is still fairly new. We have nothing on the couple I recently met who just celebrated their 62nd!  And yet, you could say we've weathered more than a few of our own storms- five homes, two children, the death of loved ones (including a parent), job losses, financial struggles...to name a few. To be clear, we barely weathered it... the beams of this house so often nearing collapse- anger and yelling, pain and tears, loneliness and isolation, threats of separation and divorce.

Two years ago we did not even wish one another a "Happy Anniversary". We were not happy. I was at a moment of deciding if I would even continue to fight for what I was not even sure was worth sustaining.  I could not imagine how our fighting was creating any sense of home for our children, and even wondered if we would all be better off without it. I did not know if our marriage was worth saving.

But we decided to try, though we could not see the road ahead. It began with marriage counseling, but the bulk of our work and healing came from within each of us, gradually over time. Through meditation and prayer, I learned to embrace the broken parts of myself -and to stay in the difficult fray rather than looking for ways to escape. Through nonviolent communication learning and practice, my husband was able to build a deeper awareness of his own emotions and to express those in more loving and respectful ways.

Walking down the aisle 10 years ago, I feel like I was entranced by magic.  I naively thought I was  entering a fairytale castle that would withstand the test of time to stay intact by the sheer force of its magic.... But I learned that a marriage is more like this old house we are staying in. Pieces of it will crumble.  Parts of it will fall apart, and need to be rebuilt in new ways.  Rooms may need to be expanded...or removed. We are the caretakers of this house, and have a responsibility to preserve it with gentle restoration. As we grow, it may look different from what we started with-- though the beauty of its antique framework will continue to stand and shine through time.

I also learned that the house of marriage serves a community far beyond itself, as love expands its welcome to offer hospitality and comfort to others.  Our marriage is not only for ourselves, but for our children and our community at large. We restore and preserve this house to make this world a better place. Our community and friends supported us through the hard times and helped us to grow; without I do not know if we would have survived.

Now as I wake this morning, I think of the great gift of this marriage-- and I am filled with gratitude, happiness, and love for my husband.   But the positive feelings are not always there...  we do not always see eye to eye, and our egos clash.  At those times, we still have the gift of our commitment.  Commitment is not about feeling wonderful, but about continuing to love regardless...because love is a higher call. It is a spiritual practice, really-- for just as meditators must continue to meditate even when we do not reach that point of stillness and bliss-- marriage partners must also continue to love and practice care even when we do not like one another very much.

Healing this marriage together, nurturing respect in our family and creating a place of safety and security for our children has been an integral path of my spiritual growth.  I have become especially aware of this the past few months.  And as my spiritual director recently said of my husband and I, reflecting back to me the marriage story I have shared...you are on this journey together.

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

October Meditation

I love the darkening of days, as slowly I find again a meditative rhythm to daily life.    I love how the mornings are shouts of color- cool walks through a wood path strewn with fallen leaves.  The sound of a running brook delights, as do other unnamed animal trills, resounding throughout the forest in this scurrying time of year.  I love how the nights are filled now with slow routine- dinner conversations, homework, stories and earlier bedtimes- and I savor once again an evening hour alone in silence.

October is surely a month of deepening awareness. It is also a month of multiple causes, as facebook statuses shout out attention to breast cancer, domestic violence, and pregnancy and infant loss...to name a few. Nature's beckon is quieter; unlike the awareness posts, it does not leave me overwhelmed but centered. (Although even nature has a cause....as it is also National Squirrel Awareness Month!) In opening my eyes to the fuller dance of the season, I sense something much closer to my heart than the myriad list of abstract causes. I sense my place in the interdependent web of connection.

Fundraising and advocacy have their place in this web as well- they provide real ways to turn contemplation to action. Behind every cause is a human hurt and hope; and there is no true awareness which is not followed by compassionate response. But masquerading on social network sites, both cause and response become abstract. Liking a cause or changing a profile picture provides an easy solution in place of the real depth of caring which comes through relationship.  It is not the charge of human hearts to care for causes; it is our charge to care for one another. In the family of things,  there is no charity- no accounting of the give and take. There is only a deep sense of belonging which calls forth the generous heart and the receptive hands;  giving and receiving are a natural flow of heart within the circle of relationship.

