Aim for the simple
hidden acts of love
which keep time ticking
like tiny golden gears
in the pocket-watch of the stars.
Reach for the ordinary goodness
that rarely makes the news
but forms the loamy ground on which we walk.
Paths our ancestors wore in the living of their days
now yield to our imprint, gently propelling us
out of the gravity of singularity
to leap beyond ourselves and see that I am
because they were and we are.
Take the unassuming
nondescript scrap
tossed by the wind across the parking lot
holding the list written in your hand
bread, eggs, fruit, mustard
milk
and
the essential
worker
driving the bus, behind the counter,
leaning over the patient.Care little for pithy memes and what is trending now
or the preening of curated selves
in your reflection on the screens.
It is you in that old ratty sweater
rising up
to lean down and put on your shoes,
pouring milk on your cereal
praying for your children
you
whom I am trusting in and living for.
The woman in the red hat
waiting at the corner for the light to change
waves back when I wave.
For a moment, an eternity,
the struck flame of connection
crackles between us
tugs us from our separate cells,
uniting to say
we are one here on this corner
and indeed, we are made of miracles.
Every day
communion is served on a corner near you
eucharist pours from heaven
runs down the street
children jump in the puddles -
maybe you do too.
Advent Manna – Short Takes on the Themes of Advent
Being Silent
The most beautiful thing a person can say about God would be for that person to remain silent from the wisdom of an inner wealth. So, be silent and quit flapping your gums about God. – Meister Eckhart (1260-1329) translation by Matthew Fox.
You have to get past the miraculous son of Zechariah to get inside. The tall, gaunt figure looks down on you from his hollow eyes as you enter St. John’s Abbey Church in Collegeville, Mn. Lean, muscular, and Spirit-haunted, the Baptizer brandishes a cross and is scary as all get out. He gestures with a gnarled hand toward the Baptismal Font.
If you think you are coming in here, wash up first. Repent! Go under the flood. Die before you die.
The old priest, John’s father, did not believe the angel who showed up when Zechariah entered the Holy of Holies to burn the incense. The lot had fallen to him to step into the place so sacred that one might easily be consumed by the Furnace of Love. Gabriel’s wings fanned the smoke. His voice penetrated the old man’s mind, that rickety cupboard, where he kept jars of truth, possibility, impossibility, reason, and a near empty cruse of hope.
“How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.”
His barren, wizened, Elizabeth have a child? The priest quibbled, doubted, split hairs, as those trained as religious professionals often do.
So Gabriel tied his tongue to the floor of his mouth and sewed his lips shut. This fellow could not be trusted with the truth of God. Hard to say how he might mess up the whole plan of salvation.
Messengers from God often do this to the people they visit. They press the mute button and enforce silence for a while.
Six months after Elizabeth conceives, Gabriel makes an announcement even more incredible to Mary. She asks one question, then tells Gabriel okay, whatever you say. I am God’s servant. Pondering the angel’s words, she holds her tongue, and departs to speak with her old cousin, Elizabeth. Joseph is left to get the news on his own through a dream. Mary remains with her cousin for three months in the hill country of Judah.
Advent invites us to withdraw and close the door on distractions and doubts. Will you allow yourself to be bound by silence? This ability to tie up all the strife, hunger, gossip, and turbulence, and keep one’s mouth shut is required of servants of God. One needs to allow ideas, projects, and seeds of new growth incubate and ripen. Talk may dissipate the necessary accumulation of energy and unconscious incubation to bring actions to maturity and achieve God’s fullest purpose and intent for our lives and work.
One must be discerning about to whom and when to speak of the visions we see, the words we hear, and what grows within us in order to protect both ourselves and the promise within us from exposure to threats to its development.
Do you have a bright idea or a promise developing within you?
Don’t prematurely tweet your transformation.
There will be plenty of time to raise a ruckus after the truth gets out, as old Zechariah soon found, when the Holy Spirit opened his mouth and he burst into song for his son:
… and you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you go before the Lord to prepare his way to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins, through the tender mercy of our God, when the day shall dawn upon us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet in the way of peace. Luke 1: 67-7
___________________________________
Advent Manna are short pieces taken from my writing over the years on the themes of Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany. This essay about Zechariah and John the Baptist was previously posted in 2015.
