The beauty of the earth, the beauty of the sky, the order of the stars, the sun, the moon . . . their very loveliness is their confession of God.” St. Augustine

The super moon and appearance of Mars last Friday prompted this reflection on moonlight, moon crater scars, and our response to hurts in our lives.

The thing about moon is that it is reflected light.  She has no light of her own.  She reflects the light of sun – and quite well.  She influences the tides of Mother Earth’s abundant waters.

We know from missions to the moon and lunar probes that the backside of her – the dark side of the moon – has massive craters where meteor strikes have bombarded and smashed into the lunar surface.  Her front side, the side we see in the sun’s reflected light, also shows craters and scars and millennial meteor crashes as well.  It’s fair to say this beautiful celestial object has survived the beatings of the universe for millennia.    And yet – the moon keeps on shining. Sister Moon keeps on reflecting the light of the sun showing all her scars, orbiting Earth in her unique path in her time.

In the pauses between taking photos of the beautiful moon, these thoughts occurred to me.  Do I reflect the light of God? How do I do this? How is my life part of the “confession of God”.  My first thoughts were that I am like the moon because I, too, have scars and bruises and emotional meteor strikes which are hidden on my “dark side”.   Upon deeper reflection, I hope I reflect The Light of God through the visible scars, bruises, and brokenness which people see.  The moon reflects the sun light through the craters.  The meteor strikes and holes on the moons surface are most visible during a full moon when the moon is completely reflecting the light of the sun. Do I allow my craters to fill up with the Light and reflect it to others?

I know hurt, grief, loneliness, extreme sadness – all those “negative” emotion we all try to avoid.  I’ve been bruised from the meteor strikes of others, from culture, from people who don’t “get me” and by my own guffaws, stumblings, mistakes and errors in being a human being.  The more I try to push away from those negative emotions or ignore them or the more I shame myself for messing up the more difficult it is to shine.  Pushing away from them doesn’t allow the light to shine in the cracks and crevices and craters.

I’ve learned through reading, study, meditation and prayer that if I lean into those difficult emotions, befriend them, care for them and sit with them, I can reflect the light in spite of or because of those visible craters and meteor scars.  As Rocky said, it’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward.  The moon keeps getting hit and yet continues to shine. We get hurt and bruised and broken and choose to keep shining.

We all experience some kind of brokenness, bruising, scarring from the Universe’s meteor strikes.  I don’t believe the Universe is malicious although at the time it feels like most people ARE malicious.  I’d like to believe “stuff happens”. We experience suffering. It is part of the human condition. We inflict pain on one another even though we know or have been taught that’s not what we’re supposed to do.  How we respond to suffering and hurts is how we reflect The Light and how we grow as human beings.

Reflection/Journaling questions

How do you reflect The Light?  What are your meteor scars?  Which craters do you allow others to see and thus reflect light? Which meteor strikes are hidden on the dark side of your moon?

How do you reflect God’s light in spite of your own brokenness?

How do you befriend difficult emotions? What fears do you have befriending them? What would it be like to have a sit down with your anger, loneliness, shame, guilt, traumas? What is your most difficult emotion to sit with?

Remember: you are la bella luna – the beautiful moon – always. Let your light shine for all the world to see so that others may see the glory of God. (Matthew 5:16)

Blessings to you all.  Thank you for reading.

Christy

 

 

Walking through our woods this week, I spied in a tall beech tree, a hornet’s nest.  I left it well enough alone except to zoom in (140mm) with my Nikon camera.  With my naked eye I could only observe a few hornets flying around the nest but the photo revealed ones clinging to the paper-like nest and crawling in and out of the hole at the bottom.  

I marveled at the creation of chewed wood fiber mixed with hornet saliva (I had to look that up!)  Apparently, the cycle of building a nest begins with queen hornets constructing nests to house their eggs in which they lay one egg with a cell and build a comb constructing tier after tier.   Eggs eventually hatch into larvae which become sterile adult females whose job it is to build more nest and tend to the brood while the queen’s sole duty is to lay eggs from which future hornets are born in late summer.  Eventually, the queen will produce male hornets whose only purpose is to mate with queens.  These fertilized queens hide for the winter.  Next spring/summer, the cycle begins anew.

Nature teaches me – always.  I returned to the site of the hornet nest several times in the past couple of days pausing to ponder what lesson I could learn.  Don’t stir up a hornet’s nest was the thought that kept coming to me. Well, that’s just common sense, right? I’ve witnessed the harm a handful of angry hornets can inflict on pets and people and could only imagine what a colony of angry and stirred up hornets might do. (I saw a few horrible minutes of Irwin Allen’s 1978 disaster movie, The Swarm, which is about African killer bees so I figured hornets would be about the same!)

