Nothing But Questions...

Have you ever been hamstrung in prayer?

It’s been such a long time since I’ve prayed for specifics—truth is, I don’t know the path to Ultimate Good for individuals in my life. I can quickly pray for light and truth, for goodness and mercy, for hope, for open hearts and open minds, but I find it so hard this morning to say, “God, give him his job back.”

I don’t know the future, and I don’t know the path to Ultimate Goodness for him. What if the loss of this job IS part of the path to the Ultimate Good in his life.

It’s so damn hard.

I’ve been watching the road construction around our area with a lot of interest. I dreamed a number of years ago that roads were being torn up and there was a lot of mess and chaos because a new way was being built—a new overpass was going up.

And now, here we are in the middle of the mess with almost every major road in our little area under construction. Much of my day is spent taking detours, and I often hear in my spirit what I heard all those years ago in my dream, “You can’t get there from here anymore.”

It seems much of lives, both private and public, in our homes, in our country, and in the world around us is now “under construction.” Chaos is everywhere. Many lives are in chaos. The young are dying from addiction and/or boredom, our elderly are dying from neglect and poverty, our government is hamstrung in making decisions, and I suspect at least part of the truth is that we are in uncharted waters, everywhere. The world as we knew it has passed away. There’s not much safety or predictability anymore. Working for a living and saving for a rainy day doesn’t work anymore. The rules that were applicable in our parents’ day are simply not working today.

And I don’t seem to have an answer anymore. It used to be so easy, “God will supply all our needs,” except “he” doesn’t. People who love God die from starvation with their needs unmet. “Love will find a way,” except it doesn’t seem to for a lot of people. I had someone tell me yesterday that God has cursed them. I don’t believe that for a moment, but some lives sure look it.

So back to my prayer time this morning. My plea to God, to the Universe, to the Ultimate Good – how do I pray for people in my life who are in need of prayer—how do I pray with wisdom and compassion?

Romans 8 just flashed through my thoughts: For the Spirit prays for us when we in our weakness don’t know how to pray. I want his job back. I want for her to be happy, to feel safe, to find Love. But the truth is I don’t really know much of anything. And this morning, my heart just plain ole hurts. I am grieved—not just at the loss and unhappiness around me, but I’m grieved that life is so uncertain, and the future is so unpredictable. And I’m grieved that my platitudes don’t work for people anymore. And I’m grieved I can’t say them with conviction anymore.

So, this morning I offer my grief and uncertainty to the Ultimate Good and just whisper, “Help.” “Help him, help her, even help Congress…” And I trust “help” will come—it may not look like I expected or hoped, but I still believe “Love never fails”. Love will win when it’s all said and done. I think.

The Song of Songs

I've been laboring for the last few weeks, working to give birth to a seed that was planted over 15 years ago. For a number of years in the 90's, I spent a great deal of time meditating over the passages of The Song of Songs in Scripture, contemplating the Bride and the Bridegroom and bridal love for God. A small group of "Lilies" met weekly listening to teachings and discussing what this love looked like and how we might obtain this great love for God, knowing full well that God loved us this completely.

Over the past few years, I've wanted to do something with the Scriptures from The Song, some kind of images, but didn't have a clue. Then a number of years ago I became fascinated with Mary Magdalene--yes, I saw/read The Da Vinci Code, but my interest was more than that. I was going through my own dark night. I was in a crisis of belief, and meditating on Mary's loss of Jesus, and his return to her in another form gave me hope. She became very important to me as an archetypal "wise woman"--one who had lost everything, and come through her own crisis of faith even stronger. I journaled with her, dialoged with her, prayed with her, and simply considered her love for Jesus. I pondered deeply the diverse meanings of resurrection, and what it meant to me personally. Mary got me through that dark night. She also had to lay to rest her understanding of Jesus and wait for something new to "raise from the dead". She kept me hoping that my loss, my crisis of believe, would lead me to something more of God, not less. And it did.

I've read Cynthia Bourgeault's book on Mary Magdalene twice since my sabbatical last December, and it's really moved me in a number of ways. The Lilies had a little saying all those years ago--"It makes my heart burn." Cynthia's book on Mary and The Wisdom Jesus "made my heart burn" for the first time in a very long time. And after nearly 10 years, I found myself immersed again in The Song. It's been delicious. And my creative juices have been flowing.

