Waiting for the light.....

Three more murders yesterday in Baton Rouge.  A man in Minnesota.  One in Baton Rouge.  Five in Dallas, where police, who could surely have attached pepper spray or a "flash-bang" to that robot, blew the shooter to pieces.  How many in Nice; is it 84?  I walked that lovely promenade last September.  Now the lingering image is of the lone friend or family member sitting in the street beside a body just at dawn, keeping company with the dead.  And we should not forget the recent killing of over one hundred men, women and children near restaurants in Bagdad as they broke their Ramadan fast with neighbors.

I heard the erudite and delightful Ilia Delio, O.S.F., speak at Boston College last Saturday, her topic "Evolution and the Primacy of Love."  Many of her ideas grow from the writings of Teilhard de Chardin, twentieth century paleontologist and priest, who believed the human race is in self-conscious evolution.  The nature of the universe is undivided wholeness. The fifth force of the cosmos is love. 

Today, however, I recall someone quoting a sign on a display of the development of man in Paris's Museum of Natural History:  "The evolution of hominids is largely complete.  The evolution of human beings has barely begun."  What can I do as my heart drops again into that hollow place of helplessness.  I don't know how to pray any more. 

Last week in response to events in Nice the author of the blog Sicut Locutus Est  reran a posting from 2005 after the tsunami.  Watching news coverage, she heard a reporter ask some survivors when a muzzein calls, "Are you going to prayer?"   While some do go, one man who lost 24 members of his extended family shakes his head.  Through a translator he says, "No, not now.  Now I do not have it in me to pray."  The author looks for hope in the mourner's key word, "Now." But, she says, in times of terrible tragedy, especially those perpetrated by man on man,  "we often overwhelm those great human questions---those vast empty spaces and terrifying silences----with hope-filled murmuring about God's love...."  She finds she can not reassure even herself.

On the other hand, Delio reminded us of recent proof of "non-local action," responsive action between atoms, molecules, the tiniest bits of cosmic matter, separated by huge distances.  She quoted Henry Stapp, who says not just our actions, but even our thoughts do something. Perhaps it is enough today if I can turn my thoughts from disgust and sorrow at man's misplaced anger and our seemingly ubiquitous insanity.  I can send thoughts over great distances to join those men and women who embraced one another sobbing in Dallas, to the young woman in Minnesota who filmed her fiancé's death next to her in their car. I can imagine myself huddled next to a grieving figure in the street in Nice, waiting for the light.

Cultivating Gratitude and Wonder for Others

“Love isn’t a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun like struggle. To love someone is to strive to accept that person exactly the way he or she is, right here and now.” –Fred Rogers

Have you ever felt as though someone has formed an idea of you based on one interaction you had, a comment you made, or even based on another person’s opinion of you? Have you ever—intentionally or not—thought that you had someone “figured out” after meeting them, hearing his or her opinion in class or a meeting, or even just from talking about his or her favorite movies? What I’m trying to get at is that even when we don’t realize we’re doing it, we often make assumptions about other people before we truly get to know them. Personally, I tend to take a while to warm up to people and more than once have been mistaken for having a very serious and somber personality when I’m actually a fairly light-hearted person.

It’s natural to want to have someone figured out because it would help us more easily know how to act around them or to what types of conversations they would respond well or poorly; however I think it is something we are called to reflect more critically on as well. Making judgments about someone has the potential to cause harm, to be hurtful, to be divisive. When we think we have someone figured out, we no longer view that individual for who she is but for who we perceive her to be, which is unfair to both that individual and to ourselves. The times I have felt most misunderstood or unheard have been times that I feel someone has come into a conversation with preconceived ideas about my opinions and therefore does not actually hear what I have to say.

On the flip side, the most life-giving conversations, encounters, and relationships in my life have been ones in which I have been invited to be myself. To be heard for who I am rather than as the place I come from, the church I belong to, my gender or any other label I own or that someone else places on me. And when I approach others with an attitude of openness and wonder, I find that I learn more about others and myself, that I have a greater appreciation for the person’s story because I am able to really hear it.

