I’m still thinking about fidelity. And the questions about our lives will always be questions for me—not certainties.  When I consider God’s presence with me, it is wavy, if that can be a descriptor, rather than straight to the point. However, part of that tenuousness is the result of my own wavering and being distracted by wishes and what-ifs. Whenever I think about good things that happen or could happen, I want to think God is part of that; but what about what didn’t happen, for me or someone else? It’s a tricky business, trying to pin someone down to be in control.

Walter Brueggemann,old testament scholar, whom I ‘ve been listening to lately, says,

We all have a hunger for certitude. The problem is the Gospel is not about certitude, it’s about fidelity. So, what we all want to do, if we can, is immediately transpose fidelity into certitude, because fidelity is a relational category, and certitude is a flat mechanical category.

Not certitudes but relationship and mystery.

A few weeks ago we made an offer on a house. It was a house we’d looked at before on a previous house-hunting trip and many times online. Since we live more than 400 miles away from the location right now, I imagined what life would be life in several houses simply from looking at pictures on my computer. From one, I imagined walking just a couple of blocks to work and new friends joining me on the wrap around porch to sit a spell. From another, I imagined the expansive views out the large windows from every room, with the house perched high up on the mountain and expansive spaces for everyone. And then the one we had actually experienced in person; that we eventually decided upon, seemed so right even though it didn’t have a screened in porch or expansive views nor could I walk to work from there.

When we saw all three houses in person, my perceptions changed a bit. I realize (now) that when I was looking at the pictures of the houses online, I imagined what was really not there— the grand conversation on the porches, my family and friends enjoying expansive views and space. The idyllic porches belied the rusty pipes, gold fixtures, and layout that wouldn’t work for our everyday living. The mountain top views distracted me from the grossly outdated bathrooms, 70’s wood paneling, and the winding road that would be treacherous in rain or snow or for walking anywhere.

You have to be there, in that moment, to experience the place more than once to “see” the real house. You have to imagine eating, and cooking, and watching TV, and needing your own space when you are really there and walking around the neighborhood. And even then, there are things you are not sure about; there are things you cannot know about like the sounds you will hear in the morning, which window you will want to look out to see the first light of day, where you will sit when you need to be reflective about that day or get work done.

However the process works (and somehow it does), we made a decision and I wonder how it seems right. And yes, there are fleeting moments when I wonder if it is right.

God works in ways I don’t understand in my life and it is not how I imagine. Or maybe it is someplace inbetween. There is a vague sense of something beyond or even in the midst of my own sensibility, knowledge, and even striking out into the unknown.

This may seem like an unlikely connection, but Buechner’s words about Job and his friends’ assumptions and finding God in the world made me consider how I struggle with where or how God is present.

God is absent also from all Job’s words about God, and from the words of his comforters, because they are words without knowledge that obscure the issue of God by trying to define him as present in ways and places where he is not present, to define him as moral order, as the best answer man can give to the problem of his life. God is not answer man can give, God says. He gives himself…

 So, back to Brueggemann. God is a relationship that sustains and propels us into our lives, not the certainty of a “right” answer. I don’t know how this works or even makes sense—the fidelity of God.

And while these ideas seem paradoxical to me, Brueggemann says,

It is the vocation of the prophet to keep alive the ministry of imagination, to keep on conjuring and proposing futures alternative to the single one the king wants to urge as the only thinkable one.                                                                ― The Prophetic Imagination

There is a place between the real and the imagined where our lives unfold. And God is there to sit on the porch with me for a spell.

Guide me by your fidelity and teach me your ways...

The idea of God’s fidelity struck me in this excerpt from a prayer I found based on Psalms 25. Faithfulness and fidelity; are they the same thing?  For some reason fidelity seems to be a bit more if that is possible.  God’s fidelity isn’t directed toward me; it casts a wider net.

God’s work and my work and the world’s going on are intertwined; not simply separate duties so to speak.  Even though I am in the midst of the work I do now, new opportunities are beginning to be front and center.  I selected text books for courses I will teach in the fall, put my upcoming position as my workplace on a new project, and am cleaning out files and furniture that no longer will serve us there.

