Category: Skies

A woman of sacred worth, Aha! Moment, Epiphany, God’s beloved daughter, God’s Mercy, Grace, Hope, Rev. Kathy Manis Findley, Singing, Skies, Spirit wind, wind

“Measure Me, Sky”*

Rev Kathy

By Rev. Kathy Manis Findley


You might have received a blog post from me yesterday. It would be the one with the photo of the sky and with random words printed on the page in a totally “cattywonkered” fashion! (not of my own doing) It was a mess, and I tried to write and publish it for at least 8 hours!

What a frustrating yesterday and a discombobulated writing and publishing process! My computer took control and declared sovereignty over my blog post! The document disappeared at least seven times. There was literally nothing I could do. The computer had a mind of her own (urged on with the help of WordPress) and I was the focus of her destructive acts.

Sometimes I long for the days before computers, those olden days when thoughts would just tumble gently out of my soul as I wrote with ink and paper and exceptionally good handwriting. (Remember cursive?) Yes, I lived in those days when I had no computer or even a manual typewriter with striker arms with the letter engraved on them that popped up on to the paper! (And often three or four of those would come up too fast so that they stuck together!) On top of that, my 6th grade teacher, Miss Hamill, made us use a fountain pen and manually fill it with real, bona fide black ink, even when doing math! How impractical that was—with absolutely no way to erase so many math errors!

If I think I’m frustrated writing my blog post using a perfectly fine online publishing site, I should try to remember the “good old days” when my fingers were always marked with black ink. In all seriousness, I just sat down in my special writing chair hoping to share thoughts from my soul for a few minutes, but instead ended up spending hours trying to get my blog post to format correctly! It’s enough to frustrate even experienced bloggers. Therefore, I want you to know that, since yesterday, I have been annoyed and distressed because of my inability to achieve anything resembling a blog post!

End of the rant!

I confess that I spend a lot of time measuring my self. Can I even format this so that it makes sense? Are my rambling thoughts worth all this toil and trouble? Does anyone read my blog anyway? Do I even write well enough to publish? I don’t know the answers, so I am still insisting on continuing to measure my self.

Beyond my rigid, strict, and stringent measuring standards, there is good news—Holy Good News that God is well pleased with me. God is pleased with you, too! I love the way the writer of this article expresses it.

I had an “aha” moment recently when I realized that, while I had never struggled with the false belief that I had to work to earn my salvation, or even to earn God’s love, I did live and think as if I needed to earn God’s pleasure in me. For me, salvation was a free gift, love was a free gift, but pleasure was earned. I subconsciously believed that if I did a lot of good things and earned a lot of “spiritual gold stars,” I would gain more of [God’s] pleasure.

https://mercymultiplied.com/god-is-well-pleased-with-   you/#:~:text=He%20reminded%20me%20of%20how,love%2C%20delight%20of%20my%20life.


Ditto!
For me, it’s still about Epiphany! Epiphany always graced me with lovely “aha moments.” Epiphany also brought clear vision and keen awareness, so I could see that I was making a habit of measuring. I knew all along that I had to learn how to stop measuring my self. Self-measuring is a hard practice to break, but the nasty little secret about it is that virtually no one measures themselves accurately or fairly. We get the measurements wrong every time, or at least most of the time! Instead of continuing the frustrating task of measuring my self and finding the results abyssmal, maybe I will figure out how to let God do the measuring. The alternative is to continue to measure my self as I always have, exhausted and disheartened by the measurements that never measure up to my aspirations.

Remember that when Jesus was baptized the Spirit descended on him and God said, â€œThis is my son, whom I love; in him I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:17, NIV) God affirmed God’s love for Jesus before Jesus had performed a single miracle! Jesus’ ministry had not even started, but God’s pleasure already rested on Jesus just because Jesus was God’s Son. God was pleased because of relationship, not because of achievement or good-ness.

Wouldn’t we be encouraged if we truly believed that God’s pleasure fully rests on us? Period. I have a notion that God is not even measuring us with much precision and scrutiny. Instead, God is well pleased with you and with me. I hope that this knowledge frees me up to move forward without working to earn something that’s already mine. So I for one am holding my head up, eyes toward the skies, and with a song on my lips, because I know that God’s pleasure in me isn’t going anywhere. Zephaniah 3:17 says that God delights in us and rejoices over us with singing.

I know there is a better way to live my life. Measuring my self constantly to determine if I’m a good enough person—as in smart, gifted, compassionate, resilient, educated, beautiful, articulate, personable, spiritual, good enough to please God. Knowing all the while that by my self-measurements, I am not even close to “good enough.”

