You will show me the path...

("You will show me the path to life, abounding joy in your presence..." Psalm 16:10)

I have not written in quite awhile. I have been busy, of course. But it has been a sort of curious experience for me, because I have wanted to write. The inspiration just didn't seem to be there. I could think of things I might write of, but the thoughts, the ideas, did not seem to coalesce and flow. I began to wonder why. Sometimes this happens because I am not taking enough time to be open to God. Sometimes I will have an idea to write of something but only realize later, when I have been set straight, that I was going in the wrong direction.

Another thought occurred to me this time though. I thought: what if it is over? What if writing this blog was something God called me to do for awhile and now it is done? Maybe there is something different I should be doing. First, let me say that I don't believe that to be the case. Nor do I necessarily see God as a micro-managing sort who has plans that dictate my every action. But the thought was an important one because I truly love writing this blog. It has brought me much growth and joy. If, for some reason, God did not want me to do it anymore, could I just let it go?

I remember that I was fairly well into my young adult years when it occurred to me that I had always assumed that what I wanted was what God wanted. It was almost as though, prior to that, I believed that if I liked, loved or enjoyed something, then certainly God wanted that too. Of course I see now that there are some major pitfalls in that perspective. As Thomas Merton (Trappist monk and writer) put it, "I was living as if God only existed to do me temporal favors..." Certainly a nice sort of God to have - one whose only goal is to make me feel good. What I want is never wrong and never has to be sacrificed. If dealt good fortunes in life, one can coast along this path for awhile, mistaking comfort and ease for harmony with God. However, when life suddenly isn't feeling good, it is almost impossible to make sense of it. How could God allow me to feel bad? Especially, to feel really, really bad.

A story is in order. I remember back when I was in elementary school, attending the neighborhood Catholic school, missionaries would sometimes visit our classrooms. They would tell us of foreign lands where they had served, living in great hardship with the native people. Although I don't remember many details, I recall mention of primitive living conditions, lots of bugs and diseases like malaria. My spiritual education blended into these accounts the stories of the martyrs, the great saints of old who risked and bravely gave everything, even their lives, for God. I was quite impressed by all of this as a young child. So impressed, in fact, that for some time, I imagined myself following that path, enduring the hardships without complaint, heroically suffering and maybe even dying... It never occurred to my childlike mind that following this path would feel anything other than good. I wasn't yet capable of conceiving of true suffering and was very far from realizing that I wasn't at all good at enduring it.

Fast-forwarding to a few years later, in my early teens, I remember a thought coming to me while sitting in church one day. I suddenly had the idea that my sufferings in life were going to more mental/emotional than physical. I don't know why that thought popped into my head but it had the feel of truth - and I certainly didn't like it. As I have grown through the 40+ years that followed that thought, I must admit that so far, this premonition has largely come true. And a major realization that has come with it is that I don't get to choose my suffering. In fact, it is the lack of choice that makes it true suffering. In my childhood fantasy, I was bravely embracing a self-serving scenario that would lead everyone to admire me and I would just slip painlessly into the glory of heaven... Real life, of course, is nothing like that.

The Buddhist perspective on suffering, as I understand it, is that most if not all of human suffering comes from our wanting reality to be something other than what it is. Whether we have suffered physical or mental ills, whether we have lost people or jobs or possessions, it is our fighting, our outrage, our rejection of what is, that makes that experience "suffering". When we learn to accept, the undesirable experience is noticed, felt and passes by, just as the more pleasant experiences also pass. Nothing, neither the wanted nor the unwanted, lasts forever. Avoiding suffering, in a sense, is accomplished by not desiring anything: I accept the pleasant and the unpleasant and it all passes, one moment unfolding into the next. (My apologies to those more knowledgeable than me; I'm sure my portrayal of Buddhist teaching in woefully inadequate.) I do believe that Buddhism has much to teach us about life and suffering. But it is not my path... for without desire, the path does not seem to lead anywhere. How can there be love, without desire?

("You will show me the path to life, abounding joy in your presence..." Psalm 16:10)

I have chosen His path. Or more correctly, He has chosen me and I am learning how to say, "Yes, I'll come. No matter what". If His path were to lead me away from this blog (that ponderous thought I started with tonight), I would still go. But there are many possible, even likely, twists and turns the Path may take that are far more terrible (and terrifying) than that. The Path may lead through wrenching pain - pain in my body, pain in my heart, pain in my mind. And I will not get to choose. I may choose to be on the Path, but what happens next is not in my hands. The wrenching pains will not be the glorious fantasies of my childhood. They may even push me to the very limits of my endurance. I may wonder why did I ever take this path... where is it leading? Is it leading anywhere?

I take this Path because it is the path to Life. Not more of this life, with all of its ups and downs and absurdities. The Path to Life - a Life infused with love and hope and beauty. The Path is not one I can walk alone. To try it alone would be to be forever lost, thinking that I have figured it out, that I know how to get there - and then, at the next twist or turn, find that I have no idea where I am going or why.

There is, however, One to lead me - to show me the path to Life. He does not show me by simply giving me a road map or a set of directions. He walks the Path with me. He is with me through all of the terrors, the twists and the turns, the sufferings that are not at all glorious but that appear to my eyes meaningless and absurd. He suffers with me, to help me get there. And it is the suffering-with-me that is Love.

No, I am not a Buddhist, because I do desire. I desire that Love - not just for me - but for you, for all of us.

Let us walk the Path together. Toward the abounding joy...

(To share some of my path, click on the image below. You will leave this blog and be able to visit my web album of photos from this spring. To view as a slideshow, click on the slideshow button in the upper left; to stop the slideshow, hit the escape button on your keyboard.) 

Abounding joy

(Something new: I have put a link to my all of my public albums in the left sidebar, under the "About me" section. This will make it easier to find previous photos that have been posted at other times in the blog's history. You are welcome to download any of my photos for your personal use.)

Dancing...

Easter continues... In my church, we formally celebrate Easter for the same number of days that we experienced Lent. So the joy goes on ... and on.

Therefore, I would like to share with you the entire "Butterfly collection", that is, the little paintings I have been making for the last few months, a few of which I shared in my Easter posting. I have created a short video with the paintings, the background music being "Butterfly Waltz" by Brian Crain (unfortunately played by me instead of him, but a gift from him nonetheless; if you like his copyrighted music, visit his website at http://www.briancrain.com/).

So let us dance our hope and joy along with the butterflies. (Even if you are not feeling hope and joy now, perhaps the butterflies will help you along...).

The Promise

A couple of years ago, I was out for a walk and decided to stop in a small neighborhood bookstore to browse a bit. I didn't have any money with me but I always enjoy the browsing. As I was leaving, I saw that there were some mugs for sale and I glanced through them, even though I didn't need any more mugs. I found one that had a proverb on it that really struck me: “Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over, it became a butterfly”. That mug, purchased on a return trip, remains in my office today.

I read somewhere recently that the notion of the Easter bunny, ironically, precedes the whole event of Easter. It seems that the rabbit was associated with spring because spring is a time of fertility, with plants beginning their yearly new growth and many animals preparing to mate. And since rabbits are so, well ... fertile, they became associated with spring fertility and therefore Easter, our spring holiday. However, at the risk of offending Easter bunny lovers, I believe that the butterfly represents what Easter is so much more deeply. Easter, while about new life, is about so much more than fertility and flowers blooming.

Easter is about new Life. It is about a process of giving up our lives as we know them, letting go of the things that are certain in order to be open to the uncertain. Like the caterpillar, we need to give up being caterpillars in order to become butterflies. However, in order to be transformed into the new life we were created for, often we find ourselves in places of darkness. We feel almost lifeless in our cocoons - for we see no light, no future, no hope. We do not know, while we are in the cocoon, whether we will ever enter the beautiful life that was promised to us when we gave up our old, familiar (caterpillar-like) selves.

However, unlike the caterpillar, if we give up our old lives, we do so not out of some nature-directed life cycle, but with a completely free choice. I choose to give up myself, to cast behind me my worm-like ways. I choose out of love, out of faith and hope that the new Life is truly possible for me. A new Life that is more beautiful than anything imaginable to me in my current state.

It is a scary thing to do. And yet it is the only thing that makes sense to do.

_ _ _

Around the beginning of this year, for no particular reason, I started painting little butterfly pictures (using Microsoft's Paint program). I have written elsewhere of my love of butterflies and it just came to me one day when I felt like playing around with color. I found myself attaching different words (and eventually different phrases or quotes) with each little painting. They started out simply, with "hope" and "peace" and "joy". But then, as so often seems to happen in my life, I entered a journey that I had never really intended to start. I kept feeling drawn to paint more. It was fun and relaxing after a long day because it absorbed my attention. I assumed that I would soon run out ideas and that would be that. However, ideas kept coming to me. And the messages became increasing spiritual, until I realized that I was on the journey toward Easter. As I have experienced when writing, sometimes the things I painted amazed me, that is, they felt like they came from somewhere (Someone) beyond me. I felt compelled to continue - until finally I realized, just this last week, that it was finished.

Allow me to share a few. Join me in the journey toward Easter - a journey that continues every day as we await our transformation.