Sometimes I find myself getting discouraged by how easily we label one another because in doing so, we lose out on so many opportunities to grow in relationship and to expand our own worldviews. I am definitely guilty of writing people off because of my first impression of them, but I think recognizing when we do this is an important step to cultivating better practices of attentiveness towards one another. It often feels safer not venturing past our perceptions of people because then we are able to “control” them in a way, or at least control how we want to see them. When we truly hear one another’s voices, stories, joys, and struggles, we let go of that control and accept the person in front of us as he or she is. When we begin to hear one another’s stories, we cannot help but see each other differently. We begin to see all people as fellow humans, each carrying his or her own burdens, gifts, to-do lists, memories, heartache, and joy. And that’s what being human is all about.

--Grace Koleczek

Insights and Outbursts: Searching for spiritual nourishment in troubled times

“One of the most beautiful gifts in the world is the gift of encouragement. When someone encourages you, that person helps you over a threshold you might otherwise never have crossed on your own.”

John O’Donohue, Eternal Echoes: Celtic Reflections on Our Yearning to Belong

I first met Margaret Silf in 2008 at the Bethany Spirituality Center in New York State when I made a five-day retreat and since that time have enjoyed her books and several retreats with her. I appreciate the simplicity of her writing and the ecumenical flavor of her spirituality, respecting the good in all religions but wary of any institution that claims it alone possesses the truth.

I enjoyed reading At Sea with God: A Spiritual Guidebook to the Heart and Soul and laughed at her introduction: “I was once reminded that the ark was built by an amateur, but the Titanic was built by professionals. This is a book written by an amateur, for amateurs, in the art of sailing life’s waters by a Christian compass.” One of my favorite books was The Other Side of Chaos, Breaking through When Life is Breaking Down because of a few lines I’ve never forgotten. Describing a time in her life, she wrote “It had been a moment that came out of the blue, and yet it has shaped every moment since. It hadn’t been about ‘believing’ anything then, but rather it was about a kind of knowing ... that, no matter what anyone says, you know what you know, and that deep foundational knowledge is unshakeable. You can stand on it. It is a rock. Perhaps it is the authentic meeting place with God.” Other favorites are: The Gift of Prayer: Embracing the Sacred in the Everyday; Sacred Spaces: Stations on a Celtic Way; Wise Choices: A Spiritual Guide to Making Life’s Decisions; Compass Points: Meeting God Everyday at Every Turn; Landscapes of Prayer: Finding God in your World and your Life, a pictorial view “through some of the landscapes of your soul;” and Roots and Wings: the Human Journey from a Speck of Stardust to a Spark of God.

I hadn’t seen her for two years and looked forward to her talk “Growing into Tomorrow” last month at the Sisters of St. Joseph Convent in Brighton, hosted by “Sacred Threads, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to nourish, connect and inspire women by weaving spirituality into everyday life.”

Founded by Marie Labollita, a Sister of Charity of Halifax, Nova Scotia, and Rosemary Mulvihill, a Sister of Mercy originally from Australia, it offers presentations by men and women of different faiths in or near the Boston area, and I’ve been blessed by those programs and their friendship. 

On Dec. 5, a friend and I drove into Boston for the 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. program. Warmly greeted by Rosemary as she led us downstairs for coffee, I was pleasantly surprised to see a woman I met several years ago at the Eastern Point Retreat House in Gloucester and another woman I met on retreat in western Massachusetts.

I’ve often praised Road Scholar programs and retreats because I’m with “kindred spirits” and when I saw Margaret, was surrounded by people not satisfied by anything less than a spirituality that touches their lives, encouraging them to appreciate and share their stories. The talk began with a story about her 7-year-old granddaughter’s question, “Is heaven real?” which led Margaret to “a new regard for the value of questions and the inventiveness” of “thinking outside the box” as children do, “unless we enclose them in it.” 

The older I get, the more I feel overwhelmed by news reports of tragic events in this country and throughout the world, but recently several things helped me regain my sense of balance, including a long talk with a trusted friend, as well as walks, exercise classes, and a movie at the Rockport Public Library last month. “Miracle on 34th Street” was a simple love story that restored my faith in something larger than the commercialism of Christmas as well as a renewed faith in myself, grateful for spiritual mentors and friends who enrich my life.

I can’t do much about disasters reported on the news but I can make a difference in the way I live my own life, energized by finding my own “authentic meeting places” with God.

Eileen Ford,  a Rockport resident and a regular Times columnist