Category: Creation

Beauty of Nature, Beekeeping, Creation, God’s creation, Honeybees, Nature, Rev. Kathy Manis Findley

Three Echoes Away

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Photography by Josephine Amalie Paysen, Upsplash

I have always been drawn to honeybees, mesmerized by them and by the beekeepers who care for them. Once many years ago, I put on the beekeepers garb and that big, fashionable hat with the dark veil of netting. A friend who had several hives was teaching me how to handle the bees. I actually held them in my hands, rather hesitantly, while noticing how gently the beekeeper held them. From this uncomfortably close proximity, I was able to listen to the buzzing sound of the honeybees, buzzing that I did not hear as harsh, but rather hushed. The honeybees greeted him when he approached the hive. When he held them in his hands and they moved up his arms, it looked like a graceful dance of the beekeeper and his constantly moving honeybees totally in sync with one another. How could one not be enchanted by this wonder of creation?

Yesterday while reading a fascinating interview with Tom Blue Wolf, I was reminded of those breathtaking moments I spent with the honeybees. Tom is a descendant of the AniCoosa, which means “peaceful people,” who are also known as the Creek Tribe, which is a part of the Muscogee Nation. He is a Native American spiritual guide, a man in love with nature, and a keeper of honeybees. One of the questions he was asked in the interview was, “What is it like to be in the presence of the bees, to listen to them?” This is how Tom Blue Wolf responded.

Creator is always talking to us. Most of us are about seven echoes away from the true voice of the Creator. Try to get closer, try to get maybe three echoes away. If you get too close, it’s almost too intense for most people. Like a burning bush. Aaaaah!

His response to the follow-up question was just as intriguing . . .

“What do you and the bees do for each other on the spiritual journey?

How is your relationship to them a spiritual one?”

They give life, and we protect it. We keep the harm away from them; we protect them. I have been in love with honeybees all my life . . . We beekeepers are integral to the bees’ world. They know us; they are in our dreams. We tend to them barefoot, they crawl all over us, they kiss us, they tickle us. It’s hard to talk about. So, of course we think it’s spiritual. Absolutely. The bees love us and we love them.

That kind of spiritual relationship between a human being and one of God’s created inhabitants of the earth would place any of us in a sacred space. Tom Blue Wolf described a state of being as “three echoes away from the true voice of the Creator.” It’s the kind of space most of us never enter, and for so many reasons—we don’t have time; we’re busy with our jobs; we have children to care for, laundry to do, and a plethora of responsibilities listed on the to-do list we seldom complete. We simply get too busy to embrace the beauty of nature and draw closer to the Creator.

Tom Blue Wolf would summon us, if he could, to be “three echoes away” from God’s true voice. So he writes about the Creator, the creation and the importance of protecting it, and our role as caretakers. He urges humans to follow the guidelines of Saint Francis, who thought it critical to have a close and enduring relationship with nature.

From the years I spent as a postulant in the Order of Ecumenical Franciscans, I learned about the many ways Saint Frances was devoted to the best characteristics of what it means to be a human being on the planet: benevolent, loving, kind, gentle, merciful, reverent, respectful. He treated every life form with dignity.

Saint Francis helps us pull ourselves out of the trap of being completely focused on two-legged humans. An example of that shows how most people describe a destructive incident only be the impact it has on humans. They might report, for instance, that a plane crashed and “we lost 180 people.” Or “the fire killed four hundred people.” In contrast, Saint Francis would say, “Not only did we lose four hundred brothers and sisters, but we also lost three thousand acres of Mother Earth’s flesh. We lost sixty-four thousand winged ones. We lost untold amounts of water, and what’s left is toxic and the ones that swim are no longer with us.”

Like Saint Frances, perhaps we should focus more of our attention on the natural world, the magnificent creation given to us by the Creator God we worship. For one thing, attention to the creation and its Creator draws us into holy moments that we desperately need for our spiritual nurture. If we lean into those holy moments, and linger there for a time, the burdens we carry could become lighter. The cares that dishearten us might become uncommonly dim. And we just might find ourselves in a most sacred space—the one that places us “three echoes away” from God’s whisper. And as an added grace, perhaps we will also hear the gentle buzz of honeybees!

May it be so for each of us.

Beauty of Nature, Creation, Darkness, God’s creation, Light, Night sky, Spiritual and emotional darkness

Needing More than Light

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Northern Lights illuminate the dark sky in Kolari, Finland on January 15, 2022.
Photo by Irene Stachon Lehtikuva/AFP/Getty Images

If you know me at all, you know that I am a minister, an artist and a writer. Those three are not all of who I am, but they encompass a big chunk of my identity. You may also know that I find deep spiritual nurture from images like the Northern Lights image above. It’s breathtaking. I cannot fathom the sense of wonder of a person who is physically present, in person, looking up into this wondrous sky.

What sort of Creator gave us the ethereal experience of witnessing these Lights of the North? What grace we receive when we take even a moment to breathe it in, to see its splendor, even in a photograph! As spiritual beings who are on a pilgrimage on this earth, we know what it is like to experience darkness.

I imagine that we do everything we can to avoid the dark places of our journey. You know about those dark places—losing a loved one, living with illness, being suddenly injured, moving out of your home, dealing with a troubled child . . . We know about the dark places. We know about the pandemic that has upended our lives and left us in an unknowable, seemingly endless darkness.

