Tag: Spirituality

Finding God in Tiny Nature

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Recently, I finished a book by Brian McLaren, The Galapagos Islands: A Spiritual Journey (published by Fortress Press, 2019). He recounts his experiences in those awesome islands and how they helped him to understand God in new and exciting ways.

Here is a quote in the book from Pope Francis: “The universe unfolds in God, who fills it completely. Hence, there is a mystical meaning to be found in a leaf, in a mountain trail, in a dewdrop, in a poor person’s face. The ideal is not only to pass from the exterior to the interior to discover the action of God in the soul, but also to discover God in all things” (p. 74).

And a few pages later, a quote from Richard Rohr: “All you have to do today is go outside and gaze a one leaf, long and lovingly, until you know, really know, that this leaf is a participation in the eternal being of God. It’s enough to create ecstasy” (p. 85).

This morning I went for a walk behind our townhouse residential area. We border on the Cahaba River. I love to walk the short trail enjoying the impressive trees, flowing river, neighbor’s flowering gardens, but also the little unexpected wildflowers seemingly cropping up everywhere. Below is a picture of tiny yellow flowers called Lesser Hop Trefoil. In the upper half you may be able to see a light purple bloom called Field Madder. I imagine that most folk simply walk over these little darlings, but I stopped to look and photograph. It was well worth the pause.

You see, God really loves nature! Whether we even notice or not. In fact nature was around eons before we even came on the scene. Life is NOT all about us.

If we will take time to look, we may discover why God loves even these tiny, often overlooked, wildflowers. That is perhaps Pope Francis and Richard Rohr’s point about a single leaf.

Such meditation can be a daily blessing. May you experience the presence of God all around you.

Peace,
LaMon

Natural Religion

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I have been reading some in Wordsworth lately. In a contemplative class I lead, we looked at a poem that began, My heart leaps up when I behold / A rainbow in the sky. He noted that this was true in all phases of his life, i.e. childhood, adulthood, and old age. These different ages of his were Bound each to each by natural piety.

Many people seeking a deeper spiritual life have found a connection to God/the Divine be simply sitting in nature and gazing in silence at the trees, the rivers, the mountains, the stars, etc. One of my favorite poets is Michael Guite. He has written a book of poems where each poem is a reflection on a different psalm of the 150 psalms in the ancient psalter of Judaism which also has a respected place in Christianity. Here is his poetic reflection on Psalm 1. I think, without even reading that psalm, you may find inspiration for quiet sitting in a park or wilderness area.

Remember to read slowly and aloud. This is every poet’s desire for us.

Come to the place where every breath is praise,
And God is breathing through each passing breeze.
Be planted by the waterside and raise

Your arms with Christ beneath these rooted trees,
Who lift their breathing leaves up to the skies.
Be rooted too, as still and strong as these,

Open alike to sun and rain. Arise
From meditation by these waters. Bear
The fruit of that deep rootedness. Be wise

In the trees’ long wisdom. Learn to share
The secret of their patience. Pass the day
In their green fastness and their quiet air.

Slowly discern a life, a truth, a way,
Where simple being flowers in delight.
Then let the chaff of life just blow away.
      From David’s Crown: Sounding the Psalms by  
      Malcolm Guite; Canterbury Press Norwich, 2021.

Here is a haiku I wrote while on a spiritual retreat some years ago:

sensing the holy:
live oaks bearded with moss
wisdom of ages

Peace,
LaMon

Thankful for the Presence

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It is Thanksgiving season in the U.S. This morning I read a poem. It is “A Walk” by Rainer Maria Rilke. (Soul Food: Nourishing Poems for Starved Minds, edited by Neil Astley & Pamela Robertson-Pearce; Bloodaxe Books, 2007)

Go against modern culture! Read it aloud–even twice!

My eyes already touch the sunny hill,
going far ahead of the road I have begun.
So we are grasped by what we cannot grasp;
it has its inner light, even from a distance–

and changes us, even if we do not reach it,
into something else, which, hardly sensing it, we already are;
a gesture waves us on, answering our own wave…
but what we feel is the wind in our faces.

I find this poem meaningful, though I have no idea if the meaning I find is what Rilke meant. But that is the beauty of poetry. The imagery is open to a variety of interpretations depending on the individual reader.

I thought about how from time to time, I am moved by something in nature. It could be a “sunny hill”, or a majestic mountain, or a tall birch tree, or a creek surrounded by wildflowers. It grasps me. And I sense the inner light of the Presence. I am, at least for a moment changed, though the change is more a clarifying of who I am rather than something entirely new.

