Worship launches whirlwind week

Answered prayers and blessings have abounded this week and, fortunately, I've been in a place of awareness and gratitude. Could I possibly always be this blessed, just not aware?

Much of it has to do with a conscious effort and new spiritual practice to bless everything and everyone. Ok, really, it's Spirit, yet my awareness is more present, focused and tuned in.

IT'S IN THE EYES
Monday, I took a brief road trip with my twin sister to Smalltown, Indiana, to visit a naturopath her co-workers rave about. It was a beautifully sunny day to weave up and down among the rolling pastures, neat farms, livestock, flea markets and forgotten villages. I needed a new perspective after a long winter of hibernating. We arrived early and had a brief wait in the front of the building, where all of the herbs are kept. Several locals strolled in looking for this tonic or that. We had our appointment together, but Carolyn gently insisted I go first. "Just like you pushed me out of the womb?" I jokingly asked.

Terri began by photographing each of my eyes. She practices iridology, which purports your health is recorded in the eyes. I was enamored with the photos and coaxed her into e-mailing me one. She seemed impressed with something about my eyes, though didn't name it. I scribbled a page or two of notes since she had many interesting things to day. Most rung with truth. Those that didn't personally, I could see were family traits. What interested me most, beyond her saying I had a strong structure and healthy heart, was her suggestion that the fibromyalgia is bacterial. That spoke to me not in a new-hope-this-will-fix-it way, but as a truth, one path no one else has uttered, let alone offered to treat – naturally. She bumped up my thyroid treatment, gave me an enzyme for digestion, olive-leaf oil for the bacteria and a sleep enhancer to get me off the Valerian root-melatonin and Benadryl roller coaster. I have had more energy this week. I am struggling with sleep, weaning off a cocktail of many years. However, I am giving it a go. Funny thing, at the beginning of my consultation, she looked at me and remarked: "You're always going and active, aren't you? And when you're done, you drop." I responded that I think of myself more as a contemplative, then remembered how my husband always reminds me that I never stop, unless physically forced to.

I think Terri calls it as she sees it and reminds me I am not sickly and helpless, the way my ego has ensnared me.

REMEMBERING TO FEEL BLESSED
Forgetting NOT to take the thyroid supplements before bed and mixing it with the sleep aid was a mistake that had me up and down all night. Tiredly, I drug myself to the pool, then off to meet my new workshop partner for our final planning session. We're presenting tomorrow (Saturday). Sunday we had been disappointed that no one showed up at our preview session, though we buoyed each other and left undaunted. This work seems like such a blessing and exactly what I am called to that it's not really work. Of course, there's lots to do and much effort exerted, but it's fun, playful and, even, prayerful. Before Monday's road trip, I'd popped into the studio to finish the wall-of-pain piece I'd created for the workshop. We'd gotten the ok to set it up in our venue and use it as a teaser. The owner loved it and it looked great. How could anyone resist? we thought. We have five souls coming tomorrow and are thrilled! I'd caught myself from becoming desperate and used prayer and blessings when it was only two on Tuesday. I also have my diligent partner to thank.

SEEING CLEARLY A SLOW PROCESS
Sunday, I'd left Quaker meeting (church) early, missing the business meeting, to co-host that intro workshop I mentioned earlier. In my absence, the congregation considered a ministry grant request from me for salary and rent for Artsy Fartsy Saturdays, the not-for-profit arts exploration I launched for local, at-risk kids. I'd had mixed feelings about attending. I wanted to be sure people had space to talk freely and me being there would, possibly, inhibit that. The 2 p.m. workshop made it a moot point.

Sailing busily through the week, testing a new supplement regiment and fighting something off, I hadn't thought much about Sunday's business meeting. Actually, I kept thinking I could call our minister when I had time; surely she'd know what happened. The plain white envelope with a neatly handwritten note on a yellow, legal half sheet wrapped around a check beat me to that call. The money, my FULL request, showed up in the mail with a lovely message from the treasurer. She's not one to gush and said how delighted the meeting was to put funds to such a good cause. I was overcome with joy, relief, tears, gratitude and feeling loved and blessed. Something I haven't felt in a very long time. It was wonderful. I did call our minister the next day to tell her how touched I was. "I wish you had been there, Cathy. There wasn't even a hiccup; people really have wanted to do this. We have been clear you have gifts, but, before Artsy Fartsy, they weren't focused. Clearly, they are now."