We also know about struggling to get to light. We know about walking through the darkness for so long that we become almost desperate to see light again. The LIGHT—that amazing miracle that shatters the darkness and brightens our path.

Of course, we long for it! Sometimes we live through so much darkness—physical, emotional and spiritual darkness—that we almost need more than light. Sometimes we need release, room to breathe, freedom to experience. Sometimes we need an expanse above us, a newness we can fully experience and the inspiration to soar in the clouds until we sense something new and fresh. Sometimes we just need more than light.

So there is light, and then there are the Northern Lights. And we can at least see them in images. When we do see them, our souls might take a deep breath. These lights are different than the lights we usually count on. These Lights of the North are more than the lights that guide us along the journey and through the darkness. These lights are almost mystical—light and color and vastness. These are lights that come as if God is writing “hope” in the sky with an electric-neon crayon. Angela Abraham describes the Northern Lights in a unique way.

The Northern lights were a river of green in the midnight blue. They were what dreams could be if they were ever allowed to dance so free. The northern lights were green rivers in the black heavens, a congregation of stars, how they resonate with my soul.

— Angela Abraham

That’s it! Lights that resonate with the soul. For you, the light that feeds your soul could come from the light of brilliant stars, or moonlight, or sunrise, or even holiday lights. For me on this day, my soul awakened when I took the time to see the splendor of the Northern Lights. In a way I can’t really explain, I looked and I lingered, and then the dancing green light against the black sky caused my spirit to take flight, just for a few minutes. I realized that this was not just about light, it was also about indescribable beauty that can be seen best in God’s creation.

In the words of Angela Abraham, ”Nature’s beauty is an echo of creation’s song, it lives out there and within, as if we are spoken into being together.” I was transported to thoughts of a Creator who gave us not only life and breath, but also gave us extravagant beauty.

Maybe you need more than light right now. When circumstances are dark and bleak in my life, I often need more than light. In fact, like most strugglers and travelers on this journey of life, I have learned to get around in the dark. Most of the time, I can walk through darkness blindly and reach my destination. Barbara Brown Taylor’s book, ”Learning to Walk in the Dark,” is filled with bits of wisdom that I hang on to when I’m in a dark place.

I have learned things in the dark that I could never have learned in the light, things that have saved my life over and over again, so that there is really only one logical conclusion. I need darkness as much as I need light. There is a light that shines in the darkness, which is only visible there.

— Barbara Brown Taylor

It is true that sometimes I need more than light. Sometimes I need a grace-gift that reminds me that I am a small speck in a vast universe, and that the Creator that formed our immense, extravagant, beautiful world also created us, each of us tiny specks known by God. Sometimes I need more than light, but what I need is already mine to see—a world filled with beauty that takes my breath away.

Oh, just one more thing about me . . . when beauty really reaches the deep places of my soul, I often burst into song. For today, looking at the beauty of the Lights of the North, I am singing John Rutter’s, ”For the Beauty of the Earth.” Maybe you would like to sing it too, or at least listen to it. Find it below, turn up your volume and give praise to the Creator for giving us the beauty of the earth.

For the beauty of the earth,
For the beauty of the skies,
For the love which from our birth
Over and around us lies,
Lord of all, to thee we raise
This our hymn of grateful praise.

For the beauty of each hour
Of the day and of the night,
Hill and vale, and tree and flow’r,
Sun and moon, and stars of light,
Lord of all, to thee we raise
This our hymn of grateful praise.

For the joy of human love,
Brother, sister, parent, child,
Friends on earth, and friends above,
For all gentle thoughts and mild,
Lord of all, to thee we raise
This our hymn of grateful praise.

Music by John Rutter (1980) 
Lyrics by Folliott S. Pierpoint, 1835-1917

Birdsong, Calm, Creation, Fear, Grace, Knowing, Life’s meaning, Listening, Paul Simon, peace, Prayer, Quiet, Reflection, Sacred Pauses, Sacred Space, Self Awareness, Self care, Self-understanding, Serenity, Silence, Simon and Garfunkel, Soul, Soul work, Spirituality, Stillness, The Sound of Silence, Whispers of the Soul, Wholeness

One Day I Listened

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I wonder if you would be willing to stop what you’re doing right now and spend a quiet moment with me, just listening? Your time might well be a needed time for you and for your soul.

There is always so much to listen to — traffic, sirens, video game sounds, annoying household noise like the washing machine/dryer, food processor, mixer, fans, buzzers and alarms and the awful sound of the disposal trying to crush that inadvertent chicken bone. These, of course, are not our favorite sounds, but they are the myriad sounds and noises we hear in a typical day.

There are sweeter sounds, too, like the sound of a gentle, falling rain or the sound of rain when it hits hard on the roof; the sound of a gusty breeze as it rustles the leaves on a tree; the sound of a flowing stream, a rolling river and constant, ever-rushing ocean sounds; the flutter of a hummingbird’s wings; the sound of cicadas on a Southern summer night; the sound of a child’s laughter; the sweet, peaceful sound of a purring kitten; and birdsong, always birdsong.

