Snow on Ash Wednesday

The word "Lent" comes from an Old English word that means springtime. And it's good to remember that on this Ash Wednesday morning as I look out my window...

...because I have been doing a lot of thinking lately about the difference between faith and belief and somehow I think there's a connection here. There's more to faith than trying to believe what we've been told we must believe. There's more to hoping for spring than being put off by the fact that it's still snowing. There's more to Lent than fasting.

I think faith has to do with what I know in my heart even if isn't in sync with what other people believe. It's what Richard Rohr means when he says "Your deepest intuition is real." No matter what anyone else may choose to believe about today's forecast when I look out the window I know in my heart that spring is already happening underneath all the snow that is filling up our back yard.



And so what on earth does this has to do with Lent? Quite a bit, I think, because there's more to it than what so many of us have always been led to believe we must do in order to observe it appropriately. Lent is a time to examine our priorities and take a closer look at where we spend our time and energy, as well as what we need to do (or not do) in order to nurture the spiritual side of who we are. The traditional approach of combining fasting, prayer and almsgiving can be one way of doing that - but only if we know in our hearts why we're doing it.

“…our self-imposed sacrifices are likely to be pretenses, symbolic gestures without real interior meaning," says Thomas Merton who obviously gave a great deal of thought to this very subject...



"Sacrifices made in this formalistic spirit," continues Merton, "tend to be mere acts of external routine performed in order to exorcise interior anxiety and our attention will tend to fix itself upon the insignificant suffering which we have piously elected to undergo, and to exaggerate it in one way or the other, either to make it seem unbearable or else to make it seem more heroic than it actually is. It would be more sincere as well as more religious to eat a full dinner in a spirit of gratitude than to make some picayune sacrifice of part of it, with the feeling that one is suffering martyrdom."

I'm thinking about Merton's words as I look out my window on this snowy March morning as Lent gets underway. Last year as summer was ending I brought in all my geraniums so I could keep them trimmed back and alive through the winter. Now, just as Lent begins, the cuttings I've taken are already thriving. By spring they'll be ready to plan outdoors.



This Lent I'll be doing some fasting, some alms-giving and some praying, just like I always do. But I'm also going keep my geraniums well watered and be grateful for what I carry in my heart - a sure and certain faith in spring.

What's the connection between Little House on the Prairie and Candlemas Day?

Last night, once I was assured that everyone I love was safe and sound inside their homes rather than stranded somewhere in a snow drifted ditch, I settled down and allowed myself to savor the particular pleasures that go along with being snow-bound on a dark and stormy night.

It always reminds me of how much I loved reading the Little House on the Prairie Books when I was a child – especially on blizzardy winter nights with the wind howling through the trees and the snow swirling against the windows.

I used to imagine myself right there in the little log cabin on the banks of Plum Creek, or along the shores of Silver Lake, or in the big woods of Wisconsin. I’d pretend I was tucked in next to Laura and Mary in a big feather bed, all snug and warm under a patchwork quilt, drifting off to sleep with the wind rattling the window panes and the light from the fire flickering on the log walls.

“Laura felt a warmth inside her. It was very small, but it was strong. It was steady, like a tiny light in the dark, and it burned very low but no winds would make it flicker because it would not give up."

— Laura Ingalls Wilder, The Long Winter

I woke up this morning and remembered that it’s the 2nd of February, Candlemas Day. I love the amazing interconnectedness of things – last night’s blizzard….which put me into a Little House on the Prairie Mood…which sent me scurrying for a copy of the Long Winter…which yielded the quote about the little light that burned very low but did not even flicker ,,,which is so appropriate for today, Candlemas Day.

Candlemas, the climax to the Christmas and Epiphany liturgical season, is filled with symbolism. It’s the Church’s feast of the presentation of the Child Jesus in the temple and harkens back to Jewish rituals of purification and offering following childbirth. It’s filled with predictions about things to come because of the encounter with the prophetess Anna and ancient Simeon who declares that the child will be “a light for revelation to the nations” (Luke 2:32)

Presentation of the Child Jesus in the Temple

Hans Holbein

And so a ritual evolved in the Church involving candles and a dawn procession that used to be practiced in churches throughout Christendom until the Reformation. That hasn’t kept the ritual from being kept alive in Cistercian monasteries. And in fact one of my favorite memories of the three months I spent with the Sisters at Mississippi Abbey is the morning I participated in the Candlemas procession there.

We gathered just before dawn in the dimly lit scriptorium where we were each given a lighted candle to carry with us as processed into the darkened church for morning Mass. Prior to the reading of the Gospel, we rose from our choir stalls and took our candles up to the altar where they remained until darkness fell again and Compline brought the day to its close.

