Walking the Path

Do you know how many adventure stories are about a journey? The Incredible Journey, Voyager (a Star Trek clone about a star ship’s 70 year journey home), the Lord of the Rings just to name a few. What is it about going on a journey? I’d rather just go for a walk. 

I love to walk, when I’m upset, or sad, or if I feel like taking a nap, I take a walk and wow it really gets me going. 

One day I was in a particularly bad mood, and decided a walk was what I needed. But when I got to main street, there was so much traffic in town, I had to wait and wait before I could cross the road. That did not lighten the mood, where did all these cars come from anyway? I finally made it across and climbed the old ski hill. My heart was pumping, the anger began to lighten, and at the top I just walked around looking for more pictures to take.  I was so refreshed that by the time I got back down to the road to go home, I, yes I, even smiled at the cars going by. But the miraculous thing was that after only two cars, the next one actually stopped for me to cross and smiled back!

My spiritual director asked me what does walking do for you exactly? I don’t know I never really thought about it, I said. But as always, a good question gives us something to ponder. It seems that walking takes my mind off of everyday problems. Oh, I start out thinking about a problem or something unpleasant but after a few good steps, and seeing a lovely flower or tree I’m reminded that everything is OK and as it should be.

The movement of legs, arms, the whole body in rhythm becomes a song or a dance, and it feels like being fully alive. The trees, the movement of the wind, a flock of geese heading south, all remind me that I love to be outside even at the end of October. 

I watched Thich Nhat Hanh taking a group on a mindfulness walk in a city, probably NYC, and thought, wow,  how can they do that, how can they be mindful and still be in a city? He says in Living Buddha, Living Christ: “To breathe and know you are alive is wonderful. Because you are alive, everything is possible.”  The walk, the movement, the journey engages our lungs in deep breathing, and we learn that all those troubles and worries that surround us are not obstacles but opportunities to discover new possibilities.  What are your opportunities and possibilities?  

 

Changes in October

October in the Adirondacks is a time of change and great beauty. Driving down the Moose River Road last Sunday, I was surrounded by golds, oranges, yellows and reds, a world in swirl of color, even the sky looked brighter. People were stopped all along the river taking pictures, trying to capture the beauty - perhaps to save it for winter, or just to remember that it was there. In October, everything changes fast - one day it’s warm and sunny and the next day you wake up to frost on the car windshield. Rain comes and goes. It’s cold, then clear. Leaves on the tree one day are on the ground the next because of a strong wind. 

    Change is our theme this week. Pictures capture the difference a few weeks make. (See the Facebook page or Weekly Photos on the website) A mushroom looked healthy and new in the summer, but now it’s brown with chunks eaten out of it by squirrels.

    There are so many changes in our lives, children growing up and leaving home, loss of a loved one, grandchildren, moving, you can add to the list. I always thought I was someone who embraced change until my husband had our bathroom remodeled. I like my old shower curtain, and especially the old shower head. So I had to get used to something new after 30 years of having it one way.  I feel like the children of Israel wandering in the desert toward the promised land who just wanted to go back to Egypt. 

    Joan Chittister in her book The Story of Ruth says: “A moment of change leaves [us]  … at the mercy of [our] circumstances, unless [we] take it in, open to it, see it as simply another step in the unfolding of the self.”  What a beautiful way to look at change, as an opportunity to grow and enrich our spiritual lives.  She goes on to say: “Without faith in the God of change, we doom ourselves to the banality of the partial.”  

    Where do you see change happening? Do you embrace it or resist it?

Roots

    Roots have been on my mind lately, the deep roots of rose bushes, the roots that stick up on a hiking trail that trip you or help you walk, the roots of weeds in the garden. They are sometimes deep  and sometime shallow, some roots are even exposed like the roots around a boulder  that holds a tree in the forest.

    I decided to move my mother’s rose bushes because they were in the back of my garden and not doing very well. After 17 years in a cold climate, rose roots run very deep, strong, long, seeking protection from the elements. Finally I had to break the root, hopping I had gotten enough for the plant to grow. The roots and the soil are a community of sorts, in relationship with each other, moving the plant with much of the root does not insure that a new relationship will form in new soil. 

