Advent longing

The church did not pick December 25 to celebrate the birth of Christ because they thought it was the actual day Mary gave birth, but because that was the time when the pre-Christian people were celebrating the new birth of the Sun.  Christians, believing Jesus to be the true light of the world, thought this would be a perfect time to celebrate his birth.

Our ancestors had ways to woo the sun god back.  They would halt their normal activity, bring a wheel off their cart into their home and festoon it with greenery and candles.  This is the origin of our Advent wreath.  Then they would wait and pray for the return of the great light.  So strong was their faith that, year after year, they succeeded in wooing the sun back.

During Advent we are invited to be vulnerable to our feelings of longing in order to be open to the possibility of real hope.  Like the pregnant mother who counts the days until her labor, preparing little things for the child on the way, so we, too, count the days and increase the light by lighting our candles and preparing our gifts. 
                                paraphrased/adapted from Gertrud Mueller Nelson, To Dance with God

O God, I am torn.
Do I rant or praise?
This world is so magnificent,
so flawed,
and I cannot divert
my gaze,
my heart,
from either.

Afterlife

In the October 18 issue of Newsweek a neurosurgeon writes about his journey to the afterlife. Dr. Eben Alexander, who has taught at Harvard Medical School, chronicles in vivid, sensory detail his near-death experience when his cortex shut down for seven days due to a rare bacterial meningitis. While in a deep coma, Alexander experienced the universe as "the same one both Einstein and Jesus were speaking of in their very different ways."  He is so convinced this experience is "Proof of Heaven" (title of his forthcoming book) that he's willing to put his name and professional credentials on the line.

Alexander received a three-part message from a being he encountered while on his journey:

"You are loved and cherished, dearly, forever."

"You have nothing to fear."

"There is nothing you can do wrong."

In addition to seeing "big, puffy, pink-white clouds," Alexander speaks of "entering an immense void, completely dark, infinite in size, yet also infinitely comforting." He quotes the 17th century poet Henry Vaughan who described "this vast, inky-black core that was the home of the Divine itself."

"There is, some say, in God a deep but dazzling darkness." (Vaughan)

Midieval mystics knew and wrote about this dark side of God.  God is everything and no-thing, meaning God is not a physical object, certainly not a bearded man looking down on us from afar.  This makes it possible for God to be everywhere and nowhere, in the dark as well as the light.

Something for us to ponder in our hearts.

Resurrection

Resurrection was the subject of endless late-night discussions in seminary. “You don’t really believe in resurrection, do you?”  “Are you kidding?  If Jesus wasn’t resurrected, my faith has no meaning.” “Resurrection is a myth.”

At this time of the year -- every year -- flower heads die, yielding seeds that are capable of producing new growth.  It's the end of the old, the beginning of the new. We accept this natural cycle without question.  In fact, our lives depend upon it.

When we welcome Christ into our lives, we’re made new. "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:  the old has gone, the new is here!"

I can't prove if or how Jesus’s resurrection happened. But I am willing to trust that God – the creator of all that we know and all that we don’t know – could make it happen.  Because I know my resurrected life doesn't look anything like it did B(efore) C(hrist). 

The courage to change

So often in our willingness to surrender, to hand things over to God, we forget that we also prayed for "the courage to change the things" that we can.  Who doesn't want God to step in, to wave some kind of supranatural wand and have the source of our disquiet disappear? It's so much easier than doing the hard work that transforms change from a prayer into a reality.

Change calls us to move from where we are, from where we've been hiding, from where we've felt most comfortable. For some, it may mean speaking up for the first time on behalf of ourselves, or stop trying to "make peace," or walking away. For others, it may mean stepping into a space that feels very, very uncomfortable.  We forget that God, bent down on one knee -- like an encouraging, loving parent -- arms stretched out toward us, is calling us forward. Only we can move our feet.

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

-- Wendell Berry

Eyes of faith

The paradox of fog is that it both conceals and reveals.  I made this photo in my backyard one foggy morning this week. I wouldn't have noticed these delicate spiderwebs had the fog's moisture not made them visible.

