just what i needed

yesterday was just what i needed. kind of like pushing a 're-set' button on my psyche. i know i have a lot of time in the week to have done what i did, but somehow i don't take it. yesterday a.m. my worship was orchestrated by god. it was incredible how tied together everything was.

i began here (i didn't know it at the time, i thought i was just reading erin's blog) and those three short videos reminded me (again) that yes, i am on the right track. god is with the poor even though the church doesn't seem to be. (please take time to watch them - the idea of jesus being a shadowman is vital).

i then sat at my family altar and lit the candles and spent time in solitude and silence. quieting my soul is hard for me. my brain runs a mile a minute and i don't immediately see the benefits of silent time until later in my day, but just breathing and being still prepared me for what was next.

earlier that morning i had began to fill a scavenged book shelf with all of my most favorite books. i was pulling them from piles and other shelves and came across a story book i hadn't seen before. i don't know where we got it and it was placed in a strange place, sticking out of some non-fiction as if the holy spirit said "here, this one". it is called "the sleeping bread". it was my scriptures for the morning. here's what one reviewer said of the story:

Set in a Guatemalan village, it tells the story of Beto, a kind-hearted baker, and Zafiro, a beggar for whom Beto always saves his crusts. Unlike Beto, the villagers want only to be rid of Zafiro, and as festival time approaches, they force him to leave. While Zafiro is bidding Beto goodbye, one of Zafiro's bitter tears falls in the baking water. The result — Beto can no longer make bread. The dough refuses to rise. All finally ends well when Beto persuades the villagers to invite Zafiro back to the village. The mystery is solved, the villagers feast again on Beta's wonderful bread, and Zafiro is given a place of honour in the festival procession.

after my love affair with "sleeping with bread" this so beautifully tied together my passions.

i went from there to some time with a book i had been avoiding, the cup of life - i realized upon opening it why i had been avoiding it... this chapter was on suffering. this meditation was on sitting with our empty cup and the consequences of the life decisions we had made, both the joy and the suffering. i realized that living my life as openly as possible has meant that i make people uncomfortable. it is a choice and it has consequences. i really want it no other way. would i love for more people to join into this life choice, most definitely, but until then sitting with the pain of the loneliness was important and i felt such comfort in knowing that being in the margins and shadows was a place that jesus dwelt.

so all in all, and in many ways i can't articulate here, my choice yesterday was important and i'm so glad i honored that nudge to "be" and let god minister to me. it was the right thing do to. thank you for your encouragement, it means so much to me!

alone at last!

today is the first day i have been alone and quiet enough to sit in silence, light a candle and journal my thoughts. it is a good thing.

i hit my threshold yesterday. you know that imaginary mark you place on a calendar or in your mind that says "i can make it until HERE", "if i can just hold out until IT'S over", "only THREE MORE DAYS until they're gone"? i had been holding out 'the first day of school' as that threshold, and none of it was spent alone, in quiet or taking deep breaths. by supper time i was pretty stressed out.

i awoke this morning around 6:00 and laid in bed thinking through some inconsistencies i had been unable to put my finger on. the clarity was beautiful. so much so that i didn't want to loose the thoughts and headed for the computer. i realized on my way though that if i opened up the internet i would get lost (as would my clarity) in the looking glass this computer is for me far too many times.

so i did what i haven't done in months. i picked up a pen, grabbed my fresh, new journal and wrote three pages of thoughts on the ah-ha's i had this morning. oh how i have missed that medium. the horror of missing things (or getting old and not remembering that you are missing things?) is that the imprint it leaves on our lives disappears so very quickly that we forget how important it is.

writing by hand engages different parts of my brain that writing on the computer. it's actually why i still use lower case letters. because i spent so many years typing for the institutions in my life that i become a different person when i must punctuate and capitalize. it engages a part of my brain that is thwarted far too often by my frustrated perfectionist. so lower case slides right by him somehow. (and yes, he is a man, i don't know why - but he is...)

anyway, back to the real purpose of this post. after everyone left i grabbed my guide (the cup of life, joyce rupp, that is taking me FAR TOO LONG to move through) and my own 'cup of life', and the sparker to light my candles on my altar. downsizing here at the flat meant that the table altar we had at our last home didn't fit here and it gave me a lot of frustration trying to find a space where it could nest.

another frustration here at the flat is a monolith of a brick fireplace - when the roof was replaced on the house they didn't fix the chimneys and the three fireplaces are now just monoliths instead of useful, warm additions to our space (the lower apartment has 2, we only have 1). it was uncared for by previous tenants and needed some love. we used stove paint to clean up the interior bricks and then it just looked like a black hole in the room. ideally we would have candelabras and lovely pillar candles to fill it with - they just didn't fit into the budget. so in a brush of impulsiveness i decided to marry the two decorating dilemmas i was having and put the altar in the fireplace. i blogged about my deep desire for a sacred space within my home way back in october 2004.

