Thursday, April 28, 2016

Wakeful Nights

Wakeful nights are not my druthers, though it has often been somewhat difficult for me to get to sleep, or go back to sleep if I wake during the night. I remember being wakeful in the nighttime when I was a child. In my marriage, it was a source of ironic humor that Jeff could go to sleep nearly at the drop of a hat as I lay awake pondering whatever conversation he had begun just beforehand. I developed a routine that worked for a number of years, but these days, I find myself once again wakeful at night.

My experience is in between what two of the Psalms describe. I do not “drench my couch with weeping” (Psalm 6:6), though I may find myself fretting and trying to solve problems that are not really mine to solve. I wish I could say my wakeful times were more like those described by another psalmist:
“My soul is satisfied as with a rich feast, and my mouth praises you with joyful lips when I think of you on my bed, and meditate on you in the watches of the night; for you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I sing for joy.” (Psalm 63:5-7)
I do find comfort that this statement of nighttime rejoicing comes in the middle of a prayer seeking God’s presence “as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.”

When the wakefulness is more fretful, I have discovered that writing down what is running through my mind can be helpful. That may be akin to taking care of what I can do and then leaving the rest to God. It is time to resume practicing the Jesus Prayer in my wakeful moments. If I can’t sleep, then I can at least find rest praying for mercy.



Psalm 63:8

My soul clings to you; your right hand upholds me.

Thursday, April 21, 2016

Rising Up Can Be Grueling

Last week, I shared a prayer by Teilhard de Chardin on waiting on the slow work of God. Even as I prayed that prayer in the midst of this week, I felt overwhelmed. While I have been able to catch glimpses of where God is already at work in my life and in the lives of others, I confess that I have felt bereft in other areas.

Why is it that we have a tendency to outweigh what is good with smaller things that don’t feel quite as good?

Maybe that’s why resurrection in real life is hard. We keep piling the stones on, burying ourselves beneath the rubble, when God has already rolled the big one away. It’s almost as though we are trying to deny the power of resurrection. Sometimes rising up can feel more like grueling, plodding upward—maybe. 

That’s why I like Sarah Thebarge’s image of resurrection taking place cell by cell—the slow work of God. It is enough to see the glimpse rather than a blinding flash. Even in the places where I have been bereft, God’s resurrection grace is already at work. It is enough.



Romans 6:5

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

Thursday, April 14, 2016

A Prayer by de Chardin

Last week, I shared a couple of conversations from my day. This week, I offer you a prayer, new to me though I have read a bit of de Chardin’s work. I pray that you receive this as the gift that it was to my day.

Trust In The Slow Work Of God
Pierre Teilard de Chardin
From: Hearts on Fire, Praying with Jesuits, Loyola Press

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way
to something unknown, something new.
Yet it is the law of all progress that is made
by passing through some stages of instability
and that may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you.
Your ideas mature gradually. Let them grow.
Let them shape themselves without undue haste.
Do not try to force them on
as though you could be today what time
-- that is to say, grace --
and circumstances
-- acting on your own good will --
will make you tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new Spirit
gradually forming in you will be.

Give our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.
Above all, trust in the slow work of God,
our loving vine-dresser. Amen.



Romans 8:25

But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Thursday, April 7, 2016

A Day's Conversations

I had some interesting conversations on Thursday. Of the two that I would like to share with you, the first was small in a sense. A friend told me she had made Southern Fried Chicken for the first time. It was clear from the way she said it that the words were supposed to be capitalized. She had purchased a package with seasoning and dredging components. She cooked with buttermilk for the first time, but now she had three more cups of buttermilk she did not know how she was going to use. I shared with her the “secret” of how to make a substitute for buttermilk so there isn’t any extra left. [I know, Grary*, you would be glad to drink that extra, but most of us aren’t you.] Take one cup of milk, preferably not skim, add one tablespoon of lemon juice or vinegar; stir it, and let it sit for a bit. The acid will curdle the milk and make an excellent version of buttermilk for cooking.

The second conversation came in the middle of talking about how wonderful Hubble photos are. I shared an image that is an icon to me. Icons, real ones, not digital versions to indicate an app on a computer or a phone, are windows to put us in touch with that larger reality beyond that we might call heaven or at least God’s realm. I discovered this icon when Dr. Jennifer Wiseman, an astronomer who is the Senior Project Scientist for the Hubble Space Telescope, was the featured speaker for the Faith and Science Seminar for the VA Conference. I looked at the image below** and saw myself in God’s presence. I know; that sounds weird, so let me explain.

Within the community of God, what we call the Trinity, the conversation was, is, and always shall be a flow of love (verb) that has at the heart of it true concern, an inadequate word, for the best for the other. It was and is in the midst of this conversation that the love (verb) grew to such dimension and power that it burst forth into what began all Creation. The waves, or echoes, of that creating concern move throughout all of time, all of space, all of matter, all of all. As I talked about this, one of my conversation partners, said, “This doesn’t exist.” To which I had to say, “Oh, yes it does; it is where we live, and move, and have our being.” Then she said, “Well, humans are supposed to be like that (have the best at heart for the other).” I agreed, and we both agreed that we seldom see that. I left the conversation hanging there, maybe like the open jazz chord which AnnaMaria uses to keep songs from closing too completely.





* Grary was my brother’s and my name for our maternal grandmother, Edith Mabel Smith Davis Posey.