The view from our front steps is a prosaic one most of the time -- houses, trees, telephone poles, college buildings, a busy street or traffic backed up waiting for a train. The sky is still there though, and in recent days, the transition times have been full of color. This morning it was lavender and pink, turning the whole sky rosy. As I walked over to campus to meet my sister for our morning walk, the refrain from Fiddler on the Roof kept running through my head, quite in keeping with the seasonal metaphor I've been exploring the last while.
Sunrise, sunset, sunrise, sunset, swiftly fly the years, One season following another, laden with happiness and tears. And with light and shadow, dark and light. And color.
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This seems to be the season for spiky purple plants in my garden -- salvia, sage, lavender, hyssop, butterfly bush. The butterflies are loving it. While the overall effect is spires of purple, when you focus in on the shapes of the individual blossoms, what a variety of shapes! Butterfly bush has a fanfare of trumpets with fire at their hearts -- and the underside of this swallowtail butterfly echoes the fire with its own refrain of orange and blue.
Fireworks for the 4th -- the only kind we'll see around here. We're in Colorado for a niece's wedding this weekend and between the drought and the fires Colorado is already fighting, there are burn and fireworks bans everywhere.
We came to Colorado by a round-about route -- driving to Harrisonburg for a Weaver family reunion at Highland Retreat last weekend, spending a few days in Pittsburgh where our daughter lives, and then flying out to Denver. We'll be in Westcliffe for the wedding and then camp for a few days. I hear there are mountains around here, but so far the smoke haze has kept them obscure. Even so, there's sunlight on the fauna and flora, and I'm enjoying the variety. Dew -- what a concept! And a welcome one after several weeks with hardly any rain. Yesterday afternoon there was a brief, heavy downpour, a lovely sight in itself. And then this morning, when I went out to get a few leaves of Swiss chard to have with my poached egg, the grass was wet with dew, and all the plants were sparkling.
This icon of Christ hangs on the wall of the chapel at the Hermitage Retreat Center. It caught my eye when I attended a Taize evening prayer service there back in March. This was just after our co-pastor Heidi had been in the hospital for a week, receiving a new cancer treatment. It was not successful and she was suddenly looking much more frail and exhausted than she had before. In the songs and silence of the Taize service, the awareness of Heidi's illness, the impact on her family, and on our congregation hit me at a new, grief-filled depth. I found comfort in prayers at the foot of the cross, and in gazing on this icon across the room. I hadn't looked closely at it yet, and it was only afterwards that I saw with delight that it is Christ as Light Giver. Light continued to weave itself through the Opening to Grace retreat last weekend. I told something of the first session yesterday. Saturday was another rich day, with four people having focus sessions. There were many tears and much laughter, struggle, and light, as well as some time to wander in the woods and meadows, enjoying discoveries like this monarch caterpillar feasting on milkweed. On Sunday morning, I experienced another grace-filled moment of light and shadow. At the end of our last session, we were all standing in a loose circle outside, surrounding the woman who had been working and two people who supported her on either side, and we began singing Prayer of Peace by David Haas.
