Fall Fearless Into Love

 

This was the beginning song to a Centering Prayer time with Mercy Center last Sunday, and I liked it. 

If You Must...

Grand Tetons - Jenny Lake to Cascade Canyon Hike - June 2021

 

If you must be heard, 

let it be like the babbling brook, 

laughing over the rocks. 

If you must be seen, 

let it be like sunlight 

giving warmth and comfort to all.

 

If you must be acknowledged, 

let it be as the eyes 

behold the skies in all their glory.

 

If you must lead, 

let it be like the wind 

and all its unshackled direction.

 

If you must learn, 

let it be like breathing, 

the natural flow of in and out, 

and done without thinking.

 

If you must teach, 

let it be like the water, 

deep and flowing, 

for your words are like pebbles in a pond, 

the ripples they cause spread out in all directions, 

and what you give out eventually returns.

 

If you must know, 

let it be flowing and growing.

And above all, if you must: 

shine!

Kerry Hillcoat

https://www.northumbriacommunity.org/meditations/meditation-day-20/

The Deeply Formed Life

 This was the fall book for the Renovare Book Club, and it was an excellent choice. I really enjoyed this book. I had just interviewed someone on my podcast about Emotionally Healthy Spirituality and read that book in preparation. Then I read this book within a month. Rich Villodas took over as lead pastor at the church where the author of Emotionally Healthy Spirituality once pastored, and it was nice to hear his multi-cultural take on spirituality and mission. Refreshingly honest and very good! 

Sunday Morning Freewrite

God's Grandeur 

BY GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

    It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

    It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil

Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;

    And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

    And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;

    There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

And though the last lights off the black West went

    Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

    World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Sunday morning fifteen-minute freewrite. Just a reminder that a freewrite is where I just write whatever is coming to my mind for fifteen minutes. I used to do this with my kids when they were budding writers. Now my 26-year-old freewrites almost every day, and he was the one who HATED it when he was young. LOL!

So Friday and yesterday were lovely. I ended up not really having a holiday on Veteran's Day because it was my day to lead the Thursday morning 3rd prayer watch. Then I had a meeting afterward with someone who wanted to know if I do trainings on how to lead groups through contemplative practice. I have never even thought of doing that. Hmmm. I did something else that day, and I tried to go for a walk, but I felt like throwing up and had a splitting headache. So I just got back into bed for the rest of the day and found that UpTV has Gilmore Girls for three hours every afternoon. That just took me out of my feeling sick. I was also still bummed about spending all that time getting ready for my spiritual direction session only to have a person NOT show up. That is my fourth no-show in the last month! That is really hard for me.

But I did have a bright consolation in that H interviewed me about what I love about doing spiritual direction, and I do really love it, and I feel like I have been doing it for a long time, but it is nice to have a name for what I have done all these years. 

So, Friday, I woke up fit as a fiddle! I took a 12.5-mile bike ride, and that is the longest one that I have taken in forever! I realized from my time with the Jesuits in Scotland that I was not looking at God's Grandeur lately (I will put the poem at the top of the page). So that bike ride was my application. Then later, I went to do a Visio Divina and no one opened the room. So I texted the leader, and he said, "Oh no, I overslept." I open the room, but I decided to just go for it with the picture of creation that I had in a previous Jesuit meditation time. It was lovely, and I think the ladies that were left: L, A, P all loved it! F and S got kicked out of the room because of spotty internet.

So I had a "things are looking up" kind of day. I think I had a spiritual direction appointment then that morning, but I cannot remember with who. Then I had a great day, but I cannot really remember what I did. I know I had my time with the lovely nuns of East Mosely in England and Examen with the OMS/Seed Community of Waverly Abbey. Then, I was going along and realized that I was missing a meeting with a Southern California spiritual director, and we just hit it off so well, and she knows BB from way back in my Northwest Hills days, and there is a possibility of spiritual directors from Korea, China, and maybe even Spanish speaking countries. I would so love that!!!! So I am going to follow up on that. 

So then Saturday got even better. My "short" bike ride turned into 13, and I loved that too. I did along the Willamette and Mary's Rivers and then went all the way out to the 53rd/Fairgrounds/Campus Way Covered Bridge route. It was great. Oh, but before that, I met with F, and our subject was aging, and one of the questions was about things we were doing to live longer, and she wanted to know what I did to live spiritually. So I shared and did an Examen prayer time with her, and it was so fun. She is like a sponge.

