Birds As Teachers

What a gorgeous day! The birds are out in full force, as if it is Spring already, full of song and fluttering joy. They've also taught me a thing or two-- lessons I'd like to share with you!

Lesson One: The other day I heard a thud at my window near the feeder. A finch had flown into it, and was lying, on its back, stunned on the deck. Her (it was a female) wings fluttered wildly as she struggled to recover and right herself. She would exhaust herself in these efforts, and then resume them. I feared a wing might be broken, or worse. I prayed for her as I watched. But she saw me, I think, and seemed to panic all the more, so I removed myself, and came back only periodically to watch her progress-- hoping there would be some.

In a little while, she was still on her back, her wings folded at her side. I despaired. Then, she tussled to her feet and staggered around, but still I worried. A little time passed, and when I came back, she was on her feet, sort of, with her head thrown back in a contortion that looked for all the world to me like prayer! Imagine a finch praying! I joined her!

A little bit after that, I saw her sitting under a planter. She had moved, but her head was still cocked oddly to one side... I imagined that she'd be unable to leave the porch, but she might eat what seed she could find on the deck.

Then, a little while after that, when I returned to check on her, she was gone! Where did she go?, I asked myself. I looked to see if she'd fallen off the deck or hopped into a corner, but I couldn't find her. It took me a while to believe that she might actually have flown away! But I believe she did.

Here's what I want to believe she taught me: There ARE times in life when we simply fly into barriers! I did, last Summer! And yes, these are stunning experiences. But yes, too, we can recover, and fly on, if we take the time it takes... And if we pray in the process! God's eye is not only on the sparrow-- God is watching us, and the finches, too!

Lesson Two: As you know, we've had rainier weather than usual lately, and I'm guessing that for that that reason the bird feeder has become somewhat clogged. I put seed in the top, shake it until it appears in the bottom, but it doesn't keep coming down, and the birds eat thus mostly from the middle. It gets rather crowded there!

So today, taking advantage of the good weather, I cleaned the feeder, as thoroughly as I could, flushing out the chunks of seed that had glommed near the bottom. I waited for it to dry, and put it back out. Now the seed flows easily from top clear through the bottom, and more birds benefit.

What I'm taking from this is that it is as important to us spiritually to be clear at the "bottom" of ourselves as at the "top!" I don't mean to be recommending a spiritual "colonic," necessarily... But there are ways we get kind of clogged... and may not know it! A thorough spiritual cleansing can do us a lot of good!

I'm reminded of the Essenes, a devout people of Jesus' day, who highly valued spiritual "purity," and thus the water that it took to achieve that. The Christian sacrament of baptism likely had some connection with things the Essenes did.

Well, maybe, if we are to be of service and to "feed" others well, maybe we need to consider an occasional "re-baptism," as it were: a discipline of cleansing and re-dedication to the spiritual purpose for which God has called us. Some of the "old" in us will need to be washed away, so that we are able to be "re-filled" by the Holy Spirit-- and thus "cleared" to serve!

I don't know... Maybe I'm stretching this analogy too far! I just know: the birds appreciate their feeder more now. It is as if "new" to them. Behold, God makes ALL things new! Even us... Even us...

Blessings!

Bucket List

Do I usually use this space for movie reviews? Not to my recollection! But I have just seen the Nicholson/Freeman buddy movie, "The Bucket List," and I can't resist a note or two...

First, LOTS of good dialogue! I mean, I loved Jack as the "hedonist who discovers his heart" and Morgan as the "auto mechanic whose grease disguises an intellectual." (Freeman deserves special kudos because he was able to sound smart without coming across as pedantic-- a trick I have not yet learned!) Anyway, they were engaging...

Second, maybe my favorite scene was atop a pyramid in Egypt, where Morgan/Carter asks Jack/Ed the two questions the Egyptian dead were asked in order to enter "Egyptian heaven:" 1) In your life, did you experience joy? and 2) In your life, were you a (means to the) joy to others? (Something like that!) Ah... so Egyptian Life was about Joy, felt and elicited? Very different from the "happiness" we Americans take pride in pursuing, huh?

