Sacred Imagination Journal

The Turning

I cut into the round purple fig and taste its juicy earthy softness, noticing the shifting sunlight as it casts lengthy smoky shadows on the kitchen floor.  Evening is arriving a bit earlier day by day, and the pre-dawn summer symphony performed by the birds in our forest begins later now than it did a month ago. Signs that autumn, the time of pomegranates, is approaching. 

Autumn is my favorite season. It is a time of turning, turning inward in preparation for winter.  In September of this year (not long before the official first day of fall) I will experience my own turning.  I will become sixty.  Autumn will be especially bittersweet for me this time round. 

Preparing to embark into the beginning of yet another decade is an interesting process.  I've been taking a pause to sort and sift through the years that brought me to this place, while I contemplate how I intend to spend the next ten years that will lead me to seventy.

Over the past weeks, I've prayerfully revisited my memory's attic. I've considered all the members of my family, living and deceased and observed the great mystery of how we fit and don't fit together into life's puzzle. Everything is grace...

I am in my "grandmother" years.  My precious granddaughter renews my spirit with her laughter and a deep wisdom that belies her young age. She reminds me to dance. 

My two adult children continue to be my greatest teachers while I wonder how time swept past so quickly since the cherished time of their childhoods. I stop now to look back through the years to consciously celebrate in awe who they have grown to be. My son-in-law also blesses life's journey. My cup runneth over.

As I prepare for my sixtieth birthday, my husband and I prepare for our fortieth anniversary.  A lifetime together, considering we met at sixteen.  Forty years.....the gamut of emotions, experiences, joys, and sorrows.  We've weathered it all somehow through God's grace and a deep taproot of love. Come grow old with me....the best is yet to be....

I've reflected over the many precious friendships that have endured the test of time.  I've also been celebrating how I am blessed to be inspired and spiritually nourished by an entire new community of friends and sister-kindred spirits, companions on the holy road. These are incredible women, dedicated to God and their ministries, traveling in uncharted waters.  The journey is everything...

Sadly, I have also grieved the passing of friends who have left this world through long suffering illness or who were taken swiftly in a sudden accident.  Peace of Christ....

Grief of another kind calls for reverent acknowledgement while I contemplate those relationships that have ended through misunderstanding, neglect, and unspoken resolution. It's a time for reflection, forgiveness, and acceptance. I wish you well...

My time of introspection has focused my inner vision.  I am living from a place of gratitude.  I am grateful to God for each day in a deeper way than I have every experienced.  Like the last days of summer......each day is to be savored as autumn and then winter approaches.  My autumn years will soon become the winter of my life.  There is much to be harvested and tasted.  The bounty is abundant. Love seasons everything. The turning is delicious. 

A Pilgrimage Reflection

In mid-October I facilitated a pilgrimage to France to Chartres Cathedral with my dear friend, Tricia Kibbe, who is the director of Seeking the Sacred Tours http://www.seekingthesacred.com  It was a transformational experience.  Sixteen women participants from around the U.S. and from London, England attended. 

A kindred spirit, Olivia Doko, who is also a Roman Catholic womanpriest and June Boyce-Tillman, Anglican Deacon and a composer of liturgical music, and myself celebrated a Mass for the women pilgrims on the last day of our time together.  Olivia and June brought their gifts of prayer practices, music, and June's special performance of Hildegard of Bingen as enrichment for the pilgrimage experience.

One evening, through Tricia's expert arrangements, we were privileged to have private time in the cathedral as a group.  Olivia and I led our procession through the crypt by candlelight while June led us in singing, We are Weaving the Labyrinth.  Our procession led us to the stairs ascending into the cathedral.  In silence we continued processing around the cathedral past the Virgin on the Pillar and the Virgin's Veil, the ancient relic of the cathedral. 

We finally arrived at the candlelit labyrinth in the nave where experienced a group walk.  When June arrived at the center she sang from her soul to Mary and her song reverberated throughout the cathedral in blessing to the Mother and to those of us who were present.  It was a glorious and sacred evening that will live on in memory.

