The Contemplative Cottage

If this coming week is about anything, it’s about amazing Love.

A practice that I recently read about and started doing sounds a little syrupy, but the results are quite beautiful, I promise: When you see someone, friend or stranger, think “I love you and I’m thankful for you.”

I found that an afternoon spent walking the streets of Seattle and doing this made the pink cherry blossoms more vivid and the sun more radiant. And people seemed…well…more solid, more real…since I was not so lost in my own ruminations. I found myself imagining the lives they were living and praying for them.

But in greeting people I knew, the practice made me realize how little I verbalize my love for people.  I wondered why I’m so reticent to look a friend in the eye and feel the full force of my gratitude, enough to let the words tumble out, in all their shy joy.

God spoke the Word, calling the cosmos into existence.  God spoke Love and it created a vast, pulsing home for a zillion  billion worlds. What could our Word of love create?

I remember a fellow student at St John’s, Walter Kiefer, said that we have no idea the power of love. If we would but delve deeply, we would find its capacity to heal and transform more powerful and solid than anything else that exists.

This week, as you practice silently greeting people with love and gratitude, I invite you to pick one person, allowing the Spirit to call them to mind as you read this, and let them know you are thankful for them. You may be the angel that refreshes them in their Gethsemane.

(Art: Gethsemane, Anthony Falbo)

The third challenge I find to contemplative awareness and the body (mind, heart, spirit) is that we often continue to do things that we know from past experience will lead to discomfort, pain, or other signs that an activity or behavior is hurtful.

This behavior, often called a besetting sin, is something that we feel powerless to fight against, even with awareness of its consequences.

We know it causes ill-being or dis-ease, but we can’t seem to stop.

And often, too, there is a lot of guilt built up over the years. Lots of should and ought and self-contempt, visions of perfection crumbling into the dust.

Guilt is a terrible motivation for transformation.

Transformation will only happen with love.

And it isn’t your love that’s going to do it.

One of my favorite passages of scripture–a passage that stirs my blood (oh, I can feel it stirring even as I type!) is Revelation 12:10-11:

Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say:
“Now have come the salvation and the power
and the kingdom of our God,
and the authority of his Messiah.
For the accuser of our brothers and sisters,
who accuses them before our God day and night,
has been hurled down.
They triumphed over him
by the blood of the Lamb
and by the word of their testimony;
they did not love their lives so much
as to shrink from death.

(I invite you to read it aloud.)

While I’m normally not a person to talk much about an incarnate evil, I have no doubt it exists when I hear the horrible accusations that often fill my thoughts, or hear the stories from so many men and women of their own accusing voices.

There is an Accuser and it’s sole intent is the dismantling of our hope, beauty,  love, and trust. The voice tells us we are failures, not good enough, not lovable, not capable, powerless, ugly, empty, lacking, and worthless. You probably have your own word that the accuser uses at the worst possible moment.

And I think that often our besetting sins are our way of drowning out that voice. We look for some way, any way, to escape.

But let’s look at the rest of this amazing promise:

The Accuser has been hurled down.

And what did it was not the latest self-improvement project or some act of willpower. Willpower has its place, but only when the focus is off ourselves and the besetting sin.

What hurled the Accuser down was the blood of the Lamb, Jesus Christ who loved us so much that he walked the path of death to life for us. The first love is not our love, but God’s love for us, and experiencing this love, even in the smallest way, changes everything.

The word of our testimony is our response to this Love: small, ordinary stories about how we’ve experienced the Lamb-who-Loves told to our sisters and brothers, friends, parents, co-workers, neighbors, children, spouses. And especially to ourselves. We tell about the Love who, while the Accuser was hurling its accusations to the throne of God, was willing to become human. We tell about the Love who, while we were yet sinners, was willing to die and be raised to Life for us.

And I bring you to the Love of which all other loves speak, the Love which is joy and beauty, and which you have sought in a thousand streets and for which you have wept and clawed your pillow. –Thomas Howard.

Practice: Extend your contemplative attention to your body–heart, mind, and spirit. What are the accusations you hear? What are your besetting behaviors you know are not life-giving? How might they be connected to the accusations?

I invite and encourage you to set them aside and turn your attention elsewhere. I’m sure that you have confessed them over and over.

How and where do you experience love? Soul-sustaining, creative, hope-full love, without any shoulds or oughts. Follow that feeling in your body–feelings, thoughts, memories, and spirit, and bring it into conversation with Jesus Christ. How is God present in your experience of Love?

I invite you to tell a loved one about one small, ordinary experience you’ve had of Jesus’ love.