Of course, listening as pure joy is listening to music — quiet music, lyrical melodies, rhythms that slow the pulse, the sound of a bow moving across a cello’s strings, the mesmerizing sound of a harp, the velvet sound of voices in harmony or the enthralling sound of a symphony orchestra.

Sounds fill the space that surrounds us, all the time. What is rarer for us is to hear the sound of silence. Some of us fear the silence or dread silent moments. Others of us avoid it at all costs because the silence tends to bring up whatever we are afraid to hear. So the noise that enfolds us fills the place that might otherwise hear the sighs of the soul — its cries and laments, its laughter, its sound of contentedness. It seems to me that this is the place we long to be, in the soul’s sound chamber where whatever we hear — if we’re listening carefully — is the song of the soul that tells us who we are and why we are.

There is a poem that many of you will remember (if you’re old enough) as a Simon and Garfunkel song from the 1960s. The poem was written by Paul Simon and it presents a frightening picture of the modern world doomed by the lack of spirituality and the people’s aversion to the true meaning of life. It is not so different in these days that spirituality and life meaning can be elusive, no matter how hard we may search for it and yearn for it.

The poem, entitled The Sound of Silence, is written by the voice of a visionary asking people to be serious about the true meaning of life. The poem’s message is that people are moving further and further away from true happiness because they have ignored life’s true meaning. They debate and quarrel about worthless things. They listen to or watch meaningless things. The poet writes that the people “speak and hear without listening. Like we often do?

Throughout its five stanzas, the poem presents the conflict between spiritual and material values. The poetic persona is a person of vision who warns against the lack of spiritual seriousness. The poem begins with an address by the poet persona to the darkness, saying that he has come to talk with the darkness. When he awakens, he says that the vision still remains as the sound of silence.

Some of us fear the silence or dread silent moments. Others avoid it at all costs because the silence tends to bring up whatever they are afraid to hear. So the noise that enfolds us fills the place that might otherwise hear the sighs of the soul — its cries and laments, its laughter, its sounds of contentedness. It seems to me that this is the place we long to be, in the soul’s sound chamber where whatever we hear — if we’re listening carefully — is the song of the soul that tells us who we are and why we are.

The words of the poet . . .

And in the naked light, I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said,
“The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls”
And whispered in the sound of silence

All of that trivia about the poem certainly moved us a little farther away from my point, which is that most, if not all, of us have a deep emotional and spiritual need to listen to our souls, really listen. Even if we don’t know it, we long to hear what the depth of our being wants to say to us. We want to find our true selves, a quest only our souls can accomplish. If we are honest, we would say that we want to do the soulwork that leads us out of the darkness of our own making and into a place of light.

When we do carve out a sacred pause, when we wait in the darkness of that silent space, and when we open ourselves to deep listening, we will likely hear God’s whisper. We will probably move slowly out of darkness and realize the promise that as “God’s own people” we will “proclaim the mighty acts of God who called us out of darkness into his marvelous light.”   (1 Peter 2:9)

This is the place we long to be, in the soul’s sound chamber where whatever we hear — if we’re listening carefully — is the song of the soul that tells us who we are and why we are.

— Rev. Kathy Manis Findley

Hearing God’s voice moves us to a deeper experience of life, but hearing our soul’s sighs may take us deeper still, because we open ourselves to self-knowing. It’s not a surface knowing. It is a deep knowing of who it is that lives in our skin. Without hearing the sighs our souls are making, we might never enter into fullness of self. I suggest that only the fullness of who we are can stand before the God who knows us even better than we know ourselves. 

In my own experience, I think that perhaps I cannot be in deep communion with God if I try to face God as my superficial self. Perhaps God seeks relationship with my soul, my deepest place of being. To find and define my soul for myself, to know myself fully, I must find the sound of silence and sit with it patiently and expectantly. Maybe that is the essence of spirituality.

So there are a few lessons in these words and these are the obvious lessons:

  • Limit the harsh sounds in your life.
  • Surround yourself with tender, gentle sounds.
  • Make sacred space and holy time to listen deeply for the sounds that speak to your soul.
  • Listen for God’s whispers. They are important to hear.
  • Always consider what is, for you, the true meaning of life.
  • Listen to your soul — its sighs, its cries, its songs. 

And who knows? If you linger for a while in your sacred listening space, you might just find the very essence of grace by hearing what your soul whispers to you. It will be the most beautiful sound of all.

— Rev.Kathy Manis Findley


One day I listened — really listened. And I heard the whisper of God and the song of my soul. Thanks be to God.

I invite you to hear the poem, “The Sound of Silence,” through music. It can rightly be said that no group or person could ever sing this as well as Simon and Garfunkel, but I thought you might enjoy it covered by a very popular contemporary a cappella group, Pentatonix. 


The Sound of Silence by Paul Simon

Awakening, Awareness, Beauty of Nature, Bondage, Change, Contemplation, Creation, Creativity, Emotions, Feelings, God's presence, Grace, Hemmed in, Here I am, Lord., Holy Ground, Holy Spirit, Hope, Insight, Inspiration, Introspection, Isolation, Loneliness, Mystery, Psalm 139, Sacred Pauses, Sacred Space, Soul, Spirit, Transformation, Walls, Wisdom, Writing

Hemmed In!

