Journal of Sacred Work

Days 365 -1 “Light through a Gap”

Note: Written by Liz Sorensen Wessel

Light through a Gap

Light comes through a gap in the curtains:
The promise of morning.
Light comes through the flaws of our lives:
The promise of love. ~

-Modern Prayer from Berlin, Germany

We humans are wired to count, compare and separate all that we see into categories of like or dislike, black and white, or good and bad; this Fr. Richard Rohr describes as dualistic thinking. Our lives and this world are far too complex for an all or nothing and either-or mentality that can only create divisions. Our culture influences our biases a great deal. We see this theme play out over and over again in movies with good triumphing over evil.

Over time we have veered from contemplative practice to this dualism in religion too. Religious convictions encourage living a holy life and avoiding the imperfections or our “sinfulness” within. An unintended outcome for many of us has been the rejection of parts of ourselves that may seem unacceptable. We grow up with an underlying feeling of guilt and shame that is carried within every cell in our body, yet left abandoned, unacknowledged and stuffed away from our awareness. This becomes our wounding and a secret we try to conceal from others (and ourselves) whose judgement we fear throughout most of our lives. Much of our persona is molded by the expectations of others and we lose touch become separated from our true Self.

I have struggled with this idea of rejecting the shadow side of myself because it seems incongruent with wholeness and healing. I am beginning to see another way to opening the window of my soul and allowing those rejected parts of me to experience the light of day. How? Well, the spiritual teachers of all traditions point the way; through presence, kindness, non-judgment and forgiveness.

What I am noticing most is the barriers I put up that keep people at bay. Just being present, allowing and in essence, acknowledging when these feelings arise creates a shift in energy. Along the way, I am discovering, little by little, sweet moments of surprise as I soften my stance.

Perhaps a bit wiser, a bit kinder, too, 
a little bit braver, a heart that's more true, 
a touch of believing I've not known before,
in joys I'm receiving a little bit more

-Garnett Ann Schultz

We live in a culture that constantly points to perfection, a win or lose mindset of competition and money trumps decisions over considerations of humanity. On a positive note, I see silos crumbling in our workplace as we value more the necessity of communication and collaboration to bring forth positive outcomes. Globally, we all recognize the serious state of our world. Here too, we must begin to let go the notion that we are separate from each other or that building walls is a solution that will keep away danger. We can only solve these momentous problems if we begin to open the window to imagine a new worldview that will benefit all humankind and foster peace within and upon our One precious Mother Earth.

The Extended Family

I sought my soul
And the soul I could not see
I sought my God
And God eluded me.
I sought my brother
And I found all three

-Modern Prayer, Anonymous

We are all of one body. My favorite passages in scripture speaks of the one body such as 1 Corinthians 12. "Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body…"

Together in the Heart

Pray not for Arab or Jew, for Palestinian or Israeli,
But pray rather for yourselves, that you may not divide
them in your prayers
But keep them both together in your hearts.

-Christian Prayer

The world needs each of us to bring our differing gifts to help foster healing and wholeness to the deep woundedness that exists. The Holy Spirit or that inner knowing will guide us. The world is awakening to a new way of seeing and a higher consciousness. Let us bring Love’s light into our hearts, our homes and our world. Let us open the window of our hearts to the power of Love; not fear (Erie Chapman) in the coming of this New Year.

 Unlimited Love

Lord, may we love all your creation, all the Earth and every grain of sand on it. May we love every leaf, every ray of your light. For we acknowledge to you that all is like an ocean, all is flowing and blending, and that to withhold any measure of love from anything in your universe is to withhold that same measure from you.

-Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-1881,) Russia

Liz Sorensen Wessel

Photo by ~liz, Ireland, 2011

Days 360-364 - Freedom

   The end of this calendar year brings no celebration to my friend Glenn. "I'll never be free," he told me. After fifteen years in prison, including eleven on Death Row, he's probably right. Forty-three now, he won't be eligible for parole until he is nearly eighty. 

   As his spiritual adviser, I once told Glenn that freedom was not about a prison cell. It was a state of mind. "How about we switch places & let me tell you that in a few years," he sneered. It's true. Who knows how my spiritual practices would weather imprisonment. 

   So many of us live in other "prisons." Patients want to be freed from the hospital, children from school, employees from the tyranny of mean bosses, women from abusive husbands.  

   Whether it be the physically or mentally ill, the impoverished, the tortured, or actual prisoners, hundreds of millions feel trapped every day. Others are glad to be caught in the bodies they inhabit until their earth journey ends. They are the fortunate who live love.

   Those who live in God's light can never be jailed. Easy to say. Often hard to live - especially when we are feeling tortured by demons (as I was recently) who seem invincible.

   How do we free ourselves from jails of our own creation? Jesus proved that no jail can imprison the hearts of those who love. We should celebrate his birth not just on December 25 but everyday.