Today, on this cold winter morning I have gathered together as many candles as I can find in the house and arranged them all on the dining room table. I want to keep them burning there throughout the day and into the night, symbols of light, hope and revelation, reminders of what it means to live in a world where each of us has a part to play in spreading this kind of light into one another’s lives.

A Christmas Story

It doesn't get much better than this: the day before Christmas, a gentle snow falling outside, a mug of hot spiced cider and Denny in the kitchen making apple crisp to take to the reception following Christmas Eve Mass ....

Meanwhile I'm thinking of something that happened a year ago while I was shopping at Macy's for a gift for my dad. It was one of those chance encounters with a stranger and I've been thinking about it ever since because it's a good reminder that sometimes even the things we tell ourselves we don't like about the Christmas season can turn out to be just as significant as the things we do.

Usually I avoid the big shopping malls and department stores because I can't stand the overpriced, mass-produced sameness of what's found there along with the glitzy kitchiness of the decor, the crowded lines of irritable frazzled shoppers, the canned Christmas music and everything else that contributes to what usually ends up being a wasted couple of hours.

But I had gone shopping at Macy's because I had run out of ideas. I used to enjoy coming with special gifts for my dad. But that was back in the days before he began disappearing into wherever he has gone now that dementia has carried him away. He's turning into someone it breaks my heart to see. And trying to find a Christmas present for him had become an ordeal. I'd run out of ideas and so in desperation I decided to give up and buy him a sweater.

The men's department at Macy's was crowded with shoppers including a young woman with purple spiked hair and pierced studs in her eyebrows, nose and lips. She was wearing black fishnet stockings under a very short, very tight skirt and her equally tight and extremely low-cut tank top revealed just about all there was to see of her two lavishly tattooed breasts. I couldn't help thinking she looked a little out of places shopping at Macy's. But when she walked up to me and asked if she could help me I couldn't believe it. She actually worked there! How on earth did she get hired? Doesn't Macy's have some sort of dress code for their employees? Apparently not.

But as usually turns out to be the case when we are forced to confront the reality behind the people we tend to stereotype, she turned out to be far different from the person I - in my unfortunate tendency to be judgmental - had initially taken her to be.

She greeted me warmly with a lovely smile that made me overlook the shiny black lipstick she was wearing and asked if she could help me find something. I told her I was looking for a gift for my dad, and then to my horror I felt my eyes fill up with tears and I just stood there hoping she wouldn't notice. But she had noticed and to my amazement she reached out and lightly placed her hand on my arm. I noticed that she was wearing a metal bracelet that looked like it had been purchased in a hardware store, and each of her fingers was tattooed with a letter to spell out the word L-O-V-E.

"Is your dad sick?" she asked with a genuine look of compassion in her eyes. So I told her that yes, as a matter of fact he is indeed very sick and we are afraid it's Alzheimer's. "I'm so sorry," she said and something about the way she said it made me think she really meant it.

I told her I was looking for a sweater, a cardigan perhaps, but it had to be something he could put on easily because buttons were a problem for him.

"I think I know the perfect thing," she said, motioning for me to follow her past racks of overpriced merchandise to the back of the store where things were less pricey. She picked up a dark gray sweater with large buttons and big buttonholes. "I practically live in this sweater in the winter time," she said, adding that she likes to shop in the men's department for warm clothes. And then I noticed that sure enough, she was in fact wearing the same sweater. It just hadn't been that obvious - given the short skirt and low-cut tank top beneath it.

So I bought the sweater and while she was wrapping it in tissue, she looked at me and said, "I don't know if you're into prayers or not, but I am. And so I want you to know that from now on whenever I wear this same sweater I'll say a little prayer for your dad."

I gave my dad the sweater for Christmas last year.

Of all the gifts I've ever given him something tells me perhaps this one was the most important.

Thanksgiving 2010

We give thanks for the beauty of creation.....

" Garden steps" M. Beek

.... for human life, for common hopes and hardships,

and the joy we find in loving others,

.....for work to do and the strength to do it,

.....for laughter, companionship and support...

For children:

for their energy and curiosity, for their brave play and startling frankness,

for their sudden sympathies....

For the young:

for their high hopes and dreams, their craving for freedom and adventure, and

their bold experiments as they try to figure out who they are and what

direction to follow...

For the old:

for their passion for what is significant, their growth in wisdom

deepened by experience, and the lessons they are learning

about letting go...

For all of us as we move through our lives:

for help in time of doubt and sorrow, for safety in times of danger,

for rest in times of leisure, and for time itself made precious by

its passing...