ta-da.

it's not really what i would have chosen in my 'perfect decorating world' but it works for now. i really want to paint a wrapped canvas with a fire element art piece, but that will have to wait for those cold winter nights. until then this is where i light my candles and pray for you.

as i sat there on my knees i thought how busy it looked and thought that simplifying it might help. then realized how each piece on the altar was significant to me and i thought i'd give you a tour.

this is my inukshuk. i know they are 'supposed' to have legs. i tried and tried to balance the rocks we found (each member of the family or tribe gathers the rocks for the inukshucks and all are important and used). he kept falling over. over and over. to the point where i was going to start over, scatter the rocks and we'd all find new ones on another trip to the shore. then i realized that he wasn't a he, he was a she. she is me. i am here. life is found here. community is found here. sustenance is found here.

this birdcage is a gift from my family. it was one of my most favorite christmas presents. you see i needed a bird for my empty birdcage i posted about here.

and this is getting far to long of a tour and a blog post, so i will leave you with this, pink drew it for me years ago and it's of her and i celebrating together:

i need words

i am finding it far too easy to be distracted from writing lately. kids home, reading all of your words, tv on, music on, good books, housework, sunshine, etc. unfortunately most of those are really good things - but i think it's more than that. i think i'm chickening out.

i need to do some deep soul work and i've gotten lazy. distractions are so much easier. liam took the kids to the festival tonight. chocolate dipping lessons - i knew that would be too much for me, so here i am in the silence - no distractions - but just fingers away... talking on the phone, listening to a podcast, reading other's blogs, even cleaning looks more attractive than admitting that i'm afraid right now.

afraid of what? i'm so out of touch with my own thoughts i don't really know. i've gotten so good at helping liam process out his own thoughts they have become a smoke screen. for years he rode the coat-tails of my recovery and soul-work... now i'm riding his.

the counsellor friend who moved to town isn't taking clients - so i emailed the counsellor who is on staff at the church and the university. he is such a kind, soft-spoken man. i have gotten to know him a bit better since i judged him too soft to help me. i determined early that he would be put off by my personality. i have since found out more about his sense of humor, his passion for justice, his heart for the down-trodden and the underdog. i just emailed him asking to begin living 'the examined life' again.

it's my heart's cry. my deep need. hopefully it will begin soon. it's just far too easy to get distracted. it's more fun to get distracted. live like i have no problems, no worries, no fears. i guess i have found some words, but now that i have i want to run to those distractions - uncovering the fear makes me want to flee. being present to the emotions without distraction isn't something i feel up to right now.

well, i guess burying myself in a good book isn't such a bad thing, right?

light a candle, say a prayer

margaret at gratefulness.org just let me know that they have updated and improved the 'light a candle website' - very cool way to join the global prayers being lifted up world-wide.

Light A Candle - Birthday candles, Virtual candles, Votive candles, Memorial candles, Cyber candles - Light candles online

alone at last...

alone. all alone. me. peace. quiet. sigh.

the temptation to fill the space with noise or distraction is great. i haven't been alone in months. really. i realized a couple of weeks ago that is why my blogging and writing have been crap and non-existent. there is no place to go to be alone and type. the computer is just off the living room, i am much more visible here, so conversations and questions are more frequent. anyone wanting to watch tv becomes fully in my sight and distraction is a powerful thing to my add mind, even when i don't want to participate. rubbing two thoughts together looking for the small flame to catch became such a fleeting thing, and the breeze of distraction snuffed that tiny flame out far too often.

alone brings a lot of fear with it too. loneliness is one of my greatest triggers for my addictions. solitude is a joyous thing, loneliness a burden. the difference lies mostly in my emotional state of being which seems pretty fragile lately too.

i have been having wonderful phone conversations to take the place of blogging as of late. and i explained our emotional state to friends using the tides that are so extreme here in our corner of the world. when the tides are out we are calm, enjoying life and picking through the debris the tide left. it's not denial, but it's a kissing cousin. life seems calm, peaceful and carefree. but then tide returns, we're up to our necks in life, details, and reality. the panic of survival causes us to pull and push at each other in ways that threaten us all.

new friends have told us of the tourists who moor their boats at low tide with insufficient line on their anchors. they return to their boats at high tide and they are vertical in the water. what once was 10' of water is now 50' of water and the lack of preparation threatens to sink their craft.

we are building a boat here. one to ride out the waves, the changes and the tides. it is a process and much of the time we are able to follow the plans, work together and make progress. but sometimes that storm hits, or the wind blows and we are left short of resources and energy and the boat looks as if it will never be completed.

