Domestic Mysticism

I must give credit to Grace for the title of this posting. Grace and her sister came to our church once recently and stayed for lunch and the inquirer's class afterward. We were talking about calling, and Grace said that she is called to domestic mysticism, among other things, you know: where you meditate as you sweep. Someone else that day was a proponent of mindfulness while doing dishes.

Poet Ann Weems poses the question of how we might do this in her poem, The Holy in the Ordinary, from her book, Kneeling in Jerusalem, a recommended resource for Lent and Easter. The last part captures the question:

Spiritual contemplation is all right
for those who have the time,
but most of us have to make a living.

Most of us have to live in the real world
where profanity splashes and blots out
anything holy.

Where, O Holy One, can we find You in this unholy mess?

How, O God, can we find the holy in the ordinary?

The Buddhist version of domestic mysticism is found in the saying, "chop wood, carry water." How do we practice mindfulness in everyday life? How do we gain the understanding that our everyday tasks are worthy and holy?

Molly Wolf has a book worth reading, or skimming and re-reading, if you've already read it, about this: White China: Finding the Divine in the Everyday. Mostly, I think this is about paying attention, about knowing that God really is present everywhere, and about understanding that being made in the image of God allows the possibility that we are and can be whole and holy, and Wolf emphasizes, while not letting our language about "God-stuff" get in our way.

Personally, cleaning is something I prefer in small doses. Unfortunately, like much of the rest of New England, I spent a lot of time the past two weekends cleaning out my waterlogged basement. After bailing out buckets and buckets of water to keep my basement from overflowing while it rained, mopping up, and picking up and taking out sixteen bags of soggy tiles and trash, I think that I may not want more opportunities to be a domestic mystic for a while.

As Passover coincides with Easter this year, though, I am reminded that a critical part of the ritual preparation for Passover is the attention paid to cleaning the house—mindfully and thoroughly. As we are planning to have both a Passover Seder and an Easter dinner, I just realized that I'm going to need to find the time to give the house a good cleaning. I think I may need to ask for help.

But you know, I don't find the phrase "clean house" in the Bible. So perhaps I will turn to this song that is often used during Lent instead:
Give me a clean heart, so I may serve you, a paraphrase of Psalm 51: 10:

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.

May our hearts be swept by and with the Spirit, and perhaps then cleaning our houses can be an ordinary, yet mindful and holy practice of our spirit filled hearts.

What matters?

O God, my God, I pray that these things never end...

I've had this song as a part of my listening collection for several years now, and just found the sheet music in the UUA hymnal supplement: Singing the Journey. It's written in Hebrew and in English, but here's the English text for the really haunting tune by David Zehavi: Eili, Eili

O God, my God, I pray that these things never end:
The sand and the sea,
The rush of the waters,
The crèche of the heavens,
The prayer of the heart.
~Hannah Senesh, 1921-1944

Hannah Senesh was a young Jewish woman, a writer who wanted to make a difference in the world, and who volunteered as a paratrooper and was killed after being captured while on a rescue mission to Hungary during World War II.

There are stars whose radiance is visible on earth
though they have long been extinct.
There are people whose brilliance continues to light
the world even though they are not longer among the living.
These lights are particularly bright
when the night is dark.
They light the way for human kind.
~Hannah Senesh

A more recent addition to my collection is the song by country/pop group Lady Antebellum: I Was Here.

You will notice me
I'll be leavin' my mark, like initials carved in an old oak tree,
you wait and see.
maybe I'll write like Twain wrote,
maybe I'll paint like Van Gogh,
cure the common cold.
I don't know but I'm ready to start 'cause I know in my heart

I wanna do something that matters,
say something different,
something that sets the whole world on its ear
I wanna do something better, with the time I've been given
and I wanna try to touch a few hearts in this life
and leave nothing less than something that says, I was here

I will prove you wrong
if you think I'm all talk, you're in for a shock
'cause this dream's too strong, and before too long
maybe I'll compose symphonies
maybe I'll fight for world peace
'cause I know it's my destiny to leave more than a trace of myself in this
place

I wanna do something that matters
say something different
something that sets the whole world on its ear
I wanna do something better, with the time I've been given
and I wanna try to touch a few hearts in this life
and leave nothing less than something that says, I was here

And I know that I, I will do more than just pass through this life
I'll leave nothing less than something that says I was here,
I was here,
I was here,
I was here

Wanna do something that matters
something that says I was here
wanna do something that matters
something that says, I was here,
I was here

Most of us are probably more like the person who wants to do something that matters, who fears that others will scoff because she is perhaps is all talk, with a dream that we don't know how to make come true. Hannah Senesh was right: we need to work and pray for the things that are important, those things we want to last, and in doing that perhaps we will become one of those people who do make a difference and light the way for others. That seems like a lot to ask some days.