-Reverend Erie Chapman 

Photograph by Erie

Days 358-359 Blessings of Christmas

Note: This Christmas Greeting is from Liz Sorensen Wessel

May the love that breathes life into all of humanity

Be born in us this Christmas season.

May the love that brings forth all of creation,

Be born in us this Christmas season.

May the love that overcomes hatred and brings healing,

Be born in us this Christmas season.

May the love that forgives and renews,

Be born in us this Christmas season.

May the love that brings the fruits of justice,

Be born in us this Christmas season.

May the love that brings the blessing of peace,

Be born in us this Christmas season.

May Peace now be the gift we with share

with all our brothers and sisters.

From “A Gift of Peace,” by Richard Becher, in Shine On, Star of Bethlehem, 2004.

Christmas Mandala By ~liz

Days 353-357 - The Gifts of Canine Caregivers

 
  If one dog brings happiness then two must deliver double joy, right? Not always. But it's hard to beat the fun one man can have with father-son Goldendoodles. 

   We all know the saying about dogs as best friends. Why?

   Years ago I stood with Alive Hospice caregivers as they freed single balloons into the morning sky in honor of each patient that had died the past month. The reading of some names brought sighs. But, when the last name was read groans & tears ripped the air. Several were unaware that their hospice dog had died during the night. 

   These caregivers know how patients bond with canines. "The dog doesn't care if I've lost my hair & look like a skeleton," one patient shared. "They love you no matter what."

   We yearn for unconditional love. Our judgement-free pets offer that. People cannot avoid noticing how disease deforms & patients often apologize for their appearance. Canine caregivers require no apology. 

   All we need to know about how dogs deliver joy beyond happiness is to conjure one image: A child bursts in on Christmas morning. A new puppy scurries from under the tree & into their arms. 

-Erie Chapman

Photos by Gary Odom

Days 351-352: She Shelters

Note:  Shared by Liz Sorensen Wessel 

Advent Poem by Rainer Maria Rilke

In the winter forest the wind drives
the flock of snowflakes like a shepherd,
And a fir tree senses how soon
she will be blessed with candle-light,

and strains to hear. She shelters
the white ways with her branches – ready
to resist the wind, reaching towards
the one Holy Night.

 

Advent Mandala by ~liz

Days 346-350 - Saving A Child

   Yvan was born with a death sentence. His crime? Club feet. 

   American children receive love & treatment. In Yvan's Ivory Coast village the tradition is to kill "disfigured" children. 

   Who would be Yvan's executioner? This horrifying tradition dictates that it must be his grandmother.  She chose otherwise. She hid the child & hoped for rescue. 

   Thousands of miles & light years of culture away two angels named Reeves & Amy Northrup tuned their hearts to God's love & heard the grandmother's plea. Blessed with a beautiful home & family in Sylvania, Ohio the Northrup's could have ignored Ivan's woes. After all, as so many say, "You can't save everybody."

   The Northrup's live a different creed. They believe the Apostle John's statement that "God is love" & we must be agents of this love.  They live Leandra Medine's words: "Don't try to be something for
everyone, just be everything to someone."

   Reeves & Amy are quick to credit the platoons of caregivers it takes to save the life of one child: Doctors, nurses, pilots & dozens of other volunteers built a human bridge from the Ivory Coast to an island of hope & carried Yvan across it. 

   Yes. Yvan found a cure. But he found so much more. He experienced God's healing grace through the love of the Northrup's & others. What a joy it was to watch a bit of this healing as the tiny child embraced the 6'7" Reeves. 

                                                  -----

   Amy's & Reeves' hearts will break when they perform their next act of Radical Loving Care. Soon, they will surrender the boy they cherish so he can return to his family in Africa. 

   There are Christmas gifts & lifelong gifts. Yvan goes home with both.

   "He has touched all of our lives," Amy says.

   Now you may let him touch yours.

-Reverend Erie Chapman

Note: Thank you to my sister Martha for introducing me to this lovely family.

Photographs by Erie

Days 344-345 "It Is What It Is and I am What I Am"

Note: this reflection is offered by Liz Sorensen Wessel

“It is what it is”… my late brother John would often say and when I am missing him most, I listen for these words from others as a sign of his ever present love.  This morning I listened to Richard Rohr utter these words, “It is what it is and I am what I am”  in reference to our shadow. 

I grapple with wanting to banish my shadow side from my awareness. Yet inner wisdom encourages making room for acknowledging unwanted feelings with kindness.

Funny, as I reflected on Rohr’s insights  I thought of the cartoon character called, "Popeye the Sailor Man", who sang a tune, “I am what I am and that’s who I am.” Coincidentally (or perhaps not), my father worked for King Features Syndicate, the company that created the animation for Popeye.

This led me to also reflect upon about scripture when God first revealed His name. “God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM"; and, "Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you.'" Exodus 3:14.

 “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me did not prove vain; but I labored even more than all of them, yet not I, but the grace of God with me.” Corinthians 15:10.