Each verse follows the same pattern, only the subject changing -- first peace, then love, light, and Christ. Peace before us, peace behind us, peace under our feet. Peace within us, peace over us, let all around us be peace. Like several others there, I know hand motions to this song, and we began doing them. As we sang the verse "Light before us....let all around us be light," I noticed my shadow. The sun was behind me, and my shadow was at my feet, spread before me. There was some space between me and the people to either side, so it was quite distinct and I found myself watching it as we sang and moved, feeling the warmth of the sun on my shoulders. With the last verse, I stood with my arms wide spread and slightly lifted, turning in a circle as we sang "Let all around us be Christ," ending with my shadow like a chalice shape before me. And I glimpsed an awareness that yes, somehow in Christ both shadow and light are held. Tears and laughter, sorrow and joy, all intermingled. And I remembered the last time I had sung this song was the Sunday before, at the end of our Pentecost service. During our second hour, we had a recognition of Heidi's pastoral work in our midst and we closed with the dance group leading us in this prayer of peace, another day when tears and laughter, joy and sorrow danced together, held together in the Body of Christ. ( I'd love to include a clip of our dance group, with their colorful scarves, but don't have it in a form to post. There is a youtube clip of another liturgical dance group, with their version of the same song here -- Prayer of Peace starts at 4:47.) You need to add your imaginative senses to this photo -- the warmth of early summer sun on your skin, the whir of hummingbird-sized dragonflies, the rush of wind sounding like surf in the leafy branches and blowing your hair in your face. I spent this past weekend at an Opening to Grace retreat led by Tilda Norberg. She is in the area for two weeks teaching a course on healing liturgies at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, with this weekend workshop at the Hermitage in the middle. Tilda uses and teaches Gestalt Pastoral Care, an approach that is rooted in the Christian ministry of healing, and integrates Gestalt growth work, spiritual companioning and prayer for healing. I just recently completed the Foundational program in GPC, receiving my training from Linda Thomas at Pathways Retreat here in Goshen. It was an incredibly rich weekend and I can only try to share a few images and moments. I was there as support staff, helping with the cooking and clean up, but we were also able to participate in the sessions, along with six participants who each had an opportunity to work with Tilda in the midst of the gathered ad hoc congregation, four observers/intercessors, and three other support staff. I connected with two themes that showed up in the work done this weekend. The first dealt with aspects of God's call and gifts of ministry, and how those play out in the dance of relationships with others. The second theme had to do with light. There was literal light, on leaves and meadows and faces, and metaphorical light, as tears gave way to healing and laughter. Light played an important role our very first evening and I've received C's permission to tell a little about this. C began her session by speaking out of a gray place of pain and loneliness, and proceeded to work with Tilda's guidance, becoming more aware of and expressing aspects of that pain, and then moving to address it through several Gestalt-style experiments suggested by Tilda.
At a certain point, C was standing, having come to a new awareness of the loving way Jesus looked at her thanks to a faith imagination exercise, and Tilda suggested that she go around the circle, with each of us stepping forward and saying, "I see you, C, and in the name of Christ, I see..." and then adding whatever particulars came to us. C. started on the other side of the circle from where I was sitting, and one by one someone would step forward, look her in the eyes, and say, "I see you, C, and I see a beautiful child of God." Or whatever affirming truth came to us -- each of us found a different aspect to lift out and speak. My normal tendency in such situations would be to worry about what I would say and to try to plan something out, but I remained relaxed, unsure of what I'd say, but confident that there would be something. I've been learning to trust this sort of awareness, thanks to my spiritual guidance work and the Gestalt pastoral care training, and I think, in this setting, also thanks to the prayers of the intercessors in our midst. About two people before me, C had turned so that she was now facing the western windows. It had been a cloudy, drizzly afternoon, but just before sunset the clouds were breaking up and the sunshine came and went, playing across C's face as the wind danced the leafy branches of the trees in the yard. Then the sun came out fully, and C stood bathed in sunshine. And C noticed. "Look at me! I'm in a spotlight!" She stood for several minutes, soaking it in, her face glowing. From where I was sitting, her face was radiant in the light, her eyes golden, and a line from the psalms kept ringing in my ears: Look to him and be radiant. It comes in Psalm 34, as I found after searching for it later, and the verses around it fit well: I sought the Lord, and he answered me, and delivered me from all my fears. Look to him, and be radiant; so your faces shall never be ashamed. I don't remember exactly what I said to C as I stood facing her, but I do know that when I said "I see you, C," I felt I was indeed truly seeing her, seeing deep into her golden soul, full of God's radiance. I've been wondering whether it might be possible to track temperature changes by the effects on spring flowers. Under 50 degrees the crocus and snowdrops stay tightly furled. This afternoon the temps shot up above 60. I went out looking for shadows this afternoon, having shadows on my mind after reading some of Richard Rohr's thoughts on the "shadowlands."