The French people were warm and welcoming.  We were immersed in the slower pace of the local lifestyle, sipping cafe au lait and enjoying pastries in the local cafes, perusing the Saturday morning market and flower market, and walking the cobblestoned streets of Chartres.  However, the cathedral was at the heart of our visit.  Most of us spent many hours studying the sculptures and stained glass windows.  Malcolm Miller, the cathedral's resident guide calls it "A living book."  It is also a place of deep mystery and holy invitation.

Currently, Tricia and I are planning Crafting the Woman's Soul through Sophia Wisdom:  Sacred Art-Making and Journaling as Spiritual Practice for Fall 2007.  This wonderful autumn retreat will take place in California.  Please visit my website in a few weeks for details http://www.sacredimagination.com

Thank you and blessings to all those who attended and made our pilgrimage to Chartres a memorable journey.  May your life's pilgrimages continue to reveal God's blessings and mysteries.

Celebrating Ordination July 31, 2006

On Monday July 31, 2006 I was ordained a Roman Catholic Priest along with seven other women, four more women were ordained deacons.  The ordination took place on a large boat as it sailed on the three rivers around Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  Our three WomenBishops, Patricia Fresen of South Africa/Germany, Gisela Forster of Bavaria, and Ida Raming of Germany, presided http://www.romancatholicwomenpriests.org

The ordination, for me personally, is the fulfillment of a lifelong calling to serve God.  In my youth I longed to become a nun.  I had no idea that I would someday have the opportunity to become a priest. 

My early life took me on another course....marriage and motherhood...a journey I wouldn't change for anything.  Being married to my high school sweetheart for the past 39 years and being a mother to my wonderful daughter and son, and a grandmother are holy privileges.  God's blessings flow through our family and I'm deeply grateful.

It wasn't until my "autumn" years that God opened the door to set me on a new path of my life's pilgrimage.  Last year I was ordained a deacon in Canada and days ago I crossed the threshold into priesthood.

I look forward to the Mystery of what lies ahead.  I must now listen closely to God's guidance as I continue my earthly walk.  How my ministry will unfold will be revealed in the days and months ahead.  For now, I continue to offer spiritual direction at Mosaics, the women's spirituality center I co-founded with my dear friend, Laurie Sandblom http://www.mosaicsforwomen.com   I'll also continue my volunter hospice chaplaincy locally. 

All of us who have been ordained as womenpriests are "worker priests."  Each is finding her own way as we work together to bring renewal and inclusivity to the Catholic Church.  Please pray for us, as together we pray for peace to all peoples and for the healing of our world.   

You may visit the following links to learn more about our recent ordination:

http://kdka.com/video/?id=18612@kdka.dayport.com

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06213/710207-85.stm

http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=2254547

A Lenten Desert Experience

For many of us, today marks the beginning of the liturgical season of Lent.  The next forty days beginning with Ash Wednesday and culminating with the celebration of Christ's Resurrection on Easter are a time for intentional prayer, fasting, almsgiving, and inner reflection.  Lent may be thought of as desert experience, a potential period for spiritual growth, a time for moving from one state of being to another.  Lent (from the Anglo Saxon word lencten, meaning "spring") invites us to lay bare those parts of ourselves that are calling for renewal, change, and attention.  This is the season for bringing light to the aspects of our life and spirit that we desire to correct or transform.  We are invited to reconcile our hearts and minds with God's plan for our lives.  Scripture, rituals, psalms, sacred practices, penance (reconciliation), and charity are pathways on the Lenten journey.

Jesus went to the desert for forty days, a time in which he fasted and prayed.  In the desert everything is exposed, laid bare, bleached by the sun, revealed from the shadows by the intense heat and light, offered up to be visible. 

I have recently been to the Arizona desert to a retreat center to attend a training program for Spritual Directors.  I will return there for the final two weeks of training during Lent.  I experience the desert as the antithesis of where I live.  Here on the California coast everying is "green and juicy." Walking through the woods I am invited to touch the soft moss on the forest floor, to brush against the leafy ferns, to inhale the fragrance of the wet earth.  When I arrived in the desert I was acutely aware of the contrast of the landscape to my familiar surroundings at home. 

