“The world is pregnant with God!” Angela of Foligno Can we care for Mother Earth Gravid with God As we care for pregnancies In others? In ourselves? Once When my oldest was very young And very angry with me He said “When I’m grown up And you are little I am going to be mean to you.” He thought we would seesaw Back and forth Between old and young Him and me Forever God created us Birthed this world Now it is our turn To midwife God’s birth But we are careless We humans Midwives of the Divine Too often Too much The Divine fetus struggles Its umbilical cord Choked with smoke With plastic With money With indifference With disbelief Will Mother Earth miscarry? Are we to be abortionists Of the Divine fetus?
Month: June 2023
Hope and Dog Shit
Hope may be For some The thing with wings Flying into the distance Or even the sprouts From the eyes of a potato Growing into the future Hope For me Today Is sitting on the back porch Watching Woody Move around the yard His old man body stooped and slow With shovel and some other tool A long handled scraper kind of thing One in each hand To pick up the daily offerings Of the two dogs Hope is simply Wanting the same Tomorrow And the next day With Woody
Getting to Peace and Comfort
Woody and I just watched the second episode of Shiny Happy People. I am a 75 year old “cradle Catholic.” While growing up in pre-Vatican II southern Catholicism was far from Gothard’s IBLP, it was not that far.
So I was very aware, while watching, that even 5 years ago, I could not have watched that episode without struggling with panic, hatred, sadness, guilt, and remorse, all bundled together in one huge overwhelming confusing package called faith.
Tonight I am thankful for one thing. I am thankful that I now understand that there are realities that I can neither think nor feel my way through. Both paths led to a frightening jungle that kept me largely trapped inside my own thoughts and feelings for too much of my life. I did not know how to pay attention to the external world when it took all I had to control the noise and chaos of my internal world.
I still loved the presentation and liturgies of the Divine that I grew up with, much as I love comfort foods from my childhood (like hot dogs and canned baked beans – neither of which is the kind of food that I typically enjoy). But then my mind reminded me of some of the doctrines and teachings that were at best ludicrous and at worst grooming. And so I was left feeling that the Divine was unreachable, dangerous even. But I wanted to be close to a God I could no longer believe in, and so I pretty much lived within a spiritual/psychological preoccupying inadequacy.
I have practiced yoga for 55 years now. So savasana, yoga nedra, and pranayama were my first introduction to meditation. They helped immensely, but I still longed for my spiritual comfort food.
And that is what the practice of contemplative prayer gives me: both the peace of meditation and the comfort of being within a familiar pattern of the Divine. This is why contemplative prayer is such an unimaginable blessing to me.
Meditation is hard work for me. So is contemplative prayer. But it is hard for natural reasons. It is hard like growing up, like “adulting” is hard. It is not hard because it is tearing me apart from the inside out.
I am slowly learning that thoughts won’t get me to the Divine and emotions won’t get me to the Divine, but the Divine can get me to coherent thoughts and controllable emotions.
My Prayer This Morning
Beloved Creator, I praise You, I glorify You, I bless You, I give thanks for Your great goodness and tender mercy. To You I come, my all-powerful Lady and loving Mother.
Shine in my heart the light of Your grace. Shine in my mind the light of your love that I may walk towards and with others all my life, following your example of boundless compassion.
Glorified and exalted is Your holy being, many-named and many-manifested, now and forever.
Amen.
I Wonder What My Mind Is Doing
What, the wise woman asks, is our task as humans
For no discernable reason
My still immature mind immediately starts
Singing the king’s song from Camelot
“I wonder what the king is doing tonight
What merriment is the king pursuing tonight”
Often I wonder what my mind is doing
What chimera is it pursuing
Especially
When I awaken
From an all too frequent daydream
In which I eloquently defend
Myself, my actions, my choices, my beliefs
From my adversaries
Who all too often are
My mother, sister, daughter
Curiously never my father or sons
Never my best friend
Although often another woman friend
If I am not careful
My untrustworthy still immature mind
Wanders me deep into a dense jungle
Of self-righteousness
With no guide or destination
Called there by the venomous snake
Of not-good-enough
Tempted by the poisonous apple
Of regrets
The Problem With Paying Attention
The problem with paying attention Is that it makes me wonder Too often Just what the hell we are evolving into Shall we all evolve into comfort With alternative facts If so Then we better also evolve Into new ways to live In a destroyed world Shall we evolve into an oligarchy -- Have we already -- If so Then I can stop listening To news that may or may not be Some billionaire’s alternative facts Shall we evolve into a republic With Robert F-for-fucking Kennedy, Jr. Or Ron D-for-Demented DeSantis As president I believe it was e. e. cummings Who observed that There is a hell of a good universe Next door And we should go (Even if it is just Canada)
making love
His body and mine in the no space between us hold past, present, and future
What Is Expected
When I was a child I knew what was expected of me I didn’t always do it But I knew it The time to get up Put on my school uniform Eat breakfast Go to school Be reverent and quiet in church Listen and learn in the classroom Obey my parents Do my homework Brush my teeth Avoid, always and everywhere, The near occasion of sin My college years Started with the same expectations But then I, like so many, Tuned in, turned on, dropped out Still I knew what was expected: Protest, get arrested, resist, enjoy Sex, drugs and rock and roll Then I got pregnant Got married Got some more pregnant And there I was Before I knew it At the other end of childhood Teaching my children What was expected of them Making their world predictable Now I am 75 And nothing much is expected of me anymore And I don’t know what to expect What I should feel like Are all these aches and pains normal Is all this introspection normal I think perhaps What this time is about From now until when Is simply to become comfortable With the unknowable
My Restless Soul
Sometimes my soul is restless Because it cannot find itself Sometimes Because it cannot touch the divine But sometimes Some glorious infrequent times My soul is only restless Because it is dancing Dancing with the bossy red cardinal Claiming the birdfeeder Dancing with my 5 year old grandson Cannonballing into the pool Dancing with the quiet splash of water Into our small pond Dancing with the creak of our chairs As Woody and I rock on, into the evening Dancing, even, with the dirges As the last of Mom’s generation And the first of mine Dies
On Beginning a Maya Angelou Poem
“A Rock, A River, A Tree”
Her poem begins
But only the rock speaks
“Stand on me
and do not hide your face”
In this beginning excerpt
I have never read this poem
(A long poem, apparently)
Although a thick volume of her poetry
Autographed and well thumbed
Sits on my favorite side table
Made by Woody just as I wanted
Natural edged and natural shaped
Deep rich polished wood
Too often obscured by piles
Of mail and other to do stuff
There, on the under shelf
That does not have the beauty
Of the top
Except in its practicality
Sits the thick volume of her poems
Yet I have not read of the rock, the river and the tree
Do the river and tree ever get to speak?
Does the river say
“Swim in me
and close your eyes”
Does the tree say
“Sit under me
and pretend you are bodhisattva
until you are no longer pretending”
Then I will join the fish in the river
Swim across to the rock
And stand in the sun, the rain, the wind
Having no face to hide
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