Disciplining the Morning Glories

I've been grateful for the encouraging responses I've received this week for a poem I wrote ("Joy") that was recently published in the UU World. I received a message today from a fellow member of my congregation that I especially loved, as she shared a story of what the poem evoked for her. From her email:

Hello Terri...

Your lovely poem about purple morning glories struck a responsive chord with me as I gathered their seeds from a picket fence in Montgomery about 10 years ago and have been spreading them around Newburgh every since. In my own little apartment garden I have preferred them to "Heavenly Blue'' which I used to plant. One year they climbed the trellis to the third floor apartment's balcony. I too, do love them dearly, although I must confess I discipline them as well, pulling them off the yews and untangling them from asters, when necessary. There are lots of lessons in our purple morning glories. Deep Congratulations to you to have the joy of seeing your work published!...

With Love,

V

The image of my friend- a lively 84-year old activist- spreading her morning glory seeds throughout the city of Newburgh brought a delightful smile to my day. But I also loved her wise tenacity at the mention of disciplining those morning glories. I had to grin, knowing my own tendency to let those flowers run amok.

Of course I don't just mean the ones that climb my front porch trellis every summer. I mean the glories of passionate impulse, the overflowing fountains of ecstasy, the elevation of the soul ...I mean all that is in me that yearns for light.

I actually wrote the poem in a summer when I was pretty high on life-- taken up by the Artists' Way, Margaret Fuller, and the music of soul. But those emotional highs were soon followed by deep lows, and it was necessary for my Sufi heart to discover her Zen mind. I began attending day-long retreats (in the Chan tradition), and eventually attended a five-day Western Zen one as well. Learning to sit and breathe and just be within the disciplined environment with its set schedule and uniform bows and prostrations helped me to align mind and soul, and to find emotional balance.

As much as I love the work I am doing with the spiritual direction program and all its creative tangles, includng the beautiful rediscovery of my Christian roots, I am very much missing those Zen retreat days and the sense of equanimity I derived from following a set discipline. (I mean discipline here as a gentle tending-- pruning, not punishing.)  It is very easy for my emotional vines to overrun the garden, and other flowers- like asters- also deserve a chance to bloom. While I do try to sit and meditate for some time each day, I know I could benefit from a more structured practice and environment.

So I'm thankful for the message in my inbox this morning, as I cherish the reminder to tend to those vines. For when passion meets discipline, I know joy cannot be far behind.

On Faith

Remember, good always wins... my teacher said last month, when I told her of the despair I had been struggling with.  And I recall Theodore Parker's words, too:  The arc of the universe bends toward justice.  And Martin Luther King's promise, that we will hew from the mountain of despair a stone of hope.

I suppose this is the essence of faith...the reason I run to the riverside one more time today because I want to see for myself.  Too many posted pictures and reported eagle sightings by others; I want to see. I sit and wait...and wait...and minutes later am still waiting when I hear the flutter and looking up-- there it is, wide dark wings and white head directly above me gliding!  I am frozen still watching this gift of raw beauty in awe and sight disbelief. But the bald eagle is on her return, and these shores are her nesting grounds.

Birds of prey have followed me the seasons of this year.  From barred owl sightings in summer to red tail hawk with snake dangling from talons in the October breeze.  I've seen those hawks on the side of the highways, and heard the jealous crows in the winter cold.  Terrifying and powerful, wise and majestic, they come as signifiers of transformation. Now is the time for the bald eagle's return.

I write of these birds now on a day when my faith is shaken, when I've seen a little more of the darkness, and tasted a bit more of the fear of this world. In prayer tonight, I hold my stone and lean toward justice, and place my faith in goodness.  Uncertain, but expectant still,  that all will be well in the lives of those held by the silence, held by the trembling heart, held by a majestic love that will not let us go. 

Living the Fullness

Lately, church has been a place of fullness.  There have been celebrations, moments of meaning and connection, and simply plain happiness.  I have been leading services, giving sermons, leading children and adult RE, and facilitating small group ministry more often than I thought I would be this year.   I have also found myself with more time to connect with people-- to laugh and cry and give hugs; to share in joys and sorrows; and to tell and listen to stories.   I have felt very comfortable in my own skin too, confident of my ministry and calling, without the burden of needing some kind of title, recognition, degree, or salary to affirm it. Rather, I am affirmed by the shared expression of love, commitment, and belonging.

