A Navajo Prayer

As we embrace a new day. . .

Contra Costa County, California
Photo Courtesy of Flickr

 

A Navajo Prayer

In beauty may I walk.

 

All day long may I walk.

 

Through the returning seasons may I walk.

 

On the trail marked with pollen may I walk.

 

With grasshoppers about my feet may I walk.

 

With dew about my feet may I walk.

 

Planting Fields Arboretum
 Long Island New York

 

With beauty may I walk.

 

With beauty before me may I walk.

 

With beauty behind me may I walk.

 

With beauty above me may I walk.

 

With beauty below me may I walk.

 

With beauty all around me may I walk.

 

In old age, wandering on a trail of beauty,

lively may I walk.

 

In old age, wandering on a trail of beauty

living again may I walk.

 

It is finished in beauty.

 

It is finished in beauty.

 

 

 

A Pope of Hope

From Southern Maryland to Northern Virginia, everywhere I went this past weekend people were talking about Pope Francis and his  recent groundbreaking remarks about the state of the Catholic Church.

 

Pope Francis, you are a healing breath of fresh air and you arrived on the global scene just when we needed to listen your joyous and merciful outlook on life!!

It was amazing to me that people spontaneously brought it up in conversation no matter what else was previously being talked about.  I find religion is sometimes discussed at social events but not very often.  And in Washington, DC, rarely do I ever hear Washington Redskins and Pope Francis brought up in almost consecutive sentences but this weekend it happened and I think this it's due to the hopeful and honest nature of what Pope Francis said in an interview with an Italian Jesuit magazine that was published last week in Jesuits magazines around the world. 

At a party I attended yesterday, Catholics and non-Catholics enthusiastically discussed the subject of Pope Francis, saying how much they liked him, how exciting he was and how they wished they had some one like him in their particular faiths.

 

For most people, it was Pope Francis' comment about sinning that kicked the door open and got their attention.  In the interview Pope Francis was asked "Who is Jorge Mario Bergoglio?"  In a thoughtful manner Pope Francis replies: "I do not know what might be the most fitting description. . . I am a sinner.  This is the most accurate definition.  It is not a figure of speech, a literary genre.  I am a sinner."

 

Really and truly?

 

Okay Pope Francis that immediately bonds me to you because I am a sinner too.  But people are blown away because this is the first time most people have ever heard a Pope publicly tell others that he sins also.  Usually there is the distinct feeling that we are the sinners but the Pope does not commit sin.  This time, it is as though Pope Francis opens his arms and says to us, "I am just like you.  We are all the same in our humanity."

 

 

America Magazine Issue with Pope Francis Interview

You can read the full interview with Pope Francis on the website for America Magazine (www.americamagazine.org), a national Catholic weekly magazine published by Jesuits in the United States.

 

Read for yourself the thoughtful and insightful way that Pope Francis discusses a wide range of subjects that touches all of our lives and issues that we all wrestle with.

 

For me, my Catholic faith is essential and goes to the core of my being but in the past decade or two I have turned a deaf ear to many things being said by the Catholic hierarchy.  That said, here are two other comments Pope Francis made in his interview that were particularly open and refreshing and signal to me a much needed change in the thinking of the Church:

 

--"I see clearly that the thing the church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful; it needs nearness, proximity.  I see the church as a field hospital after battle.  It is useless to ask a seriously injured person if he has high cholesterol and about the level of his blood sugars!  You have to heal the wounds.  Then we can talk about everything else.  Heal the wounds, heal the wounds. . . And you have to start from the from the ground up."

 

--"The woman is essential for the church.  Mary, a woman, is more important than the bishops. I say this because we must not confuse the function with the dignity.  We must therefore investigate further the role of women in the church.  We must work harder to develop a profound theology of the woman."

 

Heaven

There's a place where we all want to end up. 

We know it by name but where is it?  Where is Heaven?

I was thinking about Heaven yesterday while attending the wake of a man who was one of my father's best friends.

This man was a good man, worked hard, had a wonderful wife and children and tried to do his best for others.  I'm sure he is in Heaven, wherever that is.

I'm also sure that other people that I knew and loved are in Heaven: my husband, all of my grandparents, my aunt and uncles and some friends.

I believe in Heaven but the idea of not knowing where it is nags at me.  It's a concept that rolls around in my head.  Maybe it is up above us, waaay up above us, but who knows? And what do they do there?  I imagine that people in Heaven are different ages, not the age they were when they died, and that they do things that they loved such as playing baseball, or having parties or being at the beach.

 

This is my idea of Heaven

 

I also like to think that they are with us and try to guide and help us.

I think not knowing where your loved one is located is one of the big frustrations about grief.  You are physically cut off from a loved one when they die and there's no way to find out where they are or even how they are doing.

Is it asking too much to know these things?  I don't think so.

