"Now is the time to understand
"Stillness is what creates love.
We are in the Advent season and I’ve been thinking about the words of Luke 2 and the Christmas story. Mary gave birth to Jesus and was visited by some ordinary shepherds who told an extraordinary story – of angels in the sky and announcement of manger baby and glory of God – and those shepherds then went and blabbed what had been told them about the child to the whole town. The Scriptures tells us that all who heard it “wondered at these things.” And Mary quietly treasured up and pondered.
It’s got me to thinking about contemplating and about how I want to be quietly pondering during this holiday season so that I might get filled up with wonder.
What brings you to wonder?
What might you treasure up of your thoughts or moments today and this month?
(this Greek word syntereo means to preserve from being lost, to keep in mind)
What will you ponder in your heart in these days?
(Greek word symballo means to bring together in one’s mind, confer with one’s self)
It may be a bit of a stretch, but to sit with these questions seems to me a kind of meditative act. This wondering and treasuring up words spoken and mindfully bringing together experiences, for Mary and for us in our present moments, seems to be beneficial in wholistic ways (and that benefit, I speculate, is by God’s design):
*spiritually – this wondering can connect us to our true stories (for Mary and me and many - this God made man-baby that affects our relationships to divine and human) and moves us to gratitude;
*emotionally/mentally – meditative pondering can connect us to the “what is” present with acceptance [article Meditation and Psychiatry states: “…unity with the present moment brings an acceptance, even as one acts to make changes, accompanied by subjective experiences of understanding, joy, serenity, freedom and self fulfillment.9”];
*physically – connects us to better health [again, from article Meditation and Psychiatry, meditation benefits include: “Decreased stress and hypertension have been related to decreased autonomic arousal or reactivity,95–97 a possible means, along with positive emotions, reduced oxidative damage,98,99 and enhanced immune functioning,100 by which meditation may preserve cognition101 and reduce age-related allostatic stress and neuronal loss, thereby promoting brain longevity, plasticity, and learning.102,103 ]
In this holiday month may your body and mind and spirit be full of wonder as you meditatively ponder on Love and on all of Love's gifts.
Love came down at Christmas
Love came down at Christmas,
love all lovely, love divine;
love was born at Christmas:
star and angels gave the sign.
Worship we the Godhead,
love incarnate, love divine;
worship we our Jesus,
but wherewith the sacred sign?
Love shall be our token;
love be yours and love be mine,
Love to God and to all men,
love for plea and gift and sign.
- Christina Rossetti (1830-1894), 1885
[If you want, here's a Jars of Clay rendition of the song]
in the song that especially resonated at this last hearing and seem pertinent to my faith walk:* Use smaller dishes – “Chose a 10" lunch plate instead of a 12" dinner plate to cut out 100-200 calories a day – and 10-20 pounds in a year. 
Cornell's Brian Wansink, PhD, found in test after test that people serve more and eat more food with larger dishes. In Wansink’s/Cornell University's food lab tests, no one felt hungry or even noticed when tricks of the eye shaved 200 calories off their daily intake.” [See Wansink's Mindless Eating website for some specific ideas to avoid eating mindlessly].
* Watch what you drink -
1) Use a tall, skinny glass instead of a short, wide tumbler to cut liquid calories and wei
ght. You’ll drink 25-30% less juice, soda, wine, or any other beverage. Brian Wansink, PhD, says visual cues can trick us into consuming more or less. His tests at Cornell University found all kinds of people poured more into a short, wide glass — even experienced bartenders.
2) Replace one soda with a zero-calorie seltzer or water (add lemon, mint, or frozen strawberries for flavor and interest) and you'll avoid 10 teaspoons of sugar. The liquid sugar in soda appears to bypass the body's normal fullness cues. One small study compared an extra 450 calories per day from jelly beans vs. soda. The candy eaters unconsciously reduced their calorie intake from other foods by about the same amount of the caloric intake of the candy and their BMI didn't change; not so with the soda drinkers. The soda drinkers did not reduce their intake from other foods and gained 2.5 pounds in four weeks.