It has been a while since I have written here. I have been busy moving from Kansas, where I have lived for 37 years to Iowa City, Iowa. It has been a time of challenge and transformation for me. I will continue to do the Sanctuary ministry from my new location. I am offering spiritual guidance, teaching, leading retreats, and will continue to publish Holy Ground – Quarterly Reflection on the Contemplative Life. See the summer issue below.
” Hey! Calm down, for heaven’s sake,” say Jean Luc and Elijah.
We are just a couple of wild and crazy guys, who want you to . . .
Stop by The Sanctuary Foundation’s table at Topeka Gives on Tuesday, June 7, 2016,7:00-6:00, Fairlawn Mall, Topeka, Ks.
Get your free stress square and measure how calm you are from “slightly stressed to screaming ninnie.”
Find other tools to relax and nurture inner peace.
Elijah practicing meditation.
The Sanctuary is an interfaith center for spiritual nurture, which helps people find deeper awareness of God, self and others. Please join us in expanding our work for inner peace. Your gift of $25 or more at Topeka Gives will be percentaged matched by a generous donation from the Topeka Community Foundation.
Do you see unmet needs in our community? Are you are weary of political stalemates, name calling, stalling, and denial? Do newspaper headlines make you angry?
Come down to the Fairlawn Mall ( 21st Street and Fairlawn) and discover grass roots, homegrown hope, hard work, love, wisdom, and imagination in action.
Look for our table with the blue and gold balloons. Stop by and say Hello! Get free stuff and a hug.
While you are there –
Pick your favorite organizations – Please include the Sanctuary!
Make a donation of $25 or more to each organization. Then watch your gifts GROW through the $73,500 matching fund given by the Topeka Community Foundation.
I can’t wait to see you and tell you about how your dollars make a difference to some of your neighbors. Please give us your support this year. There are many people who need safe spaces to explore their souls and nourish their spirits.
REMEMBER that to participate in the Topeka Community Fund match you must bring your gift in person to the Topeka Fairlawn Mall on Tuesday June 7, any time between 7:00 am and 6:00 pm.
If you would like to support The Sanctuary and can’t come to Fairlawn Mall in Topeka on June 7. You can donate online here. Your gift will not be matched by the Topeka Community Foundation in this case, but even small gifts can do amazing things!
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. Romans 8:26
You have to get past the miraculous son of Zechariah to get inside. The tall, gaunt figure looks down on you from his hollow eyes as you enter St. John’s Abbey Church. Lean, muscular, and Spirit-haunted, the Baptizer brandishes a cross and is scary as all get out. He gestures with a gnarled hand toward the Baptismal Font.
If you think you are coming in here, wash up first. Repent! Go under the flood. Die before die.
The old priest, John’s father, did not believe the angel who showed up when Zechariah entered the Holy of Holies to burn the incense. The lot had fallen to him to step into the place so sacred that one might easily be consumed by the Furnace of Love. Gabriel’s wings fanned the smoke. His voice penetrated the old man’s mind, that rickety cupboard, where he kept jars of truth, possibility, impossibility, reason, and a near empty cruse of hope.
“How shall I know this? For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years.”
His barren, wizened, Elizabeth have a child? The priest quibbled, doubted, split hairs, as those trained as religious professionals often do.
So Gabriel tied his tongue to the floor of his mouth and sewed his lips shut. This fellow could not be trusted with the truth of God. Hard to say how he might mess up the whole plan of salvation.
Messengers from God often do this to the people they visit. They press the mute button and enforce silence for a while.
Six months after Elizabeth conceives, Gabriel makes an announcement even more incredible to Mary. She asks one question, then tells Gabriel okay, whatever you say. I am God’s servant. Pondering the angel’s words, she holds her tongue, and departs to speak with her old cousin, Elizabeth. Joseph is left to get the news on his own through a dream. Mary remains with her cousin for three months in the hill country of Judah.
Advent invites us to withdraw and close the door on distractions and doubts. Will you allow yourself to be bound by silence? This ability to tie up all the strife, hunger, gossip, and turbulence, and keep one’s mouth shut is required of servants of God. One needs to allow ideas, projects, and seeds of new growth incubate and ripen. Talk may dissipate the necessary accumulation of energy and unconscious incubation to bring actions to maturity and achieve God’s fullest purpose and intent for our lives and work.
