Giving me what I need

Last week, I talked about my Quaker ministry for our Meeting's first Quaker Quest session, intended to draw those interested in Quakerism  into an informal experience of our unique worship and community. Several people told me they'd never heard the complete story, so I decided to share it here, in the two parts in which I presented.

...

Eight years ago, seemingly out of the blue, my daughter’s teacher called asking if I’d help in the art room with 40 first graders armed with scissors. I immediately said yes and found that every third day that school year became a blessing. Especially witnessing that kids from my own neighborbood in subsidized housing could really shine when expressing themselves. Marginalized elsewhere, they could be themselves when creating.

And, I held that idea for six years. It continued to haunt me and I was prayerful and consulted other Quakers about this over the years. We call this discernment.

As the idea grew stronger, I took a silent personal retreat in the woods to sort it all out.  I was randomly assigned to a cabin called “Simplicity.” On the table inside lay a Quaker pamphlet on simplicity. As I began to read, I understood why I was placed here: to clear my heart and do what Eileen Prevallet calls “listening for the decision, rather than making the decision.” She writes that “it comes from an inner silence in which a delicate inner sensor is at work… you know when the call is for you, and when it is not.”

I came away confident that Spirit was now calling me to act on this leading. After obtaining 2 Quaker grants, I rented a studio in an old classroom in a neighborhood repurposed school. It was in walking distance of me and the kids and there was no question that this was the spot to begin. With a lot of help and prayer, I began to piece together a program. I’d had the name, Artsy Fartsy Saturdays, a logo and list of volunteers in a folder tucked away for years. This was really happening.

That was over two years ago and Artsy Fartsy has attracted almost 20 regular kids, funding from ArtsWave that also supports the area biggies such as the Cincinnati Opera, Ballet and Art Museum, the Clermont County Mental Health and Recovery Board (no better way to build self esteem and resistance to peer pressure and negative influences than a venue for self expression) and Cincinnati Friends Meeting.

Our mission is:

To provide local, at-risk middle schoolers with a safe, imaginative environment in their neighborhood to explore creative expression, be nurtured, tap their creativity, connect, share themselves, be heard and affirmed and become more of who they are. This is a place they can relax, be kids and express themselves.

I’m not sure this could have transpired without my grounding in Quakerism, which, most of all, has taught me the value of silence and deep listening. I would have never heard the call otherwise. There were people of faith who would actually listen to what seemed impossible, crazy or out of the box. They listened and supported this ministry from the beginning … even when I didn’t know, exactly, what it was. I have also felt very accompanied on this journey by the legacy of other Quakers over time and in this Meeting stepping out. It’s what we do.

I was privileged this summer to spend time in London with a book written by a Quaker ancestor in 1661. I had heard about Dorothea all of my life, even though our family had long ago left Quakerism. I returned 15 years ago. There is only one copy of her book and her story of being led to the Religious Society of Friends speaks to how I feel about Quakers and their support of ministry to which I have been called.

“I heard they were a people could lay down their lives for one another, that they were of one heart and one minde.”

So while Artsy Fartsy, on the surface, seems to be about art, it’s more about showing kids with next to nothing that they are loved, valued and children of God through action and not words.  It is connecting hand to hand and heart to heart.

Here’s a poem written when a poet visited our first year by a now 8^th grader, who spent last year as a mentor:

Artsy Fartsy is the best

Artsy Fartsy will pass the test

Artsy Fartsy is so much fun

Artsy Fartsy is number one.

You don’t come to fart.

You come to make art.

So come on down.

Bring a crown and not a frown.

But if you do, Artsy Fartsy

will turn that frown upside down.

So come on down to that old school.

Come on and grab your stool.

Sit and help us paint the scene.

Sit and make some masks and

grab a cape made for a queen

You feel like art’s a boor [bore]

come on down and see some more.

Did you know that Yoga’s a form?

Go through a maze with your finger,

It’s a labyrinth.

Artsy Fartsy is the best.

Artsy Fartsy will pass the test!!

I think she speaks for all of us involved!