Third, the song at the end, that reprises a line Carter speaks of Ed at the beginning. It is sung by John Mayer-- who probably was the only singer who could get away with singing this song over and over... Anyway, the three lines are: "Say what you want to say!/ Even as your eyes are closin',/ may your heart be open..." I liked that...

This is hardly a head-trippin' movie with a message. But it was a meaningful diversion... And so relatively quiet that we could hear the sounds from the movie next door reverbertating through our theater!

So Bucket List is a movie that touches one's heart without hurting one's ears!

Blessings!

Sacred Web

Especially at this time in my life, I am grateful for all the relationships I have-- and even the ones that I've had that have brought me to this point. Along the lines of that common saying that we are to each other for "a reason, a season, or a lifetime," I offer the following from Transitions by Julia Cameron. It was my meditation a day or two ago...

"We do not interact at random. We are in each other's lives for spiritual reasons. We have 'business' with one another. By consciously choosing to focus on why I have met someone, on how I can best serve and expand another, I bring to each encounter a heightened awareness. As I ask to love all and serve all, I bring forward my spiritual gifts and call forward the gifts of others. Grace fills every moment when we are truly present. Sometimes we transit each other's lives like benevolent planets."

Ah, yes, this coming into and going out of each other's lives... How true that has been for me. Last year had its beginnings and it certainly had its endings! This year, likely more of the same, huh? So honoring the "transiting" and the transitions, and bringing a mindfulness and a sense of service... Letting Grace fill every moment, because all moments are precious...

May God keep our goings out and our comings in, daily, and ever more!

Looking Back

I was working on a sermon on Philippians 3, when something Paul says around v. 14, struck me: "forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead..." How does he DO that, I wondered? How does he forget "what lies behind..."? And: is that a good thing?

It put me to mind of certain myths and legends-- because, I mean, people have been faced with this existential dilemma for some long time! For instance, the story of Orpheus and Eurydice came to mind: How he loved her uncommonly and completely, and would celebrate his loving her in music and song. How she died, and went to Hades (because, in those pre-Christian days, everyone who died went to "hell"), and how Orpheus in his unrelenting grief descended into Hades himself to plead for her release from the land of the Dead (Hades was were the dead were, but it wasn't so far that one could not get there from here!). It was agreed that she could go-- as long as she never looked back! So Orpheus, playing his flute, leads Eurydice out of Hades-- and they are almost to the surface, when, yes, she looks back, and is lost to him forever.

Something similar happens between a mother and a daughter, Demeter and Persephone, and because Persephone looks back, we have the four seasons of the year, and not just Spring and Summer.

Then, of course, there's Lot's wife, who, in looking back as the Lord destroys their hometown of Sodom (or was it Gomorrah?), is turned into a pillar of salt...

OK, I'm saying to myself, I get the message! Looking back is not such a good thing! And not just for women-- although, yes, those who look back in these stories are women. For me, too...

I have to say about myself that I am a terrible romantic. And I mean what I say: I am terrible! When a romantic relationship ends in my life-- as one just did-- I have this terrible time looking back. Pining. Wishing it were not so. Longing.

I understand that this is all part of grief, but... I wish I grieved differently.

Our losses are supposed to teach us something about looking back-- and looking ahead. When I lost my job last Summer, I went through weeks of looking back, mired in remorse, and afraid of looking forward. Even now, as much as I am immersed in the new adventure of my present life, I look back and wonder what it would be like still to be working there.

I lost more than my job, of course. I lost my identity. And I know I am not now, nor am I to be, the person I was before. So my looking back also comes from my wondering who God is shaping me to be now-- realizing how different that is from who God shaped me to be then.

