Live the Questions Now!

"Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart...try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. LIVE the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, love along some distant day into the answer." Rainer Maria Rilke

I have loved that quotation for many years. When I find myself getting impatient for answers and conclusions and solutions and results, sometimes I am able to remember that it might not yet be time for the answers, etc. Hopefully I might be loving along some distant day into the answer. I might not be ready for the answer. I might not be able to 'stand the truth' as Jack Nicholson said in "A Few Good Men".....

What questions are you asked to live now?

The Life You Have

"Life requires a brave heart and a mind that sees the folly in clinging to anything." Jon Kabat-Zinn
"We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us. The old skin has to be shed before the new one can come." Joseph Campbell

Those two quotes appeared in my awareness on the same day! That kind of occurrence helps me to pay attention. The clarity of meaning is more than a gentle nudge to pay attention to how one spends time in the past or the future but not in the present with the life one is actually living.

It is so easy to want what we don't have and to miss what we do have. As 2009 continues quickly on, I invite you to look at your actual life, your real life in the present moment and to let go of the longing for your life to be different.

"Sometimes our longings make it impossible for us to live the life in front of us." Joan Chittister

Oh, yeah, that quote came on the same day as the other two. OK, it's time to really pay attention!

Praising God

During this year I have been using Joan Chittister's The Psalms, Meditations for Every Day of the Year in my meditation time.
Using one Psalm a month, Chittister (a Benedictine nun, writer, and speaker), writes a short reflection for each day of the month. December's Psalm is 89: "The heavens declare your wonders; the assembly of your holy ones praises you. Who can compare with you, O God? Who is like you?"

Chittister's comment for December 4 is: "We talk a lot about the need to praise God. I think it is equally necessary to praise people in whom we see the gifts of God. When we praise people we encourage them to go on doing good. Praise someone today--warmly, openly, sincerely, and watch the good things of God multiply before your very eyes."

During Advent and Christmas, give the gift of praise to the people around you who are going good! Your praise will be a gift to the person, to God, and to the world which is in deep need of the love and grace of God and the good deeds of humanity. It might even be a gift to you, enabling you to be a more faithful child of God as we prepare for the coming of Jesus the Christ!

Striving and Non-Striving

I have frequent conversations with persons who are bumping up against the concept of 'non-striving' or 'letting go'...both of which are so foreign to our Western culture, especially United States' version of Western culture. Most mornings I read a short quote from a book by Jon Kabat-Zinn called Arriving at Your Own Door. One day last week the quote was:
"Get Out of Your Own Way: the paradox is that you can only change yourself or the world if you get out of your own way for a moment, and give yourself over and trust in allowing things to be as they already are, without pursuing anything at all."

There are days in which I can say a loud and strong "YES!" to that and then there are other days in which I can't even make sense out of the concept. I heard someone on the radio yesterday say that we need to "stop paddling upstream." The image given was of a person in a canoe paddling upstream, striving and striving to overcome the steady current of the river going against them. In that image the non-striving that we are encouraged to trust is of stopping paddling upstream, letting go of the oars even, and letting your boat follow the current. "Take your hands off of the oars!" is the call and it is so foreign to our cultural nature. It is the reason why I read the quotes most days, to begin my days re-aligning my boat to go with the current and then opening my heart and my awareness in the present moment to not move into the controling, organizing mode of being and doing.

Another quote from Kabat-Zinn reminds us that 'resting in awareness in any moment involves giving ourselves over to all our senses, in touch with inner and outer landscapes as one seamless whole, and thus in touch with all of life unfolding in its fullness in any moment and in every place we might possibily find ourselves, inwardly or outwardly.'

In the midst of the non-striving I read this quote from Etty Hillisum, a young woman who was taken to Auschwitz with her family and killed there in 1943. May the intention of this thought/feeling guide my life and yours:
"...there now flows a constant stream of tenderness, a stream in which all petty desires seem to have been extinguished. All that matters now is to be kind to each other with all the goodness that is in us."

I'm taking my hands off the oars and intending to flow in that stream of tenderness! Come join me!

