Advent, Sabbath, Hope, Peace

This is the first Sunday of Advent. I love this Season of Expectation. While I’ve traveled fairly far from my roots, the process of discerning what in fact I am expecting is a delightful, contemplative process, best undertaken in a lot of candlelight. It’s been interesting in that journey to discover Advent’s roots outside Christianity… Life is rich that way!

What in fact I am expecting in my life, in the world? Considering this will be fascinating this year as I’m in a very different place in my life than i was 6 months ago. In the midst of this great loss there is also a great deal of freedom of choice and a fair amount of indecision…

And along comes Advent. The first Sunday you light the candle of Hope. I wonder, what are the dreams you harbor for your life, for your family and for the world? What do I? This week’s prayer might be something like this:

May I be a person who believes that the world is a good place, that things can be made better and that I might be an instrument of Hope in the world. Blessed Be.

Light a candle, sit down where you can see it and think about that while relaxing into your Sabbath Peace. Notice what happens when you do that!

Steppin’ Out Sabbath Peace

Such a simple statement. We have the power. And so, we conclude, we don’t do anything because we’re frightened? Uncertain how to begin? What Peace and no poverty might look like?

Some might say it’s because we’re entitled, but my experience (and I know, I know, we can’t just generalize from experience, but still), my experience tells me that if you show people a path, they’ll walk it. If you lead, people will walk with you. If you get up to follow a leader, others will come along.

So we have to make sure that the leaders we choose to follow are leading toward Peace and the absence of poverty. And then as the song says: “We have to keep on Walking… ”

So something to think on this brilliant, frigid Northeast sabbath. Why not consider… where you would like your next step to head…

Autumn Sabbath Peace

Here where I am, it’s a warm, foggy rainy morning. Watch out, it’ll be slippery underfoot, thanks to all the leaves lying about on sidewalks (really, i could have swept!).

Pretty soon, I’ll get up and get ready for church, but I’m enjoying a few last minutes cozy in my living room, writing to you. I’m preaching about my reluctance to claim myself publicly as a minister. Odd. I adore my work, yet somehow can’t be all braggy about it. I guess I’m just tired of the role churches play and don’t play in the world. so, i’m practicing… Say, did you know I’m the minister of a small, lovely, involved UU congregation. Yep, I am.

Last evening’s walk was gorgeous. Every sense got called to attention. It was a good reminder that every season has moments that call to us. It’s too easy to complain about Fall that turns to Winter. When we do that, we skip right over the beauty each season, each day, even each moment can offer.

The moon was so big and the moment so perfect it was easy to put things into perspective. This is a vast and wonderful world, and I am a very small pilgrim on its crust. Still, in the midst of finding my place, I could feel the world pushing me to speak out, speak up. For Peace. For the Earth. For the Web. (Really, do other people get to just crunch through the leaves and not think about this stuff? I sure do get caught on the meaning!) Here I am: one little flyspeck for Peace, overcome with the Beauty and Abundance.

But as June Jordan reminded us: “We do what we can, more than that, what can anyone ask?” So, today, on this misty Autumn Sabbath, enjoy the moment and speak up for Life. Speak out for Peace.

Food, Peace, Sabbath

Yesterday, my church had a casino fundraiser for a project that puts food in backpacks to keep children from going hungry on weekends when they’re out of school. It’s a great project and a great community building event — an all around win. In the county where this is working up to 70% of the kids qualify for free or reduced lunch. What does it mean that our children are hungry? What does it say about us as a culture, as a country?

We had great food for sale to support food for backpacks. For a little casino, we raised a lot of money. We’ve had to breathe deeply and decide to dig deeply this year. People will hunger. There are certainly political responses to that, and they may differ, although I’m not always sure why they should. But the religious response should always be to feed the hungry. The Dalai Lama holds that at the center of every religion is Compassion. Let us therefore care for one another.

It was lovely to leave that event and get invited home to new friends to meet their friends and to be fed the food of the gods… and to leave that event with a check for the first event.

Today I’ll spend at church (still cracks me up!) talking with folk who are finding their church home and later making my home homier and designing better space for eating at home. We all need food at home. Food may be part of what defines home. I’m lousy at that, yet I can work to get better. and as I do, I’ll be in prayer about ways to think about food at everyone’s house. So I invite you to spend some of this precious Sabbath thinking about food at home: yours and everyone’s. Gotta run and make breakfast before church…

Together we can be the difference in the world.

A Much Needed Peace Sabbath

I’ve spent so much time preparing for yesterday’s service that I couldn’t anticipate how great today would feel. What it would be like to sit back in the bosom of my family (and oh bosoms of both gender where put to good use as we all wept and sniveled and then slowly laughed and rejoiced.

Family bonds were knit together in a new way, with new people, and new possibilities.

Old friends came and paid respects.

It was extravagant and outrageous, over the top and oh, so, Deb.

And today, I am exhausted. and I must admit. relieved. All the verbs I conjugate in today’s poem are real, but, it must be said, at the moment, not really what I’m feeling… that’s more… to rest. to talk. to chat. to listen to a little poetry. to be. In communion with my Swedish Sisters and my American. To eat breakfast with my family the whole mixed up blood, no blood, just pile in mix of relationship.

I thought perhaps I subconsciously scheduled that memorial for the Day of the Dead. I think perhaps it was really for the extra hour of sleep at the end of Daylight savings. It will be dark early, but tonight, I’ll take the time. Thank you all for your support… (and a happy, grateful Sabbath to you all.)