Many thanks to Cynthia Bourgeault, Leslie Hershberger and Jan Richardson for seeds of inspiration. I think I have enough ideas to paint for a lifetime right now--a whole series called The Lover and the Beloved. I don't know how far I'll get--I tend to run out of juice rather quickly sometimes, but as long as my heart keeps burning, I have a series of paintings swirling around inside of me just waiting to be born. This is the first one--it won't be the first of the series, but the first one finished.

Just For Fun

One of the things that's fun about a "collaborative journal" is it gives us a lot of chances to experiment and do something we've wanted to try, but never have because it might not work.

I've always wanted to work with melted wax (encaustic). So, what better time than this?? I melted crayons and dripped and poured then painted over, and just had fun. Probably won't do it again, but who knows!

The Night of Pressing

It came unexpectedly
much quicker and quieter than I was prepared for –
the black hole, the dark night
the freefall - round and round,
over and over - no ground beneath my feet
no sense to it all.
Instead of the usual certitude
doubts filled my mind
and nothing but loneliness filled every cell of my body.

Nothing was real.
Nothing was settled.
Nothing was true.
Nothing was holy.
There was no friend to walk with me,
no one coming on a white horse to rescue me,
just the senseless freefall into black nothingness.

I didn’t realize it was Gethsemane.
This was too black to be a holy place,
too empty to be so full,
too senseless to compare with His dark night.

“He began to be grieved and agitated.”

Sorrow-full,
sadness filling every pore,
a sense of loss,
regret,
disappointment,
hopelessness
finality.

And the olive sits under the weight of the press -
for how long?
For me, it was five years.
An eternity separated from my God,
lost as lost can be,
the fairy tale over,
nothing left but the falling, the darkness, the void.

Is there any oil?
Who knew half the weight of the olive is oil.
There is oil,
but sometimes it takes a long time to press an olive.


As I painted this morning, I thought of a number of friends who seem to be going through a "pressing" of their own; they are in freefall. My prayers are for you this morning. No one knows when it's coming, no one knows how they'll respond to the pressing, and no one knows when the darn thing will ever end. It feels so good to feel the earth press beneath your feet as the freefall begins coming to an end. My prayer is that you'll just hang on until you land. There will be arms to catch you.

Remembering That Night

The room was electric with the energy of a celebration,
the reliving of an important part of our history.
It was to be a great feast—
at least four cups of wine for each of us,
enough to make our faces shine
and our hearts glad.

Everything had been properly prepared,
And the table set with the finest we had to offer.
Bowls of karpas and salt water were scattered about,
along with bitter herbs to dip in a paste
of fruit, nuts, wine and spices, the charose.
And, of course, there was plenty of unleavened bread.

The men were reclining at table, as freed men do,
talking and laughing loudly,
while children’s and women’s voices
were muted in the background.
But we were all there,
for this was a family celebration,
a reliving of whole households and a nation being set free.
It wasn’t just the men who were there,
as many would have us believe.

Women were bustling about serving at table,
and I was watching, observing,
my eyes fully focused on the Master’s face
looking for signs of approval,

but instead, in the middle of all the noise and festivity,
he opened his mouth and spoke,
“Truly I tell you, this very night, one of you will betray me.”

My stomach still sinks as my heart repeats his words.
It was as if a death had been announced.
We all were frozen in our places,
not a finger moved, not a breath was breathed.

Then, as the news sank in, we all began asking, “Is it I Lord?”
Surely not me! I would never betray you.
You have taught us so faithfully,
loved us so well.
It couldn’t be me, could it Lord?

He answered, “The one who has dipped his hand into the bowl with me will betray me.”

We all looked around at each other, stunned, for all of us—
each one of us—
had dipped our hand in the bowl with him.
Is it possible that each of us would betray the Master, our friend?
Is it possible that fear might hold that much power over me?

Surely Lord, surely it can’t be me.

An Open Letter to "Skeptic"

Skeptic – thoughtful, inquiring. a person who believes in or practices philosophical skepticism, a person who habitually doubts, questions, or suspends judgment upon matters generally accepted, a person who doubts religious doctrines.

Hmmm….seems I might be defined as a skeptic, too.

