Music Sharing

The Power of Beauty in the Internet/Global Sharing:

Stand By Me International Street

International Orchestra

We can work together for beauty and good in our world.

Praying for Peace in Africa

Prayer for Peace in Africa

Easter dawn

Happy Easter

Cold in the Tomb

I took a walk yesterday morning. And it was colder than expected. While I love the path around our woods, part of the time I was just focused on being cold.

How petty, it seemed after a while. Good Friday. Surely Jesus cold in the tomb trumps my poor-judgment-caused discomfort.

In these past months, how many people have been left "out in the cold"--suffering the worst effects of the economy.

Cold in the tomb: way beyond physical cold. What about people who are freezing inside because they are lost, lonely, afraid...in some way or another alienated and therefore burdened by the absence of knowing they are loved in the ways that matter.

People so cold and confused and full of sorrow and despair that their only solution is opening fire on a world that has somehow failed them?

Is this not some part of the Easter promise in which we are called to participate?
the communion of love in which all find a home in God's reign of love? in which there are other solutions? in which we get through this precisely because we get through it together?

Holy Week Meandering

We had the reading of the Passion yesterday morning. A couple of things struck me differently than I remember from past years.

Peter: boldly proclaims his loyalty, promptly betrays, weeps in sorrow.
Jesus between two thieves.

And it's ok. Jesus' closest followers have been getting it "wrong" for millennia and the deal (aka covenant) is not broken. God still trusts us as partners in bringing about good news.

Come closer, friend

At mass the other day, I was sitting on the end of a pew in a spot with obstructed view. My often buddy in said spot gestured and whispered, "Come closer, friend."

As we seek to create a transformed world by living differently, finding the way to respect differences while belonging to each other in one creation, one body, one mission...can be difficult.

Come closer, friend...

Such a simple, practical, elegant way to live into oneness.

Thank you, Sister Blanche.

Mission seeking

Seeking mission
Mission seeking
Mission: seeking

It's Lent and I am trying, though words are often elusive.

I'm rereading Entering the Castle, in which Carolyn Myss explores Teresa of Avila and invites the reader to a life as a mystic without a monastery.

As a contemporary mystic, you are measured by the quality of attitude you bring to all your tasks, by your capacity to be a model of generosity, and by challenging the fear that there is not enough to go around in this world--whether that is money, love, food, fame, power, attention, success, or social position. Mystical service means modeling calm in chaos, kindness amid anger, forgiveness at all times, personal integrity--to live, in other words, mindful that every second offers a choice either to channel grace or to withhold it. (p. 29)

I find this inviting, challenging, overwhelming.

In seeking mission, I am seeking that integrity that in every way, in every moment is mindful of the greater good, the cosmic communion in which we are all one and therefore there is no we-they, no above-below, nothing beneath me, nothing beyond me, all in all in love.

Here is my purpose and call: to keep this in mind as I try to plan my day, my week, my months and year ahead in a job that is a lot about being open to hope, opportunity, encounter, communion.

Jubilee Witness and Challenge

We are celebrating Jubilees today--Sisters with 60, 65 and 70 years of commitment and service to the mission of Jesus. Some of them I have been privileged to know for many years. (a little rough glimpse: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XCMh1TGCsk )

This witness of long service and commitment stands in stark contrast to the apparent superficiality of so much involvement. As I continue to explore "cybermission," it makes me wonder about many things. FaceBook makes it very easy for me to click and join a new cause--that I do believe in (ending child prostitution, peace...) and also easy for me to post my causes (Darfur, AIDS) and hope that others will be influenced.

And clicking I can feel that I am DOING something (rather than NOTHING).

But am I?

Is a click, a post actually transforming relationship and action? Does it create in me a new heart and/or do anything to turn swords into ploughshares? Does it create peace, justice?

Sally McFague speaks of contemplatives in liberation. "The Christian practice of radical love knows no bounds: it does not stop at any border, even the human one."

Our amazing Sisters have crossed so many boundaries to make God's love visible. Their lives truly witness to Christ in whom all is redeemed and made one.

Seeking Vision

I will live of life of vision rooted in God's love for all...rooted in God's will for all: communion: one bread, one body.

I shall stand at my post,
I shall station myself on my watch-tower,
watching to see what God will say to me,
what answer God will make to my complaint.

Then Yahweh answered me and said,

Write the vision down
inscribe it on tablets
to be easily read
for the vision is for its
appointed time
it hastens towards its
end and it will not lie.
Although it may
take some time
wait for it
for come it certainly will before too long.

~Habakkuk 2:1-3

When vision calls us, informs us, pulls (or pushes) us, we are reminded and drawn into the bigger purpose. God's enterprise is about love. Love that is patient, kind, tolerant. Love that is just, merciful, transforming. Love that draws us into the One who is One. It's organic, interactive, (and, of course, beyond our knowing and understanding).

So the vision requires hope and humility, purpose and persistance, love and longing. And it will take time.

I shall stand at my post...watching to see what God will say to me....

Differences, Conversation, Hope

I have been reading a book by Margaret J. Wheatley that promotes conversation. In Turning to One Another she shares lots of interesting and thought provoking ideas.

This is the one that stays with me the most:

It's not our differences that divide us. It's our judgments about each other that do. (p. 36)

It is very easy to judge--I seem to be exceptionally good at it.

Wheatley is promoting conversation as a means--Conversation is the natural way we humans think together.

But I am also challenged to understand something beyond this. (Which is not to say that it wouldn't be good to keep working on my listening skills.)

But if conversation is the way humans think together
is contemplation the way all creation thinks together?