I was helped recently by a quote I came across from Catherine Marshall: "Often God shuts a door in our face, and then subsequently opens the door through which we need to go." I liked this because it captures a bit of how I felt: suddenly the door through which I was quite accustomed to going was slammed in my face. (A bit like, Get Smart!) For a time I, knowing that the door was locked and I wasn't going to be able to go back, would knock on it anyway, hoping it would open. Then for a time, while I waited for the next door to open, I lived in the interim of "subsequently!" That was its own lesson! Now, if "the" door through which I "need" to go has not yet opened completely, I am at least seeing arrows on the floor, directing me down the halls!

And I am understanding the wisdom of Paul: how essential it is to "forget" what lies behind, and "strain" for what lies ahead. Of such is the "going with the flow" of God's leading!

However, I don't think I am yet where Paul is. But I have come to a sort of Tom Petty place. "You can look back," he says in one of his lyrics, "but you better not stare."

And so it is...

* * *
Apropos to nothing, perhaps, but just because I want to put this out there, I was intrigued by a story in the Times on the basketball coach, Eddie Sutton. Sutton was on the verge of winning his 800th game, a remarkable feat made all the more remarkable by the twists and turns and ups and downs of his life-- too numerous to mention here!

Sutton got his 800th win, which was good, but what caught my attention was how the article's author, Kurt Streeter, described him: "I like fighters, people who bounce back from mistakes and war with demons. The imperfect. The humbled. That's Eddie Sutton."

And, I thought to myself, that's I. Or at least, that's the "I" I can hope to be.

Blessings, all!

The Courage to Be

(Just a point of personal amusement: I have to chuckle at how many of those old Paul Tillich texts-- or at least their titles!-- come back to be important now, personally, even if they are of only "historic" significance theologically...)

These days I'm reading for my morning devotional from a book given to me by a friend, Julia Cameron' s Transitions: Prayers and Declarations for a Changing Life. Ms Cameron is better known as the author of The Artist's Way. The prayer and/or declaration for this AM spoke to me, so I am going to share it here.

First this, from Anne Morrow Lindbergh: "It isn't for the moment you are struck that you need courage, but for the long uphill climb back to sanity and faith and security."

Then this from Julia: "I nurture a faithful heart. When difficulties, sorrows, and trials beset me, I consciously choose faith in the face of despair. Like the mountain climber who reaches the summit a step at a time, I hold an ideal in my heart. Despite the temptation to bitterness, despite the seduction of rage, I choose a path of temperate endurance, grounding my daily life in the small joys yet available to me. Learning from the natural world, I harbor the seeds of hope against the long winter. I count the small stirrings of beauty and delight still present in my barren time. My heart is a seasoned traveler. Moving through hostile and unfamiliar terrain it remains alert to encounter unexpected beauty blossoming despite the odds. In the arms of adversity, I yet find the comfort of tenderness to myself and others. I refuse to harbor a hardened heart. Decisively and deliberately, I expand rather than contract."

As I took this in, I realized that one of its truths for me is that it took little courage to experience the change(s) of last year, and much more courage to persist: to endure, to adjust my life, to re-discover my ground, to trust that God would provide for me, both substantially, and in a vision showing me God's own direction for my life-- the way out of the Pit, and back up the mountain! One step at a time; one day at a time.

I felt no loss of faith. I must say, though I lost much, and some more losses may still come, I felt no loss of faith. What I felt was a realization of a nearly daily demand to find the courage to live that day. Then, coming to the end of that day, assessing: what made living this day worthwhile? Yes, it was often the little things, incidents more than events, the tiny or quiet revelations of God's ever-Presence with me.

Now, as this year is unfolding, and more challenges are to be faced, there is also more clarity about what God's Vision for me might be. And there are indications that incrementally, God's Promise to me is being fulfilled. While still very much in the wilderness, the in-between, the "barren" time, in Cameron's words, even the hostile and unfamiliar and adverse space, yet my faith is secure, all the more because I've been allowed to see a little bit further down the road.