The key to finding one's place, I believe, is a process of discernment and support. I have received wonderful support from spiritual leaders-- UU as well as those from other faiths-- that I could not have grown without.  It seems to have taken me a bit longer to find my place in the small congregation, with many many detours (aka committees!) along the way. But freeing myself of the committee trap has opened up new doors to share my gifts and do what I do best- to guide and accompany gently in our faith with a full heart, and to connect on an intimate spiritual level with people.  Not everyone who is called to lead is called to be a committee chair or board member; and not everyone who is called to ministry is called to ordained ministry.
Spiritual accompaniment and leadership is what makes me come alive...and as Howard Thurman said, what the world needs is people who have come alive.

I believe that we are all called to find what makes us come alive...and go do it.  Our UU congregations could move from a committee/ task force model to a ministries model-- a model that encourages people through spiritual discernment and support to find and share their gifts. We focus far too much on "getting jobs done", rather than finding the intersection of joy and need. (At least this is true in the small congregation, as I have known others who, while filled and open in the large congregation, burned out quickly when transferring to a small one....) When we offer small group ministry, pastoral care, deep listening in healing circles, religious education,  worship, social justice outreach, and hospitality to newcomers, then we are ministers. Calling is no other than peeling back the layers to reveal our truest selves and share our gifts; it is an experience of wholeness and moving from the deep heart to respond to needs with compassion and love. We all have a role to play in living out Unitarian Universalist ministry, and to give ourselves over to that larger ministry-- a ministry that upholds and affirms freedom, justice, love and life.  I believe that our faith would spread like wildfire if we were able to surrender that much and live fully into a contagious ministry of celebration, joy, and living the fullness of life....within and beyond our doors.

A Prayer for My Children

Tonight I whisper a prayer for my children whom I adore.  I adore them when they are chasing each other around the house screaming, when they are too full of energy and cannot sit still.  I adore them with all their flaws and craziness and annoyances. Adoration does not always mean like, but rather a heart full of their being- full of the spirit that lies within each child that simply longs to be free.

And if we become harsh and critical as parents... how often is it simply the rising of our own issues?  We worry...our fears and insecurities keep us from our fullest love.  Let us self-examine before we cast a stone.  Discipline and rules are one thing, as we teach them and help to guide and develop qualities of respect.  But I've heard too much lately that sounds like crushing of the inner self.  And this I will defend and protect:

The Spirit.  The Soul.  In children, in all their fullness of life, loving what they love, loving the world... and laughing wholeheartedly.  The wolf mother rises in me in all her fierceness when life is threatened.  And freedom of the soul, the authenticity of the self...THIS is life.

Oh Great Spirit protect those ones I love who lie now sleeping soundly in their beds, and fill each child with your Presence.  Protect them from the things of this world that might diminish their spirits. And may each child become all that she is,  with all of her love embracing the world.   Amen. 

Signs of Spring

These are the last February days of trudging through cold winter... I am snug warm in bed, while my husband is watching a documentary about the Civil War.  He has been watching it each night this week, as I drift off to descriptions of carnage and slaughter.  Not quite pleasant dreams, and wondering. How we ever made it through.  And when we will ever learn.

But look on the bright side, my husband remarks: the elimination of half the male population in this country brought new opportunities to others and eventually the growth of this nation, with jobs abounding and open doors for immigrants everywhere... and, well the rest is history. From lost limbs and lost lives came regeneration.... 

I drift into drowsiness. From the tiniest seed that has survived the long winter, new life begins to emerge.  In the sunlight of day, I see the buds in the trees, and the birds that are building their nests.  

From the longest winter, I enter this time of year that in my life has over and over again meant hospitals, hospices, and the loss of loved ones. Now my mother-in-law has completed a chemo treatment, and she is on the rise to recovery.  A 3 week hospital stay is nearing the end, and though the months ahead will not be easy, we believe the worst is over. 

I pray for this-- the recovery of our spirits that have suffered this winter, deep sadness and loss in many ways.  We have suffered the loss of children in Newtown that broke our hearts and our innocence,  but we are continuing to love. I think of my friends in that town tonight as my 6 year old daughter bursts into song and sings of the coming of Spring. 

I am reminded of a poem I wrote in the early days of 2004, when life kicked beneath stretched belly skin.  We know there is no reason to bury what's survived, I wrote this after hearing the heartbeat of my daughter, eight weeks in gestation, just a day after my husband's dear cousin was killed in a car crash.  

Tonight this daughter of eight years tells me how happy she is with her new cat.  She tells me how much she loves Smokey, the male who curls up on her lap and loves her.  And though she still misses her dear Chloe who died last summer, she has begun to heal and find new joy. 

We know there is no reason to bury what's survived. 

Sunfish quick as ripples swim through thawed ice. 

