Category: Life Journeys

Ash Wednesday, Community, Cross, Introspection, journey, Lent, Life Journeys, Pilgrimage, Rebirth, reconciliation, Reflection, Resurrection, Soul, Spiritual awakening, Spiritual Discipline, Spiritual growth, Transformation

The “Soul’s Insistent Yearning”

kathymfindley

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I have come to know Ash Wednesday as the time to draw nearer to my “soul’s insistent yearning.” That can be a frightening prospect, so I always approach Ash Wednesday with a bit of reticence, meeting the day with the self-awareness that I am trying to keep my distance from my “soul’s insistent yearning.” Being closer to one’s soul can well be a disconcerting proposition, but a necessary one. Ash Wednesday presents me with entry into the season of Lent.

I cherish Lent’s forty days, actually, always expecting change to happen in my soul and spirit. And yet, the prospect of repentance, renewal, transformation — and ultimately a personal resurrection — always disquiets me.

83D4AF68-A9AD-40EC-9D26-F0787CFE6D7BHow will I spend Ash Wednesday?

How will I approach the day
that will open the gate of Lent before me?

I have always thought of Lent as a spiritual journey we take alone, a solitary season of introspection and self-reflection during which we contemplate our own spiritual well-being and our relationship with God. For me, Lent has often been alone work.

So I make my Lenten journey into my alone places. I will know that God will abide with me, comforting me in my self-reflection, in my penitence and in my repentance. I will be mindful this Lent of my need to reach into my soul in search of places needing healing, constant and long-time wounds of the soul and spirit. I will search for the traces of my sinfulness, finding in my heart the will to seek sincere penitence, the sad and humble realization of and regret for my misdeeds. I will move beyond penitence to repentance as I resolve to change and to experience transformation.

How will I spend Ash Wednesday?

In whatever way I am able, I will receive ashes on my forehead imposed in a sign of the cross. I will recall the words, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” I will utter as my prayer, the words of Scripture, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” (Psalm 51:10)

As for the actual ashes, I have often wiped them off while in public. I never knew why, just that I was uncomfortable when others saw the cross of ash on my forehead. Perhaps I needed to keep my spiritual practice to myself, or hide the reality of my search for repentance. Years ago, I came across these words, spoken by Sr. Mary Ann Walsh, RSM:

We can feel a little funny with ashes on our foreheads, but for Catholics, that’s how we mark the start of Lent. Ashes don’t say we’re holy. They say we are sinners. They don’t say we are perfect, only that we’re willing to try. They don’t say we’re models of religiosity, but they do say we belong. In today’s world of loners and isolates, that says a lot.

~ Sr. Mary Ann Walsh, RSM

7FA58B58-0019-4809-B3B9-F956F3B06D7BThe essential truth, and gift, of Ash Wednesday is its call to come to terms with ourselves before God. Ash Wednesday says what so much of modern culture denies, namely that we are forever deceiving and justifying ourselves about our sinfulness. So on this day, when we contemplate our sins, when we pay attention to the ash on our foreheads, when we enter into Lent’s forty days, we must make prayer our utmost spiritual intention. So I pray we might embrace our Christian community that we might journey together for these forty days, praying for one another, seeking together the serenity, the reflection and the transformation of Lent, as all the while, we lean into our “soul’s insistent yearning.”

In that spirit of prayer, I hope you will take with you into Lent with this beautiful prayer from Rabbi Naomi Levy:

The rabbi in me would like to offer a prayer for you.
I pray you will learn to see you life as a meaningful story.
I pray you will learn to listen to your soul’s insistent yearning.
I pray you will learn to believe you can transform your life.
I pray you will learn to live and shine inside your imperfect life
and find meaning and joy right where you are.
Most of all I pray you will uncover a great miracle: your extra-ordinary life.