I’ve heard and even used the cliché “don’t stir up a hornet’s nest” throughout my life.  This time it gave me pause.  I pondered what it might mean for my life and my spirituality – if at all.  I came up with some questions which I list below for your journaling, pondering, praying, sharing with a spiritual director or companion or creating some artistic expression.  Perhaps you have other questions you would like to share.  Please feel free to pose those questions for all.

Reflection Questions  

What does it mean when we say “you don’t want to stir up that hornet’s nest”  or “all she’s doing is stirring up a hornet’s nest”? Do you maintain the status quo to avoid reprisals and the stings of personal attacks?

When you observe someone stirring up the status quo, do you sting and attack or do you support and encourage? Are you able to protect those who stir the paper-like nest?

How do you feel when someone challenges YOUR paper-like nest? Do you come out stingers ready? What happens inside when you get “stirred up”? Are you mindful of being “stirred up”? When you are aware of being stirred, how do you handle those feelings? 

Are you a worker or a queen? How do you respond to those around you see who are the “queens” or the “workers” who may not be like you?  Have you ever “stirred up a hornet’s nest”? What feelings did you experience challenging the status quo?  

I enjoy your feedback and emails.  I am so pleased you find my photos and thoughts a blessing on your spiritual journey.

Blessings,

Christy

While sorting through images I’ve saved through the years, I came across this one from a trip to Seattle to visit a friend about 6 years ago.  My friend and I decided to venture out of the city to take a ferry over to Lopez Island northwest of Seattle in the Pacific ocean for some much needed down time.

Of all the photos I took, this image of the small craggy tree covered mini-island surrounded by the gray fog and mist intrigues me and continues to do so.  There is something reminiscent of Viking ships or explorers clutching ancient parchment maps with the words “here there be dragons” written in the unknown and uncharted oceans.  Fear of the unknown and undiscovered areas was symbolized by dragons.  Brave men who dared explore and venture with courage, still feared the unknown.  There way of confronting the fear was to write “here, there be dragons” and say nothing more about it.

Living a human life, a spiritual life, requires us to confront our fears, our inner dragons.  Fear and other emotions can create barriers to our inner freedom.  One time at a workshop on integrating emotions and prayer which I attended, the facilitator read the children’s book You’ve Got Dragons by Kathryn Cave, illustrated by Nick Maland (Peachtree Pub Ltd. July 1, 2003).  The young boy in the book discovers that he has worries and fears that appear to him as dragons.  As the story unfolds, he shares what he learns about living with them.  While the book is designed to reassure children about childhood fears, it served to reassure all of us at the workshop that everyone has feelings which can bring about anxiety and fear and led to deeper discussions about how to pray and reflect on emotions in prayer.

Today, I often some journaling/reflection questions followed by a practice I hope you will find useful in your own spiritual life.

Reflection/Journaling Questions

What are the predominant feelings layering in you this past month?  How do you hold tension between two things which seem opposite like trust and fear?  How does the feeling and thinking connection meet?

We often rehash and rehash and retell the same story line over and over again of events which cause pain, anger, frustration, etc.  How can you short circuit the story and move to gratitude?  How do you “feed your dragons” in order to befriend them?

Praying with difficult emotions like fear, anger, loneliness, despair, sadness, etc. is challenging.  I like to use a breath prayer or tonglen. It is a form of a silent Buddhist prayer which honors where one IS and opens one to the graciousness of Creation or God or Consciousness. I have adapted it to use with the Peace Prayer of St. Francis.

• For yourself
  • Inbreath – acknowledge what you are feeling (it’s like saying “here I am in my grief or confusion or anger or frustration”)
  • Outbreath – breathe out the blessing you need most (gentleness, openness, hope, etc.)
• For others you know
  • When and if  feel that you are able, include in your breath prayer others you know who may be feeling the same way you are.  Allow the blessing you seek to go out to them as well.
• For all people
  • When and if you feel you are able, expand the circle of your intention to embrace the whole world, acknowledging that the feeling you are experiencing at this moment is undoubtedly shared by many others throughout the world.  As you breathe out, be conscious that you are blessing people everywhere with the same grace you seek.

This breath prayer can also be done using lines of a psalm or other favorite prayer.

If you would like to talk about your experiences with this form of prayer or any other matters relating to your spiritual journey, please contact me.  In the meantime, I hope you find these practices and my reflections meaningful.

Blessings,

Christy

 

 

While driving through town this morning around 10:30 on one of the backstreets in a part of town which could be characterized as marginalized, low income, immigrant, rental row houses.  I had cut through the back street to avoid High Street and all the traffic lights – not that town has a great deal of traffic but enough to cause a little delay in my travel to get to the interstate.

