The orb of love

When I raced to see the Book of Kells recently in Dublin to discover the museum was closing early, a rarity, in 10 minutes, I took my chances and entered. For five minutes I was alone with the manuscript on view. A friend told me that was a gift for it’s often so crowded that you can’t get close. It was opened to the beautifully depicted John 1:1:

In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.

This scripture is pivotal for me, even before viewing the sacred manuscript artistically and painstakingly rendered by Ionian monks during the 500s. For some time, I have labored with what “Word” means in this context. I clamored for my interpretation, not the dictionary's or anyone else's. I was looking for the deep-in-my bones, soul meaning. Beyond contemporary usage,  I searched for the Aramaic meaning, the language used in Jesus' time. Rabbis used the term "Memra" to mean divine wisdom, sometimes distinct from God.

Looking at it since my experience in Dublin, it is clear to me it references Christ or, more precisely, what I call the Christ Energy. Word is a mystical energy that carries God’s promise of love. That very same energy bounced off the dome of Paris’ Sacre Coeur basilica – where Jesus is depicted in white and gold, rays permeating outward – when I took an overnight pilgrimage one week after visiting the Book of Kells.

“Promise of the sacred heart: I don’t have to do anything special, but focus on God and Jesus. I [really] don’t have to do anything, God just loves me. I need to feel that in every cell." – Journal entry 12th June, 2014 during Sacre Coeur Night of Adoration

Sitting last week in on an afternoon session of QuakerSpring , the annual gathering of Friends across all branches hosted by Conservative Friends, a Dublin Friend, coincidentally, who has been living the peace testimony since the 1970s, unpacked his research into the authentic words of Quaker founder George Fox. Clearly, for this Friend, Fox, too, heartily believed Jesus is the Word, the Word we are to follow. Apparently Fox could debate and recite Scripture with the best of them, which he did. Yet he and early Friends espoused that Christ is the word of God and they would always follow Jesus even when contradicting the Old Testament. According to Charles Lamb, the Irish Friend and peace activist, Scripture included the laws and prophets until John and, after that, the kingdom had come and was "now being spoken by his son."

The thread of Christ ran through my two days at QuakerSpring, knitting in more keenly the idea implanted in me at Trinity College's Book of Kells and Sacre Coeur that Christ is present now to all. Of course I have known this intellectually, drummed into me since I was a child, and, as Fox would say, experimentally – from my own experience. This time, however, I see the implicit promise of sacred, unconditional love, even for me. I must do nothing.

• Who or what does Jesus represent to me?
• What are my intellectual ideas about him?
• How have I experienced Christ?
• What has challenged me to refine my understanding?
• How do I share my experience of God's eternal love?


cutting through centuries
on a gilded page
crafted far away

yet present today

and on a ceiling,
radiating golden
rays that pull
me into the
orb of love

again from
the lips
of a Quaker
interpreting
George Fox,
who knew
the Word we
are to
follow

for it
is there for 
all,
patiently
waiting to
transform us

Listen to this post:

Great gifts of travel

I’m tired of cigarettes and urine. Enclaves of homeless camped out on one mattress as if it were an apartment, eyes boring into onlookers, imploring “Madame, Madame.” Train strikes mitigated day by day that strand a pair of young Irish women on their way to Taize with sparce funds in one of the most expensive cities in the world.

Three cities, as many countries and 12 days after leaving the States, I am ready to settle back into a simple routine, mundane as it may seem. I long for my own bed, fluffy cat and everyday ways. It’s good to leave home, travel exotic places, meet interesting people, try a new language, feast on foreign delicacies and see the masterpieces of the world. But normalcy calls me now. I have had my fill for awhile, until I get the itch again.

I can tell I am ready for home. I’ve gotten lazy about trying to speak the native tongue and can’t fathom another multi-course meal. The once novel subway system seems seedy and a necessary evil. Walking, no matter how many miles, is preferable. I am getting more aggressive in shoving through crowds and hardened to the impoverished, though I still have the ability to offer a prayer.

My soul needs to rest.

I have been broadened and expanded, become wiser and more diverse. Spirit has touched me as I set eyes, however briefly, on the Book of Kells, held and read the fragile 1661 book published by my Quaker ancestor, a woman with her own circle of believers, and again during an overnight pilgrimage to Sacre Coeur, silently praying until midnight with a scant few in the magnificent basilica.

A shiver of knowing – spirit recognizing spirit and creative energy connecting through time – raced through me as I walked Montmartre in the footsteps of Picasso, Van Gogh, Monet, Toulouse-Lautrec and others I so admire. Gazing at the thick layers Van Gogh chiseled on canvass capturing what lays beyond the naked eye’s ability to comprehend awed me.

At my last meeting with my spiritual director, she hurriedly printed off copies of a daily meditation for a Celtic pilgrimage. I packed them, hoping to keep up, understanding it would come in inconsistent chunks. Still, it connected the disjointed segments and reminded me of my mission, the theme of all pilgrims: to open themselves to the world in truly finding home with Spirit.

I was opened by other hearts:

• Alli, the young Australian we met in Dublin journeying around Great Britain and France for a few months before switching from healing others to teaching children.

• Stephen, our Dublin cab driver who packed in as much as a seasoned tour guide between our guesthouse and the ferry. He loves his city and loves sharing it. That seemed to be a theme among the Irish.

• Friends Center Quakers with whom I shared worship as they mourned the passing of one of them. Their query asking how one accepts death moved me to consider my own struggle to let my false self die and totally surrender to Spirit.

• Tabitha, the Friends Center librarian, who tenderly offered me the precious book intuiting its personal meaning.

• The London Tube guard who rescued me from an almost-scam and also the scammer.

• Kate and Eva with whom I waited at the convent. Together, we found shelter.

• The magnanimous French women and family with a Downs-Syndrome daughter who embraced me at convent meals. They spoke no English and I, very little French. We parted with an “au revoir,” kissing each other on either cheek. I was compelled to linger in an embrace with the daughter. We connected at the heart level.

• The Sacre Coeur nuns who graciously received me, served a beautifully simple supper, offered me a comfortable private chamber and opened their worship.

• My sister in law with whom I can share comfortable silence. She and her husband are living in Paris for several months and we caught up for dinner. She quietly unvelied her daughter’s new adventure into acupuncture training and as a wounded healer.

• The homeless all over Europe, but especially the maimed begging at churches and families encamped on mattresses.

• The Foyer Café at L'église de la Madeleine, where inexpensive multi-course lunches help feed, shelter and care for the homeless.

• SCNF rail guards who made sure I squished into the train along with the rest of my family.

• Christy Ennis, a gentle and friendly Irishman we met on the flight from Paris to Dublin. He’d spent several days playing his concertino at a folk-music festival in Normandy.

• Our midnight cab driver who deposited us at a second Dublin hotel, waited to make sure we had a room and offered to take us on, for free, if not.

• Kathleen with whom I shared the seven-hour flight to Philadelphia from Dublin. She’s recently widowed and forcing herself to visit a stateside daughter.

I am opened, full, grateful and bless each of these individuals and experiences.

• How does travel open me?

• How can the negatives shape me in a positive way?

• How can the wonders of the world help me appreciate home?

• Where is home?

• Where is my spiritual home?

 

cultural differences,

especially the ugly,

can be shocking –

at first glance

then we understand they

are differences and not to

judge

eventually, we don’t notice

or comment on them

anymore

it’s just the mark of

a place and people

until they begin

to annoy and we

understand  we

are homesick

and that our

mundane,

everyday routine

IS precious …

one of the great

gifts of travel

Listen to this post: