A Sketch for September

A week ago, I'd be headed to the Asheville airport.  It's the tiniest airport I've flown out of, with only 8 gates total, so I expected that ours would be the only plane.  Nope--Allegiant had a flight before mine, and American had a flight too.

It was a misty morning on the mountain, so I thought we might be stuck at the airport--nope, we left right on time.

Now I've been back a week, and that time on the mountain seems so long ago.  What I may remember most is how hot it was.  I landed on Friday, September 21.  I was expecting some fall colors--nope, nothing.  Plus, it was just as hot in Asheville as it was in South Florida when I left.

It was strange to be in the western part of the state knowing that much of the eastern half of North Carolina was dealing with the flood waters in the wake of Hurricane Florence.  At one point earlier in the week, I had wondered if the hurricane might disrupt my travel plans, so it was doubly surreal to see no effects at all.

The cottage I stayed in had no AC, so I spent lots of time on Friday walking the grounds.  At one point, I decided to sit on a rocker on the porch.  I had brought my Copic Sketch markers with me, so I decided to draw.  I'm glad that I did, because I didn't have a chance later.

Here's the sketch I made.  I thought I didn't like it, but when I revisited it half a week later, I was pleasantly surprised.

It seemed appropriate to sketch on the porch at Lutheridge while waiting for the retreat to plan the Create in Me retreat.  I first used Copic markers at the 2016 retreat; I'd have never bought such expensive markers without being able to try them first.

I'm sketching in an old sketchbook that I've repurposed to be my traveling sketchbook.  I plan to take it and the markers with me on my autumnal journeys.

Here we are at the end of September--the month has zoomed right by.  What will October bring?

Praying for a World where People Are Not Prey

Today, let me try to heal my heartbreak that came this week from hearing all the voices of women who have endured sexual assault.  Let me remember that the first step to making a better world comes when people speak to say "This situation is not O.K."  Let me remember that the first steps to a safer world come when the oppressed say, "This must change."  Let me remember that it is possible that the world will respond by making changes.

Let me think of Mepkin Abbey, a place that soothes my heart.  Let me remember that the Abbey is built on a site of oppression.

 Once the land held a plantation with many of its inhabitants killed or enslaved.

Now the monks care for the land in a variety of ways. 

In doing so, they also care for spiritual pilgrims who need sustenance.

In a time of great turmoil, new life may bloom.

In a time of clouds, a light can pierce the upper windows of our hidden rooms.

May we always be working/praying/longing for a world where people are not prey, a world where all are protected:

Poetry Friday: "Perestroika 1988"

Yesterday's hearing in the Senate (to investigate the new charges that the Supreme Court nominee sexually assaulted a women when both were in their teens) was worse than I thought they would be--and I didn't even watch them.  As I was driving home at 5:00, NPR was broadcasting live from the hearing, so I did hear a little of the nominee's testimony--or was it an opportunity for Senators to blab on and on?  I switched to a CD of Mavis Staples.

For those who want a meditation or a prayer, see yesterday's post.  For today's post, it seems a good day for a poem, a poem that offers some hope and some wariness.  I have poems that are angry about the vulnerability of women in the world, but let me offer something a bit more optimistic.

The poem is clearly about the year 1988, which is a year before 1989, a hinge point in history when Communist empires seemed to collapse with very little warning, at least to most of us casually observing in the West.  Perhaps we are at a hinge again.  Let it be a hinge that opens the door to a better time, not an apocalyptic hinge like 1939.


Perestroika 1988



The world is about to lurch
around a corner, to emerge blinking
and sobbing into an unfamiliar light
from a formerly eclipsed star—but
we don’t know that yet.

We cower in the corners of our darkest
imaginings, learn new word pairings,
like nuclear winter. We warily
watch new Soviet leaders come to power,
only to die quickly. Our president warns
of Communists invading Texas,
while Central Americans swarm
across the border, not wanting to overthrow
our Capitalist enterprises, but to partake.

