On Balancing our Many Lives

Although we don’t all live in the public eye, I think we all have private and public lives, even many different lives that we show to different publics. There’s the ‘game face’ shown at work. There’s the life shared to different degrees with outer and inner circles of neighbors and friends. There’s the many roles we play in families: child, sibling, spouse, parent, grandparent, to name but a few.

 

 

Distance and tension easily creep in between our public and private selves. We edit the life we display on social media. We may hide aspects of our lives from a difficult employer or member of the family. The face we acknowledge in the mirror may not even be our most private self, if we cannot accept ourselves, warts and all.

 

 

Balancing our many lives can feel like a circus act, like a juggler racing to keep all the plates spinning or all the balls in the air. More helpful, I think, is the metaphor of harmony, among colors in a painting or notes in a piece of music. The challenge of harmony is not to accept some of my lives and reject others, but to find a place for all, however bold, shadowy, discordant or clear.

 

 

 

BJ Brown

October, 2014

3 Awesome Quotes About Living with Integrity

by Rebecca Krzmarzick

 

 

This past Saturday, Sacred Threads hosted the first part of our Speaker Series: “Living with Integrity: Balancing the Private and Public Dimensions of Our Lives.” As an intern this year with Sacred Threads, I had the joy of attending, and I'm so glad I did!

The event featured three incredible speakers:

·         Sr. Janet Eisner, SND, the Nation’s Longest Serving Woman College President

·         Lisa Hughes, Emmy Award Winning Journalist and News Anchor

·         Marian Ryan, the District Attorney of Middlesex County (and only female DA in Massachusetts)

These three women spoke eloquently about the joys and challenges of balancing the private and public dimensions of life. They spoke about the importance of being your beautiful and authentic self, and the spirituality that enables that.

Here are my three favorite quotes from the day:

 

“I became far less afraid to show a little vulnerability. And let’s face it- that is what connects us to people. When someone reveals that part of herself to you, that’s what makes you feel connected. Although it feels a little risky, and it comes back to that slight fear of judgment. I feel like that’s part of  what it means to be authentic and to honor that sense of spirituality that calls you to just be yourself and know that that is enough.”

-Lisa Hughes

 

“Having that real sense of yourself is what makes the difference. It’s having that ability, which I think we’ve all lost to some extent... It’s important to know who you are and not be uncertain about expressing who that is.”

-Marian Ryan

“God’s goodness and love embrace us, and it happens to all of us. So right now, this is my mantra: ‘Let me know how much you love me and how little I have to do to maintain that love.’  So it’s not all about me, it’s about receiving from a very generous God”

-Janet Eisner, SND

Some incredible wisdom from three amazing women! I want to thank them for their beautiful and inspiring examples of authenticity and courage.

What Does Love Demand?

Gretchen van Dyck-Daggett, M.A.

 

 

What does "love" demand, I ask?

 

To give, and give, and give some more?

 

To forgive, and forgive, and forgive some more?

 

 

Who urges me to be more "compassionate"?

 

Is this demanding love from within me,

 

Or is it from some higher power beyond me?

 

 

Is it one more huge, heavy commitment 

Of my time and effort, 

Of my whole body, heart and soul?

 

 

Is it one more burden to weigh me down, 

Put on my 'to do' list, 

Slog through it, get it over with?

 

 

Or, could it be something kinder, 

Something softer, gentler 

Something I can gain from, just not give to?

 Are we talking about my love for you,

 

Or love of my work, for the earth,

 

Or love for my peers, for all beings?

 

What if, just what if…the lens shifts.

Instead of a burden, could this possibility

Be a glorious grace-filled gift?

 

Perhaps…just perhaps

There is a higher LOVE

That is perfect and complete unto itself.

 

A LOVE so powerful and pure and beautiful

That I can tap into it and allow it

To flow into me and through me.

 

What if I will continue to receive

More and more of this generous LOVE

The more I offer it from my heart?

 

Then I am filled with a joy so great

That I am happy to spread love

To all and everyone and everything.