Faith, like fog, enables us to see things that are not visible to the naked eye.

A way where there is no way; that is something God, and only God, can provide.

Responsive prayer for our world

Lord, sometimes the world feels like it’s spinning out of control.

     We no longer believe what we hear or read.

We’ve grown cynical about everything from climate change 

to the number of American children who are hungry.

     We don’t want to know what we know.

We feel powerless in the face of painful realities; 

we pretend they don’t exist.

     You call us to do what we can; to live life with honesty and integrity.

To make a difference; to not sit back and think only of ourselves.

     Lord, let our lives be a witness to your love and concern for the world.

     Help us begin anew today.  Amen.

Happy Birthday

The cheerful tag in this photo was attached to a bouquet of sunflowers that a friend gave me two years ago on my birthday.  It hangs on a drawer in my kitchen, a colorful reminder of the joy of friendship.

When I posted the photo on flickr this morning I almost instantly received a Happy Birthday wish from one of my online friends.  A few years ago I would have rushed to explain, "Well...today's really not my birthday." Instead, I've decided to let it go.

Meister Eckhart, an early Christian mystic, once asked, "What good is it to me for the Creator to give birth to his son if I do not also give birth to him in my time and culture?

So, Happy Birthday, Christ, into my life today.

Peace be with you

I love just about everything related to fall.  I love waking up when it's still dark outside, savoring my first cup of coffee in the glow of my computer screen.  I love the heavy dew that saturates our dogs' paws.  I love having to put on socks and a sweatshirt for my morning walk.  I love the crunch of leaves underfoot and the smell of my neighbors' wood stoves. I love the sun's lower angle throughout the day, especially in the early evening hours when it seems the leaves have burst into orange, yellow, ochre, red, and purple flame. I love cooking a different menu of foods:  soups, casseroles, and one-pot meals.  I love wearing a soft cotton nightshirt to bed and putting on a flannel robe and slippers in the morning. And I love the promise of new programs at the church where I pastor, at school, on television, and on the internet via free college curricula (see Coursera.org). I'm at peace in this season.  I wish you the same.

Being there

I've been experimenting with my iPhone camera and have discovered the freedom of having no control over aperture, shutter speed, and ISO.   I point. I shoot. It's that simple. Yet something magical happens in that moment. I'm capturing the mood, the experience of just being there.  How wonderful is that?

Imago

Imago: psych., an often idealized image of a person formed in childhood and persisting unconsciously into adulthood.

I was wearing chubby-sized clothing when I first got my Barbie. Though Barbie was more lifelike than any other doll I'd ever had, I didn't covet her long legs and cone-shaped breasts.  I was realistic enough to know they were outside my realm of possibility.  I did pour over any catalogue that featured her trademark clothes, and I purchased items that spoke to my fashion sensibilities.

Recently I took Barbie out of the black travel case that's sat on a shelf in my clothes closet since my husband and I moved into our present home twenty years ago. I perched Barbie on a book shelf in my office for a photo shoot.

Later I looked through the clothes that were stored in Barbie's travel case.  I found her signature strapless, black & white striped one-piece bathing suit; a soft coral kitchen apron and puffy white chef hat; and a deep red business suit.  The suit's pencil skirt falls just below Barbie's knees.  Its boxy, short-waisted jacket has no collar or closures.  The jacket's style is identical to several jackets I've owned and worn over the years.

Hmmm.  Maybe Barbie had more of an influence on me than I imagined.

Moments of bliss

Ed and I took the dogs for a swim last night at our neighbor’s pond. We were relieved to discover that a recent rainstorm had purged the pond of its smelly green scum.  The dogs, who’d slept most of the day in our air-conditioned living room, launched themselves into the water and paddled in pursuit of trout.