We suspect we’ll die in some conflagration;
each generation gets an apocalypse to call its own.
Instead, two clownish leaders create
treaties—a joke taken seriously
by each side. Walls crumble, borders dissolve,
the maps must be remade month by month.

This new sun shining on us will subject
us to new dangers, cancers of a different kind.
We prepared for a different apocalypse,
and so we think we’re safe,
not yet recognizing the new dangers,
global warming, ethnic conflicts, dark diseases,
formerly backup singers in the chorus,
now stepping forward for their solos.

But until we perceive the notes of new songs,
we can relish the sound of silenced terror,
bask in the sunlight, tourists on holiday,
sunburnt but able to sleep again.

Prayers for a Day of Many Triggers

So here we are, another Senate Judiciary Committee preparing to ask a woman about her claims of sexual misconduct (such a polite word for the behavior) at the hands of a Supreme Court nominee. Now, as in the Anita Hill hearings in 1991, the panel will be white and male.

Now as 27 years ago, we are having a national conversation about what behavior is O.K. I am startled by the behavior that some people see as normal. Have I led that sheltered a life to be so shocked at this idea that boys will be rapists, and we should see this violent behavior as normal?

Let me stress that I'm not judging the Supreme Court nominee or his accuser--either now or in 1991. I am judging the national conversation. I don't think that adolescents of either gender get a free pass to behave in aggressive ways just because their brains aren't fully developed. We train 2 year olds to behave differently, and I don't suspend those expectations once the child hits puberty.

I will not be watching the Senate hearings.  It's not like I get a vote on this nominee, so I don't feel the need to be so informed that I need to watch this spectacle.  But it's also because I am weary.

I am weary of this constant stream of coverage of how brutal we can be to each other.  While I am grateful that people can now perhaps feel a bit more free to tell their stories, I am also aware that we are living in triggering times.  Some people will never feel safe enough to talk about what has happened to them in the past, and this coverage makes many people feel unsafe, even if nothing dreadful has happened.  The coverage reminds us that none of us is truly safe.

But if we're honest, some of us have a better chance at safety than others.  And if the worst happens, some of us have more of a chance at justice than others.  The coverage of the Supreme Court nominee and the larger #MeToo movement hammers this point home.

So, let me pray on this day of many triggers.  Let me pray for those who are about to testify:  may the testimony be honest.  May all feel safe enough to tell the truth. May the questioners maintain civility and care.  For those of us who watch the coverage or hear about it later, may we remember to breathe. 

But more than anything else, let me pray for a time when we don't have to pray for victims.  Let me hold onto that idea of a time when people's bodies are respected, when boundaries are maintained, when people will not trespass even when we are unconscious, when the powerful do not prey on the weak.

Meditation on This Sunday's Gospel

The readings for Sunday, September 30, 2018:


Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29

Psalm 19:7-14

The commandment of the LORD gives light to the eyes. (Ps. 19:8)

James 5:13-20

Mark 9:38-50

Here we have another Gospel that reminds us again that Jesus is not the warm, fuzzy Jesus that the modern church often depicts. This Gospel is harsh. Cut off my hand? Just because it offended me? What happened to forgiving 70 times 7?

Again and again, Jesus reminds us that we often let ourselves off the hook too easily. We don't require enough of ourselves. How many of us really do forgive 70 times, much less that 7 times more again? Too many of us won’t even forgive once, much less again and again. We refuse to begin the work of reconciliation, which is one of our main tasks in this world.

We're supposed to be the seasoning of the world, but too many of us do absolutely nothing. We close our ears to the cries of the oppressed. We know that we have resources, but we refuse to share. We cling to our possessions, even though we have more stuff than any human can use in a lifetime. The other day, I realized I had 3 pairs of shoes with me, between the shoes in my gym bag, the shoes on my feet, and the shoes that I brought to change into for spin class. I only have 2 feet, but I had 6 shoes with me. I thought of all the shoes in my closet. I thought of all the unshod feet in the world that could use the protection that even my shabbiest shoes offer.