Yet Emily Dickinson put it another way:

If I can stop one Heart from breaking
I shall not live in vain
If I can ease one Life the Aching
Or cool one Pain

Or help one fainting Robin
Unto his Nest again
I shall not live in Vain.
(from The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson)

So what if I am not a star that lights the way for all of human kind? We don't have to be heroes, write like Mark Twain, paint like Van Gogh, or cure the common cold to matter: just cool one pain, help one robin, ease one life. Surely, we can do that? It's a helpful perspective for me when I wonder if I am making a difference, if I'm doing the ministry I "should" be doing.

In doing something that matters: I gave up "shoulds" for Lent, yet in this last week I cooled one pain (brought out the icepack for my daughter's bruised shin), helped at least one robin (found a bag of bird seed in the basement to go out into the feeder), and eased one life (had a phone conversation about living in a relationship with chronic illness with someone who doesn't have nearby supports). It's perhaps not the ministry I could be doing or hoped I'd be doing now, but it is the ministry I am doing, and that's what matters.

Let us do what really matters. May the prayer of my heart and yours never end.

Foreseen in Joy, Present in Grace

This morning I took time to read a poem and my hand fell on Sabbaths by Wendell Berry and I opened to this poem, number X:

Whatever is foreseen in joy
Must be lived out from day to day.
Vision held open in the dark
By our ten thousand days of work.
Harvest will fill the barn; for that
The hand must ache, the face must sweat.

And yet no leaf or grain is filled
By work of ours; the field is tilled
And left to grace. That we may reap,
Great work is done while we're asleep.

When we work well, a Sabbath mood
Rests on our day, and finds it good.

What do you look forward to in joy? Is it your work? Do you have a vision, a goal or a harvest that you are willing to sweat for?

Yet, catch the punch line: "no leaf or grain is filled by work of ours; the field is tilled and left to grace."

How are you at leaving things to grace?

I find I am often busy doing, and am less successful at being present in grace, whatever that is. To know and understand that we are a forgiven people, to rest in true Sabbath in God's love and presence, to turn our work and our lives over with the understanding that our work and lives are a part of a greater work, those are inklings of grace.

I do not at all understand the mystery of grace -- only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us. ~Anne Lamott via Jim Taylor in Rumors

Yes, what is grace? My word processor's dictionary offers these definitions:

grace n
1. elegance, beauty, and smoothness of form or movement
2. dignified, polite, and decent behavior
3. a capacity to tolerate, accommodate, or forgive people
4. a short prayer of thanks to God said before, or sometimes after, a meal
5. See grace period
6. a pleasing and admirable quality or characteristic (usually plural)
7. in Christianity, the infinite love, mercy, favor, and goodwill shown to humankind by God
8. in Christianity, the condition of being free of sin, for example, through repentance to God
9. See grace note

vt
1. to make a pleasing contribution to an event, often by attending it (often used ironically)
2. to add elegance, beauty, or charm to something
3. to add ornamental or decorative notes to a piece of music

Encarta® World English Dictionary © 1999 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Developed for Microsoft by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

I think about grace often—my name, Nancy, means "full of grace" or "gracious." This morning my "Nancy" tea mug reminds me of that. Fortunately, I didn't discover that when I was adolescent and gawky and not at all living up to my name in being graceful. Now I understand grace more broadly, not just in large movements of the body, but in smaller gestures of the hands, and in actions toward others: that "capacity to tolerate, accommodate, or forgive people," made possible mostly by God's grace: "infinite love, mercy, and favor."

What is important about this poem is the reminder that joy and grace go together. Looking forward in joy requires grace in the present, or being present in grace. It also may mean getting unstuck from the past as this acronym of GRACE illustrates:

FIVE STEPS FOR MAKING A COMEBACK
1. Grieve to flush out the frustration over disappointment.
2. Rest to replenish your strength.
3. Accept new hope rising inside you.
4. Create new dreams.
5. Engage life with fresh energy.
Note the first letter of each strategy to identify the great comeback agent that makes all the difference in the world.
from Faithbook by Kirk B. Jones

The grace note to this morning's writing was the singing of Amazing Grace as our closing hymn today at church.

