Category Archives: Soul Care

Mini-Easter

08 Sunday Mar 2009

Posted by in In the Garden, Life at Home, Soul Care

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I love how every Sunday is a mini-Easter — a feast day set aside to celebrate the resurrection of Christ — and that the six Sundays during Lent are no exception. 

The season of Lent is more meaningful if I make a sacrifice.  So this year I decided to give up breakfast, easily my favorite meal.  This means I fast until lunch six days of the week.  And on Sundays, I feast with the return of breakfast.  Today I broke my fast twice.  I ate pancakes with my husband, then had a cup of coffee with Lara while she enjoyed her own short stack of cakes. 

While she was eating, I enjoyed hearing Lara talk about her new life in OKC.  Oh, she’s embracing it all with joy.  Every brand spanking new inch of it.  New job.  New home.  New friends to make.  She’s a special gal, this second-string daughter of mine.   Can’t wait for my first-string  ‘kids’ to meet her.

After Lara left, I worked in the garden with my husband.  Three short hours later, our front yard has been transformed into quite the looker.  With lawn mowed, weeds pulled, rose bushes trimmed and many, many Lirope now sporting a fresh ‘haircut’, it looks like spring outside.  Down on my knees, I could see all the new life bursting forth — baby mums, flower buds on my Spirea, green shoots of Lirope peeking through the dirt.  Is there any color lovelier than spring green? 

We ended the day cheering on the Thunder, as our players racked up another victory.  Talk about new life!  Our team has won 7 of their last 10 home games — and this one without their big stars.  Of course they remain last in their division.  But even so, this team looks different from the one I first watched in November.  The recent trades and the experience gained by our young players is starting to pay-off. 

My entire day was like watching some lovely mini-Easter parade — as I observed the new life in Lara, my garden and the Thunder.  I’m lucky to have snagged a seat so close to the action.  Because it let the joy of new life bump smack up against me.   It didn’t hurt one bit. 

Anchors Aweigh

04 Wednesday Mar 2009

Posted by in Prayer, Soul Care

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“You may say I’m a dreamer…

But I’m not the only one.”

                                    –John Lennon’s  Imagine

Wherever I am, whatever I’m doing, I’m rarely 100 percent present.  Maybe this shows I don’t live on the edge enough… since my mind has carte blanche to wander away in a daze of day dreams.

It’s excusable in those first feet-hit-the-floor moments of the day before I walk and shake off my sleepiness.  But I must not walk and shake enough.  Because I float through the rest of the day — anchors aweigh—on my stream of activities only partially awake.  I feed the dogs, get my coffee and glance at the newspaper – headlines only.  And then I pray and work through a spiritual exercise.  After that, I do whatever needs or wants done that day… cooking, gardening and maybe a project or two.  And when I look up, it’s almost time for bed.  And I think.  Where did my day go?  

To keep my days from thinning out into a sea of nothingness, I drop anchor sometime between supper and bed.  I grab my journal and find a quiet and comfy spot to contemplate my day.  And with three simple questions to guide me, I begin the age-old prayer practice, examen of consciousness:  

  1. What happened today that I don’t want to forget… or that I can’t forget?
  2. How was God present in that event?  What quality of God was revealed?
  3. How am I being drawn (or called) to respond?

I set aside no more than ten minutes to do this.  But it’s important I do it before sleep softens the crisp edges of the day. 

This helps me gain my bearings, so I possess a better sense of where I’ve been and where I may go.  It helps me get underneath the surface of life, to uncover the weightier treasures that gets buried in the floor of my unconsciousness.  What were my thoughts about this or that?  What caused me to react in this way or that?  Where are my thoughts and actions taking me?  Am I moving closer to or away from God?

I write what I wish remembered in my journal.  Sometimes I shape my words into written pieces for this blog.  Writing keeps me awake and keeps me real.  But I am enriched by this practice in a way that defies words.  It is beyond words in the same way God is beyond all understanding.  Heady stuff for someone who operates mostly on feelings and intuitions. 

Examen is my anchor to reality…. a way out of my anchors-aweigh daze. 

All Shall Be Well…

02 Monday Mar 2009

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I’m at loose ends.  My new second-string daughter has given me back my morning — she is now able to receive her worldly goods from the movers without my help — and this is good, as this well-intended second-string mom wouldn’t know Lara’s stuff if it hit her in the face. 

So all is well in Lara’s new world — it is exactly as it should be.  And isn’t this what God revealed to that long ago English mystic, Julian of Norwich?–…”that all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”   Truth is truth, no matter when and how and where it is revealed.

So what do I now do with this unexpected gift of time?  It’s nice to have no claim checks for it.   Time just to be is rare, even for me.  Maybe, especially for me, as I tend to pack in more than I can carry with grace.  Lent is a good time to sit and be, to unpack the bulging baggage picked up from all the days that have come before–to take out and examine beliefs once more, to make sure they still fit, if they ever did.  But also to unpack treasured memories, because it is good to remember and to sit bathed in love…. especially when the man you love most is jetting with bags packed toward China….

I’ve been unpacking a lot these past seven months, but not always alone.  As I work through the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius, I connect with reality and truth with the help of my spiritual director and a small group of similarly situated souls at HeartPaths.  It’s proved to be a good work-out.  Already I’ve received many gifts — treasures from the past, a greater awareness of God all around me and the promise of good  things in my future.  Maybe I’ll share in greater detail in another post.  For now, I’m still gaining clarity.  And as I enjoy this unexpected time to rest — it is good to be still and know that all shall be well…