It is true that there is a kind of primordial beauty to the starkness of the desert, the wide open spaces, the exquisite colors in the sunrises and sunsets, the howling of the coyotes at night. Yet, I find the desert to be a challenging place.  Touch is univited by the prickly pear cactus and other thorny plantlife.  One must be on guard for snakes and javelinas and of course there is the sun's heat that burns the skin and brings on thirst.  When journeying through the desert it's best to stay on the path.

Perhaps this is the metaphor that's offered.  Lent invites us to return to the true path of our lives.  We are invited to step onto the path and stand still.  To look at what is laid bare around us and within us.  It's a time to thirst for God's presence and to contemplate how the spiritual practices of prayer, fasting, personal rituals, and the sharing of our talents, time, and treasures may begin to quench the dryness in our lives.

May your Lenten journey be blessed with a sense of coming home to the God of your understanding within your heart and soul.  May Lent provide a space for you to contemplate the challenging aspects of your life and yourself, and may you be reconciled in ways that bring you a tangible peace of Resurrection. May you return to your "green and juicy" life after the desert time of Lent with your thirst quenched by Grace and God's unending Love. 

Offering for the New Year

Rain pelts the roof of my home here on the California coast and my thoughts turn to the New Year. I send you blessings as we cross the threshold of 2006, and share the following reflection with you as I contemplate ways to deepen life's journey in the months ahead.   

Templates for Guidance in the New Year

My mother makes quilts.  I have carefully observed her as she places a template on fabric to sketch a pattern for her stitches.  The design created by the template is merely a guide, an inspiration for her particular push and pull of the needle.  Even though she uses a template for the quilting, it is her choice of fabrics and colors that makes each quilt an expression of her unique brand of creativity.

Templates, in the form of role models, are also helpful when one makes the conscious awareness to live authentically and purposefully. Emulating the behavior and approach to life exemplified to you by a person or persons you admire provides a map or a guide, as you create and shape your authentic life.   

Over the centuries artists have copied the famous works and creations of the great master painters and sculptors.  This is how new techniques and methods have come into being.  Through the process of studying and exploring the brushstrokes of Rembrandt, Van Gogh, or Renoir, artists discover their authentic way of applying paint to the canvas.

Who would you choose for your role model templates?  Who do you admire?  Consider the people you know friends, family members, and colleagues at work or school.  Who are the people you are attracted to? Who inspires you to be the best you can be?  What characteristics or attributes do these individuals exude that calls you to examine your own life and ways of being in the world?

History offers an unlimited cast of characters as templates for your own life.  Who are the historical figures who seem to “speak” to your soul?  On my desk I have an icon of Saint Hildegard of Bingen.  She was a twelfth century mystic, visionary, and healer whose spiritual strength and dedication inspires me.  I have studied her writings and her life and when I find myself creatively blocked I turn to her icon and ask myself, “…how would Hildegard approach this problem?”  I contemplate her creative process, her prayer life, and her courage to express her visions. She is one of my templates, a model for how to draw from the well of creativity fearlessly to live more authentically.

Another model I refer to over and over again is The Blessed Virgin Mary.  Now this may seem a stretch.  How does one presume to follow in Mary’s footsteps? Obviously this would be considered blasphemy in some circles.  Mary reminds me to say, “Yes!”, to God’s callings.  She leads me to trust the Higher plan and to be true to my life’s purpose.  It’s not that I try to be Mary, what a ludicrous thought, it’s rather that she is a teacher for me, an example of how I might approach living more authentically.

This month as you explore your life’s purpose to live authentically and purposefully, I invite you on a journey through your sacred imagination in search of templates (role models and mentors) to assist the birthing of your authentic self.  Here are a few key questions to ask as you begin this quest. You might like to take some time to explore these in your journal.

If you were choosing three teachers to design a special curriculum for your body, mind, and spirit who would you choose?  These may be anyone living or deceased from history or your own life.

