Retreat Recipe

Naked in this valley

caught behind glass

each part of me on display.

No crowds peering or prodding,

just one gaze I turn from.

There is no good place to hide here

            that is why I come.

To be seen (in spite of the fear of it).

To be known (via exposure).

                        No clothes to cover me

                        No media buzzing its cloud of worries to shade me

                        No work within which to fashion an identity

                        No people around with whom to tangle my story.

Just me…and

the Great Gaze of the universe.

I have only this mass of flesh to offer

only this heart,

this dissatisfied soul.

Dissected and categorized

this “I” seems small, sterile when diagramed:

*            *            *

Lower left limb—limping Hope

Upper left limb—Exhaustion, Sloth

Midsection—Fear, Humor (protective layer)

Lower right limb—Competency, Faith

Upper back—Joy

Lower back—Lust

Upper right limb—Gluttony

Head—Intellect, Dreams (occasional nightmares)

Heart—Love (pained, misdirected, thick, incense-rich, pulsing, velvet) Love.

*            *            *

On the whole, this “I” is just another of the billions of beings

peppered with good and bad.  

The uniqueness is in the precise combination.

Meddle with the recipe a bit

savory or sweet

this meat can be.

It is not yet time to close the book—

the bite of the bitter can be tempered,

the shine of the fruit might be polished.

            That is why I come

to this desert:

exposure

to God’s eye

and my own

dis-comforts,

re-calls

my place in this universe

among the billions of beings.

This “I” is loved, guided, challenged, encouraged

like the rest.

On the whole, we comprise a glorious

(glorious!)

mess.

Trying too Hard

There is so much to do. Work – Make Money – Buy Stuff – Pay Bills – Clean Stuff – Sell Stuff – Work – Make Money. There is so much to do in the economy of capitalism.

There is not enough time. Family – Friends – Lovers – Our Community – Our favorite Restaurants and Coffee Shops – A Good Book. There is not enough time to love, rest and enjoy.

There is more to do. Pray – Go to Church – Give Money – Do Good Works – Learn about God – Read the Bible – Grow Spiritually. There is so much to do in the economy of religion.

I think I’m trying a little bit too hard lately. I’m betting you know the feeling. Sifting through the hours in my day and wanting to be accountable for my time. Hoping to spend more of it occupied with the Holy. Realizing that by “spending” time I’ve turned it into a commodity. And it doesn’t feel so Holy. More like hole-y. A calendar filled with holes cut out from hours lost to worry or waste.

Time to stop trying so hard. Today anyway.

Charter for Compassion

This is one of the most beautiful video clips and projects I have ever encountered. Turns out to be the blossoming of an effort by Karen Armstrong. Reminds me that the next time I have several days/weeks off in a row, I ought to take the opportunity to stretch out in my chair and read all her writing from old to new.

Compassion. I think they're onto something.

[click on the title of this post to go to the website and view the video]

Making All Things New

It has felt good to flip the page on the calendar. I am ready to wipe the slate of my life clean and start fresh. And it's even o.k. that my slate has some grooves and markings on it that won't wipe off completely. Those markings add character! It's a new year, I have a new job and another chance to be the me I want to be. Of course, we are presented with this sort of "new" opportunity every morning--how cool that we wake up every day with another chance to begin life anew?! Though I must admit that I've needed something bigger--more of a jolt--to get that refreshed feeling. I've needed to begin a new Year and not just wake up to a new morning. One of my first tasks in this new year is to preach. It has been awhile since I have delivered a sermon and I feel a bit rusty. Searching for inspiration, I opened up one of the most important books I read in seminary. Anna Carter Florence's book Preaching as Testimony (Westminster John Knox Press, 2007) is brimming with wise counsel and insight--especially for the woman preacher. I was struck by a paragraph I had highlighted a couple of years ago. It speaks about an attitude of "freedom" which I wish to embody in this upcoming year (and the next 50 or so years for that matter). So a guidepost for 2010 and beyond:

"Proclamation, then, is a testimony of freedom...Yet the freedom women have seen and confessed is never for the sake of the present order, 'keeping things as they are.' If it were, our preaching would only be interested in trying to maintain the status quo. We would simply try to spread power around. We would try to help women become like men, blacks like whites, the poor like the rich--as if extending privileges through a heaping portion of patriarchal power were the answer to all our problems. But preaching, as Jesus taught us, is never for keeping the status quo. Instead, it is for the reordering of relations: for jubilee. It is for canceling debt and making all things new. It is for freedom." (p.97)

May the proclamation and expression I engage in this year be in service to this "reordering of relations", this freedom, this moving beyond the status quo.