I can't even remember the number of clearness committees for ministry I have had in the last 12 years.  I have struggled through a number of them, remaining unclear. This last round, however, was so pure and taught me that I have to be clear myself, not rely on others for that. They may help by asking questions, but not by giving advice or suggestions. My group was to have met the first Sunday in March with my request, but a winter storm cancelled worship and anything else that day. So, I e-mailed my proposal, for which I was crystal clear, to the committee and it went to ministry and counsel with their blessing. Apparently ministry and counsel recommended it to the business meeting and, WA-LA, it was approved. On one hand it seemed so easy, on the other, it has taken me along time to get here. My journey was to learn to ask for what I need. When I finally could, it was lovingly given. The next morning as I ticked off laps, I blessed the names and faces of everyone I could think of in my meeting.

ROOTING IN THE PRESENT
Today, as I prepped for tomorrow and blog, I received an intriguing phone call from someone I'd met a few weeks ago who uses shipping pods as gallery space. He's got an empty two-week slot and wonders whether  there's a place around here the show can land. The longer I talked, the more excited I got. Wow, God, I thought, you had him call me! Then, please let me connect him or figure it out. In another time, I would have found it an annoyance. I am grateful to be clear, aware and grounded in the present. Amen.

Maybe there is something about my eyes.

• What is my experience of clarity?
• When have I been clear?
• When have I been anything but?
• When have I heard truth from unusual or unexpected sources?
• How do I express gratitude for the truth, clarity and blessings?


whirlwind
of a week,
bookended

by worship
and teaching
about pain

linked with
truth, blessing
and love

and a new
vision of
myself
as strong,
healthy,
lovable

and
Spirit's
emissary*


*Years ago when I attended School of the Spirit and our small group named each other's gifts, my facilitator wrote this. I couldn't see it then. I am beginning to.

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Lent, retreat, purification and truth

Growing up mostly Methodist and tuning out as a young adult, I didn't really get Lent. All of the Catholic kids at school were either complaining or comparing what they were giving up. Usually easy stuff like chewing gum or cotton candy. Nothing very persuasive or impressive. And there was the awful cafeteria fish we were served on Fridays in public school during this season.

And, I hadn't really considered it since except I am slowly building a relationship with a wonderful Episcopal minister (I think that's the right term; Mary doesn't strike me as a priest). She asked me once if I wanted her to "unpack" lent and I, politely, said yes, thinking what new could you possibly tell me. Plenty, I discovered. Wish I'd tuned in a little closer at first and taken notes. What I do recall is that she talked about 40 being such a pivotal number in the Bible: Noah's rainy 40 days and nights and the 40 years the Israelites wandered in the wilderness. Google showed many more examples. Then she spoke of lent in terms of a retreat time. Then, my ears and heart perked up. I always relish the idea of retreat, whether it's away or in my studio. She explained it as a time to be silent, still and listen to what challenges Spirit presents.

And today's Thomas Keating meditation fits right in:

"Biblical Desert: Interior PurificationSit alone in silence ...Lamentations: 3:28
Lent is the season in which the church as a whole enters into an extended retreat. Jesus went into the desert for forty days and forty nights. The practice of Lent  is a participation in Jesus' solitude, silence and privation ... The biblical desert is not so much a geographical location – a place of sand, stones or sagebrush – as a process of interior purification leading to complete liberation from the false-self system with its programs for happiness that cannot possibly work ..."
– March 4 from The Daily Reader for Contemplative Living: Excerpts from the Works of Father Thomas Keating

It's as if he knew my word for the year, the one Mary handed me last week, is purification.