But, "Wait," you may say, "I am still in the cocoon. I am alone and afraid. I do not know if there really is anything more that this darkness I am in."

And that is where the Promise comes in.

I am in the darkness - but I am not alone. There is Someone with me who knows the way. And he has told me he will remain with me always, however long it takes for me to be transformed into the Life that was promised to me.

Let us together work to keep the promise alive in our hearts. Listen with me to, "Promise", composed by Brian Crain. Thanks to Brian for permission to post my inadequate playing of his copyrighted music. (To learn more about his music and hear it played right, visit his website at www.briancrain.com)

       

O, the deep, deep love...

(Holy Week, part II)

Emptied of self, I am now ready for what it was I wanted all along.

There is nothing wrong with wanting love. It is indeed what we are made for. But it is easy to seek out the wrong kinds of loves - the ones that ultimately hurt or disappoint.

I believe there is an Eternal Love. A deep, deep Love...

Listen. A Gift.                         



"O, The Deep, Deep Love of Jesus" © 2000 arranged and performed by Jeffrey Bjorck 2005 Pure Piano Music, available at http://www.purepiano.com/
[Thanks to Jeff, a gifted musician and fellow psychologist, for permission to post this for you at no cost.]

Into the dark night...

(Holy Week, Part I)

I first started writing poetry and keeping a journal when I was a young teen. There was so much going on inside then - doubt, anguish, joy, longing - and no way to express it all except on paper. Writing gave me a profound comfort as I witnessed deep parts of me being born into words in the spiral notebooks before me. Sometimes what appeared were ideas that seemed to come from somewhere beyond me, surprising me when I re-read them later, wondering where such depth came from ... certainly not from me.

Imagine then my dilemma when my high school English teacher, whom I liked and admired, made writing a journal a homework assignment. Suddenly, this sacred place where my deepest thoughts and feelings came forth was homework that had to be turned in and scrutinized by a teacher! I recall considering writing two journals, the real one and then another to turn in. But how could I do that? What could I say in a fake journal?

And, interestingly, it was not so much that I didn't want my teacher to know my thoughts and feelings. She had been kind to me and shown a special interest in me by inviting me to a spiritual discussion group for young women. I think, if anything, I really did want to share with her - to reveal all of this to someone and have them understand - but I was simply too scared. I was scared, I suppose, of being known and understood just as much as I was afraid of not being understood. Probably even worse though was that I secretly wanted to be liked, loved and admired for what I wrote. I suspect that I had to keep that desire secret, even from myself, because to want that somehow contaminated the whole thing.

So I was stuck. I wrote in the journal and turned it in, all the time struggling with self-consciousness and embarrassment. I found myself writing things that I didn't like. It was me before the audience, rather than me before God. I breathed a sigh of relief when the assignment was over and I could go back to my sacred place.

I am reminded of this during this Lent, this time in my church where we prepare ourselves for Easter. It was a tradition in my church when I was a child (non-negotiable, by the way), that we give something up for Lent. Usually children of that era gave up candy or cookies - it had to be something we liked - with the idea that denying ourselves this bit of pleasure would strengthen us spiritually. In more recent years, this practice has gradually been modified, with more emphasis on doing positive spiritual things or sacrificing something and donating its monetary value to the less fortunate. In other words, we have a lot more leeway in our spiritual practice and the question, "what are you giving up for Lent?" is seldom asked anymore.

I don't usually tell anyone what I am doing or giving up for Lent. Somehow that seems to make it more for show than for inner change. However, I am going to share with you what came to me at the beginning of this season. I say it "came to me" because I didn't set out to think of it or to really think of anything. It came to me this year to give up my self for Lent. If the thought knocks the wind out of you, know that it knocked the wind out of me too. It zeroed right in on that secret - the one that makes me want to be liked, loved and admired for what I do. As much as I want to tell myself otherwise, there are vestiges of self that like to imagine that the gifts coming forth in my words or my art are my own creation. There is a self inside waiting for the audience to stand up and applaud. A self that wants to be god, rather than be His vessel.

Of course, I have no idea how to give up my self or even what that means. I have to hope that God is doing in me what needs to be done, as I watch myself tripping and floundering through the forty days, seeming to get worse rather than better... One thing has become apparent: the Gifts that have come to or through me were not meant just for me. In fact, they have little to do with me. As the words in my early journals suggested, the Gifts came from somewhere beyond me. I can only write them, say them, photograph them, paint them or play their melodies.