You might remember the experience that Lewis and Clark had in exploring the Great Northwest. So hungry were they to see the ocean and thus the end of their travels and travails, that when they reached their first summit, they were aghast at how many more mountains they were going to have to climb before they reached the Pacific! Moses might have felt that way, too, along his way. But when L&C finally saw the ocean, and Moses, the land across the Jordan, they were elated.

Well, I am nowhere near the ocean that way, and very far from God's Promising Land. But I have climbed a foothill or a even a mountain or two, and though there be more to climb, I keep going, faith-fueled, Spirit-sustained.

As Tillich knew, there simply are certain times in life when it takes real courage just to "be." But it is precisely these times when we learn that truthfully, it takes a courage to be ALL of the time!

Cameron concludes: "Today, I choose the softening grace of forgiveness. I allow the sunlight of the spirit to reach my shadowed heart."

May it be for me. May it be for you, as well.

New Streets

One of the gifts of my friendships is that my friends attend many different churches-- and other places of worship. From one of their church's newsletters come the following. It is a kind of a parable I'd heard before but was told it was by "Anonymous." Following that old expression from the '60's that "Anonymous was a woman" (to which I add: "and Unknown, a man..."), I was not surprised to find out that Portia Nelson wrote this. She called it, "Autobiography in Five Short Chapters."

Chapter One: I walk down the street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I fall in. I am lost... I am helpless. It isn't my fault. It takes forever to find a way out.

Chapter Two: I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I pretend I don't see it. I fall in again. I can't believe I am in the same place. but it isn't my fault.

Chapter Three: I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I see it is there. I still fall in... it's a habit. My eyes are open. I know where I am. It is my fault. I get out immediately.

Chapter Four: I walk down the same street. There is a deep hole in the sidewalk. I walk around it.

Chapter Five: I walk down another street.

Ah, yes, there is wisdom in this! And I readily admit: one of my problems has been finding "another street" to walk down! Oh, the pitfalls on my well-worn paths!

The best I can do today is pray: "I am ready! Lord, show me another way!"

May you, too, be blessed to be one of the People of The Way.

Three Wise Men

Without apology for not having blogged, and with no shame for what I am anticipating might threaten to become one of those blogs that will seem to be an overcompensation for lack of consistent blogging output, I want to seize on this season of the church year (Epiphany, if I've not completely lost touch), to talk about three men, and to see what wisdom might be gained from them. For as the Magi certainly must have known, whatever wisdom we accrue in life does ourselves and others little good unless it is somehow shared, or simply given away. Our three wise men in this space are: Charles Schulz, Carl Karcher, and my Dad.

--I've been meaning to write about Charles Schulz for some time, ever since his biography came out last Fall. David Michaelis' "Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography," raised some eyebrows at the time because it detailed certain aspects of Schulz's life, principally his rather chilly relationship with his own children and his altogether too warm relationship with a woman not his wife. At the time the book was published I was steeping in realizations of my own humanity's mixture of darkness and light, and I took some consolation from reading that a biographer had taken an unflinching yet caring look at Schulz's life, with all of its faults and foibles, and everything had more or less come out all right in the end. Craig Schulz, Charles' oldest son, was quoted in Newsweek as saying of the book, "I guess we were expecting vanilla, but we got rocky road." I thought that maybe that comment could apply to Schulz's own expectation of his own life. I know that, for myself, while I never have really expected vanilla, I have had my share of rocky road!

Anyway, I'd like to mention two other comments from the Newsweek review. One is: "Like most artists, Schulz found grief more inspiring than happiness...". Hmmmm... This about the man who gave us both: "Good grief!" and "Happiness is a warm puppy!" Yet Michaelis documents how Schulz kept himself in a certain perpetual state of, well, creative resentment: "He knew that hurt, and the anger that sprang from it... was the taproot of his life's work." I don't think I have the "genius" to live that way...

Yet, as Schulz's sufferings, real and imagined, made their way through him onto the page, and into the lives of his characters, and from his characters into our lives, adversity and suffering itself became more than refined, almost redeemed. From what I've read of him, Schulz's attachments were not so much to other people, but rather to the redemptive relationships he had with his Peanuts characters. Newsweek said, "As it happened, he died on Feb. 13, 2000, the day before the final Sunday 'Peanuts' strip. As soon as 'Peanuts' ended, so did his life."