In Christ,
Mimi Raper

Blog, September 22, 2008
“Hanging in When God Seems Distant”
Christian writers through the centuries have used a variety of phrases attempting to put
into words the changes we humans experience in our feelings about or towards God.
All the attempts to describe the different feelings are only human words seeking to put
into words that which is beyond words. Teresa of Avila spoke about the difference
between water flowing freely in a channel or stream or river, watering flowers and
bringing life-giving water to the seeker and the experience of working hard to draw
water out of a well many feet below the surface. At times our experience of God is
easy, free-flowing, and life-giving. At other times our experience of God feels like we
are toiling hard to bring up that which is life-giving from far below the surface.
Some people ascribe the differences that we experience to Godʼs intentional ʻtrainingʼ of
Godʼs children. At first, the relationship is filled with gifts and wonders so that the
person has a sense of the wonder and beauty of God. Then, some say, God withdraws
a bit and the person begins to have a sense of confusion and wondering, and then, as
the person remains faithful and continues to ʻshow upʼ even without the awareness of
the bounty of God, a new level of intimacy is revealed.
I know that I cannot know ʻfor a factʼ that God is working in us and through us in that
way. I also know that there are changes in the way we ʻfeelʼ about God, how close we
feel to God. I have found three descriptions of the changes to be ʻtrueʼ for me or truly
pointing toward what I experience as reality.

1. The traditional Catholic terms which describe the times when we feel close to God
and the times we feel distant from God are ʻconsolationʼ and ʻdesolation.ʼ These
terms recognize the differences of our feelings and are grounded in faith and hope.
My spiritual director many years ago taught me that there are times of great delight
and wonder which she labeled ʻconsolation.ʼ There are also times when we feel
abandoned or at least distant from God, times when life seems hard and filled with
struggle. Those times are labeled ʻdesolation.ʼ The comfort, faith, and hope in
consolation and desolation come from acknowledging that life is never very stable.
Then we can trust in the awareness that hard times donʼt last as well as the
awareness that good times are not likely to go on forever.

2. Walter Bruggeman, Old Testament professor, has used the terms ʻorientation,ʼ
disorientation,ʼ and re-orientation.ʼ He suggests that the Psalms of the Hebrew
Scriptures frequently move the writer and reader from a sense of orientation to
disorientation and then, finally, a new re-orientation. It seems to describe my
experience of life in relationship with God.

3. Finally, Gerald May, psychiatrist and spiritual director at Shalem Institute where I was
trained as a spiritual director, used to tell me about the shift from longing to be in
relationship with God, finding a pattern or schedule for prayer that ʻworksʼ and helps
us feel close to God, and then an experience of being ʻkicked off the islandʼ when that
pattern or schedule or form of prayer quits working. Dr. May believed that we
humans tend to become attached to the pattern or schedule or form that ʻworksʼ for
us. That attachment becomes an idol that we begin to worship rather than continuing
to worship God, who is beyond the pattern or form. When it no longer works we feel
abandoned by God but the truth is that we are being invited to let go of our
attachments and focus on God and God alone once again.ʼʼ

From Teresa of Avila to Gerald May to my own experience, anyone who seeks a
relationship with God experiences changes in the feeling level of the relationship. I find
the acknowledgment that there are changes to be expected comforting and hopeful. I
tend to resist acting as if I know for a fact what God might be doing. I trust that God
loves me and you. I trust that the changes in our relationship with God can be
opportunities for growth and that God wants good for all of us. What do you think?
What do you believe? What do you feel?

making good use of my time

I have been on vacation for the last month and several times during the month I made
notes on topics for my blog! A step further into this new forum for communication!
One topic that swirled around in my mind and my soul several times was ʻmaking the
best use of my time.ʼ It is a phrase that I used for years as I worked in a program in the
United Methodist Church for the formation of clergy. What we now call Covenant
Connection was created in the ʼ70ʼs to nurture and evaluate persons who are in the final
stage prior to ordination as Elders. Those who supervised and coached these people
frequently asked each other, ʻIs he/she making good use of this time?ʼ We knew that
we were looking for clergy who could learn and grow, receive feedback and use it to
improve as pastors. We knew that we did not need clergy who werenʼt willing to work to
improve.

I found myself wondering if I was making good use of my time during my vacation! The
phrase came to me and I laughed. What would it mean to make good use of my time
away from work? A monthʼs vacation is a gracious gift from the church I serve and I do
want to misuse the time. I want the time to be meaningful (thereʼs another blog coming)
and I wanted to notice the days.