One must be discerning about to whom and when to speak of the visions we see, the words we hear, and what grows within us in order to protect both ourselves and the promise within us from exposure to threats to its development.
Do you have a bright idea or a promise developing with you?
Don’t prematurely tweet your transformation.
There will be plenty of time to raise a ruckus after the truth gets out, as old Zechariah soon found, when the Holy Spirit opened his mouth and he burst into song for his son:
… and you, child, will be called the prophet
of the Most High;
for you go before the Lord to prepare his ways,
to give knowledge of salvation to his people
in the forgiveness of their sins,
through the tender mercy of our God,
when the day shall dawn upon us from on high
to give light to those who sit in darkness
and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet in the way of peace. Luke 1: 67-79
The most beautiful thing a person can say about God would be for that person to remain silent from the wisdom of an inner wealth. So, be silent and quit flapping your gums about God.
– Meister Eckhart (1260-1329) translation by Matthew Fox.
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness;
for we do not know how to pray as we ought,
but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. Romans 8:26
Like a cat
on soft paws
you come
turning
settling.
The weight
of you
silences me.
Words scatter
fall apart
crumbling leaves
at my feet.
The refrigerator hums.
We breathe.
I find I am increasingly drawn into silence in response to the latest outrage, injustice, violence, or suffering, which lifts its terror, anger, and sorrow for a day or two, until it is drowned out by other cries, other horrors.
This silence, like a cat, is neither retreat, nor numbness. It is not denial, nor shrinking fear. Rather, it is a persistent and irresistible summons.
The silence owns me, abides in me, and will have its way with me. So I consent. I stop trying to be efficient and productive. I stop trying to understand, to explain, or defend.
I surrender.
I hold silence.
Perhaps you will find yourself similarly drawn and join me in holding silence in this season of waiting and hope. Some of us need to do this. That kitten is just waiting for you to sit down.
The Father spoke one Word,
which was his Son,
and this Word
he speaks
always in eternal silence,
and in silence
must it be heard
by the soul.
Update, Latest Issue of Holy Ground, 1984, and Other Matters
“I am thinking of the guy out on Croco Road sitting in his cold house with his gun across his lap, waiting for the furnace repair truck to drive up. I am thinking about the woman who walks into the Quick Shop and shoots the clerk to get fifty dollars.”
Don’t hit back; discover beauty in everyone.
If you’ve got it in you, get along with everybody.
Don’t insist on getting even; that’s not for you to do.
“I’ll do the judging,” says God. “I’ll take care of it.” Romans 12: 17
Shopping my new book, What Is Deep as Love Is Deep, to publishers and agents. If you have literary connections, let me know. (It is so good! You are going to love it.)
Welcoming several new Spiritual Direction clients this fall. If you would like to work with me, I use a sliding scale for fees and first exploratory 30 minute session is free. I work on phone, Skype, and in person. 785-354-7122, email lross@fromholyground.org
Took a Poetic Memoir class at Washburn University in early summer. I loved it and my teacher, Dennis Etzel, who encouraged, praised, and pointed me beyond old limits toward fascinating new territory. I look forward to sharing some of my manuscript with you in the future.
And Dennis says: “By the way, if anyone sends me the receipt showing she or he ordered through SPD, I will mail a special 1984 thank-you package to her or him out of my deepest appreciation.” How about that? You get treats!! Send those receipts to Dennis here: dennis.etzel@washburn.edu
Listening to the most amazing and beautiful people who share their journeys and their souls with me.
Daily – holding you and this tormented, brilliant world to the Light as best I can.
Thank you so for much for your prayer support, subscription renewals, and donations! You allow Holy Ground to happen in so many ways.
Special Notice: Wichita, KS area readers check out this opportunity for spiritual deepening in your own back yard.
Our time cries out for people of wisdom, depth, and vigorous faith. Experienced and trusted spiritual guide, Carol Mullikin, is offering a great opportunity to help you sink your roots deeper into living water.
thunders down canyons pounds cliffs crashes rock collapses sham shatters monuments scatters compassion seeps past storm doors up dusty floor vents splashes into bath water cradles the buoyant in mercy’s
harboring
stream
As I listened to the debate, it was clear that each side held deeply sincere beliefs. The speakers were from the same country and spoke the same language. But a great chasm yawned between their contrasting understandings.
