This doesn’t exactly address these reading directly but, the readings inform my journey and the following has been coming together these last weeks.

Prayer shirt

 

It started out as a thrift store find. The blouse had a gaping hole at the top of the sleeve, but the fabric was good. I took it home and painstakingly patched it with fabric from another blouse. Seemingly hundreds of tiny stitches. Then, I embroidered a swirl design over it.

 

Thinking I was done, I wore the shirt, but looking down, I noticed several tiny frayed spots on one side of the front. Knowing  that something not worth doing is worth doing badly, I decided to embroider fireflies on top to the mended spots. I love fireflies and fancy myself one.

 

All done with a multitude of fireflies in blue and pale yellow, I see two more emerging holes on the back. Two butterflies embroidered over those mended holes.

 

Meanwhile, It become clear that this shirt with all the holes which I was attempting to reclaim was a metaphor for my own state of disruption after a move, with its’ accompanying emotions.

 

Then, I pondered how our God takes each of us, the wounded and torn beings that we are. Some of us have been relegated to the trash heap of humanity. Failures, beyond repair. But, our God does not give up. He (she) takes us as we are and tends to us. He makes something beautiful out of something that is so broken. She so wants to redeem people, even the people doing the really bad things.

 

To bring this experience to a close, I embroidered the final words of God’s Grandeur by Gerard Manley Hopkins. The whole poem encapsulates my understanding of the fragility of humanity and….it’s grandeur.

 

On the collar, I embroidered: Aw!

Down the button placket, only barely visible, in yellow, I embroidered Bright Wings.

 

How lucky I was to spend a couple of weeks with the ruined shirt, making it into a prayer that I can wear and feel like a manifestation of God’s love for the world.

<p style=”text-align: right;”>good morning !</p>
<p style=”text-align: left;”>back when all four kids were little, i happened upon a tomie di paola story called The Little Friar that Flew. st. joseph of Cupertino stole my heart . i made a puppet of him and memorized the story so i could tell it with my puppet. I call him Joseph . back then, as now, i knew I was inadequate to the challenges facing me, but that I could trust God to manifest Godself in me. over all these years, i have enjoyed surprises and doing fun, clownlike things in the manner of joseph taking to the sky in his excitement over God’s presence. i think  he also was devoted to mary. Joseph , the puppet, is here with me now at our rental in Florida. when i travel , he goes in every hotel room. this morning i was feeling down and decided that i should pray throughout the day to my favorite saint, st joseph  of Cupertino.</p>
kathyleen.

reading this weeks offering and your texts above , i am just gobsmacked by the beauty of it all. You each inspire me.

yesterday, i was graced  to do the first and second readings in church. To hear  these things come out of my mouth and in the presence of my brothers and sisters is more than i can describe. thank you, all. kathleen

i am humbled by your offerings above. it seems the only way to respond  to any day’s  challenges, within and without, is to fall on ny knees. God has my back,  so will bring me to my knees if necessary… over and over and over and over.

thank you James, Carmon and Roman, and Sister, and, of course, Pamela, for all your preparation and facilitating. ❤️kathleen

So like Carl, i am trying to learn not to fix, not to advise, not to analyze or evaluate… just to be and let be. my avenue of formation is the compassionate listening project. this week it occurs to me to cultivate inner silence in keeping with my centering prayer practice: to “forget” all i know, all my techniques, even the gidelines for reflective listening, just witnessing. it a time to more consciously reside in liminal space.

this is easy to do with my tribe. the rubber really hits the road (for now) when engaging with current events, and on that rather unfortunate invention: social media.

this week i would like to sit with gen:  28:5 And lo, i am with thee, and will keep thee withersoever thou goest.

the way i notice the presence of God in my life is how His presence relativizes everything else, every good thing within my grasp and evey bad thing.,,.,

even a mood, should i just let it drift away because God is here? i see it just float up and away. it is so insubstantial.

thank you Pamela, for guiding us through  lectio divina on our zoom meeting tueday. like so many things….reading about how to do it is miles away from knowing from actually doing it(with modeling).

How am i being acted upon? im letting myself not know… to be with the not knowing , eschewing closure ( letting it go) While having a couple of rough days, I resisted  the urge to tell a story about my afflictive emotions or to try to understand the other person as if they were an object. i committed to not analyzing myself as if i were an  object. i intend to witness the mystery of people , and only going forward with probing if i am given clear guidance.

grasping power is a trap. Agency is another thing…available while staying conscious of God.

Failure is a gift.

smiling with this acceptance.kathy

what a gift the zoom session was on tuesday and the deeply wise comments here.

on the  top of each day’s  page in my planner this month , i am writing “what is true and what is not?”

