god

/ Linda Coggin / 1 Comment

Our fingers imbibe like roots

so I place them on what is beautiful in this world.

And I fold them in prayer,

and they draw from the heavens light.

Saint Frances of Assisi

I’m only on page 18; still in the introduction titled, “What Is It Like to Be a Fungus?”  I also read the prologue and noted the 121 pages of notes and bibliography.  This book is a considered scientific work; and yet, Saint Frances’ poetic prayer begins the epilogue and I have pondered for days the personal story that begins on page 14.

The author of Entangled Life, Merlin Sheldrake, tells a story about his friend, philosopher and magician David Abram, who was the house magician at Alice’s Restaurant (made famous by the Arlo Guthrie song). One evening, two customers returned to the restaurant after leaving and pulled David aside. They said that after they left the restaurant (and his magic show) the sky had appeared shockingly blue and the clouds large and vivid. Had he put something in their drinks?  This continued to happen (minus any nefarious questions).  After leaving the show, customers reported the traffic seemed louder, the lights brighter, the patterns on the sidewalk more interesting, and even the rain more refreshing. The magic tricks were changing the way people experienced the world.

According to David Abram, our perceptions work primarily by expectation. We use less cognitive effort to make sense of the world using preconceived images updated with small amounts of sensory information rather than engaging the work needed to form new perceptions. Our preconceptions create the ‘blind spots’ needed for David’s coin tricks to work. Eventually the tricks “loosen the grip” of our expectations on our perceptions. He concluded that the sky changed because the customers were seeing the sky in the moment rather than as they expected it would be. What we expect to see is different than what we see when we actually look. When we are tricked out of our expectations, we default to using our senses.

I believe we “see” with the whole of our lives and there is a gap between what we perceive and what is.  We don’t just see with our eyes— we bring our preconceived notions to the news, our neighbours, and even what we think is true.  How might we open to take in the beauty and sorrow with all of our senses including our heart, God in us.  

Cynthia Bourgeault writes that “…as the heart comes alive as an organ of spiritual perception, we are able to perceive the invisible kingdom of love that surrounds us—and live it into being.”  How do we nurture the Spirit of God in us that changes the way we see the world?

God in us—that heart that opens with gratitude, hope, and love, especially when we put our hands on what is beautiful in this world and fold them in prayer to draw from heaven’s light. 

Holding

/ Linda Coggin / Leave a comment

It seems like the best books I’ve read lately are, at there core, about abandonment, sorrow, and how our hearts ache.  And yet, the hearts of the people in those stories also break open with love that defies understanding. All My Puny Sorrows and The Summer of my Amazing Luck by Miriam Toews and The Color of Water and Deacon King Kong by James McBride are stories of redemption and living the lives we’ve been given in great Love. 

We all have “holes in our lives,” Miriam Tower writes, and “people like to talk about their pain and loneliness in disguised ways.” Maybe it is that we (I) really can’t honestly say what our holes of longing are but we get a lump in our throat or tears that stay in our eyes, or heaviness in our heart when we encounter that empty place. Pay attention to those tears, or whatever physical manifestation gets your attention. 

I wonder if that is what happened to me the other day. I was retreating into an episode of “Escape to the County,” a twist on those house hunting shows.  Except in this one I glean a bit more. I learn a little more about the United Kingdom where the episodes are filmed and, instead of the focus on finding the right house, the host explores the features of a community and offers the seekers experiences to get to know the locals. The goal seems to be to get a glimpse of what their life might be like in that place.  

In this case, the life change seeking couple were invited to the community Waffle Restaurant where “good food and doing good go hand and hand.”  The owner explained that the thrust of the business was to reach out to the lonely and promote opportunities for people to come together, to chat with people they might not otherwise encounter. A sign on the wall of the establishment featured a quote from Mother Theresa, Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty.  The poster reminded those in the place about their ‘waffle work’. The locals in this community call it “wafflin” a play on the words ‘talking everyday talk’. 

I think it was when the owner said, “reach out to the lonely”  that the tears in my eyes disguised a hole in my life.  Perhaps that is what we all long for, a place to belong and be ourselves. Perhaps, I wished to be part of a community of people that met each other intentionally with that kind of reciprocal care.

Both Miriam Toews and James Mc Bride spin stories of redemption, finding goodness in unlikely places and circumstances, seeing people as God must see them.  Or as a member of the street community where I live said in a local documentary, “Sitting with Grace:” “You’d find so many of our negatives would fall away because you’re utilizing our strengths instead of going after us for our weaknesses.” 

I believe I did that, maybe, in my life as a teacher; finding the strength and interests of some who were only seen as someone to be fixed, remediated, turned around from whatever path they seemed to be traveling that others didn’t understand or bless.  I have a little more trouble giving that acceptance in the general population, to those who might have obvious advantages or even members of my own family.  Perhaps, I don’t sometimes give that grace to myself.

In The Color of Water, James McBride concludes that “at the end of the day there are some questions that have no answer and then one answer that has no question: Love rules the day.” In McBride’s Deacon King Kong, the goodbye often used with members of Deacon’s local congregation, “I hope God holds you in the palm of His hand,” is painted on the back wall of the church for the world to hear.  Maybe I don’t have a better way to fill our holes.

I hope God holds you in the palm of her hand. And I know what a capacious hand it must be.