I saw how a word and its meaning had taken root in the soil of each person’s life. A myriad of associations, memories, and feelings of comfort and assurance were attached to those words like a vast network of tough vines woven together. How dense and impenetrable is the garment, which clothes the assembly of still lines and curves we call letters.
“So sad,” my friend texted with her nimble fingers. “So sad,” said my other friend, as I hugged her when it was over.
When will the reality of our person-hood, whole and holy, a trembling blossom, carry more worth than the brittle ideologies pacing stiffly up and down mind’s dusty corridors?
God, make me buoyant.
_____________________
New Issue of Holy Ground !
Put Down Your Weapons
I felt diminished, hurt and defensive. His voice grew in intensity,
as he argued to prove his point.
The latest issue of Holy Ground takes a look at how we respond to those we disagree with. In a world of adversaries, enemies, and extreme views is there any way we can see each other as persons? How does our prayer enter into the deep divides and extreme polarities of our day?
In the past year I have lived deeply into two books. I returned over and over to taste and savor their wisdom, as though I were sucking on a bone, which had simmered all day long in a crock pot.
In my writers’ group, The Topeka Writer’s Workshop, I marvel at the swiftness of the group’s feedback, their pithy responses, useful suggestions, and on point critique. My cohorts are all “real poets” in my mind and more knowledgeable about literature and the craft of writing than I am. At our workshops, they leave me in the dust, reading and rereading the rich words on the page.
I am still at the third line rolling the author’s word choice or images in my mind, chewing at the wonder, and licking the juice off my fingers, when they are ready to move on to another poem or story. I feel the same way at public readings. As the audience softly murmurs admiration and claps politely, I want to holler and whoop, rise to my feet, pump the air and shout: “Wait a minute here! Please stop and let us all think about what you just read! This is magnificent.” And then turn about in a little dance.
Thus, you may understand how taking a year to read one or two book s of poetry suits me well. When I am not dawdling with poems, I devour mysteries, fiction, and spiritual/theological nonfiction. To be honest I am getting my fill of the spiritual/theological/what-should-we-do- about- the-church nonfiction, and plan to branch out into zombies and urban fantasy this year.
Here is one of the books of poetry I lived with last year: Mark S. Burrows’ translation of Rilke, Prayers of a Young Poet . I will share the other book with you in a later post.
As the seasons of last year passed, I looked over the shoulder of a young monk composing his prayers to the Dark Mystery who courted him in his small cell. I watched his struggle for words to name the Unnameable, and for color and line to write an icon that might lift a corner of the curtain that covered his shy Beloved.
I followed the poet/monk into the forest and onto the ever expanding heath, as he entered into the secret intimacy of the One who would not let him go. I sat up with him late at night and tasted that ache of loneliness that borders solitude and finally becomes the gate which springs wide open onto union. The key to the gate is losing that pesky self, which seeks always to assert its primacy to grasp and to possess. I watched the monk’s continual surrender to and reverence for the holy beauty of his own weakness and deep need, where, wonder of wonders, the vast and luminous Dark Mystery makes its home.
It is true that half of what Rilke writes I do not understand, but neither do I understand God. Burrows beautiful translation of Rilke’s poems opened me to the passion and nakedness of soul of the young monk, which Rilke creates for us. The monk, smitten with what he cannot fully contain in his prayers, or comprehend, enlarged my appreciation of the ultimate hidden poverty of God in the human soul. I am more comfortable now with my own inscrutable self. And I am more trusting of the exquisite beauty and uniqueness of God’s presence in the lives of those I counsel.
Here are some lines from the poems in this book I take with me into the new year:
But through it all rumors of God wander
in your dark blood as if along dark alleys. p.73
Carry that that line around in your pocket for a week or two. Or write the ones below on a scrap of paper and tuck it under your pillow:
He teaches you to say:
You my deeper sense
trust that I won’t disappoint You;
there’s so much clamoring in my blood –
but I know I am made of yearning. p 74
And this from the young monk’s letter to his superior:
I live a pious life. I don’t call upon any court,
and my prayer with which I sometimes exalt myself and which I sometimes speak and sometimes live
is: “Make me simple
that I might become ever more whole in You.” p. 101
In this new year may you be met by the the Mystery of Love in the alleys of your own dark blood.
We all are made of yearning
and the Yearning Itself is Holiness
aching for wholeness in us all.
Oh, Great One, make me simple, make me little, make me small!