we have made friends though, who are coming along side to help. amazing friends. supportive, knowledgeable, loving friends who have weathered many of these same storms. who can read the tides and help us earn our sea legs. it is a beautiful community, warm, welcoming and full of life. this has been quite a season for our family.

last night at the dinner table we talked about lent. i looked at those i treasure so dearly and said 'you know, i think we've all given up quite enough this year, i think maybe for lent this year we celebrate and honor the sacrifices we have all made since easter last year. maybe this year we remember by creating art, holding space for each other to express our journey here and seeing jesus in our new community and celebrating him there.

i realized after acknowledging the sacrifices of this past year that it was the season of lent last year when everything started to go south for us. i will look forward to marking this anniversary in a different way. so much has changed, we have changed. but our paths have remained the same, the scenery is oh so very different, and this time we're not walking it all alone.

like breathing in and breathing out

i LOVE paradox and i'm coming to believe it's where much truth is found and that GOD loves paradox - what a sense of humor THEY have!!

i've been (slowly at first) voraciously reading through 'a hidden wholeness' - parker palmer's new book (i got an advance reader's copy off ebay) and YOU'RE GONNA LOVE IT!!

here's a taste that made me gasp out loud this morning:

In a circle of trust, we practice the paradox of "being alone together," of being present to one another as a "community of solitudes." Those phrases sound like contradictions because we think of solitude and community as either-or. But solitude and community, rightly understood, go together as both-and. To understand true self - which knows who we are in our inwardness and whose we are in the larger world - we need both the interior intimacy that comes with solitude and the otherness that comes with community.

When we split solitude and community into an either-or and act as if we can get along with only one or the other, we put ourselves in spiritual peril. The theologian Deitrich Bonhoeffer warned us about this risk in his classic Life Together. "Let [the person] who cannot be alone beware of community. Let [the person] who is not in community beware of being alone."

Bonhoeffer's warning is based on two simple truths. We have much to learn from within, but it is easy to get lost in the labyrinth of the inner life. We have much to learn from others, but it is easy to get lost in the confusion of the crowd. So we need solitude and community simultaneously: what we learn in one mode can check and balance what we learn in the other. Together, they make us whole, like breathing in and breathing out.

But exactly how solitude and community go together turns out to be trickier than breathing. When we say we are in solitude, we often bring other people with us: think of how often our "solitude" is interrupted by an interior conversation with someone who is not there! When we say we are in community, we often lose track of true self: think of how easily we can forget who we are when we get entangled in group dynamics.

If we are to hold solitude and community together as a true paradox, we need to deepen our understanding of both poles. Solitude does not necessarily mean living apart from others; it means never living apart from one's self. It is not about the absence of other people - it is about being fully present to ourselves, whether or not we are with others. Community does not necessary mean living face-to-face with others; rather, it means never losing the awareness that we are connected to each other. It is not about the presence of other people - it is about being fully open to the reality of relationship, whether or not we are alone.

see, told you it was wonderful!!

the furnace of transformation

oh this is exactly where i am at today:

On The Journey Towards Solitude
written by Sue Mosteller

After his baptism and led by the Spirit, Jesus entered the desert of solitude to hear an invitation to transformation. The devil said, "Do something relevant by changing stones to bread; be spectacular by jumping from the temple before the crowd; and claim all worldly power by worshipping me." Jesus is alone to decide. He knows and we know that it's much more painful to be hungry than to be satisfied, much more 'ordinary' to be hidden than spectacular, and much more incomprehensible to be powerless when power is offered. But he also knows, as do we, that hunger, ordinariness, and hiddenness, ground us in the truth of our lives.

In "The Way of the Heart," Henri Nouwen says that solitude is the furnace of transformation. As the intense heat of the foundry furnace melts, purifies, and transforms hard ores into precious metals, so the furnace of solitude melts deceptions, confronts us with death, and invites our surrender to the presence and love of the One who dwells within and loves us with an everlasting love. This intense human struggle and surrender to our deepest heart and integrity is long and of great proportions -beyond our best abilities.

Let us reflect for a moment quietly on the burning issues of our lives today in the light of our certain death in the near or distant future. And let us connect for a moment to that wonderful and privileged place in each of our hearts where the One Who knows us intimately and with everlasting love speaks. "I love you. Your name is written on the palm of my hand. Do you love me? Act from your unique love and compassion and feed my lambs."

sign up for the daily or weekly reflection here.

gentleness and love

laura at beentherestillthere introduced me to this amazing merton quote that i needed desperately:

"It is in deep solitude that I find the gentleness with which I can truly love my brothers (and sisters). The more solitary I am the more affection I have for them…. Solitude and silence teach me to love my brothers (and sisters) for what they are, not for what they say." --Thomas Merton

gentleness, love and affection have been in short supply around here - maybe i need some solitude and silence??