A few days ago, I posted Elissa Elliott’s blog post on my Facebook page and one of my friends commented: “I couldn't agree more. I am a skeptic at heart. What she described is not only agnosticism, but true skepticism. And I hate that the word skeptic is used in such a negative manner among society. A good question to ask would be, " what kind ...of evidence would you need to believe in God?" What people don't seem to understand is that the evidence they are presenting to the atheist is purely subjective, therefore, not evidence at all to another person.”

I have come to appreciate honest skepticism—and skeptics. Didn’t use to—used to really blast the skeptics, that is until I found myself doubting it all.

A friend of mine had a dream a few years back—it was one of those dreams that I knew in my knower was for me. (Dreams can be that way you know—anyone can claim another’s dream for themself. It’s the way of dreams.) She dreamed that she found a fish, almost dead, on the bank of the creek. It was tangled up in knotted fishing line, and still had the hook in its mouth. She sat about trying to free the fish without killing it.

I just knew in my knower that I was the fish, and I was also the one trying to free the fish. In my lifetime, I have swallowed a whole lot of things hook, line, and sinker. This dream came before I entered my season of doubting, but that’s what I realized during that dark night. And I was tangled up in the knots of a lot of religion’s dogma and doctrines that no longer made any sense to me.

One of my favorite nuns at the Cenacle commented in class one day: “One of the things the Church needs to ask forgiveness for is not allowing the questions.” Amen! How the heck does anyone grow to adulthood without asking questions?

It seems that human beings were created, or are programmed, with what might be referred to as a binary operating system (Cynthia Bourgeault). And it works great for most of life. It’s what allows us to sort into categories, organize, define, and prove. But it doesn’t work well for all of life, especially the inner experiences of life. And I think that’s where some of us get all tangled up—we want proof of an experience. We want to define Something indefinable.

A couple of years ago, I realized that the doctrinal view of Trinity that I had always accepted seemed to small for what I had experienced, so I took the liberty of coming up with my own expanded view of trinity: God Beyond, God Beside, and God Within.

God Beyond – what the Buddhist describe as “nothingness”, or “no-thingness”. God before we humans defined “Him” as the old white man in the sky that moves creation around like a puppeteer. God before Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. God before the Big Bang. God before Adam/Eve, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
My experience of God Beyond is like the Energy that bursts open a seed bringing it to life and causing it to grow, the cosmic Energy that flows throughout all creation, flowing in, out, around and through all things, making us all one. It’s what we live, move, and have our being in. Another friend pictured it as a wave and an ocean—the ocean can exist without the wave, but the wave cannot exist without the ocean. The ocean gives life to the wave, and the wave is an experience of the ocean. It’s the nebulous, indefinable, beyond all knowing God. Paul Smith, in his book, Integral Christianity, calls it the Infinite Face of God. This is the God my brain loves to zzzzzzt out to, as I ponder and reflect on Infinite God.

God Beside (or the Intimate Face of God) is the God most of us have experienced as Father, Mother, Sister, Brother, Jesus, Holy Spirit, Community—it’s the God I was introduced to about the age of 3. God Beside for me most clearly goes by the name of Jesus. This God is the one I talk to, walk with—it’s my Friend and Confident, my Companion. Most recently I’ve experienced this God often in the faces of members of my communities – God defined with a face, a voice, a word, and a gift. With this God, I am never alone.

God Within (or Smith’s Inner Face of God) is I suspect the God that a lot of Christians find almost blasphemous. It’s that Divine Spark within each of us—our Essence made in the image and likeness of God—it’s the Buddhist “Namaste”. I am the Light of the world, the Salt of the earth. I am the reflection of God—at my deepest core, I always have been and always will be. It’s God that speaks with my voice, and even shows up sometimes in my paintings, no matter how hard I try not to paint her there. Perhaps she’s the one I need to spend time getting to know, because for most of my life, I thought I was rotten at the core—a dung heap, sinful by my very nature. But my experience of God has taught me that I am beautiful and holy in spite of my propensity to appear different. I’m the acorn pretending to be an oak tree. Or as Meister Eckhart pointed out, “the apple seed producing an apple; a God seed growing into the fullness of God. Peter tells me that I have the Divine Seed in me, and that I partake of the Divine Nature. Paul Smith calls it “baby divinity”. That’s pretty heady stuff for a mere human to take in, but take it in, I believe we must.