I photographed Maggie when she exited the pond and had what Ed and I call one of her "moments of bliss.”  Maggie dropped onto the ground, rolled over onto her back –- legs and feet thrust upward -- and rubbed her torso and head on the coarse grass, mouth open, gasping with pleasure.  Her moments of bliss can border on erotic.

A few hours after I posted the above photo on Flickr, a friend wrote that he wished his neighbor had a pond. 

My friend’s comment helped me to see that I’ve been taking that beautiful pond and our many wonderful experiences there for granted.  Over time I’ve lost my sense of gratitude for the owner’s willingness to let Ed and me visit with our dogs. 

I hope I’ll continue to notice what I’ve been taking for granted in my life.

New Life out of Chaos

These tiny raspberry blossoms are on their way to becoming red berries, a miracle, given what happened last spring.  Our seventeen year-old neighbor, newly hired by my husband to do yard work, weed-whacked his way through our berry patch. When he was finished, not a twig stood standing.  I was devastated.

I’d carefully planted the berry patch last spring, root stem by root stem, and I’d checked on them daily, rejoicing at their growth.  They were about to blossom when our neighbor decided they looked like multifloral rose, a virulent creeper, and cut them down.  In my angry grief, I imagined they would never grow back. 

I’d forgotten that God creates new life out of chaos.

New creation

Just when we in New Jersey thought spring would never come, the skies cleared yesterday, and all of creation rejoiced.  I stopped by a friend’s farm and discovered a baby bull. Next door a neighbor’s sheep was nursing newborn lambs. God is good!

Holy Week

Penitents take part in a procession of the 'Cristo de la buena muerte' brotherhood during Holy Week in Zamora, Spain, on March 30. Hundreds of processions and festivals take place throughout Spain during the Easter Holy Week.

Daniel Ochoa de Olza/AP

The Web of Life

There is a living web that runs through us
To all the universe
Linking us each with each and through all life
On to the distant stars.
Each knows a little corner of the world, and lives
As if this were his all.
We no more see the farther reaches of the threads
Than we see of the future, yet they’re there.
Touch but one thread, no matter which;
The thoughtful eye may trace to distant lands
Its firm continuing strand, yet lose its filaments as they reach out,
But find at last it coming back to him from whom it led.
We move as in a fog, aware of self
But only dimly conscious of the rest
As they are close to us in sight or feeling.
New objects loom up for a time, fade in and out;
Then, sometimes, as we look on unawares, the fog lifts
And then there’s the web in shimmering beauty,
Reaching past all horizons. We catch our breath;
Stretch out our eager hands, and then
In comes the fog again, and we go on,
Feeling a little foolish, doubting what we had seen.
The hands were right. The web is real.
Our folly is that we so soon forget.

"Day of Promise: Collected Meditations, vol. 1" edited by Kathleen Montgomery (Skinner House, 2001)

photo: ©marciakrausebilyk2010

Jesus enters Jerusalem

I wish I had been there.

photo: ©marciakrausebilyk2010

Peace

When a Flickr friend saw this image, she posted a song from her Girl Scout days:

Peace I ask of thee, oh river

Peace, peace, peace
When I learn to live serenely
Cares will cease

From the hills I gather courage
Visions of the days to be
Strength to lead and faith to follow
All are given unto me.

Peace I ask of thee, oh river
Peace, peace, peace

photo: ©marciakrausebilyk2010

Change

It's an erratic spring. Four days ago we hiked with the dogs in mid-seventies weather. Today I'm wearing layered sweaters. My husband tells me that the temperature is going to drop into the mid-teens tonight. What will happen to the delicate blossoms I photographed yesterday?

I am once again reminded that it's not possible to protect the ones I love from change.

photo: ©marciakrausebilyk2010

Guilt

When personal guilt in relation to a past event becomes a continuous cloud over your life, then you are locked in a mental prison. You have become your own jailer...It is such a great moment of liberation when you learn to forgive yourself, let the burden go and walk out into a new path of promise and possibility. Self-compassion is a wonderful gift to give yourself...Your soul is more immense than any one moment or event in your past. When you allow guilt to fester and reduce you like this, it has little to do with guilt. The guilt is only an uncomfortable but convenient excuse for your fear of growth.