“The wind in our faces.” I would like to think of it as a refreshing wind; another gift from the Presence. But it may be the resistance that always seems to crop up as we are grasped by the Presence. The experiences of my life are rarely unambiguous.

Still, I am thankful for the Presence, which for me is the Presence of God who is in all things. Or more intimately, the Presence of Jesus.

May you too know the Presence.

Peace,
LaMon

Poetry’s Power

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Poems have multiple meanings that unfold over time. Poetry is more intuitive than other forms of writing. It requires time and contemplation…. Poetry can be what the ancient Celts called an ‘anam chara’, a soul friend. It slows us down, helps us to see more deeply. Judith Valente in Twenty Poems to Nourish Your Souls, p. xviii.

I think Valente is on to something. I wouldn’t say that ever poem works that way for every person. But occasionally we may find one that does exactly what she suggests. I found such a poem a few days ago and introduced it to a class on contemplative spirituality that I facilitate once a week.

I have decided to use this poem as part of my daily meditations, taking a phrase a day (or maybe longer) to consider what it may mean in terms of how God or ever-present Reality appears in so many ways. I hope it may be an “anam chara” for you as well. The poem is found in Otherwise: New and Selected Poem by Jane Kenyon.

Briefly It Enters and Briefly Speaks

I am the blossom pressed in a book,
found again after two hundred years….

I am the maker, the lover, the keeper….

When the young girl who starves
sits down to a table
she will sit beside me….

I am food on the prisoner’s plate….

I am water rushing to the wellhead,
filling the pitcher until it spills….

I am the patient gardener
of the dry and weedy garden….

I am the stone step,
the latch, and the working hinge….

I am the heart contracted by joy…
the longest hair, white
before the rest….

I am there in the basket of fruit
presented to the widow….

I am the musk rose opening
unattended, the fern on the boggy summit….

I am the one whose love
overcomes you, already with you
when you think to call my name….

Peace
LaMon

In the Dark

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In spite of the experiences of illumination (or the presence of God), we will likely experience later times of darkness. St John of the Cross coined two or three phrases, but the one usually used for these experiences is “the dark night of the soul.” I will not discuss St John’s understanding of what this means or the causes of it, in part, because I am not sure he is right. But mostly because it is irrelevant to today’s blog.

It seems safe to say that all of us have dark episodes in life even after experiences of light and peace with God. I had planned to use a section from Seamus Heaney’s poem XI from Station Island in which he paraphrases Juan de la Cruz (John of the Cross). However today I read “Job” a poem by Bonnie Thurston in Practicing Silence. It is about the biblical story of Job. And it is brilliant!

The Book of Job is a wonderful book of Hebrew poetry–perhaps the best in all of scripture. It deals with the problem of suffering; darkness. As long as one doesn’t approach the book as though it were literal (which creates enormous problems!), it is quite valuable. And certainly I have found Thurston’s poem to be.

Job

You live in unremitting darkness,
surrounded by an unbearable silence
with which your friends cannot cope.
They fill the air with worthless words,
ugly flies buzzing around your sores.

Your howl of pain, moans in the night,
attempt to shatter the stillness
of divine and distant implacability.
Your cries are sacred songs,
humanity’s common lament.

With no more reasonableness
than the cause of your agony,
the eyelids of the morning blink,
give a transitory glimmer
of the wildness behind all suffering.

Your glimpse One whose ways are not ours,
Who, blasted by our whys, changes the subject.
For all this unearned, unredeemed pain,
you are recompensed with only the Is-ness of God,
barely enough, but light to wrestle on.

If you know the Book of Job well, you will catch some of the references, but even if not the poem masterfully affirms what I think is true. Suffering, unexplainable and terrible, happens, but somewhere within that darkness there can be the faintest morning light promising that the darkness is not everlasting.

Darkness, from time to time, is part of the spiritual journey. But I believe it does not end there.

darkness falls
moonless, starless night
a firefly flickers

Peace,
LaMon

As always, fill free to share with with others.

Pathway Poem #21

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Today’s poem is by John O’Donohue from Conamara Blues published in 2001 by HarperCollens Publishers, Inc. O’Donohue was an Irish priest much loved for his spiritual writings. I was attracted to this book of poetry because of the title. I have visited Ireland three times. I love every place I have been there. But my favorite is the west coast area of Galway and Conamara. The poem chosen for today illustrates a pathway into the Presence.