Artwork by Sieger Koder

God whispers love to us in every moment, if we would but listen.

Today’s Florilegium entry (What is a florilegium?) is a song by Tenth Avenue North called “Times.”  It’s lyrics capture a beautiful prayer dialogue, and give encouragement to keep listening to the still small voice.

(To listen, please click pause first on the Music for Dreaming in the column to the right >>)

I know I need You
I need to love You
I love to see You, but it’s been so long
I long to feel You
I feel this need for You
And I need to hear You, is that so wrong?

Now You pull me near You
When we’re close, I fear You
Still I’m afraid to tell You, all that I’ve done
Are You done forgiving?
Oh can You look past my pretending?
Lord, I’m so tired of defending, what I’ve become
What have I become?

I hear You say,
“My love is over. It’s underneath.
It’s inside. It’s in between.
The times you doubt Me, when you can’t feel.
The times that you question, ‘Is this for real? ‘
The times you’re broken.
The times that you mend.
The times that you hate Me, and the times that you bend.
Well, My love is over, it’s underneath.
It’s inside, it’s in between.
These times you’re healing, and when your heart breaks.
The times that you feel like you’re falling from grace.
The times you’re hurting.
The times that you heal.
The times you go hungry, and are tempted to steal.
The times of confusion, in chaos and pain.
I’m there in your sorrow, under the weight of your shame.
I’m there through your heartache.
I’m there in the storm.
My love I will keep you, by My pow’r alone.
I don’t care where you fall, where you have been.
I’ll never forsake you, My love never ends.
It never ends.”

For many years, I took Amtrak everywhere, rather than flying. There were many reasons for this–I enjoyed seeing the beauty of this country and crossing timezones at a slower speed. I loved getting to know fellow travelers, many from distant countries where train travel was the norm.  I also was terrified of flying, which thankfully, has been healed.

One of my favorite things about train travel was the anticipation. When I got on the train, it felt like the beginning of an adventure–new sights, sounds, and people to enjoy. Everything was interesting, everything called to my attention.

At night, sleeping on a moving train can be challenging–it is much more turbulent than a normal plane or car ride–so I would find myself staring out the window, watching the darkened landscape zip by, wondering about the souls asleep in houses tucked away just beyond the tracks.

One December, I traveled from Boston to Texas via Chicago and as I kept vigil in the dark, speeding through Western Massachusetts, I saw something beautiful: houses miles apart bejeweled with holiday lights. These farms were far from towns, major roads and even sight of each other, and I wondered why they put up lights. Certainly, their occupants no doubt enjoyed coming home to the bright splendor on dark winter nights, but in this one long lonely stretch of farmland and trees, it was a regular sight. Even random outbuildings were lit up.

Then I realized. Near as they were, they could see the passenger trains and knew we could see them, if we looked. In the time-honored tradition, that still happens in rural America, you wave at trains–and during the day those on the train wave back.

That night, every shining house was waving, hoping to be seen, giving a gift of beauty if we on the train would but look.

Contemplative living is an odd mix of both paying attention without expectation about what will be noticed, and hope that there is something and someone to notice, maybe to even receive a glimpse of the deeper Love that holds everything together.

But sometimes what beckons to be noticed is not lovely or beautiful or desired.

Sometimes what we hope for is dampened or destroyed in disappointment. And when this happens, I often ask: Why keep paying attention? Why live contemplatively–to look with and for God in the world–when all I see are disappointed hopes?

The author of Proverbs writes, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when longing is fulfilled, it is a tree of life.” (Proverbs 13:12)

Our hopes point us to the Author of All Hope, and while we live in a world where hope is often deferred, to live in hope is to live abundantly in God.

We can take our longings to the God who holds us and weeps with us, and live again in hope for how he will redeem our disappointment (and oh, yes! How wonderful is his redemption revealed in Christ.)

Yesterday, we considered how a way to find out what you love is to pay attention to what breaks your heart.

Today, I’d invite you to tenderly and gently pay attention to your disappointment in order to find your hope.

Follow the bread crumbs back to that fragile hope, to the house bejeweled with light in the darkness, and to the Love waiting there to hold and heal and cherish you.

God is waving at you in your hopes, look out the window and see.

In a quite absolute, final way, what you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything. –Pedro Arrupe, SJ

The past three days we’ve been practicing paying attention: to what we hear, to the living creatures around us, and to thankfulness.  Continuing to expand the practice of paying attention, today I’d like for us to focus on love.

What and who are you in love with?

Write down what comes to mind off the top of your head (and heart).