’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears relieved;
How precious did that grace appear
The hour I first believed.

Grace taught my heart to fear? That's in an old sense of that word: to be awed and to have wonder. It's a play on two meanings of the word, where today fear is almost always used negatively. But it is always wonderful when grace appears.

This morning's serendipitous occurrence of amazing grace reminded me of the bumper sticker I saw the other morning on the way to work:


The grace, joy and peace of God be with you.

Envy of the Sleek and Sound

I wake up creaky some mornings. Sometimes it's because I've been a bit too ambitious with developing my exercise habits this year. Like last weekend, when an evening walk led to trash picking a mini-exercise bike and my test drive of this working exercise equipment gave me sore legs for most of the week. Many other times it is our "friend Arthur," as my mother would say. Why me? —I don't understand.

Because I envied the proud
and saw the prosperity of the wicked:
For they suffer no pain,
and their bodies are sleek and sound;
In the misfortunes of others they have no share;
they are not afflicted as others are.

I have been afflicted all day long,
and punished every morning.

When I tried to understand these things,
it was too hard for me;
Until I entered the sanctuary of God
and discerned the end of the wicked.

But it is good for me to be near God;
I have made the Lord God my refuge.
Psalm 73: 3-5, 14, 16, 28

According to one article I just read, I can improve the creakiness by eating. Foods containing high quantities of sulfur may help to reduce arthritis pain by decreasing joint inflammation. These foods include avocados, lentils, broccoli, cabbage, coconut, soy beans, and garlic.

Additionally turmeric, oregano, dandelion, grapple plant, myrrh and juniper have a history of relieving aches and pains. They interrupt the inflammation process and help to increase the circulation in the joints.

My thought: but what are those foods going to do the digestive system? Those foods are often hard to digest and cause gas. Do I trade creaks for rumbles? Maybe the sleek and sound don't worry about such things.

I know that I can also exacerbate the creakiness by eating, particularly from the nightshade family: potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, and spinach. I suspect I'm not alone.

Do we really know someone, anyone who suffers no pain of any kind, who is not afflicted at all? I don't think so. But there are times I certainly get so involved in my own aches and pains that I don't have much sympathy for anyone else, until I "enter the sanctuary of God," that is, until I allow God's presence to be the filter for my awareness, and then I realize that the "wicked" come to an end in their own afflictions just like the rest of us.

God, be our refuge. Give us strength. Your strength helps us bear our aches and pains. Help us remember:

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
Psalm 46:1

Here is a favorite choral setting of Psalm 46:1 as a musical reminder of that. It'll shake away your aches and creaks.

Fearing to be God with Skin On

Last May, at my seminary graduation, I got a copy of God with Skin On: Finding God's Love in Human Relationships by Anne Robertson, as part of an award from the Mass. Bible Society. Robertson is the executive director of the Mass. Bible Society. It's a slim volume, and my early skimming of the book indicated that she is an engaging writer. I packed it for reading on at least three trips during the past year, as well a number of times for my lunch time reading, but somehow never quite started to read it. After packing it for my recent retreat and bringing it home again unopened, I had to ask myself: what about this book am I avoiding?

In her acknowledgments, the author gives a clue:

There were some days when just writing the first page of a chapter brought up so much junk that I couldn't write for the rest of the day. (p. vii)

Exactly—who among us had not acted or suffered in a relationship that we knew was not God-like, on our part or the other's?

The title of the book comes from this story:

A little boy reached that terrifying time of day when his mother would turn out the lights in his room and leave him for the night. Afraid of the dark and of being by himself he cried out for his mother to stay. Being a woman of faith, she reassured her son that God would be with him through the night. "But, Mama" he cried, "I need God with skin on!" (p. ix)

Here is the premise of this book:

What I want to do is explore the ways that our various relationships might impact our own relationship to God and how our actions toward others can help or hinder their ability to find the God of Jesus Christ.