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There are large scale, widespread forces that can trap thousands of people, even millions. Dachau, Katrina, earthquakes, tsunamis, wildfires, natural disasters all over the world and the Coronavirus of 2020. Enormous, catastrophic events can trap people. COVID19 has literally trapped me inside my home. I have to admit, the isolation has taken a toll on my spirit. No visitors! No visits with friends or family. No trips! No haircuts! I have been trapped at some level since my kidney transplant in November. Just at the March milestone that would have allowed me to break the isolation of the transplant, I was even more fully trapped by the infectiousness of this pervasive, unrelenting virus.

Being trapped for so many months has raised up in me feelings of loneliness, isolation, powerlessness, despair, anxiety, even abandonment. And yet, often there is something very good in the center of something very bad. It has been so for me. Yes, I feel trapped in the pervasive power of the coronavirus, but I also sense the arms of God and the embrace of Spirit hemming me in even further. Such a grace-gift it has been to me, as if God has said, “l am hemming you in, and in this space you will hear me clearer and sense me more fully.”

God’s words were truth. Hemmed in, my mind flourished, my heart leapt and my soul entered spaces of calm. I felt enhanced awareness! Even awakening. I saw nature in a different way and basked in the beauty of the rising sun. The sound of the hummingbirds’ trill and the rapid fluttering of their translucent wings were sounds meant just for me. I began to write and paint, to listen more carefully to God’s voice, to allow my spirit to overflow with Holy Spirit. To my hemmed-in call from God, I was compelled to answer, “Here I am, Lord!” When I finally answered God, my hemmed-in place became Holy Ground — a very good place to be that feels more like a holy mystery than a state of being.

Was this pandemic a good thing for me and for millions of people? Absolutely not! But trapped in its dark cloud, God hemmed me in further in ways I am just now beginning to understand. I can say with all honesty that being hemmed in by God has been grace to me.

If I could even begin to choose a favorite Psalm from among the many that inspire me, I would choose Psalm 139. In its weaving of words, there are many passages that are full of comfort. From childhood, I memorized a lot of Scripture and throughout Psalm 139 I memorized several snippets that I often call to mind. One verse that I did not memorize is verse 5: “You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me.”

You have searched me, Lord,
and you know me.

You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.

You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.

Before a word is on my tongue
you, Lord, know it completely.

You hem me in behind and before,
and you lay your hand upon me.

— Psalm 139:1-5 NIV

I deplore the coronavirus and what it has done to so many people. I deplore the ways it was able to trap me, physically and emotionally. But the virus, with all its ominous, far-reaching force could not trap me spiritually. That was God’s work — hemming me in so that my spirit could rise to fresh, new heights of spiritual consciousness. Being hemmed in by our Creator has been grace for me in these days of isolation. It has become a transforming sacred pause. For in my hemmed-in space, the Creator helped me create — from my mind, from my heart, from my soul. Thanks be to God.

Contemplation, Creation, Faith, Meditation, Night sky, Quietude, Sacred Pauses, Sacred Space, Supermoon, Uncategorized

Supermoons and Sacred Pauses

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What’s all this about supermoons and sacred pauses?

You might legitimately ask that question!

Well, this stream of thought began for me when astrological experts said that the Super Pink Moon that appeared on April 7th would be the “most super” of all supermoons this year. They also said that the moon would not be pink at all.

Before you get your hopes up, this “Super Pink Moon” won’t actually look “super pink”—or any hue of pink, really. The Moon will be its usual golden color near the horizon and fade to a bright white as it glides overhead.

— The Old Farmer’s Almanac (https://www.almanac.com/content/full-moon-april)

That information did not please me at all. I had really looked forward to seeing a pink moon. The Farmer’s Almanac — always a reliable source of information since its founding in 1792 — described what the April 7th moon would look like.

It is not to be missed — The Super Pink Moon: The Biggest and Brightest Supermoon of the Year! April’s full Moon will be closer to Earth than any other supermoon in the series. It will be the biggest and brightest full Moon of 2020! How big and how bright, exactly? On average, supermoons are about 7% bigger and about 15% brighter than a typical full Moon.

There you have it, from every farmer’s most tried and tested source on all things earth! But in addition to the disappointment that this supermoon would not be pink in any way, the most devastating disappointment of all was that on April 7, 2020, Macon, Georgia was completely overcast! For all gazing intentions, there was no moon at all that night, not a pink moon and not even a white one. Like other Middle Georgia folk, I missed the whole thing, the entire phenomenally astounding sight!

Other people in other places saw it, though, in all its splendor. They took pictures, some of which looked like a round, dull white ball in the sky. But others — including NASA of course — posted pictures of a brilliant, unforgettable moon. And one person took a stunning picture of this supermoon that was brilliant white and surrounded by an ethereal pink ring! And they said it would definitely not be pink!

The pink-ringed moon picture made me very happy! It was the emotional boost I needed in a time of pandemic isolation. In the midst of such a troubling and fear-filled time when all over the earth, a supervirus was touching people with upheaval, sickness and death, it was a very opportune time for an uplifting supermoon. Still, I wonder why it even mattered to me or anyone else. After all, moons rise and fall every single day. Even supermoons rise on a predictable astrological schedule.

