What will I make of this new day while bodies (some with breath) lie entombed beneath mortar, brick, wood, and stone where the earth shook and life collapsed? What will I do on this bright sunny day, all my limbs intact, my loved ones well, when the dirge of mourning snakes its way through plumes of dust and smoke—its very notes dust and smoke—when my heart hears it across the continents? How will I be on this, another day of precious life, as I turn away from images, headlines, numbers ascending, weary of the drumbeat in my head: “But what can I do? But what can I do?” I lay down my yoga mat then stand in Warrior pose, brace my feet against familiar ground, and breathe long breaths, slow and deep, in and out and into the world, this world. I lift my face skyward raise my arms overhead gathering all the hurting all the wounded the hungry the war-ridden the dying the fearful the widowed and orphaned to the Sun offering the tears that roll down my face that drench my heart as supplication as communion before bowing before It All, rolling up my mat to exit into the fiercely bright day.
For many Christians, the Feast of Epiphany marks the end of the Christmas Season and is the culminating celebration of the Twelve Days of Christmas. The story of the Epiphany is found only in the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter Two, and it involves the non-Jewish wise men/kings/magi/astronomers (supposedly three, but no number is given in the text) who make their treacherous journey across the Middle East in search of the child prophesied to be the Messiah. They bring their symbolic gifts of gold (kingship/royalty), frankincense (worship), and myrrh (embalming/death) and present them to Mary before departing “by another route” to avoid alerting King Herod to the whereabouts of his kingly competition. This story (factual or symbolic) is the last snippet we have of Jesus’ entrance into our world.
An “epiphany” is any kind of manifestation, insight, inspiration, realization, vision, or understanding. For these scientific men (assumed to be astrologers) from the East, seeing Jesus (who was probably a toddler by the time, not a baby in a manger or an indulged child in a palace) broke something open in them. Their minds gave way to an unfolding of their hearts as they received the epiphany that this child was, indeed, the Messiah prophesied in the Hebrew scriptures. They became the recipients of an indwelling, the possession of a spiritual insight, that changed them, as understood by the metaphor of traveling home “by another route.” Just as the lowliest of the low, the shepherds, were the first people invited to come see the newborn babe, these intellectual, rational foreigners were the ones called to experience an indwelling. The birth of Christ was/is an invitation for all people to the Divine Light.
Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote, “If the stars should appear but one night every thousand years how man would marvel and stare.” So much of the world takes the stars for granted, just as the news of Christmas, of Epiphany, becomes old hat. Maybe if we only heard this story once every thousand years it would shatter our world as it did the wise men’s, as it did the shepherds, as it did the Evangelist’s John’s when he realized (epiphany) that his beloved friend Jesus was truly God: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). God Itself—the creator of everything—put on our flesh; God, like the wise men, embarked on a dangerous journey to bring a gift, a light to the world, an understanding of who God is through Jesus, God’s own expression of God’s self: “In him (Jesus) was life, and that life was the light of all people” (John 1:4).
In Jesus, through Jesus, the Divine Creator invites us to see, hear, and know It in ways never before possible. Epiphany. Our own relationship to that cosmic, distant, impersonal God is changed because God gifts us access, not only by being with us, but by being one of us, living with with us, in our own real, torn, corrupt, and broken world, in the middle of our own experiences, our own weaknesses, our own confusion, our own pain, our own death. No matter how we may feel, who we are, or where we find ourselves, we are never alone.
“The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it” (John 1:5.) That epiphany, the promise of light and presence and hope, is the rest of the rest of the Christmas story when we have the eyes to see, the hearts to receive, and the desire to go “by another route.”
May we all be graced with epiphanies! ~ Rosemary
Indwelling
It can happen anytime, anywhere, if we have the eyes to see the hearts to unfold. It happened to Anna and Simeon, the old, hunched-over prophets who understood and rejoiced. It happened to the teenage girl, startled, confused, perhaps too naïve to really understand the truth of the moment. It happened to the lowliest of the low, shepherds smelling of dung and wet wool and also to kings threatened by the very nerve of it. It happened to rational scientists, astrologers curious about a star-sighting that flickered light across a desert. It happens when a yellow rose unfurling beckons us to bend and savor its aroma, when we wake up to humanity gathered around us on the subway, when our newborn baby sounds its first cry. It happens in cancer wards as two people embrace, in the quiet morning when a candle first comes to life, at the lunch counter where the salt is passed, driving past the beggar who will work for food. Our eyes open, sometimes with tears. Our hearts clench or even expand, our breath, our spirit, catches, and we know we have been gifted an indwelling, a seed planted in us an understanding granted us a hope winding its way through us, a light illuminating our darkness as we let forth a sacred sigh and bow our heads in wonder.
