Burnt Buns and Gratitude

Brown ‘n Serve rolls, slightly charred. Two varieties of cranberries (even though there were only three people in my family and I didn’t partake in the cranberry consumption): sliced jellied and whole, both straight from the can. Tablecloths and goldware in the formal dining room with the grandfather clock ticking away.

There are certain traditions and foods - prepared in very specific ways - that we associate with holiday meals. I’ve come to realize that these things are different for everyone, and that we tend to hold onto them rather tightly. Hence the sweet potatoes prepared in three different ways at some family feasts. When I think of Thanksgiving, my senses are immediately filled with memories of everything mentioned above. But I also think of my family’s tradition of going around the table before the meal and saying what we are thankful for. An unsuspecting guest at our table might get caught off guard by this practice, but it was always included, right before the prayer. In the past few years through social media, I’ve noticed that people have extended this practice of naming gratitude to the entire month of November. On Facebook, many people post something that they are thankful for each and every day. I believe this helps people intentionally focus on gratitude and go beyond the “I’m thankful for my family” or “I’m grateful for this bountiful feast” that usually come up when people are excitedly awaiting their first bite of gravy-laden turkey.

At St. Martin’s many of our children learn the basic prayer form of thanking and asking prayers, wherein we begin by naming things we’re thankful for - blessings that God has bestowed upon us - and then name things we’d like to ask God for (which often range from “a new rocket ship” to “my neighbor who is sad because her cat died.”) My family has started using this practice at home before meals and at bedtime. It’s not just a simple practice that my nearly-3-year-old can grasp; I’ve found that it’s also a helpful discipline for me. Sometimes in the midst of a difficult week, I am challenged to articulate something for which I’m grateful. Having to do this on a regular basis opens me up to experiencing and acknowledging gratitude more readily.

On Saturday morning, I awoke before the sun to drive my husband to catch a 7 a.m. train out of 30th Street Station. As I drove home, I was suddenly filled with an overwhelming sense of gratitude: the sunrise was casting pinks and purples over the city and creating unique lines in the sky; a single rower was silhouetted against the Schuylkill River; and as I navigated the curves of Lincoln Drive, a gust of wind sent hundreds of leaves swirling around me. Instead of grumbling about not getting to sleep in or anticipating the potential complications of three days of solo parenting, my heart was bursting with joy and appreciation that I got to be me, seeing what I was seeing and feeling what I was feeling at that exact moment. I thanked God for opening my eyes and heart to Her abundant and beautiful presence all around me.

This Thursday, as I reminisce over the burned biscuits of Thanksgivings past and take stock of my blessings over the past year, I pray that I am overcome with this same gratitude. I pray that I remember not just the obvious and expected thanksgivings but the many small moments that fill me with the Spirit each and every day. 

What will you thank God for?

- The Rev. Callie Swanlund

A Place for the Soul to Speak

By NOAA's National Ocean Service (Iceberg Uploaded by Jacopo Werther)
[CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)],
via Wikimedia Commons

For the most part in our culture we are not accustomed to speaking about the soul. I find this very  interesting because we say that we are body and soul and yet we focus most of our attention on the needs and wants of our body. Our soul is very much a part of who we are. In fact, it is the larger part of our being. An image that I learned from a friend which illustrates this point is that of an iceberg. The part of the iceberg that is visible is only the tip of the whole; it represents the body. The larger part is not visible, at least immediately, because it is underwater; it represents the soul. One has to dive in in order to see it. I can understand why it is easier to deal with what we can see and more challenging to deal with what we cannot see. In the case of the soul one has to dive in, as it were, to get to know it. And so for the most part we don’t ordinarily speak about our soul. It is too risky.

My passion for soul work grew out of my discernment process towards seeking ordained ministry, but it continued to expand as I sought to discern who God is creating me to be. Discernment is part of soul work. Early on I misunderstood discernment to be the work of ordained people like those seeking ordination to the priesthood. As it turned out I realized that discernment is actually a gift that all of us already have and all of us can exercise. What I have discovered in my discernment is that I feel freed up when I untether myself from unnecessary attachments; opportunities open up for me to expand, freed from the constriction created by the external demands to be who I am not. Letting go of my attachments is not easy. But I know that when my soul is untethered I feel a sense of liberation accompanied by a sense of gratitude.

Among the many living saints from whom I get inspiration in my soul work is Parker J. Palmer. I met him once at a conference 6 years ago and I am continually learning from his writings. Three books in particular have found a home in my bookshelf—Let Your Life Speak, The Promise of Paradox, and A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward An Undivided Life. These titles struck me at first glance. I learned some time ago that when a word or phrase or image tugs at my heart the Holy Spirit is inviting me to discern where God may be leading me. So anything that stands out in my experience is food for my discernment. One image that stood out from Mr. Palmer’s writings is that of the hospitable place for the soul to speak. Mr. Palmer points out that the soul is shy and vulnerable and so she/he needs a safe place to speak. In my experience with psychotherapy, in spiritual direction, and in small group work I have found this to be true. While the process has been slow it is now bearing some fruit. One cannot hurry the soul after all. It needs to be treated gently and patiently.

A number of small groups at St. Martin’s provide a hospitable place for the soul to speak. A few “Circles of Trust” have formed out of the larger Women Connecting group as a place for participants to continue their soul work. “Spirituality of Aging” formed out of the Wellspring Lenten series of the same name; it is an opportunity for older men and women to reflect on their process of aging, the joys and challenges they meet at this point in their lives. And, “Nurturing Your Creative Soul” focuses on Benedictine spirituality using the book “The Artist’s Rule” for reflection.

On December 18 Wellspring will offer a small group spiritual direction for anyone seeking a place to gently start soul work and seek God with others. Subsequent meetings will be on the 3^rd Wednesday of the month. For more details visit Wellspring at St. Martin's online or contact me at hkollin@stmartinec.org or at 215.247.7466 x108.

- The Rev. Harriet Kollin

The Girl Who Danced in the Bathroom

You’ve seen the move. It is Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music; Belle in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast.  Arms wide, twirling, face to the sky.

My daily commute has me transferring trains at 30^th Street station twice each day. One evening recently on my way home I was in the ladies room. On my way out the door, paper towel in hand, I glimpsed something which made no sense, but changed the rest of my evening.

Pure. Unbridled. Joy.

This young woman looked younger than me – though I’m no good judge of age – and for some reason on her way into the ladies room, in the midst of the mundane exchange of people coming in and going out, she twirled. Her face and eyes smiling; her body posture open.  What a peculiar and beautifully joyful sight.

Now, I’m no psychiatrist like some at St. Martin’s and no Energy Medicine Specialist like my friend Barbara, but something real happened. A psychic energy transfer. We talk about emotions being contagious, we talk about energy flow. It was as if this woman’s cup of joy was overflowing and the energy of that needed to get out. She couldn’t contain it lest she burst. It went flying out in all directions and landed on me.  And I was filled with it.

I know nothing of this woman, but she transferred to me powerful energy in that moment. Being present to her joy was palpable, even in the few seconds it took to walk by on my way out the door.  I keep thinking of her now, close to a week later. How beautiful the joy. And the energy of that lingers when I think of it.

I’m conditioned to see this and speak of God. Of the Holy Spirit working in and moving through us in these moments of energy exchange. Of God blessing one and that blessing so filling an open heart that it can do nothing but increase exponentially and spread outward.

I had another experience just Tuesday. Given to me this time not by a person, but the sky.  Out the train window I looked up from my smartphone and what met my eyes was brilliant. The sky was pink, blue, fuchsia, red, and orange; and changing each moment I watched. The clouds were mixed diagonal lines to the right and leopard spots to the left. And the buildings black shadows against the canvas.  I was nearly frantic with excitement from the energy of its beauty. I desperately tried to take a photo but, especially through the window, the camera couldn’t capture the vibrancy of the colors that my eyes blessedly can discern.  I stared hard at it hoping to fuse the image onto my brain. Full of awe and wonder, “The Sky!” I wanted to shout, “Quick, everyone look at the sky! See its brilliance!”  Not one to want to look crazy or make a scene on a train full of strangers, I impotently posted to Facebook.

