i thank thee god for most this amazing day
for everything...
Rosh Hashanah has come to us once more, the day of beginnings, summing up and bringing together our reflections for living more graciously, more freely, more deeply in the new year.
Happy New Year!
What are your new year resolutions? What do you want to do to live more fully?
I always wondered, not being a Jew, why Yom Kippur followed Rosh Hashanah when it seems more logical the two would be reversed. We would confess and then make our new plans. But now I see how it is and I love it.
Today is the day to begin to articulate our goals for the coming year, to walk more, to be kinder, to share more of what I have with others, to not use the "F" word so much, etc. And we are reminded of the freedom to walk into this new future. It is possible.
Then, on Yom Kippur, we gather up our contrition, we confess aloud all we have not done, all we have done that is harmful to others, to the planet, to our culture and the world, and to ourselves. Sounds like a pretty long day for me.
But in this intervening period of about a week, we are also reflecting about the tension between who we are and who we will be. And finding real strategies, articulating measurable, visible ways to bring into life that which we intend. Intentions aren't enough. Action plans are where it's at.
And as a part of the Yom Kippur reflection, we commit ourselves to these new solemn intentions. We will do them. And, frankly, not doing them will bring us back here next year and be a basis for what we must confess, our failings to be what we promised ourselves and the world and the Spirit that is "I AM" we would do and be.
I wish you a meaningful day of reflection, of looking forward, not back. A day and a week of making plans and finding strategies to enact them.
I'm starting with a promise I made earlier. In a few minutes I shall enter the doors of the Art Institute of Chicago, making my way between the majestic lions and up the stairs, and I shall revel in the genius of the painters I most love. The Chagall Windows are back up and have been restored - a fitting image for today - so that's where I'll start. And, likely, be back to complete the day.
Peace be with you in this New Year! Happy Roshanah and may you find joy in the leaping greenly spirits of the trees as they give up that color and become gloriously red and gold. It is the way of nature. It is the way of the world! Be glorious! Show your color!
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Saturday, September 10, 2011
"Moments of rest, glimpses of laughter are treasured"
Moments of rest, glimpses of laughter are treasured along the road.
"Cursing the quest, courting disaster, measureless nights forbode."
In Dan Fogelberg's song those two lines are reversed. But I am so taken by the gifts of laughter and rest, I have to use that as the title for this post.
I take risks. I drive through blizzards. I get up when I should stay down. I persevere when I should get the hell out of Dodge. So it may not surprise you that I left on this long trip without all of the necessary funds in place. The proverbial check was in the mail. It really was.
But it wasn't. And it isn't. That was not the motivation for staying with people. The people, these very ones, were the motivation for staying with these people, to learn from them more about the gifts of grace and graciousness. These wonderfully gracious hosts and friends were the point and the impetus for the trip.
I did not, however, have arrangements for every night. I wanted it that way. Indecision is the key to flexibility. A lack of planning creates open space.
Flexibility, I've got it! Open space, open indeed.
This is a good thing and a bad thing. I couldn't live with it all the time. But I'm living with it some of the time and it is reminding me of the power of synchronicity -- of recognizing the magical mystical quality in an unexpected moment, a new friendship, chaos. The power of putting two unpredicted people or qualities or moments together and seeing something totally new, absolutely brand new! come to life and grow.
My life has been changed irrevocably already in these two and a half weeks. And not in the ways I might have anticipated. I have cursed the quest: the empty wallet, the skipped meal, spending the night in a Service Plaza/truck stop and my car. And I have courted disaster: driving in Boston! taking all the roads not taken, normally.
What have I learned? It's more fun if you have the money to play mini-golf, or watch the whales, or sleep in a bed (or sofa) every night. But I've also learned that it is survivable to just sit on the bench and watch the golf, to anticipate whale-watching on the next trip, and to become one with my car.