As always, I encourage you to read the poem slowly and to read it twice.

The Secret of Thereness

And the earth fled to the lowest place.
And the mystery of the breeze,
Arising from nowhere, could be
A return of unrequited memory
Awake at last to a sense of loss,

Stirring up the presences in these fields,
Clutches of thistle roll their purple eyes,
Grasses wave in a trembling whisper,
Profusions of leaf dance slowly

On the low spires of rowan trees;
In fields and walls the granite ones
Never waver from stillness, stones
Who know a life without desire,

Each dwells in its own distance
From night acclaimed by twilight
And day released through dawn.

Utterly focused in their stance,
Stones praise the silence of time.

If you have ever been to Conamara, you have seen those stones “focused in their stance” rising up out of the ground and in their places as part of a wall. They are everywhere. They “never waver in their stillness.” That is the image that calls me back to a spiritual truth that is so easily lost in the hectic pace of the modern world.

It is the “secret of thereness”. I cannot express how important it is to practice stillness, silence, simply being ‘there’. I cannot say that it is only in stillness that we can experience the presence of God, but I can affirm both personally and from the witness of other seekers over the centuries, that if we are still and attentive, the Presence might touch us.

alone not lonely—
solitary with God
by a mountain stream

The haiku was first published in frogpond, vol. 43:1 winter 2020, Haiku Society of America, Inc.

As always, please feel free to share this blog with your friends.

Peace,
LaMon

Reflection on Ageing

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I am in the L’s of my poetry books, so here is one by Thomas Lynch, a poetry-writing funeral director. My favorite poem by him is almost 40 lines and a little long for my blog. It is called “Local Heroes”. Perhaps you can find it online or purchase the book from which that poem and today’s is found, i.e. Walking Papers, published by W. W. Norton and Company.

Refusing at Fifty-two to Write Sonnets

It came to him that he could nearly count
How many Octobers he had left to him
In increments of ten or, say, eleven
Thus: sixty-three, seventy-four, eighty-five.
He couldn’t see himself at ninety-six–
Humanity’s advances not withstanding
In health, self-help, or New Age regimens–
What with his habits and family history,
The end he thought is nearer than you think.

The future, thus confined to its contingencies,
The present moment opens like a gift:
The balding month, the grey week, the blue morning,
The hour’s routine, the minute’s passing glance–
All seem like godsends now. And what to make of this?
At the end the word that comes to him is Thanks.

I am almost 75. I was diagnoses some 14 years ago with ALS. After a bout of serious depression, I turned to writing a thanksgiving list of people, places, events (major and minor) for which I was and remain thankful. The depression lifted–most days. 2 years later I was told that the ALS was gone, never to return! It was a wonderful day.

I am not thankful that I had ALS, but I am thankful that I learned the importance of thanksgiving. I continue to keep the list up, but I confess, more sporadically.

However just this last week, I read something about a library or a librarian. My thoughts wandered back to my childhood. I remembered discovering the Albertville Library–then located downtown. It was there that I fell in love with reading. So, I added that experience to my thanksgiving list.

I always feel closer to God or the divine whenever I am thankful. It is a wonderful pathway.

bluebird
nibbling at our feeders
thankful

As always feel free to share with a friend–and be thankful for those you have! Peace, LaMon

Pathway Poem #16

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Today’s poem is by Gwyneth Lewis. She is a Welsh poet who writes in both Welsh and English. I discovered her in Malcolm Guite’s The Word in the Wilderness: A Poem a Day for Lent and Easter where he shared her wonderful poem “Homecoming”. But I will save that one for a later blog.

For today, her poem “Midwinter Marriage” seems appropriate. It is found in her book Parables & Faxes published by Bloodaxe Books. I hope you will read it slowly, twice.

Midwinter Marriage

After autumn’s fever and its vivid trees,
infected with colour as the light died back,
we’ve settled into greyness: fields behind gauze,

hedges feint in tracing-paper mists,
the sun diminished to a midday moon
and daylight degraded to the monochrome

of puritan weather. This healing cold
holds us to pared-down simplicities.
Now is the worse-case solstice time,

acutest angle of the shortest day,
a time to condemn the frippery of leaves
and know that trees stand deltas to the sky

producing nothing. A time to take your ease
in not knowing, in blankness, in vacuity.
This is the season that has married me.