As far as discernment is concerned,  the question of “what is true ” is key.  Over these many months, and years,  the experience of feeling below feelings signals to me what is true and what is not. (welcoming prayer )

if something of discordance comes up, that signals to me that something is off about my perception  or behavior. for example i want to tell my friend that something she suggested (an online retreat ) was not helpful to me , without being unkind, Or when a grandaughter’s feelings were hurt in an online family get together, what was my share in that? looking back on my career, is the story i have beeen telling myself about that really true?

all the noise we whip up in our lives… is it just a way of avoiding the deep insight into what is true?

hi sister, i wrote this letter and it was printed  in pur local newspaper: the watertown times.

To. The Editor:
‘
I appreciate the letter written by Mark Zehr and published in the Sunday, Jan. 17, issue of the Watertown Times. He expressed reticence about publicly making his opinion known, given the readership of the Watertown Times.We need to hear each and everyone who feels their views are not respected.

We all have our personal history, which provides a foundation for our later view of the world..  Could we listen to each other’s stories? We can all ask ourselves: How do I know if what I know is true? None of us knows it all, and we need to look for measurable guides for what is factual and what is not.

The “news” we consume: how much of it is factual and how much is interpretation? Could we not have actual periods when all that is reported is what happened? Where did it happened. Who did what? Who observed it? What time did it happen and for what duration, and in what sequence? The meaning of events should are addressed at a different time.

I have enduring beliefs and values, by which I judge what I experience in the world. According to Marilynne Robinson, saying my values are right and yours are wrong is like saying “my mother is better than your mother”.

Can’t we all go over and climb that little hill over there (in our mind’s eye)_ and get a God’s-eye view of the different ways of seeing things?

From Psalm 85: Kindness and truth shall meet. Would that this be so. I commit to that goal in. My own thinking and speaking.

What is in my own mind is what I project out onto the world. The world “out there” is also the world “in here” . How is what I am watching, listening to or reading contribute to the world I see and make real by my expectations?

Let us each take courage and be our best selves, just one moment at a time. Do you think you could try? Just for today? I for one, am going to start to walk my talk. Words are cheap.

hilma of Klimpt was a theosophist as were many Group of 7 artists (canadian early 1900 s) my art teacher for many years was a theosophist.

to be spiritual while remaining bodily present in the day to day world is a constant challenge.

i just want to put this down while i continue to reflect. that image is intriguing , if not soothing.

the second reading from today is about time running out, about being married , doing this thing or that as if we aren’t . to me , it means standing a bit away from the (problematic ) other and me , the church  and me, all my projects: practical , intellectual and even spiritual. Living tentatively, playfully, holding lightly on the steering wheel of my day.

i am so appreciative of how the few of you who post here….your contrbutions…. reflect years of silence deep within , joined with your engagement in ordinary life. such a collection of misfitting puzzle pieces  this life is for me, and that is how it is supposeed to be! only God  is able to make sense of the mess that is me and this world. It feels kinda comfy with Him incharge.

There is a letter to the editor in todays paper that i wrote…pretty much pouring out my heart about being our best selves. What the heck. it  cant hurt to try.

kathy

what has changed for me is that i am dropping all the stuff i was clutching in my arms that i thought was necessary to my identity: my achievements, my reputation, my projects, my having to have my cake and eat it too, having ro know it all , having to “be” the best (drilled into me as a child), having to understand, feeling happy, my beloved supports-the people who betray me or die, my resentments, my superiority, my intellect, my memory, my health….every crisis , signified by a period ogf anxiety and depression, results in an insight and a release into a different landscape, just ad Thomas says.

roger housdden provided the image of “threading the needle of the present  moment”.

i feel”over the moon” about the reflection and postings so far.  (grin). i sense that we are all speaking the same language…. without  words! weirdly, it isnt about hope for me even. it is about threadingthe needle of the present moment, between despair and hope. this morning i woke up in a state of anxiety about an up oming surgery for my husband in syracuse, 250 miles away. after staying hoome these many months, what are we to do? stay the night before  in a hotel and will i stay over  or drive home and back the next day?

i go and sit. silence calms. my mind stops and when my thinking resumes, it is slow. this stopping to  go into  silence makes these days a blessing.

meister eckhart says that multiplicity is our greatest attachment.

i was raised in syracuse and for 40 years have been near the canadian border. i actually like the darkness (although have needed a lamp for more light at times)., the worse the weather the more i want to go out in it. the other day i rode my bike by a hugr being next to the dirt path i was on. stopping, a snowy owl and i gazed in others eyes  for many minutes until a woman with a dog approached. as he took off over the st lawrence  river with his huge wing span dominating my view.

 

doesnt that just sum up this magical journdy we are on? endless mystery and beauty for those grAnted vision.

 

thank you all. kathy

i agree with keeping my lamp trimmed  and filled with oil. it is not for me to know what god is doing . my job is to watch and wait. the oil is purchased throough hours spent in solitude and silence. i need endless amounts of  that,  it seems, to be really ready.

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