I'm moving

Hi,

I know, I know...it's been a long time since my last blog...

If you are interested in reading future reflections that may sprout, please head over to brainweeds.wordpress.com--a new site that will be up and running by September 1st.

Thanks for reading,

Rosemary

To Be of Use

The very basic substance of clay is transformed into beautiful and useful objects by the potter's hand, friction, the spinning energy of the wheel, and the fire of the kiln. If we are the clay on the potter’s wheel, what is forming us? Can we learn to receive and respond to the friction and fire of life and welcome the transformation being worked in us? For what beautiful and useful work are we designed?

Marge Piercy, in her poem To Be of Use writes: "The work of the world is common as mud. /Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust. / But the thing worth doing well / done has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident. / Greek amphoras for wine or oil, / Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums / but you know they were made to be used. /The pitcher cries for water to carry / and a person for work that is real."

What kinds of pressures and spinning energy are generating formative friction in your life? Do you resist being molded by the friction around you? Are you able to yield to the guidance from a master potter? Will the fires of the kiln of life bring out the shimmering glazes that are unique to you? Or will some undetected flaw in the clay, a long hidden inclusion react to the stress of the heat and cause the pot to break?

Like a pot on the potter's wheel, our most successful formation begins with centering. What practices are you undertaking now that help you center in the midst of the spinning energy of life?

Is it really this bad?

This from the NY Times: "There may be signs of economic green shoots, but the unemployment rate is at its highest in 26 years and an average of 532,250 jobs are still being lost each week." (You can read it for yourself at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/25/opinion/25postcards.html?partner=rss&emc=rss)

Really? Half a million jobs...A WEEK?! How is it I have missed the SCALE of this economic downturn? I thought I was paying fairly close attention...

So, I'm just thinking: At this rate, how many weeks would it be the for all the people in America to be out of work? 300 million divided by half a million is 60. That's less than 2 years. Man.

Before Writing a Sermon

It's like this every time: the night before my sermon writing day, some part of my dream involves the upcoming sermon. It's not a nightmare, but it's often disquieting.

In last night's dream, I was called on to deliver a sermon to a full room of unfamiliar folks. I was surprised to see so many African Americans in the congregation: groups of men in dark suits and ties; women wearing large, beautiful hats. Some were accompanied by young children, smartly outfitted in their Sunday best, holding their mothers' hands. Everyone seemed expectant.

When I rose to speak, a hand held microphone carried my voice out into the room, but it sounded muffled. I felt comfortable as I began, until I realized that I had not written a sermon! Before panic set in, I decided I would try something new: I would walk out into the congregation and engage in a conversation with people. I would ask people what they thought was the nature of trust, what destroys trust, what might rebuild it.

This turned out to be a less than sterling approach. People were obviously disappointed--shaking their heads and tsking. Hadn't it been my responsibility to wrestle with these questions and bring forward some thoughtful answers? Still shaking their heads, people rose from their seats and left to attend a gathering outside. I woke with the question: where is God in this?

I realize that last night's dream has the hallmarks of a standard, performance anxiety dream, and I'm grateful (on some level) that I take my responsibility seriously enough to dream about it. What is new is the upon-waking question: where is God in this--in my anxiety, in my sense of accountability, in my dreaming and my waking? I trust I'll find some answers in the writing...

New Orleans on My Mind

It's not that I haven't been thinking lately. I just haven't been sharing online in this blog very much....I don't know why I thought you might even be interested...But you are here! Thanks for checking in.

I just received an email from Susie at Arlington Street Church in Boston saying that plans are now underway to make another service trip to New Orleans. Great news: it coincides with the annual New Orleans Jazz Festival! If you want to be with people who know how to have a great time, this is the party--I mean, service trip--for you!

Although I never made it to the Jazz Fest last year (way too much rain and mud for me to feel like it would be fun), I loved my time in New Orleans. Drinking chicory coffee and eating beignets, crawfish, and gumbo, walking the Lower Ninth and the French Quarter, greeting people in shops and on the street while wearing my Boston Red Sox hat, I felt myself the outsider and the witness bearer. But to have a local resident recognize my presence and hear them say things like, "Thank you for not forgetting us," well, my heart still wells with emotions: humility, sadness, joy, and gratitude for the opportunity to stand with the people and the city of New Orleans...