3) Limit alcohol. When an occasion includes alcohol, follow the first drink with a nonalcoholic, low-calorie beverage like sparkling water instead of moving directly to another cocktail, beer, or glass of wine. Alcohol has more calories per gram (7) than carbohydrates (4) or protein (4). It can also loosen your resolve, leading you to mindlessly inhale chips, nuts, and other foods you may normally limit.
4) Drink green tea. Some studies suggest that it can rev up the body's calorie-burning engine temporarily, possibly through the action of phytochemicals called catechins.
* Sleep more - Sleeping an extra hour a night could help a person drop 14 pounds in a year, according to a U of Michigan researcher Dr. Michael Sivak, who ran the numbers for a 2,500 calorie per day intake. Our “inactive wakefulness” in the later evening often includes mindless snacking (of 147 calories on average; as reported by WebMD) . Each additional hour of sleep he estimates reduces caloric intake by 6%. Additionally, there’s evidence that getting too little sleep revs up your appetite, making you uncommonly hungry.
* Serve m
ore veggies - Greater variety has been associated with eating more food. Try serving three vegetables with dinner instead of just one, and you might just eat more veggies. The high fiber and water content fills you up with fewer calories.
* Pay attention –
1) to slight fullness - Americans are conditioned to keep eating until they’re stuffed, but residents of Okinawa eat until they’re 80% full. Researcher Brian Wansink’s studies show most people don’t miss it when they’re dished out 20% less food.
2) to your self - Women who do yoga tend to weigh less than others, according to a 2009 published study in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association. The yoga regulars reported a more "mindful" approach to eating. For example, they tend to notice the large portions in restaurants but eat only enough to feel full. Researchers think the calm self-awareness developed through yoga may help people resist overeating.
3) to the pause - Most people have a natural "eating pause," when they drop the fork for a couple of minutes. Watch for this quiet signal that you're full but not stuffed, and don't take another bite. Clear your plate and enjoy the conversation.
4) to portion size - measure portions to avoid super sizing. Slim people and successful losers do it, according to a Consumer Reports survey. Make portion control easier with small "snack" packs and by keeping serving dishes off the table at meal time. See www.deesdirt.blogspot.com (Nov 1) for some one-portion serving sizes.
* Eat more slowly - Set a timer for 20 minutes and reinvent yourself a
s a slow eater. Savor each bite and make it last until the bell chimes. Paced meals offer great pleasure from smaller portions and trigger the body’s fullness hormones.
- According to large study (of more than 4,100 men and women from Japan who were asked to fill out surveys about their diet history and overall cardiovascular risk) published in the British Medical Journal, eating quickly and eating until full were directly associated with being overweight. In fact, a combination of the two habits was shown to play a part on actually becoming over weight.
- A 2008 study published in Journal of the American Dietetic Association discovered that if people changed their eating habits slightly - by taking small bites, putting down the utensils between bites and chewing all food thoroughly – their overall feeling of being full after eating were maximized. Framson, C. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, August 2009; vol 109: pp 1439-1444.
- More recently, the January 2010 issue of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism includes the first study to find that there are possible physiological reasons behind feeling full after a slow consumption of food. In this small study, a total of 17 healthy men ate the same meal consisting of 300 ml of ice cream, but were told to eat it under two different conditions. In the first condition, the meal was divided into two equal portions and the men ate the first portion, waited five minutes and then ate the second portion. Under the second condition, the meal was divided into seven equal portions and over 30 minutes the men ate one of the seven portions every five minutes. Through the use of blood samples taken before and in 30-minute intervals after eating the meal for a total of three and a half hours, the study found that the body released higher amounts of appetite suppressing hormones after the 30-minute meal than after the 5-minute meal. The higher level of these hormones (glucagon-like peptide-1 and peptide YY) made the men feel fuller after the 30-minute meal compared to the 5-minute meal.
* Eat home-cooked meals at least five days a week. A Consumer Reports survey found this was a top habit of "successful losers." Shortcut foods can make for quick meals, such as pre-chopped lean beef for fajitas, washed lettuce, pre-cut veggies, canned beans, cooked chicken strips, or grilled deli salmon.
* Start with a broth-based soup - it slows your eating and curbs your appetite. For an easy soup, add fresh or frozen vegetables to a low-sodium broth or canned soup and simmer. Beware of creamy soups, which can be high in fat and calories.
* Shovel in the whole grains such as brown rice, barley, oats, buckwheat, and whole wheat - they help fill you up with fewer calories and may improve your cholesterol profile, too.
* Chew sugarless gum with a strong flavor when you're feeling like snacking. Gum with a big flavor punch overpowers other foods so they don’t taste as good.
* Burn an extra 100 calories a day and lose 10 pounds in a year. Try one of these activities: Walk 1 mile, about 20 minutes, Pull weeds or plant flowers for 20 minutes, Mow the lawn for 20 minutes, Clean house for 30 minutes, Jog for 10 minutes.
One serving size:
Meat: a 3-ounce portion = A deck of cards or the palm of your hand
Peanut butter: 2 tablespoons = size of a golf ball, has about 190 calories, 17 grams fat
Chips: = 1 handful; that's 6 large tortilla chips or 20 potato chips or mini-pretzels
Fruits and veggies = size of a baseball or of your fist
1 cup leafy greens = size of 2 tennis balls
Try these tips to increase awareness about (and maybe even reduce!) portion sizes:
- Ask about half portions or order from the child's menu.
- If you get a full portion size, box up half your entrée before you start eating.
- Share your food with your companion.
- Eat a healthy appetizer and soup or salad instead of an entrée.
- Eat more dark green (spinach, broccoli, Swiss chard, kale), red, and orange foods with lots of nutrition: (berries, red bell peppers, tomatoes, pumpkin, sweet potatoes).
The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.
-Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd US President (1882-1945)
I’ve secretly sensed you everywhere
in birch trees
in crystal clear lakes
in cool misty mornings
in rolling every-shade-of-green hills
in grazing-upon-grass animals
in early dusk drives into the city
In shaded walks
in sun sifting through ivy
in small silent flowers
in the dawns and the dusks
and the mid-afternoons between
the two and the rising moon
And now this
in laughing trees
in windows everywhere
showing forest
in birds calling and cooing
for mates too far away to hear
I am caught now
in each
The vision
wraps a serene glow
around the tendrils
of my far-flung inattentiveness
and calls me home
- Joyce Rupp
ege professor Quentin Schultz wrote in his book Habits of the High-Tech Heart,Agree or disagree?
When I was young, I admired clever people.Students these days are less literate and less healthy than their parents, for the first time in about a century – or so I’ve been informed. The reasons behind an unwelcome turn such as this are many and complex, but it seems apparent that less sustained reading and exercise along with more immediate and easy gratification are contributors. We are a screen-staring (computer, TV, ipod, iphone), easy-access, connectivity-dependent, distracted digital nation.
At a presentation I attended in mid-September, the claim was offered that "Electronic media are radically changing the way this generation of students thinks, learns and socializes–perhaps for the better, perhaps not." [*Research does support some positives to e-media and multitasking; see the footnote below.] Some featured segments from Frontline‘s “Digital Nation” broadcast made the case, and research supports, that multitasking – made easier in some ways by technology, and practiced extensively by college students in the broadcast (who talked about writing one awesome paragraph followed by another awesome paragraph after interruption of tending to a text or social network site or google lookup, but with a resulting paper that was nonsensically unconnected) and attempted by many of us much of the time, this multitasking – is a practice that actually hampers the ability to accomplish tasks and alters the brain functioning of the multitasker.
Here's a taste of the research:
The Seattle Times, Nation & World, June 6, 2010 summarizes some research of a Stanford team: “Heavy multitaskers actually have more trouble focusing and shutting out irrelevant information, scientists say, and they experience more stress.” (research of Ophir, Nass, Wagner http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/08/21/0903620106.abstract) .
And “A study at the University of California, Irvine, found that people interrupted by e-mail reported significantly increased stress compared with those left to focus. Stress hormones have been shown to reduce short-term memory, said Dr. Gary Small, a psychiatrist at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).” Dr. Small asserts, in a Psychology Today blog “Brain Bootcamp” Oct 4, 2009: “When paying partial continuous attention, people may place their brains in a heightened state of stress. They no longer have time to reflect, contemplate or make thoughtful decisions. Instead, they exist in a sense of constant crisis - on alert for a new contact or bit of exciting news or information at any moment. And, once people get used to it, they tend to thrive on the perpetual connectivity. It feeds their egos and sense of self-worth, and it becomes irresistible.”
Boss friend Christopher questions - in his "Technology and Distraction" blog post of Sept 21 – whether technology per se was to blame for the "Digital Nation" students’ multitasking. "One key lesson that I gleaned from the history of technology is that problems that seem to be technological are often actually social problems ... As one historian famously said, technologies are “frozen politics” – social decisions, capacities, knowledge, resources that have been literally engineered into a tangible form... then, we should shift blame away from our technologies – with their seductive screens and sounds – and toward our own individual and collective decision-making."
Affected especially by technology are digital natives – young people born into a world of laptops and cell phones, text messaging and twittering — who spend an average of 8 1/2 hours each day exposed to digital technology. But so are us older digital immigrants who live with this rapid pace of information. We are almost all enticed by perpetual connectivity, have egos that want to be fed, and are easily side-tracked.
Maybe that helps explain why we so often choose distraction and the doing of tasks over focused attentiveness and being quietly still. I am often frustrated with my frenetic tendencies of doing. Yet I recognize, and encourage you also to consider, that there is huge benefit in just sitting, in quieting the stimuli, in being silent. No matter that our culture doesn't easily acknowledge it.
Consider these quotes:
“It is in deep solitude and silence that I find the gentleness with which I can truly love my brother and my sister.” – Thomas Merton
The Psalmist relays the heart of God when he says, “Be still and know that I am…” (Psalm 46:10a), and encourages, “…commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still.” Psalm 4:4
Mother Teresa w
as quoted as saying, “God is the friend of silence. See how nature--trees, flowers, grass--grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence...”
“We can make our minds so like still water that beings gather about us that they may see, if may be, their own image and so live for a moment with a clearer, perhaps even with a fiercer life because of our quiet.” – William Butler Yeats
Look for more on the benefits of silent stillness in the near future...
*Some positives of digital technology: Preliminary research shows some people can more easily juggle multiple information streams. These "supertaskers" represent less than 3 percent of the population, according to scientists at the University of Utah. Other research shows computer use has neurological advantages. In imaging studies, Gary Small at UCLA observed that Internet users showed greater brain activity than nonusers, suggesting they were growing their neural circuitry. At the University of Rochester, researchers found that players of some fast-paced video games could track the movement of a third more objects on a screen than nonplayers. They say the games can improve reaction and the ability to pick out details amid clutter.
“I pray you... Your play needs no excuse. Never excuse.” - William Shakespeare
Summer is nearly over for those of us in the upper Midwest of the US. So is vacation season done? Though parents of school-aged kids have likely already taken a family trip, possibly vacation doesn’t have to be out of the picture. Even if it’s a shorter jaunt, there is benefit in planning some time away from the everyday work routine.
Those benefits include:
-lowered stress and blood pressure
-increased creative thinking
-decreased depressive feelings
-greater happiness, especially preceding the vacation!
Here’s how the Sept 2010 issue of Health magazine says it ---
“St
udies confirm that time off… relieves stress, lowering your blood pressure and your risk for heart disease. It also promotes creative thinking. And women in a 2005 study who took two or more vacations per year were less likely to be depressed than women who took one every two years…The length of a vacation had no bearing on how happy it made people, according to a recent study in the journal Applied Research in the Quality of Life. What’s more, the biggest thrill came before the vacation.”
This news encourages me. I’ve been pining for a LONG vacation since the beginning of this year. But here is data that suggests the short vacation will do just fine for the ‘happy’ factor! I can manage the time away for – and even have happily planned already – a few three- to five-day ‘get-aways’ this fall. The anticipatory “thrill” of looking forward to the fun is significant! And it's sounding like that anticipation is as good as (or nearly so) the engagement in the actual fun activity.
I've mentioned before an intent to enjoy and live into the present moment. I find it a rather interesting challenge to both be in now and grateful for this day, while also simultaneously anticipate good in the future days. Possibly this month might be opportunity to practice living in this moment while also appreciating both past and future moments? May gratitude, rest, vacations, and happy moments permeate your days!
It's useless to rise early and go to bed late, and work your worried fingers to the bone. Don't you know he enjoys giving rest to those he loves? Psalm 127:2 (The Message translation)
It's important to be heroic, ambitious, productive, efficient, creative, and progressive, but these qualities don't necessarily nurture the soul. The soul has different concerns, of equal value: downtime for reflection, conversation, and reverie; beauty that is captivating and pleasuring; relatedness to the environs and to people; and any animal's rhythm of rest and activity. - (1779 - 1852)
PS: If interested, find the abstract of the “Vacationers Happier…” study in Applied Research in the Quality of Life below.
Applied Research in Quality of Life March 2010 Volume 5, Number 1, 35-47, DOI: 10.1007/s11482-009-9091-9 Vacationers Happier, but Most not Happier After a Holiday Jeroen Nawijn, Miquelle A. Marchand, Ruut Veenhoven and Ad J. Vingerhoets
matter that we may mount on stilts, we still must walk on our own legs. And on the highest throne in the world, we still sit only on our own bottom.
Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending. You plan a tower that will pierce the clouds? Lay first the foundation of humility.
-St. Augustine (354-430)
Recently I got to visit the Science Museum of Minnesota’s Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition “which showcases the oldest-known hand-scribed record of the Hebrew Bible” alon
g with The Saint John's Bible, “which represents history's newest hand-written illustrated Bible.” In addition to the fun of viewing the Hebrew words that communicate the supernatural (Creator God and suffering servant Messiah; the Hebrew writings most prevalent among the scrolls are Psalms, Isaiah, Deuteronomy, Enoch, and Genesis) it was fascinating to see the use of natural world objects as the medium for communication. The scroll fragments are made of leather/vellum and parchment (learn more about the scrolls). The Saint John's Bible uses anc
ient techniques—it's written on calf-skin vellum with quills, natural handmade inks, hand-ground pigments and gold leaf—to present themes, images and technology of the 21st century.
I thought the pages displayed were stunning. God has gifted us humans with artistic creative abilities, and connected us to a natural world where S/He displays supernatural wonders. I am grateful.
praise to the Beloved, all the earth, all that swim in the deep, and all the winged ones of the air! – Psalm 148 (Nan C. Merrill, trans.)
said to myself, Ivy, this is your life, this is your real life, and you are living it. Your life is not going to start later. this is it, it is now. It's funny how a person can be so busy that they forget this is it. This is my life."
Many years ago I heard Chuck Swindoll lightheartedly assert, “The problem with life is that it’s so daily!” I amen that as I often tire of the mundane everyday. And yet, I remind myself that every day is gift, and that the things we do in our blessed everyday matter.
Take movement, for example.
A recent large prospective study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology (July 22 online) found that the longer you sit, the shorter your life span.
Here’s the study write-up in U.S. News Health online:
“The authors of the study analyzed responses from questionnaires filled out by 123,216 people (53,440 men and 69,776 women) with no history of disease who were participating in the Cancer Prevention II study conducted by the American Cancer Society. Participants were followed for 14 years, from 1993 to 2006.
In the study, people were more likely to die of heart disease than cancer. After adjusting for a number of risk factors, including body mass index (BMI) and smoking, women who spent six hours a day sitting had a 37 percent increased risk of dying versus those who spent less than three hours a day on their bottoms. For men the increased risk was 17 percent.
Exercise, even a little per day, did tend to lower the mortality risk tied to sitting, the team noted. However, sitting's influence on death risk remained significant even when activity was factored in.
Study lead author Dr. Alpa Patel, an epidemiologist with the American Cancer Society, said that the obvious reason for the connection is that "the more time you spend sitting, the less total energy expended and you can have consequences such as weight gain and increased obesity." And that affects your metabolism as well as risk factors for various diseases, she said.
But there could be other biological factors beyond simply getting fatter that explain the link.
These are good reasons to DO more often than sit. Everyday.
Blue Cross & Blue Shield has been preaching the health benefits of moving your body for years. Since the start, I’ve enjoyed their do-groove campaign and dance commercials. Check out their “do” web pages for some good ideas [I especially like their piece on positive thinking and weight loss – the same suggestions can apply to getting your body moving, simply substitute “movement” for “food” and “exercise” for “diet”)]; and for a smile, rewatch the do-groove commercials, or download the do-groove song for ringtone.
But in addition to
merely reading about ideas to move, maybe purpose now to be active in a simple but fresh way? Summer is a grand time to do and groove more. Possibly walk or bike to work, park farther away, stand and stretch or jump or dance during a break from sitting while watching TV or doing desk work, weed or harvest a garden, wash windows, hike a trail, swim or ski, clean and chop vegetables, or go to a wedding dance and actually dance.
I’m feel
ing a little weighted down lately – for a handful of reasons, though none of them is of crisis proportions. After visiting a dying friend today, I gain a different perspective, and realize again that life is all about being grateful, and aiming to live in this moment of love, even in the midst of pain and heartache. Over and over again I need to – I get to – remind myself that there is a good God and we are covered in love by that Goodness.
I tend to lean into the flaw identified in the quote below, taken from the story The Shack, spoken by “God” to the protagonist:
“The real underlying flaw in your life, Mackenzie, is that you don’t think that I am good. If you knew I was good and that everything – the means, the ends, and all the processes of individual lives – is all covered by my goodness, then while you might not always understand what I am doing, you would trust me. But you don’t….
Trust is the fruit of a relationship in which you know you are loved. Because you do not know that I love you, you cannot trust me.”
Wishes for you and me to know we are covered with love.
God’s 
creativity inspires awe in me – both that God thought up such craziness and that God gifts us with such variety. I interpret the fascinating weirdness of these sea dragons - pictured top right is the leafy one, and bottom right is the weedy one - a
s God being good and loving (I can see where someone else might think that a stretch – still, they make me smile and shake my head in wonder).
Though I can't think of a decent transition, I also want to share a favored quote on goodness and love, so here goes:
“God only desires that our soul cling to him with all of its strength, in particular, that it clings to his goodness. For of all the things our minds can think about God, it is thinking upon his goodness that pleases him most and brings the most profit to our soul.
We are so preciously loved by God that we cannot even comprehend it…Therefore we may ask from our Lover to have all of him that we desire. For it is our nature to long for him, and it is his nature to long for us.”
– Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love
After just celebrating the U.S. 4th of July, I am wondering around the idea of 
living independently versus interdependently. Certainly there are times when we are called to pull away from a dependence that no longer works for us, but I’m thinking that interdependence is what serves us best overall.
I stumbled upon a blog post by Shane Claiborne called “40 Ways to Celebrate Our Interdependence Day on July 4” that points to a list of practical and fun ideas which can be enacted well beyond Independence Day. He reminds us, “After all, as people of rebirth independence seems to be a very counter-gospel value, but interdependence — interdependence on God and one another, this idea that we are not alone in the world — that is at the heart of the Story from which we come, the story that began long before America.”
Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts…Honor one another above yourselves.. Romans 12:4-6a, 10b
Interdependence for me is synonymous with honoring, respecting, appreciating, naming, blessing the other - whether it be a person, object, or situation.
Recently I enjoyed reading that naming cows has an effect. 
Winners of a 2009 Ig Nobel Prize (achievements that first make people laugh then make them think), Catherine Douglas and Peter Rowlinson of Newcastle University in England found that “cows who have names give more milk than cows that are nameless” (published in Anthrozoos, vol. 22, no. 1, March 2009).
Finding positive results in naming cows seem a little farfetched to me, but I’ll admit to having plenty to learn about effects we have on each other and our world. In this first Wednesday of the month post I invite you also to explore a new openness or awareness of interdependence with both the animate and seemingly inanimate. [Maybe we’ll even try reading to a tree? For more on that see below…]
I want to share two long quotations from a couple of books I’ve appreciated lately. Because they’re long, and not many of us love to read lots of text, here first are a couple of main ideas in shorter form that express the kind of interdependence that brings benefit:
“…pay attention to it…
To pronounce a blessing on something, it is important to see it as it is…The key to blessing things is to receive their blessing…sometimes it is enough to see the world through a tree’s eyes.” – Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World p 196
“Your outlook actually and concretely affects what goes on. When you give in to helplessness, you collude with despair and add to it. When you take back your power and choose to see the possibilities for healing and transformation, your creativity awakens and flows to become an active force of renewal and encouragement in the world…There is a huge force field that opens when intention focuses and directs itself toward transformation.” – John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us p 216
For those that want to stop here (and I get that!) I’ll close this post with a wish for wellness and a hope for you to often experience interdependence.
“Each one of us matters, has a role to play, makes a difference…Together we must reestablish our connections with the natural world and with the Spiritual Power that is around us.” – Jane Goodall
He (Christ) is before all things, and in him all things hold together. Colossians 1:17
The LONGER quotes:
Here’s the much longer quote – that makes me laugh and sigh – from Barbara Brown Taylor’s An Altar in the World:
“I once asked a class of graduate students to read a book of poems by Wendell Berry called A Timbered Choir. The poems chronicle almost twenty years of Berry’s walks through the woods on Sunday morning. He calls them “The Sabbath Poems,” which is a good thing to call them since they are as full of reverence as any worship service. Mostly he just pays attention to the things he sees: trees, fields, warblers, light. As he does, they become doors to other things: grief, love, amazement, blessing.
Reading him, you come gradually to understand that the key to blessing things is knowing that they beat you to it. The key to blessing things is to receive their blessing. You do not always have to use the magic words, either. Sometimes it is enough to see the world through a tree’s eyes.
What do the tall trees say 
To the late havocs in the sky?
They sigh.
The air moves, and they sway.
When the breeze on the hill
Is still, then they stand still.
They wait.
They have no fear. Their fate
Is faith. Birdsong
Is all they’ve wanted, all along.
Since the graduate students to whom I assigned this book were students of ministry, a few no doubt wondered why they were reading poems about trees. I was thankful that Berry had used the word “Sabbath” in his title to help justify my choice. At the beginning of class I invited volunteers to read their favorite poems out loud to the rest of the class. That worked all right. The others listened respectfully, some of them closing their eyes and some of them looking like they were holding thermometers in their mouths.
By my count, at least half of them were ready to get to the prose part of the class. They had paid good money for tuition. It was not easy for them to get time off from their churches. They wanted something they could take notes on, sooner rather than later. So I stopped the poetry reading earlier than I had planned, but at the break I asked them all to go outside and read at least one poem to a tree. I could not have asked anyone to do something like that when I was thirty years old. But at fifty-six I am willing to take more risks. Some of the students looked at me as if they were deciding whether it was too late to transfer to another class, but most of them took their Berry books with them as they left the room.
After the break, I had some converts.
“I read those poems before I got here,” one of them said, “and they were okay. Poetry’s just not my thing. But when I read one of them to the tree like you said, it sounded different to me. It was like the words had an inside and an outside and I had only read the outside. Reading them to the tree, I heard the inside. The words were so beautiful I almost cried.”
“I felt completely stupid,” another one said, “standing there in the quadrangle reading to a tree, but after a couple of lines I realized that the tree was really liking it. I am going to try reading to a bird next.”
After the testimonials were over we all agreed that we would not speak to the other graduate students about this experience, a least not until happy hour. My point is how often we are embarrassed to do and say the things that really affect us.” (pp 195-197)
And some words from John O’Donohue’s To Bless the Space Between Us:
“There is incredible power in the mind when it directs its light toward an object. I heard recently of an ongoing experiment in an American university. There is a sealed-off room; in that room there is a coin-flipping machine. All day and all night it flips coins. The results are usually fifty percent heads and fifty percent tails. Nearby there is another room into which people are invited. Each person is asked to make an intention. Which would they prefer? Heads or tails? Having made their choice, they then write it down on a page that is put in a sealed envelope and addressed to the team who conducts the research. The results are astounding. If a person wishes for heads, the machine ends up flipping up to a seventy-five percent majority of heads and vice versa…Now, if human intention can substantially affect the outcome of something as cold and neutral as the working of a coin-flipping machine, how much more must our human intentions achieve as they relate to one another?” (pp 216-217)
