Besieged but not beset

 

Devotion for Being Apart -
October 2

I will share new devotions from time to time,
and invite you to browse through devotions that have been posted on this blog.

What a strange and strained time this is.  The world feels chaotic and frightening right now.

I went on my mostly-monthly 24 hours retreat this week. My rules for these retreats include turning off my phone and reading no fiction, because I want to be as present as possible.  I broke my rules. 
Restless and tense, I walked four miles, some of that on talking my phone.  Then I came back and read a mediocre novel, and then went out and walked four more miles. Then, from a big chair at the picture window overlooking the tall pines, I watched the "presidential debate" on my phone.  

Afterwards, I took a deep breath and took stock. 

I could feel bad for doing it "wrong," for “wasting” my time.  Or I could have curiosity about my choices.  As NVC tells us - every No is a Yes to something else.  What was I saying Yes to? What need was I meeting?

I think what I was needing was ease, a sense that things will be ok. Right now in lots of ways, things do not feel ok.  And evidently right now, my go-to strategy for meeting that need is distraction.  

Getting away from the ever-present agendas, voices, bodies and demands of my family for 24 hours was supposed to help me be present with myself and God, and pray for the world from a grounded place.  

Instead, something in me panicked, and I chose distraction, numbness, avoidance.  I chose the diversion of watching an appalling debate and feeling the rushes of outrage and astonishment over sitting quietly in the night and letting my sadness come up and out of me.  I opted for the shallow amusement of an unsatisfying novel instead of being alone with myself and God, where the silence might feel too loud and the stillness too empty, and the words of contemplatives, mystics or scripture might feel too pointed and challenging. I took up the project of keeping my body in motion, racking up steps to feel like I was getting somewhere and achieving something, when all I was doing was walking the same 4 mile loop – one mile, turn, one mile, turn, one mile, turn...  

I didn’t actually want to be in time, in life. I didn’t want to feel it. I wanted to not feel it. I wanted to be inattentive, unfocussed, and unmindful of the realities of life right now. I wanted to be blissfully inconsiderate of what I was feeling.  Evidently, I was telling myself that it was too much to bear, and it was better just not to stop and let it in.
 
I’m tired of it all. I’m afraid. I am worried. I am heartbroken. And those feelings are unpleasant. So instead I choose distraction.
 
But I don’t really choose that.  

By the next morning I was able to slow down a little bit.  I had compassion for how tense we all are, day in and day out, and how much longer it takes us right now to unwind and relax.  I had a little more awareness, compassion and curiosity for myself, at least enough to sit still and journal and notice. At least enough to let my last walk be slower and more attentive - to smell the pine needles and feel their softness under my feet, to hear the birds and scurrying squirrels and wind in the branches, to feel my own heartbeat and breath - and to feel grateful at how the world persists and life moves on whether we notice or not.  
I choose to notice. 
 
Kristen gave me a wonderful book by David Whyte called Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words. The word I read today was BESIEGED.  I was struck by this paragraph: 

If the world will not go away then the great discipline seems to be the ability to make an identity that can live in the midst of everything without feeling beset.  Being besieged asks us to begin the day not with a to-do list, but with a not-to-do list, a moment outside of the time-bound world in which it can be reordered and reprioritized. In this space of undoing and silence, we create a foundation from which to re-imagine our day and ourselves. Beginning the daily conversation from a point of view of freedom, and being untethered, allows us to re-see ourselves, to reenter the world as if for the first time. We give ourselves and all our accomplishments, our ambitions and our over-described hopes away, in order to see in what form they return to us.
 
I can deeply appreciate how distractions are a helpful strategy to get through all of this.  But I don’t want my whole life to be a distraction. I don't want to be afraid to live this life.  

I choose to live and feel and be in time.  