When you think of your childhood name two people who impacted your life in a memorable and positive way. What characteristics did these individuals have in common?  How did they differ?

Who are the artists, musicians, writers, or specialists in your field of work or interest that you admire?  What is the common thread regarding your appreciation of their gifts?

In your journal list these various persons and the traits that you would like to emulate.  You may want to create a collage representing either figuratively or symbolically your role model template. 

Living authentically with purpose is an evolutionary process.  The authentic life is a living breathing entity that like all organic things grows and changes with time. 

Being conscious of other’s qualities and characteristics that are life enhancing, creatively nurturing, and spiritually centered will enlarge your awareness of the areas within yourself that you want to enrich and nourish. The authentic life is multi-faceted. Living with a sense of purpose requires the engagement of body, mind, and soul.  Bringing this holistic awareness fully into each day will over time enliven your palette for painting your life in the outer world, the way you visualize it in your inner world. Here are a few suggestions for ways to express and contain whatever inspires or excites your authentic and purpose-full life. 

As you begin the New Year you may want to keep an inspiration bulletin board as kind of sacred container for those things that influence and stimulate your authentic life. Clip images from magazines that are symbols for the qualities, actions, and outcomes you are working towards as you engage with your authentic self.  Once a week create a collage as a meditation to focus on one or more characteristic or event you are cultivating in your life.  Keep your inspiration bulletin board where you will frequently see it throughout the day.  Allow it to change and grow during the week.  Refer to it as you embrace the parts of yourself that are finding voice and form.

Type up words, phrases, and affirmations that express the values, personality characteristics, and creative endeavors you are engaging with as you awaken to your authenticity.  You may also clip words and phrases from magazines.  Keep these in a clear glass jar on your desk.  Once a day reach in and choose one at random.  Read it out loud to yourself and copy it ten times in your journal as a way of integrating new ideas and concepts into your psyche and spirit. 

Most of all engage all your senses to enlarge your inner and outer worlds.  Look at art and nature for inspiration.  Listen to music and recordings of poetry and literature or foreign languages to stimulate your creativity.  Cook new foods, explore other cultures, rent a foreign film or documentary, to stretch beyond your everyday boundaries. 

Living the authentic life with a sense of purpose is an ongoing journey, a pilgrimage to the center of your own soul.  Use your sacred imagination to bring color and spontaneity to the greatest adventure you can have…..the adventure of meeting your “whole” self for the first time.

Walking through Advent with Mary

It is the holy season of Advent. A season of secret Mystery, deep journeying, and inner preparation. I invite us to consider Mary, the Mother of Christ, as she answered God’s call, and made her way to

Bethlehem

to deliver Jesus. 

Mary models to us how to be in relationship with God as we respond to our personal callings to birth our spiritual and creative gifts.  She invites us to look at ways to enrich the spiritual journey, from the moment of recognizing the call to the time when that which we're bringing to fruition becomes manifest. She models to us how to stay spiritually centered in times of transition and change.

You may want to use the following offerings as weekly meditations, as we consciously engage our hearts and souls while the calendar moves us towards Christmas Day.

Opening to Divine Inspiration: Receiving and Answering God’s Call

Mary said, “Yes!” to God’s call.

The story tells us that an angel appeared to Mary with the message that God had chosen her to be the mother of the Messiah.  Mary could have said, "No thank you..." to God's call.  She was only fourteen at the time and not yet married.  There was good solid logical "reason" for her to say no.  However, she said, "Yes!" and the miracle of Christ's birth came to pass. Imagine the difference in our lives today if she had refused the opportunity that God gave to the world through her.

God often calls us to move out of our comfort zone. Logical practical thinking doesn't always accompany a call from God. Being called by God is not always something that we would choose for ourselves.  Mary's faith, trust, and acceptance offer us a model of spiritual virtues to follow.  The call from God often registers with the body and heart rather than the mind, for God dreams a bigger dream for us than we can dream for ourselves.