I wonder . . . What could be wrong with letting God take over the measuring? Why not let my “self” be measured by God’s golden yardstick in the clouds? To be honest, God does not really need a physical, wooden, for-real measuring stick. And I don’t need to toil for and worry about how I am measuring up. Why not just look up into the sky and wait until I hear God’s voice?

You are my beloved daughter. In you, I am well pleased.
God delights in us and rejoices over us with singing.

Singing is the place where my heart meets God’s heart. Singing lifts my soul and lifts my eyes toward the skies, even through the darkest times and on the rockiest pathways. It seems that, in response to the eternal grace God gives us, we would want to honor God by breaking out into song, singing God’s praise with reckless abandon . . .

Come, thou Fount of every blessing; Tune my heart to sing thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing, Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet, sung by flaming tongues above;
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it, mount of God’s redeeming love!

In the beautifully written poem below, the poet speaks of being able to reach for the sky by a song! I can identify with that thought from my experiences of reaching for the music of my soul during difficult times. It was as if I could ease closer to sky and breathe in the cleansing wind of transformation. I have pondered the meaning of the words “measure me, sky.” You can probably guess how I twist things to make a point, so maybe this is worthless: Sky— God; Clouds—Music; Wind—Transformation. It’s a hard, hard concept to define, so I don’t try. I just take in the imagery and allow it to perfect my spiritual vision. As many of the other phrases in this poem, “measure me, sky” likely has as many meanings as the people who have read it. This poem must be interpreted by its readers as each one contemplates the meaning they find there. When all our pondering brings no conclusion on the meaning, we can know, at least, that poet Leonora Speyer writes of wisdom that leads us as we walk our sacred path . . .

   Measure me, sky!
     Tell me I reach by a song
   Nearer the stars;
     I have been little so long.

September Sunset in Fort Worth; photo by Pam Overton Stoker

   Sky, be my depth,
     Wind, be my width and my height,
   World, my heart’s span;
     Loveliness, wings for my flight.

        Horizon, reach out!
           Catch at my hands, stretch me taut,
         Rim of the world:
           Widen my eyes by a thought.

As you consider the message of this post and rhe image of the sky, please spend a few minutes listening to this hymn and meditating on its meaning to you.

“Measure Me, Sky!”
SATB and piano by Elaine Hagenberg
Poem by Leonora Speyer https://www.elainehagenberg.com/measu…
Performed by the Tallgrass Chamber Choir Jacob Narverud, conductor

* Measure Me, Sky is a soulful poem written by Leonora Speyer and later used as a hymn text.

Awakening, Bondage, Change, Creativity, Feelings, Freedom, Grace, Insanity, Mental health, Mindfulness, Nature, New Life, Night sky, Sacred Pauses, Self care, simple joys, simple pleasures, Skies, Stars, Transformation

From Insanity’s Bondage to Creativity’s Freedom

Rev Kathy

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INSANITY 

Not a word we are fond of. Nothing inspiring about the word. And when the word insanity is more than just a word, we shudder in its grasp. Insanity brings its own bondage, stealing one’s freedom to live, confiscating one’s creative expression. Insanity can be a complete, all-encompassing mental breakdown, even bordering on madness, OR it can be a state of being that most of us have experienced — irrationality, instability, disorientation, mania. Many people (noted scholars) have mused that “the definition of insanity is the most overused expression of all time.” (Salon.com)

Remember the declaration about “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result?” Yes, I know you remember that definition, probably have said it yourself in an exasperating moment!

Where am I going with these bizarre introductory words?

I’m actually going to a place you may not expect. I’m going to the rush and swirl of color in one of my favorite paintings, A Starry Night by the Dutch Post-Impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh. The painting draws me in — into the little village with its steepled church, into a sky filled with sparkling stars, into the glorious luminance of the crescent moon, into the swirls of blues and whites and yellows. I have pondered many times what sort of mind and soul could have created a painting like this one.

The story behind A Starry Night is the unnerving story of Van Gogh. A few months after experiencing a mental breakdown on December 23, 1988 that resulted in the self-mutilation of his left ear, Van Gogh voluntarily admitted himself to the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole Lunatic Asylum. During the year Van Gogh stayed at the asylum, his prolific output of paintings continued and he produced some of the best-known works of his career. A Starry Night was painted by around June 18, the date he wrote to his brother Theo to say he had a new study of a starry sky.

A Starry Night was the only nocturnal painting in the series of views he saw from his bedroom window. In early June, Vincent wrote to Theo, “This morning I saw the countryside from my window a long time before sunrise with nothing but the morning star, which looked very big”. Researchers have determined that Venus was indeed visible at dawn in Provence in the spring of 1889, and was at that time nearly as bright as it could be. So the brightest “star” in the painting, just to the viewer’s right of the cypress tree, is actually Venus.