Yesterday's meditation focused on how the Gospel calls us to be responsible for our emotional life, recognizing its weaknesses and how it interferes with us truly listening to others. "The work of Lent," he writes, "is to face the unconscious values that underlie the emotional programs for happiness and to change them ... with a discipline of contemplative prayer and action."

I love that, within the established church – perhaps not mine – there is a season for this work! You know, on the surface, Catholics and Quakers appear very different. Symbolism and ritual have no place in physical Quakerism and yet, when you look to the mystical aspects of both faiths, there is so much similarity. I'd guess that 75 percent of the "convinced"Quakers I know (not born into it) were Catholic. I've even heard people call themselves Quatholic!

I did pay attention to yesterday's message about taking responsibility for our emotions and their programs of happiness. I pulled out the microscope and looked at that coupled with this notion of purification. What I saw was sobering. I have built a life for so long based on pain, injury and woundedness. My lens was colored and I hadn't even noticed. At bedtime, a book I borrowed eons ago, called out to me. "The Prosperity Secrets of the Ages" (Catherine Ponder) was loaned to me by my wise spiritual friend Char. I had attempted it once before, agreeing with the first few pages, but putting it away. Last night, I couldn't put it down. It's the next piece in my purification puzzle. Blessing is God' way, cursing is not. I hadn't thought of my point of view as cursing, but it has been. I have been living with a filter of negativity. Understandable after 15 years of chronic pain, but no longer tolerable.

I began saying all manner of blessings last night and slept the best I have in over a week. Tuesday lap time is often prayer time, so midway through, I began blessing everyone and everything I could think of. With 88 laps, I still had more to bless!

I'm achy today, but it's so much easier to tolerate with this perspective of blessing. It seems like the self-fulfilling prophesy. Could it really be so simple?

I have chuckled over the past weeks as I hammer out a "Pain as Spiritual Teacher" workshop, beginning to see that my nemesis, woundedness and pain, is becoming my gift. Ah, the Wounded Healer!

• What meaning has Lent held for me?
• How has that changed over time?
• How can it become contemplative for me?
• To what challenge is God calling me right now?
• How am I examining that in stillness, prayer and silence?


no time for
my normal
get-away
January retreat

sick and
missed Mary's
new-year session

knowing I
need this so
centrally

and learning
there is a
season for it

the time I
always seek
rebirth and
resurrection

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Dance between comfort and challenge

Seems I am living on a trajectory of learning. A sliver of finger has appeared and I am very grateful. The compounding lessons have opened or, perhaps, I am opened. All is so intertwined, I don't know beginning from end.

Things began to unravel Wednesday afternoon, the day I awoke feeling a bit under the weather and, well, cranky. I almost put off the appointment I scheduled a month ago with the Episcopal pastor who is walking me through a New Year's retreat I had missed because of  touch of the flu. This was a follow-up to my work. I spent an afternoon braving through the first half, identified blessings, burdens and patterns of last year, stymied to forge ahead to this year because I had not selected my "angel" word. As Mary says, my new word for the year. I was anxious, but asked her to select. We could never quite cross paths, so opted for a quick check-in Wednesday and time for me to get my word.

I wanted to know what it was, but she said most people like to tangibly receive their word, so I'd have to physically retrieve it. She was playfully teasing me, but serious. I am patient.

When I wandered into the beautiful, large church, but one that also feels like home as my girls attended pre-school and many summers of Bible school here, Mary caught up with me and we entered her office together. She handed me an envelope. Gingerly, I fingered it, neatly undoing the glue. The art card contained an owl and Mary had taken the time to look up the entomology of the word in several languages. Before I got to that, however, the small piece stamped with an angel and my word fell out. Purification, it read. Not what I was expecting. "I've done this many times and no one has every had that word,"Mary said. "Thats' why I checked it meaning."

Wow, I wondered. what does this mean? Grateful to get my word, it took awhile for my real reaction to take hold, which it did as I left her office. Tears welled. "Really, God, this word? I am so tired of this journey of constant spiritual discomfort and learning!"