There is a Gift that came to me 25 years ago, in Lent of 1986. It came during a time of great suffering for me and the writing of it was Gift for me, like balm on painful wounds. In the last 25 years, I have (until now) shared it with only one person, and then with fear and trembling. I have often wanted to share it - truly thought it should be shared but didn't know how. Now it is time to share it, my self set aside so as to not get in the way of the One who gives.

It is a simple thing actually and it may mean nothing to anyone but me. But I share it anyway.

In the tradition of my church, there is a prayful reflection known as the Stations of the Cross. Sometimes it has been called The Way of the Cross (or Via Dolorosa, the Way of Sorrows). Its history dates back centuries, taking many forms, from actual pilgimages to Jerusalem, to painted images of Jesus at different points on his way to crucifixion, to prayers, traditional and otherwise, commemorating these steps or stations. More recent tradition marks fourteen steps along Jesus' way. In the audio that follows, I read for you the "stations" as they came to me in Lent of 1986. They are in a poetic form, different from traditional versions that some readers may know. One further note (since I know my readers come from varied backgrounds): my reference to the "dark night" is an allusion  to "the dark night of the soul", an experience of spiritual darkness or desolation written about by St. John of the Cross and others.

As always, feel completely free to listen, not listen or stop listening - there are many Gifts given and if this is not your time for this one, there will be others - always more and more Gifts being given...

( If you would like to listen to this posting, scroll down to the end...)

 Stories of healing    

I like to think of myself as a person of prayer. Yet I have recently noticed something a bit interesting about the way I pray: I don't often ask God to heal me. Now granted, I am not a particularly sickly person and I do ask God to bless me in other ways. But, if I am suffering with something specific, I don't often say to God, "Please heal me."

As I have pondered this, it has occurred to me that perhaps I am afraid to ask so directly, so specifically. Perhaps I am afraid I won't be healed and then I will have to wonder why not. It may seem safer to ask God to help me in some very general way so that the omission will not be so glaring if he doesn't do it. It takes a lot of courage to ask to be healed.

I was thinking of a particular story of healing recently. Allow me to share it with you:

A leper came to Jesus and pleaded on his knees: "If you want to," he said, "you can cure me." Feeling sorry for him, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him. "Of course I want to!" he said, "Be cured!" And the leprosy left him at once and he was cured.  Jesus immediately sent him away and sternly ordered him, "Mind you say nothing to anyone, but go and show yourself to the priest, and make offering for your healing prescribed by Moses as evidence of your recovery." The man went away, but then start talking about it freely and telling the story everywhere, so that Jesus could no longer go openly into any town, but had to stay outside in places where nobody lived.  Even so, people from all around would come to him. (Mark 1: 40-45)

I have always liked this particular translation of this story because of the enthusiastic response of Jesus, "Of course I want to!" It is almost like he is saying, "How could I want anything less for you?" As I am reading the story again though, some other things strike me as well. How bold and courageous of that man to state his request so directly, especially including the words, "if you want to"? With those words, any outcome other than healing would have suggested that Jesus did not want to, that he did not care about this leper, this outcast. The man did not try to hide the ugliness of his condition from Jesus but laid it right before him. He was, in a sense, asking Jesus, "can you really love - even someone like me?"

While the tension of the moment is relieved with the response, "Of course I want to!", there is something more. The passage tells us that Jesus reached out and touched the man. When we stop and remember when this occurred, when "leprosy" meant almost any skin disease that might be the beginnings of that horrifying, deforming condition, to touch a leper was unthinkable. People typically would not go near enough to even talk to lepers. At best, a charitable person might leave some food for them at a distance. Yet Jesus touched this man, this leper. And, in the touching, it seems almost as though he were saying, "I don't see you as a leper, I see you as a human being, the person you were made to be". Being seen as his true self, the man became what Jesus saw, a person, a beloved person, someone whole and complete...

With this in mind, why am I, why are we, so afraid to ask for healing? While it certainly may be that I don't want to face the possibility that what I ask for won't be given, I suspect it is more than that. After all, it is not difficult for us to see that praying for healing is not like placing an order in a store or online, where we ask with relative certainty that we will get whatever we ask for. We can see that it doesn't work that way. Yet part of the problem is that we don't see what way it does work - or if indeed it ever works at all.

Or perhaps we do get a glimpse of how it works and it is that that scares us. We have to put our "leprosy" out there, to allow our entire selves, with every good or bad or shameful aspect unhidden, to be entrusted to the One who sees the truth. It is as frightening as leaping off of a cliff in the dark, trusting that there is a Loving One there, waiting and wanting to catch me, to bring me back to safety. Could he see my truth and still accept me, still love me?

