Love and Mercy Meet

Love and Mercy Meet
(Matthew 15.21-28)

We were tired.
We hadn’t slept much the night before, what with the storm and all;
and today, they came again.
The religious leaders with their rebukes
and once more challenged the Master.

Jesus walked a little way ahead of us, preoccupied.
We left him alone, knowing how tired he must be.
Brushes with them always seem to leave him especially burdened.
We were all distracted when the ruckus began.

Gracious, what a raucous -
she seemed to come running out of nowhere
screaming like the wild woman she was!

“Jesus, Lord, Son of David, have mercy on my daughter.”

A Canaanite of all things -
Spit!
Dogs, all of them, just dogs!
And here’s one of them, a woman no less;
how dare she yell at him.
All of them, just dogs!

“Woman, you’re nothing.
Leave him alone; can’t you see he’s tired?
And you? You’re nothing.
Jesus, tell her to leave, tell her to go away.
Put her in her place.
Make her stop bothering us;
send her away.”

He turned and looked at us, quietly telling us
what we already knew.
“I came for Israel; no one else matters, only God’s
holy people.”

Then out of no where, she burst into our space.
She came right up to us,
daring to break our small, tight circle.
She walked right up to the Master,
then knelt before him,
eyes cast down,
head and body bent,
she whispered.

“Please Lord, heal my daughter.”

We barely heard her speak.
She had been screaming like the wench she was,
but now, she barely whispered,
and tears streamed down her face.

And the Master?


The Master knelt also—right to her level.
I saw him,
the holy and righteous one,
gently tilt her tear-stained face
so that their eyes met.
And he whispered to her,
“Woman, it’s not fair
for me to give the children’s bread to the dogs.”

Such lovely words—
words which should have rebuked,
invited instead.
She seemed to hear it the same way.

“Yes Lord,” she whispered.
“I know. I understand,
but even the little dogs get crumbs from the Master’s table.”

He spoke once more, in a still soft voice,
“Woman, your faith is great.
Your love is deep.
Your daughter is well.
Go home.”

It was silent as she left.
Shouts no longer pierced the air;
no more words were spoken.
She simply left,

and we continued walking in silence,
each of us absorbed in our own thoughts.

What had we just seen? What had we witnessed?
The Gift is for them, too? Love and Mercy is theirs as well?
Even the unworthy, the lowest of the low,
His compassion extends to them, too?

Lord, have mercy on me,
the sinner.


(Image from Radio New Jerusalem website)
Revised, 3/5/11

For My Valentine

The Unexpected Gift

Their lives are like two wheels –
Hers turns in one direction
His, in the other
Yet they are held together by a
forcible
resolute
unseen connection.

From up close, it looks unworkable
but from a distance
their seemingly disconnected lives
are held in tension as a
paradoxical dance of opposites.

It doesn’t look like she expected.
In the beginning, she could only imagined what she knew,
what she had seen lived by her parents -
shared hopes, common values, time spent together,
a union of hearts and minds
headed in the same direction.

Instead, he offered her something unanticipated,
a different sort of gift,
one that took her time to fully accept and embrace,
a present of presence she wasn’t sure she wanted -
that is, until she had space to see its worth.

Instead of pre-determined points of view,
he offered her freedom to choose,
to explore new ideas,
to investigate and question different
political systems and religious beliefs,
and freedom to forge her own path.

He believed in her courage when she had none.
His confidence in her was more than she had in herself.
He patiently suffered her bouts of fears, with its ensuing drama,
and he steadied her
as she learned to stand on her own two feet,
to turn in her own direction.

Occasionally she longs for the old dreams,
for the life intertwined and growing old together,
but then she steps back and witnesses what she’s gained
from the distance hindsight offers
and she is grateful for the unexpected gift.


Their lives are like two wheels –
Hers turns in one direction
His, in the other
Yet they are held together by a
forcible
resolute
unseen connection.

They have become the picture
of the paradoxical dance of opposite.


To Jim, Valentine’s Day, 2011

Rainy Day Reflections

Raindrops flow in thin streams
slowly down the windowpane like
small brooklets marking the landscape.
Completing this triplet of nature,
her face reflects
like in a mirror
its own visible traces of
fear, pain, grief -
tears, each one caught in a bottle
and recorded by the Beloved.

Rivulets of raindrops
brooklets of cool water
tears of a soul
marking, cleansing, healing, renewing.

Sheila Conner
January 26, 2011 (Psalm 56)

Conversion and Personal Authority

Have you ever “believed” in something with your whole heart, and been challenged to explain that belief with clear facts and no emotion?