He's talking about humans' shadow sides -- the part of us that we don't want to see, the part that is unacceptable to us due to "nature, nurture, and choice." He talks of the story of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32) and the publican and the Pharisee (LUke 18:9-14). In each case, the point is not that they were perfect people, but that they were honest about their wrong-doing. They faced up to it and named it. "How have we been able to miss that important point? I suspect it is because the ego wants to think well of itself and deny any shadow material. Only the soul knows we grow best in the shadowlands. We are blinded inside of either total light or total darkness, but “the light shines on inside the darkness, and it is a light that darkness cannot overcome” (John 1:5). Ironically, it is in darkness that we find and ever long for more light. Did you know that even physics is now telling us that what looks like total darkness to the human eye is actually filled with neutrinos, which are light? Again, the mystics like John of the Cross knew this to be true on the spiritual level too." (this is from Rohr's daily meditation website -- it's a somewhat expanded version of a quote from his Breathing Under Water, p 33). Rohr calls us to "honest shadow boxing" -- making a "searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves," as step 4 of the Twelve Steps says. "The more you are attached to any persona ("stage mask" in Greek) whatsoever, bad or good, any chosen and preferred self-image, the more shadow self you will have. So we absolutely need conflicts, relationship difficulties, moral failures, defeats to our grandiosity, even seeming enemies, or we will have no way to ever spot or track our shadow self. They are our necessary mirrors. Isn't that sort of a surprise? And even then, we usually catch it out of a corner of our eye -- in a graced insight and gifted moment of inner freedom." (Breathing Under Water, 33 -34.) A good awareness to be pondering during Lent, along side texts like those I worked with for Lent 1. This isn't the shadowlands that Rohr has in mind, but I found the layers intriguing. I'm looking through the Creation section of the hymnal this evening, getting ready for worship at Faith House Fellowship tomorrow, and the first verse of All Beautiful the March of Days could have been written for today: All beautiful the march of days, as seasons come and go. The hand that shaped the rose hath wrought the crystal of the snow, hath sent the hoary frost of heav'n, the flowing waters sealed, and laid a silent loveliness on hill and wood and field. My eye was caught by snow sparkles and shadow, before I scurried back inside to wrap up in a warm afghan.
Many moments of light this weekend, but less time to turn them into blog entries. On Friday, I traveled with two friends out to Kansas for our 18th annual Joy Luck Club gathering. We met our friend, Christina, in Kansas City, Missouri, after traveling ten hours from Goshen, played some mah jongg in our hotel room and did some sight-seeing the next day before driving on to her home in Salina. It was snowing when we left Goshen, and we saw a couple remnants of accidents on the road near Chicago, so it was a relief to arrive safely. And traveling through Missouri, the combination of colors created by the late afternoon sunshine and golden dried grasses, brown branches, white snow, blue sky and blue shadows lifted my spirits. Saturday we spent some time in the contemporary art museum in Kansas City. I liked the glass sculpture by Chiluly and its shadows. And from a little farther away, I was intrigued by the way the artwork reflected in the floor. And this photo by Michael Schultz was a spark of light -- it's a photo of a decaying ammonia factory in Belgium,with green moss and ferns growing on the floor. I also like his quote above, which you may not be able to read: I believe the camera can produce an image that. . . enters a realm of heightened reality. It struck me as fitting well with what I'm doing with this blog.
The Twelfth day of Christmas arrived with swathes of gauzy, pink clouds strewn across the pale blue sky, as though dawn were preparing for the arrival of twins, male and female. Today is the Feast of Epiphany, from the Greek word epiphaneia, meaning to appear. Related words are epiphaino - to give light, to illuminate-- and epephanen, to be revealed. A very fitting day for searching for sparks of light. For the Eastern Orthodox, Epiphany is also known as the Festival of Lights, because believers would bring many candles to celebrate the baptism services held that day. The Western Church celebrates Three Kings Day, and the arrival of the magi, the wise men from the east, bringing gifts and paying homage to the infant Jesus. The afternoon sunshine came streaming in our south living room window, bounced off the shiny library book on the coffee table, and created some intriguing light and shadow play with my pewter nativity scene. And the glory shone all around....
Sunset arrived as I began work on this entry, and the pink swathes returned. |
My approach to contemplative photography --
"Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it." Mary Oliver in "Sometimes" Archives
August 2020
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