You may be the only Jesus some people ever meet. You are "God with skin on" in every relationship you have. That's a huge responsibility, but also an amazing gift with the power to help "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." We may not get all the way there, but all of us can do a bit better tomorrow than we did today. When we do that, the God of grace will make up the difference. (p. 4)

Okay, it was clear to me why I had been avoiding this book. If I am in an uneasy place about any of my relationships with loved ones, friends, colleagues, members of my church, ex-loved ones, or even rude drivers on my commute, I don't want to confront the part of myself that is the face of God for those people and know that I am coming up short. When I am sarcastic, impatient, unkind, or angry, is that the face of God that people see? When I don't reach out to friends in trouble, when I don't find the time to call or write, does that mean that God's face is turned away from them? Yikes!

Yet over the past year I also have begun to have a relationship—of sorts—with Anne Robertson. She blogs and has a podcast and I have read those writings and listened to her reflections and she is a warm and compassionate human being. She's a "friend," well, an acquaintance, on Facebook, and even from her postings, she doesn't seem like the kind of person who would set me, or her other readers, up for a fall. So this past weekend I finally sat down and read her book.

Robertson spends a chapter each on various types of relationships: parents, siblings, covenant partners aka marriage, friends, peers/colleagues, authority, enemies, furry, virtual, and God. In each chapter she shares a story, gives some brief psychological insight or theories about the relationship type, opens up the Biblical witness about that kind of relationship, and then talks about being God with skin on—putting the psychology and Biblical witness into action in our lives. The book has discussion questions at the end of each chapter, although I can't quite imagine leading or participating in a one-time book group based on the book. I can imagine using the book chapters and the Biblical witness stories in particular as a springboard for a series of adult education classes and having discussions that way. Robertson opens up the Word with keen human insight, compassion and reason. I came away grateful, yet still challenged by the notion that I might be God with skin on.

While I do agree that I am called to love our neighbor as God loves us, and in that way I can be as God, the cautionary note that I would add to Robertson's book is that I am finite and God is not. I am not always successful at loving people. I hope that God is. I am not always successful at showing people whom I do love that I love them: I get tired or I forget to send a card or call or I get grumpy. God has more time and patience than I do. It's true that, like God, I don't always do what people want me to do, and that might be a useful reminder that God, with or without skin, is not ours to control.

Perhaps, I fear this idea because I know that I come up short, and I don't want people to think that God comes up short because they see God in me. Yet, I am also reminded of the old joke about the man caught in a flood:

It was flooding in [pick your location]. As the waters overflowed the banks, a man was standing on the stoop of his house by the river and another man in a row boat came by. The man in the row boat told the man on the stoop to get in and he'd save him. The man on the stoop said, no, he had faith in God and would wait for God to save him.

The flood waters kept rising and the man had to go to the second floor of his house. A man in a motor boat came by and told the man in the house to get in because he had come to rescue him. The man in the house said no, thank you, he had perfect faith in God and would wait for God to save him.

The flood waters kept rising. Pretty soon they were up to the man's roof and he climbed out on the roof. A helicopter then came by, lowered a rope and the pilot shouted down in the man in the house to climb up the rope because the helicopter had come to rescue him. The man on the roof wouldn't get in. He told the pilot that he had faith in God and would wait for God to rescue him.

The flood waters kept rising and the man in the house drowned. When he got to heaven, he asked God where he went wrong. He told God that he had perfect faith in God, but God had let him drown.

"What more do you want from me?" asked God. "I sent you two boats and a helicopter."

God with the skin on was there—sometimes we just don't see God right in front of our faces. We need to recognize God in our neighbor's face and that's why we are called to love our neighbor.

My morning Psalm reading captured it in this way:

Save me, O God, for the waters have risen up to my neck
I am sinking in deep mire, and there is no firm ground for my feet.
I have come into deep waters, and the torrent washes over me.

O God, you know my foolishness, and my faults are not hidden from you.
Let not those who hope in you be put to shame through me, Lord God of hosts;
let not those who seek you be disgraced because of me, O God of Israel.
Psalm 69: 1-3, 6-7

Here's the key—our relationship with God is played out in every relationship we have. Oh, not on God's part, but on ours: how else do we learn to have relationships but through the ones we see and experience? Do we see a violent parent? Do we think God is a god of wrath? Do we trust in the love of our parents? Do we know the love of God? The more I act in a loving way, the more loved I am and the more secure in that love I feel: God's love and human love.

Thanks, Anne, for sharing ways to see and know God's love.