~ From Hope Will Find You by Rabbi Naomi Levy

Most importantly, pray yourself into Lent in the few days we have before Ash Wednesday. Seek God’s heart and seek the depths of your own heart and your “soul’s insistent yearning.” May you know God’s presence as you begin your Lenten journey.

Awakening, Dancing, Discernment, Discovering, Freedom, God's presence, Holy Spirit, journey, Life Journeys, Morality, New Life, peace, Pilgrim, Pilgrimage, Self Awareness, Singing, Soul, Spirit wind, Spiritual awakening, Stories, Transformation, Walking peacefully, wind

Walking Peacefully

kathymfindley

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People say walking on water is a miracle,
but to me walking peacefully on earth is the real miracle.

Thich Nhat Hanh

Those words ring so true, but how does one realize “the real miracle?” “Walking peacefully on earth” is much harder than it sounds, much more challenging than it ought to be, at least for most of us. Some have poetically said that walking on earth is our pilgrim journey, and I believe that many people feel that they are walking a pilgrim journey.

In his book, The Pilgrim Journey: A History of Pilgrimage in the Western World, James Harpur asserts that we are now in a new era of pilgrimage and asks: “Why is pilgrimage coming back, especially in a time when many people are questioning traditional religion?” Harpur’s answer is that in these days, there seems to be a deep longing in humans for this form of spiritual practice.

As for me, pilgrimage and journey are very real descriptors of my life. I have often set out on one journey or another, not knowing where to go, only that my soul needs the journey. I am captivated by Harpur’s book, by his tracing the history of why countless people through the ages have embarked on spiritual pilgrimages, by his many stories of pilgrimage through the ages and by his examples of why journey is so relevant to today’s pilgrims. Harpur writes:

If that is done, the destination — a shrine, a holy mountain, or a house of God — will signify not the end of the journey, but the start: a gateway into a new way of being, of seeing life afresh with spiritually cleansed eyes.What is essential is that the journey, by whatever means it is accomplished, gives the pilgrim enough time to expose himself or herself to the possibility of a sacred metamorphosis.

Nothing seems more important to me than seeing my life afresh “with spiritually cleansed eyes.” But getting there is a long process, a journey.

3BCA9FAD-8CD2-4B6A-B300-6609E1318379Walking peacefully on earth requires my full resolve and my desire to reach that place in life. Wouldn’t any of us want to experience transformation and the freedom to be? Wouldn’t any of us want to experience a sacred metamorphosis?

Certainly, it is a long process, a long journey. There are many steps along the way that each person must determine in order to persist on the pilgrimage. There are divergent paths and rough roads and thorny ways and threatening obstacles. Though choosing the path is personal, the graphic at the top of his post illustrates a set of steps we could possibly choose for ourselves. If I chose to take those steps, it would look like this:

First, I must learn to cry again. Crying is very hard for me, as if I dared to cry, my crying might go on forever. Yet, crying is a part of cleansing the soul, and as the quotation says, there is an importance to flowing and finally letting go. Secondly, I need to accept that within me, there is fire and that I must not be afraid to let it burn. I think I must face the flame, adapt and re-ignite my inner fire. Thirdly, I must to open myself up to refreshing air — observe it, breathe it, focus and then decide whatever I need to decide.

The quote also says “remember that you are earth” and ground yourself, give, build and heal. Finally, “remember that you are Spirit” and care for your inner core so that you can connect, listen, know yourself and be still. It’s quite a lesson — a new way of seeing myself — and perhaps it is the way I must journey if I want to walk peacefully on the earth. In these days when peace is in short supply, when nations refuse to beat their swords into plowshares, when political rivals use hate speech against one another, it is so important that peace dwells within my soul.

In the end, all of us long for what James Harpur calls sacred metamorphosis. We all want to realize the miracle of walking peacefully. We want to walk peacefully in our souls. We want to walk peacefully with others. We want to walk peacefully in our families. We simply want to walk peacefully — hand in hand with God and moved by Spirit. We want the choice to walk or to be still, to run or to leap, to breathe or to hold our breath when we kneel before wonder. We want to have the freedom to speak and shout and sing and dance . . . and truly live. That is the miracle!

