"Shalom and the Wholeness of God" by Christine Sine

"In the last few years economic turmoil, natural disasters and an ongoing wave of war, conflict and uncertainty have shattered our confidence in the future.  Many of us laughed at the end times gurus who thought that the world would end on May 21st but if we are honest, deep within us was an uncertainty about the future that made us wonder if they could be right.

What we believe about the future toward which God is leading us will greatly impact our ability to both prepare for the future here on earth and participate in God’s redeeming activity.  For most of us the future we dream of is shaped, consciously or unconsciously, by a culture that tells us success and prosperity will follow us all the days of our lives.

Tough economic times and natural disasters have brought that dream into question but have not replaced it with a compelling and gratifying new vision.  Proverbs 29:18 tells us that without a vision the people perish, and I think it is true.  Not only are we in danger of perishing, but many others in our world are already perishing because of our limited understanding of the future and particularly of a vision of world made new in which all are provided for that God wants us to be a part of..."

Read the rest here...good words for hard times:  http://godspace.wordpress.com/2011/06/04/turbulent-times-are-here-to-stay-believe-in-the-future/

You will need to cut and paste the link as Blogger won't let me paste the link into the phrase "good words for hard times"...eye roll.

Catherine

Valters-Paintner: spiritual discomfort can be a good thing...

My friend Jan Hilton, sent me the link to Christine Valters-Paintner's rich article on "The Spiritual Practice of Being Uncomfortable", and I am so thankful.  I have already passed it onto a friend in emotional and physical grief over the finality of relationship.  I am going through a similar disconnection with someone I cared for deeply and thought the feeling was mutual.  Nothing hurts more than when someone breaks up with you with an email from another state, deciding that YOU are not the right person for them but they want to be friends.  Nothing quite so devastating as losing a loved one who is still very much alive.  Did I want to be in love?  Yes, at some point but not yet.  It goes to show you that we are all fallible human beings, that two people contribute to misunderstandings that lead to more difficult situations.  No perfect world here.  We all just stumble along and maybe the dice will fall into a favorable set where things work out and the building of relationship can start anew.  That has been my hope, but even in hope we must be careful, as I have come to find out.  I still hope that at some point in time, when the storms of hurt and anger settle themselves, we can find our way back to discussing Buddhism, what it is to be an Episcopalian, an eco-conscious person, mindful of our world, large of small, here in America or the outer reaches of Nepal or the vastness of the Sahara, or mountains of  South American.  Mindfulness of just how fragile we are, and that even in our most caring moments, we can wound without intention or unknowing with gestures, tones of voice [or tones of email messages], and silences.  And silence becomes distance where once the well-worn path with its fine earthen dust used to be delightfully disturbed but has since become overgrown with slender grass, and the path is barely perceptible, yet you know it's there just waiting for one of us to take the first step and cross over.

I find that I am a very forgiving person; perhaps too much so for my own good.  Yes, yes, I know what Christ says  about forgiveness and grace, but when the pain is raw and the edges of the wounds are jagged and torn, in need of tending.  I'm in health care so I know how to patch myself up in most cases but when it comes to wounds of the heart, I'm not so good. Sure, I can make some progress; there are balms that help alleviate the emotional, mental and physical toll such grief and pain can take, but the real healing comes when there is someone who has been in that "place".  Maybe they have been "there" 3 or 4 times, or even more.  And those of us that do, we manage and limp along, knowing in our hearts that the healing another brings is another way of seeing, and revealing us in ways we had never seen ourselves before.  And kindly with deliberate care, they--being the ones who brought the grief to us--can be instrumental in our return to wholeness if they are the kindly souls we have always hoped they would be: caring, compassionate, in a helping profession, some who has walked our journey, struggled on our path, and though we may not have cared about their advice at the time, we eventually see some wisdom in what they have been trying to say all along.

I am at the place where I can acknowledge that...now.  I wasn't there a  week ago, but I am newly arrived at the possibilities where I find my heart and mind and spirit open to new ideas and ways of being and doing.  We have this ideal or idea of what God is regardless of our faith life, past or present.  A benevolent, strong but gentle "father" or "mother" or "sister" image.  But the author of this article I bring to your attention courtesy of my Texas friend Jan Hilton who sent it to me as a love offering, which I enfolded to my being because it spoke and whispered and occasionally shouted the wisdom it offers.

In the suffering of physical pain we experience a lot mental and emotional pain; they go hand in hand.  It is easy to dwell on the physical because it is tangible and made manifest in our physical selves.  Our physical well-being is strongly linked to our emotions and how we think and perceive our grief, this current pain that affects everything.

So I offer to you, you of all faiths and backgrounds and beliefs, this group of words of wisdom.  Simple and easy to comprehend. From a spiritual seeker writer and creator of marvelous spirit art and though I give you the benefits of spiritual discomfort:

So much of what passes for spirituality these days is about making us happy and having positive experiences. But sometimes, I would argue, we need to be uncomfortable.

By Christine Valters Paintner, May 24, 2011

        

Love wants to reach out and manhandle us,

Break all our teacup talk of God.
If you had the courage and
Could give the Beloved His choice, some nights,
He would just drag you around the room
By your hair,
Ripping from your grip all those toys in the world
That bring you no joy.
Love sometimes gets tired of speaking sweetly
And wants to rip to shreds
All your erroneous notions of truth . . .
The Beloved sometimes wants
To do us a great favor:
Hold us upside down
And shake all the nonsense out. ~ Hafiz

Read the rest of this enlightening article here.  You will be glad you did...

http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Spiritual-Practice-of-Being-Uncomfortable-Christine-Valters-Paintner-05-25-2011.html?