May we see and be God with the skin on for one another, yet recognize that we humans are finite and have limits and that we must continue to seek God when human relationships disappoint us, and still give humans a chance to grow in love.

What does the wind tell you?

My pre-Lenten retreat reading was The Holy Way by Paula Huston. She examines ten spiritual practices: solitude, silence, awareness, purity, devotion, right livelihood, confidence, integrity, generosity, and tranquility. There is a lot of food for thought and room for action.

From her chapter on silence she writes:

When I looked at my own life and asked myself whether I could make it more peaceful, I was not at all hopeful. …
First, however, I had to learn how to seek out and refresh myself in the pools of silence that lay hidden along the pathway of my noisy daily round.(p. 40)

She had already begun a practice of solitude, but discovered that being alone is not always quiet—rather we often create our own internal noise. Once she quieted her own mind enough, she began to notice things.

The first thing I noticed was that the wing feathers of flying ducks make a hushed but definite squeaking noise, like the stiff rustling of hurrying petticoats. This, of course, was not silence—but it required some measure of silence for me to even notice it.

Next, I heard the dawn wind stirring the tops of the pines. This reminded me of the verse in John in which Jesus is telling his disciples an important fact: "The wind blows where it wills, and you can hear the sound it makes, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit" (John 3: 8). I realized that a person who did not regularly listen to the wind would miss entirely the point of Christ's metaphor—and would miss a fairly significant theological statement about how things work in the spiritual realm. (p. 41)

We had wind gusts while I was "on retreat," up to 50-60 mph. I will tell you that I notice the wind when it howls around a house at those speeds, or as it buffeted the car with sand on our drive. But most days, I don't notice the sound of the wind. Now, inside my own house, I hear the hiss of the radiator and the rumble of the furnace, and outside in the back yard I can see the dead leaves that remain on the honeysuckle vine shaking somewhat, but I don't hear the sound of the wind. To Huston's point, I wonder how often we don't notice the movement of the Spirit, just as we don't notice the sound of the wind unless it really is howling around us?

Having written that, I walked outside for a few minutes to see if I really could hear the wind that was stirring the leaves. I stood next to the vine and even bent down next to the branches that I saw moving, but all I could hear was the susurration of the cars going down the parkway a block away, a plane overhead, and one car going down the street in front of the house. As I turned to walk back in, there was a small gust, and finally I could hear it rushing by my own ears.

Who Has Seen the Wind?

by Christina Rossetti

Who has seen the wind?

Neither I nor you:

But when the leaves hang trembling,

The wind is passing through.

Who has seen the wind?

Neither you nor I:

But when the trees bow down their heads,

The wind is passing by.

What will it take for each of us to pay attention to the movement of the Spirit? Who has seen the Spirit at work? Huston recommends finding and spending time in silence. I suspect that is a relative silence—I have been nowhere that I can recall where outside sounds don't intrude, but even that will help still our jangling selves, so that we can know the presence of the Spirit of God. Perhaps like the trees we can bow our heads and know the Spirit is passing by.

Perhaps we just need to

Be still,
and know that I am:
God.
Psalm 46: 10.

A Place to Excel: Generosity

Now as you excel in everything—in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in utmost eagerness, and in our love for you—so we want you to excel also in this generous undertaking. (2 Cor. 8:7, NRSV)

Since you excel in so many ways—you have so much faith, such gifted speakers, such knowledge, such enthusiasm, and such love for us—now I want you to excel also in this gracious ministry of giving. (2 Cor. 8:7, New Living Translation)

Who do you know who excels in generosity?

Isn't this an interesting progression outlined in the verse above? After you excel in faith, in speech, in knowledge, in enthusiasm, and in love, then the ultimate place to excel is in generosity. That may be a slightly loose translation; grace, rather than generosity, or generous giving may be a closer translation, but nonetheless it captures the meaning of what Paul is trying to convey to the church at Corinth.

I am reading a book entitled The Giving Myths: Giving Then Getting the Life You've Always Wanted by Stephen McSwain that provoked these thoughts and questions, and I'm hopeful that he'll provide some direction or answers before I’m done reading.

Would you define yourself as generous? In this economic climate, I think many of us are fearful and perhaps had been holding back on our giving, rather than being more generous. But truly, I suspect that generosity is the sign that we have faith, and are filled with the Spirit (enthused) and that we love. Think about what expressions you might make about or of your faith, of the Spirit's presence within you, of your love for another—aren't all of those manifested in generosity?