As I look for signs of spring, they emerge. 

Friends of mine weep with joy as they are adopting a child today-- a four month old baby. Her 16 year old mom will also be a part of their family.  We sing of good news, as we sort through our old hand-me-downs...though we have little left in this baby's size, as  over the years, little by little bags have been donated - to shelters and floods and hurricane relief efforts. We will prepare our care package to deliver- our gift for the newborn babe.  

Yes, though the winter is hard and the days of February loom heavy in our hearts, I can see the ice beginning to thaw.  We are leaning into the light, stretching toward Spring. 

Ripples of a military zone faith

It was great to see this article in the UU World about the Kandahar UU congregation and the work of Rev. Chris Antal.

Chris served my congregation as the consulting minister this past year before he was deployed-- so I know firsthand that he is a minister who can and does make a difference. It's exciting to see the work he is doing in Afghanistan shared and celebrated!

But beyond celebration, I sense both challenge and call that exists for UU's everywhere as we unite our own congregations in supporting this work of sharing our faith in war zones abroad. If the purpose of church is transformation-- our own and the world's, which are interconnected-- then we are called as people of this liberal faith to change, to open to what scares us, to open our doors wider. These include the doors that have shut others out, as well as the ones we have kept locked inside us.

It is becoming more evident how one person's call is not his alone; it is all of ours. There are the responses of UU communities- labors of love and letters to congress;  but there are also the ripples that cannot be measured.

These ripples extend to the challenge we face as UU congregations and individuals-- to examine hard-held positions, and what it really means for human beings to embody peace; to discover how we might tear down the walls of intolerance that have excluded our servicemen and women and veterans; and to explore real ways of relating in accepting, supportive communities that bridge differences and bring us to deeper unity.

And these ripples extend to the challenges we face as a nation-- to examine the hidden prejudices that blind us; to truly protect those Afghan allies who have served us; and to open our borders more widely to all who are seeking safety.

It's inspiring work of UU's in a battle zone that brings me to express this celebration and challenge tonight. May we celebrate in solidarity from all corners of the globe-- be it sanctuary or prison cell, river bank or rocket shelter--as we continue to tear down the walls from within, and share this saving faith.

The Spirit Leads

There are problems- aches, hopes, longings- that the mind cannot solve.  There is a way of tossing those around through the mind a thousand times, only to come up with a fiercer worry, a more dreaded pain than when I started.  And it is then that I realize I must lay they these concerns upon an altar, offer up some cry to the source of love, the ground of my being, the angels of my night, whatever and whoever I might call God-- not something I can name, but only know within as ultimate compassion.  Prayer is surrender; it is letting go.

This morning I met with my spiritual director and I told him the dream I'd had a few weeks ago while on silent retreat.  In this dream Mary Magdalene called to me- come let's go find Eden.  I don't know what the dream might have meant, but I have been reading about Mary Magdalene ever since, and celebrating her ministry, her prophetic voice, her spirituality as it is lifted up in the gnostic gospels.  The 'apostle to the apostles' is not the woman of devotional abandon and expensive oils, but the companion of Jesus- first preacher to preach a message of full humanness and everlasting life in the here and now, after the grave: mystic and prophet, leader and minister...and like so many women of religion, buried in the rubble of time.

She moves in me, much in the same way other strong female pilgrims of deep spirit have in the past.  The spirit of Margaret Fuller, especially, has led me on a hell of a journey so far...she is still a very real part of my life.  I open the door and am curious now to see where Mary of Magdalene will lead me too.

To be led-- not only by these archetypes, but by the spirit of life and a deeper sense of knowing in my being.  Prayers are expressions of longing, but they are also answered in unexpected ways.  I feel sadness, a sense of loss, especially at this time of year... but I also feel hope in the surrender, the letting go, the offering. I don't know where I am going...I don't know what lies ahead...but may the Spirit lead.

Why Church?

Gratitude fills my heart.  This past week I have reaped the joys of my UU community-- from Wednesday night's Spirit in Practice group to last night's Serendipity Dinner.  This morning I came together with so many.  There was a more familiar bond, especially with those whom I have known in smaller groups throughout this past week. So many of us gravitated toward each other because we knew our stories on another level and shared a common experience. This is the blessing of small group ministry which makes larger church worship a more intimate celebration.

There were other things which brought me joy-- a good sermon, new connections, new resolutions and doors opening.   Sometimes I forget why I am a part of this community; it feels like all work with very little reward.  But church is not a give and take; it is an experience of participation in something larger than myself; it is a transformation.

