Lessons from the Labyrinth

The Full Moon 

Walking the labyrinth with the light of the full moon shining down on the path lighting my next step, I am amazed at the brightness even in the darkness.  Perhaps I need to remember this light next time I am in a dark spot on my life’s journey.  Knowing that if even in the darkness of winter,  the full moon will come and shed light on the next step I need to take.  As I bask in the light of  the full moon,  the tiny stars come out one by one, reminders that the light is always there.  Even as I wander amidst the pain and despair that life has delivered, light will always shine upon the path, and twinkle its message of hope.  So I look up at the moon and at the tiny stars that pop out one by one and feel the eternal message of hope that these lights bring to me night after night; messages of hope built into the fabric of creation.

Cloudy Day of Grace

There was no beautiful sunrise on this gray and cloudy December morning; nothing to dazzle you with its indescribable brilliance.  No, the beauty of this day is in its softness.  The very air itself envelopes me like my grandmother’s pillowy embrace.  Without the brilliant colors of the sunrise, I am drawn to the ever changing patterns of foam in the surf as the waves roll forward and pull back.  What lessons there are to see in the ocean?  Some days of my life are overcome by brilliant sunrises, new beginnings, color filled possibilities.  I seem to tend toward wanting my life to be full of sunshine days.  But today witnesses the small beauties of the cloudy day, morsels of grace that would go unnoticed in the brilliant light.  The small still voice speaks and says look at the glorious ever changing waves.  Even in the turbulent gray ocean is the possibility of beautiful patterns of foam.  What patterns of grace have I missed in my life when on gray days I wish for sunshine rather than living with the moments that are here and now in these quiet cloudy days of grace?

The Whirlwind

Leaves, Leaves, Leaves.  I have been raking leaves this morning.  It seemed that the more I raked more of a battle I was having with the wind.  Just when I had things in my neat little pile here came the wind and whipped the leaves up and around, a snow storm of thin pin oak leaves swirling around beautifully, but no longer in the neat pile ready to be raked and dealt with.

Sometimes the Holy Spirit seems to do exactly the same thing in my life.  Here I am focusing on my life trying to make things neat and orderly, doing what needs to be done, when the Spirit blows through.  My neat orderly life is swirling in a whirlwind of new possibilities, a tornado of grace creating something I had never even thought of out of my somewhat orderly life.

Two years ago the Spirit blew through my life and as a result I am no longer sitting safely in the comfort of my Lutheran congregation of almost 30 years.  I am instead enrolled in a program learning to be a Spiritual Director.  I am leading SoulCollage® classes and have started a Women’s Sacred Circle.  So when the Holy Tornado or even the small still breeze of the Spirit flows through someone else’s life, they will have someone to witness the miracle of God at work.  In my new role I can be that safe haven where others can  ask those questions about God that oftentimes frowned upon in our churches,  helping  others find a way to be still and know that the Spirit is at work swirling the possibilities of hope.

We only need to take a look at the stories in the Bible to know that Holy One never does things the way we expect.   The shepherd boy is called out of the fields to slay a giant, a teenage girl is called out of her chaste life to birth a savior, a persecutor is blinded by the Light of the Spirit on the road to Damascus to be a missionary for the very cause he has been so adamantly fighting.  No, just when it seems that we know what it is we are supposed to be doing; God calls us out to do something beyond our imagining. The Whirlwind of the Spirit is at work swirling around beautifully.  How grateful I am that new possibilities abound.

Happy Thanksgiving!

StillPoint

Stepping out of the busy stream of my life and taking time to be in the moment, witnessing the gifts of the Creator and listening for the voice of the Spirit is such a blessing.  I was privileged to be invited to participate in the Day of Prayer at the Ritchie’s StillPoint Retreat on Sunday afternoon.  I read recently that the soul must know stillness before it can discover its true song.  My heart was truly singing after my afternoon sitting quietly watching the ripples on the lake, walking through the woods really looking at how the moss actually blooms in the fall, quietly laying down my troubles as I slowly walked the Labyrinth…each of these moments of stillness was accompanied by my awareness of how often I overlook the abundance of grace that God literally spills at our very feet if we just pay attention.  The Day of Prayer reminded me once again of the ever present outpouring of God’s grace all around me.  The Psalmist truly spoke the truth…”Be still and know that I am God.”

I was moved to write the following right after finishing my Labyrinth walk.

Filled to Spill

Fill me up with your grace and mercy

When I dip my bucket in the well.