Mary's interpretation:

"It's root word is 'pure’

 which in old Fr. 'pur' meant

simple, absolute and unalloyed.

"in Latin ‘purus’ meant

clean, clear, unmixed, unadorned

"in Sanskrit 'pavate'

mean tcleanse

"Middle Irish 'ur' meant

fresh, new

"Old German ‘fower’

meant to sift”

What she hadn't known is that Catherine, my name, means pure. How could I say it doesn't fit?

We talked about it a bit and when I told her the word I had distilled last year's lessons into was truth, I could see purification as the next step. Thanks, Saturn, I murmured sarcastically, remembering how that planet rules my sun (Capricorn) and, in alchemic terms, means the transformation of lead to gold via a deep, interior process.

"Pivotal for me last year,"I found myself confessing though not for the first time, "was an experience at a Quaker mystics retreat when a woman I hadn't known gently touched below my windpipe and told me that's where she experienced the seed of God. In the moment, I did for the first time. I could always identify it in others, but failed to do so in myself." That's where last year's word of truth emanated.

So with the truth, it's time to do some sifting, casting off and, as Mary said, seeing with new eyes. "It can mean for the scales to fall from your eyes, for you to have new insight and perspective, to see Reality."

I rallied myself that evening to make my monthly archetypal astrology group. I can't imagine missing and I could not wait to share this word with them. Atypically, when we checked in, I began. Lots of nods because they knew it fit my path. The night's topic was discerning our soul's path from our ascendent, the sign that was rising when we were born. Char, a dear, wise spiritual friend and leader/collector of this group had prepared an affirmation for each of us based on our ascendent. Mine resonated very closely with my purification word.

"The deeper purpose of Cancer (my ascendant)," a  handout from Char read, "is to selflessly nourish others through compassion and unconditional love. To realize the highest purpose, the Cancer Soul needs to transcend fear ... this is achieved by keeping one's attention on one's inner light, which encourages it to grow."

Yes, I sighed when I read this. And my task this year is to burn off the fear and doubt, that which no longer belongs – purification.

Affirmation of Cancer

I was born under the sign of Cancer

I accept all its power, potential, and gifts

for I am the star in a sea of stars,

I am the water and the moon,

I provide the haven, the safe haven, in the universe.

My deep and powerful emotions

enable me to be the Universal Nourisher

so that all that's new may grow

safe and loved, secure, well understood and cherished.

I am the womb of the new.

I am patient, the Master of the Ties of emotions and moods.

Through my amazing ability to focus power and attention,

I easily navigate the ebb and flow of emotional atmospheres.

I induce and bring new life up from the deepest caverns of consciousness

into the bright light and power of the Sun.

I give birth to new life on the upper spirals of existence.

I ascend and the Sun shines on me,

because I, above all, below all,

nourish the present moment and protect it,

harbour it so it may be cherished later.

I am emotionally brave, magnetic, strong, and persistent.

I care and I share and so people trust and depend on me.

I make them feel safe and secure, needed and protected.

I hold the family of man together. I am that unity.

I rule with a loving, loyal sympathy

the public mass consciousness on the planet.

My love is so exquisite for all men and women that I overcome

and meet all challenges. I am brave, and I feel

I have more energy than I need and can change rhythm at will.

Though I respect tradition,

my quiet power can transform all that is old into the new.

I am prosperous, self-reliant, shrewd, thrifty and methodical.

I nourish and cherish my destiny;

I can change my destiny

Now I choose to shape my future

in a balanced dance between comfort and challenge

http://astrologybybeverlee.homestead.com/CancerAffirmation.html

My dance IS between comfort and challenge and where I find my partner, Spirit.

• What word would I choose to describe last year?
• And, this year?
• Where am I in the dance between comfort and challenge?
• Where do I find God in that?
• What have I learned about myself or journey recently?


back and forth
my pendulum swings

sometimes I am
way off kilter

others, I barely
move

it had felt like
utter chaos,
me, the pawn

until I recognized
my steps were always
guided,
I had been
invited

to the dance
between comfort and challenge

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