I think it's the least they could do after leaving us.  They should at least call, email or text us about what's going on with them.  They must know that we wonder.  They must know that we think about them all the time.

People who have had near death experiences have described what has happened to them and that is probably the closest we will come to finding out what Heaven is all about.

A lot of people talk about seeing a bright light and also seeing people they know.  Katie Couric aired an episode on her daytime show addressing the subject of Heaven and interviewed people who had been through traumatic experiences and spoke of going to heaven and then coming back to their lives.  In an interview Katie Couric did with Dr. Mary Neal, Neal describes being trapped underwater for  15 minutes and losing consciousness.  Neals' description of heaven is of a place filled with love, a love we have not felt here.

Maybe your ideas about Heaven are completely different.  Please share if your thoughts if you would like to!

Here is the link to the Katie Couric interviews with Dr. Mary Neal and others:

http://www.katiecouric.com/on-the-show/2012/10/08/to-heaven-and-back/

St. Francis & His BFF Clare

With the recent election of Pope Francis I to head the Catholic Church, people are talking about faith and religion with a renewed enthusiasm.

 

I think people are filled with hope and that's always a good thing.

Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo! and the mainstream news outlets have been full of stories and comments about what changes, if any, this new pope may bring about.  I was at friend's house for dinner the other day and the subject of the Pope spontaneously came up.  Even my dentist started talking about it yesterday morning and I don't think we've ever discussed the subject of God.

 

You would have thought we all had some inside sources at the Vatican the way people are talking about the Catholic Church and the symbolism of Pope Francis' public comments.  It's ironic that everyone seems to be an instant expert on religion, a subject people usually go out of their way to avoid discussing.

I love the this dynamic dialogue about God and faith and the Church.  I have my own problems with the hierarchy and bureaucratic parts of the Church but the core teachings and values are the tenants of my faith.  To me, faith is a belief in a God that is merciful and good and one who provides comfort and healing. 

At the same time, women and their role in the Catholic Church is an issue that always gets me going and that's why this following story that was published in The Washington Post caught my eye.  We all know about St. Francis of Assisi and his pursuit of a simple and humble life but did we know about his BFF, Clare?  Maybe you did, but I had no clue.

This story surprised me for I didn't know about the friendship of Francis and Clare and the ministry they advanced together.  As Maureen O'Connell writes, "Her (Clare's) status as his equal made it possible for the two of them, together, to mount a spiritual reform of the church."

For every Francis, a Clare. . . Indeed!

St. Clare of Assisi & St. Francis of Assisi

For Every Francis, a Clare

By Maureen O’Connell, Published The Washington Post: March 15

Although historically shut out of the frescoed halls of power in Vatican City and more mundane but just as exclusive rectories and chancelleries around the world, Catholic women might find a place for leadership under the new papacy after all. As the talking heads have been saying since Jorge Mario Bergoglio appeared from behind that red curtain, it’s all in the name: Clare.
 

If Pope Francis seeks to embrace his namesake’s legacy of reforming the church by embodying the loving ministry of Christ, then he would do well also to embrace dimensions of the loving partnership between the 15th century Francis of Assisi and fellow Umbrian, Clare, founder of the Poor Clares, a semi-cloistered group of sisters who today number more than 20,000 in 70 countries. Like most heroic dynamic duos, these two were revolutionary. They confounded social expectations, rejected excessive wealth and power, and inspired upright living. In some ways, their partnership should be nothing new for followers of Christ, since women were pivotal both to Jesus’ ministry and the early Jesus movement. But since such partnerships remain a rarity, Francis and Clare might remind the new pope: if you want reform, work with tenacious women.
 

It seems Francis of Assisi knew that when Clare first encountered him during a Lenten reflection he gave at the church of San Giorgio exactly 800 years ago. Like him, Clare viewed her family’s social privilege as an obstacle to her spiritual yearnings and by Palm Sunday the devout 18-year-old had jettisoned the trappings of her noble life and sought out Francis for a humble one of seclusion and prayer. Francis made her escape from her former life possible and further advanced her countercultural lifestyle choice by writing the original rule or founding documents for the Poor Clares.
 

But Pope Francis would profit from the memory that Clare’s was the flame; his namesake simply fanned it. Against the wishes of the Italian hierarchy, Clare insisted that her nuns mirror Francis’ friars in everything including their refusal to own property. There would be no two-tiered holiness codes for her—if the men were capable of such a pious commitment, so too were the women. The backing of Francis no doubt bolstered her in her resolve to insist on this equality when face to face with Pope Gregory IX, who formally acknowledged her rule in 1219.