This is the meaning of Mitakuye Oyasin- All my relations- that most sacred of Lakota phrases spoken in ceremony. The meaning of these words become real for me in meditating upon the real people who struggle and hurt and hope.

The interdependence of all things is in delicate balance.  Who can blind themselves to the daily acts of evil which rend the sacred web? Today a co-worker tells me how a beloved uncle was murdered last week at the hands of his plotting wife and her boyfriend. This is no abstraction.  There is pain here, too much.

Each story wakes me: a hoop has been broken,  so many covenants and treaties and vows.

And so in the silence- before an altar of names, a jar of hopes, and other artifacts of our human lives- I pray with eyes open for all my relations:  to restore the human heart and the threads that bind us ever still in a circle of belonging.

You are all my relations, my relatives, without whom I would not live. We are in the circle of life together, co-existing, co-dependent, co-creating our destiny. One, not more important than the other. One nation evolving from the other and yet each dependent upon the one above and the one below. All of us a part of the Great Mystery. Thank you for this Life.  (words from a Lakota Prayer)

Thursday, October 4, 2012

St. Francis of Assisi Today

Today is the Feast Day of St. Francis of Assisi.  As a child, I remember many stories of Francis as told from the pulpit- stories of Francis befriending wolves and embracing lepers. These are not the lovely images of a gentle man with birds perched on his fingertips that so many of us associate with the patron saint of animals and the environment. Francis blessed not only animals- but also the beast within, those dark and scary parts of ourselves.  At first appalled by lepers, he moved toward that which he feared and despised in order to know God more fully and to  work.  And so his life was one of radical transformation, and one of radical living of the gospel.

I have come to know Francis personally through my relationship with two teachers who have emulated him in their lives and work.  The first is the teller of those stories I heard growing up- my childhood priest, Father Jim. Early on, Jim rejected the opulence of a suburban rectory in order to live a call to poverty among the people of inner city Rochester. Like Francis, Jim chose to live with the poor, to serve his neighbors, and to seek God in each of these brothers and sisters.  Like Francis, Jim grew community who also served. And like Francis, Jim was not looked upon with favor by the hierarchy of his times (particularly when Father Jim also embraced the outcasts of our times- blessing the love between same-sex couples and honoring the call to priesthood in women). His disobedience with authority got him into trouble- and yet he has always been faithful to his call.

Perhaps it was a similar call that pulled at me to first contact my spiritual director, Rev. Steve, this past July. Originally I was resistant: I had in mind a female interfaith director. Plus, I had the thought that he would not really want to meet with me-- a woman from across the river who lives an ordinary life with a husband and two kids--as his call is to the homeless and the inner city streets. I even had the name and number of another director in the area who I was all set to contact. But...at the last minute...I thought again of Steve and his ministry, and something in me said call (or email, as is usually my way..).  And I am very glad I did!

Through Steve's work, I have seen again the work of St. Francis brought to life in the modern day.  I have seen it in the community that has gathered with him, in others who have sold their belongings in order to live their lives with the poor of Newburgh.  I have seen it in the faces of the homeless and the prisoner and the other outcasts society pushes aside who gather on a Sunday corner for worship.  And I have seen it in the small group of UU's who now join them... 

So how do we celebrate the Feast of St. Francis today? A blessing of animals is nice- and I honor that encounter with the sacred in our furry and feathered creatures too. But to walk in the footsteps of the saint might take more courage- it might mean embracing the lepers of our own times.   It might mean reaching out to the prisoner, the homeless man, the undocumented immigrant, or the transgender marine-  across the walls of society's non-acceptance.  And it might mean finally facing the anger and fears that have haunted our lives, looking inside at the demons and learning to embrace our own wolves. 

For me, the inner work of befriending my own wolf was necessary- and St. Francis was also present on a day in January when I picked up my father's Mass Card with the prayer- Make Me an Instrument of your Peace- printed on the back, and with the help of a friend began to pray. I have carried those words with me in my purse since that day.  While Francis may not have written the prayer attributed to his name, there is no doubt that he certainly lived it.