Then, I topped it off with a Weekly Examen with the most life-giving human I know: George Weaver!!!! We walked through Forest Dell Park near our house. We always walk by it, but we have not walked through it in about a year, and we have never walked through it during the fall! Oh my, so pretty. I loved yesterday from beginning to end. It ended with a wonderful dinner with my favorite men: George, Michael, and Paul. 

Well, today I have Centering Prayer two times, church, and then we meet with A and K at their house for lunch. Hopefully, we can go for a walk in Peavy with M and P after that!

TTFN! 

Thursday Morning Freewrite

 

83% of BORING Route 66 Virtual Challenge!

Freewrite Fifteen Minutes

Here I go. I spent ALL MORNING preparing for a session with a directee. Then the person was a no-show. The good news is that I can use what I prepared in the future, and I have been meaning to update things on this spiritual practice anyway. Also, I am transitioning my practice to more cross-cultural workers and people from other countries. I also place a high priority on spiritual directors and people from the Order of the Mustard Seed. So I am becoming more specialized.

The directee will not continue because our times together have made the person realize that therapy is in order. I have had this happen in the past too, and I think this is a smart move. Sometimes, people come thinking they need a spiritual director when they really need a good therapist or counselor. That is not my role. 

All that said, I was a bit down. I think there is always that nagging feeling that I did something wrong, and they don't want to meet for that reason. Then I also had something happen with a group I facilitate that I need to process my feelings about. That is what the Examen is for. So after this freewrite, I will process the feelings about that. I felt like someone interfered with some scheduling, and I took it to imply that I had done something wrong by not scheduling it sooner. 

The Examen is so good for that, and I have only gone to the group Examen time once this week in lieu of working on some other projects. 

The good news is that I have about 400 miles left in my Route 66 Virtual Challenge. I have never been more excited about finishing a challenge, and I will NEVER pick this long of one that has NO SCENERY! Part of my joy of doing these challenges has been being able to see new places on the street view on Google Maps, but these street views are SO BORING! I am doing St. Francis Way with Moses (Character #2) on January 1st. So I need to do at least 7.3 miles per day until then. It is going to be hard today as it is POURING down rain!!! I will figure it out though. I am almost to the Colorado River and the border of my last state: California. I have taken this route before as we used to water ski at Lake Mohave all the time growing up. So YAY! 

Monday Morning Freewrite

"In the Tide of Grace" by Wendy Manzo
https://www.wendymanzo.com/product/in-the-tide-of-your-grace/ (See explanation below)

Fifteen-minute freewrite counting down...

It seems as though I have not had one of these for a while. The last couple of weeks seemed to be more hectic than usual. Maybe because I have a full class this last term and loads of papers that came at the end of my fifth week of classes. At the same time the papers came in, I had the Online Gathering for the 24-7 Movement, and my Vow Ceremony for the Order of the Mustard Seed. Then I had more spiritual direction meetings than usual (or at least longer times than usual) and a meeting with the 2HC. Oh yes, and the Afghans flying out and one of them getting out of the refugee camp. 

Yes, it was a busy time.

And then, this inundation of requests to do things: a podcast, speaking on a Person of Peace, consulting for a church adopting a people group, two people wanting spiritual direction (said yes to one and no to the other), someone in the UK wanting help in leading contemplative prayer times, people wanting subs for the OMS Prayer Watches, two people wanting to be interviewed for the Abiding/Fruitful Disciple podcast, request to do more fundraising for the Afghans. When it rains. It pours. 

All that said, I went for a walk yesterday morning with George and asked him how he thought I was doing in the whole "balance" thing, and he said, "Great!" And I had to agree. I feel so very peaceful. The picture for the Visio Divina on Friday was of a girl looking up at God surrounded by swirling water, and I felt like God was saying, "I am with you in the whirlpool." I am with you through it all. It is about seeing God's face in the midst of the activities of life. It is only then that we are not overwhelmed. (See picture above.)

The quote from Celtic Morning Prayer hit me along these lines: 

"Spirituality practised in the state of activity is incomparably superior to that practised in the state of withdrawal." (from Anthony De Mello's One Minute Wisdom, but he is quoting an Abba - which I think is a desert father?)

Last week was really good for my eating. I ate healthy and reduced calories. All good! I felt great.

Today, I have two spiritual direction appointments, and I am going to try to find my Instinctual Variants Power Point. I did a talk last March, and the final PowerPoint has disappeared! I have another version, but it is lacking text. I KNOW I saved the final version because I used it with the group. I have no idea where to look. It would take a lot of time to update it, but at least I have the Draft version with most of the pictures. I am a little sad if I lost it, but that is a First World problem.

Another First World problem is that my earbuds gave up the ghost only two years after buying them. The connection to the charging no longer works. I liked their sound, but I will never buy RayCon earbuds again. I did a search for the best earbuds, and I imprudently purchased some that were probably on a "best earbud" site that they created. They were cheap, and you get what you pay for. They go in and out, and the sound is horrendous. Not to mention that they don't last that long before you have to recharge. Not good, but again, that is a First World problem. 

Off to work. :) 

From the website about the painting:

Painted: 13/8/17   Wave Upon Wave album launch worship night at DaySpring Church, Sydney.

Painted live, this painting is my spontaneous response to being immersed in worship. Joel Wiseman, speaking about his inspiration for writing the album title song, said he watched the ocean waves relentlessly continuously crashing on the beach, as they have done for thousands of years, and God spoke to him and said “that’s what my love for you is like”. As Joel watched he realised that nothing the sand did made a difference. The waves did not depend upon any response from the sand. This inspired the lyric:

With wave upon wave 
You reveal Your face 
All goodness and love 
Overflow from Your heart 
With wave upon wave 
You crash on us again 
In the tide of Your grace 
to an ocean of praise 
We dive in

Charlotte Temple

Written in 1794, it was America's first best-selling novel in the earliest years of the Republic. So for that reason, it is an interesting historical document. It is a cautionary tale. It is no Madame Bovary, but it is a quick read so pretty painless to get through. It is a pretty over-the-top melodrama.

More about it here: https://www.americanyawp.com/reader/a...

 I read it for my Book Babes reading group, and I cannot imagine that they will like it. We will see. 

The Power Broker: Volume 2 & 3 of 3: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York

 I finally finished this tome! Robert A. Caro is a very detailed and wordy person (see my review of The Path to Power last week), but I finished this. 

I have never been to New York, but I found myself looking up every site mentioned. It is a fascinating look into one man's vision for New York that did not always take people, and especially poor people into account. He had a vision for the automobile and highways and bridges. 

One thing that I did not like is that there was no mention of Jane Jacobs and her fight to save Greenwich Village and SoHo from the Lower Manhattan Expressway! That is what I DID know about New York and Robert Moses. I even went back to listen to the audiobook to see if maybe I accidentally hit a button that skipped that part, but I didn't. I found this article:

https://nextcity.org/urbanist-news/entry/jane-jacobs-missing-chapter-robert-caro 

I have no idea why he would leave out such an important part because it was the first time the people had successfully fought him and saved their neighborhood! 

All that said, this is a story of power and about the MISUSE of public funds at the expense of the majority of the people to enrich a few. I am indignant! 

It is a long book, but I can see why it won a Pulitzer, but I also think Caro assumes motive a lot. I think he had some pretty big biases against Robert Moses, and he really trashed him in this book. There has been a resurrection of his reputation since the book was published in 1974. Time will tell. 

On All Fronts: The Education of a Journalist by Clarissa Ward

 Wow! I loved this memoir. She is an amazing correspondent. I had listened to her thoughts on Afghanistan during the chaotic pull-out in August, and it made me want to read this memoir. Then my husband read it and highly recommended it. 

It is so full of heart and love. Excellent in every way. 

Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters

 This is a very important book for people to read. I was first told about it by a person who is a counselor in a school and the rise of middle school girls who want to switch sexes, and how the prevailing winds are to let them do it without questioning. If they do a sex change, there are consequences. This woman has gotten so much flack. She is not "anti-trans," but she wants to see our society take a pause and not do irreversible damage. Much of it is political and a lot of bullying goes on. I was shocked at some of the laws that allow this without the parents' permission (especially in my state of Oregon). It is alarming.