I have—usually by members in my birth family. And it’s really difficult, especially in these changing times. I must confess, I am an emotional person, and no matter how hard I try, certain individuals seem to get the best of me. I’ve tried over and over to figure out “why” they do, and how I can keep the pattern from repeating itself, but I’m never successful when their challenges come.

Could this be part of the reason?

“Conversion from our entrenched thinking patters and lifetime images of how things are may well be the most difficult conversion process of all. For in the process of changing thinking and images comes the challenge to act out of a new perception of reality, a new faith. Move! Stand up and be counted! Be involved! Witness to what you are now being led to believe!

The difficulty is that the new perception of reality is initially not as cohesive or as systemized as the old vision. People see they should change, see that some of their long-held images and ideas are no longer valid in the light of preaching or learning, but want someone to package a whole new system of understanding for them. Living with mystery and unanswered questions and taking personal authority for those convictions is a new experience…it is also easy for fear…to take over.” (Michael Morwood, Tomorrow’s Catholic, pp. 83-84)

I have been challenged – again – over the course of the last couple of days regarding a political opinion that I posted on Facebook (FB be the death of me yet!). The most aggressive challenges usually come from members in my own family, those I grew up with. Problem is, I’ve changed, and I’m caught in the middle of this new “conversion”. I’m being challenged to “stand up and be counted,” to validate my convictions, and I don’t have any answers. I, myself, am living in the throes of mystery and unanswered questions. I don’t have facts to prove what I am being challenged to “prove”. Furthermore, I’m very, very new at “taking personal authority for those convictions.” I’ve never done that before.

For most of my 61 years, my religious beliefs and political convictions were rooted in someone else’s ideas. Truth is, it’s only been in the last 10 years that I’ve even begun having political convictions. And I am still in the middle of many shifts, some of which all of us find ourselves in right now (religious, economic, social, political, historical, scientific, etc., etc.). I don’t have many facts to point to, nor has anyone “package[ed] a whole new system of understanding for [me].” Dammit, I haven’t even been able to formulate for myself with any clarity what I believe. I’m simply attempting to take personal authority – on gut instinct/intuition alone, right now. That’s really all I have and that doesn’t convince anyone, especially certain members of my family.

I talked this over with Doug Travis, a priest who led our all-church retreat last year. He identified with me. He’s had the same experiences in his family, and he gave me a pretty good picture of what’s happening. He said the most difficult individuation to make was inside a birth family context. It’s kind of like a crab in an ice chest. One crab decides to make a break for it and tries to crawl out of, and the others keep pulling it back in. That’s how I feel, constantly being dragged back into an environment that simply doesn’t work for me anymore. And to be truthful, it flat makes me angry certain individuals keep demanding “proof” “backed up” with “facts”, when all I have comes from simply a “heart knowing.” And it really makes me mad when I “put my foot down”, and they come back with the idea that I’m “emotional.” Yes, I am angry, and there’s nothing wrong with being angry. So there (foot stomped like a 4-year old)!

Ok, that’s off my chest. At least for this go ‘round. Someday, hopefully, this merry-go-round will stop and I’ll be able to get off. Maybe when “ego” is no longer my ever faithful companion.

Paradigm Shift - Ready or Not...

What is your image of “God”? Has it changed from when you were a child? That’s the subject of the first chapter of this book. Reading it got me to reflecting on my own process of a changing image of God.

My image of God and spiritual things had been in process for a number of years, but the earth really began to tremble in 2003 or 2004, when my old childhood image of God cratered.

St. Thomas Aquinas said that a false picture of Creation would give us a false image of God. And I’ve experienced that truth. Maybe that’s what finally caused my wineskin to break, so to speak. When I finally began to allow the evolutionary understanding of the Cosmos to really and truly begin to seep into my knowing, when I began to ask questions concerning how this information affected my spirituality, my image of God HAD to change. And once that image began to morph, it was, as Michael Morwood wrote, a “domino effect”.

I remember going on a “What-the Bleep“ weekend retreat at the Cenacle, probably about 2005, and having dear Sr. Alice ask, “What’s your image of God?” I realized that day, that I had none. Nada, nothing, no-thing—no picture at all. And it rattled my cage. I talked to her for a while, and by the end of the weekend, I had, at the very least, a semi-acceptable thought process-type “name”, kind of … something like “the Ever-Pregnant Creative Void”, or something near enough to that.

New pictures of “God” really DO make seismic shifts in our spiritual understanding of God, Jesus, Scripture, etc., the whole kit-and-kaboodle of things.

I think one of the things that really discombobulated me was “church” was kind of like an ostrich with its head in the ground. Seems the priests and theologians had pondered these question of a changing image of God and it’s affects on Christianity for a long time. They learned about them in seminary, but few of them would bring the questions into the building so that the lay members could discuss it.