I have to say that Charles Schulz was the Wise Man who brings us Frankincense, not just because he was a devout evangelical Christian (who can forget "The Gospel According to Peanuts"?), but more because he wrestled with things spiritual, in his work, in his life.

--I happened to be thinking about Carl Karcher around the time of his recent death. Driving by a Carl's Jr., I remembered the time I met him. And then, in his obituary in the Times, there was a line that simply leaped out at me: "The boss ate several meals a week at his restaurants, and, wherever he went, he handed out coupons for free hamburgers, wrapped in a Scripture verse." This was certainly my experience of him.

I met Carl Karcher at the home of a couple of people who were my parishioners. The couple was having their 60th wedding anniversary party, as I recall, and since their family was large but their home quite, shall we say, modest, my family and I were among only a few friends who'd been invited. It was a privilege to be there! The host family was loving, and kind, and humble-- truly gentle people.

Into this mix Carl was invited. Into this mix he came, with his wife. He was warmly received, but he did not make himself at home. Instead, he worked the home like a politician works a room. He went from room to room, introducing himself, and shaking hands. AND: he gave everyone a coupon for a free hamburger and a Catholic devotional card!

I looked at him at the time, and thought him to be a man of extraordinary pomposity. I tried to balance this take with just the fact that there we were together, at the home of mutual friends... I did my best to let him make a good impression on me, but I was not very successful within myself.

The reason why Carl Karcher was there in my friend's home on that special day was omitted from him obituary. The obituary tells that he began his business in 1941, with a little cash and money he borrowed against his car. He bought a hot dog push cart that he set up near a Goodyear plant in South Central. He enjoyed some success, working hard, and invested in other hot dog carts.

What the obituary omits to say is that while he served in the Army in WWII, someone or someones else were pushing those carts. My friend, Louie, I was told, was asked by Carl, in effect to keep his business alive during the war years while he was away. This Louie did! So, when Carl came back after the war, he had the wherewithal waiting for him so he could open his first full-service restaurant in 1945. My friend, Louie, had held his place. My friend, Louie, had kept things going.

Carl Karcher's visit to Louie's house that night was because he hadn't forgotten what Louie had done for him. So it was that Louie felt graced to have this successful man in his home.

Why then was I so... hesitant to feel the same sense of gratitude? I've thought about it over the years and I've wondered, perhaps something that is as equally unfair as my initial judgment of him. And that is: I've wondered whether Carl ever was truly thankful for what Louie had done. I know. It seems unfair of me, maybe, even to suspect this of a man who hadn't forgotten what my friend had done, maybe almost 50 years earlier. All I know is that it is what I've wondered. And how I've based it on that one, only, first impression. And how Carl Karcher never sat down in Louie's house that night... How he "Karcher-ed" us-- and then left...

So Carl Karcher, I think, brings the gift of Gold. In contrast, my friend, Louie, along with his whole family, always brought the gift of love.

--Finally, a gift of Myrrh from my father:

Since my mother died, we have talked more often and more meaningfully, and I am enjoying my relationship with my father. I am going to tell this little story on him.

As many who know me--and him!-- know, my mother was in uncertain health for many years following ovarian cancer surgery in 2000. Over those years, my mother and father engaged in a nightly tug of war with God over her life. My mother would pray for God to take her; my father would pray for God to let her stay with him because he needed her so.

Now that she has indeed had her prayer answered, my Dad sometimes falls into fits of regret that he prayed as he did for as long as he did. It wasn't until her hospitalization last June that my Dad changed his prayers and asked God not to listen to him but to her. Sometimes my Dad punishes himself with thoughts of his selfishness-- he, who was beyond devoted to her for more than the 64 years they were married.