And most important, I've learned that people are kind. Generous. A guy just gave me three quarters yesterday to park in Harvard Square instead of trading me for my times. I left Nantucket with one mongo cinnamon roll to last for days. Friends missed work, drove across town, complicated their own lives in order to enrich mine.
After experiencing great evil, this is no small thing: to learn that people are kind, more than kind, generous. That people will go far out of their way for you. That even though you learned to not be trusting, there are more trustworthy people in the world that you ever dreamed.
When one encounters great mercy, gutsy generosity, and pure grace, one relaxes, leans into life in a more trusting way, gives away more because more is coming in. And then, it is simply inspiring.
Pretty cool.
This is an advanced degree program, if you want to put it that way.
"Cursing the quest, courting disaster, measureless nights forbode."
In Dan Fogelberg's song those two lines are reversed. But I am so taken by the gifts of laughter and rest, I have to use that as the title for this post.
I take risks. I drive through blizzards. I get up when I should stay down. I persevere when I should get the hell out of Dodge. So it may not surprise you that I left on this long trip without all of the necessary funds in place. The proverbial check was in the mail. It really was.
But it wasn't. And it isn't. That was not the motivation for staying with people. The people, these very ones, were the motivation for staying with these people, to learn from them more about the gifts of grace and graciousness. These wonderfully gracious hosts and friends were the point and the impetus for the trip.
I did not, however, have arrangements for every night. I wanted it that way. Indecision is the key to flexibility. A lack of planning creates open space.
Flexibility, I've got it! Open space, open indeed.
This is a good thing and a bad thing. I couldn't live with it all the time. But I'm living with it some of the time and it is reminding me of the power of synchronicity -- of recognizing the magical mystical quality in an unexpected moment, a new friendship, chaos. The power of putting two unpredicted people or qualities or moments together and seeing something totally new, absolutely brand new! come to life and grow.
My life has been changed irrevocably already in these two and a half weeks. And not in the ways I might have anticipated. I have cursed the quest: the empty wallet, the skipped meal, spending the night in a Service Plaza/truck stop and my car. And I have courted disaster: driving in Boston! taking all the roads not taken, normally.
What have I learned? It's more fun if you have the money to play mini-golf, or watch the whales, or sleep in a bed (or sofa) every night. But I've also learned that it is survivable to just sit on the bench and watch the golf, to anticipate whale-watching on the next trip, and to become one with my car.
And most important, I've learned that people are kind. Generous. A guy just gave me three quarters yesterday to park in Harvard Square instead of trading me for my times. I left Nantucket with one mongo cinnamon roll to last for days. Friends missed work, drove across town, complicated their own lives in order to enrich mine.
After experiencing great evil, this is no small thing: to learn that people are kind, more than kind, generous. That people will go far out of their way for you. That even though you learned to not be trusting, there are more trustworthy people in the world that you ever dreamed.
When one encounters great mercy, gutsy generosity, and pure grace, one relaxes, leans into life in a more trusting way, gives away more because more is coming in. And then, it is simply inspiring.
Pretty cool.
This is an advanced degree program, if you want to put it that way.
We have to know these stories
Memory is a fickle partner in the keeping of our life's book.
Certain facts can be observed, verified, written down. What time it was. What was said (and that is not always reliable memory). But history messes with us. And we mess with it.
I spent September 11, 2001 in a room that I remember being dark, with a revolving group of sometimes only three, sometimes a crowd of fifteen, two of whom were, I believe, in official uniforms but maybe they weren't and maybe it was three not two. I remember parts of conversation, whole bits at times, and I remember spending time walking around in a fenced back yard trying to comprehend what was going on.
That is a part of the history I remember. But what is more important is not what I remember -- though it is not unimportant either -- but how this history is connected to larger history, ancient history, future history. And what is that?
Stories. Always we are connected by stories. Stories that remind us and join us to other actions, stories that link our lives to those of women and men who paid a similar price or responded in a likewise courageous manner or assessed reality so quickly and with such devastating precision that they, too, could and did act to change history. Stories that teach, inspire, challenge, light a way.