It all makes me wonder – what other joys am I missing? What have I not looked up to see, to feel? And how have I shared my overflowing cup when I have been so filled with joy? What has brought you joy recently? How have you shared that joy? How have you returned to God the blessings and beauty that God has bestowed upon us and shares through each of us?

Where is your girl dancing in the bathroom? What is your brilliant sky? I want to hear about it. Share the joy.

- Natalee Hill

A related video worth watching, from TedxSF.

Don’t Take, Don’t Eat: A Case for Adoration

For our 20^th Anniversary my wife and I went to New York City and indulged in a few of our favorite things. We ate good food, spent an evening at the Metropolitan Opera, and immersed ourselves in art museums. My wife and I have the same approach to art museums. Our pace is lugubrious; we spend up to 10 or 15 minutes with a single painting, relating to it from different distances and angles. Our attitude is reverent and our experience is a quiet form of ecstasy, a communion with God mediated by beauty. Just try to pry me away from a Rothko.

What was new for us on this pilgrimage to MOMA was the inability of our peers to also be present in the moment with the art. We were shocked by the number of people recording the art with cameras and phones. There in front of Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” patron after patron stopped only long enough to take a ‘selfie’* with the masterpiece. Others stalked the gallery and only observed the painting through their view finders. 

The new cultural practice on display seemed profoundly sad to me. Why record your presence with this great artistry if you were never present to it in the first place? The cultural practices of consumerism and individualism had decidedly invaded the place. The point of viewing art had been transformed from a perspective of revelation from beyond ourselves that draws us into a new space of thought, feeling, and spirit to a perspective of documenting the fact that “I was present here,” and “I saw this” and “I have this to take home.”

The goal was to take and to have. The significance came from showing I was present to an absent audience. 

Maybe I am a premature curmudgeon, but I found this behavior appalling and deeply concerning. When a man took video of Monet’s “Water Lilies” by panning across the room-sized panels, I said to myself, “Do you know what you are missing?” Others in the room were slowed down and almost forced to sit in awe of Monet’s rendering of time and eternity, heavens and earth comingled on the radiant surface of his pond at Giverney.  

The room with the “Water Lilies” was a thin place of transcendent possibility. There is no taking or having or inserting self, there is no capturing, not even in words or music. There is experiencing, being present, being captured by the art and taken away by it, beyond ourselves.

This is adoration. Adoration is a form of prayer where we are pulled from our pre-occupation with self and occupied with love and awe for what gestures toward God. In the Church of the Middle Ages the consecrated bread and wine of communion were often reserved for adoration and most regular folk only adored the host and did not consume it all. Being in relationship with the gift Christ gave – the gift of his life – was enough inspiration and nurture for the adoring soul.

Now, this path of adoration was fairly alien to me until I had my experience at MOMA, where taking and consuming had become the dominant patterns of relating. It made me think; what if adoration is good medicine for our consumption-sick souls and society? We certainly need alternative ways of behaving that are not so fiercely desirous of satisfaction by possession and which almost always cause us to feel emptier in the end.

There is that brief moment where taking and having give us a great rush of pleasure. Our will to power is effective and builds up our ego. Almost always the feeling wears off as one more form of false transcendence. Indeed, the possessing often becomes a burden or only is reactivated as a pleasure when another person notices what we own and gives us a flash of pride.

Don’t take, don’t eat. Jesus says the opposite when he offers himself to us in the meal that remembers his sacrifice for us. He says, “Take, Eat, this is given for you.” We are blessed to take and eat every Sunday and to be fed by Christ, reminded that our life is a gift given and not our possession. However, just as I am suspicious of middle class/bourgeois folks claiming, “God is with me” in an easy way, I am suspicious of folks addicted to consumption adding Christ to the list of things we consume. What if the path and prayer of adoration – not taking, not eating – could be a corrective spiritual path for what ails us?

- The Rev. Jarrett Kerbel

*A ‘selfie’ is when you extend your camera out from your body and take a picture of yourself with another person, alone, or in a special place.