May the words inspire each of us to live and to walk the call... wherever it may lead: 

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
when there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
Grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand,
to be loved as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.


Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Space for the Soul

It is a relatively quiet week in my life... a week I might take as an invitation to savor and to still, or a week I might choose to impatiently fill up with new activity.

So often I, like so many others, avoid the quiet of these in-between times, boasting my frenzied list of activities as if it was the proof of my life's worth.  And yet, it is there- in the in-between less active moments- when those finer jewels of utmost worth finally have a chance to be noticed and treasured.

Now there is no running away from the longing of my soul, and the need it has whispered of late to slow down, listen, wait. And so I wait, at times restless and fidgety, but resisting the temptation to fill the space with noise. I know that this is gestation time, a time for inner unfolding. I keep my eyes open for miracles- like the trees on my walk to work this morning- wet with quiet rain, calling me back to my breath, back to the moment, back to present awareness.  And then- suddenly- the wild release of brown wings! A bird of prey shakes loose from the shackles of green- an owl blooms from these branches, from a bouquet of overhead leaves.

This is the time to notice, to pay deeper attention. It is not only the earth which calls me to listen.  It is also my deeper self.  In silence I can hear more clearly the still small voice that calls me to act boldly in faith; in stillness, I can also notice the hurting places in me, the places in need of healing and growth... and, like an emerging plant, I hear the whisper to turn, turn, turn toward renewal and light.
  
In this time I notice my longings, my calls-- the pull toward prayer, its intimate conversation; the whisper that this is something others long for too, and that it is something we might do together; the tender movement to create that safe space for many a shy soul.

This is the work I have been doing- not only for myself, but also with others in my congregation. I only know how to do this inner work because I've had to do it for myself.  I have known what it is to be a frenzied burnt-out volunteer in the not-so-distant past. And I have had guides who have taught me to breathe, to slow down, to wait, and to listen.  And the same is true for other members....the seeds have already been planted.  Now it is our turn to continue the work- to create safe space for the soul in a place that can too often succumb to the seduction of frenzied activity, to till the soil, and to nurture the spiritual seeds of our congregation .

A few weeks ago I facilitated the first session of the spiritual deepening group we have begun. Nine people gathered in the sanctuary, and curiously and boldly began our journey together. More have signed up since. There were tender moments when I was moved in awe by our intimate sharing (especially in smaller circles), and I realized how vulnerable and how radical this work really is.  I have come to believe that small group ministry is the most important work of a congregation; it is the contemplative ground, the inner work, and deep connection which nourishes our healing action in the world. Our group agreed to gather monthly, with partnerships and practices between. In addition, I have committed to a once a month Sunday morning offering of contemplative silence and sharing for any who wish to join prior to the service. This past Sunday, one woman responded to my last minute invitation, and the conversation between us was rich and open. This time may evolve to include a prayer group, as there have been some now, growing in number, who heave expressed a desire to pray- whether this means a conversation with God or simply the expression of deepest heart longings, offered to the silence.

So we are daring to contemplate and pray, and daring to speak about it.  Yes daring...in a public sense, because we are speaking these things aloud. In the book I am reading now by Margaret Guenther,  The Practice of Prayer, she writes that we are more comfortable talking about sex and death than we are talking about our personal prayer experiences... She's an Episcopalian priest, so that's probably even more true for UU's!

And yes, daring...because the dive into inner work strips away our masks and disguises. As I explore the topic of prayer more in depth this month through reading and discipline, I am finding the work to be an arduous clearing of inner garbage!  I come face to face with my inner self, and take an honest look, naked before God. I see the places where I tell white lies, hide, manipulate, act in anger and in neglect.  I see the people I pretend not to notice, the places I choose to be selfish.  This noticing and this confessing too is an integral part of the prayer.  This is not shame- I am still a believer that "You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.", that line from Mary Oliver's famous poem.  But I still see and feel sorrow- without excuse- because I must see all if I am going to be honest and see what I need to repair and change.

So this is the waiting time... not a vacuous empty time, but a time of deep soul work, actually. And I am grateful for the support of many companions on the journey.