So, here I am again, thinking about my “skeptic” friend—grateful for her skepticism, and even grateful for my own. That’s part of our evolutionary call. We are all spiritual beings on a human journey, and our call is to be transformed. How can we fulfill our calling if we refuse to question, if we swallow everything hook, line, and sinker, if we never live our lives beyond the Answer Man.

You know, I still haven’t proved God, but I can invite you into an experience of all that is Love, all that is Beautiful, and all that is Holy. Taste and see that the Lord is good. Mmmm….very, very good.

The Rat of My Mind - Getting off the Hamster Wheel

It’s with a grateful heart that I write this morning.

I spent time with my Engaging Scripture practice this morning. The passage was Matthew 21:1 -14, the disciples questioning Jesus about when he was coming back and what the end of time was going to look like.

It came too close on the heels of our “Rapture” guy this weekend. As I read the passage, I felt myself tensing up, contracting on the inside, being frustrated at the stupidity of it all, and frustrated with the point of view that keeps us focused on the negative and the end, instead of today. I could feel the conflict inside of me, as I rushed through today’s Practice to something else that would be more applicable to my current worldview, even a little angry at myself that I couldn’t “get” the Scripture today—surely there had to be a middle ground somewhere.

Engaging Scripture was not a blessing today, and my response was one of internal conflict, frustration, and a feeling of “going backward”.

Then I listened to my on-line class’s weekly session: The Kingdom of Heaven is Within You. As usual, it was Good News, and uplifting. Then, I found the practical application for me TODAY.

Leslie said, “If we’re journeying inside ourselves it’s helpful to know how we get in our own way.”

As she continued talking about our thought patterns and what gets “foregrounded”, it dawned on me that my old cultural worldview was what was being foregrounded as I read that passage from Matthew. And that old worldview demandsthat I get it right—that I interpret Scripture right, and that I live my life right.

There was a day not too long ago, when all I thought about was what the disciples asked Jesus that day: “When are you coming back? What will the signs be?” That’s all I lived for. That was my whole worldview only 10 short years ago. And I was so sure it was right.

But I see with a new pair of glasses today. I see Christ often now-a-days in the faces of those around me, most recently in the face of an elderly lady who sat next to me in church this past Sunday morning. All she said to me was simply, “Thank you,” but I saw Christ in her eyes, and I heard Christ in her voice. Every hair on my arms and neck stood at attention, what Leslie calls “a body buzz”, and I knew that I knew it was Christ who was thanking me, and gratitude flooded my heart as tears stung my eyes.

This new worldview helps me see goodness all around me. It keeps me focused on today, this present moment. It keeps me aware of joy, peace, goodness, beauty, truth, and everything sweet about life, instead of focused on the narrow, the ugly, the end, and everything that’s wrong with the world we live in.

But I often find that there’s still this demand inside of me that this newer worldview be the “right” one.

Today as I listened to Leslie teach, it came to me once more that every point of view is just that, only a point of view—partial and incomplete. I don’t have to figure out that passage; I don’t have to judge whether or not it’s right or wrong to live life that way. I don’t have to judge my own self for feeling frustrated, even angry that I picked up an old pair of lenses to read Scripture with. I don’t have to do anything but feel my feelings, welcome them, and surrender them to Love.

It really doesn’t matter what point of view you or I see, it only matters that we realize it’s a partial point of view. And it only matters that we surrender our demand to have “the right point of view” in the face of Good News, that we are not separated from God: “the One is already here. We are being invited to the feast. We are being invited to participate in that which is greater than ourselves. And there’s even more Good News: Grace itself loves chaos and allows for destruction—chaos and destruction always birth something new. It’s a way of getting our attention; it’s a way of seeing a higher order, an order that can hold more complexity”. (from Leslie’s talk).

It’s ok that my understanding is “messy”, and that my attention wanders, and that I don’t get “it”. It’s even ok that I get frustrated and angry when I read certain passages of Scripture. All I need to do is surrender the frustration, the anger, and the messiness to Divine Love, and relax in the knowing that I’ll never be able to see it or understand it all.

And I find myself relaxing into Love again this morning, breathing deeply and unwinding. I’ve had help catching the rat of my mind running on the hamster wheel of my demanding thoughts. And I’ve been able to stop the wheel, and get off.

Thank you Leslie, for the reminder. Thanks be to God that the Kingdom is within us, just waiting for us to learn to access it and to share it.