God asks something of us when we are called.  It may involve sacrifice.  God's call may cause us to change or let go of relationships, move to a new place, or forfeit practical opportunities that fit a rational way of being.  However, God's ways are not the ways of humans.  To say, "Yes!" to God is to say "Yes" to transformation and change.

Saying "Yes!" to the call creates a quickening of the soul. Inner pathways open to receive divine inspiration for guidance. Divine inspiration comes to us in many forms.  Consider the various ways God offers you signs that you are being honed to birth a particular spiritual/creative gift.  How do you discern God’s call?  What are the signposts you watch for?  What is stopping you from saying, "Yes" to God?

You may want to begin a journal that will be dedicated to stating your intention to answer a call you have been feeling for some time or to initiate the intention of dedicating yourself as a "listener to God's call" and an "observer of God's signs and symbols (dreams, visions, and intuitive understandings)."

 

Embodying the Seed Within: Nourishing the Sacred Imagination

Mary goes to Bethany to share her news with Elizabeth

When Mary left her home on her journey to visit her cousin, Elizabeth, she had to muster her courage.  She carried her "oratory" within her.  In other words, she took the Peace that she found through her prayer and reflective time with God, and gave it a permanent home, an indwelling flame within the hearth of her soul.  Wherever she would be called to travel in the ensuing months, her flame of Peace and faith was fanned by her prayers.

In order to prepare to birth our gifts of spirit in response to God’s call, we may choose to embark on a journey into our sacred imaginations.  The sacred imagination is the place within the creative soul where the Holy Spirit arrives to co-create with our humaness.  Nourish this place through meditation, prayer, and exploration of your creative longings. Open to new opportunities.  Trust your intuition. You must stretch out of the comfort zone to try the thing that has been nudging at the heart and mind.  This is a time for courage. Imagine creating a sanctuary, an oratory, within your being. Trust and then trust some more.

Quickening with New Life: Activating the Senses

Mary feels new life stirring within her and she prepares for birth.

Imagine how Mary felt when the new holy life she was carrying within her began to stir. Our senses provide us with pathways to the indwelling Christ.  God speaks to us through what we see, hear, taste, touch, smell, and intuit.  We can activate our senses to become more aware of God’s constant presence in our lives.

Mary's world was free from technological and commercial distraction; e-mail, faxes, voice mail, CNN, and the local mall.  Her world was a sensual world.  Humans co-existed with the sheep and the donkey.  The food on the table was prepared by hand, bread kneaded with prayer, wine made from the grapes in the vineyard.  Lamplight from small oil lamps cast soft shadows to the eye. Incense filled the air.  Prayers flowed like a river throughout moment and task of the day.

Perhaps we can awaken our awareness of the senses during this sacred season. 

Fill a pot with apple juice, orange slices, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.  Simmer this heavenly concoction and fill your home with a welcoming scent that will bless everyone who enters.  I just experienced this at the home of two dear friends and the fragrance surprised my memory bank by reawakening rememberings of long ago Christmasses. Sipping this concoction is pure ambrosia.

If you are cooking or baking for family and friends, add prayer and love with each ingredient.  This thoughtful spiritual action could be the most important part of the recipe.  Those who eat your food will be blessed by the taste of your culinary creation and their hearts will be blessed by your spirit.

Transitioning and Birthing:  Preparing for Change and Delivering the Gift

Mary journeys to

Bethlehem

and gives birth to our Lord. 

Preparing for life’s transitions offers both challenge and opportunity for spiritual growth.  Birthing our spiritual/creative gifts creates special circumstances that are subtle and also profound.  How do we live between the tensions of opposites? How do we prepare ourselves during those transitional times in life when something new is emerging? 

It is important to create rituals to let go of what is no longer serving us and rituals to welcome that which is emerging.  On pieces of kindling wood write with a marker those things you want to let go of in your life....old worn out habits, regrets, events that have caused you pain and suffering, etc.  Build a fire and offer a prayer of thanksgiving for the lessons learned through these experiences and cast the kindling to the fire for transformation.

