Soul Feeding, Part 2

Which Type of Spirit are You?  
 

O God, in the course of this busy life, give us times of
refreshment and peace; and grant that we may so use our
leisure to rebuild our bodies and renew our minds, that our
spirits may be opened to the goodness of your creation;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

We cannot feed our souls until we know ABOUT our souls.  Or, if you want to use the word "spirit," then what kind of spirit is yours?  Are you passive or active, reclining or engaging?  Some feed the soul or the spirit by meditating.  Others by physical exercise.  In either case, the feeding is intentional.  Prayer, the repeating of a phrase called "a mantra," is critical.  Some use a simple line from the psalms, "Watch over my going out and my coming in," or "the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want"--maybe "Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy."   The important point is this:  connect the outer activity with the inner--that's feeding! 

Soul Feeding

You Gotta Stop for Reds Eats!

Just try going through Wiscasset, ME--boasted "the prettiest little town in Maine" without hitting a traffic jam!  Right there in center city is Reds Eats--been there since God only knows when, serving fried anything you want to eat. The Lobster Roll ("Lobstah," that is!) gives you the whole thing (yeah, without the shell) -- and it wins consistently, best lobster roll in Maine.  The lines do not even go away in the rain!  Sure it is good "eats," but there is culture to it, the very stuffing of tradition that brings people here.
When the first owner of Red's Eats died, yes--his name was "Red," the obituary ran in several major newspapers including The Washington Post.  You can read the full story from the book that highlights the history of this eatery.

Now we can ask, how does the lobster feed the soul?  And I will tell you that it will be served up in heaven! 
The Red's tradition is even highlighted in its book to tell its story. And as the Amazon ad says, we need to "Look Inside" to deeper ways that we are fed. 


How about the stream of tradition?  We drink from the living stream of tradition when we take part in it.   Look inside at the living tradition of a family Mom & Pop place and their heritage.  We are fed when we too take part in tradition.

 On many summers, my family joined me in the ocean going trip to Red's from the neighboring harbor--it was our own family tradition.  For the boys, it was always the burgers, dogs and fries that we could have gotten anywhere. It was the family tradition that fed. 

But beware the difference between the living faith of tradition and the dead faith of just keeping the tradition. The difference lies in how it gives life.  There just may come a time when the boys outgrow Red's Eats and hunger for a different kind of food! 

Questions for the Face of Grief

Let Us Go into Fields of Flowers

Sorrow is my own yard
where the new grass
flames as it has flamed
often before but not
with the cold fire
that closes round me this year.
Thirty-five years
I lived with my husband.
The plumtree is white today
with masses of flowers.
Masses of flowers
load the cherry branches
and color some bushes
yellow and some red
but the grief in my heart
is stronger than they
for though they were my joy
formerly, today I notice them
and turn away forgetting.
Today my son told me
that in the meadows,
at the edge of the heavy woods
in the distance, he saw
trees of white flowers.
I feel that I would like
to go there
and fall into those flowers
and sink into the marsh near them.

by:  William Carlos Williams

Questions for the Face of Grief....

Look at me when I speak to you, and don't fall silent any longer.  What is there about grief which is personallymine?  Though I fall into fields of flowers, there alone is mine--forever rooted in my heart and aching to grow again?  How long shall I now wait to see what new flower of eternal longing comes forth from the temporal life?   

Psssage to LIFE

"Bless O Lord, the tears of our grief 

to bring forth fields of flowers to feel

your new Life."

For countless times, I have experienced and witnessed in others this great truth of Truth:  Behold the mystery of life that God does not call off our deaths, but blesses them to give new life.  Nobody says that they welcome moving through this rite of passage---but then again, which one of them would have welcome their birth and that painful passage?  Can we say the same of this life, that none would let go, all would remain, to put off the passage from those we love, unless that is—we were all going to the same glorious place in the forever fields of God.  

 

Stopping for Memorial Day

 Memorial Day Tribute

We pause for Memorial Day to give thanks for the fallen who give us the freedom to rise up and greet each new day in a land of liberty.  I was deeply moved by General Powell's tribute many years ago that our armed forces have not taken possession of nation except to bury our dead.  May our tribute be a living one to the gift of this freedom to further the lives of others by building up the common good.  Lives flying like flags for freedom 
 
Although no sculptured marble should rise to their memory, 
nor engraved stone bear record of their deeds, 
yet will their remembrance be as lasting 
as the land they honored.  
                                                                                                   ~Daniel Webster

The GHOST of Patrick Swayze

Demi Moore & Patrick Swayze

"I had a life....
 I had a life....
 And you threw it away! 