The idea of fidelity reminded me that this move is more than “a job” as always and  a place of possibility for all of us involved.   This place and I found each other and God was in the thick of it.  That’s what God’s fidelity means to me; not that I found a place that is a good fit for me– and this new position certainly is– but also part of God’s fidelity is that I meet the university’s need.  I am the person God sent to them.

Buechner again adds his insight,

We can speak of a man’s choosing his vocation, but perhaps it is at least as accurate to speak of a vocation’s choosing the man, of a call’s being given and a man’s hearing it, or not hearing it.  And maybe that is the place to start: the business of listening and hearing. A man’s life is full of all sorts of voices calling him in all sorts of directons.  Some of them are voices from inside and some of them are voices from outside. The more alive and alert we are, the more clamorous our lives are.  Which do we listen to?  What kind of voice do we listen for?

The dictionary definition of “fidelity” is faithfulness to a person, cause, or belief, demonstrated by continuing loyalty and support.  God’s fidelity works through all of those: persons, causes, beliefs so that somehow all the myriad of voices and experiences come together. And with a bit of luck and listening, we find that way.

 

 

 

Live in the needs of the day, Buechner writes.

That means today I live in the needs of this day.

I haven’t been taking that to heart, head, or body during the last few days. Moments of fear that I don’t know how everything is going to work in the coming months, scared into the “what if’s,” and sidelined by the realization of what I didn’t think about—those are the needs I’ve been most responsive to; distracted from my everyday routines when I least expect it.

What does it mean today to live in the needs of this day? How do I realistically plan for the changes ahead or do I?  Could paying attention—to what is new, what is challenging, how I am using my gifts, where my water is that includes going to the grocery store, cleaning out clutter that I don’t want to move, grading and  emailing, having lunch with my friend—be what to do?

Yesterday for several hours I was totally immersed in helping a new instructor in a course I’ve taught many times. I had already sent him my recent syllabus and detailed instructions for major assignments. As I responded to his queries in our phone conversation, I realized my propensity for talking too much when asked a simple question. I continued afterward in the written equivalent of “talking too much” to rework what I promised to send him and email a former student for permission to share an example of classwork- more stuff.

Lamenting my perceived mismanagement of my time for this day, I said to my husband, “Why did I spend so much time on that?” The hidden layer of meaning in that question being: there are so many things I haven’t gotten to today and I should have done those.

“Maybe it’s your gift,” he simply said.

It’s so easy to get caught up in things that seemingly don’t really matter or maybe they do matter. How do you know when you are in the midst of the everydayness?

In that span of time when I was engaged with “helping” I wasn’t aware of time being spent nor did I conjure up any fears or what if’s. Actually, I didn’t really think about what I was doing, I was immersed in figuring out how to respond, unconscious of myself, to this person I really don’t even know in this particular situation that happened.

The question is not whether the things that happen to you are chance things or God’s things because, of course, they are both at once. There is no chance thing through which God cannot speak—even the walk from the house to the garage that you have walked ten thousand times before, even the moments when you cannot believe there is a God who speaks at all anywhere. God speaks, I believe, and the words he speaks are incarnate in the flesh and blood of our selves and of our own footsore and sacred journeys. 

Don’t be afraid. Maybe that is your gift. Remember and at the same time forget so that you can be fully immersed in the presence of this moment.

 Follow your feet. Put on the coffee. Start the orange juice, the bacon, the toast. Then go wake up your children and your wife. Think about the work of your hands… Live in the needs of the day.

 

 

I have missed some days, but not many, in my Lenten practice of daily centering prayer. It is difficult for me to keep my mind on one word though. Even though my mind wanders quickly, as suggested, I gently remind myself where I am and what I’m trying to do… and it works for focusing me for another minute or so.

Images are powerful for me. Even when I listen to words, it helps me to see the words on the page. So I’ve been trying that out in my centering prayer, not looking at the word, but fixing an image instead of a word in my mind. Imagining God’s hand on my shoulder or a gentle hand in my hand, I can even feel that kind of image and touch.

In the last week the image has been one of keeping my head above water. There is much to consider in my life right now and it seems particularly pressing down on me some days and especially in the middle of some nights. Centering prayer in the middle of the day sets me apart from “real time” into that space that is beyond time as I go about the day.