To welcome the new that is being born in your life, create a birthing bowl.  Fill a glass bowl with water add a few drops of lavender oil or an aromatic oil of your choosing.  Gather some small stones.  Again, with a permanent marker write on the stones those things you are birthing within yourself; a new positive attitude, a new skill or activity, a healed relationship, self-forgiveness, or self-nurturing.... One by one drop the stones into the water as a kind of baptism for the new parts of yourself.

Remember that saying "Yes!" to God may at times challenge everything within you and around you.  With faith, prayer, perseverance, and reliance on God's grace you will discover the full beauty of your own true nature.  May this Advent season reveal to you just how much you are loved by God and may Mary's journey offer you the courage to believe this is so. Merry Christmas and God's blessings to you and yours.

A Season of Gratitude

Each of us has been blessed with those times in life when something profound happened and it was automatic to say, “Thank God.” Those holy moments when the job offer came through, the house sold, the diagnosis was benign, the plane landed safely, or the baby was born healthy. Gifts from the Divine, like these and others too numerous to mention, signal we have made it through another passage, we’re still here, and life is good. Big events like these are cause for celebration. They are recognizable. They are landmarks. Gratitude is the natural response the way applause follows a bravo performance.

This month, as we focus on gratitude, I invite you to celebrate not only the big moments, so worthy of thanks-giving, but also the little blessings that come your way. Additionally consider the special people in your life who deserve an expression of gratitude and acknowledgment. Beginning the day in gratitude sets the tone for whatever the next twenty-four hours might bring.

During the month of November, in honor of Thanksgiving and in preparation for a soulful and sacred holiday, you might like to try the following process to bring gratitude awareness to each day.

Living in Gratitude: A Thirty Day Experiment

The following four-fold map is intended as a daily spiritual practice to be experienced for thirty days. Following these steps will bring gratitude into your conscious awareness throughout the day. Feel free to use your creativity to expand the concepts and make them truly your own.

Step One: Waking up to Gratitude

As you awaken each morning immediately bring gratitude into awareness. Give thanks before throwing off the covers to leap into the river of carpooling, appointments, meetings, or the needs of family and children. Take a deep breath and for example, say a prayer of gratitude for a restful night’s sleep.  Give thanks for your eyes and the gift of vision that welcome the day’s light, for the bird’s song of joy outside your window, for the protective warmth of your comfortable bed. These are blessings that might otherwise go unnoticed or could be taken for granted. Being actively grateful for these graces through prayer sets a tone for whatever the day may hold.

Step Two: Slowing Down to Count Your Blessings

Throughout the day there are often moments that provoke annoyance and impatience. Interruptions such as the red traffic light when you’re running late, the phone ringing just as you’re heading out the door, the chance meeting with an acquaintance when you should be running errands, or simply having to stand on line at the post office to mail an important package. These moments seem to occur daily and the cumulative effect is high blood pressure, anxiety, and irritation.

Bringing gratitude to these times of forced pause shifts the energy from aggravation to appreciation. The next time the traffic light turns red forcing you to an unwanted halt, take a deep breath and call to mind three things or persons you are grateful for and offer a prayer of thanksgiving. This might be a good time to consider those people in your life who have been your greatest teachers, or to remember the unexpected guidance you received from a stranger. Allow those times during the day that cause you to pause to become sacred times as you count your blessings.

Step Three: Spreading the Message of Gratitude Awareness

Taking action to express gratitude through prayer is central to thanksgiving consciousness. One way to deliver gratitude directly to someone you wish to thank personally is through a “Heart Hug” sent by e-mail or snail mail. A “Heart Hug” is a personalized expression of gratitude to co-workers, family members, friends, and even total strangers. The creation of Heart-Hugs is a sacred-art meditation…………Buy some blank shipping tags at your local office supply store and engage with your creativity to make them beautiful. You may want to use rubber-stamps, stickers, or create miniature collages with cut and pasted images and words/phrases from magazines. Cover one side of a tag with your artful expression of gratitude and on the other side simply say, “This is a Heart-Hug from me to you. I’m grateful you are in my life because you have taught me to have courage by your example (express the appropriate reason for your gratitude). I send you blessings and appreciation. Please help spread gratitude awareness by sending a Heart-Hug to someone who has brought blessings your way.”