Fear is the thing that gets in the way of love, of faith and, clearly, of generosity.

Jesus is quoted by Paul in Acts 20:35:

In all this I have given you an example that by such work we must support the weak, remembering the words of the Lord Jesus, for he himself said, 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.'

Do you ever think of that? How often do you act on it? What would you have to do, what or how would you have to give for you to think of yourself as excelling in generosity?

In writing that I was reminded of the management book, In Search of Excellence by Tom Peters. He named a key value: the ability to manage ambiguity and paradox and eight attributes of excellent corporations--summarized in his chapter headings. Unfortunately a number of the corporations he named as excellent in the 1980's are now defunct, so it's hard to know if those attributes really reflect excellence. Perhaps it is unnecessary to note, given the economic meltdown of the past two years prompted by greed, that none of those attributes included or ended with generosity.

Oddly enough, I just read something in God with Skin On by Anne Robertson that speaks to what happens when we have a generous spirit corporately: it's called cooperation rather than competition.

The business study looked at the field of Formula 1 racing and how the competition between the companies who developed the engines for the race cars affected both their own bottom line and the sport as a whole. They found that when a company was highly competitive, keeping its techniques and formulas away from the prying eyes of other engine manufacturers, the company rose to the top of its class.

On the other hand, when there was a sharing of technologies, methods, and information--a more open-source approach--the result was a successful overall industry. In other words, competition produced an engine that was superior to all the others and a good bottom line for the company that made it. Cooperation produced a variety of good engines across the board and a number of firms with sustainable profits. p. 67-8

Doesn't that sound like generosity? Robertson goes on to talk about the impact of cooperation vs. competition on relationships and our ability to be "God with skin on" for others--more on her book in another post.

I struggle with generosity myself, particularly around giving money, and had suspected that struggle came from being the child of Depression-era parents, but I think I may need to reflect on generosity for progress in my own spiritual and faith journey. As texts for reflection, my morning Psalm reading included these verses:

Deal bountifully with your servant, so that I may live and observe your word. Psalm 119:17

It is well with those who deal generously and lend, who conduct their affairs with justice. Psalm 112:5

Perhaps we need to ask for and trust in God's bounty, and understand that we emulate God in our generosity. Your generous comments are always welcome.

Highway Driving

The problem with getting away from it all is that when you live, as I do, in an urban area, you have to do a lot of highway driving before you are away from it all. If the highway is congested, it's yet another stressor that presumably you were trying to escape.

The other day as we were getting away from it all, heading south on Rt. 93 from Boston, I came to the split in the highway for the HOV lane (high occupancy vehicle = 2+people—and how it is that two people is high occupancy for a car is yet another commentary on the need to get away from it all). I don't take this road often and didn't act quickly enough to get into the lane, but consoled myself with the thought that there would be another chance.

Not so.

You see, the HOV lane has one entrance and one exit—if you take the HOV lane you can't get lost, and really, you can't get off either. You've made a commitment, and can sail on by the others who are stuck in the traffic jam.

A highway shall be there,

and it shall be called the Holy Way;

the unclean shall not travel on it,

but it shall be for God's people;

no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray.

Isaiah 35: 8

What does it take for us to get onto the Holy Way? God promises that we will not go astray once we are there. I think that many of us fear that we only had one chance, that we've missed our turn, or that it's too much hassle.

After missing the HOV lane, we finally made it down past the congestion and traffic thinned out some. But the point where you know that you really are away from it all is when, on Rt. 6 on Cape Cod at least, the road narrows to one lane with no passing for the next 13 miles. "No traveler, not even fools, shall go astray." There are a couple of exits, but for the most part, it is just a clear shot down the road. Sometimes, I think, we have to make choices to turn our lives over to God, to be on the Holy Way. Oddly, but blessedly, once that decision is made and we get past the congestion and mental mess that we are in, it is smooth traveling.

Perhaps the most important thing is not to mistake the commuter HOV lane for the Holy Way.

Singing the Psalms

One of the spiritual practices that has been most helpful to me is "singing the Psalms." A number of years ago, I had been trying to read the Bible daily and that just seemed too hard and dry, and then I found this article Introduction: Praying the Prayers Jesus Prayed: Learning to sing the psalms by Cynthia Bourgeault.

