Miracles

What makes a miracle? Is it an impossible event- something that goes against common understanding? Or, can a miracle be claimed by gratitude- like the reappearance of a lost child, or the gift of beauty to a forlorn soul?
December is a month of miracles. Stories of miracles reside in the tale of Christmas, the birth of the Christ Child, and Hanukah, the eight-day flame that existed from only one day’s worth of oil. In both these stories, the miracle is not in grand fanfare and impressive stunts. It is in the hard labor of Mary giving birth to a child, found in a manger. It is in the meaning of one lone flame, surviving from oil, the blood of the earth. Instead of stretching to find miracles “out there,” these stories remind us that what is truly important, indeed miraculous, is what we have right here.
I appreciate that this month-of-miracles rests immediately before the New Year, and my new year’s resolutions. Instead of setting goals that serve to satisfy my expectations, my resolution is to be open to surprise. To the way life defies my expectations, and that from the ordinary unfolds the extraordinary.
The Sufi poet and mystic Rumi writes “Giving thanks for abundance is sweeter than the abundance itself.” How can we be the makers of miracles by our manner of receiving life? By living with a heart full of wonder and awe for this world in which we live?

Joanna Macy and Kristin Tippet

I love "Speaking of Faith", now "onBeing"
Here is a little piece from Joanna Macy and Kristin Tippet's conversation on Sept. 16th, 2010:

Speaking about Macy’s environmental activism (particularly around radioactive contamination and nuclear arms):

"Ms. Tippett: Something that's very present for me as I'm reading about you and the passion you've had for this for a long time is you — you also were always very aware of a sense of grief as you realized …
Ms. Macy: Oh, yeah. Grief got me into it.
Ms. Tippett: Yeah. And I think that right now, say right now in this moment as we're speaking in 2010, the spectacle that's very present for people, maybe more in the forefront — certainly more in the forefront of peoples' minds than nuclear power or nuclear weapons were in the '70s — is the Gulf oil spill, right?
Ms. Macy: Oh, yes.
Ms. Tippett: Right. And there is this grief about that. And you really work with people to hold on to that, to take their grief seriously, right?
Ms. Macy: Or not to hold on to it so much as to not be afraid of it because that grief, if you are afraid of it and pave it over, clamp down, you shut down. And the kind of apathy and closed-down denial, our difficulty in looking at what we're doing to our world stems not from callous indifference or ignorance so much as it stems from fear of pain. That was a big learning for me as I was organizing around nuclear power and around at the time of Three Mile Island catastrophe and around Chernobyl.
Then as I saw it, it relates to everything. It relates to what's in our food and it relates to the clear-cuts of our forests. It relates to the contamination of our rivers and oceans. So that became actually perhaps the most pivotal point in, I don't know, the landscape of my life, that dance with despair, to see how we are called to not run from the discomfort and not run from the grief or the feelings of outrage or even fear and that, if we can be fearless, to be with our pain, it turns. It doesn't stay static. It only doesn't change if we refuse to look at it. But when we look at it, when we take it in our hands, when we can just be with it and keep breathing, then it turns. It turns to reveal its other face, and the other face of our pain for the world is our love for the world, our absolutely inseparable connectedness with all life."

On The Other Side

An old Buddhist Saw:
Before enlightenment: chop wood, carry water.
After enlightenment: chop wood, carry water.

Last Thursday, December 2nd, 2010, I passed the Ministerial Fellowship Committee- the evaluative board that reviews each candidate for ministry, and who's approval opens the doors for ordination, and, well, employment. Thank GOD that's over!!! It was quite the journey to get to this moment... a lot of anxiety, reading, discussing, huge waves of fear, and even some excitement mixed in the bunch. I don't think I needed to go through the depths of especially the fear, but I guess that's where I am in my life, so be it.
In fact, I knew. I knew that the couple weeks before the interview would be harder than the interview itself. It is hard to prepare for such a significant "rite of passage"/ test alone. Of course, I was part of a study group of other candidate ministers, and we "met" weekly over the phone over the last several weeks, but by alone I really mean lonely. In a new town, new job, living alone for the first time in my life. It has been a lonely last six months for me and sometimes I am not that good at giving my own self the "hospitality of spirit" that I seek to offer in my ministry. But I am getting better. I hope.
I love that Buddhist saying (a colleague of mine sent it to me). When all is said and done, I still have the same list of things to do, the same things that annoy me or elevate my anxiety. I will still have my fear. Self-doubt. Workaholism. These are all part of my "minister." But I also have what lies on the other side of these harsher qualities: I also have my power. Self-love. Passion for ministry. Perhaps one thing I learned from all of this is how to be a better friend to myself. By having more self-compassion, fear means less to me. It's still there, but I can invite it in, serve it tea and cookies, and, satisfied, it moves along its merry way.
Before the interview, I drove out to Lake Michigan. It was a really windy day- the turquoise and darker blue waters patterned one after the other on the wild shore. I had a cold, but I walked that beach anyway. I needed that power. I needed the wildness and the playfulness of the great waters. At the end of my walk, I picked up a stone and gave it my hope for the whole week: that I learn something. Perhaps I have- it may be one of those "escapes words" kinda learning.