When we talk about being in love with someone, often there is a romantic connotation, and certainly, infatuation can be a transient and not always life-giving experience. But in this case, I’d like to define being in love as any love that captures our hearts and spurs us on toward being more deeply present to and engaged with life.

Two young people, Jack and Jane, have captured my heart with a fierce protective love, and make me want to be the kind of person they can love and respect. I love our herb walks and our talks about the tallest skyscrapers, reading stories, and telling tales to each other.

For me, I find that places and communities can engender this kind of love. Years ago, I stood on the top of Queen Anne Hill, looking over Seattle, and realized I loved the city deeply. My two church communities–Bethany Presbyterian and St Paul’s Episcopal–worship Jesus in quite different ways, but the people of both places have captured my heart. Both churches feel like home to me, just as the city does when I’ve been gone for any amount of time.

Being in love can also be expressed in an hobby, job or vocation. We invest heart and thought and prayer energy into this love. When we do what we love, there is a sense of timelessness and flow–we get lost in the doing. As Pedro Arrupe writes, we know we are caught up in love because it gets us moving in a way that other activities don’t.

But most surprising, I have found that one of the clearest ways to find out what or who we love is to pay attention to what breaks our hearts.

One morning, many years ago, I was sitting at a cafe in downtown Seattle. It was cold and windy, with the standard misty rain blown like frozen spray against the morning commuters. I waited for my bus at a window seat, warming up with some hot chocolate, and watched everyone scurry by.

Except one older woman.

She stood on the corner across the street, head up even in the wind, Real Change Homeless Newspapers held tightly, eyes seeking out the passersby.

I watched as no one looked at her, even passed further around her than necessary.  And my heart broke because here was one of my city’s residents trying to make ends meet by selling the paper, yet up against weather and invisibility.  I was surprised at my tears in that public place. I’d known I loved the city, but God showed me that I was in love with its people–that their sorrow could break my heart. Taking her some hot chocolate and buying a paper from her, the next week I began helping out at Real Change, getting to know the Seattlites whose only life-line was to sell the paper.

I think Jesus was the woman for me that day, showing me my own heart…and his.

Practice: What or who are you in love with? What breaks your heart and how might you trace that grief back to love? Simply pay attention as you go about your day, read the paper, interact with people, complete your tasks. No need to do anything except notice. No need to change your life, add or subtract anything from your schedule. Just pay attention to the moments that love visits your heart.

This past week, dealing with job searching and rejection letters, a Patty Griffin song has been my companion. The song speaks about Mary, a woman who lived with uncertainty and loss, yet even now, her presence of faith and strength shines. I’m reminded that there are greater forces at work, that we are all surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses.

Mary’s role in my life was solidified long before I knew about doctrines. She led me to Jesus through the cross on a sky blue rosary when I was 4 years old and, without a doubt, praying the rosary helped me through my high school years. When I happen upon little wooded prayer spaces, like the one above at Seattle University, I feel her presence encouraging me to take a deep breath and remember what is important.

Protestant or Catholic perspectives aside, she birthed and raised the Savior for the life of the world, and lived through all the joy and sorrow that calling entailed. I believe she is somehow still involved in mothering the world and pointing the way to Jesus.

And even more, Jesus would have first learned to pray by her example, so I figure that if I can ask my friends for prayer, then I can ask for hers.

(If you would like to listen, turn off the Music for Dreaming to the right, and then click here.)

Mary by Patty Griffin

Mary you’re covered in roses, you’re covered in ashes
You’re covered in rain
You’re covered in babies, you’re covered in slashes
You’re covered in wilderness, you’re covered in stain
You cast aside the sheet, you cast aside the shroud
Of another man, who served the world proud
You greet another son, you lose another one
On some sunny day and always stay, Mary
Jesus says Mother I couldn’t stay another day longer
Flys right by and leaves a kiss upon her face
While the angels are singin’ his praises in a blaze of glory
Mary stays behind and starts cleaning up the place

Mary, she moves behind me
She leaves her fingerprints everywhere
Every time the snow drifts, every time the sand shifts
Even when the night lifts, she’s always there

Jesus said Mother I couldn’t stay another day longer
Flys right by and leaves a kiss upon her face
While the angels are singin’ his praises in a blaze of glory
Mary stays behind and starts cleaning up the place

Mary you’re covered in roses, you’re covered in ruins
you’re covered in secrets
You’re covered in treetops, you’re covered in birds
who can sing a million songs without any words
You cast aside the sheets, you cast aside the shroud
of another man, who served the world proud
You greet another son, you lose another one
on some sunny day and always stay
Mary