Tie a colorful ribbon through the hole on the tag and put it in an envelope for snail mail. Make thirty or more “Heart Hug” cards and send several a week to those people in your life who foster feelings of gratitude. Keep several in your pocket or purse to anonymously tie to the desk of a co-worker who makes the coffee each morning, or to tuck into your child’s lunchbox. Spread gratitude in unexpected places. E-mail is also a way to send more than memos through cyberspace. Create a “Heart-Hug” message of gratitude to send to someone who has touched your heart and soul.

Step Four: Ending the Day with Prayers of Thanksgiving

Closing the day with a prayer of gratitude will enrich your sense of well being and usher in peaceful feelings to carry into dreamtime. Place a large glass jar next to your bed and an assortment of colorful paper squares for recording your daily prayers of thanksgiving. Each night before you turn out the light, write a gratitude prayer for all the blessings of the day. Some blessings are actually lessons that are delivered in challenging ways. As you consider the day’s events with respect to gratitude, be conscious of the not too pleasant moments for they may have contained a teaching gift that makes the experience worthy of thanksgiving. Place your prayers in the jar.

Add rose petals, dried lavender, and silver stars to bless these offerings. Let the fragrance of the rose and lavender soothe you as you go to sleep contemplating your blessings. To continue the co-creation of prayer and creativity for your holiday table here’s one more suggestion for experiencing gratitude this month.

As Thanksgiving approaches take a walk in your neighborhood and collect a basket full of autumn leaves. When your family and friends gather together on Thanksgiving Day offer them felt-tipped pens to record on the leaves what they are most grateful for this past year. Use the leaves as decoration on the Thanksgiving table. Take turns reading the leaves and sharing gratitude stories. The last of autumn’s leaves are falling to the ground, a signal that we are at the threshold of the holidays. May we embrace the small rich moments in between the frenetic hours of shopping, cooking, and gift-wrapping, to experience gratitude and to offer our prayers. Perhaps gratitude consciousness will help us to prepare our hearts and souls for the true sacredness of the sacred season that is swiftly approaching.

Retreat and Renewal

Taking the time for retreat during the routine of everyday life is a gift for the body, mind, and spirit.  Last week I was in Arizona on retreat with a community of women friends who are wise and wonderful soul sisters. 

Time away from the daily "to dos" allowed space for experiencing something other than my usual pattern of living.  Retreat offers renewal for the senses, the conduits to God and the world of Spirit. 

There is a spaciousness of time, of untime when on retreat.  The usual clock-watching (chronos time) that is important to keep me on track everyday, falls away when I'm on retreat.  The space where time is not "clocked" (kairos time) opens to the freedom of being fully present in the moment.  Returning home to scheduled time, appointments, and daily responsibilities has made me acutely aware of how important it is to create kairos time....time to breathe, and BE.

I've decided that one way to do this is to pause once or twice a day and go outside into our courtyard and fill up my senses with the sights and sounds of nature.  This simple exercise for five or ten minutes allows me to slip into the spaciousness of untime and I return to my work and daily "to dos" refreshed and re-energized.  Building in little snippets of retreat time throughout the day replenishes my spirit and returns me to my center.

Contemplative Reading

Lately I've been reading Scripture, the Liturgy of the Hours, and various writings of the saints and mystics, as a contemplative practice known as Lectio Divina. This ancient monastic tradition is centered in the process of slow contemplative reading and experiencing of the Scriptures which allows the Word of God to become a means of spiritual union with the Divine.  I have discovered that this sacred form of reading/listening, meditation, prayer, and contemplation can be applied to a variety of sacred texts.

Many have referred to Lectio Divina as an ancient art.  It begins with listening deeply with "the ear of our hearts" as St. Benedict described the process.  This means being still, sitting in silence, as the words on the page are slowly read and embodied through the heart and senses.  This practice requires quieting down to be fully present to the lectio....reading...of the chosen sacred text.

