Belief

I recently read a wonderful article by the Irish poet and theologian, Padraig O’Tuama where he talked about belief and how he says he lives in the “room next door” to God.  This got me thinking about my own answer to the question. “Do you believe in God?” 

This is always a tricky question to answer – for any of us.  What does the word “believe” mean?   What does the word “God” mean?  Like O’Tuama, I sort of like living next door to the question.  I want to check in now and then, to remain friendly, yet I don’t place myself easily in the column of “believers”.  I have come to calling myself a non-theist… which sort of conveniently skips around the question.  I once wrote a paper entitled “Circling Around the Dream of a God”.

The fact is that there are many questions that I spend more time pondering than the question of my belief in a God.  How do I live close to the highest vision of my life?  What sustains me when I am experiencing difficulty?  Whose hands are God’s hands?  How can I open my heart more readily?  What matters?  How can I put my feather weight on the scale of justice?  etc.etc.

I have written a couple of poems about this which I offer you.  Would like to hear your comments about where the word God lands in your life.

There are many of us

who live next door

to holiness.  Perhaps

it is more common

than you’d expect.

Rain falls.

The sun comes out.

Disaster befalls.

Cures happen.

Because we live

in this miraculous

natural world

which I do

believe in.

~Penny Hackett-Evans

THE GOD TOO VAST

The God too vast

to be captured

in the cage of a word

interests me.

The God living

beneath words.

Living in the cave

of my own heart

simultaneously

in vastness

beyond knowing.

Silent holiness evident

everywhere

yet impossible to grasp.

To that God

it’s hard to pray.

I need to hold

a smooth stone

a feather, a shell,

or feel my own heartbeat

as a doorway

to that God.

So intimate,

 vast,

silent,

so hard to pin down.

~Penny Hackett-Evans

TOUCH

Take a moment to just breathe.  Gently close your eyes, breathe easy and notice how your breath interacts with your body.  Pay attention to its coming and going without forcing it to be any certain way.  Just notice how it IS.  Notice that you have a body.  After settling into your breath for a few minutes, slowly place one hand on any part of your body that seems to want to be touched – perhaps there is a small ache or dull pain or itch or roughness.  Do this before reading on! 

When we touch our body, we are giving it a message that we hear what it is trying to tell us.  Our brains certainly give us a lot of information and we are used to listening to what we THINK.  But our bodies have a different sort of wisdom… a wisdom that is a bit more subtle than the stories our brains tell us.  Can you explore a bit about what kind of wisdom your body has to share with you when you slow down and pay attention to it right now. 

If there is a place in your body that is stressed or tired or achy or painful, place your hand there.  Breathe softly and just notice what you notice.  Now imagine that you are comforting a child who has a fear or an ache of some sort.  What might you do with your hand for that child?  Maybe you gently pat the place that hurts.  Maybe you softly rub it.  Maybe you rock just a bit.  Maybe you soothe it by humming to it softly.

Just experiment with this idea of asking your body for its wisdom and then listening to what it is telling you.  Place a hand there, soothe yourself.  Tune into the messages that our bodies are sending us all the time. 

HOW IT IS NOW

~Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

In every moment, doors appear—

not literal, of course, with knobs and locks,

but metaphoric, yes, with thresholds and casings

and simple invitations I feel

in my body, an architecture of possibility.

I didn’t used to notice them.

Was it because they weren’t there,

or because I simply had not yet learned

to see them? Now I marvel

at how omnipresent they are,

and all they ask of me is that I choose

to step through them or not

.I recognize them more in my body

than with my mind. As if the body

has spent decades learning, 

oh, this is whatit feels like when a door appears.

As if the mind is at last learning to say

yes, body, I believe you. Now I trust

that I can change everything with

just one step across that invisible

threshold. Or not. Now I know

once I take that step, I can’t return

to the place I had been.

And there will always be

another door.

Another door.

Another door.

Generosity

No act of kindness, no matter how small is ever wasted.  ~Aesop

I read recently (where??) an article about generosity which suggested that we not second guess our desire to be generous.  To be kind.  To not decide against generosity because it might cost “too much” time or money.  But rather to use our own generous impulses to be the kind of person we want to be.  To give into generosity rather than to mistrust it.  She gave the example of someone admiring a scarf she was wearing – and her impulse was to take it off right there and give it to the person who admired it.  But, she thought to herself, “I may need this scarf several months from now… I might miss it if I give it away (even though this is the first time I’ve worn it in months.). She didn’t give the scarf away --- and later she wished she had.

What does it really cost our soul when we decide not to be generous?   … to leave a meager or no tip, to avert our eyes from the person on the corner asking for change, to hit NO on the question “round up for the hungry” at the grocery store.  Yes, there are, of course, people who might scam us, and how do we know the money we give goes where we want and on and on.  All valid questions – and yet?   And yet, might we treat these opportunities where we have an impulse to bake some cookies for a friend or to take a casserole to the neighbor, or add some extra to the tip – what if we treated these as opportunities to practice our own generosity.  To expand our giving rather than to measure it out.  To name that as a spiritual practice.

I’m not suggesting we give away the family fortune, only that we take opportunities to be generous (especially with our time) when they come our way.  I want to see myself as generous.  I want to live in a world that is generous. Generosity doesn't only mean giving money -- but giving time, giving space, giving physical assistance. May we create the generous world we want to live in. 

To give is not

to give away –

but rather to accept

oneself as generous.

To open your heart,

your fist, your wallet.

Not for the other

but for you.

For you to embody

the person you say

you want to be;

open

            generous

                        easy…

To give because

the giver also  gets.

            ~Penny Hackett-Evans