 

Adventures, Awareness, Change, Contemplation, Exploration, Grace, Growth, Holy Spirit, Introspection, Life Journeys, Life pathways, Meditation, New Life, Reflection, Spirit wind, Transformation

Uncreated Grace

kathymfindley

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I have been reflecting on a phrase I read this morning in Father Richard Rohr’s meditation— Uncreated Grace. It is an intriguing phrase and makes me wonder why I received it at this particular time and place on my journey. I have had a very long journey — many miles of life —- and, in fact, there have been many other forks on the path that seem more sacred places to contemplate uncreated grace. But here it is, today, brought to me at this place on my journey.

As I did some processing on this phrase, I thought of one of my dear friends from ages past, seminary days to be exact. Often, he would share his favorite quotes. This was one of them, an intriguing and thought-provoking quote. This quote always stayed in his favorites file. It hints at a long journey we all must take . . .

We shall not cease from exploration
and the end of all our exploring
will be to arrive where we started
and know the place for the first time.

— T. S. Eliot

We were always left with the question “What do T.S Eliot’s words mean?” Sitting in small groups, the seminarians discussed but never reached an answer, to the question. I imagine that, like me, some of them took the words along with them on their journeys, hoping to discover the meaning at some place of enlightenment on their path.

On my journey, Eliot’s words came to mind many times. Never quite discovering a finite meaning, I did discover infinite applications that touched my life in ways simple and profound. Most always, I came away from reflecting on the words to a better place inside myself and a better space in my world. Still, I wonder why these T.S. Eliot words were brought to my mind today.

The power in these words, I think, is that they are not a directive, not a call to mission, not words of piety, not gleaned from scripture. They are words meant to be understood individually rather than offering a universal message. I identify these words as an invitation, and so today I am left alone with them to intentionally create space for reflection and understanding.

When I do that, I hear many, many other words from different places — from scripture, hymn, poetry, prose and from within myself. It feels like a Spirit encounter, the presence of “another comforter” who will be with us forever, who will, as Jesus promised, “teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.”

Spirit teaches us and helps us remember. Spirit grounds us so that our circuitous journey will not frighten us. We are free to never “cease from exploration,” because we are comforted to know that we will “arrive where we started . . .”

9889AA3B-16BB-4F9F-9B56-D883A74A49AEAnd know the place for the first time . . .

When the journey leads us back to where we started, how is it that we “know the place for the first time?” I urge you to not take my interpretation as the correct one, because I believe that a “correct” interpretation comes from the soul of each person who chooses to explore. But here is an understanding based on my own musings . . . we can take what comes in our lives, or we can explore places on the journey — our encounters, our joys and sorrows, our events and calamities, our crises and emotions, our disappointments and betrayals, the chance and the wonder.

For me, there is no doubt that exploring all of these life events brings that sense of getting back to the beginning and truly knowing the place for the first time, not necessarily because the beginning place has changed, but that I have changed. The Spirit’s holy breath transformed me with gentleness again and again, transformed by the blowing of Spirit wind into my being.

Father Richard Rohr says that “the Holy Spirit is never created by our actions or behavior. It is naturally indwelling, our inner being with God. In Catholic theology, we called the Holy Spirit “Uncreated Grace.”

How I love those words . . . Uncreated Grace! Perhaps that’s what we all hope for in our explorations on the journey — that in us and through us, there is Uncreated Grace. If we present to the Spirit our selves as uncreated grace, I wonder if Spirit then creates grace within us again and again and again, all along the way. If we never cease from exploration, presenting ourselves as uncreated grace, the Holy Spirit will breathe on us and we will be transformed!

No wonder we know the place where we started for the first time! The place hasn’t changed, we have changed, transformed in our deepest places!