Once a passage appears that speaks to me in a personal way I begin to meditate upon the meaning that is the beginning of the meditatio.....meditation stage of lectio divina.  This is an important step of the process where I open my consciousness to allow the Word I am reading to become personally meaningful in a way that touches and inspires me at the deepest level.

Oratio....prayer...is the third stage.  This is the place where I allow what I have been meditating, to begin to create change and awareness within my heart and mind.  I have been reading, listening, and meditating and now I open myself in loving conversation with God to fully embody what I have received.

Finally, I simply rest in contemplatio....contemplation of the presence of God who has inspired my heart.  I am in silence.  I let go into this time of embracing the fullness of the experience.

I must say that the practice of lectio divina is opening my heart and spirit in ways I have not previously explored in such depth.  As the days grow shorter, I find myself seeking ways to enrich my spirit.  Through lectio divina I am moving more deeply into my spirit.

Ordination Day July 25, 2005

On July 25, 2005 I was ordained a Roman Catholic womandeacon, together with eight other women who were ordained (five as womendeacons and four as womenpriests) on a boat sailing on International waters on the St. Lawrence Seaway in Canada.  It was a day I shall always remember as a turning point in my life. It was the day I formally consecrated my life in service to God. 

To read about the history of the Roman Catholic Womenpriests movement please visit our website at http://www.romancatholicwomenpriests.org. 

The above photo was taken during the laying on hands portion of the ordination.  Bishop Gisela Forster from Germany (on the left) and Bishop Patricia Fresen (on the right) from Germany and South Africa with Bishop Christine Mayr-Lumetzberger presided. Two hundred fifty people attended and many from the press were also in attendence.  You may read my reflections in an interview that took place following my ordination at:

http://www.montereycountyweekly.com/issues/Issue.07-28-2005/news/Article.news1

As a womandeacon I offer spiritual mentoring to women and I serve as a volunteer chaplain at our local hospice.  I also officiate baptisms and weddings and I belong to a House Church that meets  monthly.

House Churches were the first churches that emerged after Christ's death and resurrection. There is archaelogical evidence of women's full participation in the Sacraments of the early church when they served as priests, deacons, and even bishops.

A primary call in my life is centered in prayer. Praying for others, for the healing of the planet, and for the cessation of war, paves the road to both inner and outer peace, individually and globally. Please scroll down to the next post if you would like to be added to my prayer list.

I am blessed to live near two of my sisters on the Holy Road....Victoria Rue (center) who was ordained a womanpriest following her previous diaconate ordination in 2004 on the Danube River....and Kathleen Strack (right) who was ordained a womandeacon on July 25th.  We meet together monthly to support one another's journeys and to learn from from one another as we grow into our ministries. I am grateful to these blessed women and the others in our organizaton for their wisdom and inspiration.  There are Roman Catholic womenpriests and womendeacons in Canada, the United States, and Europe, and our movement is growing.  Many new candidates are now preparing for our next ordination to be held in 2006.

My husband is a constant source of support and guidance for me as I follow my journey of faith.  He introduced me as a candidate for ordination on that very hot and beautiful afternoon on the St. Lawrence.

It was deeply moving to witness the introduction of each woman as they were presented to the congregation by friends and family members.

While we sailed along on the St. Lawrence, crowded together in the heat, surrounded by loved ones and throngs of clicking cameras, I felt I was sailing into a future offering hope and transformation for the Church.

I pray my sisters and I continue to sail together, stopping from time to time to welcome others to join us on the seas of change.  I pray that as we follow our collective and individual callings we will sail one day into the healed and re-imagined Church where all are welcome, as Christ Jesus intended.

Thank you to my beloved circle of wise women friends, my mother, my daughter, my brother, my husband, and my son for your precious support and presence in my life.  You are held in my heart and in my prayers. 

Additional articles pertaining to the St. Lawrence Ordination may be viewed at:

http://www.womensordination.org/pages/art_Forks

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2005/07/25/1147102-cp.html

http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/072605WB.shtml