To use the refreshing water of your spirit

to empty myself to the world.

Never wanting, never wanting

Even when empty always full

Fill my  bucket, spill my bucket

Splashing grace with abandon.

So much grace, so much love,

Plenty to lavish on all that I meet...

Plenty to lavish on all that I meet.

Tears of gratitude welling

that all that I am and all that I have

Is more than enough

To do all I can do, be all I can be.

Bless each of my actions

That flow from the outpouring of grace.

Empty me so I may be filled again.

Fill me so I may empty myself

To the Great I Am

Whose current runs deep and well never dries.

Oct.  2, 2011

StillPoint Retreat

Zipping Through the Rain

Friday was truly an exercise in mindfulness.  Zipping thru the trees hanging from a wire high in the Blue Ridge Mountains definitely took me out of my comfort zone and focused entirely on the here and now.

Why, you may be asking yourself, would Karen even consider a mile and a half zip line course? You must have guessed that I did not do this alone.  No, I didn’t do it with Timothy, my 23 year old son.  My father was the catalyst for this adventure.  The zip line was on his “bucket list” so we celebrated his 79^th birthday zipping through the air at Hawk’s Nest just out of Boone.

There I was on the first take off point.  Believe me, zipping thru the air, adjusting my grip to keep myself from turning around backwards where I would not be able to see the tree top landing pad and know when to brake, kept me fully in the moment better than any Buddhist mindfulness training could ever hope to do.  However, as soon as my feet landed on the platform high in the trees, my mindful, meditative focus disappeared as I worriedly awaited my Dad’s arrival.

Each line of the course presented a new challenge, a new leap of faith and a new opportunity to be fully present to the trees, the hum of the wire, and the air whooshing by.  But as is so often the case in any spiritual journey, as soon as I was safe, my focus shifted and I began to worry once again. 

Once we made it to the halfway point on our journey thru the trees, I was beginning to feel more confident and comfortable with the adventure and……then….. it began to rain, just a light drizzle at first and then a pouring rain.  I heard one of our guides comment that the lines weren’t too slick YET!

The next line was short and the fastest zip and now it was also slick.  As I took off braking the whole way with my leather clad glove as instructed, I felt the heat from the friction thru my glove, but didn’t seem to be slowing down.  It was kind of like being in labor, once you’ve started there is no backing out.  Now came my lesson in trust.  I had taken my leap of faith, done all I could, so now I had to trust that the guide at the end of line would break my descent before I hit the tree.  Quicker than I could blink he used a leather strap to stop me just in the knick of time, right before I was intimately and rudely introduced to the tree.  Needless to say, I was ready to call it quits, but the only way off of the stand high in the trees was the next zip line.

I felt just a little bit like Peter when he stepped out of the boat and headed across the water to Jesus only to realize that he really didn’t know how to walk on water.  I still had 4 lines to go and my courage was sinking.  Then here comes my 79 year old Dad, my faith is bolstered and on we go.

I make my final leap of faith, soar through the air to the final landing pad, raining pouring down, glasses so wet I can hardly see.  I make it!  Touch Down!!  I did it!  My elation lasted about 10 seconds then the guide pointed to a wooden slatted swinging bridge 100 feet in the air, no hand rails or sides, just the cable overhead to steady you as you make your way across.  So once again, I step out, one foot in front of the other, hanging on for dear life, I slowly make it across the bridge to safety….no, to another bridge, one more test.  As I finally step onto solid, but very soggy wet ground, I look back and there is my Dad, following in my footsteps.  Dripping wet, safe on the ground, proud of ourselves we head to the van, out of the rain with a bucket full of memories.

Just like Peter, I sometimes need to step out of my comfort zone and take a leap of faith.  Just like Peter, I may at times feel like I am sinking, but someone will reach out and help me.  And…just like Peter, I may have gotten soaking wet, but what lessons I learned and what memories I have to cherish.

So, thank you Daddy for a great 79^th birthday celebration.  I wouldn’t have done this without you and I am so glad to have both the memories and lessons from our zipping through the rain.!!

The Crowing Rooster

Our neighbors at our mountain cabin now have flock of hens and a rooster.  Just the other day, as I was  sitting on the screened in porch doing my morning meditation, trying to calm my racing mind and settle into silence, the rooster crowed,  and the rooster crowed and then again the rooster crowed.  That blasted rooster is on autopilot, impulsively, instinctively doing what he is used to doing…..so he crows and he crows and he crows.