As the hours and days and weeks flew by I found myself wrestling internally as I
pondered what the best use of a vacation is. My Father used to say that he needed to
go to the beach to ʻre-charge his batteries.ʼ We all knew what he meant. For him that
meant walking on the beach, fishing, spending more time than usual with his family and
friends, eating shrimp and oysters, enjoying sunsets. Now that I go to my lakehouse on
vacation I find that I could spend all my time puttering there, organizing, cleaning, rearranging
furniture, de-cluttering. I discovered this summer that some of those tasks
some of the time are wonderful and refreshing, but day in and day out, a vacation at the
lakehouse feels more like work if all I do is clean up and organize.
What I know now is that when I am on vacation I need to have some days that are
unscheduled, some days that are filled with activities that I donʼt do as much of during a
work week, like swimming and reading non-work related books, and some days in which
I actually do nothing! Doing nothing productive, that is. Days in which I linger over the
cup of coffee watching the deer, birds, squirrels, road runners, and my 2 cats living life.
Days in which I sit on my porch and read until I decide itʼs time to do something else
and I have to wonder for awhile what I really want to do next. Days in which I ʻwaste
time with God.ʼ Rather than fill my days with doctor appointments and organize my
important papers in my home office, I need time to be.
Is it making good use of my time? I believe so. It ʻs sabbath rest and God knows how
important it is for us all. I hope that you have time to ponder what the best use of your
time on vacation might be! Let me know what you discover!

the invitation to slow down

I have recently read Jon Kabat-Zinn's Coming to Our Senses. Kabat-Zinn established the Stress Reduction Clinic in a Boston hospital more than 25 years ago. He's the author of Full Catastrophe Living which introduces the reader to connections between the body, mind, and emotions. When I was dealing with chronic pain prior to the cancer diagnosis, I listened to tapes that he produced for a 'body scan' which calmed the whole person's reactivity to the pain.

I share with you one of the most insightful sections of Coming to Our Senses in which he identifies the reasons why we seem to be moving so fast and enjoying life less. I read it and understand more why I feel called to slow down and become mindful of the present moment.

"It is now harder to pay attention to any one thing and there is more to pay
attention to. We are easily diverted and more easily distracted. We are
continuously bombarded with information, appeals, deadlines,
communications. Things come at us fast and furious, relentlessly. And
almost all of it is man-made; it has thought behind it, and more often than
not, an appeal to either our greed or our fears. These assaults on our
nervous system continually stimulate and foster desire and agitation rather
than contentedness and calmness. They foster reaction rather than
communion, discord rather than accord or concord, acquisitiveness rather
than feeling whole and complete as we are. And above all, if we are not
careful, they rob us of time, of our moments. We are continually being
squeezed or projected into the future as our present moments are
assaulted and consumed in the fires of endless urgency.
In the face of all this speed and greed and somatic insensitivity, we are
entrained into being more and more in our heads, trying to figure things out
and stay on top of things rather than sensing how they really are. In a
world that is no longer primarily natural or alive, we find ourselves
continually interfacing with machines that extend our reach even as we
succumb to disembodying ourselves through their addictive use, whether it
is the radio in the car, the car itself, the television in the bedroom, or the
computer in the office, and increasingly, in the kitchen.
The relentless acceleration of our way of life over the past few generations
has made focusing in on anything at all something of a lost art. That has
been compounded by the digital revolution, which--think back just a few
short years--rapidly found its way into our everyday lives in the form of
home computers, fax machines, beepers, cell phones, cell phones with
cameras, palm devices for personal organization, laptops, 24/7 high-speed
connectivity, the Internet and its WWW, and of course, email, all now
increasingly wireless, not that long ago an unthinkable dream, the stuff of
science fiction. For all the undeniable convenience, usefulness, access,
efficiency, improved coordinating, information, organization, entertainment,
and ease of shopping, banking, and communication these digital
developments bring with them, this colossal technological revolution that
has barely even begun has already irreversibly transfigured how we live our
lives, whether we realize it or not.
....The to-do list grows ever longer, and we are always rushing through this
moment to get to the next.....All this threatens to erode our ability and
inclination to sustain attention and thereby to know things in a deep way
before initiating some kind of action...."

A.D.D. Nation, Coming to Our Senses by Jon Kabat-Zinn 2005