Today I remembered why I am a part of this community.  Knowing stories and struggles and laughter and joy, I was there to celebrate and love the people I have come- and am coming- to know. 

Celebrate Love

Love is hard work, my eight year old daughter says.  She says this when I ask her if we can practice more kindness at home-- less losing our tempers, less talkback and arguing. But this is hard;  she has an annoying little sister and a fiery temperament.  And being patient with one another takes a lot of work.

But today is the day when we celebrate love-- with roses and chocolates and diamond necklaces. But that is not love, that is romance.  And even romance is so much more about an approach to life, than what our significant other buys us at the store.  Romance is opening to wonder and celebrating our curiosity for the other. And love, long-lasting committed love, is the discipline of working to see-- to see divinity in the people who drive us crazy, the ones who get under our skin.  

On this day, I celebrate love.  I write poetry, cook stew, and bake brownies with my daughters. We send e-cards with kittens and puppies to their grandma in the hospital.  We argue some, getting on each other's nerves, too.  But at the end of the day, we try again-- to move toward the work of love, this difficult but most worthy discipline of the heart. 

The Dance

It is getting late on the night of Ash Wednesday, and while I came close to donning ashes today, the timing just didn't work out.  Instead I met with four other women in the sanctuary of my UU congregation where we enjoyed delicious conversation, devotional dancing, and chocolate (eating meditation).  It was our monthly Spirit in Practice session, and while one by one some members of the group have fallen off, others have remained, and new ones have joined.  Our focus tonight was on spiritual practices of the Body-- which for UU's falls somewhere in the middle of asceticism and hedonism, somewhere in the realm of "Real Time"-- as one woman described being outside, with your feet on the ground, fully aware and present of the cold air on your face and the wind in your hair, fully in the here and now.

It was last year during Lent when our minister first invited us to meet at 8AM to study spiritual disciplines.  It was that invitation drew us together in the first place, and tonight we shared how much we miss him as he serves in Afghanistan, and held a space for him in our circle and in our hearts.

Since that time last year, I have spoken to so many people in our congregation who are seeking a deeper spirituality.  And though we may crave an experience of wonder and awe during our worship services, it is also what we bring into that space which creates the spiritual experience...and so we must work to discipline ourselves, rather than to come empty-handed, expectant of the feast. This is the work of our gatherings- and our commitments in between.

Tonight, I played the perfect Enya song, as each of us found a place to move freely in interpretative dance.  Light and trusting of our bodies, fully and freely, we each experienced the music and dance a little differently. For me it was a dance of devotion and prayer, as I swayed and prostrated to an empty altar.  As we turned back to the circle after the music had ended, we all fell into a deep natural silent meditation which lasted.

This is my beginning to the season of Lent.  On this day of ashes, I remember I am dust, and to dust I shall return.

But I am also a living body between the edges of my life--and while I am here on earth I will dance.

Life: Savored

Tonight I long for sleep and dark chocolate, citrus fruits-grapefruit and tangelo, and warm furry winter blankets and socks.  I long for comfort, kind words and soft hugs.

My world is a bit harsher than this-- isn't everyone's?  Everyone is busy, harried, harsh- surrounded by sharp edges.  If only we took to heart: Be kinder than necessary.  If we could learn to sing in soft hues, like a high school chorus- singing Turn, Turn, Turn tonight at the new Seeger Auditorium, where my daughter sang with her elementary school to Pete and Toshi- their celebrity, their great contribution, our children's promise.

I suppose I could see the work of a lifetime there- a work that after 94 years of age, 70 years of marriage, does not end.  A work through civil rights and river renewal that continues still.  Will the world ever be saved? Or are we in the doing simply bidding time? Meanwhile the nuclear acceleration, the global warming goes on.  Or is the doing itself--the loving, the singing, the returning again to the morning walk, the crossing boundaries to create beloved community--the work that saves us where we are?  The axis leans, and good always wins- I heard a woman say.  Faith maybe then is believing in the light-- though I know only this thought that eternity is now, ever shall be, and not some future time.

I can't save the world, but I can savor it.  And to savor is not, as one might think, a matter of indulgence but rather one of discipline.  I have missed the disciplined practices of contemplation, walking, and writing which border and fill my days.  I have craved and needed discipline, and surrender myself to the season of Lent most fully.  It is a paradox, perhaps, to seek the romance of living fully by committing myself to discipline.

But tonight I savor the warmth of this bed, after a day of hard work.  And after a day's fast of simple eating-- a tiny piece of chocolate on my tongue is bliss.  