Apologies to those who follow this blog for my rather lengthy hiatus these past few months. I took some time away to discern whether and how to continue publishing a blog. During that time, so much changed here in the States that, at first, I couldn’t summon the energy to write. All my attention was on holding tightly to the white river raft: the repercussions of the 2016 election. The Covid-19 pandemic. The repercussions of the 2020 election. The Russian invasion of Ukraine. Rising food and gas prices. Mass shootings. School children murdered. Parade-goers slaughtered. Gun laws loosened. Supreme Court decisions limiting freedoms. Constant turmoil of some kind or another. I felt I was being shoved under by the piling on of one extreme event after another. Why write? What difference would it make? I felt I could barely keep my head above water. At times, I still feel that way.
Then a memory returned to me. When my two children were teenagers and wanted to go see popular horror movies/slasher films with their friends, I advised them against going. My reasoning was two-fold: 1) It can be difficult to remove terrifying images from our minds, even if they are imaginary; and 2) Giving attention to such violence feeds such violence. Better to give attention to those things that are life-giving instead of life-draining. These admonitions have come back to me in regard to my own present action or inaction. I can choose to give attention to the chaos, and only the chaos, which then gives power to the chaos, or I can choose to respond in a life-giving way. Chaos has its purpose: it WILL demand change. How we respond to the change and how we help mold the change are up to each one of us.
Let’s face it. What we knew and expected of life five, ten years ago, is gone. We can’t go home again. Across the globe, a Pandora’s Box has been opened. The pandemic didn’t help it, nor did the characters of the various people who chose to lift the lid. What had been brewing, simmering, for so long has been let loose, there can be no doubt, and that fact can actually be an opportunity for us to re-examine our cultures, make amends, and reclaim the good. To do that, though, requires that we don’t allow the chaos to suck us in. For me, that means I return to writing.
I think of my words like dandelion fluff. I ponder them, write them, publish them, and then blow them into the wind. I don’t know where they will land or who will hear them. Only the Spirit does. But I have to keep sending them into the wind, believing that along the way they will offer a bit of hope, a bit of love, a bit of resolve, and a bit of community, giving energy and intention to the good. It is, indeed, a strange new world, and it is up to us to keep the Light shining in whatever ways we can.
Adding my light to yours ~ Rosemary
Brothers of Joseph
O Joseph, favored son of the brightly colored coat, see how all your brothers gather again in these strange and foreign days. Watch them tear at your garment, again, ripping it to shreds in their envy, destroying what they do not want others to possess. They turn their backs on ancient Jacob in his grief, their hands splattered with innocent blood. Joseph, your brothers have arrived, raising their guns high and taking aim. They toss freedom of conscience into your dusty pit, burying it with the innocent victims of their rigid rights, shaping their own morality into a golden calf. Watch them take their scythes to nature, destroying it with their open, hungry mouths, selling their (our) birthrights to the highest bidder, chiding old Jacob in his grief. See them judge love: who can love, how to love, when they themselves have no love. Joseph, your brothers are here, unchanged, trampling on others, unraveling the good, filled with the hot passion of the anger and envy that almost killed you. Joseph, your brothers are here, and we turn our heads, plant our seeds, raise our hands to the sun, lift our prayers, and wait to dance with Miriam in freedom.
“If you have two coats, give one to someone who doesn’t have any.”” Luke 3:11
I consider the number of coats I own. More than two. Seven? Eight? Ten? Not all coats, of course. Some are jackets a pink fleece a purple raincoat. In the checkout lane the woman in a wind-thin blue sweater fumbles with food stamps to pay for three packages of cheap hot dogs, a dollar short. I turn to search for a faster aisle then stop and notice the loaf of fresh bread a bottle of good wine that I am holding. I pay for her hot dogs. She turns her plain face to me and blesses me– not just me but also my family those I love. When she leaves, the clerk says I’ve done something wonderful. I am grateful no one is behind me to hear her. I blush, hurry, leave with a loaf of fresh bread a bottle of good wine and a blessing held in the hollows of my heart.
Ever forgotten something at the grocery store, something that couldn’t wait, and so you had to circle back and make a second trip? I found myself in that annoying situation a couple of weeks ago, grumbling to myself about the inconvenience and waste of time as I headed back. As it turns out, though, I was meant to make this second trip.
I quickly nabbed the forgotten item, along with a bottle of wine (my condolence prize) and got in the checkout aisle. In front of me, a woman was fumbling in her purse, trying to come up with another dollar to pay for three packages of no-brand hot dogs. The charge was $6, and she was short the amount. I noticed the aisle next to me was empty, and I almost moved there, when I looked at my own purchase—a loaf of freshly baked sourdough bread and a good bottle of Chardonnay. The woman in front of me was now explaining that since it was near the end of the month, she was short on food stamps and was trying to make them stretch over the next couple of days, counting on cheap hot dogs to feed her and perhaps others. She was about to settle on two packs when I offered to pay for all three. She gratefully accepted.