Metaphors of rivers flowing and streams in the dessert are common in scripture.  I’m reminded of this poem, a Hopi elder prayer, that invites me to consider more.

This is the Hour…

“You have been telling the people that this is the Eleventh Hour, now you must go back and tell the people that this is the Hour.  And there are things to be considered . . .

Where are you living?

What are you doing?

What are your relationships?

Are you in right relation?

Where is your water?

Know your garden.

It is time to speak your Truth.

Create your community.

Be good to each other.

And do not look outside yourself for the leader.”

Then he clasped his hands together, smiled, and said, “This could be a good time!”

There is a river flowing now very fast.  It is so great and swift that there are those who will be afraid.  They will try to hold on to the shore. They will feel they are torn apart and will suffer greatly.

Know the river has its destination.  The elders say we must let go of the shore, push off into the middle of the river, keep our eyes open, and our heads above water.   And I say, see who is in there with you and celebrate.  At this time in history, we are to take nothing personally, Least of all ourselves.  For the moment that we do, our spiritual growth and journey comes to a halt.

The time for the lone wolf is over.  Gather yourselves!  Banish the word struggle from you attitude and your vocabulary.  All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.

“We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”

— attributed to an unnamed Hopi elder , Hopi Nation,  Oraibi, Arizona

I am pushing off from the shore—taking on new challenges in a new place—and right now my head is barely above water. However, the image in this prayer goes beyond that straining to keep myself afloat.

And I say, see who is in there with you and celebrate. 

We are not alone and this is holy ground.

Scarcity and abundance… words that radically change the ways I live and consider my life.

I’m blessed with abundance, but twist opportunity into anxiousness for control that shrinks possibility and the radical trust and letting go that abundant living requires.

I have a new job in a new place. Scarcity thinking edges in when events seem to hinge on “just the right…” as we look for a house, a time to move in the midst of lots of other commitments, and meaningful work for Mitch to do. The notion that there is an order to all of these things seems sensible, however, the same “sense making” leads to striving, anxiousness, and uneasiness that fail to quiet the heart and clear the eye.

Today I read the story of Jesus feeding a lot of people with a little. The classic miracle: doing a lot with a little; all things are possible with God; use what you have and God will multiply your efforts; trust God and God will take care of your needs. While these are timely lessons readily implied by us in the story, this wasn’t exactly what I noticed.

Jesus had just instructed his disciples to go out and preach the kingdom and heal and added, “Take nothing for your journey,” seemingly ill prepared advice.

The apostles return and the next scene unfolds. The crowds of needy people follow Jesus to the remotest of places. No provisions are there where Jesus told his disciples to feed those crowds—real scarcity. And the part of the story that stood up in front of me today?

 And they took up what was left over, twelve baskets of broken pieces. Luke 9:17 (RSV)

An abundance.

Parker Palmer writes,

Sadly, the scarcity assumption leads to all kinds of things that kill the spirit: anxiety, resentment, hoarding, overwork, competition, and an inability to enjoying life.

 When I find myself drifting in that direction, I return to this poem. If I read it slowly enough — savoring what Wendell Berry celebrates about nature and human nature — I am better able to open my eyes and see the truth in its last line.

The Wild Geese   by Wendell Berry

Horseback on Sunday morning,

harvest over, we taste persimmon

and wild grape, sharp sweet

of summer’s end. In time’s maze

over fall fields, we name names

that rest on graves. We open

a persimmon seed to find the tree

that stands in promise,

pale, in the seed’s marrow.

Geese appear high over us,

pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,

as in love or sleep, holds

them to their way, clear

in the ancient faith: what we need

is here. And we pray, not

for new earth or heaven, but to be

quiet in heart, and in eye,

clear.   What we need is here.

 Parker concludes with insights I continually grapple with, too.

The “scarcity assumption” is a self-fulfilling prophecy; the more I live as if it were true, the truer it becomes for me. Abundance comes as I break free of scarcity thinking and remind myself again and again that “What we need is here.”

 What we need is here and there. Consider the lilies that are coming up in my backyard.