Music has always been a way to God for me, and music proved to be my path into the scriptures as well. While I do not always read the Psalms daily, at key times in my life I have read or sung the entire book of Psalms several times as a part of a daily morning and evening practice. Inspired by references to Benedictine monastic practices of singing or saying the Psalms daily in The Holy Way by Paula Huston, I thought that I would re-institute my cycle of Psalms calendar. This calendar includes readings morning and evening and you can read or sing or chant all of the Psalms in six weeks. So if you start on the first Sunday of Lent, you'll be done by Easter.

If you right-click you can get a larger printable version that you can print out for your own use. I also have this in an Excel spreadsheet that I could share—useful for when you want to change the starting date, and all the other dates will change. Leave me a comment with your email if you are interested.

One of my dear friends gave me the St. John's Illustrated Book of Psalms as a graduation present from seminary. This beautiful work of art is a double inspiration as I use it for my Psalm singing. One of the features of this edition is that each Psalm is categorized. According to their categories, with some Psalms being split into two categories, there are 57 Psalms of lament, 27 Hymn Psalms, 18 Psalms of Thanksgiving, 11 Psalms of Confidence, 11 Psalms of Wisdom, 10 Liturgy Psalms, 9 Royal Psalms, 6 Psalms of Zion Sings, and 5 Historical Psalms.

So, if as you go through you think that the Psalmist was wailing and whining a lot, it's true. More than a third of Psalms are lamenting or complaining to God. I think that is a useful reminder that our relationship with God can include complaints about God's behavior and anger at God and questions to God.

I would also highly recommend these singable inclusive language psalters: The Psalter by Gabe Huck, unfortunately out of print, but available used, and Psalter for the Christian People by Gordon Lathrop and Gail Ramshaw. Nan Merrill's Psalms for Praying goes even further in re-imaging the some of the militaristic and patriarchal language of the Psalms.

Someone once said that the Psalms cover every conceivable human emotion, so reading or singing the Psalms is very therapeutic. I hope that you enjoy your journey through the Psalms. If you want to delve deeper, Cynthia Bourgeault has an audio CD with a booklet of singing instructions, Singing the Psalms, and a book with an instructional CD, Chanting the Psalms. What is so helpful about Bourgeault's recordings is that they are of an ordinary singer doing this in everyday life. When I sing the Psalms early in the morning with a frog in my throat, it is not about a public performance, but about opening myself and the world to God's presence through the Psalms.

p.s. Realizing how limited time can be on weekday mornings, I also created a cycle for just weekends. This will take less than six months. See below:

Out of the Ashes

What kind of ashes do we choose? What ashes do we use and how?

Psalm 147: 16-17

God's command is sent out to the earth,

and the word of the Lord runs very swiftly.

God gives snow like wool

and scatters frost like ashes.

This winter we certainly have had snow like wool and frost like ashes.

I searched the Bible for places it discusses ashes, and most other references are either to sackcloth and ashes of mourning or to disposing of the ashes from the sacrifices on the altars.

Isaiah 58: 5-7

Is such the fast that I choose, a day to humble oneself? Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush, and to lie in sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord?

Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?

Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?

Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.

Isaiah reminds us that our ashes cannot be of form only, but must be of substance, of action.

One of the most moving experiences of my field education (church internship) year during seminary came on the afternoon of Ash Wednesday. The church building had burned two years prior and we were holding services in the "sacred double-wide" trailer as we figured out if, and how, to rebuild the building. Traditionally, I understand, the ashes for the ritual marking come from burning some of the palms from the previous year's Palm Sunday. In this situation, we were not nearly so organized, but the pastor said, "We've got plenty of ashes around here—go outside and get some." I found one of the fallen and charred support beams out in front of the trailer that was being used as a border to a flower bed. I pried a hunk of ash off and took it inside and we ground it with a mortar and pestle. During the service, we mixed the ash with olive oil from Palestine and used that to mark the foreheads of people attending. This ash had meaning.

Out of the ashes, comes healing, cleansing and new life. That really is the meaning of the mark of ashes.

I discovered that those uses are literally true, as a search for "uses for ashes" came up with this product, a bag of wood ash.