Sam Wheat (Swayze)
GHOST

May Patrick Swayze rest in peace...as I reflect on the irony that he starred in a movie called GHOST shortly before his untimely death from cancer.  With all due respect, let me share how struck I was taken by his scream at his murderer in the movie--"I had a life! You threw it away!"   Painfully true for that event in the movie.  One could also say that you never know the slender thread that divides us from life and death and easily it can be broken...as one author has written solemnly.  I just wonder if regardless of when and how we die--we are still responsible for how we lived up until that time.  Our deaths are coming soon enough--and our question is how we live now.

Add caption

There is also another take on this perspective about losing your life.  Yes, your life is priceless, and nothing I am saying should take away from that fact.  But! Is it priceless because it is short short?  Or, because what you do now is set in the large Story of God's gifts that give beyond this life?  If we live as people of faith, then what I do now is also priceless because I am always taking part in that eternal Story.

Last words go for the stark contrast behind hell and heaven in this movie--what powerful images!  You either deal with the demons who carry you off or the Light with beings that takes you away.  There is no sense of a person dying into more progression of development.  It's black and white, hell or heaven--which contrasts sharply with the progression we see in Sam Wheat as he moves from the panic of sudden death and the after life to developing its skills to even the farewell kiss!  In either world, God is not finished with us.  I love the prayer that says that we go from strength to strength in perfect peace in the world to come. 

What Really Matters

"To pay attention.  

This is the critical business of our lives.  

I don't want to say when my life is over 

that I just visited this world."  

Mary Oliver, Poet

I was out mowing the lawn and came across one of those wonderful creatures--the Box Turtle. How many of us as kids were introduced into the world of Nature with one of these?  (If not the Box Turtle, then surely the Garter Snake, right?)  I worried about it so close to the road, so I took it inside to a "box"--where else for a Box Turtle?  And, before I took it for a ride to the woods, I made sure to show it to my Yellow Lab mixed mutt.  She was right on it!  Cocked head, quizzical look, careful steps to check it out--anything but ignoring it.

Off to the woods we went.  In a wonderful clearing ideal for the new home--I set it down.  Immediately out came the head, the sentinel in a turret for sure.  It sat stone still, slowly moving the head and taking everything in.  I expected it to just plod off.  Not this turtle.  In fact, I never did see him leave at all.  I took my leave of him...slowly backing away.

First the dog, then the turtle....no rush at life, content to pay attention and take it in.  Is this what really matters?  We focus on this life so we can say with Mary Oliver that we paid attention and were more than visitors? 

Hear your Call, Follow your Bliss

I say, follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be. If you follow your bliss, doors will open for you that wouldn't have opened for anyone else. Joseph Campbell, 1904-1987American Mythology Professor  Author, The Power of Myth  A door had opened before David that let in his future. Everything he had dreamed and aspired to looked back at him and he stepped through the door. John Hersey, The Call   "I am the door...."        Jesus, John's Gospel   From: www.michaelpodesta.com

God and the Moore Tornado

Question:  Where Exactly was God 

when the tornado struck Moore, OK?  

Answer:    We don't know for sure, do we?

We are left sitting on a question mark.   If we knew the exact answer to that question, then that would make us God.  We do have several options:

Option # 1
There is no God.  Everything in nature is random, blind and follows the Laws of Nature.
Option #2
There is a God but does not care.  God only creates and does not control.
Option #3
There is a God who cares enough to give us free will and not to treat us as creatures in a terrarium. This leaves us subject to the Laws of Nature.



I have heard it put this way.  If we pray to God to control the world, to change the flight of the planes toward the World Trade Center, or to call off all tornadoes that will harm--we hear silence and the world goes on.  If we pray to God to help us, God speaks in the next person who comes by to embrace us, feed us, bind up wounds for healing, and then goes with us.  The silence is broken in an ocean of compassion.  It is as if what happens NOW, is just that, and there is a future we move toward as described as the sunrise, the new day dawning that will never set:

  

 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. ⁴ And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. ⁵ And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful. ⁶ And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.   (Revelation 21) 




 

Moore Torando and Psalm 46

First signs of the Moore Tornado

God is our refuge and strength,
   a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change,
   though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea;
though its waters roar and foam,
   though the mountains tremble with its tumult.  

(Psalm 46)

The Tornado Forms and Drops 

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
   the holy habitation of the Most High.
God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be moved;
   God will help it when the morning dawns.