Spiral Sabbath Peace

Our lives are so busy. I think we, okay, I, often fail to notice the rhythm of the spiral. And I think we often fail to stop when we finally make it into the center to enjoy the Peace, before turning and moving back out into an every deepening meaning. In and out, in and out, and so we weave our lives.

I’ve been in a frenzy, trying to reclaim my house and write my bits for this weekend.

So much ahead. The terror and sadness of saying a formal good-bye to Deb. The joy of gathered family and the gift of my Swedish sisters’ visit. Counting noses in the swimming pool — and missing the absent. The overwhelm of too much stuff and the joy in seeing this beautiful house re-become my home and refuge. (and maybe even the place where I invite you to tea. How long has that been!)

Fall, in all its beauty, ready for our admiration. A cornucopia of opportunities for interesting ways to spend a lovely Sabbath. A musician, a play, a labyrinth, a Circle. Today I’ll take some time to replenish myself for the trek into the middle of that circle, a circle that is both everything and nothingness.

What will you do to pass this day in Peace? May your day be one of Beauty. Wishing you a blessed Sabbath, my Friends…

Peace Harvest Sabbath

I’ve been driving myself crrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaazy, trying to sort this and fix that. Throw this out. recycle this. find a new home for that. share. toss. Or as a friend suggested packing, purging and placing… liking the three ps!

I have deadlines and I have impetus. Swedish sisters arrive. it would be great if the house didn’t look like a storm tossed packing box. And I’m tired of the chaos. And then there’s the I have a job thing, which means I have to be able to find things. And yet, a day of rest and respite are important to our well-being, particularly when our lives are filled with whirlwinds.

So, today, on this Harvest Sabbath, the only work I will do is in decluttering the surfaces around me so that I get to sit in pretty space, and let the infrastructure lie fallow a bit, because you know what? It’ll be there tomorrow. But the Sabbath pause button will have been overlooked. So maybe a little opera. A little sitting by the river well-wrapped against the cold. A lot of laughter with friends. and home again, home again to sit in pretty space with a candle and a cuppa. Happy Sabbath… and then Monday, back to sorting.

You know, Hallowmas is coming up. Your assignment, should you choose to accept it is reflection. You’re going to have to clean off your mirrors! but not today. today, why not sit!

Home, Peace, Sabbath

I heard Richard Blanco, the inaugural poet, read last Thursday. It was so uplifting and grounding at the same time. He was asking questions about home and where it is and where it isn’t. His words were so poignant as he examined the way we think that life should be one way and forget to enjoy the way life really is.

So today, on this Sabbath I invite you to be at home. Spend a bit of time exploring your roots and feeling their grasp on the ground beneath you. Let them sink deeper. Appreciate your foundation.

And let your branches spread wide, touching, shading, exploring.

And let the Winds run their fingers through your leaves.

This is home… make it a little bit better. and then enjoy it.

Rest easy where you are. Enjoy the Peace of Home. Enjoy the Peace of a Sabbath at rest.

The Peace Sabbath of In-Between

In between is where the magic and the mystery happens. I believe that. Things happen on the way to somewhere else. But no one ever tells you how long it takes to get through. If they did, would we believe them? If we believed them, would we go?

I’m a woman of chaos. Lots boiling around in my brain. Lots of people and events and stuff boiling around in my life. Because of that, I keep things pared down. I can eat the same foods. Sit in the same chair. I can even read the same book, over and over and over again. Small delightful snippets to remind me. Small delightful snippets to distract me. Very little noise it distracts me. (She married a drummer????????? ah, right they live separately.)

But closing down Deb’s house, deciding what will be kept and what will go away. Making space at my house. Deciding what will be kept and what will go away. Bringing what will be kept to my place. Trying to clean it up, figure it out, fit it all in. Trying to make life simple.

Trying to do this with half a brain… people with broken hearts don’t have lots of consistent brain power to rely on. (although, rejoice, i read part of a real book! a NEW book, no small delightful snippet. something I had to chew on.)

So, even though Sundays are work days for me, my work is the work of presence. and that’s the work of the sabbath… That’s why i stayed up last night moving things about so that I could spend time today just being present to poetry, to song, to community, to people’s adventures, to friends and family, to the empty spaces. Sabbath. even in the wilderness. Hoping that the wandering helps me find my way home to Peace and a peace-filled, memory-rich home. Other people wait for me to make my way back home, but memories are what I have of my sister… so I must celebrate them.

Old Friends, Sabbath, Peace

Open hands. Open heart. Love. Loss. Letting go.

For me, part of coping with the grief is culling. Culling my sister’s possessions for those that are too her to release, at least right now. Culling the heirlooms and helping them get to the right people. Culling my stuff to make room for the mementos.

Culling… Paring. Paring down to the essentials. Who am I? What do I need? What don’t I need.

Interestingly for me, culling comes to letting go of books. If i haven’t looked at them in 5 years, i probably don’t need them. If they’re romances… sure keep around a few for those moments when mindlessness is needed… but a few is the operative word. Reference books are confusing, what if I need them… and you’ve not used them.

But feng shui would tell me, let go, make room for something new. New thoughts, new directions (new mindlessness!).

And then find something sweet and read and read and read. There’s a good Sabbath occupation. And nothing like a good book to settle my mind. Nothing like the sound of two people sitting and reading to remind me of one thing I know Peace to be. Let it go to build it up… Peace. Peace and quiet. Nice. Open hands. Open heart.

Sacred Village

Building a World of Peace, Village by Sacred Village.

Tag Archives: sabbath