This is my offering to you because it was an offering to me in my time of relational grief.  May you glean from it ways of coping and doing and moving forward; we all have so much life to live, let's not grief here too long.  Raise a cairn to it's memory but dwell not upon it forever, or you will lose yourself to what you cannot have or hope to attain.  Gradually set it aside, so it will not get into your way as you go along your journey to joy and peace where serenity awaits us all, even me.

Catherine+

Posting my truth...

...and I don't give a flying fig if the opposing side in this lawsuit has checked out my blog or Facebook page.  It is what it is and I make no apology for any of it.  So there...have a nice day, you all over on the other side of the deposition table.

Wendell Berry: From another blogger's post...

....which blogger, I can't remember, but it suits where I am and possibly where I am going...so here it is...

No, no, there is no going back.
Less and less you are
that possibility you were.
More and more you have become
those lives and deaths
that have belonged to you.
You have become a sort of grave
containing much that was
and is no more in time, beloved
then, now, and always.
And so you have become a sort of tree
standing over the grave.
Now more than ever you can be
generous toward each day
that comes, young, to disappear
forever, and yet remain
unaging in the mind.
Every day you have less reason
not to give yourself away.
~ Wendell Berry ~

Hard journey...

The last year has been very eventful and not in what I would call a positive way.  It has been hard and tiring, wearing me down at times to a point where I don't think I can recover, but somehow I manage with God's grace.  It has not been a particularly happy year, more of a year of resignation to whatever comes along and remain moving forward almost automatically.  Time has been drawn out but the days have sped by, blurring from one to the other.

At this time, right now, everything that should be a positive thing, isn't, and it presses down hard on the soul and grinds the body and mind, seemingly crushing any will that might be left to keep going.  Admittedly I am in a very difficult part of my life.  Work is oppressive and my only bit of joy is in the patients themselves.  I still don't have a car or truck to call my own.  I am in the debt of people I once felt close to because they are allowing me to borrow a family member's car, but the pressure is on to return it and I feel that acutely.  Physical pain is daily, sometimes better, sometimes worse, but physical therapy continues every week.  My personal life is in reverse...being friends after being something more is difficult but I will stay the course because we can't seem to not be an integral part of each other's lives now.  That's ok...it will somehow be ok, though at times it is hard to see forward, this person is a good person; it's just the way life goes.  Mentally and emotionally I am drained and very, very tired.  Sleep does not come easily but it eventually comes for a little while.

Walking apart from my parish church is necessary but devastating in many ways.  I don't have that fellowship of spirit or community, and will embark on visiting for the next several months the UCC in Ashland and also the First Methodist Church there, alternating between them and visiting Trinity at least once a month to reconnect with people there.  The dissolution of what I used to know as a ministry that brought joy and purpose is painful.  The way decisions are being made there now is not how it used to be, fair and involved all concerned.  Instead arbitrary decisions are made by a few and applied to all in the ministry I was involved in, that of the Lay Eucharistic Ministers, those who served the altar and carried the Gospel...that's gone now.  I cannot abide such covert, destructive change.  It is so very unnecessary and has driven me to seek new community and solace elsewhere.

So that is the state of this blogger...I find little to inspire me these days with all the unrest and natural devastation...yes there are those who have it worse off, or so it seems but this is my reality, and my pain is no less than anyone else's who is in a difficult place.  No pity party here, just the facts as they are, and this explains why I have not written or posted.  I don't know the future of this blog...I'm still thinking about whether it is time to be over, having served it's purpose of a kind of outreach to my larger community.  And since I am no longer really active in that community, perhaps it is time to leave this endeavor and begin a different one.  Time will tell...thank you all for your past and current support and care.

Catherine

Presiding Bishop in Dublin, Ireland

Episcopal News Service report on the Presiding Bishop's visit to the Primates' meeting in Dublin, Ireland.

"We're challenged in this very body to 'show up,' to present ourselves ready, willing, and able to help heal this broken world," Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said on Jan. 30 during her sermon at the 9 a.m. Sung Eucharist service at Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin, Ireland.

Highlighting sobering statistics of child mortality rates in some parts of the world – like Angola, where nearly 20 percent of children die before their first birthday – Jefferts Schori said the healing of the world "needs the participation and leadership of all parts of the body of Christ. It starts with urgent voices, and changed hearts, our own conversion, and our challenge to systems that perpetuate all kinds of sickness and death around the world."

Jefferts Schori noted the brutal murder of Ugandan gay rights activist David Kato, who was bludgeoned to death in his home community on Jan. 26.

Kato "has been a strong voice for the basic human rights of gay and lesbian people," Jefferts Schori said. "His voice has been silenced. We can pray that others will continue that work, or be challenged by the brutality of his death into some conversion of heart. Will we challenge the world to respect the dignity of every single human being?"

Jefferts Schori is attending the Jan. 25-30 meeting of Anglican primates at the Emmaus Retreat Centre near Dublin. Seven primates have chosen to stay away from the meeting because of Jefferts Schori's presence and recent developments supporting the full inclusion of gay and lesbian people in the Episcopal Church.

Read the rest here.

-- Matthew Davies is editor and international correspondent of the Episcopal News Service.

"the road not taken"

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost
Mountain Journal
1916