Thursday nights I’m taking a class on Buddhist ritual at the local university.  I’ve enjoyed a lot about it, not the least of which have been my classmates.  The first night we had a chance to introduce ourselves and say why we were there, and I left all warm inside.  Such a diverse and good-hearted group, coming from many traditions and there for a mix of soulful reasons.

But last night…

Last night was very bad.  Each week a different practitioner comes to share about a different ritual, and this week was meditation.  Meditation:  fine enough. 

But the instructor turned out to be a very prestigious fellow…with a very jaded persona.  As he lectured and answered questions, he stomped all over things that many in the room hold sacred.  He tore down meaning from a variety of religious traditions and spiritual practices (including his own).  He said he doesn’t believe any of it, and couldn’t give a reason for why he personally meditates, for why he converted from atheism to Zen.  He left us with only an empty skeleton of theory to stand on, and the bitterness of nihilism in our throats.

I have many thoughts as I leave that experience.  One is how deadening and disheartening it is to be in the presence of a soul like that.  I’m not a stranger to anomie, to cynicism, to a jadedness that masks a roiling rage, or a wrenching well of grief inside.  I will not say to anyone “just be happy.”  I will, however, suggest that the souls around us are immensely worth protecting, and too the fragile hope that many of us work hard to maintain:  that life is holy, that there is wonder in the world, that sacred ritual nourishes important parts of us, that there is meaning and joy to be discovered, even in unlikely places.  When our darkness grows big enough that we can’t contain it, that we can’t keep from trampling those around us, I think we have no business leading.  We have no business being people who teach and are imitated.

Our instructor should not have been with us last night.

Nourishing hope and joy and a sense that life is good are some of the noblest and most courageous acts we can do in a world like ours.  And I think it’s quite alright that we can’t always get there – even that many of us will never get there.  But when possible, when we know ourselves or those around us well enough to recognize when hope is being killed, I think standing up with a guttural NO is what’s needed – a “NO, I will not sit back and let important things die.  I will not sit passive as I or those around me spread death.”

Mama bears are what we need sometimes, even coming from within to deal with parts of our own selves.  Mama bears that rear up and roar and then know when softness is needed again.

Early morning walks

Spider webs dressed in dew

Blood red poppies

Flowering vines

Orange blossoms

Bugs (except when they’re touching me)

The smell of my grandparents’ garage

Freshly washed sheets

Building things out of wood

Hardware stores

Homemade applesauce

Friends

Laughing with friends

Laughing alone

Good conversations

Learning

Hugs

Generously padded chairs

Babies in front-packs

Happy dogs in moving vehicles

Sleeping cats

A clean kitchen

Freshly baked bread

Warm socks in winter

Naked feet in summer

Anklets

Beads

Home grown tomatoes

Boysenberry pie

Wind

Trees

Open spaces

Rolling hills

Dramatic skies

Moonlight

Firelight

Roasting marshmallows

Seeing/sensing/touching/tasting/breathing holiness

Driving with the windows down on warm nights

Richard Rohr

Joan Chittister

Sue Monk Kidd

Sushaku Endo

Robert Pirsig

Jon Miller in the background

Good dreams

Picnics

Back rubs

Personable checkers at the grocery store

Liking myself

Sitting down, freshly showered, for a day of writing

(Did all of you already know that "murmur" has two u’s and no "e"?  Where have I been?)  Okay.  Heart update:  heart is gonna be fine.  And baby too.  Apparently I have a heart murmer - I mean murmur - that has been with me my whole life (I’ve had a history of palpitations, but until now no explanation for them).  Pregnancy has aggravated it - thus the funky beats - but no where close to how aggravated it has to be to unhappify the baby.  And all my blood work came back great.

So I am waltzing into the weekend with a smile on my face, and a peaceful knowledge that all this means is probably taking some heart-regulating meds by the time I reach 50.  So go ahead heart, miss a few beats.  See if I don’t only shrug…

I haven’t mentioned being pregnant for a while here, and since being pregnant is a lot that’s on my mind these days, I think I’ll go ahead and bring it up again.  You see, in addition to all the amazingness of having a little creature kicking around inside, and getting to see him (yes, it’s a boy) in fuzzy outlines on the ultrasound screen, something about his presence in my body is making my heart do very strange things.  Like dance the funky chicken minus any rhythm whatsoever.  A lot.

As funny as this might be to picture, it isn’t funny to feel.  And my energy level is starting to act like I’m running marathons constantly.  With a limp.

Sooo…I’ve had a bunch of blood work done to try to figure out what the problem is, and worn a monitor to record my heart for 24 hours, and now must wait until Friday to see the cardiologist who will hopefully divine some meaning from all the scores.  Please send happy, peaceful wishes to my dancing, a-rhythmic heart, and another few to the growing baby whom, I only assume, needs it to work more properly.  Thanks.

For the last few months I’ve been making my way slowly through Stumbling Toward God, a memoir of a woman’s journey from atheism toward faith.  Her path ultimately led her to join and participate actively in two congregations, alternating weeks–each providing nourishment for different aspects and expressions of her spiritual and psychological and relational lives.  One church was Unitarian Universalist, the other Episcopalian.