Loretta +
For any who would like to read the latest issue of Holy Ground, here it is :Autumn 2014 – Let Go and Keep at It It is about the ongoing task of the spiritual life: surrender. What do you need to let go of and leave behind in the new year?
By the waters of Babylon there we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion. How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land? Psalm 137
O God of Seeing, after we have swallowed the knowledge of good and evil and our eyes are opened, how can we sing your song? When the scales have dropped away, when the clay has been washed off, when we put on the soft garments of grace you made for us, we stumble dazzled by the light, hearts aching for home.
Wayfaring strangers, exiles, we wander here in these soft skins yearning for a better country. We had bit down and tasted, chewed and swallowed that fruit. Our eyes were opened and we had seen. We had witnessed something that we could not speak of, yet must tell. We really weren’t absolutely sure what it was we had seen, but we thought most of the time that it was God. It is true we asked for it, prayed for it – to see God and live, that is. Perhaps it would have been better to have died. Perhaps there are very good reasons why persons who see God rarely live to tell the tale. For now how could we sing a song in this strange land – this earth where gravity weighed hearts to the soil; and mind lay flattened between the pages of time?
What happens if you do not sing? What happens if your eyes are blinded by the light, and it all unfolds before you? What happens if you know the Lord’s song by heart yet do not sing it? Does it rankle in your soul, turn sour, spoil and grow soft mossy mold? Does it take on a parasitic life of its own, feeding on your body, stealing your joy, eating up your hope?
______________________________________
Diana, 32 years ago when you were born, they brought you with swollen eyelids, wrapped tight in the swaddling cloths for the first feeding. When I put your mouth to me, you shuddered. For two days you shuddered as I held you, as one exposed to a chill or some horror. “Lambie pie,” I called you then.
It is too much for us. It is all too much for us. To have eaten what we have eaten. To have seen what we have seen. To know what we know. One day I prayed for hours and could only pray: “Yes, Yes, Yes. Yes there is light. Yes there is hope. Yes there is love.” Even though I felt none of it.
How do you sing a sacred song in a strange land? Maybe you just sing it. Maybe you don’t attempt to be understood. Maybe you just sing what is so, because it is so. For the song’s sake, for the singing’s sake. Could I sing for the song’s sake – for your sake, my sweet Lamb of God? Could I sing you a lullaby as you lie cradled next to my heart shuddering in your mortality?
Once, Diana, you brought me a gift. “This is a prayer stick, mom. I made it for you.” It was a large stick with flowers woven round the top. Could I let the stick pray for me? For I do not know how to pray aright. I lean the stick against the old trunk. “Pray stick,” I say. “Pray now.” I go off to other things, while the stick holds the offering pointing toward heaven. Dare I trust creation to pray for me, to bear my prayer? Here stone, pray. Here river, pray. Here moon, pray. Just by being what you are, a maple branch salvaged from last fall’s ice storm, wrapped round with pink petals, transformed by the touch of a child’s hand into something sacred.
How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land? That is the question. For our hearts are heavy, and we, captive by this mortal flesh sit down and weep.
I believe that always in the face of Noes the Song must begin with Yes –
yes
body
like
a tube
a culvert
carrying
the
earth’s
refuse
twigs
garbage
whines
knotted, clotted, congealed evil, wads of anguish, passing
through the yes into eternity, cleansed and free. The yes
like a filter, a rinse of spray. You can look at the sin or you
can look at God. If you look too long at the evil, you will
freeze
mesmerized
by it.
So head
on into
perfect
and
funnel
the defiled
to
the undefiled
by virtue
of
your
yes.
Not my will but thine.
Link to Sweet Honey By the Waters of Babylon
This post is excerpted from a chapter in my book, Letters from the Holy Ground – Seeing God Where You Are. Some of these phrases and images have been returning to me lately. As a culture, as a global society, as families, and as individuals we may find ourselves in various contexts of alienation, estrangement, or even captivity. This sense of dislocation and disorientation may be experienced both externally and internally.
Reflection Questions
Are there ways you feel like a stranger in a strange land, taken to a place you did not wish to go?
How do you express your grief? How do you sing a holy song in alien places and times? How do you consecrate and make holy the strange lands in the heart and in our world? Of what does your song consist?
Together we plow the light.
So much love in my heart for all of you.
loretta
The Praying Life 