Thanks be to God and to the touch of Spirit breath. Amen

Bethlehem’s Star, Christ’s Birth, Epiphany, journey, Life Journeys, New Year, Restoration, Sacred Worth, Women

“Wise Women Also Came”

kathymfindley
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Art: “Wise Women Also Came” by Jan Richardson

Women’s Christmas! What Is That?

There is a custom, rooted in ireland, of celebrating Epiphany as Women’s Christmas. On January 6, Epiphany brings the Christmas season to a close. Called Nollaig na mBan in irish, Women’s Christmas originated as a day when the women, who often carried the domestic responsibilities all year, took Epiphany as an occasion to celebrate together at the end of the holidays, leaving hearth and home to the men for a few hours. 

Whether your domestic commitments are many or few, Women’s Christmas offers a timely opportunity to pause and step back from whatever has kept you busy and hurried in the past weeks or months. As the Christmas season ends, this is an occasion both to celebrate with friends and also to spend time in reflection before diving into the responsibilities of the new year.

Epiphany might be for you an invitation to rest, to reflect, to contemplate where you are on your journey. Epiphany reminds us of the wise persons who traveled to welcome the Christ Child and who returned home by another way. Perhaps we might consider turning our attention toward questions about our own journey. Epiphany brings us The Wise Men, The Three Kings. But did others also make the journey, following a brilliant star? Were there other travelers whose names we don’t know?

Jan Richardson tells about an experience she had years ago when she was beginning to find her artist soul. She sat down to create a collage to use for Epiphany. She began to imagine who else might have made the journey to welcome Jesus. In her soul, a trio of women began to take shape, carrying their treasures to offer the Child. She named the piece Wise Women Also Came.

I love the idea that three wise women made that journey and saw the Christ Child. There are so many accounts in the Scriptures about women having no rights, no protection, no ability to speak. Many of their names are not even recorded. Even in this day — 2020 — we have been socialized to keep silence in meetings or gatherings. We may even believe that our opinions are not important enough to speak out loud. We shrink back into what is determined to be “our place.” Maybe not all the time, but we have to admit we’ve done it sometimes. It’s all about how much we value ourselves and how much we believe others value us.

But shrinking back behind the scenes and quashing our voice has significant consequences — that our vision will not be given, our inspiration will fail to inspire, our dreams will be lost, our influence will not flourish, our wisdom will not be spoken. And our world will suffer for it, losing our passion for a world that needs passion.

Imagine with me that three wise women made the incredible journey to see the Child. Imagine the gifts they might have brought. Imagine what social constraints they might have broken to go on this journey of a lifetime, and the courage that motivated them. Imagine whether or not you could take such a journey, forbidden by your society, yet moving ahead on the path. Imagine your bravery and your resolve, your your sense of adventure, your hopes and your dreams.

So let’s accept two challenges in the days to come:

To celebrate Women’s Christmas with our friends and also to spend time in personal reflection before diving into the responsibilities of the new year.

To find our voices and our wisdom. To claim our courage, our strength and our passion. And even if others scoff at us, to follow our dreams.

The world needs us!

anxiety, Challenge, Change, Chronic illness, Comfort, Contemplation, Courage, Emotions, Energy, Faith, God's presence, grief, healing, Hope, Illness, Life Journeys, New Year, Pain, Perseverance, Psalms, Sorrow, Soul, strength, Suffering, The Year Behind

Holding Hope

kathymfindley

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A new year has dawned. We’re in it, ready or not! While we cannot control what 2020 brings to us, we can control the way we respond —- to times of joy, times of sorrow and all the times that are just ordinary. No doubt we will greet them all, ready or not!