It is both our hope and our fear. Given how difficult it is for most of us to accept and love ourselves, it is not surprising that we are afraid to bring all of our pain and brokenness to the Creator. It is hard to imagine that he would be willing, much less wanting, to touch us after all we have done with his gifts ...

Let me share another story:

When Jesus returned to Capernaum, word went round that he was back; and so many people collected there that there was no room left, even in front of the door. He was preaching the word to them when some people came bringing him a paralytic carried by four men, but as the crowd made it impossible to get the man to him, they stripped the roof over the place where Jesus was; and when they made an opening, they lowered the stretcher on which the paralytic lay. Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralytic, "My child, your sins are forgiven." Now some scribes were sitting there, and they thought to themselves, "How can this man talk like that? He is blaspheming. Who can forgive sins but God?" Jesus, inwardly aware that this was what they were thinking, said to them, "Why do you have these thoughts in your hearts? Which of these is easier: to say to the paralytic, 'Your sins are forgiven' or to say, 'Get up, pick up your stretcher and walk'? But to prove that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins," he said to the paralytic - "I order you: get up, pick up your stretcher, and go off home." And the man got up, picked up his stretcher at once and walked out in front of everyone, so that they were all astounded and praised God saying, "We have never seen anything like this." (Mark 2: 1-12).

I don't know that I ever really noticed that this story comes right after the story about the leper. It seems that the cured (but disobedient) leper went around telling everyone about his healing experience, resulting in the crowds getting so large that many people could not get close enough to see or talk to the Healer. It occurs to me that, while undoubtedly there were people in the crowd who were hoping to be healed, there were probably also people there who were just curiosity-seekers. They heard about this leper who was no longer a leper and they wanted to be there and see something happen. The story teller also lets us know that there were some skeptics in the crowd, some that wanted to find fault with the Healer because they didn't believe that things like that really happened.

What is interesting is that the next person to approach Jesus - coming through the roof no less - was someone who was paralyzed. Someone so completely broken and helpless that he had to depend on others to get him to the Healer. Certainly there must have been some dramatic suspense when this paralytic came through the roof. This was the moment they were all waiting for: now we will see if there is really going to be a miracle.

And what does the Healer say? "Your sins are forgiven"! Certainly a let-down to the curiousity seekers. And a great opportunity for the skeptics. But it is interesting that the story teller doesn't tell us that the paralyzed man complained. Certainly he must have wanted very much to be healed of his paralysis. Like the leper, he had taken a great risk by publicly placing himself before the now famous Healer. He most likely felt shame, because people of his time generally assumed that physical afflictions were punishment for sin. So the paralytic was placing himself and his shame before not just the crowd, but before the great Healer. What if nothing happened? What if he was found unworthy?

It seems that Jesus saw the brokenness, the helplessness, the stuck-ness of this man in a way much deeper than just his body. In telling him that his sins were forgiven, he opened the man's heart and freed him from his inner pain, his shame. He was liberating the man from the paralysis in his soul, seeing the goodness of him as the person he was made to be, thereby enabling his body too to be freed. And then he simply told him to go on home.

These are marvelous stories. But are they just stories? We don't see miracles in our world. I have never seen a leper cleansed or a paralytic get up and walk. Sometimes we pray and something wonderful happens. We start feeling better from our physical or mental ills. A job is found. A rift with a loved one starts healing. But other times, it seems like we only pray and suffer, pray and suffer ... and sometimes some of us just stop praying, thinking that healing, if there is such a thing, must be for people other than us. He wouldn't want to touch me. He wouldn't be able to forgive my sins. There is no point in even laying out that kind of ugliness before him. How could anyone, even the Creator, love a creature gone so wrong?

I have seen the miracle.

I have seen it many times over.

I walked with someone for over five years of wanting only to sleep life away or commit suicide. And then, without any clear explanation, the inner pain eased and life began to have joy again. And years later, it still did.

I walked with someone who for decades had searched for something to ease the anguish of a life that began with abuse and continued with years and years of broken living. And then, in their 8th decade, that someone discovered the experience of loving and being loved for the first time.

There are many other stories. Not just stories that I could tell, but stories that are carried around in other hearts and perhaps never told.

And yet I know too that there is still much pain, much sorrow, much shame within us and around us.

Among us are devout believers, skeptics and the curious. Many of us may be all three.

I, like you, am afraid to ask.

So let's ask together.

God, if you exist,
Heal me.
You know what in me is broken.
You know my shame.
I know I can never deserve your Gift.
I am afraid to ask.
But I am asking.
Please heal me.
Please forgive me.
See me as the person I was made to be.
(And let me see, too.)
Amen.

(To listen to this posting, just click on "play".)