For courage and compassion,

for integrity and mindfulness,

And for the insights we find in the spiritual traditions that nurture us....

"Buddha" Laura Lian

...let us give thanks on this Thanksgiving.

Advent Wreath

A recent post about holiday rituals in my friend Linda’s Blog, Each Little World, has prompted me to share one of my favorite family traditions: our Advent Wreath Ceremony. We’ve been doing this for over thirty years, having started when our sons were little boys and used to fidget and fight with each other over which one of them got to blow out the candles.

Every year in late November I take down the dusty box containing our Advent wreath, and every year I notice it seems to be looking even shabbier than the year before. But I can’t bring myself to replace it. Even though I’ve modified the wording of our little ritual and selected new poems and readings to go with it, the Advent Wreath itself is the same one we’ve been using for years. It’s far too precious to replace.

When the kids were little, we used to be fairly disciplined about taking a few minutes out of our hectic schedules to gather together in the living room to light the appropriate number of candles and go through the short little ceremony I’d put together. We always ended by turning off the lights and sitting quietly (that was the hard part with fidgety little boys) to listen to a Christmas carol we took turns picking out ahead of time. Those days it was probably the only time I had to slow down long enough to pay attention to the importance of the season. Oddly enough, now that I have more time for doing that, the Advent Wreath candles sometimes go unlit in the evenings. But I can’t imagine doing away with this tradition entirely. It’s far too important a symbol of what matters to me about my life and my family. And that, after all, is what traditions are all about.

Our Advent Wreath Ritual:

Reader:

LET EVENING COME

Let the light of late afternoon
shine through chinks in the barn, moving
up the bales as the sun moves down.

Let the cricket take up chafing
as a woman takes up her needles
and her yarn. Let evening come.

Let the dew collect on the hoe abandoned
in long grass. Let the stars appear
and the moon disclose her silver horn.

Let the fox go back to its sandy den.
Let the wind die down. Let the shed
go black inside. Let evening come.

To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop
in the oats, to air in the lung
let evening come.

Let it come, as it will, and don’t
be afraid. God does not leave us
comfortless, so let evening come.
-- Jane Kenyon

Leader:
We gather around our Advent Wreath to spend a few quiet moments together during these busy weeks before Christmas. For we have discovered that the true joy of the season is found in moments like these and in all the special times we share together with family and friends.

Reader:
Our Advent Wreath symbolizes our life together and the values and traditions we cherish -- including our memories of the past and hopes for the future. Its greens, berries and pine cones represent the beauty of our world. They serve to remind us that our lives have been blessed with an abundance of things to be grateful for.

Reader:
The candles symbolize our need to reflect on what is sacred and significant about life. They help us speak of our profound realization that in the midst of everything we have come to know and experience in this world, there is something far greater than what we will ever be able to comprehend or explain.

Leader:
The first candle stands for the importance of Preparing ourselves to meet the choices and circumstances that are part of life. It reminds us of the need to be patient with ourselves and others in order to pay attention and respond to that which gives our lives meaning and perspective. As we light this candle, let us reflect on how we can be prepared to recognize the significance of our ordinary lives.

Reader:

The life we want is not merely the one we have chosen and made; it is the one we must be choosing and making. To keep it alive we must be perpetually choosing it and making its difference from among all contrary and alternative possibilities. We must accept the pain and labor of that, or we lose its satisfactions and its joy. Only by risking it, offering it freely to its possibilities, can we keep it.
-- Wendell Berry

Leader:
The second candle represents Hope. It is a reminder of our need to be open to the changes that occur throughout our lives – especially those that involve doing things differently - so we may look to the future with confidence even in times of doubt and uncertainty. As we light this candle let us reflect on how to respond to the changes and challenges that are part of living by nurturing the seeds of hope that lie within us.


Reader:

Hope is the presentiment that the imagination is more real, and reality less real, than we had thought. It is the sensation that the last word does not belong to the brutality of facts with their oppression and repression. It is the suspicion that reality is far more complex than realism would have us believe, the frontiers of the possible are not determined by the limits of the present, and that miraculously and surprisingly, life is readying the creative event that will open the way to freedom and resurrection
-- Ruben Alves

Leader:
The third candle represents Faith. It is a symbol of what we have come to believe about the source and sustenance of life as well as a reminder of all that is mysterious and inexplicable about living. As we light this candle let us be mindful of how our personal beliefs help us deal with that which is beyond our comprehension and ability to understand.