As the poet reminds us, “Live the year that lies ahead with energy and hope. Be strong, have courage. It is time now for something new.” And so it is. But embracing something new is sometimes difficult. Sometimes our hope is small. Sometimes following our journey into an unknown future is frightening. If the year past still holds us in a place of suffering, if illness lingers with us, if depression and anxiety still rages in us, if persistent grief comes with us into the new year, it is difficult, if not impossible, to leave the past pain behind and embrace something new. So if you feel that you cannot leave past suffering behind you, this little message is for you.

The most important thing you can do is to honestly acknowledge the suffering and accept the fact that it will not leave you just because the new year has arrived. Spend some time contemplating your suffering, how it impacted you in the year past. Can you find any newness at all at the beginning of a new year? Is there some of the suffering  you can see in a different light? Can you respond to it differently? Can you find a way to endure it that is better than the way you endured it in the past? Can you make a concerted effort to learn something from your suffering?

Still, if you are in the throes of suffering — physical, emotional or spiritual — the suggestions above can illicit the strong response, “You’ve got to be kidding! This way of looking at the same thing I’ve endured for years is simply impossible!”

I will be the first to acknowledge the truth of that response, but I must also ask, “What do you have to lose?” Even a change in your response to one place of suffering could bring a small change for you, a change ever-so-slight that has the power to offer you increased resilience and hope. It may be worth a try.

I think it’s important to repeat these wise words: “Live the year that lies ahead with energy and hope. Be strong, have courage. It is time now for something new.”

I suggest that, even if we are enduring suffering, we can greet the new year “with energy and hope.” Hope is always available to us, even when we cannot see it or feel it.

From the promises of Scripture . . . 
“ . . . so that we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place.  — Hebrews 6:18-19

From the depths of our souls . . .
“Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God.”   — Psalm 42:11

“I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope.”   — Psalm 130:5

“But I will hope continually and will praise you yet more and more.”  — Psalm 71:14

The Scriptures can be comforting to us. They can lift up courage in us and they can give us strength to face all of our tomorrows, but the place where hope really lives is within us. We can reach down for it, hold it close, and allow it to help us move forward. No matter what manner of suffering we hold, hope can guide us.

I leave you and your journey into 2020 with the wise words of Corrie Ten Boom:

“Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.”

 

Acts 42, anxiety, Awareness, Beauty of Nature, Birdsong, Creation, Faith, Fear, Grace, healing, Hope, Humbug, journey, Life Journeys, Light, Mindfulness, Nature, New Year, peace, Quiet, Reflection, Self Awareness, Self care, simple pleasures, Soul

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.

Advent, Angels, Belief, Bethlehem’s Star, Challenge, Change, Darkness, Grace, journey, Life Journeys, New Life, New Normal, Stars

In Believing There Is Hope!

kathymfindley

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The Seventh Day of Advent
Transplant Day Twenty-six
December 7, 2019

CHRISTMAS MIRACLE 

There are those who scoff at miracles.
I don’t know what they make of the birth of the Child.
For that matter,
I don’t know what they make of the birth of any child.

There are those who laugh at dreams.
so they’ve never heard an angel’s voice,
nor seen any unusual light in the night’s sky,
nor felt the yearning to set out in search
of new life.

There are those who do not see the Star.
I wonder where it is they go
when everyone else sets out for Bethlehem.

To those of us who believe,
into every night is born a Star.

— Ann Weems

I do not want to be one of the ones who miss seeing the Star. It’s important, especially when I am so focused on transplant recovery, that I make my way to Bethlehem this Advent. In her poem, Ann Weems writes that some people have never heard an angel’s voice nor seen any unusual light in the night sky. She laments that some people have never felt the yearning to set out in search of new life.

Advent 2019 finds me feeling at least a small yearning to set out in search of new life. Circumstances have left me no choice, really, because ahead of me, a new life is all there is. The old life is over and, with a new kidney to protect, I am facing a new life head-on, like it or not. It won’t be an easy life, but embracing new life seldom is. It is always a change and a challenge, asking for my best effort.