My dog is my friend. We call Hunter Velcro dog for obvious reasons; even now he is resting close by. About two years ago he had surgery on his leg for a small tumor. The vet said it needed to come out, eventually he thought Hunter might stop using his leg. Usually I’m the one who says, “He’s a dog” – meaning no extreme or costly measures. However, when we walked, even though he briskly made his way down the street, I worried.

The tumor was removed and the place on his leg actually was a little bigger rather than smaller. Just fluid, they said. To make a long story short, as the saying goes, we have another vet now and the growth in my dog’s leg is huge. And, he still walks briskly down the street and runs around the yard. Yet, I worried; now, with the added burden of the possibly that I made the wrong decision in the first place. Sometimes I would wake up in the night and wonder what I will do when he can’t walk or imagine something even worse. Irrational and even rational fears are real at 3:00 in the morning.

I even prayed for him. I remember when our young daughter filled out a prayer card at church for her pet mouse who was suffering. Our wise pastor sent her a letter and she was encouraged by his care. God cares.

Distressed that I was getting more anxious about a matter I could do nothing about, I decided to change tactics.

Instead of praying for the dog, I prayed for myself. I prayed that I would accept what was obviously a growth in his leg about which I’d made the best decision I could at that time.  I prayed that I would serendipitously find a solution; meet someone who had expertise or could guide me to someone who did. Fairy tale prayers, Frederick Buechner calls them, even for a dog, I thought.

The idea of such prayer requires that I pay attention expectantly. “Expectantly” means something entirely different than “with expectations.” Cosmic flirts, my friend calls them, those nudges from God, maybe, that let you know that you are heard.

These were my nudges that put me over the edge of worry to acceptance. Synchronicity let’s you know that you don’t have to strive and control or fret anxiously. Not that everything miraculously is happy but the worry is mediated by a peaceful surrender.

On the weekend we went to our daughter Margaret’s for a party. Hunter went with us.   Erin, Margaret’s college roommate, noticed Hunter’s leg and asked, “Does he have cancer or is that just one of those growths that dog’s can have?” She went on to tell me, somewhat matter of factly, that her brother’s dog had a big tumor on his chest that started out as a little lump. It doesn’t seem to bother him at all. Hmmm, a familiar story that resonates with the hopeful part of my own story; the part about “it doesn’t seem to bother him at all.”

Then, a few hours later on the same day, Mitch came back from taking a walk and the dog happened to be along. A lady made her way out of a beauty shop they passed to say hello. She had Weimaraner’s like Hunter. Of course she noticed his leg. Her dogs had those tumors, too, even had one taken off and it grew back even bigger. Another nudge.

Now these two casual encounters weren’t the solution I might have expected. In these not so everyday conversations to me, my fear and worry were lightened and maybe even taken away for this time. I haven’t been awakened by panic of Hunter’s demise; the tumor is still there as he plays and runs and jumps and isn’t bothered at all.

Fairy tale prayers challenge the fairy tale that I construct at 3:00 in the morning; so that, at least for a moment, I am required to exercise trust in a disciplined and wonderfully childlike way… to notice and let it be.

Complaining. Well, not exactly. Lamenting, maybe, with a positive turn.

I began a recent conversation with my friend, my spiritual mentor, by telling her all the things that were crashing in on me.

I’m teaching a very challenging new course that is taking more time than I ever expected and I’m feeling more vulnerable than usual.

We’re going to be moving in a few months. We’ve been packing stuff that just sits around anyway, looking at houses online, and planning our trip next week to actually see some of those houses.

My husband doesn’t have a position in our new place…yet.

Our daughter is getting married in a few months and my opinions and guesses are required. Those suggestions are laden with wonderings and assumptions tucked beneath the surface.

Oh, and I have revisions to finish, an editorial review due this week, and I am being nominated for an award that requires a 10 page paper by Monday morning.

Blessings.

That’s what my friend said.

God help me with my blessings?

Teaching that class has been a great learning. Not only have I aquired new tools to infuse an online class with interaction and a personal presence,  I have a teaching partner. (We put our sections together in one online space.) I’m learning to lean on and work between our individual strengths to lighten both our loads.

We ARE moving. We will buy our own house again and enjoy beginnings that are both demanding and live giving. We’ve connected with a great realtor and lean into Divine providence—of that I am certain.

Yet… a powerful word. Given that I am certain that God is with us and going before us in creative collaboration with the gifts that Mitch has been given; the next job just isn’t completely visible…yet.

 All those professional tasks? I am blessed with gifts that are not perfect, with struggle that makes me learn more about the world, and myself, and opportunities to build community.

Yes, our daughter is getting married. More than that, she is creating a life with an extraordinary partner. God has handed me this opportunity to build our relationship, to support and uphold her.

  An old silent pond.           Into the pond a frog jumps.          Splash!          Silence again.

 Speaking about this well-known Japanese haiku, Frederick Buechner writes,

Basho, the poet, makes no comment on what he is describing…

He simply invites our attention…

In effect he is putting a frame around the moment, and what the frame does is enable us to see not just something about the moment but the moment itself in all its ineffable ordinariness and particularity…The frame sets it off from everything else that distracts us. It makes possible a second thought. That is the nature and purpose of frames. The frame does not change the moment, but it changes our way of perceiving the moment.

Blessings.

That’s what my friend did; she framed my lament with one astonishing word.

Take heed how you hear.

 

You don’t have to be Jesus in your own life—you are off the hook.

I found this statement in my notebook from months ago, I have no idea the source.  To know that I am a participant in my life, not a solo act —that is freeing and healing.  However, as always, I’m considering the complexities of that relationship and can it be so simple?

In a prayer that I have been listening to daily, Father Carl Arico begins,

By closing your eyes [in prayer], consent to God’s presence and action in our lives…

Consenting to God’s presence and action is different than asking God to be present or act in our lives.  First of all, consent assumes that something that is already in the works will happen; it moves the action to a  probability not just a possibility. To consent to God’s presence and action requires action on my part as well.

Frederick Buechner records his encounter with Agnes Stafford, an Episcopal laywomen and classic spiritual writer, and her seminar on prayer in his memoir, Now and Then.  I first read about Agnes and her “experiments in prayer” in Richard Foster and Emilie Griffin’s book, Spiritual Classics, where like Buechner, they point out her practical approach to meeting God in prayer.

The connection for me between “consenting to God’s presence and action in our lives” in prayer and Stafford’s teaching is evidenced in Buechner’s explanation of how, in the words of the opening sentiment, we try to be Jesus for ourselves and don’t let ourselves off the hook, even when we think we are asking for God to work. Buechner shares,

The most vivid image she presented was of Jesus standing in church services all over Christendom with his hands tied behind his back and unable to do any mighty works there because the ministers who led the service either didn’t expect him to do them or didn’t date ask him to do them for fear that he wouldn’t or couldn’t and that their own faith and the faith of their congregations would be threatened as the result.  I recognized immediately my kinship with those ministers…. I prayed a good deal…speaking words out of my deepest needs, fears, longings, but never expecting much back by way of an answer, never believing very strongly that anyone was listening to me or even, at times, that there was anyone to listen at all.

 Now and Then, p. 62

And I, too, recognize my own fear of expecting too much and even too little at times and maybe not for the same reasons as Buechner in his summation.  I want to expect God’s presence and action in my life. But since I’m not sure how it all works—this business of my own actions and God’s actions in the world where I live—I skirt by with hopes.

Hoping that everything will turn out and at the same time living in a world where everything doesn’t seem to turn out splendidly for everyone, at least not on the surface, that I can see. I even feel selfishly guilty about what I can see; that I am blessed.

And that phrase, “that I can see”, might be one key.  There is more to God’s presence and action that isn’t equal to the circumstances of the moment or what I perceive to be my truth at this time.  That’s another paradox hard to life out.

My five consecutive days, so far, of centering prayer aren’t measured by what I can see or know or even notice.   What matters is that I consent to God’s presence and action in my life in those moments.  Consenting doesn’t seem to be dependent upon, or independent of, my own doing.  It almost sounds too easy.

I can’t remember a time that I “gave up something” for lent.  I did, last year, “take up something.”  Actually, it was something I was a little afraid to try.  I’d walked by the yoga studio that looked unfamiliar to me, unknown and definitely out of my comfortable doing.  Since I perceived yoga as a practice of body and spirit,  I thought it met the criteria of struggle or sacrifice traditionally attributed to the lenten season.