• When has Spirit moved me to action?
• How did I test the leading?
• How was I able to give it time, letting it mature?
• What individuals and/or community encouraged and nurtured me?
• What have been the fruits of this action?



in the quietness
of solitude and
the woods

I waited on God,
who wrote upon
my heart in words
immutable

a dark and restless
night strove to 
erase them

in response, I
was summoned
to the labyrinth

walking through
tears of fear
to reach the heart

how can I possibly
do this? I asked

it is just
too much

I looked up
to see Jesus
there with me

offering:
"I will give
you what you need"

Listen to this post:

Other side of grace

Three days ago I felt tested, much like my Quaker friend Patia described about her own life Sunday. "God tests those closest to him," she'd said.

So it was with surprise and gratitude I responded to my 13-year-old's request to walk the local labyrinth. It seemed just what I needed: quiet, connection, contemplation, prayer and peace. I couldn't help noticing how much each quadrant of the sacred pathway looked like a section of the brain. Perhaps this is why a walking meditation works so well for me – it quiets my mind, I surmised. 

Two days ago, I attended a webinar on tapping, a meditative and tactile way of calming oneself. Atypical for me, but I signed up because its subject was money, one of my hot buttons. 

As I listened to more about the process of tapping, I felt divinely led to this place because I had just posted about feeling frozen. "... when you go from fight or flight into a freeze state ... your body is effectively storing the stress of that moment," the webinar presenter said. "The freeze response encapsulates stress in our bodies, preventing us from moving on after a stressful event until we've found a way to release the stress that's literally lodged in our bodies, in our muscles, even our cells."

Milford Spiritual Center

Apparently, tapping expert Nick Ortner says, the amygdala part of the brain signals the release of adrenaline and cortisol, which curtail creative problem solving, slow digestion and constrict blood vessels, manifesting the physical stress. He says that physical response is vital when faced with imminent danger, not with today's modern demands. When stuck in this mode, imagine, Nick instructs, trying to brainstorm growing your business while escaping a menacing tiger. Then think about a few days later, under a warm shower when an inspiration hits, the ONE thing you've been searching for. No coincidence it happened when you're relaxed and your frontal lobe was operating at full capacity.

DUH was my response. I had known all of that on some, unarticulated level. Of course, the portion devoted to unraveling your own personal money story was riveting. He encourages exploring the symptoms you experience around money, the emotions, events and beliefs you hold, then tap on each issue until you hold no emotion around it.

That was all Wednesday afternoon.

Thursday, I sailed into the gym after dropping the kids at the bus at 6:30 am, prepped for a warm-water swim. It felt great to stretch those aching muscles, stiffened from sleep. It's one of my favorite ways to wake up. I was cheered to spot one of my beloved water companions, Ceese, working out in the lane to my left. I could feel her calm energy in the pool as I gained momentum during my mile workout.

She's a healing-touch practitioner who has shared so much wisdom with me over the years. We each know the other's wounds and struggles as well as joys and relationship to the Divine. In the water, she placed her hands on my sides and I felt a surge of energy. She was helping my brain tell my hormonal glands who was in charge. I XX a powerful burst dissipated all over, warm and wonderful. Ceese said it was good for teens and menopausal women – exactly what the females in my family need. Afterward, I shared with her a stunning summer experience when Spirit told me to open my heart to an individual the way I do in prayer to God and how there was a powerful surge that brought the entire small group into an embrace and we all felt the energy. "You have the gift," she said. "Yes," I replied, "when I can get myself out of the way." She admitted that was the challenge.

As we were drying off in the locker room and talking some more, she asked me to center and place my hands on her ribs, which she had injured. I felt the surge again and so did she. We just stood there touching each other tenderly. 

"This is what real connection means, doesn't it?" I finally asked, breaking the silence.
 "Yeah it really is. I felt things settle, what did you feel?"
"The energy, but I also saw green."
"Love," she said with a smile.
"The heart chakra," I chimed in.

Wounded healers, we agreed.

Today I had lunch with a dear friend from college and newspaper days. She's been practicing healing touch for four years, so when she called yesterday, I knew I had to have lunch with her. We talked about all sorts of alternative means of connection. The kind of conversation you can only have with a trusted friend, though we were both careful to lower our voices at Panera. We dared broach the idea of darkness and its relationship to the healing arts. She taught me some powerful prayers of protection. We're both discerning where God desires us. It's heartening to have fellow companions.