(Psalm 46)

 

The EF-4 Tornado travels for 40 minutes

The Lord of hosts is with us;
   the God of Jacob is our refuge.

Psalm 46  

42!

The Unforgettable Number!

Leo Durocher: “If Robinson can help us win, then he is gonna play on this ball club!“

Reporter: “What you gonna do if one of these pitchers throws for your head?”  Jackie Robinson: “I’ll duck.”

Wendell Smith: “You are not the only one with something at stake here. Why do you think I sit on the 3rd base line with my typewriter in my lap? Negros aren’t allowed in the Press Box.”

Branch Rickey: “The world’s not so simple anymore, I guess it never was. We ignored it, now we can’t.”

Ralph Branca: “Maybe tomorrow we’ll all wear 42” (… and now they do on Jackie Robinson Day!)

                                                                                Just an Opinion...

What Do You Think?

It is difficult to believe that unless Jackie Robinson was the super star baseball player, that Baseball would not have let him in.  Once there, Robinson was playing against a lot more than the other team--but the entire color barrier guarded by racism, including the coach who shouted the N word through one of his at-bats.  No, he did more than steal home.  He stole the heart out of the opposition by being better at the game than they were.

Which brings me to some painful commentary--just my own thoughts.  I wonder to myself...did the Negro gain stature because of his ability to fight in the civil war?  Racism certainly persisted and cut deeply into the American fabric--but the Negro was used in wartime because of utility and thereby gained rights.  I wonder about women suffrage and their place in society.  Did it come about because of two world wars in which women had to gain new places in society because the men were "over there?"  Just my idle thoughts from an addled mind perhaps--that the top dogs let the underdogs "in": out of necessity to advance their own causes???  That is my historical question and only my question.

Then I think of Jesus...the perfect nobody from society's standpoint.  Look up "One Solitary Life."  He was worthless to everyone, of no utility, until that is--he rose from the dead!  And by his grace, he still takes us, blesses us, regardless of what motives bring us to him.

From "One Solitary Life"   

When He was dead, He was laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend. Nineteen centuries have come and gone, and today He is the central figure of the human race, the leader of mankind's progress. All the armies that ever marched, all the navies that ever sailed, all the parliaments that ever sat, all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man on earth as much as that One Solitary Life.

Finding the Needle in the Haystack

Here's a Needle You can Find 

in a Haystack! 

I have heard it said that you can always find a needle in a haystack if you are looking for one!  It's a saying for looking for something "bad," a trivial matter.  That's a needle in a haystack already.  If you are looking for the negative, well then, you can always find it, even the needle in the haystack.  

However, let's reverse it.  How about looking for the silver lining or something good in an impossible situation?  I am not saying t5o overlook reality--just to look beneath the appearance of things.

If you just look for what's right - in others,
in relationships, in yourself and your journey -
you will always find it.

Mike Dooley
Author

In scripture, and I tread carefully with this example--Jesus says it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man, possessed by his riches,m to enter the kingdom of heaven.  However,  Jesus also said that with God all things are possible by seeking first the kingdom.  If that same rich man was not possessed by riches--but seeking the kingdom by blessing others, well--I suppose Jesus would say you could drive a Mack truck through the eye of the needle!  

 

Pentecost 2013

What Do You See in these Two Images? 

Tower of Babel

Take a close look at these two images and compare them?

 Both are in vertical lines--The Pentecost "flames" are really "tower like" themselves the way it is laid out.

The similar shape teaches the message of Pentecost that it reverses the Tower of Babel story.  The Tower of Babel came from human pride and arrogance to reach into the heavens and grasp divine power.  As a result, the peoples of the earth are said to have had languages mixed to promote the confusion and division to prevent it. But Pentecost reverses it! The power of the Spirit unifies in Christ as that each one hears the other and understands. 

And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered,  because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. ⁷Amazed and astonished, they asked, ‘Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? ⁸And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? 

                                                                 The Day of Pentecost,  Acts 2

Our Most Desperate Need

Fill in the Bubbles!

Take a very close look at this picture.  No matter how you fill in these bubbles--these people are parallel, speaking and not listening.  Albert Camus says that the most desperate need of the human soul is to be heard.  When it is not--it begins to eat itself because we are fed when we are heard.  Or as one counselor told me way back--"Listening is an act of grace.  When we are truly heard, then we are 'accepted' as we really are." 