It worked.  My regular practice of yoga has not only strengthened my body but my attention to the moment and intention to practice being in the presence of God.

Last night at the Ash Wednesday service, I told my friend my plan to take up instead of give up again.  Dare I say outloud that I’m going to take 10-15 minutes each midday to practice centering prayer.  I’ve been sporadically playing at it; trying out different time frames, extending my intention for yoga practice to this kind of meditative time, and using centering prayer as a respite when I’m feeling overwhelmed or anxious.  But I’ve never managed to make it regular.  Regular practices transform me without my self conscious striving to change what I cannot on my own.

Yesterday I was home so it was relatively easy to stop for those moments.  The centering prayer app I am using to help me has a flickering background choice, scripture, and calming words to sustain my solitude. Now today is another day, full of possibility, so we’ll see how it goes. I’ll keep you posted.

 

Lately, I’ve been in conversations about good and evil. For me, the real wondering is really about how “God works” in the world and in our lives. I wonder about this a lot. Not so much the question of why bad things happen to good people but why good things happen to good people.

Seriously. I am blessed. And sometimes I feel uneasy about that.

I have incredible opportunities each day to do good work that uses my gifts. I have a community of people who walk along side me to share many things. I have a husband who accepts and even forgives my imperfections that never go away. I have two children who are making their way in the world despite my good and poor examples of how to do that. I live in a stimulating and beautiful neighborhood and have the promise of a new job and community that will offer new chances to be in sustaining partnerships.

Why do I get to do this? It’s not about deserving; is it grace or about God’s providence for all our lives? I looked up the word providence in the dictionary. It’s nice to see what you think you know in print.

Providence is the protective care of God or of nature as a spiritual power and timely preparation for future eventualities.

Hhmmm…why do I get to rest in God’s provision? Did I prepare well for this future I am living into? I don’t know the answer, but I do know it is not as simple as dividing my life into what I do and what God does. Being in relationship with God means you do things together; not as either or.

Katherine Patterson writes about a taped series of talks by Father Martin Smith entitled “Co-creators with God.” The idea of “co” creating—that seems full of grace because there are parts of my life I take action and other parts where the universe seems to align in possibility. She writes,

Christians have tended to go to one extreme or another in explaining our task as people of God. At one end of the spectrum are those who feel that God has a plan for every individual life, what we typically call ‘God’s will for my life.’ In this model ‘it is our duty by prayer and study to get a peek into our personal file and then act out what we find there.’ That was the sort of religious atmosphere in which I, and I dare say many of you, were raised. Find out God’s perfect plan for your life—and stray from it to your peril.

Each day of my life has been a new ideation of my own questions about how, when, and where God is showing up or hovering or already moved on… I’m sure there is a “way” of sorts but not a single path to travel.

Patterson continues,

At the other end of the spectrum are those that leave a person’s life work totally up to each individual. That’s what the gift of free will is all about , they maintain. God doesn’t really have all that much to say about who we are and what we become. God has given us intelligence and freedom, and it’s up to us as free, intelligent beings, created in the image of God, to find the meaning of our lives.

I’ll admit I’m kind of there at times, because it’s too difficult to think that God would give me a good life. Why me and not that other one? I often live like I am in control of outcomes. But always, the parts don’t add up—my efforts and the outcomes are not simple cause and effect.   I know my efforts and gifts are limited and sometimes limiting what is possible. Father Smith says that we forget to consider those passages that say we are co-workers with God. Patterson says we are partners in meaning making.

Jesus sets us a wonderful model in the parables by telling stories that challenge human nature and often-human notions of justice – and leaving it to the listener to make sense of the story. This is what writers do: they tell the story and invite the reader to help create the meaning, a meaning which will be different for each reader because every reader brings to the writer’s story a unique life story of his or her own. God, as Smith eloquently reminds us, calls us not to blind obedience nor to a lonely, stumbling through the dark, but into a creative partnership with God.

Somehow that makes sense to me. In my professional life that is an apt expression of the transactional theory of reading—that recognizes each of us bring our bodies, minds, and energies into each such grace-filled encounter. The tricky part is the partnership happens in strength and struggle, for better and for worse… making meaning no matter. Right now I just happen to be at better.