I began to think about myself and what in my life is like the crowing of the rooster.  Where are my actions or reactions on autopilot?  What do I do in my life that is as automatic as the rooster crowing?   I was reading the other day that any pattern of thought or action that is repeated many times can result in neurosignature, or “brain groove”.  When we do or think the same thing over and over in response to stimuli our brain creates a pathway of interconnected neurons, or a “brain groove”.  So instead of actually thinking about what we do or how we think about a particular issue we are on autopilot, we are in effect the crowing rooster. 

Where have I allowed negative “brain grooves” to encroach on mindful thoughts and behaviors?   I just finished reading Paulo Coelho’s  The Witch of Portobello, where the teaching about  raising spiritual awareness stressed the need to step out of the ordinary reaction to the rhythm of life and do what actually feels discordant as a practice to feeling the Spirit’s presence.  Perhaps that is why so many of the great mystics truly marched to a different drummer.

This week I will pray for illumination, for increasing awareness of where in my life I have a crowing rooster that needs to be examined, that needs to be brought into my prayerful awareness.  I will mindfully choose my actions and my thoughts, even if they feel discordant so I get rid of some of those blasted crowing roosters in my life and step more fully into the presence of the Spirit.

This I Believe....

There is a wonderful radio show on NPR call "This I Believe".  Different speakers share a significant belief that is foundational for their lives.  The Rowan Public Library has some of the "Best of the Show" on Audio CD for check out.  I was driving my car listening to each of these very normal people declare their beliefs and decided that I would take the challenge.  What is the core of what I believe about God?  So here goes......

I believe in the mystery and wonder of God, the Nurturing Creative Force of all that is.  I believe that I am a part of this Wondrous Entity just as a drop of water is part of the ocean or a molecule of hydrogen is part of the universe.  Therefore saying that we are one in the body of Christ is not just a metaphor to me, but an actuality.  I believe that sin is anything that separates us from this knowing and thereby creates disharmony in the whole.  Just as a virus causes havoc in our body so can the virus of sin cause havoc in the Body of the Universal I Am.

I believe that the “cure” for this virus is at all times available and that by opening myself to the cure of love I am helping to create harmony in the body as a whole.  Peace within is indeed peace for the whole.

I believe that my separation from God is illusion.  If God is indeed omnipresent then she is infused in every atom, every quantum particle of my being.  Indeed God is within me, within the dandelion, the shell, the ocean, the birds, my neighbor and my enemy.  Indeed when I do something for "the least of these", I am doing it not just for God but for my neighbor, my lover, the person imprisoned in Guantanamo, the child in Guatemala, for the rocks, the sand, the trees and the mountains.  We are all a part of this Wondrous Cosmos, this Universal Force, this Unnamable Mystery.  What I do here in the little community of China Grove does indeed impact the world.

Indeed, I can plug into the Source of all that is, commune with the Mystery, raise my awareness and understanding of the Divine, but what little I learn, what little I know and understand will continue to point to the absolute incomprehensible greatness, majesty , wonder and love that is beyond all that I can even imagine.  I can never through my own understanding grasp the nature of God, but only know her through human metaphor and human limitations.

My limited understanding leads me to believe that God is merciful in ways that I will never understand.  I believe that God’s justice is about full reconciliation of all creation not about condemnation because in my limited awareness, in my humanity I have in my ignorance not been able to comprehend the vastness of her love for all.  God does not make mistakes. Life has been created in vast diversity which I am called to celebrate rather than condemn. Eternal life is a restorative process that has already begun not a threat for future punishment or a reward for good behavior.  God is love and all that God does is for the restoration of all; that thru grace, all of God’s creation can know and experience the fullness of God’s love.

So knowing this, how do I respond, how do I live?  What am I called to do in response to this Love?  Indeed God’s work is in my hands.  Keeping my ego out of the equation is vital to my open experience of God.  I am who I am through no credit of my own will or design. God has provided me with certain skills and abilities and has provided me with exactly what I need to bring to the opportunities before me.  I pray that I can release the desires and needs of the ego and stand as a child of the Mystery, a bearer of the Light, a sharer of God’s love wherever I am called to do so.

What do you believe?  What is at the core of your understanding of the nature of God and the universe?  Take the challenge to go beyond the creeds and dogma that you grew up with and dig a little deeper into what you believe about God at the core of your being.  Take the challenge!