Real story.  I am making my way through the crowds of Costco.  A woman comes the opposite direction pushing a cart with a Blue Spruce, 4 ft high.  I blurt out:  "What a gorgeous tree!"  She stops and talks about what a deal she got. As I listen, I open the "doors" of the conversation to some deep places, such as a son sick with auto-immune from Lyme, a health system ignoring her, and a husband she claims has left everything for her to do--"and we are running out of money because insurance does not cover this kind of sickness."  I stood there just listening, confirming what I heard, accepting her.  She broke open with tears.

Okay enough!  I brought her out of it, affirmed her, and I got her email address.  Don't ask me where I plan to go with this!  But she left Costco having been truly heard.  I hope she was fed!

Can you FEEL the listening? 

Fast and Furious

Wreckage of North Texas Estate

The Storm came too Fast and Furious

The tornado was more than a mile wide with winds of 136 mph.  The sheer power imploded and then wiped out homes and buildings, killing 6 and wounding more than 100 in its awful wake.  Tragic play on the word "wake," the visitation for the dead--all of us attend the wake above.

Look at the photo.  What do you see which is intact?  Curiously, a fence and a swimming pool.  And what do they mean now?
 

The Tongues of Fire at Pentecost Come Down on the Apostles

 What do you see in this picture?  It's actually a classic by an unknown artist.  On the Day of Pentecost, the sheer power that came brought life for real living--for things that last and are eternal.  The fruit of the Spirit reverses the destructive power on earth which like a tornado--tears at the fabric of community.  And what are the fruits of the Spirit?  They all create from chaos and draw forth life. 

"Faith, hope and charity--

                     and the greatest is love" 

 St. Paul, 1 Corinthians 13

Angelina Steps Up

Agelina Jolie

"My children  know I love them and will do anything 

to be with them as long as I can.” 

About 30% of women carrying the specific gene markers for breast cancer do what Angelina Jolie did--removal of the breasts and reduction of risk by up to 95--97% for breast cancer.  The genetic test is about 3K not to mention preventive surgery, rarely covered by insurance.  Many women remain vulnerable and cannot exercise Angelina's option.  It is said that the percentage of women having this surgery is trending upward because of the advances in skillful reconstruction.     The premature death of her mother at age 56 from cancer made its statement for her and now she has turned life on its head to make her own statement.  True beauty is the love we have of others and the sacrifices we make for them. What are the deep inner gifts we have in our lives that we pass on to our children and to others? There is a saying that when we give our lives away, that's when we really can feel the love that we have for others. 

Where do you find Community?

Every morning they gather under the yellow sign in Roanoke, VA and order up what they hunger for most--community!  I watch them in their overalls, wind hewn faces, and listen to the banter and laughter that begins their day.  The sign hangs prominently, "No Checks," which they ignore making out their checks.  This is a place where they are known--and know each other--and nothing else needs saying except, "How'd you want them hash browns?" 

 

Then I end the day with a Starbucks trip, not for the caffeine certainly, but because I see the same cast of characters there.  Laptops out, busy at work, but needing each other's company to sit in a room isolated by electronics.  They too hunger for the community that does not come with the Latte special.  But excuse me, gotta run!  I am off to Barnes & Noble Cafe!

Here I meet a friend of mine about every other week.  Books gives us the excuse to walk, talk and hit topics we see in print.  Tired, exhausted from the day--we leave enriched and energized from the community of two.

Where exactly do you go 

for community? 

What Logo calls you into its Life? 

The Reason to Be

"To Be or Not to Be"   

Why are You Out On the Trail? 

The hiker stopped in the middle of the trail and wondered if he could even go on.  "Why am I even out her at all," he wondered to himself, "I hiked over 500 miles on the Appalachian Trail and I can't take another step unless I figure out why I am here."  That's Bill Bryson, legendary story teller from his A Walk in the Woods, his trip with mad-cap friend Katz who could have been cast as any of the Three Stooges.  I wondered in the book just what Bryson found as his reason.  Write another book? I couldn't find it.  

Now contrast that with Paul Stutzman's Hiking-Through: One Man's Journey to Peace and Freedom on the Appalachian Trail.  He never questions why he is out there because he walks for his wife who has died from cancer.  He believes that God has told him that he will meet him on the Trail.  Without Bryson's polished story telling, Stutzman succeeds in demonstrating what it means to stick at it and walk the Trail (of life)--a sense of calling, knowing your place and a goal beyond yourself.  You don't have to buy Stutzman's literal belief system -- you can appreciate how his faith connects with his feet and carries him through.  

What Carries Your Feet along the Trail?

The question is not how to fill somebody's shoes.  That's the wrong question.  The point is how to fill your OWN shoes!  What gives you purpose to carry you along the trail of life? 