And even today, the Liturgy and teachings of the institutional church continues to defy the changes, which tends to keep the confusion amuck.

But I am hopeful. We have leaders out there who realize how important it is to adapt beliefs and Liturgy to our new understanding of the cosmos. I attended Christmas Eve services at a “progressive” Episcopal Church in Tucson. Their leaders had dared to adapt the Liturgy to a more current spiritual thought process, and, frankly, I loved it.

I am so thankful to those in my “circle of influence” (like Sr. Alice) who have not only allowed the changes to come in me, but who have helped midwife those changes. There are not nearly enough “midwives” among us, but their numbers are growing. And I’m extremely grateful for the Michael Dowd’s among us who gift us with helpers; i.e., authors, scientists, theologians, lay people, and reformers of all kind. The biggest shift in Christian thought is HERE, NOW, TODAY, and it is imperative that we respond with open hearts and attitudes. Otherwise, we will be absolutely useless in the world around us, today and tomorrow.

Christianity has awesome gifts for the world, IF we make the changes necessary to stay relevant. Regardless of how many think, that’s what the first councils were about—bringing the understanding of God, Jesus, Scripture, into the current science and cosmic understanding of the day. But what worked 2000 years ago doesn’t work today. We can’t expect our children to buy into an outdated understanding of religion.

So, I hope, pray, and do my little part by posting and sharing what I’m learning. And I continue to stay open to new thoughts and ideas. Life is about learning and growing, in every part of the journey. We either learn, grow, and adapt, or we die; that’s a proven, scientific fact.

Seeing NORA

Anyone who knows me very well, knows I don't usually attempt landscapes. But it's the Arizona thing, you know? And the Evolutionary Christianity series of conversations with Michael Dowd. Michael and his wife Connie call this continent of ours, "NORA". And they talk a lot about being in love with NORA and loving her more each day. They've traveled over the continent of North America for 9 years now, and their love for NORA seems to grow by leaps and bounds.

I think it's naming the land that seems to have done it for me. Realizing that this awesome planet is alive and constantly changing, that it's part of a system that's been evolving over billions of years--vastly beyond my comprehension--but the personal naming of the Earth delights me and helps me see with fresh eyes her beauty.

This particular scene was near Tombstone, Arizona. So different from the snow-laden pine trees of the Tonto National Forest where I had "homed" for a week, and still different again from the incredible red rocks of Sedona, this little patch of NORA filled me with such peace as I drove, and a sense of deep humility. Of course this little painting will never capture the softness of the landscape, the gentle rolling of the hills between Sonoita and Tombstone, but it can remind me that NORA loved me well that day. And she still does. Earth is my home. I can't believe how long it's taken me to begin to really, really see her all around me and to be so grateful for giving us birth and loving us well. I am a child of NORA. She is my Mother, as surely as Millie is my mother. She is holy and sacred. May we treat her with care and dignity in her old age.

Hindsight...Surprised by Joy!

One of my favorite Scriptures is in Exodus, where Moses cries out to see "the face of God", but he has to wait for God to pass by, and Moses is only able to see the backside of God. For me, that has always been a picture of our ability to see God in hindsight.

I went on Sabbatical during Christmas, 2010, and it was only after I had been home for a few days that I remembered a dream that I had during December, 2003--exactly 7 years before my trip to Arizona. I had been having lots of dreams of mandalas, and a few of paintings, and I "knew" that I was supposed to begin painting again, even though I hadn't done anything visually creative in nearly 15 years. I began working again with mandalas, but there has always been these other two "paintings" that I remembered from those dreams. I just never got around to painting them. And that's what I remembered when I got home from Spirit Falls, those two paintings. One of them is the painting you see here. And it wasn't until then, that I KNEW it wasn't just a dream about a painting, but a dream about a trip--a trip I would make 7 years later!

That's God in hindsight: kind, compassionate, merciful, and life-giving, a God of mystery who loves to invite us into the mystery anyway possible--sometimes through dreams, and sometimes through our own creative works.

I am reminded that God is and always has been in EVERYTHING, and God has always worked with, and continues to work with, whatever is available, especially in our simple creative acts.

One of the reasons I never got around to painting the picture in my dream is because it was too whimsical and fantasy like--just too "fun" to really be "art". I remember in the dream that the picture was titled, "Surprised by Joy."

And that's one of the best things that happened during my trip to Arizona. I was surprised by JOY! That joy remains, knowing my spirituality can be - and IS - infused with mystical wisdom and contemplation and the evidential revelation of God all around me in science and evolution.

All the pieces have come together, and I have been truly surprised by joy!