So maybe my lesson here is acknowledging that I seldom go out at night just to gaze at the moon. When I notice a moon in passing, it’s as if I’m thinking, “So what! It’s just another moon!” And yet, the moon might be in the night sky just to remind me that the moon is the Creator’s metaphor for something that is everlasting, permanent and yet changing. I actually do look to the sky once in a while and see a new sliver of a moon on a cloudless night or a full moon glowing brightly enough to light my path. Ever so often, I’m thrilled by the discovery, as though I were seeing it for the first time.

Instead of ignoring a moon that appears most every night, perhaps moon gazing can be a spiritual moment that helps me know that at least something in my life is everlasting, that the promises of God are ever near, that my faith can light my path, that, as the Psalmist writes, the moon is eternal, a “faithful witness in the sky!”

It will be as eternal as the moon,
    my faithful witness in the sky!

— Psalm 89:37 NLT

Moon gazing can also be my time of spiritual comfort as I recall the words of the prophet Isaiah, who speaks of the rising of the sun and the moon as a part of binding up those who are injured and healing the wounds of God’s people.

Moreover the light of the moon will be like the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold, like the light of seven days, on the day when the Lord binds up the injuries of his people, and heals the wounds inflicted by his blow.

— Isaiah 30:26 NRSV

At the end of the day, we can know this: gazing at the moon can remind us of the magnificent smallness of humanity and the overwhelming magnificence of God. The Psalmist invites us to marvel at how we dearly we are prized by God in a Psalm that lifts up both Divine majesty and human dignity, unequivocally declaring that God cares for me, and that God cares for you.

O Lord, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens . . .

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars that you have established;
what are human beings that you are mindful of them,
mortals that you care for them?

Yet you have made them a little lower than God,
and crowned them with glory and honor.

You have given them dominion over the works of your hands;
you have put all things under their feet,

all sheep and oxen,
and also the beasts of the field,

the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea,
whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

O Lord, our Sovereign,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!

— Psalm 8:1, 3-9 NRSV

The last word in my story On this day is that the moon, the sun, the stars — all created things — are not merely created, they are God-created, and God’s creation may very well be worth a few extra moments of gazing into night’s quiet pauses — praying and praising, reflecting and listening. Listening for the voice of God. Listening for the sigh of the soul!

I love the photo of that moon surrounded by a pink circle of reflected light, because it was for me a divine and holy light. I know that it was divine and holy, because it abruptly stopped me. Just a picture it was, not the real moon that I might have seen in my night sky. Yet, it took on the power of my faith that has always assured me that God can be found in all things, simple or sacred, ordinary or holy.

My faith has taught me that, more times than not, a very ordinary thing — an ordinary act or an ordinary moment — can suddenly and surprisingly become holy. Just that one ethereal moon captured in a commonplace photograph silenced me, calmed me, reached into my soul and divinely interrupted me for a much needed sacred pause.

Maybe that’s the meaning of the words we often say about a picture being worth a thousand words. As for me, I will just say thanks be to God for beckoning me to night’s quiet pauses, sacred pauses that I needed so deeply.

 

 

Beauty of Nature, Birdsong, Challenge, Comfort, Creation, Inner joy, Music, Skies, Social distancing, Trees

For the Beauty of the Earth

kathymfindley

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All the beauty of the world,
the beauty that calls our admiration, our gratitude,
our worthship at the earthly level,
is meant as a set of hints, of conspiratorial whispers,
of clues and suggestions and flickers of light,
all nudging us into believing that behind the beautiful world
is not random chance but the loving God.  

— N.T. Wright, For All God’s Worth

These days I give over many of my thoughts to the millions of devastated lives that have been besieged by the coronavirus. I cannot stop the tears at times when I hear people tell their stories on news reports or when I see the ugliness of images around the world — people suffering, people in hunger, people grieving and languishing as the lives they once knew are snatched away from them. My one solace is a gift from a friend who is a lover of nature. She graces me every time we communicate with the many ways she has learned to find peace in the beauty of the world.

This morning, a cool wind was blowing as the sun warmed my face. I was warmed not only physically, but also emotionally and spiritually. All was quiet, except the wind, the flutter of hummingbird wings, the gentle tinkling of the wind chimes and the birdsong that I could hear all around me. I looked up into my favorite tree with its background of a perfect, cloudless bright blue sky. I could not help but notice the leaves in the tree, moving in the wind and presenting a shimmering display showing off hundreds of shades of green.

It carried me away, even if just for a few minutes, and I found myself embracing the beauty of the earth and the God who created it. I found a smidgen of comfort, peace and the kind of inner joy that is beyond any sorrow I might feel. Instead of being swallowed by the ugliness of the television news, I was blessed by delighting in the freshness and the beauty of the world around me.

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.  — Genesis 1:28-31

For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible . . . all things were created through him and for him.  — Collosians 1:16

In this present moment in time, I cannot help but see the finger of God in all of creation. I cannot help but offer praise to God through the words of the hymn we often sing, For the Beauty of the Earth.

For beauty of each hour
Of the day and of the night,
Hill and vale, and tree and flower,
Sun and moon and stars of light:
Christ, our God, to Thee we raise
This our grateful hymn of praise.

Text: Folliott Sandford Pierpoint; Music: William Chatterton Dix (1864)

I invite you to listen to the video below. For just a few moments, pay attention to this lovely hymn of praise, perhaps as part of your meditation time.