With a good team of volunteers from First Church, Boston, and Arlington Street, I worked on a couple of small projects at the First Church, New Orleans and on two homes in the Lower Ninth--the area where the destruction was the worst and the rebuilding is slow going...I have very few skills in the construction domain, but I could wield a broom and a paintbrush, whack a couple of nails and talk with folks on their porches. There is a place and a job for just about anyone who can be patient, flexible, good humored and willing.

If you are interested in bringing your service skills to NOLA this year, consider joining a team from our Boston UU churches. We'll be heading down during the last week in April to the first week in May. Arrival and departure dates will be flexible, accommodations basic and inexpensive, and the experience unforgettable.

I'll be in touch with more information about the trip as details are formalized.

Thanks for reading along.

Breathe

This image from the Boston Globe pretty much sums it for me right now....Thanks for checking in.

Resting

Ministerial intern Tim House shared a story about the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on Sunday. He told about a time when King was under great duress, receiving death threats daily. He feared not only for his own safety, but for the lives of his wife and children.

One night, sitting at his kitchen table, he received a phone call. It was another death threat. In that moment of fear, King prayed. It was what he knew to do when fear, doubt and pain invaded his consciousness. In his prayer, he felt deep assurance that he was not alone. His companion on his journey for justice was Jesus. And that sense of companionship was a source of courage and steadfastness for him the rest of his life.

I am thinking this morning about a woman I knew who was facing the last weeks of her life after a long struggle with cancer. She was sad to be leaving her life and family. And she was troubled. For a long time, she said, she had tried to believe in God. But no matter how she came at her struggle, she could not feel a sense of assurance or companionship. As her ability to concentrate enough to read or write diminished, she spent long nights thinking about her future, trying to will herself to a belief in something "more."

Ginna was poet and a swimmer. We talked about the sheer joy and release she found in swimming, in moving through the water, feeling upheld as she turned onto her back, floating, and looking at the summer sky. One of her favorite places to swim was a spring-fed pond near her house. Swimming across the familiar pond, she knew the spots where the water turned suddenly cool--the spots where the springs were entering the larger body.

One late summer afternoon, when she was no longer able to leave her bed, I offered her a guided meditation that had her imagine herself back in her pond, swimming, floating, looking up at the summer sky. Appealing to the poet in her, I invited her to consider the water in which she floated, found rest and joy. Imagine, I suggested, that the water is the love that surrounds you, the love you feel from your beloved husband, children and friends. The joy and awe you feel in nature. Feel it support you and comfort you as you rest in that body of Love. Now, consider what feeds that Love, what is the Source of the Love that holds you so gently...Like the springs that feed the pond, imagine there is an invisibile but perceivable Source of Love that eternally feeds the love in your life...Trust that there is a Source of Love...Feel it support you, hold you, comfort you. Rest in it...

When the meditation was over, she opened her eyes and they were brilliant. Perhaps I imagined it, but a look of peace and happiness suffused her face. Her words confirmed her countenance. She had found an access point, a metaphor, a way in to something that comforted her and gave her peace. She discovered a source of courage and comfort that was with her for the remaining days of her life.

At critical times in our lives, we ache for something or someone to lean on. Some unchanging truth that will be our companion, our guide, our comfort or restoration to joy and peace. But we need not--and should not--wait until a crisis arises to learn how to pray or name what holds us. Taking up a spiritual practice, learning to pray or meditate now, will help us be skillful in meeting the difficult days of our lives.

I invite you to join us for Monday evening practice periods through February at 7:10-7:30 or 7:40-8:00 pm in the chapel at First Church in Boston to noursih your spiritual practice. If you want to talk about your spiritual practice, I will have four 15-minute interview sessions on Mondays from 8:00-9:00. Just add you name to the sign-up sheet on Mondays, or email me for an appointment: rosemary@firstchurchboston.org

Thanks for reading this morning's post. I wish you well as you endeavor to integrate a spiritual practice in your life.