So maybe a not-to-do list is helpful.  Like Richard Rohr’s suggestion of limiting news and social media to an hour a day. And maybe ‘beginning the daily conversation untethered and free’ is a helpful invitation.  Maybe this isn’t the time to be so concerned with accomplishing, but instead to be gentle with our own humanity, to greet our souls tenderly, to help ourselves start each each day by giving away our expectations, our fears and our 'over-described hopes...in order to see in what form they return to us.'
 
We are besieged, dear sisters and brothers.  This is an overwhelming time, and we are beleaguered and careworn.  Perhaps we can have some compassion toward ourselves, and curiosity about our actions, wondering what valuable needs we are meeting with our choices.  Perhaps we might give ourselves – when we awaken in the morning, or just before bed, or with an alarm on our phone or watch periodically pausing us in our day for a full minute – a moment of undoing and silence, to re-enter our lives, this life, having momentarily recognized ourselves inside the larger story, belonging to the deeper reality. Maybe this might help us come closer to living 'in the midst of everything without feeling beset.'
 
When I returned from my retreat and pulled my car into the the driveway, the carpenter who is working on the kitchen next door turned off his saw in their front yard and watched me get out of my car.  I said "Hello." He replied, “Hey, I really like your lawn sign. It’s such a good reminder.”
 

I looked at the sign and smiled, and thanked him.  

 
I need to be reminded.
He reminded me to be reminded.

This is part of the story.
This is not the whole story.
The world belongs to God.


CONNECTING RITUAL:

Look inside yourself with compassion and curiosity:

• What ways are you coping and making it through - what choices/strategies are you using?  
• What stories are you telling yourself with these strategies? (eg., I just keep moving because if I stop things will fall apart, or, My emotions are so big they will smother me if I let myself feel them).
• What needs are you meeting with your choices?
• Might there be more life-giving strategies to meet those same needs?
• After you've allowed yourself to be present to your soul, where does gratitude arise in you?

When you awaken to a new day, what can be on your not-to-do list?
What pauses can you give yourself throughout the day to remember the bigger picture and reorient?

PRAYER

Perhaps before we go to bed, whenever that is in each of our homes, we might pray this together, and so join our souls with each other and the world:

God, this life is hard.
I have never been through anything like this before.
Sometimes it feels like too much to bear.
Help me to be gentle with myself.
Help me to be gentle with others.
Help me to lift my head to the sky,
and sink my feet to the ground,
and let my soul return to its home in you.
I belong to you. This world belongs to you.
Amen.

Even the hard parts

Daily Devotion - May 8

I will send a brief message each day
while we are pausing gathering in person.
- Kara

Good evening friends!

Today got away from me. I realized at noon I was still in pajamas, and hadn't yet brushed my teeth. I sat down at my computer at 8 am and didn't do all the things on my well-thought-out list, but did other things instead. Mostly stupid, pointless things.

But, as NVC (compassionate communication) teaches us, every No is a Yes to something else, so it's a chance to be curious about what I was saying Yes to. What was I needing? Spontaneity?  Freedom?  Rest?  Mourning? 

My daughter went outside (in the 30 degree weather) this morning to eat breakfast in the driveway so she could talk to the neighbors eating breakfast in their front yard.  They wore mittens and hats and wrapped their legs in blankets.  I just called her in at 4 pm.  Her seven hour breakfast tells me she may have been needing Connection. Freedom.  Hope.  Rest.  (Schoolwork is so secondary to those things right now).

It was a session (church council) member who helped me make a mental shift.  She issued a gentle invitation in a session email that maybe NVC can help us through this - feelings and needs, we're back at feelings and needs. She was not wrong. It is helping me.

I am grateful for you, today, Church. I got an envelope with the mail from church - a couple of lovely cards and notes.  I had several email messages this week from church folks.  Session is praying for each other.  We are all reminding each other we are here for each other when things get hard. We are all helping each other through this. We are being Church.  

Next week I will be taking a few days off.  One of you will lead coffee hour. Another will preach next weekend (I'll be there).  I am so grateful.  This meets my needs for rest and care, for freedom and space.

Today our our country's brokenness feels close at hand. Our deep sins of racism, self-righteousness, division, hatred and judgment are plastered all over social media today.  They're tangled up with our deep needs for mourning, and justice, for wrongs to be right, for humanity to be upheld, for our belonging to feel real and palpable, for ease, for hope.  Come to think of it, that crazy cocktail of high intensity might be part of what had me pinned to my chair in my pajamas til noon.  

But this day - like every day - had beauty and gifts too. The persistent sunshine. World's easiest peanut butter cookies.* A preschool moving forward into the future in our church basement.  Us - you -  praying for each other.  A youth group zoom meeting and a confirmation kick-off.   A child who remembers her belonging.  

Life is a gift- even the hard parts. God is with us - all the time. This is grace.

No matter what, we belong to God and we belong to each other. 

What are the feelings you've had today? What are you needing?

What beauty do you notice in your day as you look back? What gifts?

What do you need to mourn?  

What is giving you hope? 

*( 1 c peanut butter, 1 c brown sugar, 1 egg, 1 tsp baking soda, 1/2 c chocolate chips, 1/2 tsp vanilla  - optional little handful of oats - Bake 350 for 10 minutes)

CONNECTING RITUAL:

Perhaps tonight before bed, whatever time that is in each of our homes, we and so join our souls with each other and the people of the whole earth:

We are singing this on Sunday, and it's a blessing for us all - read it through a couple times. 

We are held in God's grace.

Only Grace, by Hannah and Lenora Rand
Things are broken here
things are shared
things are carried here
hearts bowed in prayer
            It is grace, only grace
            that brings us here, holds us together here
            it is grace, only grace
            that brings us here, holds us all together here
            all together here
Things are dying here
things are torn
things are growing here
and burdens born
            It is grace, only grace
            that brings us here, holds us together here
            it is grace, only grace
            that brings us here, holds us all together here
            all together here
Amazing grace
hear the sound
here is where
hope is found
            It is grace, only grace
            that brings us here, holds us together here
            it is grace, only grace
            that brings us here, holds us all together here

There are no "good" days

Daily Devotion - April 3

I will send a brief message each day (except Mondays) while we are pausing gathering in person.
- Kara

Today I woke up to the announcement that Minneapolis beaches and outdoor pools will be closed through the summer.
Through. The. Summer.
The City Pages headline read, "Summer is Cancelled."

It feels like too much to take in.
This thing is going to go on and on.

I am angry.
I am sad.

I have seen friends share, "I had a bad day yesterday."  And by "bad" they mean they had hard feelings to live with - sadness, anxiety, fear, anger.  By this measure, a "good" day is when we feel the easier feelings to live with, like happy, or grateful, or peaceful.

We tell ourselves we are supposed to be feeling the "good" feelings, at least most of the time.  And if we are feeling the "bad" ones, we should keep it to ourselves for the time being, and try to get over them quickly.  Once we move out of the discomfort and vulnerability, like maybe tomorrow, we can admit that we had those feelings today.

We used to measure our days by what we got accomplished. Did we get a lot of work done? Do we have a lot to show for our time? By that measure, right now every day is a "bad" day for many of us.  So we have shifted all the pressure of judging our days onto our emotions. But feelings aren't "good" or "bad."  Nor are they designed to be barometers of whether life is "good" or "bad" at the moment, or whether we are "doing good" or "bad," or our even whether our day has been "good" or "bad."

I have to keep remembering this: feelings are merely indicators that our needs are being met or unmet in the moment.  And right now is a weird, volatile, intense, rapidly changing and utterly standing still time, like nothing any of us have ever been through.  So it makes complete sense that our feelings would shift rapidly throughout the day, up and down, back and forth. And in the midst of all this, there are feelings I enjoy having, and those I'd prefer not to feel.  But they are all helpful. They are all informative.

My informative feelings are telling me that:
Right now, my needs for shelter and love are being met; my needs for hope and space are not being met.  That's happening at the same time. It's not "good" or "bad" - it just is.

Perhaps, if we insist on reaching a conclusion about how our day has been, "hard" or "easy" might be a more helpful way to label it. Or maybe we can begin to learn to inhabit our days as they are, resisting tallying them up on team "win" or "lose."  Just meet ourselves with gentleness and acceptance of the one life we are living in right now.

Just now, when I looked at the needs list to see what I might be needing, the one that screamed off the page at me was mourning.
So here I go again. 
I am sad.
I am angry.
I have a need to mourn what I wanted summer to be.
I have a need to mourn, again, all that this virus is taking from us all.
I can't receive the gifts in what life actually is, if I judge my feelings and don't recognize my needs.
The good news for me is, mourning is a need I can meet.

Circling back today to the Rumi poem is helping me.
So, here it is again:

The Guest House by Rumi
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.
Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

CONNECTING RITUAL:

Perhaps, tonight before we go to bed, whatever time that is in each of our homes, we might pray this Psalm, and so join our hearts:

Prayer of Lament, (Psalm 130 paraphrased)
Out of the depths of my being I cry to you, my God;
Come near, hear my voice.
Listen to me! Turn your heart to hear
my cry for mercy.

If you, my God, kept a record
of the times we turn away from you
and reject your love,
God, who could stand?
But you restore us to our belonging in you,
so that we can, with clarity of purpose,
serve you and care for each other.

I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits,
 and in God's word I put my hope.
I wait for the One who comes in,
more than those who watch for the morning,
more than those who watch for the morning.

O beloved children,
put your hope in God,
for with our Source of being is unfailing love
and with Love incarnate is full redemption.
God who enters in, will redeem God's children,
from all that destroys.

This week, we are reading through the Gospel of John.  In my house, it is at the dinner table. Maybe for you, it will be when you wake up, or before bed, or over lunch.  It can be read in about 20 minutes a day, or by reading three chapters each day.  If this is your approach, today, we are reading Chapters 16-18.

The Maker's Gift

Our scripture today picks up with a crowd, several hundred of whom had just come from Jesus’ miraculous feeding of 5000 with a one boy’s small lunch.  They had just listened to his teaching and then eaten from these baskets of food that were passed, abundance of food, food that filled them all and then had more leftovers than they knew what to do with, food that had seemingly come out of nowhere – appearing from a small gift and a simple prayer. 

And somehow, shortly after this, Jesus had slipped away. Disappeared. These several hundred were intent on tracking him down. 

Here is what happens when they find him.

John6:24-35

Once upon a time there was a creative and adventurous Maker who devised a whole new kind of creature and brought it to life.  The Maker longed to share the most precious parts of the maker’s own self, and so formed these creatures for real connection with their Maker, each other and even all creation.  Each one of these creatures would be completely unique; each one lifting up and drawing out the others in a kind of exquisite harmony, finding and fulfilling their true purpose when they lived in union with their Maker and connection with each other and all creation in love.

They were astounding to behold.  Beautiful and complex, distinct but connected, and capable of seemingly infinitely more beauty, complexity, distinction and connection than they even appeared to contain at first glance.  They were the pinnacle of all this Maker had ever made, and filled the Maker with deep satisfaction and delight.

Because these creatures were designed for full participation with their Maker, they were unlike any other in their capacity to be known and to know joy, and that meant that the most poignant, most powerful, most important thing the Maker had put into these creatures, that which lay at the core of their very beings, the thing that set them apart and filled them with promise and thrilling possibility, was their hunger. 

Hunger meant that they could eat and feel satisfied.  It meant that they could hear music and be inspired.  It meant they could experience something and celebrate it, that they could understand and could share, and that they would seek to understand more deeply and share more fully. 

It meant that they imagined there was more, and they craved it.  More hope, more beauty, more joy, a deeper connection with each other and the world. 

Hunger taught them what they needed and who they were.  It was their gauge, their compass, their consciousness, meant to lead them always to fuller participation and connection with their Maker and each other.

So no matter how different they seemed from one another, they all had the same hunger within – hunger for food, for movement, and belonging, hunger for meaning, for self-expression, and connection, hunger for beauty, for love and wholeness. 

They did what they did, they were who they were, from their hunger. 

And every time that they were satisfied, every time they felt full, whole or complete, every time they truly connected to another, each time they contributed something meaningful to the world, every moment of loveliness, delight, or true rest, they were connected to their Maker, joining in creativity and adventure, fully alive, fully who they were created to be. 

And this pleased their Maker greatly.

But after some time, they began to realize that their hunger meant they were never completely satisfied, at least not permanently.   And they began to discover that once they had eaten, it was only a matter of time before they would need to eat again.  They saw that once they had tasted joy, it wore off and they longed more deeply for another sip. 

And they had started to see that their hunger meant that they had to rely on each other - a hunger for connection cannot be met alone, a hunger for belonging only works if there is someone to belong to.  A hunger for expression and contribution may compel one to write a powerful story, paint a breathtaking landscape, or play a spirit-soaring melody, but if nobody else read, saw or heard what they did they couldn’t be fully satisfied.  And so sometimes, often, their hunger went unfilled.

Before long, their hunger, their greatest gift, began to make them miserable.  Sadness and anger filled them in all the places and ways their hunger grew, unsatisfied, untended, unnoticed.  They blamed each other for failing to fill them, and they scorned their Maker for this massive design flaw.  After a time, they began to detest the very gift that was made to show them who they were.

They resented their hunger, they despised their hunger, they saw it as a burden, a chore, a humiliating liability. 

So they starved themselves and called it noble. 

They denied themselves and called it strong.   

They confused their hunger for weakness and devised all sorts of clever and complicated strategies to overcome it, which of course, they couldn’t, so they hungered for more ways to ignore and eliminate their hunger, to avoid ever having to face it. 

They horded food and turned their back on the hunger of others. 

They made industries and economies that exploited the hunger inside of others, persuading, convincing that their magic item or special serum, perfect pill or tantalizing trip could stop hunger forever, could cap the incessant ache. 

They pitied those whose hunger was more obvious, less hidden: the young, the old, the hopelessly artistic or mentally troubled. 

They made hunger the enemy, and all the while it throbbed inside of them, starved and neglected.  And this struggle left them perpetually anxious, weary and afraid.

And this grieved their Maker greatly.

*********

When we come upon Jesus in our story today we find him found out by a ravenous crowd.  They had eaten their fill of the bread, and they wanted more.  But more than a free meal, they wanted something this experience had stirred in them, something at their core, something that touched the place of their deepest longing, deepest hope, deepest fears.  They were hungry.  And so they followed him and found him. 

“So,” Jesus says, “you do all this work to track me down for a meal that doesn’t satisfy, when you could eat the bread that will satisfy you for all eternity?” 

“How can we get this?” they want to know.  “What should we do?” 

“Believe in me,” he answers them. “Trust in me.”

But they are suspicious, doubting, and afraid to hear.

“Why should we believe?” They ask. “Give us a sign! Moses gave the people manna in the wilderness, so they trusted in him, what sign will you give us to trust in you?” 

And Jesus answers, “This bread that Moses gave wasn’t something he did, it was from God.  And God gives bread from heaven for the life of the world.”

And now their hunger is really awakened.  Now they can feel themselves craving, longing, seeking, and they sense that most dangerous and glorious of hungers come alive – hope: and so they cry, “Sir, Give us this bread always!”

And Jesus answers them, “I AM the bread of life.  Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

And not to be a downer, but the story doesn’t end happily right here.  This conversation goes on much further and much longer.  Much more back and forth, argument, challenge, frustration, even disappointment.  At one point, in fact, crowds aside, his own disciples themselves were saying, “This is really difficult teaching! Who can accept this?”

And finally this long exchange ends with many who had been following him turning away in exasperation and giving up on him.

When this happens, he turns and asks the twelve disciples, those closest to him in all the world, “What about you? Will you also go away?”

And Peter answers on behalf of all of them, “Lord, where in the world are we going to go? You have the words of eternal life.”

I can’t help feeling a bit of camaraderie with the crowds.  I would be frustrated too.  What is he talking about?  We have real hunger and want real food, real hope, real life – what could you possibly mean, Jesus, that you ARE the food, the hope, the life?   

Jesus awakened their hunger while also reminding them that the hunger itself is from God.  He sent them back into the longing, the search, the joy that comes when fulfillment is tasted, the promise it speaks to about the day when all will be filled. 

And this is a scary place to live.  These are not easy words to let in.  By opening yourself to joy you open yourself to pain, by acknowledging the hunger you also recognize that for all the times it is filled, there are plenty of other times when it isn’t.  And not fleeing the hunger, but noticing what it has to tell you is a poignant place to live.   A raw, honest, and sometimes difficult place to live.  But it is where Jesus is found.  And it is where the invitation from Jesus resides.

“Believe in the one whom God has sent.” he said. 

What would it be like to do that, to believe in him?  To trust in him?  What would such trust or faith look like?  What would it be like to really live in this place?  And I guess the question is, really, what would it look like not to fear the hunger?  Not to scramble to keep it at bay, not to worry about the next meal, the next disappointment, the next rejection, the next failure? 

What would it look like to live fully?

***********

When the creatures were utterly lost in their fear, their sadness, their fatigue and their constant worry, the Maker did something quite unexpected and unprecedented, something quite extraordinary.  The Maker transformed and became one of them, filled, just as they were, with deep and pervasive hunger. Hunger that longed for more than it discovered, and craved more than it saw.  Hunger that recognized joy, hope and connection and yearned for it all the more fervently. 

And then the Maker stood among them and said,

“My creatures, my beautiful hungerers, listen to my voice!  I made you with this hunger inside you and it is good!  I made you to recognize love and hope, and meaning and to long for it.  I made you to know and to appreciate wholeness and life even in its absence, and maybe then all the more, to want to be part of it, to crave to know it always. 

I made you this way, and one day you will be completely satisfied and there will be no more need for hunger – for hunger itself will be transformed into fullness, and you will each be fully part of that immeasurable and never-ending abundance.  It is in me, and you are in me.  But even now, today, you are in me, and I am the bread of life.

So don’t be afraid!  Embrace your hunger and let it lead you.  Because when you do, you reconnect with me and each other.  You remember that fulfillment is real, and you live like what you long for is true! 

Join hope and share love in the world and don’t be afraid to miss it, or lose it, or break it. Let your hunger tell you who you are, and what you are part of when you let yourself be. 

Trust me.  This hunger is a gift.”

And the creatures listened for a moment.  And then, one by one, they mostly turned and walked away, shaking their heads in disbelief and despair.  And some got so angry that they determined to silence this voice once and for all, or so they thought, by killing this one who spoke such disturbing things, who made them face their hunger, who threatened their empires of evasion. 

But that didn’t stop any of it, or hinder the Maker in the least, and it certainly didn’t silence the hunger that lived in them and called to them.  And while mostly the creatures walked away, turned their backs, or tried to silence the Maker, a few actually heard the words that the Maker said and felt them stir the hunger inside them into a churning passion.   

They watched the words awaken their hunger and they let it happen. 

And for those the longing that gripped them grew and flourished.  And the hunger inside them connected them to others, and opened them to their Maker.  Their hunger filled them with promise and thrilling possibility.  And when it wasn’t fulfilled, when disappointment came and fear rose up, they held onto the hunger as an aching honesty that terror and sadness would not prevail.  

The longing itself reminded them of this.

And every time that they were satisfied, every time they felt full, whole or complete, every time they truly connected to another, each time they contributed something meaningful to the world, every moment of beauty, joy, or true rest, they were connected to their Maker, joining in creativity and adventure, fully alive, fully who they were created to be. 

And this pleased their Maker greatly.