As I approached a stop sign, I noticed flashing lights on a couple police cruisers and two city police officers standing in the hot sun in the yard.  Immediately I noticed the white sheet laying on the porch over what was apparently the size of an adult human being.  I surmised someone had died on that front porch.  My reaction was more like “Oh my gosh, that’s a dead body”!!!

No spectators. No media.  Just two public servants doing a job.  I assumed they were waiting for an ambulance, coroner or detective to arrive on the scene.  Was it a drug overdose, I wondered?  Heroin plagues our community like many throughout the country, an epidemic we don’t seem to want to control (another blog for another time).  Was this an elderly person who died of natural causes? Male or female? Had they been murdered?

I don’t know the answer to the how this person died.  In a way, the how doesn’t matter.  I continued my drive to the interstate a bit creeped out, a little scared maybe and sad for loved ones of this dead person.  I recalled the story of Prince Siddhartha Gautama.

The Prince got to the age of 29 with little, if any, experience with the world outside the walls of his opulent palaces.  Born into a life of privilege and luxury, his father shielded him from the realities of sickness, old age and death. Prince Siddhartha, ever curious about what was on the outside of the palace walls, asked a charioteer to take him on a series of rides through the countryside. He was shocked by the sight of an aged man, then a sick man, and then a corpse. The stark realities of old age, disease, and death sickened the Prince.

Siddhartha saw a wandering ascetic. The charioteer told Siddhartha that the ascetic was one who had renounced the world and sought release from the fear of death and suffering.

These encounters with old age, disease and death forever changed Siddhartha Gautama who eventually renounced his life of privilege, became and ascetic and began a journey which change his life forever to become The Buddha, the Enlightened One.

Siddhartha spent years meditating, reflecting, pondering, and engaging in extreme ascetical practices.  Finally Siddhartha sat beneath a sacred fig tree (Ficus religiosa), known ever after as the Bodhi Tree (Bodhi means “awakened”) said he was going to figure out what everything meant and he meditated for a significant period of time, some say years.  Eventually, Siddhartha awakened, proclaiming to the earth by touching it to bear witness of his awakening.  He became known as The Buddha, the Enlightened One.

We all see and experience sickness, old age and death.  No matter how much money we have, what kind of house we live in or what car we drive, we will all get sick, grow old and die or we will know someone who will.  There is a rather trite saying that “Life is a terminal.  No one gets out alive.”  What feelings do you have when you hear something like this?

How do you reconcile suffering and death to your religious beliefs, if at all? Do you have spiritual beliefs about death, suffering, sickness? What are your attitudes and feelings about illness – your own illnesses, your family members, or strangers? How do you feel when you see the suffering of others? Are you compassionate toward those who have multiple medical issues who cannot afford care or insurance to get care?

How have you experienced death? What are some of the feelings you have experienced at the bedside of a dying loved one or at news of their sudden death?  How has your spirituality grown because of experiencing suffering and death?

Embrace life.  Be kind to all.

Blessings, Namaste, and Peace to all,

Christy

 

What is freedom?  What does it mean to you to “be free”? Is it free to do whatever you want? Free to worship and believe what you feel is right for you? Free to speak your passions and beliefs? Freedom from worry, stress, anxiety, fear? Free to create, do a job, have a career and family, live the life you want to live? Or does being free mean you have the freedom to be who you are called to be?  Are you spiritually free?

Political theorists, historians, and judges have written about freedom and what it means to live in the democratic republic of the United States.  Court cases issued by learned  jurists interpreting the meaning of the Constitution try to balance the common good while ensuring individual freedom.

It is not my desire today to rehash or critique these writings here.  I leave that for  political pundits, constitutional scholars, historians, and politicians.  Through the next week most Americans celebrate the founding of our nation 242 years ago.  On July 4, 1776, after weeks of haggling over language and concepts, the Continental Congress declared independence from the British empire.  A new nation, conceived in liberty, was born –  the United States of America.  “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Declaration of Independence 

We gather with friends, family, and our communities for picnics, parades, concerts and fireworks to celebrate July 4th, Independence Day.  Throughout the next week, I hope you will have some time to ponder, pray with, discuss, and maybe even write about the questions I posed at the beginning of today’s blog.

Another challenge may be to slowly read the Declaration of Independence. What stands out to you? What challenges you? What feelings do you experience reading the Declaration? What does Life, Liberty, Happiness mean to you? If you were to write your own declaration of independence what would it say?

May you all have a blessed and safe Independence Day. May our communities, our nation and our world honor and respect all human beings and our inherent rights to Life, Liberty and Happiness.

Blessings,

Christy