During lunch I received a voice mail regarding what had put me on edge Tuesday. Instead of feeling frozen with fear, I was lifted by the interactions that had transpired in the past three days, understanding God's hand in granting me peace and grace.

• What's my reaction when feeling tested?
• How do I freeze, letting my thinking shut down?
• What contemplative practices help remove me from that state?
• How does human touch ground, even heal, me?
• When have I felt wrapped in Spirit's grace?


The path was strewn with debris.
Littered from last week's storm.
Roots, twigs, bark and leaves scattered
haphazardly in lovely, little arrangements
of texture, color and natural simplicity.

The decor called my attention to the
resemblance to my scattered brain.
The labyrinth shape mimics its fungi-
like makeup and is– after all –
divided into similar quadrants.

I walked off the news. And
remembered almost a year ago
hearing the same sort of thing
in a much more devastating manner, 

wondering where the time
had evaporated. How we had
all settled back into normal.

How present have I been?

Listen to this post:

Falling in love with myself again

Listen to this post:

Once again, I have taken up temporary residence in a cabin called Simplicity. I seem to come back, again and again, to this theme. Here it is concrete; in this aesthetically plain one-room retreat of re-claimed materials. It is a place I can re-claim my life away from the material world and closer to Spirit’s realm.

My prayer last night, after arriving and settling in just before 5:30 silent worship, was this:

Dear God ­Please be with me on this retreat.
I desire simplicity in my life.
That means surrendering my fears,
tendency to measure life and live bythe world’s conventions, which
constrict and constrain me.
As those die, I ask you to replace them
with creativity, experiencing life as a prayer,
bowing to Jesus and re-claiming my soul.Amen

After a fitful, dream-laden sleep and a yoga practice, I walked to the labyrinth, my fears bubbling up, seeking to pray off the layers. I entered intent on leaving them at the center. I began silently chanting “I know I have Jesus” over and over, then searching, pleading, “but I am looking for someone to teach me from the world.”

Who should pop into my head, but my husband, the one who claims to practice no spirituality? I questioned. Yes, that one. The one I gave you as a partner … you are not alone in this world. It was almost too obvious an answer for me. Then I began to see the light: “Ah, the one who is playful, doesn’t taken himself seriously, prefers not to worry, wants to create on his terms and doesn’t accept the world’s.” And also, in some respects, his carbon copy, Lily. Ok, so Jesus is my spiritual model and Tad is my in-the-world, how-to-navigate it partner … I got it!

Guidance at the center came in the form of an exercise: “sift the fears of truth from non-truth. This sifting will bring clarity and simplicity.”

In my cabin, I created a chart labeled fear/real/truth and dealt with them. In discerning where I can let go and where I must work, two queries arose:

• How can I be MORE of myself?

• How can I live in that place between the material and spiritual worlds, between the layers where it is more peaceful?

Those answers really are merging into one as a new reality and way to live forms for me. I am haunted by something I read last night, a Thomas Merton quote, someone wrote in the cabin guest book:

 “When I am liberated by silence, when I am no longer involved in the measurement of life, but in the living of it … my whole life becomes a prayer.”

That’s precisely what I desire. I seek a constant awareness of God so that my breath is prayer. For me, that means:

– A daily practice of gratitude and another of emptying the daily stresses and fears. I require a morning meditation/prayer and one for evening. One that I create for myself.

– Exercising loving kindness, particularly on myself, and releasing my pattern of judgment of criticism of others and myself.

– Maintaining loving relationships.

– Reconnecting and centering daily, but also regular retreats to re-balance, such as this one, and spending time in nature, among God’s creation.

– Engaging in meaningful work.

– Showing my vulnerability and undertanding that other’s reactions are projections of their own wounds, not their judgment of me.

– Falling in love with myself again.

Simple. And freeing … here. Can I do it at home?

• What role does simplicity play in my life?

• What would my prayer be around it?

• What fears am I driven to explore, possibly cast aside?

• How can I do that work?

• How am I called to be MORE of myself?

MORE OF WHO YOU ARE

Be MORE of who you are.

Not less or who anyone else says you are.

Listen deeply, inside, to know who you are.

Not outside.

Listen to your heart.

To me [God].

To love.

Love is always the answer.

Live in love.

Respond in love.

Act in love.

Love.