The King's Speech SPEAKS!

"I am trying to keep you 
from being ruled by fear!"

Lionel to Bertie,
Soon to be--King George VI

The powerful turning point in the movie.  Lionel confronts Bertie with the real challenge.  If he is to rule as King, then he himself cannot be ruled by fear.  The task is not stammering.  The task is to release him from the childhood memories that bind his self-esteem and his tongue. 

Holiday Inn's Real Star

Jim Hardy and girl friend Linda

 It's Not Christmas---

But what a Gift!

 

Oh Holiday Inn—much more than a Christmas Show.  Talk about an all-star cast!  Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire to name just a few.  But Louise Beavers, aka “Mamie,” steals the show for me.  It’s Thanksgiving on the set, and Jim Hardy (Crosby) is moping and pouting for having lost his girl to Ted Hanover (Fred Astaire).  Mamie enters the room and sees that Jim has not eaten anything.  She lays into him.  Tells him to get off his butt and on his feet for California and go win her back.  “You can melt her heart like butter.” 

Louise Beavers as "Mamie"

Mamie does two things for me.  First, she tells the truth about Jim.  Then second, she gives him the confidence to be himself.  Oh she may turn him down—that’s the risk whenever we step out—but who plays the “Truth-Teller” for you?  

TS Eliot told our story that “People cannot stand too much reality.”  Emily Dickinson told us to “tell the truth slant” or it won’t be heard.  Jesus said that he is “the way, the truth and the life” and was crucified for it. Perhaps what truth-tellers really do is to get us to “tell the truth” which means stepping out from behind the stones from which we hide it, compromise it.   

I guess the best part of Holiday Inn is that Jim Hardy hears the truth, believes it, so it sets him free.  He then can speak the truth of his love to Linda.   It's not Christmas.  But sure is a gift!

 Truth-tellers are God’s gift to us.   

How we tell the truth, regardless of the cost, 

is our gift to God.  

Mother's Day 2013

May the Holy Spirit, 

who broods over her creation 

as a mother broods over her children,  

nurture, bless, unite, and keep you.

 

Russell Baker retired from the New York Times a Pulitzer Prize Winner and his book, Growing Up, shows why.  He takes us into the center of life and shows us the devotion of a mother who does far more than tend her brood when her mate dies prematurely from diabetes. "She was determined to make something out of me," Baker wrote, "she breathed her faith and confidence into me."  So off he goes to sit for the Johns Hopkins entrance exam and for scholarship aid.  He begins the test, then sits back and says, "Mother would have me say a prayer. So I bowed my head and said what came to me--'Now I lay me down to sleep.'"  

Don't we all carry the DNA and spirit of our mother's with us?  Maybe some of us don't tap into it like Baker with his family hovering above poverty following his father's death.  St. Paul writes about this gift in 2 Timothy 1:

  I am reminded of your sincere faith, 

a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois 

and your mother Eunice

 and now, I am sure, lives in you.

Death Bed Words

How Do you Envision the End of your Life?  

Mark Strand's poetry haunts the reader with open ended questions---"not every man knows what he shall say at the end."  Will there even be time for words?  Oscar Wilde is said to have looked at the wallpaper in his bedroom and said, "One of of us just has to go!"   Perhaps if we have presence of mind, we may utter something memorable.  But I would rather think that it will be more like the feeling--of a rising sun, not its setting.  Or others may just feel like it is a "Dead End."

I just wonder to myself if it really matters.  On the one hand, who will be writing our biography at the death bed?  On the other hand, what good does that do us anyway--to leave on the wings of words?
Hmmm...There is this alternative understanding and that is the words that say every day.  What do we utter when the sun greets us? What do we say when it sets?  And, who do we say it to so that it matters?  A biographer?

Here's my take....   Live fully for the day and for the God who calls you on and you don't have to worry what you will say.  Others will take care of that for you. 

 The End

By Mark Strand

Not every man knows what he shall sing at the end,

Watching the pier as the ship sails away, or what it will seem like

When he’s held by the sea’s roar, motionless, there at the end,

Or what he shall hope for once it is clear that he’ll never go back.

When the time has passed to prune the rose or caress the cat,

When the sunset torching the lawn and the full moon icing it down

No longer appear, not every man knows what he’ll discover instead.

When the weight of the past leans against nothing, and the sky

Is no more than remembered light, and the stories of cirrus

And cumulus come to a close, and all the birds are suspended in flight,

Not every man knows what is waiting for him, or what he shall sing

When the ship he is on slips into darkness, there at the end.