 

I will lose nothing

I will gain everything

I will never be empty

There will always be enough.

 

 

And I will glow with

 

The undying flame

 

In my soul

 

Forever.

 

................................................................................

Gretchen van Dyck-Daggett is a Sacred Threads participant and the Co-founder of ILLUMINATION.

Where is Your Chapel?

by Guest Writer

“Outside, inside, I am everywhere: beyond you, within you, beside you, above you, below you, around you. There is nowhere that I am not. Be at home in me.” –Margaret Silf, One Hundred More Wisdom Stories

 

               In “One Hundred More Wisdom Stories,” Margaret Silf tells the story of the Island Chapel. In the story, a group of islanders build a chapel where they can worship the creator of their beautiful island. Once inside, however, the islanders are deeply disappointed. They realize that they can no longer experience the beautiful sights and sounds of the island, through which they typically encounter the presence of the creator spirit. Only one girl visits the chapel every day. When asked why she does this, she answers: “if I listen carefully to the deep stillness there in the chapel, I hear the wind and the waves, the seagulls and the trees, right inside my heart, where they can never fade or die, and the creator spirit invites me to take a walk inside my soul.”

                I recently had the pleasure of participating in a Women’s Circle, a gathering of wonderful women who meet monthly for fellowship, conversation, and spiritual reflection.  These were women with very busy lives and many responsibilities, from work, to study, to taking care of children. With everything going on, they took time out of their busy schedules to gather for an evening spent together in reflection.

                “Where is your chapel?” was a question posed to the group. Many beautiful answers were shared, from specific places of peace and quiet, to the safety and acceptance found in relationships, to activities that brought a sense of stillness and joy. It was in these places, people, and activities that these women were able to encounter the whispering of the spirit inside of themselves.

                Where is your chapel?

                While I had difficulty answering the question for myself, I felt moved by the amazing insights shared by each person in the group. I knew that for at least that night, I had found a chapel among a beautiful group of women, where I could encounter the spirit’s presence within myself.

 

When You Rise, Lift Someone Up With You

Priscilla Lasmarias Kelso

Their names are Alma, Estela, Maricar, Emma, Patrocinia — Spanish names given to Filipino girls long after the Philippines was a colony of Spain. They live on an island that produces sugar cane and come from families of subsistence farmers and laborers earning the equivalent of two dollars a day. As girls marginalized by poverty and generations of neglect, they are expected to quit schooling after the elementary level, work in the sugar cane fields to help support their families, marry as teenagers, and bear several children in the midst of a bare-bones existence. Until I got to meet them.
Over the years of living and working in Boston, I have repeatedly returned to this island where I grew up. My Stanford education opened doors for academic and professional opportunities completely beyond the reach of these young Filipino girls who were destined to repeat the cycle of poverty that their mothers and grandmothers endured. When I first met them, I was deeply pained by the disparity between their lives and mine — as well as inspired by what I could do for them to move them out of the sugar cane fields into a brighter future.

When you educate a girl, you educate a village. This assertion by the United Nations rings true every time a young woman with learning potential is given the chance to go to school, find work, and eventually help lift herself and her family to a better place in life. For the past 20 years, I have made it my personal goal to select the brightest girl students at the village elementary school and find ways of helping them get a high school education in the city ten kilometers away. Those with academic aptitude often finish a two-year college degree or become teachers at the local schools. In the developing world, even a high school education can be a passport to a better life.
Like Alma, whose name means “soul.” She was the eldest of six children, malnourished from the inadequate food available to her large family supported by a small banana farm. She loved to read, looked me straight in the eye when she said, “I would like to go to school,” and studied under the light of a kerosene lamp. When I first met her, I immediately knew that her future was not to be a nameless worker in the sugar cane fields because her mind was too good to waste. So with a few dollars from my personal funds and with the help of a church friend who contributed ten dollars a month for Alma’s education, she finished a two-year college degree that enabled her to work in Hong Kong, eventually becoming instrumental in the education of her younger siblings. Presently, she is a vibrant Christian in the village where she continues to live as an educated woman.