Moreover, Francis and Clare enjoyed an iconic friendship, one rooted in shared passions and pieties, struggles and hopes. These two needed each other in order to answer the ceaseless challenges of their respective vocational calls and to lead their communities wisely. Theirs was an intimacy of equals, liberated from narrow Catholic constructs of gender and religious vocation and open to the gifts the Holy Spirit offers leaders who seek mutuality and reciprocity: the freedom to tell and hear hard truths, the freedom to ask and offer forgiveness, the freedom to fail and start again.
 

Finally, Francis and Clare are radical; they return us to our roots by reminding us of the hallmarks of Jesus’ own ministry—simple living, a care for the poor, and a pivotal place for women at the heart of it all. Whether as financiers of Jesus and his disciples, as witnesses to both his death and Resurrection, or as deacons in the early Christian community, women were among Jesus’ most trusted companions and visible leaders. Like Clare, they did not wait quietly on the periphery and like Francis, Christ welcomed them to the center.

To be sure, patriarchy remains a cultural inheritance from which even Francis of Assisi had difficulty divesting. Paternalism often confined the Poor Clares to quiet contemplative work in the shadows of their historical male superior, a reality all too familiar to many religious and lay women toiling behind the scenes of Catholic ministry today. And centuries of theological developments and women’s movements later, patriarchy still seems as germane to the hierarchical church as white smoke to the announcement of a new pope. Men in cassocks: can’t rule with them, have to live ruled by them.
 

But still these names, Francis and Clare, suggest real possibilities for Catholic women. Like Christ whom he strove to emulate, Francis of Assisi used his power to empower a woman to become an unprecedented minister to the people of God. Her status as his equal made it possible for the two of them, together, to mount a spiritual reform of the church. That reform was significant enough to warrant the public acknowledgment of Jorge Mario Bergoglio in his transition to leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics. May Pope Francis not overlook the prophetic dimension of Clare in his imitation of his namesake’s legacy.

Maureen O’Connell is Associate Professor of Theology at Fordham University, the Jesuit University of New York, and the author of Compassion: Loving Our Neighbor in an Age of Globalization (Orbis Books, 2009) and If These Walls Could Talk: Community Muralism and the Beauty of Justice (The Liturgical Press, 2012)

© The Washington Post Company

 

Fostering Resilience

 

"Nothing can make up for the absence of someone whom we love,

and it would be wrong to try to find a substitute. . .

That sounds very hard at first,

but at the same time it is a great consolation.

For the gap, as long as it remains unfilled, preserves the bond between us.

It is nonsense to say that God fills the gap: he doesn't fill it,

but on the contrary, he keeps it empty

and so helps us to keep alive our former communion with each other,

even at the cost of pain.

The dearer and richer our memories, the more difficult the separation,

but gratitude changes the

pangs of memory into a tranquil joy.

We must take care not to wallow in our memories,

or hand ourselves over to them.

  Just as we do not gaze all the time at a valuable present,

but only at special times,

 and apart from these keep it simply

as a hidden treasure that is ours for certain."

                                                                       ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Listening Can Be Powerful

Every day I try to maintain a positive attitude about life.  I remind myself that I am blessed for having family, friends, a home, a job and good health.  I tell myself that this day is unique and I have an opportunity to do something I didn't get to do yesterday.  But it is still an anxious world we live in these days and we need to be aware of its' toll on others.

I am certain that God has a plan for all of us.  I am sure there are people out there who don't believe in God or any kind of higher being but that's not me.  I truly believe that God watches over us and I try my best to be good and stay on the straight and narrow.  Of course staying on the straight and narrow would be a million times easier if I could learn to keep my big mouth shut.  But that's another post.....

So instead of talking, I am working on listening.  I am learning that listening is a very valuable skill.  I think lots of people, myself included, carry around varying degrees of emotional and financial baggage and they're not sure what it all means and how it's going to turn out.  I'm not sure what God's plan is for us right now but in the past week, I think God's plan has been unsettling.  Last week, a male friend a few years older than me died suddenly, I found out today that a mother I know committed suicide and over the weekend I went to visit a family friend who just entered hospice care.

Comparing notes with a long-time friend about this, she said she knew what I meant because there are many of her friends right now who started taking medicine for anxiety or depression and doing all they can to keep it together during these tenuous times.

Life is fragile and that is all the more reason to hold on dearly to the people who matter most to you.  Whether those people are family, friends or both family and friends, life can switch gears very quickly.  I don't know whether these things are happening more often because I have reached a certain age in life or because the economy is causing people's anxiety levels to spike.  Maybe it's a combination of both things but I am aware that there is a different vibe out there now and it's not to be ignored.

Listening is a powerful tool.  I recently read that when you listen to people, really listen and not anticipate what they are going to say next, that sometimes they can hear the truth in what they are speaking, sometimes for the very first time.  When you listen you create space for someone to fill with their words, their thoughts.  When you are quiet you give the other person time to assess or process what is happening to them.

Listening is a gift.  Try it and see what happens.