Matthew, if I were your pastor today as I was ten years ago, I would affirm your quickness to link your father's story to that of other heroes who struggled against evil and, in their own way, won. You knew already on that morning what was at stake in your father's death and in the last moments of his life. You know what he did, what he chose.
His life is linked to that of others who, as the poet said, "choose what is difficult, as if it were easy, that is faith."
To choose what is difficult -- as if it were easy -- that is our common test. And our common task.
But our story is not just our own, or Jason's or Mark Bingham's or the others on Flight 93 whose courage inspires us. Their acts are almost, if not entirely without precedent in this country but they are not unprecedented in human history. In fact, one of the waves that washes over all of us is this call to "incalculable" acts of sacrifice and salvation. We are part of a long story of giving and giving it all, and in so doing, saving. It is a rich and deep part of who we are as humans and who we are always being called to be.
"To choose what is difficult, as if it were easy, that is faith."
And so we live on.
(W.H. Auden's poetry)
Certain facts can be observed, verified, written down. What time it was. What was said (and that is not always reliable memory). But history messes with us. And we mess with it.
I spent September 11, 2001 in a room that I remember being dark, with a revolving group of sometimes only three, sometimes a crowd of fifteen, two of whom were, I believe, in official uniforms but maybe they weren't and maybe it was three not two. I remember parts of conversation, whole bits at times, and I remember spending time walking around in a fenced back yard trying to comprehend what was going on.
That is a part of the history I remember. But what is more important is not what I remember -- though it is not unimportant either -- but how this history is connected to larger history, ancient history, future history. And what is that?
Stories. Always we are connected by stories. Stories that remind us and join us to other actions, stories that link our lives to those of women and men who paid a similar price or responded in a likewise courageous manner or assessed reality so quickly and with such devastating precision that they, too, could and did act to change history. Stories that teach, inspire, challenge, light a way.
Matthew, if I were your pastor today as I was ten years ago, I would affirm your quickness to link your father's story to that of other heroes who struggled against evil and, in their own way, won. You knew already on that morning what was at stake in your father's death and in the last moments of his life. You know what he did, what he chose.
His life is linked to that of others who, as the poet said, "choose what is difficult, as if it were easy, that is faith."
To choose what is difficult -- as if it were easy -- that is our common test. And our common task.
But our story is not just our own, or Jason's or Mark Bingham's or the others on Flight 93 whose courage inspires us. Their acts are almost, if not entirely without precedent in this country but they are not unprecedented in human history. In fact, one of the waves that washes over all of us is this call to "incalculable" acts of sacrifice and salvation. We are part of a long story of giving and giving it all, and in so doing, saving. It is a rich and deep part of who we are as humans and who we are always being called to be.
"To choose what is difficult, as if it were easy, that is faith."
And so we live on.
(W.H. Auden's poetry)
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
The top deck is mine!
It was. Nobody else was on the boat.
A family of German tourists who were cold and stayed inside. A honeymooning couple who had the First Class lounge all to themselves. And me. Out on the top deck.
All the way to Nantucket.
And now that I'm here you will have to pry me off the island with a crowbar.
This is the Nantucket I had always hoped for. Rainy day, hydrangeas struggling to stay in bloom, a room of white, all white. And shingles as far as the eye can see. This is the little village of Nantucket. The nature beyond is beyond believing.
Nantucket. One of those places that has been alive in my imagination since childhood. Along with Nova Scotia and Siberia (go figure), this place has had an almost mystical allure. It's not the celebrity or elite qualities but the beauty and the fierce wildness, its collision with the storms of the sea and survival.
A guest at this bed and breakfast called last week to ask, given the hurricane, will the house will be standing? Will it still be all right to come? Jen, the manager, assured him that this house would be here. "It was built in 1725. It has seen a few storms. I think you don't need to worry."