I have trouble listening to my Dad when he gets to feeling this way. So this is what I told him: I said, Dad, yes, you held onto Mom for a long time, and you would not let her go, even when she wanted to go. But then, you changed, and you worked to be ready for the day when God would take her home, away from you. And sure enough, that day came. And when it did, suddenly, really, you held her hand as she died-- and you let her go! You did not ask her not to go. You did not ask her to come back. You were ready, AND you were true: you let her go. Dad, I said, that was a very courageous thing to do, and you did it with integrity.

So we cried a little together and hugged each other over the phone... And I believe he was comforted.

And I am comforted to know that of wise men who bring frankincense and wise men who bring gold, the wise man who brought myrrh is my father. In acceptance of our mortality is the fountain of our vitality. And I am blessed.

New Year, New Resolve

"My resolution for the coming year is so to live that I keep God’s attention and invite God’s participation and discover God’s interest in participating in this little Story of this Life that is mine."

This is what I wrote at the end of 2006-- and look at what happened to me in 2007! If mine is not a tale of "be careful what you pray for," I don't know what is!

I cannot remember another year in my life in which there was so much change and thus so very many transitions to endure. I would name them, but they are already well chronicled in this space.

And the main thing I want to comment on at this point is what I would want to call the "continuous discovery of the Presence of God." Something like that... I wouldn't for the world minimalize the challenges both spiritual and emotional that I faced during 2007. Even now, I sometimes find myself in the Book of Job, searching for language or a framework in which to understand myself and where I am in relationship to God.

I have not felt abandoned-- I want to say that. I have not found myself shaking my fist at the heavens, cursing my bad luck or God's seeming cruelty. Nothing like that. I have felt the weight of the sad realization of how much I have brought upon myself. I have discerned the consequences of my actions, and have seen what and how things have come about that have. And in the depths of those confessional moments, I have found words from Job that have helped me: I know that my Redeemer liveth... I know... And have have found evidence of God's mercy and grace-- and thus been left to face my self, and my own penchant for self-punishment over self-forgiveness.

I have been through no "dark night of the soul" that I am aware of... Not in that sweeping sense wherein one's relationship with God is completely shaken and requires re-establishing. No, if anything, I have been forced to find comfort in how I had come to speak of God; I've had to rely on the Reality of God to me, in a way and with a consistency that I might otherwise have escaped had I not had so much happen in such a short time. Thus what I said above about God's participation and interest? I have felt both last year, in poignant and occasionally eye-opening ways.

And I hope I have not failed to count the blessings along with number the losses. My youngest's establishing of himself as an adult. My first grandchild. Yes, even my mother's death... Is it strange to speak of it as more gain than loss, when it was what she wanted, and when her dying has led to a renaissance in my relationship with my father? I've been told that these occurances were different because they were "natural," as in "occurring in the course of the natural order of things." Perhaps. But then does that mean that the Hand of God was not in them, but only in the events around my loss of job and professional identity? No, for me, either way, God was "interested participant," not necessarily bringing to pass what did, as in standing with me to pick up the pieces. God has been my Comfort and my Peace.

Which brings me to this year. Two hymns play in my spirit. One is "Be Thou My Vision." I have always loved this hymn, its melody and its words. But now more maybe than ever before, it is my prayer. I can see more clearly now than back in July where God might be leading me, but I am as unsure as ever as to how to travel the path. I pray daily to see God's Vision for me now!

The other hymn comes from the Roman Catholic missal, "Be Not Afraid." I was first introduced to this song by a Dominican Nun, Sr Marcella, from whom I learned bereavement arts in the course of my initial service with a hospice. She was a saint! And the lyrics of this song have seldom had as much meaning to me as they do now: Be not afraid!/ I go before you always./ Come, follow me,/ and I will give you rest. And then, in one other line: You shall see the Face of God-- and live!

Yes, these are my resolutions for this year: God as my Vision. Being not afraid! And looking always for, perhaps to find, the Face of God.

Let's see whether this year is as spiritually deepening as the last one has been!

Blessings to you and yours!