Think about walking in sunlight and notice how your shadow goes with you wherever you go. It is impossible to leave it  behind.  Instead Rohr’s encourages us to get our shadow to work for God by 1. Acknowledging 2. Observing without attachment and 3. Acceptance without judgement. The process is not of the intellect but rather a spiritual one.

When we are triggered our shadow side is exposed. I can berate myself for continuing to have these unwanted feelings and sometimes wonder, will I ever grow up? Yet, it helps to understand that as we work with it,  the cycle repeats again and again until it eventually loses its power. Gradually, we open into the reality of, “It is what it is and I am what I am” with humility in this very human and humbling experience. 

 I was regretting the past 
and fearing the future. 
Suddenly my Lord was speaking:

“My name is I Am.” He paused. 
I waited. He continued,
when you live in the past 
with its mistakes and regrets, 
it is hard. I am not there, 
my name is not I WAS”.

When you live in the future 
with its problems and fears, 
it is hard. I am not there. 
My name is not I WILL BE.

When you live in this moment, 
it is not hard. I am here. 
My name is I AM. 

By Helen Mallicoat

In this season od Advent let us offer one another the gift of our full presence. "It is what it is and I am what I am"; with the wound that we carry and the Love that we are; just as we are, Beloved.

Advent Candles by ~liz

Days 339-343 - The House of Surprise

    What a fine decision some designer made to arrange five fountains rising & falling instead of in a straight row. I studied them in one of the most unlikely homes of artistic surprise, an airport waiting area.

   The water fountain array is instantly intriguing. When the woman in aqua appeared everything changed. Not until I studied the photograph did I notice the neon reflections of the Dunkin' Donuts signs with their wavy lines & the leaning silouette of the man by the window counterbalancing the woman's tilt to the fountain. You may see even more in this ordinary scene. 

    Liz Wessel quoted a sweet line from John O'Donohue in her weekend Journal essay: “The human heart continues to dream of a state of wholeness, a place where everything comes together, ...where the clenched question will open in the house of surprise."

   Where are the "surprises?" Anyone can snap a photograph of anything. Instead, we make predictable pictures & barely glance at them. We imprison ourselves in a definition of beauty that is limited to images of friends, family & flowers. Our sacred eyes can discover so much more. 

   In The Demon & the Angel Edward Hirsch interprets a Rilke notion of capturing the ordinary: "The passing world itself survives only in these moments of absolute being..." Otherwise, seconds perish.   

   To find beauty & its attendant comfort in the wrinkled hand of a patient, in a furled sheet on a bed, in the journey of the sun through half-opened Venetian blinds, is a gift each of us can unwrap everyday. Thus, our "ordinary" workplace can become a house of surprise. 

-Erie Chapman

Photograph by Erie

Days: 337-338 In This Season

“The human heart continues to dream of a state of wholeness, a place where everything comes together, where loss will be made good, where blindness will transform into vision, where damage will be made whole, where the clenched question will open in the house of surprise, where the travails of a life’s journey will enjoy a homecoming. To invoke a blessing is to call some of that wholeness upon a person now.” -John O’ Donohue

In this Holy season of Advent we are invited into a deeper awareness through reflection and prayer.  Advent is a time for exploration of our inner life, especially during these dark winter nights. We can pause in quiet contemplation even amidst the swirling chaos of everyday life to discover the still point within.

St Anselm encouraged us to “Escape from your everyday busyness . . . hide for a moment from your restless thoughts. Break off from your cares and troubles and be less concerned about your tasks and labors. ... Enter your mind's inner chamber. Shut out everything but God and whatever helps you to seek him; and when you have shut the door, look for him.”

The reality that this earthly life is always passing lends to a feeling of vulnerability. Yet, rather than running, we can acknowledge with reverence just how precious our time here is with one another.

This is our homecoming, to release our fear as we look into the eyes of another and see the Christ child, as Love awakens our hearts. Suddenly we understand that we are in this together.  Another’s pain, becomes our pain, a friend’s joy completes our own. We only need reach beyond the chasm of darkness into the light of one another's presence to awaken the gift that abides in us all.  

May the blessing of light be on you - light without and light within.
May the blessed sunlight shine on you like a great peat fire,
so that stranger and friend may come and warm himself at it.

And may light shine out of the two eyes of you,
like a candle set in the window of a house,
bidding the wanderer come in out of the storm.

And may the blessing of the rain be on you,
may it beat upon your Spirit and wash it fair and clean,
and leave there a shining pool where the blue of Heaven shines,
and sometimes a star.

And may the blessing of the earth be on you,
soft under your feet as you pass along the roads,
soft under you as you lie out on it, tired at the end of day;
and may it rest easy over you when, at last, you lie out under it.

And  may the Lord bless you, and bless you kindly.

Amen.

A Scottish Blessing

 

Liz Sorensen Wessel   

 Drawing by ~liz