You may find in the poem some wonderful metaphors worthy of your meditation. If so, don’t allow my meandering to cause you to forget to take time with those images that have attracted you.

However, what attracted me were the last three lines. “[Winter is] a time to take your ease / in not knowing, in blankness, in vacuity. / This is the season that has married me.” One of the most influential books of Christian mysticism or spirituality is a little anonymous book from the 14th century entitled The Cloud of Unknowing. The author stresses that our understanding can never penetrate the cloud of unknowing that separates us from God who is incomprehensible. Only love alone can reach God.

Winter time is appropriate as a time to remember how little we can fathom of God’s nature–though what we can fathom is beautiful, full of spring time life and glory. Each season carries within it metaphor and symbol to draw us toward the divine. Even dark winter.

It is easy for me to be married to winter, as Lewis imagines herself to be. Perhaps it is my melancholy nature. Whatever the case, winter can help me experience God. It is is a pathway, perhaps dark, but a true pathway, none the less.

When I read this poem last year, it inspired the following haiku:

mid-winter darkness
monochrome unknowing time
emptiness resounds

As always you may share this blog with others and encourage them to follow. And I would love to hear your thoughts on winter!

Peace,
LaMon

Pathway Poem #12

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Jane Kenyon was a wonderful poet. She died of leukemia at the age of 48. She wrote,

There are things in life that we must endure which are all but unendurable, and yet I feel that there is a great goodness. Why, when there could have been nothing, is there something? This is a great mystery. How, when there could have been nothing, does it happen that there is love, kindness, beauty?1

Among the many poems in Otherwise: New & Selected Poems by Jane Kenyon, I have chosen the following:

At the Feeder

First the Chickadees take
their share, then fly
to the bittersweet vine,
where they crack open the seeds,
excited, like poets
opening the day’s mail.

And the Evening Grosbeaks–
those large and prosperous
finches–resemble skiers
with the latest equipment, bright
yellow goggles on their faces.

Now the Bluejay comes in
for a landing, like a SAC bomber
returning to Plattsburgh
after a day patrolling the ozone.
Every teacup in the pantry rattles.

The solid and graceful bodies
of Nuthatches, perpetually
upside down, like Yogis . . .
and Slate-Colored Juncoes, feeding
on the ground, taking only
what falls to them.

The cats watch, one
from the lid of the breadbox,
another from the piano. A third
flexes its claws in sleep, dreaming
perhaps, of a chicken neck,
or of being worshiped as a god
at Bubastis, during
the XXIII dynasty.

What makes life worth living if not “love, kindness, beauty” and perhaps a bit of humor.

We have a beautiful Korat cat named Jinx. He too watches the birds at our feeders. And the beautiful birds come all 12 months of the year. Like Jinx, I too like to watch them, though perhaps with a different desire.

One of my Autumn haiku:

a beautiful morning:
just watching the birds feeding
and the leaves falling

May you all rejoice in the beauty around you–blessings of God. As always, feel free to share this blog with others. And comments are always welcomed–really! Peace, LaMon

1 Good Poems for Hard Times by Garrison Keillor, p.314.

Pathway Poem #6

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This poem is found in Seamus Heaney: 100 Poems. It is about being awake.

Had I not been awake I would have missed it
A wind that rose and whirled until the roof
Pattered with quick leaves off the sycamore

And got me up, the whole of me a-patter,
Alive and ticking like an electric fence:
Had I not been awake I would have missed it,

It came and went so unexpectedly
And almost it seemed dangerously,
Returning like an animal to the house,

A courier blast that there and then
Lapsed ordinary. But not ever
After. And not now.

The wind or the leaves or both were like an extra-ordinary messenger. Was it a mystical experience or simply (!!) an inspiration for this poem? In some ways it does not matter. What is important is that he was awake to experience a once in a life time occurrence. Of course, he heard the wind again and the fall of leaves on his roof, but something underneath the ordinary happened this one time–when he was awake. I was reminded of a partial line from the writings of St. Paul, “Awake, o sleeper” (Ephesians 5:14). How easy it can be to sleepwalk through life, to trod the same ruts everyday with our senses unaware of life bursting around us.

Day and night may be filled with “courier(s) . . . lapsed ordinary.” To pay attention, to be awake, is our joyful work.

hillside one spring
four-foot weedy plant–
yellow blossom

As always, if you like this blog feel free to share it with others and encourage them to follow these occasional ramblings.

Peace,
LaMon