I don’t tell this story to brag. Six dollars is not much to me. I am no hero. I tell this story because this woman then turned and blessed me. She offered a blessing for me and for those I love, for health and well-being, when she obviously needed that blessing, herself. After she left, as I paid for my own items, the clerk told me I had done a wonderful thing. No, I hadn’t. I had done a human thing.
Whether you believe in God, Destiny, Fate, Karma, whatever, I believe I was sent back to that store to receive this woman’s blessing—not a blessing, be clear, that I deserved—but a gift of grace. I think of her from time to time for she has become a kind of role model of humility and graciousness for me, and I whisper the blessing back to her.
Blessings to each of you, wherever you find yourselves. ~ Rosemary
For all who wait in hope for the coming Light. Blessings, Rosemary
The Waiting
For I, the Lord your God, hold your right hand; it is I who say to you, “Do not fear. I will help you.” Isaiah 41:13
O, Isaiah, ancient prophet of doom, prophet of ancient hope, your proclamations resound like cymbals jarring this still and frozen December heart, this frozen and still December world. Like your own people, we are waiting in this season of ancient hope, waiting through each shortening hour waiting while our divisions grow wider than the separate waters of the Red Sea. We wait for your promise that the lion will lie down with the lamb. We wait for the winds of your words to blow injustices away like chaff, for the threshing sledge to make even the high and mighty palaces of the blind and powerful. Even as sunlight fades into shadows we wait in the darkness for your springs of water to wash over the dry land of poverty, for war to be no more. We wait for the fragrance of the cedar and myrtle, the fruit of the olive, to inhabit the deserts of our wilderness where anger, fear, and hate take root. We wait for the open rivers on the barest of heights to pour down and bathe us, to wash us clean, to make us new. O, Isaiah, ancient prophet of doom, prophet of ancient hope, like your people we wait in this ancient season of hope, lifting our prayers, lighting our simple candles– the flames as old as God– our single act of resistance against the night, our right hand clasping your promise.
I recently came across a quotation from John O’Donohue that made me stop. He wrote, “Many of us have made our world so familiar that we do not see it anymore. An interesting question to ask yourself at night is, ‘What did I really see this day?’”
What did I really see this day in my own familiar world? To what did I stop and truly attend? What did I notice right in front of me? To be honest, I think I go through most of my days rather blindly, so I have tried to pay attention to those common, every day, familiar items that are, in fact, miracles of their own.
Take, for instance, the tomato I had with breakfast this morning. Not a single mar on its perfect skin. I watched as the keen edge of the knife sliced through it to reveal the rich red fruit inside, which only a summer tomato can hope to yield. I attended to how I sliced it, evenly, instead of hacking it quickly. I “saw” a tomato, and it was wondrous.
Now I see the rain coming down. It creates a misty veil across the landscape and runs freely against the curb. My mother used to say raindrops in puddles looked like the marching feet of soldiers, and I see that, too.
I remember looking at the sky yesterday and noticing two cumulous clouds that resembled a puppy kissing a little girl on the nose. What magic! Today, I see a solid slate of gray, the proverbial wet blanket hanging over the city, but in pockets among the trees on the hills, steam pools like miniature hot springs.
I reflect on O’Donohue’s quotation and think of the person with whom I live and the friends that I visit. How much do I truly see them? I know the color of my partner’s eyes (thank God!) but I couldn’t say with complete confidence what color my friends’ eyes are. Yet, how many times have I looked them in the face? What fabulous palettes of color have I missed while sharing our lives?
The playwright Henry Miller wrote, “The moment one gives close attention to any thing, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.” What do I tend to give attention to? Bad news. The dumbfounding actions (or inactions) of others. Getting through another day Covid-free. All these things are reality. Yet while the philosopher George Santayana acknowledged that reality, he also reminded us that the world is “shot through with beauty, with love, with glints of courage and laughter; and in these, the spirit blooms.”
I believe part of our journey as spiritual beings is to incorporate those practices that help the spirit to bloom. Our wisest religions and philosophies stress the importance of paying attention, starting with paying attention to what we are paying attention to! When we become too familiar, we lose awe, humility, and gratitude. Great losses, indeed, for each one of us and for our world.
In this current season of so much uncertainty, noise, confusion, and angst, O’Donohue’s question is a centering one: “What did I really see today?” There is time to look. There is time to pay attention, no matter how time-strapped or worry-obsessed we have convinced ourselves we are. Who knows how that glimpse of one familiar object might wake us up, might fill us with wonder, might cause us to give thanks, might help transform our world? Even a mockingbird is worth the time to see.
Seeing with you. ~ Blessings, Rosemary
Mockingbird on Sunday Morning
If birds speak in tongues then surely does the mockingbird attired in clerical grays and whites suitable for Sunday worship. This morning, a male lifts his frenzied, praise-filled song in notes of cardinal, blue jay, wren, and titmouse in constant, raucous harmony, enamored by the sun’s early rays the first breath of a new day or the female mockingbird high in a limb cocking her head in anticipation of just the right melody that praises her.
Spirit Reflections 