Priscilla speaks with a Filipino student at Silliman University in the Philippines.
Why has the education of village girls in the Philippines become a part of my life work? I cannot say I chose it; I suppose it chose me. In a deeper sense, it is widening the circle of grace and opportunity that has been a part of my personal history. I, too, started out like Alma — the eldest of eight children, yearning for opportunities to spread my wings as a student and to explore the life of the mind. My grandmother Cecilia — with only a meager formal education because girls of her generation were “not worth educating” — made sure that this happened, encouraging her granddaughters to excel and find their places in the sun through academic achievement. She showed up at all of our graduations, filled with pride in the next generation of women in the Lasmarias family.
Then there was Mrs. Luella Reeves of Canyon, Texas, who, 50 years ago, inspired her small Presbyterian church to provide my airfare to America so I could pursue graduate studies at Stanford University. A humble, retired teacher of modest means with a heart for missions, she supported several Asian students like me. Little did she and my grandmother know that their example would become a guiding light for the path I would take as an educator with a heart beating for Filipino girls in need of advocacy.

Priscilla and her husband with women scholars at Silliman University.
If the lines of our lives have fallen in pleasant places, to paraphrase the Psalmist, it is often because enough people cared about us and believed in our potential. We are not where we are solely on our own merit or our self-generated success. Ultimately, it is God’s blessing and benediction and the support of his people that sets our feet towards a favorable course. So the least we can do is share the gift.
If I, who grew up in a small island in the Philippines, had the privilege of coming to America for higher education and a professional life in Boston, it behooves me to remember that “to whom much is given, much is required.” If a young girl in my impoverished home country is consigned to a life of privation by accident of birth and geography, is it not my duty, or even my responsibility as a Christian, to speak on her behalf, to give voice to the voiceless?
“When you rise, lift someone up with you.” I cannot remember when I first heard this admonition, but it surely does make sense for those of us who have come from humble beginnings and have tasted success as transplanted Americans. For every one of us, there are hundreds, thousands of marginalized women who will never earn a fraction of our pay, enjoy the perks of higher education, own a library, or afford a smart phone.

Better still is the example of Jesus Christ who, in his divinity, showed compassion for the children and the village women with no credentials or marks of success. When he could not directly touch or heal or feed every person, he asked his disciples to do so in his name. Each disciple was equipped with a specific gift for ministry, and the women who were Gospel-bearers had their own spheres of influence — Lydia as a business woman, Priscilla as a tent maker, Eunice as a caregiver, Dorcas as an artist.
I am an Asian American educator. I have been privileged with a Western education that has opened a world of academic opportunities for me. I am a follower of Jesus. These, among other reasons, impel me to touch the few lives of the less fortunate, whose names I know — Alma, Emma, Patrocinia, and others. May they, in turn, remember to share the gift.
These are small beginnings, but small beginnings do matter. Like the mustard seed, they have a future. How does one educate a million village girls? One at a time. And perhaps, in the fullness of time, we will all rise together as God’s beloved children, connected by the sacred thread of a future that is made possible because someone cared.

Reflections from Thursday Night with Sr. Simone Campbell

Theologian Frederick Buechner says, “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”  Sr. Simone Campbell, a Catholic nun in the order of the Sisters of Social Service, a lawyer, Executive Director of NETWORK and best known as the leader of the Nuns on the Bus, is fond of quoting Buechner and his ideas on the sacred, which he says comes from “touching the pain of the world as real.”  After listening to Sr. Simone speak at a Sacred Threads lecture on Recognizing the Sacred in our Lives Through Justice on March 6,2014, it seems clear that God called her to find the sacred as an advocate for justice for those who “hunger,” and in that process she has found her “deep gladness.”

Campbell will be the first to tell you that she’s constantly wrestling with the challenge of seeing God in the face of injustice. But she says, she has found the sacred in “injustice that breaks our hearts” and she has committed her life to fighting injustice wherever she sees it, whether it be advocating for programs for the poor, immigration reform or touting the benefits of the ACA.  How, then, does she suggest we face the daunting problem of feeding the spiritually and physically hungry? She says, “We must let our lives be broken open, let our hearts be touched by other’s sufferings, and share our own.” That is where the sacred lies.