I fear it, as folks most always do when embracing a new life. And I am going to need some help — from my friends, my family and my faith community. I am going to need the singing of angels and the light from Bethlehem’s Star. I am going to need to believe —  really believe — because not believing may leave me stalled on the path to Bethlehem. In believing, there is hope, hope that embraces the longing for new life. Hope that hears the singing of angels. Hope that looks up into the night sky and sees the Star.

There is no doubt about it — in believing, there is hope.

Ann Weems offers the grace of one last promise:
              “To those of us who believe, into every night is born a Star.”C9B596AE-76F4-4215-AF87-B5ED84B119E3

anxiety, Awakening, Awareness, Challenge, Change, Community, Contemplation, Despair, Discernment, Discovering, Emotions, Epiphany, Friends, healing, Hope, Illness, Inspiration, Introspection, Kidney Transplant, Knowing, Life Journeys, Life pathways, Meditation, New Normal, Pain, Perseverance, Reflection, Relationship, Restoration, Rhythm, Soul, Spiritual Direction, strength, struggle, Suffering, Transformation, Troubles, Wholeness, Wisdom

Spiritual Direction

kathymfindley

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Transplant Day Thirteen
November 24, 2019

I have been offered a blessing. From a stranger. 

I met this kind person through a group of clergywomen called RevGalBlogPals. She is a spiritual director from British Columbia. Through the RevGalBlogPals Facebook group, she happened upon parts of my transplant journey in my blog posts. She began praying for me. Then she offered me the gift of spiritual direction as I pass through this complicated time in my life. 

9299C4C7-3373-43D8-A11E-C2349150F942It has been several years since I worked with a spiritual director, so I was very humbled and thankful to hear from her. These were the words of lovingkindness she wrote to me in our first session.

May you feel the gentle touch of Spirit in this session.
May you know that I am holding you in healing Love.
May you be reminded of your worth and strength…
As you rest.
~ This is spiritual direction when pain does not allow for words.

Burning BushOn the day I received her message, it was so true that pain did not allow for words. The assault on my body was unspeakable on that day. I remember when many years ago my husband’s cardiologist came into his hospital room a few days after his heart surgery. The cardiologist said this: “Let’s look at this terrible thing we’ve done to you.”

His words resonated with me post transplant when, in the throes of struggle and pain, I definitely was looking at the terrible thing they had done to me. I could not quite see a brighter, pain-free future. I could only focus on the physical systems that were in complete disarray after the transplant. It did not help when medical staff told me it was all normal. The way I was experiencing it all was far from normal.

I wondered if I would ever live “normal” again. Or if perhaps I would live into a new normal of life after receiving a transplanted organ. I was not sure, and definitely not confident, that all systems would levelize into something I could tolerate. My spiritual director’s wisdom knows that to have physical normalcy, I must also seek emotional and spiritual normalcy. That would mean healing wholly — from the outer visible body to the inner invisible one. It would mean transformation. It would mean living my life while watching constantly and diligently for any sign that something was physically wrong.

Red Wooden Directional Arrow Signs In Green Forest BackgroundWhen my spiritual director suddenly appeared, I knew that she would help me explore my spiritual state, entering into community with me and pointing to the healing I could not yet see.


Thanks be to God for the beloved community she has offered me, community that forms in unexpected places, in unexpected times, just when I needed community the most.

Faith, Fear, Friendship, Hope, Illness, journey, Life Journeys

“Oh! The Places You’ll Go!”

kathymfindley

3DB3A497-7A7E-41C3-B2EA-482556E95C5B
It’s not so easy to get a new kidney! The stars truly have to align. On top of that, I have to be ready to move up and move out on short notice. Kidney transplants — securely scheduled and marked definitively on official calendars — can always go awry. 

So it is with my scheduled November 15th transplant. It simply fell apart due to one or more of the snafus that can always occur. So we’re off. And we’re on! The word is that the transplant may be scheduled even before the 15th. Or maybe not. But be ready to go!

And that absolute and unambiguous word from Mayo Clinic this morning reminded me of the wondrous Dr. Suess book, “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!” Of course, being on the ready to go to Mayo, I just had to look back at that book and recall some of its infinite wisdom. Turns out, some of it so fully describes my five-year acquaintance with end stage kidney disease.

So here are some snippets that tell my story, oh, so well:

I’m sorry to say so
but, sadly, it’s true
that Bang-ups
and Hang-ups
can happen to you.

You will come to a place where the streets are not marked.
Some windows are lighted. but mostly they’re darked.
A place you could sprain both your elbow and chin!
Do you dare to stay out? Do you dare to go in?
How much can you lose? How much can you win?

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And when you’re alone, there’s a very good chance
you’ll meet things that scare you right out of your pants.
There are some, down the road between hither and yon,
that can scare you so much you won’t want to go on.

But on you will go
though the weather be foul.
On you will go
though your enemies prowl.

 

You’re off to Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting,
So… get on your way!

Onward up many a frightening creek, though your arms may get sore and your sneakers may leak. Oh! The places you’ll go!

I have said many times that so many of you, my friends and family nearby and far away, have covered me with the grace to move forward even when I hesitated. Because of your prayers, positive thoughts and constant encouragement, I am ready to go!

And so it is with confidence and hope that I can exclaim! “Oh! The places I’ll go!” And though I am inspired by the writing of Dr. Suess, it is through and through theological and Biblical!

Thank you all, and thanks be to God.

 

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On another note, please pray for me as I look toward my kidney transplant as early as November 6th. 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:

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

A “Go Fund Me” page is set up for contributionto 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

 

 

 

Community, Fear, Inspiration, journey, Kidney Transplant, Life Journeys, Life pathways, Terror

On Beauty and Terror

kathymfindley
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Photo by Steven Nawojczyk.

Life is all about beauty and terror, each descending on us at will and rearranging everything. I think of the wise words of Frederick Buechner:

Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don’t be afraid.

The constant picture in my mind is a rough, rocky path with unknown crooks and turns,  and the destination unseen. That image of life’s journey is enough to cause anyone fear, and though the path has its own beauty, it also holds the terror of unexpected twists on a rocky way.

For quite a long time, I have been facing a time of beauty and terror in the guise of my upcoming kidney transplant. How beautiful it is to know that a kidney donor is willingly offering a kidney to a stranger. At the same time, I nurse a small feeling of terror at times about the outcome of the surgery. Will I have pain? Will I recover quickly? Will the kidney work? Will I tolerate my lifelong immunosuppressant medications? Will the transplant really happen?

“Don’t be afraid” is indeed the strongest and best word of encouragement. It is quite wonderful when we reach a point in life — if ever we do — where fear is no longer our constant companion. The way to get there, I think, has everything to do with two things: enjoying a close relationship with God (something that is not always easy to accomplish); and being a part of a genuine, caring community. Being close to God and being encouraged by your community keeps fear at bay so that the beautiful part of living can emerge.

Richard Rohr would say that our “work” is to know God’s desire for us to live into the fullness of our humanity and our identity. In other words, recognize that our humanity is certainly open to fear, but be vigilant about claiming our identity as God’s own children. Because it is that identity, that holy relationship with God, that brings us the beautiful part of life.

Richard Rohr shares the words of one of his favorite poets, Rainer Maria Rilke:

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.
These are the words we dimly hear:
You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.
Flare up like flame
and make big shadows I can move in.
Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.
Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.
Give me your hand.

“Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror,” the poet writes. This is surely the poetry of life: to admonish us to let it all happen, all the beauty, all the terror. Because God uses all of it, together, to create in me the person I am meant to be.

So the end of the story is this: I will get a transplant and I will let it all happen — all of it — so that the beauty and the terror can renew my life and embolden my spirit.

 

 

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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:

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

A “Go Fund Me” page is set up for contribution 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