Adventures, Beauty of Nature, Contemplation, Creation, God's presence, Introspection, Meditation, Mindfulness, Praise, Prayer, Psalms, Questions, Restoration, Sacred Space, Serenity, Silence, simple joys, simple pleasures, Soul, Stillness

“My Soul in Silence Waits”

kathymfindley

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Photography by Jim Dailey: January 1, 2020, Lake Ouachita, Hot Springs, Arkansas

My dear, long-time friend, former Little Rock Mayor Jim Daily, sent me this photo this afternoon. Mayor Jim is a hiker, a camper, a photographer and a naturalist. He loves the outdoors. He is a person of profound thought, and he spends a good amount of his time in thoughtful contemplation — on a lake or an Arkansas River, in a verdant valley or on a mountaintop. He frequently blogs on what he calls his “adventures,” and his blog is filled with thoughts about wherever he is and whatever beauty he has found. For Jim, every day is a new adventure, and his adventures hold sway over him. They change him in so many ways

One more thing — As a tribute to my friend, Mayor Jim, I want to introduce you to his Blog, which you may enjoy viewing at this link: Last Pair of Boots

His Blog, called “Last Pair of Boots,” tells a poignant story — of nature’s beauty, of God’s presence in it, of friendships, of Arkansas’ and America’s holy places, of worship and contemplation and prayer. Here’s what Jim says about naming his blog:

The name “Last Pair of Boots” came to me when my ten year old boots broke down and it occurred to me that at my age the new pair of boots might be my last pair. Metaphorically my boots represent the trails and travels of life.

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Whitaker Point … aka Hawksbill Crag! At the Buffalo National River

This is such a thought-provoking description that fits Jim’s love of nature’s splendor. He also hints at endings, not in a melancholy  way, but in words the reveal his life of contemplation and curiosity. Jim’s outings are hiking and wilderness camping, skiing, fishing, exploring, visiting every Arkansas State Park through his job as Arkansas Tourism Director, finding friendships in every small Arkansas hamlet, searching for Arkansas treasures,
finding God in all the places and faces.

I imagine he will hold all of these adventures in his heart now that he has finished his work as Arkansas Tourism Director this past December.

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Hamfest — Whatever it is …  it’s gotta be something special to celebrate 50 consecutive years on top of the second highest mountain in Arkansas — Rich Mountain — in the beautiful Ouachita Mountains, Queen Wilhelmina State Park.

Congratulations, Jim, for your many years of service to the citizens of Little Rock and of Arkansas. Your wisdom, your love of nature, your unquenchable thirst for adventure and your unfailing commitment will remain as one of our enduring Arkansas’ treasures.

As I mused about Jim’s outings tonight, I asked myself about the places and times that created my contemplative times. They are few, too few.

For whatever lame reason, I do not take the contemplative times I need. I think that my kidney transplant on November 12th pushed me into a soul-need that beckons me to solitude, silence, contemplation, adventure — new things to examine in the stunning beauty of nature. It calls me out of the house and into the sunlight or under the stars of the night. It calls me to breathe in the fresh air of God’s creation and, with that breath, to take in the miracle of God’s presence.

Now that I’m retired and have time, I tend to fill my time with all manner of preoccupation. At times, I feel busy and frazzled and don’t really know why. Why am I unable to make enough time to spend in the mesmerizing beauty of nature, keeping silence in God’s creation? Why do I not spend time beside still waters, listening to the silence of a pond? What is wrong with my soul that it is rarely drawn to God’s quiet places, and my heart that does not often seek God’s presence in silent space?

I dare not answer those questions until I am prepared to make some life changes. But what I can do is to hold near these reminders of what God desires for me until I can change my life. These reminders might even inspire me to seek change:

O Lord, my heart is not lifted up,
my eyes are not raised too high;
I do not occupy myself with things
too great and too marvelous for me.

But I have calmed and quieted my soul,
like a weaned child with its mother.   (Psalm 131:1-2)

For God alone my soul in silence waits.   (Psalm 62:1)

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul.   (Psalm 23:1-3)

Let him sit alone in silence, for the Lord has laid it on him.   (Lamentations 3:28)

To you, O God, silence is praise.   (Psalm 65:1)

It is never a bad thing to offer God the praise of silence, to invite God into my contemplation and to allow God’s presence in my moments of prayer and meditation. The truth is that God has always been present with me. But my deepest desire is that I be present with God. As the Psalmist wrote, “My soul in silence waits.”

May those words become my words . . . and yours. Amen.

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Finding Simple Pleasures

kathymfindley

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A Saturday of football — what a simple pleasure! I am a fan of certain teams (Roll Tide!), but I am definitely not a football fanatic. And yet, this morning while half-watching Sportscenter, I realized that watching with Fred, not having to focus that much, resting in the ordinary seemed like a simple pleasure.

There are many simple pleasures, of course, far more soulful than watching football — taking a walk in the splendor of nature, listening to birdsong, snuggling with your puppy, looking up at the night’s moon and stars, taking a walk on a labyrinth’s spiritual path . . . There are so many more simple pleasures in life, and most of them do not even require a trip to the grocery store. They cost us nothing, but their worth is priceless.