Besides using ashes for Ash Wednesday, here are some of the other things you can do with ashes, according to the product description:

There are many great ways to use wood ash around your garden and your home:
1) Fertilizer: Wood ash is packed with potassium, phosphorus and calcium! Don't miss out on this great fertilizer! Adds potassium to your compost pile for complete nutrition.
2) Change PH levels in Soil: Wood ash reduces soil acidity as it is strongly alkaline.
3) Ward Off Slugs: Place a ring of ash around plants being destroyed by slugs and sit back and relax! The slugs who pass over the ring of ash are coated in the fine, dry particles. The ash acts just like salt on a slug and will dry that little guy up faster than you can say Bob's your uncle!
4) Protect Plants Over Winter: Heap wood ashes around fragile plants stumps like rhubarb, fuchsias, and ferns to protect them over the winter. Over the course of the winter nutrients from the ash will seep down to the roots of the plants as well.
5) Use as a Chicken Dust Bath: Wood ash in a box or crate makes an excellent dust bath for poultry.
6) Make soap: Soaking ashes in water makes lye, which can be mixed with animal fat and then boiled to produce soap. Salt makes it harden as it cools.
7) Control Pond Algae: One tablespoon per 1,000 gallons adds enough potassium to strengthen other aquatic plants that compete with algae, slowing its growth.
8) Boost Your Tomato Plants: To give your tomatoes and other calcium loving plants a shot in the arm add 1/4 cup in the hole when planting!
9) Shine silver: A paste of ash and water makes a dandy nontoxic metal polisher.
10) Enrich compost: Before the organic compound gets applied to soil, enhance its nutrients by sprinkling in a few ashes.
11) Eco-Friendly Ice Melting: Melting ice and show with minimum damage to environment! Ash adds traction and de-ices without hurting soil or concrete underneath.
12) Ash Glazes on Pottery: Glaze your Ceramics, Pottery & Clay Art.

Who knew?!

The Phoenix myth is also about new life out of the ashes, and I was happy to celebrate with my internship church their newly re-opened church building last month, on the fifth anniversary of the fire. I hope that they saved a supply of ash for Ash Wednesday, and I pray they run out of that supply of ashes before any more get created by a building fire.

Writings from Retreat

I have been "on retreat" for the past few days, and am on vacation for another few. My retreat and spontaneous vacation plans were prompted by the realization that I really needed a break, and I'm grateful for being able to take this time away. One of the interesting characteristics of the place where I spent some of my retreat time is that my cell phone didn't get reception, the internet didn't work, and the landline phone didn't have long distance. So the computer I had with me was really just a typewriter.

Just before I left I got an email advertisement for a book titled Reboot: Refreshing Your Faith in a High Tech World by Peggy Kendall. Although I only had time to read the on-line introduction/sample, I think I was operating in the spirit of this book while away. And my beeline for my email and internet connection on my return home certainly raises the question of technology's place in my life. I'll be thinking on these things.

My unplugged retreat time was not a problem though: I had stocked up on books. One of my pre-Lenten retreat readings was The Holy Way by Paula Huston. She examines ten spiritual practices: solitude, silence, awareness, purity, devotion, right livelihood, confidence, integrity, generosity, and tranquility, through her own life's struggles and search for those spiritual qualities and through lives of saints that exemplify them. I recommend the book, and you'll be hearing more about that as I roll out my writings from retreat during Lent as reflections.

Growing up as a Baptist farm child, the only saints I knew anything about were St. Valentine, St. Patrick and St. Nicholas, none of whom, no surprise, are the saints that Huston uses as her models. That made me wonder what the Baptist equivalents might be, but I have not yet come up with answers—the apostles and prophets don't quite exemplify all those traits. Yet, I guess that these secularized saints that were the only ones I knew as a child do exemplify some key traits: St. Valentine's Day is about love, and it is certainly a good thing to say "I love you" to those you love, and some people need the reminder; St. Patrick's Day is about green things, and by that point in the winter we all need the promise of new life and green and growing things; and St. Nicholas was all about giving, and in the ideal that also is a good thing, if it hadn't become overblown and commercialized.

One of the things I decided to do on retreat was to write some Lenten reflections, so I will be posting more frequently to this blog during Lent. I'm not committing to daily postings, but more than weekly. If you are giving up social networking for Lent as one of my Facebook friends has promised to do, or if you also are examining the more intrusive role of technology in your life, the good news is that these writings will be there when you get back, or you will never miss them.

In the meantime, Happy Valentine's Day. May you know the love of God in your life, and be reminded to tell those you love that you love them.