This goofy computer has not been quite as reliable. It seems unkind to dump two weeks of blogs on you all at once so I'll try to find a way to integrate the catching up with the new news. There has been an awful lot of graciousness along this journey. Extravagant hospitality at almost every turn. And it becomes contagious. Even changing me.
Yesterday. Yesterday morning. Not a good time. A selfish, intransigent, unbending, rigid, mean, Cape Cod hotel owner refused to budge on a very reasonable and, to me, expensive, point of contention. He even acknowledged I was right but said it was "against his policy" to compromise. It was one of those moments, "cursing the quest, courting disaster, measureless [days] forbode." I was furious. And more than a little nervous about the financial consequence.
Eventually, he met me half-way. Still unfair so far as I was concerned but given his incongruous threat to call the police --- to do what? --- I decided to take the money and run.
As I did, I found him sweeping up leaves near my car. I rolled down the window and told him, "You do not deserve fairness. And a day will surely come when you will need to depend upon someone being fair, even kind to you. I could wish you all the bad karma you have coming to you after this morning. But instead, I hope you are surprised by grace. I hope you get what you don't deserve: generous, gracious, better than fair kindness. I hope karma comes at you from the blindside and is good to you. I wish you grace." He smiled and had a tear running down his cheek as I drove away. No kidding.
That is not me. My initial notion was to give him one more piece of my mind.
I offered him a bit of my spirit, more gracious thanks to you all, instead and what a difference it made. For both of us. I was free.
I hope he felt free too.
A family of German tourists who were cold and stayed inside. A honeymooning couple who had the First Class lounge all to themselves. And me. Out on the top deck.
All the way to Nantucket.
And now that I'm here you will have to pry me off the island with a crowbar.
This is the Nantucket I had always hoped for. Rainy day, hydrangeas struggling to stay in bloom, a room of white, all white. And shingles as far as the eye can see. This is the little village of Nantucket. The nature beyond is beyond believing.
Nantucket. One of those places that has been alive in my imagination since childhood. Along with Nova Scotia and Siberia (go figure), this place has had an almost mystical allure. It's not the celebrity or elite qualities but the beauty and the fierce wildness, its collision with the storms of the sea and survival.
A guest at this bed and breakfast called last week to ask, given the hurricane, will the house will be standing? Will it still be all right to come? Jen, the manager, assured him that this house would be here. "It was built in 1725. It has seen a few storms. I think you don't need to worry."
This goofy computer has not been quite as reliable. It seems unkind to dump two weeks of blogs on you all at once so I'll try to find a way to integrate the catching up with the new news. There has been an awful lot of graciousness along this journey. Extravagant hospitality at almost every turn. And it becomes contagious. Even changing me.
Yesterday. Yesterday morning. Not a good time. A selfish, intransigent, unbending, rigid, mean, Cape Cod hotel owner refused to budge on a very reasonable and, to me, expensive, point of contention. He even acknowledged I was right but said it was "against his policy" to compromise. It was one of those moments, "cursing the quest, courting disaster, measureless [days] forbode." I was furious. And more than a little nervous about the financial consequence.
Eventually, he met me half-way. Still unfair so far as I was concerned but given his incongruous threat to call the police --- to do what? --- I decided to take the money and run.
As I did, I found him sweeping up leaves near my car. I rolled down the window and told him, "You do not deserve fairness. And a day will surely come when you will need to depend upon someone being fair, even kind to you. I could wish you all the bad karma you have coming to you after this morning. But instead, I hope you are surprised by grace. I hope you get what you don't deserve: generous, gracious, better than fair kindness. I hope karma comes at you from the blindside and is good to you. I wish you grace." He smiled and had a tear running down his cheek as I drove away. No kidding.
That is not me. My initial notion was to give him one more piece of my mind.
I offered him a bit of my spirit, more gracious thanks to you all, instead and what a difference it made. For both of us. I was free.
I hope he felt free too.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)