These are the simple moments that caress the soul, bring peace and calm to the heart and enliven a wounded spirit. These moments, and others like them, are the moments we desperately need, especially in times when we are burdened with the weight of the world, languishing in darkness.

I have learned some things about a wounded spirit: that woundedness happens to all of us; that “dark nights of the soul” happen to everyone at some time in life; that the wounded spirit does not always require sophisticated remedies; that a simple pleasure is sometimes all it takes to begin a healing journey.

The important factor is self-awareness, being mindful of the soul’s health, accepting the reality that healing will require us to self-intervene and that our intervention could begin with entering into a simple pleasure. One worthy New Year’s resolution is to intentionally identify the simple pleasures that feed our souls and then to allow a simple pleasure to enfold us in contemplation.

Normally, I would say “bah humbug” to New Year’s Resolutions that we make, break, and then feel guilty about for an entire year! But a resolution to discover the simple pleasures that give us life is one worthy resolution. So I challenge you to look and listen for the simple pleasures that are “you,” and to hold them near whenever you are experiencing a “dark night of the soul.”

“There comes a time when both body and soul enter into such a vast darkness that one loses light,” wrote Mechtild of Magdeburg. There comes a time when the soul “sinks down into the night.”

Her words are the words of one who knew spiritual journey and seasons of darkness. There is no doubt that at some time throughout your life, you will find yourself traveling the spiritual night. I do know this within my place of deep knowing: when I give myself to spiritual journeying, allowing myself the peace of a simple pleasure that calms my spirit, I realize that God always invites us beyond where we are.

God guides us on the spiritual journey that sometimes means winding through a dark wood. The darkness may frighten us, but it is a necessary part of the trip. When we panic in the darkness, we must try to understand that it’s a holy dark and that the idea is to surrender to it and journey through until we reach God’s light.

And then on to simple pleasures!372C6D47-6761-412E-AACF-420F5B1EE76D

God will be present beside us —- in the light of simple pleasures and in the soul’s dark night.

That is the gift, the grace, that God has freely given to us, and for that we give thanks.

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Spiritual Awakenings

kathymfindley

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In God we live and move and have our being.    Acts 17:28

In years past, I would often hear talk of spiritual awakening. From pulpits around the world, there were proclamations of real and true spiritual awakening. But spiritual awakening never seemed to happen in my church. Yet some group somewhere in the world, or even some person, was always having one. To my great disappointment, I didn’t seem to be able to. I prayed. I studied the Bible. I listened to sacred music. I studied spiritual awakenings in history. I went to church a lot. I looked for a sunrise in my soul. I longed for the dawn to break in on my life with the brilliance of the rising sun.

But my spiritual awakening never came. I’m not sure what exactly I was expecting to happen so that I would know I had experienced a spiritual awakening. Would it fall upon me? Would it happen inside me? Would it be grand and glorious or quiet and holy? I really wasn’t as naive a Christian as it seems, but spiritual awakening was truly a religious mystery to me. And then I stumbled upon a very weird offer on the internet.

Click here to get your free MP3. In the first time in over 4 years, it [the spiritual awakening] is happening again (it’s even bigger this time around) and you can participate in this (click here now!) special quantum energy experiment too. Registration for this experiment includes a complimentary MP3 gift, called the Bliss Bath™ that is designed to start dissolving low vibrations (like worry, fear, and doubt) and start unblocking miracles in your life in just 7 minutes! This gift could open the doorway to miraculous shifts in your life and bathe you in the same energy of the quantum field.

Who knew that a real spiritual awakening could happen after just 7 short minutes of watching a video of low vibrations! I read more and learned that 4 years ago, experts carried out what they claimed to be “one of the largest global spiritual awakening experiments in the world.” Their experiment included a faculty of teachers, healers, scientists, inventors, and energy healing pioneers. They used ‘quantum energy’ on tens of thousands of people and included breathing techniques and mindfulness exercises to heighten the volunteer’s awareness; both spiritually and physically. After several weeks of daily consciousness work, thousands of people reported many ‘common’ and often ‘strange’ signs of a personal spiritual awakening! 

An astonishing 94.2% of them claimed that their lives had been made better. In fact, respondents reported a wide variety of effects, from turning on psychic powers to even “feeling surrounded by miracles.” And then the respondents compiled a list of the top ten positive outcomes they experienced:

  1. You have increased empathy and intuition.
  2. You feel drawn to nature.
  3. You have an aversion to negative people or behaviors.
  4. You desire a united community.
  5. You believe that all life is sacred.
  6. Your consciousness feels renewed.
  7. You begin living in “The Moment.“
  8. Your inner peace is increased
  9. Compassion and positivity surges through you.
  10. You feel enhanced authenticity.

Enough of that! Far too much information on something that actually happens in secret, in the soul, in sacred moments spent alone with God. That’s about the best description I know of “spiritual awakening.” Truth is, in those days I was searching for something real, an anointing from God, a transfiguration. I wanted my life to be transformed.

In the years since my first quest for spiritual awakening, I have learned some important things. One is that spiritual awakenings have come to me many times, in moments of glorious splendor and in moments of gentle transformation I hardly noticed. The important part is not striving for a personal awakening; the important part is waiting for it expectantly and desiring it deeply.

“Contemplative Monk,” a group focusing on intentional spirituality, offers a Facebook community that encourages one another on a spiritual journey toward a more contemplative life. The group posts daily thoughts designed to help create spiritual focus. Interestingly, today Contemplative Monk offered a piece entitled “Twelve Symptoms of Spiritual Awakening.” They are infinitely instructive, so I include them here:

1. An increased tendency to let things happen rather than make them happen.
2. Frequent attacks of smiling.
3. Feelings of being connected with other and nature.
4. Frequent overwhelming episodes of appreciation.
5. Acting spontaneously rather than from fears based on past experience.
6. An unmistakable ability to enjoy every moment.
7. A loss of ability to worry
8. A loss of interest in conflict.
9. A loss of interest in interpreting the actions of others.
10. A lost of interest in judging others.
11. A loss of interest in judging self.
12. Gaining the ability to love without expecting anything in return.

When I look at these twelve symptoms, I can’t help but measure myself by each one. I find that I am profoundly grateful when I discover that I have even one of these symptoms, that I notice even a small inching towards smiling or enjoying every moment or finding myself free of worry. I know so much more about spiritual awakening than I did in years past because I know I have experienced it many times in ways big and small. What I have learned most assuredly about spiritual awakening is that it comes from God as a gift of grace to God’s children.

I recall the time in Scripture when the Apostle Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and instructed the Athenians on the true meaning of spiritual awakening as opposed to religious idolatry.

I see how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him — though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For “In him we live and move and have our being” . . .

— Acts 17:22-28 (NRSV)

Therein lies the secret, the mystery of a spiritual awakening so real and true in us that we can say “in God we live and move and have our being.”

May God make it so.

 

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On another note, please pray for me as I look toward my kidney transplant on November 15th. I am grateful that you are walking with me on this journey that often felt so frightening. Your thoughts and prayers mean so much. If you would like to read the story of my illness, please visit the Georgia Transplant Foundation’s website at this link:

http://client.gatransplant.org/goto/KathyMFindley

A “Go Fund Me” page is set up for contributions to help with the enormous costs related to the transplant, including medications, housing costs for the month we have to stay near the transplant center, and other unforeseeable costs for my care following the transplant. If you can, please be a part of my transplant journey by making a contribution at this link:

https://bit.ly/33KXZOj

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Imposing Silence Upon Our Cares

kathymfindley

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Photography by Jennifer Blackwell

The only people who pray well are those who keep praying!
— Richard Rohr

Sometimes you just need to get away. You need to push back from your daily grind and be in a space that gives you life-restoring energy. The place may be a mountaintop or beside a sea. The place you love might be on a sailboat watching the changing colors of the sky. The need is a time of contemplation although I admit that contemplation is easier said than done.

Richard Rohr describes contemplation using the frightening word, “dying,” something we usually do not want to consider. Still his definition is compelling.

Contemplative prayer is one way to practice imposing “silence upon our cares, our desires and our imaginings.” Contemplative practice might be five or twenty minutes of “dying,” of letting go of the small mind in order to experience the big mind, of letting go of the false self in order to experience the True Self, of letting go of the illusion of our separation from God in order to experience our inherent union.

I am intrigued by the phrases “imposing silence upon our cares!” dying” and “letting go of the illusion of our separation from God.” We readily recall words we have long known: “Be still, and know that I am God,” and we know that we can move into God’s real and palpable presence. Still moving into God’s presence and lingering there is easier said than done. We are slaves to our lives, to our every day concerns and responsibilities. And sometimes times our responsibilities — though they may be important to us — take too much from us, robbing us of our life’s spiritual depth.

Again, Richard Rohr offers deep wisdom:

Each day that dawns is a celebration of the fact that we have been invited to consider how our lives are spent; how we embrace and recoil from the . . . darkness.

So for me, I would like to watch the hued, expansive skies — the moving clouds and the sparkle of the sun. I would like to find silence in the vastness of God’s creation, in a place where my view includes the beauty of verdant green pastures, the sound of the never-ending surf, the feel of the wind in my face, the shadows cast upon a high mountain. It takes the beauty of such a place to calm my spirit and stop the whirring of my mind. In such a place, I can try to enter into the posture of prayer and contemplation.

Don’t be fooled. Contemplation is called a practice because it truly is a practice that we must try again and again. Contemplation is not easy for many of us. It can even be disconcerting because, in truth, contemplation is meeting as much reality as we can handle in its most simple and immediate form — without filters, judgments, or commentaries. Contemplation moves us to the space our soul craves, and in that place we gain a renewal of our spirit.

Anything worth doing is worth practicing for as much or as long as it takes. Yes, at times it feels like forcing ourselves to be still for an interminable length of time and to force ourselves to fully concentrate on petitioning and listening prayer. No doubt, being silent with ourselves can be frightening. “Imposing silence upon our cares” can be threatening. But in the practice of contemplation we can hear God’s whisper clearer and sense God’s presence more deeply and fully.

I wish for you the time and space you need, the time to take in the breathtaking beauty of God’s creation, the stilling of your mind and the calming of your spirit that can guide you into the presence of God.

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change,
though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea,

though its waters roar and foam,
though the mountains tremble with its tumult.

“Be still, and know that I am God!”

The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.

— From Psalm 46 (NRSV)