Reader:

Life is a tragic mystery. We are pierced and driven by laws we only half understand. We find that the lesson we learn again and again is that of accepting heroic helplessness. Some uncomprehended law holds us at a point of contradiction where we have no choice, where we do not like that which we love, where good and bad are inseparable partners impossible to tell apart, and where we -- heart-broken and ecstatic, can only resolve the conflict by blindly taking it into our hearts. This used to be called being in the hands of God. Has anyone any better words to describe it?
-- Florida Scott-Maxwell

Leader:
The fourth candle symbolizes the deep yearning for love we all feel not only during this season but all throughout our lives. It represents our hope that kindness and compassion will overcome the violence and suffering that threatens our world. As we light this candle let us remember our own responsibilities to be active participants in working for peace, justice and harmony -- in our homes, workplaces, community, and our world.


Reader:

In spite of the tensions and uncertainties of our age something profoundly meaningful has begun. Old systems of exploitation and oppression are passing away and new systems of justice and equality are being born. In a real sense ours is a great time which to be alive. Therefore I am not discouraged about the future. ...Granted that we face a world crises which often leaves us standing amid the surging murmur of life=s restless sea. But every crisis has both its danger and its opportunities. Each can spell either salvation or doom. In a dark, confused world the spirit of God may yet reign supreme.
--Martin Luther King, Jr.

Leader:
In keeping with our Advent custom, this is a time to pause for a few moments and listen to some music, bringing to mind that which makes this season most meaningful and significant for us as a family.

O! Ce veste minunata! (Arr. Robin Smith)
Roberto Alagna, tenor, and the Choir of St. John's * the New London Children's Choir * the London Oratory School Choir * the Smithillis School Junior Choir
(Christmas Round the World, Deutsche Grammophon)

Reader:
GOING TO BED

I check the locks on the front door
and the side door,
make sure the windows are closed
and the heat dialed down.
I switch off the computer,
turn off the living room lights.

I let in the cats.

Reverently, I unplug the Christmas tree,
leaving Christ and the little animals
in the dark.

The last thing I do
is step out to the back yard
for a quick look at the Milky Way.

The stars are halogen-blue.
The constellations, whose names
I have long since forgotten,
look down anonymously,
and the whole galaxy
is cartwheeling in silence through the night.

Everything seems to be ok.
-- George Bilgere

Leader:
As we conclude our Advent Ritual this evening, may we remember that the love and joy of this season are always with us to be cherished and shared with one another all throughout the year; and it is this certainty that gives our lives depth and assurance.

Mornings at Dawn

If we weren't morning people we'd miss out on so much that's worth getting up for! Like this, for example:

Since our usual time for getting up is between 5 and 6 am, we're usually going strong by the time dawn arrives, which as far as I'm concerned is probably the most spectacular part of the whole day. It's definitely worth being around for because like it's counterpart, dusk, it is a quiet, gentle time. A time for noticing things we might otherwise miss - things that make our world such a beautiful place in which to wander around.


The Abbott of New Melleray Abbey once told me that monastic tradition has always considered dawn and dusk to be the great hinges of the day. Dawn swings open the doors to the daylight and dusk closes them again as darkness falls.

In the early morning hours one of our favorite things to do on a morning like this one is to hop in the car and head out into the country to watch the night-time turn into the day.


And now that it is September, a drive along misty country roads at dawn is a chance to roll down the windows and breathe the crisp tang of late summer grasses and listen to the drone of insects rasping their melancholy early autumn songs.


On a mist shrouded morning as the sun rises above the horizon, it almost seems as if we've wandered far away and have ended up in an enchanted kingdom miles and miles from home. But it's just southern Dane County, Wisconsin and we are only about 20 miles from where we started when we left our driveway. But no matter how many times we travel these same back country roads, it always seems like there's something new that catches our eye and makes us pull over to the side and stop for a while.


In this case, it's the unmistakable evidence that summer has gone and spent itself and is getting ready to be transformed into that familiar tapestry filled with the colors we always associate with autumn.


Once the sun has burned away the early morning mist and lit up the fields and pastures of the rural landscape, we head for home ready to begin the day, telling ourselves - as we have hundreds of times already - why it is that we love living in Wisconsin and why it is that we love waking up early.



Why I Wake Early

Hello, sun in my face.
Hello, you who made the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips
and the nodding morning glories,
and into the windows of, even, the
miserable and the crotchety –
best preacher that ever was,
dear star, that just happens
to be where you are in the universe
to keep us from ever-darkness,
to ease us with warm touching,
to hold us in the great hands of light –
good morning, good morning, good morning.
Watch, now, how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness.

            ~ Mary Oliver
           Why I Wake Early: New Poems