- from eternal echoes by John O'Donohue

Commitment

Sri Rosyati (R) and Sri Irianingsih (L), walk to the school they have run in a Jakarta slum area since 1996. The twins, from a typical middle-class background, have been the driving force behind the free education of more than 2,000 poor children. They have purchased the uniforms, textbooks, school equipment and everything else needed to teach the children. The twins have also helped open similar schools in 64 areas of the country.

REUTERS/Beawiharta

Mercy

Sudanese children in a refugee camp in Chad.

Every time we think we have touched a place of poverty, we will discover greater poverty beyond that place. Beyond physical poverty, there is mental poverty, beyond mental poverty, there is spiritual poverty, and beyond that there is nothing, nothing but mercy.  Henry Nouwen

Philippe Huguen/AFP/Getty

Love

Come, Lord Jesus, come. Do not just come to our understanding, but enter our hearts -- our passions, emotions, and feelings -- and reveal your presence to us in our inmost being. Otherwise, we will keep clinging to people, things or events to find some warmth, some sense of belonging.

Compassion

There is much hidden suffering in the world: the suffering of a man who dwells with others in a room of metal cages; the suffering of a teenager who does not feel secure; the suffering of countless people who lack caring friends, satisfying work, a peaceful home, a safe neighborhood, clean water, adequate food; the suffering of millions who feel lonely and wonder if life is worth living.

Once we look downward - instead of upward - on the ladder of life, we see the pain of people wherever we go, and we hear the call of compassion wherever we are.

adapted from Henri Nouwen

Joy

Joy is the experience of knowing that you are unconditionally loved and that nothing - sickness, failure, emotional distress, oppression, war, or even death - can take that love away.

Patterns

Laundry hanging outside a student dormitory in Wuhan, China.

Reuters

Giving = Happiness = Giving

A survey of 30,000 American households found that those who gave to charity were 43 percent more likely to say they were "very happy" about their lives than those who did not give. The survey doesn't show whether giving made people happy, or happy people were more likely to give, but the anecdotal evidence is strong that many people find that when they begin to give, they free themselves from the acquisitive treadmill and find new meaning and fulfillment in their lives.

Peter Singer, Newsweek, 3/09/09

Prayer

A young Buddhist monk participates in a prayer for peace, prosperity and long life, Kathmandu, Nepal.

Manish Swarup/AP

Patterns

Workers on tractors harvest soybeans in the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil.

Maurilio Cheli/AP

Justice

Children of sex workers take part in a rally ahead of International Sex Workers Day, Kolkata, India.

Parth Sanyal/Reuters

Poverty

A man burns incense while sitting in a small cage in Hong Kong's Tai Kok Tsui district.

REUTERS/Victor Fraile

Community

Buddhist monks take part in religious exercises at a monastery near Tongren, in China’s Qinghai province, on the eve of the traditional Tibetan new year.

Reinhard Krause/Reuters

Patterns

Job seekers holding umbrellas flock into a job fair in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province.

Ritual

An ascetic Buddhist monk runs through flames during the Nagatoro (Japan) fire festival, to celebrate the coming of spring.

Toru Hanai/Reuters

Patterns

A drawer of antique glass eyes is displayed at the Science Museum's Object Store in London.

Macdiarmid/Getty

Patterns

Men walk their bikes on a bridge during an annual 'car free' day in Bogota, Columbia.

Luis Ramirez/AFP/Getty Images

Beauty

A jellyfish is irradiated with coloured light at the Blue Zoo in Beijing, a joint venture between China and New Zealand.

Diego Azubel/EPA

Depth

Hua Chi, a Chinese monk, has prayed on the same spot at a monastery near Tongren, Qinghai province, so long that his footprints are embedded in the floor.

Reuters

Patterns

A woman walks the snow covered path along the National Mall in Washington March 2, 2009.

REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque