When I am juggling multiple responsibilities that coincide with each other, I often get carried away, focused on the destination, the deadline, the result. I rush to get accomplish what I’m doing as if they are tasks to be checked off a to-do list. Sometimes, I do need to rush. Other times, the pressure to rush is internally created.

If I take a moment to pause, I can more easily discern which is true and respond with greater clarity. When I slow down, I often realize I can experience the moment I’m in, while also accomplishing what I need to do by taking it one step at a time.

Stepping into the new day.
Being present to one moment at a time.
Moving your Body.
Anyway you can.
Maybe a morning walk,
or an evening stroll.
What is possible?
How are you moving?
Real or in your mind?
If you can walk:
moving one step at a time – feeling the soles of your feet – feeling the ground under your feet.
Letting the ground caress your feet.
Hugging the ground with your feet.

Or

Simply being present to walking.
Connecting the rhythm of your breaths to your steps.
The real or imaginary steps.
Reminding yourself with each step, you are doing the best that you can.

— Yasemin Isler

One step at a time, may you have ease and peace today.

Marianne DiBlasi, CPE Intern

Meet in the middle with light.

Many of us wait every year to see what the commercials are going to be during the Super Bowl. The first few years this was promoted, it was exciting to see which commercial would win. But then I began to lose interest. However, this year one caught my attention. I was born in Kansas, but left when I was ten years old. My brother still lives there and I visit him about once a year. As soon as I saw the Super Bowl ad with Bruce Springsteen, I thought for sure it was the plains of Kansas. As the commercial progressed, I found that I was correct. It was a church in Lebanon, KS, near the Nebraska border—a church that “never closes.” I was surprised that I recognized the Kansas plains, but there is something magical about the plains. I was more impressed, however, with the message. Lebanon, KS, is the geographic center of the 48 contiguous states. The point of the commercial was to suggest that we must meet in the middle. Our country is so divided, and this was an attempt to spur viewers to mend the rifts of politics and polarization. As he is sits in this small chapel, Bruce Springsteen says “We just have to remember that the soil we stand on is common ground. Our light has always found its way through the darkness. And there is hope on the road ahead.” I find it interesting that there is a similar message from Amanda Gorman’s inaugural poem:

                        For there is always light,
                        if only we’re brave enough to see it.
                        If only we’re brave enough to be it.

Lord, help us be the light and meet in the middle.

Mary Anne Totten, CPE Intern

Her hands are old
Yet they are soft with the talcum of time
Hands that hold deep secrets in their wrinkles;
The hands she’s held, the cheeks she’s caressed
The baby she cradled
The love she gave
Her hands are cold like always
Her circulation slow
Her fingers are short and crooked
Arthritis playing center stage
They’ve seen beautiful writing and knitting needles
They’ve taken stunning pictures and run through saltwater sand
These are my grandmother’s hands. So powerful and true
They are gorgeous works of art
Sitting with her tea
A simple kind old woman with hands of stories and dreams.

– Emily Austin

Sarah McEvoy, CPE Intern

I had to pick up something from a parishioner last Friday. She invited me in for a carefully masked chat

and showed me one of her Christmas gifts: the biggest pink amaryllis I have ever seen.

It is a magnificent flower, easily more than 3-feet high, with a sturdy, unsupported stalk and three giant pink blossoms.

All of this beauty grew out of something that looks like a large onion. The pot is filled with rocks, not rich soil. All it needed was the right amount of light and water. It also had the company of other plants. Maybe they were silently cheering on this newcomer, encouraging it to turn into something even more dazzling than anything they could ever hope to be.

The bulb, that unremarkable onion-shaped thing, contained within it the potential for something to delight and impress our eyes. Just add water and light for it to reach its full potential.

How many more things, or people, around us might enjoy reaching their full potential with just a little bit of attention, a little bit of water and light?

John Terauds, CPE Intern

Hope for the Long Haul

We have been battling an unseen enemy for almost a year now. We have had to sacrifice, work together, and think of the greater good just like others who have fought seen enemies in earlier times. And like them, like anyone engaged in a battle, we are tired.

We speak of hope, another unseen thing, our unseen weapon in fighting this unseen viral enemy. But what happens when you are under attack and life is hard and your energy begins to fade? What then? Will our hope carry us for the long haul?

My faith tradition brings to mind this text, “Therefore, put on every piece of God’s armor so you will be able to resist the enemy in the time of evil. Then after the battle you will still be standing firm.” (Eph. 6:13) These words remind me that hope has the ability to strengthen and fortify our resolve to carry on and finish well.

It is also interesting that this “God armor” is made up of unseen things like trust, truth, peace, and right thinking. It seems these qualities knit themselves together and provide us with hope, a hope that sustains us when we are tired.

How do we know these unseen qualities exist? We see what is unseen when we witness kindness and generosity in others, when we see love being extended, when we observe generous acts, when we see positivity rates decreasing because we have been doing the hard work. We see them when we take a moment to look for them. And as we do, hope is stirred and promises to carry us for the long haul.

May we all be standing firm when this battle is over. May we have eyes to see the unseen and allow hope to carry us on, carry us through.

Cherie Shaw, CPE Intern

I’ve been fascinated by new photos of snowflakes… have you stumbled upon some of them in Facebook or Instagram? They are remarkable… and shimmer like diamonds. They are transparent and the light moves through them and no one is the same.

As I look out my window are see the snow coming down, I can’t imagine or comprehend the variety of each flake or the numbers even in a gentle flurry as we have today.

The world can be a scary and heart-breaking place…and yet here is the snow softly dropping from the sky… may you slow enough today to let the beauty of the delicateness of the snow… land on you and bring you a sense of deep peace… even if just for a moment.

I, for one am, glad you are here in all your uniqueness and inner beauty.

May you be healed by beauty in ways that surprise you today.

Warmly,

Michelle

February is a time when Americans reflect on and recognize the central role African Americans have played in U.S. history.  In honor of Black History Month, for today’s reflection, I pay homage to the “Greensboro sit-ins”, which were a critical turning point in bringing the fight for civil rights to national attention and furthering the cause of equal rights for Black Americans in the U.S.  The following is shared with permission from Elena Varipatis Baker at Network for Social Justice (www.nfsj.org).    

God of Love, help us to summon the courage to tear down systems of injustice and do the work of creating a world community with liberty and justice for all your beloved creations.

Marianne DiBlasi, CPE Intern

HEALING OURSELVES

Kintsugi is a Japanese art form of repairing broken pottery with gold. The philosophy is that
breakage and repair are honored and are part of the history of the object. The cracks and
repairs are just an event in the life of an object. The damage is not to be hidden, but to be
highlighted. With the repair a new object is formed. This also emphasizes the concept of nonattachment
and the acceptance of change. We like to hold onto things or to relationships.
None of us relish change, even though we know that change is inevitable in our lives.
As Henri Nouwen writes in his book The Wounded Healer:
Nobody escapes being wounded. We all are wounded people, whether physically, emotionally,
mentally or spiritually. The main question is not “How can we hide our wounds?” so we don’t
have to be embarrassed, but “How can we put our woundedness in the service of others?”
When our wounds cease to be a source of shame, and become a source of healing, we have
become wounded healers.
Our wounds are not a source of shame. Our healing is not selfish because it’s never just about
us. Every move we make toward healing—no matter how uncomfortable—is a move toward
becoming a source of healing for the world around us as we become a wounded healer.
We are all broken and in need of repair. By filling our brokenness with gold, we become
healed and become someone who is even more beautiful.

Blessing for a Broken Vessel

Do not despair,
You hold the memory
of what it was to be whole.
It lives deep
in your bones,
in your heart,
that has been torn and mended
a hundred times.
It persists
in your lungs
that know the mystery
of what it means to be full,
to be empty,
to be full again.
I am not asking you
to give up your grip
on the shards you clasp
so close to you
but to wonder
what it would be like
for those jagged edges
to meet each other
in some new pattern
that you have never imagined,
that you have never dared
to dream.

—Jan Richardson

Keep working on your own healing for yourself and for all the rest of us. Our world needs it.

Mary Anne Totten, CPE Intern

“Earth, Teach Me” a reflection by CPE Intern Sarah McEvoy can be found here.

Two very different sorts of contemplations bring me peace.

One kind is all about little details.

Like the smell of pine needles or the crunch of twigs and pebbles under my hiking shoes.

Or the babbling sound of running water in a rocky brook.

These tidbits all connect into the bigger thing we call the world around us.

The other kind of contemplation is about shape and form.

It’s the rush of wind at the top of a mountain.

The bird-eye view of slopes textured by different kinds of trees.

These broad vistas only exist because of twigs, pebbles, pine needles, and rocky brooks.

The big and the small.

The detail and the sweep.

One makes the other possible, and real.

It is as true out on the trail as it is inside my heart.

John Terauds, CPE Intern