I recommend the book not only to those on a similar journey to hers, but also to those already situated in a particular religious tradition, but who are growing uncomfortable with it, and having conscious or unconscious theological questions nagging at their insides.  Margaret McGee (the author of the book) has a wonderfully disarming way of naming the kinds of questions that many religious people feel, and, without ego, sharing the story of how she’s tried to address them.

Sitting in the doctor’s office this morning, I read some paragraphs about her efforts at trying to understand who she was praying to when she began, after years of atheism, praying spontaneously to an unknown God.

"I never felt closer to God than when I turned my compost pile.  Forking over the compost, smelling the dark, sweet material, looking close to see the material come alive and move, a worm shining in sunlight, a millipede crawling toward shadow, a slug burrowing into a grapefruit rind.  The sense of awe, the strange mix of pride and humility that filled me.  What did I pray to?  Was I praying to the source of that awe?

"Yes, in a way.

"I prayed to what all things hold in common.  I prayed to what makes life.  I thought about the elements of the universe, the rocks, the stars, the air, other living things.  I tried to get the perspective of what’s behind all that.  I prayed to the force that brings things into existence.  I thought this force encompassed all it created.  My God was transcendent, and my God was also immanent.  God ran in my veins.  God lived and died and lived again in every atom of the universe.

"When I prayed, I tried to feel that I was part of God, and God was part of me.  Through that feeling, I tried to grasp what I could do, how I could change to make a whole life, a good life.

"By stripping away God’s personality, I had revealed what was essential to me about God.  God was no longer blank [a frustration she had in prayer that spurred her to try to discover, in the first place, what seemed most essential about God ].  God made all things, caused all things to change into other things, and inhabited all things.

"Everything else about God was a mystery.  I could live with that mystery."

A little later, under a subheading titled "Dressing the Emporer," she says this:

"It’s hard to talk about God.  And when you strip away personality and characteristics, it gets a lot harder.  After struggling to be coherent about something that is, in its essence, a mystery, it occurred to me that religions were just trying to put a bit of clothing on the unknowable, so that we could see a shape and talk about it.  Shiva, the Buddha, the Trinity, the great web of being–all these images were metaphors for what is truly unspeakable.  All religions use substitute names for God, and we get in serious trouble when we think we’re using the real name.  I had mistaken the clothing that religions put on their Gods for the God that animates the robes.

"It isn’t that God is a human creation, any more than gravity is a human creation.  Our definitions of God are human creations, though, just as our definitions of gravity are human creations.  Our attempts to describe gravity are flawed not only because we still have things to learn about gravity, but also because we can perceive gravity only through our human mind and senses.  We’ll always know only a human idea of gravity and not gravity itself.

"Once I saw God in this light, the outfits that people put on God began to look less stupid and more useful.  The Hebrew God, who had repelled me all the time I was an atheist outside the church, turned out to be a surprisingly accurate human representation of the forces of creation and fate:  arbitrary and powerful; by turns just, unjust, nurturing, vengeful, forgiving, and unforgiving; and above all, always with us.  I was still mad at the guy, but at least I had some glimmering of how he got his reputation."

I guess that gives a taste of McGee’s honesty and candor (admittedly taken out of broader context; scandalized readers, please note).  I’m looking forward to hearing more of her story.  (…or is it mine?)

The air was crisp on my morning walk this morning, and the sky sea blue.  Sun glanced off of spider webs and fence posts and tiny green worms, hanging from trees by silken threads.  Virgin leaves glowed transparent green.  Flowers are in bloom everywhere, on every plant and tree and vine and bush imaginable, and even in the morning chill smell sweet.  I didn’t want to get out of bed this morning, but this world just past my front door, this world of wordless thriving: its newness and freshness and textures and scents and colors are contagious.  My sluggish heart couldn’t help but be infected.

It seems like many of us around the blogosphere are finding it hard to write these days.  Many are taking intentional sabbaticals to tend to other aspects of life that have been suffering.  Many feel tired of hearing their own voices, their own lines, their own soapboxes voiced so many times.  Or are in the midst of intense internal growth, and don’t have the words or energy or inclination to try to put such stuff into print.

So we surf.  We surf other people’s sites.  We surf, hungry for words or images that will lift our souls, bring smiles to our faces, make the world seem fresh and new and alive and worth engaging in again.  And all too often, when we’re corporately doing the same thing, we click a million times and see only posts we’ve read before.  “Hallooo!  Hello?” we say to our favorite sites.  “I’m ready; time for you to post something new!”

The thought occurred to me as I walked this morning that when we or those around us are discouraged or unavailable or without internal space to write, nature can become a nourishing and comforting and inspiring companion.  Particularly this time of year.  Though without words, it communicates volumes – both literally, as birds and squirrels and bees all voice their business, but also figuratively, with color, with scent, with leaves and petals reaching hands and cheeks and faces toward the sun.  With trees standing silent, dependable watch.  With rain, even, voicing our rage or grief or tears, or echoing the baptisms we’re feeling inside.  So much to hear out there.  So much to learn from and ponder and simply soak in.

I’m encouraged to find peopled and unpeopled ways to be fed today with the things my soul most needs.