Too much information? Probably, but here’s my point that is not really about insanity at all. Rather, it’s about breaking free from bondage and taking back my life. You see, sometimes the sight of a big, bright morning star can replace whatever fear or angst I am feeling. Sometimes looking into the deep of a starry night can carry me to resplendent places. Sometimes even my slight insanity can transport me to my deepest expressions of creativity.

For me, insanity is my incessant scurrying around with too many things to do, a kind of mania. That frenzied scurrying is of my own choosing and therefore, leans a little too close to self-imposed insanity. I wonder if instead of that scurrying life of bondage, I could make time for moments of thought that would enable me to say something like what Vincent Van Gogh said from his asylum: 

“This morning I saw the countryside from my window a long time before sunrise with nothing but the morning star — the brightest star — which looked very big!“

Contemplate for a moment the insanity of a life encumbered — filled to overflowing with too many things to do — compared with a life of stargazing that might just awaken fresh and bright creativity in you.

As for me, I’m heading toward a spiritual transformation — a life of sacred pauses, a stargazing life, a grace-filled re-awakening!

I hope you are, too.

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

For the Beauty of the Earth

Rev Kathy

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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.

Africa, Aging, Bravery, Challenge, Change, Clouds, Comfort, Courage, discouragement, Grace, healing, Hope, Magic, mercy, Mystery, Resilience, Skies, Soul, Spirit, Sue Monk Kidd, Troubles, Uganda, wind, Wings of the morning

Leaving Our MAGIC Behind

Rev Kathy

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Ugandan Washday at the River. Watercolor art by Kathy Manis Findley

When life moves on — from twenty to forty to seventy — you take into your inner place the ominous idea that if ever there was magic in your life, at some point, you left it behind. You know what I mean. The magic of your first love. The magic of the birth of your child. The magic of the time when you believed you could accomplish anything and everything you set your heart on. The magic that you actually did accomplish that thing, that sparkling thing that made you stand tall and celebrate yourself.

You might be wondering what in the world set my mind on life-magic this morning. I think it might have been carryover from my musings on yesterday’s blog post. But mostly, it came from reading a novel by one of my favorite authors, Sue Monk Kidd. This is the passage that captivated me, captured me as if it were some sort of sacred scripture.

There was a time in Africa the people could fly. Mauma told me this one night when I was ten years old. She said, “Handful, your granny-mauma saw it for herself. She say they flew over trees and clouds. She say they flew like blackbirds. When we came here, we left that magic behind.”

My mauma was shrewd. She didn’t get any reading and writing like me. Everything she knew came from living on the scarce side of mercy.. She looked at my face, how it flowed with such sorrow and doubt, and she said, “You don’t believe me? Where do you think these shoulder blades of yours come from, girl?”

Those skinny bones stuck out from my back like nubs. She patted them and said, “This all what left of your wings. They nothing but these flat bones now, but one day you gon get ‘em back.”

I was shrewd like mauma. Even at ten I knew this story about people flying was pure malarkey. We weren’t some special people who lost our magic. We were slave people, and we weren’t going anywhere. It was later I saw what she meant. 

— Sue Monk Kidd, from her novel, The Invention of Wings

Part of why these words so thoroughly captured me is in the very first sentence that mentions the place I so love, Africa. And even though the words don’t really have all that much to do with Africa, I found myself transported, walking among the banana trees in East Africa — Fort Portal, Uganda to be exact. Walking into a village brimming with people, and oh, the children! So many glimmering eyes, wide smiles and glowing dark faces that expressed everything from sheer delight to excruciating sorrow, and everything in between.

That was in one of my former lives, and pure magic it was! Because when you are able to make a child smile with a sweety (a piece of hard candy), there’s magic in that moment and it is a moment you carry through your day and through the rest of your life. Maybe that’s the grace of growing older — that you carry with you moments of magic from every place you have been, from every soul who touched your life so deeply.

In Sue Monk Kidd’s words, the magic was being able to fly, probably meaning to soar into the clouds above your troubles and woes. It hit me in my deep place, that the Ugandan people we came to know and love did soar into the clouds. Indeed, they left the agonizing hardships of life on the dusty earth below as their wings lifted them up, higher and higher to where life’s pain was replaced by pure exhilaration.

Back on the earth, in their world, not much was very exhilarating. Life was the same, predictable day after predictable day that disheartened them with hunger, malnutrition, thirst for clean water, oppression, soldiers with their machine guns and all the commonplace bad things that formed their lives. But there were better things too, like lush banana groves and children singing; like the music of drums at dusk; like the shimmering embers from their cooking fires rising into the night sky and reminding them that the day’s toil was not so bad when family could still gather together around a centering, comforting fire. There was magic in all of it. It was the magic of surviving war and embracing the loved ones who were still alive. It was the magic of celebrating the extraordinary lives of loved ones who had died and knowing that generations would move forward carrying the family’s magic into the future. It was the magic in their remembering, remembering the holy words they had hidden in their hearts . . .