Bird Call Within Reach

I returned to the woods today. The winter woods boot-thick with snow made for heavy trudging, uphill both ways it seemed.  Meanwhile the chickadees and other elusive birds sang songs while remaining hidden high in branches.  Everything we long for is here now, heard but not seen, sensed but remaining still out of reach.

It is hard work now, each day that heavy trudging through unexpected piles of snow.  I think of my father delivering mail through so many Rochester winters, the never ceasing labor and the smell of sweat through a gray-blue parka. My own labors pale, with emails and phone calls appearing lighter to the eye; and yet I too seem bombarded by piles of letters and packages--filling up my inbox, the mental clutter.

Tonight I think of my dad again, under different circumstances. We are out picking up the food we have ordered online from our local buying club.  Mondays in Beacon have become community night as  we gather to split shares of black beans, satsumas, and local grass-fed beef.  With 187 members, ours is one of the largest buying clubs that Wholeshare has created.  I enjoy arriving to see my friends and neighbors gathering on a weeknight, while children make new friends.  As we are leaving, my young daughter says- "Mom, you know everybody", noting how many I have greeted that night.  And while what she says is far from true, I notice the warm feeling of this community in me;  I remember how I probably said something similar to my father, who really did, in a city much larger than this one, seem to know everybody.

It is now end of day and I am far from accomplishing everything on my list.  The taste of sweet blood orange is on my lips, as my heart slowly begins to remember-- that no matter how far we have to trudge, or how distant the bird call may seem, this is a precious moment., and everything we think we have lost is really still here within reach.  

The River in Me

One year ago, on the Sunday right before Ash Wednesday, I left church fighting back tears and went down to the river to pray.  A year has passed since that date and I am once again experiencing some of that sadness.  But this time the river I turn to does not beat against eagle-nested shores, but ebbs and flows in me.  Perhaps the sadness is just that ever-present longing- loss of our loved ones and friends is constant, and the more we age, the more we experience.  There is joy, and there is loneliness that follows.  And there is falling and finding again.  It is the secret wisdom to be one with that flow, and to stay steady-- even as I feel the sadness and acknowledge it, I am not overtaken and immobilized by it.  I recall on a recent spiritual direction meeting in Silver Bay, words my teacher said about not blocking the emotions that come.  I let them come; tears fall, but I do not fall apart.

It is from that opening that compassion flows.  Twice today I felt my eyes well with tears, in empathy.  Perhaps the empathy was strong because I know the chords of absence and longing so intimately myself.  There was a woman whose fiance had just died, and there was another who revealed an unexpressed feeling of abandonment. And my own heart rose, raw and vulnerable-- though my response was kind.

These are not tears of self-pity now, as I turn again to the quiet of this room and the patterns of this page.  This is a place of restoration, a river of living water and replenishment.  It has been some months of wandering in the desert, but it is time for a return.  Of course, Lent is associated more closely with deserts than with rivers, and I do not expect any sudden revelations from my contemplation.  Rather, I hope to find that thing that makes me wait, that emptying and purging that helps me to prepare.  The river will come, in time-- gatherings of many kinds I foresee.  And more I cannot foresee.

There is prophecy, but so much is yet to be foretold.  There are only the lines of a letter, and all that is longed and hoped for will be revealed in time.   

Return

The past three or four months have not been easy.  I have been overrun by busyness, and longed to return to the joyful communion of last summer and early fall. Attempts to begin again have been short-lived; I have lacked the discipline to sustain practice.  The end result:  some high points and some real low points, fluctuations of mood dependent on which way the wind blows.  The hurricane has tossed and swirled and I have not found center. I am a sailboat tossed at sea, without equanimity to keep me afloat.

And now I have come full circle-- approaching Ash Wednesday this week.  It was Lent of last year when I began the practice of nightly writing, following meditation. I credit my dedication to regular contemplative practice with the fruit that blossomed in my life last year, the fruit that continues to ripen and sweeten on the vine.  I must return.  Return to sitting, to writing, to train rides and morning woods, to slow conversations and deep listening, to healing circles, to synchronicity and aliveness, to hope.  I must return to worship on street corners, to warm mugs at coffeehouses, to waterfalls and crowded stations, to mountain hikes and marshes, to long hugs and long letter, to hearts held in love and hands held in prayer. I have fallen away from so much in frustration and despair, and I must lift myself from these dredges and return to the river that brings me life.

Ashes to ashes.  Dust to dust.  I begin again in centering prayer, in the silence of a red room.  I begin again to bring words to the page... and to bring my soul back to life.  It will take discipline, and the heart is lonely...the spirit is willing, the flesh weak.  Memory and will suffice.... I will do my best.