Or worse, we behave in ways that would make our beliefs unattractive to the nonbeliever. Every time we gossip, lie, cheat, steal, or give in to our darkest natures, the world is watching. Our hypocrisy endangers us all on so many levels.

We move into the part of Mark where Jesus must realize that he's in great danger. He offers challenges to the larger domination system that controls the Earth. Jesus understands how many forces dominate us: both the secular ruling system, as well as the larger idea of a set of powers that keeps us from God's goodness, not to mention our own beliefs which hinder us. Jesus refuses to back down. He must know what will happen. The book of Mark, always apocalyptic in tone, becomes more so.

We see those echoes in the planetary calendar too. We’ve seen a seasonal shift, as we leave summer behind and autumn arrives. Once we drove home from work in broad sunlight. Now we squint into the gathering twilight. The produce sections in our grocery stores offer sturdier fruits and vegetables, like the gourds that remind us of the need to prepare for a harsh season ahead.

We have so many reminders that time is short. Like Ash Wednesday, these times remind us that the years go by quickly and that we must continue to atone for all ways we’ve fallen short. We can be better. We must be better.

Time is short. We don't have much of it on earth, and Jesus always pulls us back to that existential fact. If we don't have much time, we're pressured to make the most of what we have. We have a huge task, one not likely to be completed in our lifetimes. Still, that's no reason not to get started building the Kingdom where the last will be first.

Creative Retreat Exercise: Fragmenting Stickers and Fruits of the Spirit

One of the items that we do during our retreat to plan the retreat is to try the Arts Meditation.  Each person had a sheet of black paper and a pair of scissors.

 Our pastor began by reading the passage in Galatians 5 about the fruits of the spirit.  She read it in both the New International Version and The Message.  As she read, we were to meditate on what spiritual gift is needed, either individually or communally.

She had spread out pictures in two batches:  one set was pictures of fruit:

The other set had a variety of images that might correspond to the spiritual gifts, like kindness and peacefulness:

The word I chose was kindness; here are the images I chose:

We were to put the two pictures together on the black sheet of paper in some sort of new image.  And then the surprise:  we had stickers that peeled off in small fragments.

At first, I felt irritated by not being able to create the image I first visualized.  I created a way to attach the larger image to the table as a pop up image.  After that, I just looked at colors and pasted them in a way that pleased me.

The process made me wonder what image I'd have ended up with if I had done that originally.  Here's what someone else created:

And here's something more abstract:

And what does the process have to do with cultivating kindness?  Perhaps the irritation is key--how quickly I moved to irritation, even though I was trying to think about kindness.  It's so hard to be kind to irritating people or objects.  It's hard to maintain a kind attitude when I'm feeling irritated.

It's an interesting exercise.  I would think that this activity is one that can be done even by people who might declare themselves not creative.

And it's the kind of thing that might work well with other passages too--let me stay alert for the possibilities.

Fragments Worth Recording

I wanted to record some notes from the week-end of planning, some inspirations.  The 2019 Create in Me retreat is rooted in the idea of fruits of the spirit, in Galatians 5.

Here is a passage from The Message with an interesting outlook:  "A basic holiness permeates all things and all people."

Pastor Mary reminded us that each one of us is a plant.  That's a fairly common image.  Then she said, "But we're also a vineyard."  We talked about being part of a vineyard.  We also talked about the idea that each one of us is a vineyard, not just a plant.  We talked about what spiritual gifts are needed, both for us and for our communities.

We talked about what needs to grow for the season you are in.

Pastor Mary opened with a prayer, and one sentence struck me so much that I wrote it down:  "We ask that you would hold these sadnesses for us so that we can be fully present."

It was a great week-end, full of full-blown inspirations.  I look forward to seeing the quilt of a retreat that we will create from all of these scraps.