“For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord,
“plans for well-being and not for trouble, to give you a future and a hope.”

— Jeremiah 29:11 New Life Version (NLV)

Maybe you, like me, have forgotten that we brought our magic with us to this day from the scenes of our past, from the happenings and the people we have known. This kind of magic never leaves one’s spirit. This kind of magic is holy mystery, really. It is tucked away within us for the times when we most need to take wing. Still, it does take some courage on our part, some brave resolve that we can lift up our heads and embrace “a future and a hope.”

No, we have not left our magic behind! It waits in us for a moment when we are languishing, when we feel sorrow or discouragement, fear or desperation — for a time when we feel disconsolate. It is in that moment we fly, by the grace-filled mercy of God, on the wings of the morning,* forever lifted above the troubles of the world.

I need that sometimes. Don’t you?

 

For your meditation time, I share with you this beloved hymn, “Come, Ye Disconsolate.”*

* Psalm 139:9

* “Come, Ye Disconsolate”
Lyrics: Thomas Moore (1779-1852); Altered by Thomas Hastings (1784-1872)
Music: Samuel Webbe (1740-1816)

Advent, Angels, Bethlehem’s Star, Christ’s Birth, Christmas, Darkness, Fear, Grace, Hope, life, Mary, merry-go-round, Sacred Worth, Skies, Soul, Stars, struggle

“My Soul Felt Its Worth”

Rev Kathy

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The Twenty-Third Day of Advent
December 23, 2019

I think Advent may be asking me to take stock of my soul. Advent may also be beckoning to me, calling me to listen to my life. The fact is I don’t have to listen so intently these days because my life is shouting at me. Life is urging me to live in sacred space, at least for a few moments every day. Life is challenging me to contemplative prayer and times of meditation that will give me strength — to heal, to thrive, to let go of my worries, to attend to my soul, to rest in my sacred worth, to enjoy a deeper faith and to live into hope.

The thing is: I am not really experiencing Advent very deeply, and I am not listening to my life. I often feel as if I’m on a merry-go-round searching for a way to get off safely and land in a good place. I am completely preoccupied with life things, those overwhelming tasks and thoughts and worries and hopes. I could list them: 

recovery from my kidney transplant

concern about my son’s illness and his hospitalization last night
and the fact that they released him with no solutions

hopes that my grandchildren are growing up healthy and happy
and the pain of living so many miles from them

hoping that the new year will bring good tidings to us all

longing for the world to sing, “Peace on earth, goodwill to all!”
and really mean it.

I wonder what Mary worried about on that dark night in Bethlehem. Was she able to look above while this extraordinary, frightening thing was happening to her? Could she look above while she was in labor, in pain? Did she weep — tears of joy or maybe tears of anxiety? Did she despair of being in a strange place in a cold stable? As a young girl of devout faith, did she manage take a few moments to look up into the starlit darkness and see that brightest star shining on the stable? Did she hear, did she listen, to the singing of the angels? Did she listen to her life?

Listening to one’s life may well be the best thing we could do for ourselves. I have a suspicion that most of us don’t do that kind of deep listening, listening that opens us to holy possibilities. There is a beloved song that we have probably heard every year at Christmas. In its verses we find two very profound lines. The hymn writer wrote unforgettable words that made it seem as if he knew well how hard life can be.

Long lay the world in sin and error pining
Till He appeared and the soul felt its worth

—- “O, Holy Night,” Writer, Adolphe Charles Adam, who wrote this Christmas carol Minuit, chrĂ©tiens! (1844), later set to different English lyrics and widely sung as “O Holy Night” (1847).

The soul felt its worth! What a thought to aspire to and eventually to know that my soul can feel its worth. I have a feeling that Advent might be calling me to listen to my life, to open myself to the song of angels and the light of Bethlehem’s star, and that in listening, my soul would begin to feel its worth.

Theologian, Fredrick Buechner, says it like this:

Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it because, in the last analysis, all moments are hidden moments and life itself is grace.

It would indeed be a precious Christmas gift for my heart to know that “life itself is grace,” and that in life’s grace that God gives, I would know beyond all knowing that my soul feels its worth.

Amen.

Advent, Angels, anxiety, Bethlehem’s Star, Calamity, Challenge, Christ Child, Christ’s Birth, Covenant, Darkness, Despair, Emotions, Exhaustion, Fear, God’s Gift of Stars, grief, Hope, Loss, Newer Skies, Resilience, Skies, Stars, struggle, Suffering

It Is Not Over!

Rev Kathy

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The Twenty-First Day of Advent
December 21, 2019

The sages of the world came up with this wise saying: “It’s not over ‘till it’s over!” There are some similar sayings around, most notably one about the singing of a “fat lady.” But that one is not at all kind or sensitive! The point is that in life some things are never over. Grief at losing a loved one comes to mind, as does living with an incurable illness, losing a cherished relationship or any number of persisting, chronic, never-ending difficulties.

But the truth is, we are a resilient people, created by God who fully equips us for life’s calamities. We do not shrink in the face of loss. We know that weeping can last through a dark night, but the morning light may bring joy. We do not fear life’s dark times, because we know that our story is not over. There will be brighter days ahead. The brightest stars will give light in the darkest nights. Our resilient spirits will lift us up and, most importantly, God will be near right in the midst of our sufferings. It is not over! I am inspired by the thoughts of Ann Weems about this very thing:

IT IS NOT OVER

It is not over,
this birthing.
There are always newer skies
into which
God can throw stars.
When we begin to think
that we can predict the Advent of God,
that we can box the Christ
in a stable in Bethlehem,
that’s just the time
that God will be born
in a place we can’t imagine and won’t believe.
Those who wait for God
watch with their hearts and not their eyes,
listening
always listening
for angel words.

— Ann Weems

What profound truth: that those who wait for God watch “with their hearts and not their eyes,” listening — always listening — for angel words. We can find another take on that spoken by the Prophet Isaiah:

Those who wait upon the Lord will renew their strength. They will mount up with wings as eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint.

— Isaiah 40:31

When I think that I have reached the end of my resilience, when I have become weary with my life’s tragedies and believe that it’s over, I want to be able to remember the words Ann Weems wrote, that “it is not over, this birthing, and that there are always newer skies into which God can throw stars.”

Like you, I need newer skies now and then. And if God can throw stars into those new skies, all the better. Advent’s promise is that those stars of hope will appear just when I most need them.

May God make it so, and may we remember stars of hope and angel words whenever we celebrate the Christ Child born under the light of Bethlehem’s star. Amen.

 

Advent, Angels, Bethlehem’s Star, Celebration, Christ’s Birth, Clouds, Courage, Dancing, Darkness, grief, Life storms, Rain and Stars, Skies, Stars

“I Am Not a Stranger to the Rain”

Rev Kathy

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The Eleventh Day of Advent
December 12, 2019

THE CHILD IS BORN AGAIN

Each year the Child is born again

Each year some new heart
finally hears
finally sees
finally knows love.

And in heaven
there is great rejoicing!
There is a festival of stars!
There is celebration among the angels!

For in the finding of one lost sheep,
the heart of the Shepherd is glad, and
Christmas has happened once more.

The Child is born anew
and one more knee is bowed!

— Ann Weems

Advent promises us angels and stars. And a Child — an extraordinary Child —who is the incarnation of God born into our world. How glorious this is adventure of Advent, year after year, a journey that brings us to angel celebrations and “a festival of stars.” We can count on it. We wait for it with great anticipation. We delight in the season. Advent candles flicker, gently illuminating the darkness until we light the Christ candle. Indeed the Child is born anew! And oh, how we love the songs of the angels, the festival of stars and the brightest star of all that shines on a stable!

But there are nights, even during Advent, when stars are hidden from our sight. Clouds begin to gather and the stars dim. The clouds thicken and the stars, even the brilliant Bethlehem star, disappear. The rains come, gentle at first, and then come down upon us with an unsettling force.

Rains do fall on the lives of all of us. Stars are hidden during seasons of rain and there may even be a startling clap of thunder here and there. Rainy seasons can be times of mourning the loss of a loved one, grieving the end of a relationship, lamenting the reality of a health crisis, worrying about your children or your aging parents. Rain falls on all of us, “the just and the unjust, those who do good and those who do evil.” (Matthew 5:44)

I am reminded of a beautiful song from the Stephen Schwartz musical, “Children of Eden.” The song offers wisdom that reminds us that we are not strangers to the rain: “I won’t say I’ve never felt the pain, but I am not a stranger to the rain.” The song goes on to say something profound that we might take to heart:

I’ve learned not to tremble
When I hear the thunder roar,
I don’t curse what I can’t change . . .

Here are the lyrics to the song followed by a video.

Shed no tears for me
There’ll be rain enough today
I’m wishing you godspeed
As I wave you on your way
This won’t be the first time
I’ve stayed behind to face
The bitter consequences
Of an ancient fall from grace
I’m a daughter of the race of Cain
I am not a stranger to the rain

Orphan in the storm
That’s a role I’ve played before
I’ve learned not to tremble
When I hear the thunder roar
I don’t curse what I can’t change
I just play the hand I’m dealt
When they lighten up the rations
I tighten up my belt
I won’t say I’ve never felt the pain
But I am not a stranger to the rain

And for the boy who’s given me the sweetest love I’ve known
I wish for him another love so he won’t be alone
Because I am bound to walk among the wounded and the slain
And when the storm comes crashing on the plain
I will dance before the lightning to music sacred and profane

Oh, shed no tears for me
Light no candle for my sake
This journey I’ll be making
Is one we all must make
Shoulder to the wind
I’ll turn my face into the spray
And when the heavens open
Let the drops fall where they may
If they finally wash away the stain
From a daughter of the race of Cain
I am not a stranger to the rain

Let it rain.

 

 

If we get to a point in our lives where we can say, “let it rain,” we will have found the strength to refuse to curse the things we cannot change. Then we can truly live, free from our need to control the things in life we simply cannot control. As the song says, “when the storm comes crashing on the plain, I will dance before the lightning to music sacred and profane.”

So let it rain and let us dance! And let us delight in Advent’s festival of stars, in the celebration of the angels, in the brilliance of the star of Bethlehem!

Amen.

 

 

Advent, Angels, Belief, Faith, Fear, Godburst, Skies, Stars, struggle, Surprise

GODBURST

Rev Kathy

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The Eighth Day of Advent
Transplant Day Twenty-seven
December 9, 2019

GODBURST 

When the Holy Child is born into our hearts
there is a rain of stars
a rushing of angels
a blaze of candles
this God burst into our lives.

— Ann Weems

It seems to me that there is no other way to thrive after a kidney transplant than by allowing God to burst into my life. Certainly, God was already in my life, and has been for many years, but this “Godburst” is a different sort of divine entrance. Godburst enters powerfully, often suddenly and without warning. It is always surprise when God plans a divine appointment, unimaginable surprise.

The other side of a Godburst requires that I intentionally give God access and admittance. It is just as Ann Weems describes it when she tells when to expect the encounter between me and God. Something happens —  “the Holy Child is born into our hearts” — and as a result, I begin to believe deep within my soul that I really can face the challenges and difficulties ahead.

Still, I feel fear deep-down-inside. I fear the after effects of the transplant. The fear is in my mind in the daylight and often consumes my heart in the night. Friends ask me what I most fear, but I am hard-pressed to isolate just one fear. I think about all of them: an increased risk of infections, uncontrolled diabetes, high blood pressure, weight gain, abdominal pain, hair loss, swollen gums, bruising or bleeding more easily, thinning of the bones, mood swings and an increased risk of certain types of cancer, particularly skin cancer. And I cannot yet shake the thought of acute rejection of the kidney and the use of high powered, harsh immunosuppressant medications to prevent that rejection.

This fear has been my constant companion for many months, but since the transplant, the fear has been imminent, deeper and more severe. So last night I determined to try to get a handle on it by listing every fear that feels so ominous to me. I knew it would be a difficult endeavor, but I hoped for even a little easing of the fear.

I’m not sure it addressed the fear that much. What it did do is send me all the way back to the foundation of my being, to the source of my strength. It called my attention back to Godburst, where Ann Weems reminds me how it might look when it happens:

there is a rain of stars
a rushing of angels
a blaze of candles
this God has burst into my life.

With that kind of holy entrance into my life, I think I might just be strong enough to move into the unknown and risky future. Maybe unafraid. Or at least I could be free of the deep fear and anxiety that seems so present right now. Isn’t that a perfect picture of experiencing Advent?

In the end, after making and contemplating the list, I still may not believe strongly enough that Godburst will happen for me. But I believe that my faith will sustain me. I believe that the God who knew me before I was even born will know me still — today and forever.

I believe that Godburst is a deeply personal and powerful encounter between me and God. And I have no doubt that it can change my life!

Advent, Angels, Comfort, Courage, Darkness, Emotions, Faith, God’s Gift of Stars, healing, Hope, Humbug, Kidney Transplant, Light, New Normal, Patience, Perseverance, Skies, Soul, Stars, struggle, Weeping

“Humbug!” and Hope!

Rev Kathy

AC24B7A2-58F3-416F-9366-0FA2DA829A60
The Fourth Day of Advent
Transplant Day Twenty-three
December 4, 2019

IN DECEMBER DARKNESS

The whole world waits in December darkness
for a glimpse of the Light of God.
Even those who snarl “Humbug!”
and chase away the carolers
have been looking toward the skies.

The one who declared he never would forgive
has forgiven,
and those who left home
have returned,
and even wars are halted,
if briefly,
as the whole world looks starward.

In the December darkness
we peer from our windows
watching for an angel with rainbow wings
to announce the Hope of the World.

— Ann Weems

In this season of my life, it would be easy to snarl “Humbug!” and move on to ordinary, tedious, plodding daily living. It’s hard to look starward when pain is your nightly companion, sticking much too close in the darkness of night, the darkness of life. My words this morning are not Advent-inspired words. They are, pure and simple, a factual and real assessment of where I find myself. My most pressing question? How do I get from “Humbug!” to Hope?

It will require an extra measure of faith, patience and perseverance. It will require my willingness to welcome a new normal. It may call for a little extra weeping, a bit more courage, a wide-open soul and maybe even a few angels to illuminate the way ahead.

To be honest, I have to say that on top of my physical pain is my incessant emotional pain that whispers, “You are not okay!” over and over and over again. I know this is not very Advent-like. This view of my current health and well-being is most definitely not Advent-like. But instead of my constant post- transplant complaints and consternations, I want to look for the star in the night sky. I want to listen for the hope-filled sound of the heavenly host singing “Alleluia!” I want to be standing in awe of angels with rainbow wings.

All of this descriptive information is about my current emotional/physical/spiritual space. I know that I don’t want to stay here in this dark place. I know it’s a temporary, necessary time of moving into healing and wholeness. Still, it often feels like darkness. Much more like “Humbug!” than Hope!

So from this dark place, I will myself to look starward, even briefly. I will see past the December darkness. I plan to peer out of my transplant-veiled windows, watching for an angel with rainbow wings announcing the Hope of the World!

May Spirit make it so.

Comfort, Grace, Hope, Sacred Space, Skies, Stars, Twilight

Welcoming Twilight

Rev Kathy

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November 12, 2019 — the day of my kidney transplant

I’m welcoming twilight today, that space created for me by a gifted anesthesiologist. 

It is, I imagine, a magical thing that gathers all the worries, fears, disappointments of illness and tucks them neatly into a glittering silver pouch. 

The twilight is a good feeling, a sense of new well-being in the all places where my feelings and emotions live. 

It is a comfort and a grace.

It is a relief, a blessed sense that all is well.

It is an alchemist holding the silver pouch in her hands and flinging it into the heavens, each fear and worry joining the stars in the night sky.

And as dawn breaks — a new dawn — I welcome a new life, a different life, a gift of life that feels like hope.

 

F9FA5D3C-53F0-4043-8A72-F9E2D63F7349

On another note, please pray for me as I look toward my kidney transplant today at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida. I am so 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 rea 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 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

Beauty of Nature, Clouds, Contemplation, Creation, Fear, God's presence, Meditation, Mindfulness, Mountaintop, Nature, Ocean, Prayer, Reflection, Serenity, Silence, Skies, Spiritual Discipline, Stillness

Imposing Silence Upon Our Cares

Rev Kathy

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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)

Beauty of Nature, Bible, Darkness, Ecclesiastes, Emotions, Faith, Gnat Line, God, Hope, Joy, Nature, simple joys, Skies

Blue Skies and Gentle Breezes

Rev Kathy

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Blue skies and gentle breezes. That’s Macon most of the time. Oh, and you have to factor in the gnats, the annoying gnats that we have because we live on the gnat line.

And there really is a such thing. Look it up. (http://southofthegnatline.blogspot.com/p/gnat-line-101_28.html) 

You will find that not only is the gnat line a real thing, but that it also sits directly on top of Macon, Georgia. No one told me that before I moved here.

Still, there are blue skies and gentle breezes this morning. For a few seconds, I am fully in the moment, fully aware of the blue skies over me and the warm breeze that points my mind to all that is good, to all the things about nature that we can count on.

Gnats notwithstanding.

In some ways, it’s a picture of life —the beauty of blue skies and gentle breezes, right along with the persistent aggravation of gnats buzzing your face. Certainly, life is like that for me. There are every day graces accompanied with aggravations, challenges and sometimes troubles. Life brings days of deep mourning sometimes and times for gladness at other times. 

Most thoughts these days take me to the very real possibility that I will receive a new kidney. The thought of it is both exhilarating and terrifying. I would not be me if I did not have the troubling thought that I might die in the middle of surgery. Or that I might contract a lethal infection and die of that. Or maybe I’ll be be compromised from the procedure and not recover.

On the other hand, maybe I’ll thrive with a new kidney. Maybe I will feel better than I have felt in five years. Maybe it’s true that I’ll live longer. Maybe life will begin again, fresh and new and full of possibilities. I love this message from the writer of Ecclesiastes.

So I commend the enjoyment of life, because there is nothing better for a person under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany them in their toil all the days of the life God has given them under the sun.

— Ecclesiastes 8:15 (New International Version (NIV)

What a good and gracious thought! The promise that as we are enjoying life, joy will be in us through whatever “toil” we face. Struggle, trouble, travail — we experience all of these in life, right along with the joy.

So as I contemplate a kidney transplant, I might just think of it as one of life’s “toils” that, by God’s grace, will be accompanied by joy. 

I think I can do this. After all, “the joy of the Lord is my strength.” (Nehemiah 8:10)

Blue skies and gentle breezes all the way!

Pesky gnats notwithstanding!

 

 

Clouds, Dreams, Exclusion, Freedom, Immigration, Skies, Stars

Make Room for the Unimaginable

Rev Kathy

C0F3E414-0365-4F43-890F-EAF928810C56Don’t you love skies . . . blues and purples, the sun’s brightness, the dark black of night, clouds and stars? It is good for us to look into the heavens and lose ourselves in the beauty of God’s creation, to make room for the unimaginable.

There is a beautiful poem in German by Joseph von Eichendorff, in which the poet says to God, “You are the One who breaks up above us those roofs that we so firmly build, so that we may see the heavens. And therefore I will not despair.”

We do build firm roofs that completely cover us, fences that separate us from neighbors, walls that divide us one from another. And we hear a great deal of talk these days about building a wall that is designed to keep people from other countries out. Visitors living in this country despair at the possibility of being deported. Even those who have been here for years and have followed all the rules.

There was a time when immigrants were welcomed here, encouraged to dream of better lives for their families. It was a time when their dreams brought them to a land of freedom, without oppression. My grandparents dreamed that dream when they came to America with my infant mother. And so life began for them here, among neighbors, in a safe and welcoming haven. My brothers and I are the products of that dream. 

So I am sad about the wall and hope in my heart that it will never be built. 

I am reminded of the Berlin Wall. It stood for 10,316 days, from 1961 until 1989. A guarded concrete barrier that physically and ideologically divided Berlin, it was sometimes referred to as the Wall of Shame. Over 100,000 people attempted to escape and over 5,000 people succeeded in escaping over the Wall. More than 200 people died trying to cross the Berlin Wall, but it stood solidly, forbidding passage. It was a blight on Berlin’s landscape that proclaimed absolute division. I remember the day of the wall’s destruction, June 13, 1990.

Brother David Steindl-Rast, OSB shares a beautiful truth:

“Build the walls so lightly that you are still aware that you have neighbors. And build the roofs so lightly that you can look through and see the stars.”

That kind of roof God does not have to break. If we build our life in that form, we are people of hope. If we build any more firmly . . . we should expect that God shatters it all, to make room for the unimaginable, so that we will see the stars.

Bible, Comfort, Despair, Faith, God's Faithfulness, God's presence, grief, healing, Heartbreak, Hope, Isaiah, Pain, Psalms, Skies, Stars, Suffering

The Hands that Made the Stars

Rev Kathy

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Comfort in the magnificent Arkansas skies. Photography by Steven Nawojczyk.

As I write on this day, I am aware that many friends are in the throes of darkness and despair. Some are facing devastating medical diagnoses. Some are yearning to have a child and are going through difficult medical procedures. Some are grieving for a family member in trouble. Some are waiting with hope for a cure for a disease that is bringing them to their knees. Others are enduring harsh medical treatments, hoping their lives will be saved. Many of them are at the point of losing all hope.

It hurts me deeply every time I am at a loss for comforting words. A little part of my heart breaks because I know I cannot “do something” to ease the suffering. And so I search for my own comfort as I search for ways to hold my friends in the light. As always, I am led to Scripture, not for easy answers, miraculous cures, or an instant panacea. I peek into the Bible to find words that will lift up hope in the middle of dark days and darker nights.

Often the words I find point me to the skies, as if gazing into an expanse beyond imagination might open my eyes to a radiant and holy hope. In truth, the words of Scripture do point me to hope. 

From the Prophet Isaiah:

Look up into the heavens. Who created all the stars? He brings them out like an army, one after another, calling each by its name. Because of his great power and incomparable strength, not a single one is missing. O Jacob, how can you say the LORD does not see your troubles?

Have you never heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of all the earth. He never grows weak or weary. No one can measure the depths of his understanding. He gives power to the weak and strength to the powerless.

— Isaiah 40:26-29

From the Psalmist:

When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers — the moon and the stars you have set in place — what are mere mortals that you should think about them, human beings that you should care for them?

— Psalm 8:3-4

And so whoever you are, whatever pain you are carrying, know that the hands that made the stars are holding your heart.