Sr. Simone has an engaging way of capturing the audience’s attention with a mix of personal stories, poetry and no-nonsense instructions for what needs to happen to effect change. Some of the stories are painful, such as the young woman she met at the White House who was working full time at a chain retail store but was homeless because she couldn’t afford to pay rent on her salary. Some are devastating, like the woman who was laid off from her job of twenty years, became ill, had no health insurance and died because the Affordable Care Act was not yet in place. The writer Isak Dinesen said, “all sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story or tell a story about them.” Sr. Simone knows this; she bears the sorrow of these people by telling their stories and “carrying them with her” in her Bible as a constant reminder that we must never stop fighting for social justice and the disenfranchised. And, she uses her poetry at appropriate moments to heighten the power of what she is saying. Perhaps most moving were the final lines from her poem, “Loaves and Fishes” in which she says God tells us that, “Blessed and broken, you are enough.  I savor the blessed, cower at the broken and pray to be enough.”

Perhaps the most compelling concept that Campbell discussed was that of “holy doubt.” We often question ourselves when we doubt, but she praises it. She says “holy doubt is what opens us up to each other. We’ve got to be strong enough to embrace our doubt, because God is present when we have questions, when we are not sure.” She says, “holy doubt leads to the shared virtue of deep need.  I know, myself, when I’m in doubt, when I have those moments of anxiety and I’m thinking, ‘You’ve got to be nuts, you know, you’ve just got to be nuts’ – the fact is, it drives me to reach out to others.”  She says, holy doubt is not comfortable, but in wrestling with our doubt and our limitations, we find God and the sacred and that’s how we get connected. As she puts it, “As I reflected on this idea, I began to think that the virtue of holy doubt is really the doorway to community.  It’s the doorway that leads me to connect with others.  It’s the doorway that impels me out of my pretty self-satisfied mountaintop to use our moments of holy doubt to connect with those around us.”

She ended by issuing a call to action to all of us in the audience. She said God is calling us to change things and to use our holy doubt to help us connect with each other and be “baptized in this unity of oneness.” It is this unity that helps us to know we are never alone and to touch the pain of the world, which allows us to journey with others whom we would never know otherwise. As she says, “To touch the pain of the world releases hope into the darkness.”   It’s our response to injustice that will make things different. It’s community that’s going to make a difference.

So, she says, “Do it all, all of it.  Hug the leper.  Weep with the woman who bleeds.  Stop them from stoning a few people.  Do it all.  It is doing this together, to be at the margins, is what you are called to be.  It’s doing it together, knowing that holy doubt is the doorway to my connection to you.  And your holy faith meets my holy doubt, and it becomes like this massive jigsaw puzzle, and this glorious vision of being together.”  It is a glorious vision indeed and one we all left with in our hearts.

 

Pamela Econoply Woodnick

March 9, 2014

Behold, NOW is the time

Ash Wednesday comes around when winter's getting old, before there's much promise of spring. The
New Years' resolutions are faded; the Valentines' flowers are wilted. On this drearily ordinary day, the
scriptures announce

Behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.
-2nd reading for Ash Wednesday
2 Corinthians 6:2 (RSV)

Now. Not on a special feast day, not even after forty days or even a lifetime of fasting, prayer and
almsgiving.

The light of salvation illuminates us right now. Seriously unimproved and very ordinary. It may not be flattering, but it is honest. And merciful. And demanding.

If now is the acceptable time, then it is time for us to act like people who are saved. Free of the idols we make of our self image. Free to act as if we had nothing to protect and nothing to lose. Free to turn our eyes from the distractions of both past and future; free to focus on now.

Now is the acceptable time: to clean up our act and clean up our world; to give of our substance until all are fed and safe. Not because we have to or ought to, but because we can. Now.

~BJ Devlin