    QUESTION TO PONDER: What are my long term relationships like? Do they nurture me or hold me back?

    When we moved to Alaska, we were uprooted from our home and community. The only way to survive was to create a new community, it was easy because many young people were there going to college, trying to explore the arctic frontier, and each of us was looking for community. Sometimes it took time to find the right community, we had to sample and search. I guess most people want community -  churches, bars, clubs, community service groups are all forms of community. 

    QUESTION TO PONDER: Where do I find community? 

    The shadow side of community is of course, exclusivism. There are so many examples of that throughout history and in our own time. 

    Kent Ira Groff, in his book Honest to God Prayer  says: “Imagine the root system [of the tree] as the hidden life of contemplation, resting beneath conscious awareness.”

    There are deep roots and there are roots on the surface. While we were hiking this summer, we noticed so many tree roots exposed because of people walking on the trail, that is good for the people, but how about for the tree?  The roots provided stair steps for climbing up a steep hill, they provided something to hold on to when climbing a rock. But then if they are wet, they can be very slippery. Always a shadow side. 

    Then there are the roots wrapped around a rock holding a tree upright. We think that can’t last long. The tree can be easily toppled with a strong wind. But miraculously enough, there are some large trees living on top of a rock. We don’t know what’s underground after all, many of the trees in the Adirondacks could have their roots wrapped around rocks, buried deep in the soil. 

    QUESTION TO PONDER: War causes violent uprooting. the devastation of home and community all for what? What is war for? What does it do? What does it really protect? 

    There are times when uprooting is good and necessary. When a tree is too close to a house, or a tree has a disease. There are times when we are called to be uprooted, like Abraham leaving all he knew to start out on a God adventure. I imagine that my grandparents had a hard time leaving home and family to never see them again, to come here to this country, to put down new roots. 

    When we are called to change, to follow our bliss, the way sometimes seems hard and we want to turn back, it was better in Egypt, we cry with the Israelites fleeing slavery. 

    A houseplant that is root bound has to be transplanted or it dies, or just sits there, forlorn and not growing.  

    In the same book, Kent Ira Groff tells a story of visiting a couple. He knocked on the front door but found they were in the back yard. Walking back there he found ‘the husband holding an uprooted quince tree while the wife was pruning the roots. The next summer that tree was bursting with fruit. “Sometimes the very roots of your spiritual life get pruned; you can’t pray as you once did or don’t know what you believe anymore.” John of the Cross calls this the dark night of the soul. But instead of wallowing in depression we are invited to let it go and go into the darkness, to let the pruning happen, and then come out on the other side as stronger and more fruitful. 

    QUESTION TO PONDER: Do I need anything uprooted in my life so that I can be more fruitful? 

    Roots are not good or bad, they just are, they are necessary, to be respected but not bound by, to hold us in place and yet help us move forward. May the right root be with you. 

    

Why "weaving home"

I was at a retreat and many of the retreatants were talking about their lives  having so many threads and how they had a desire to have those threads, knit or woven together into some shape or form that would give them clarity and meaning.   The thread symbolize the parts of our lives that are new, seem disjointed, yet are offering us glimpse of a life of wholeness.

    That is what being church is for some of us today. There is the thread of the past, a strong cord that keeps us going, wanting to hold on to our history, our heritage, the way we’ve always done it. There is the thread of our missions that bring light and hope to the world. There may be  new threads, threads that pull us to mediate, to dance, to behold, to not hold back, to uncover  those things that have been hidden.  The threads that invites us to reach outside our comfort zones and let the spirit weave our lives so that we can see the sacredness in every thread. 

    Weaving Home is a web based program for becoming aware of those sacred threads, of empowering us on the journey of the spirit and then paradoxically bringing us home again to realize that we’ve always had all the threads woven into what we needed all along. 

Enthuse & Inspire

The church is the people who have been called out to be Christ’s hands and body in our world. Yet there are  times we forget our mission while we struggle to survive. We can plug into the Spirit of Christ in many ways, Weaving Home is one such guide to deepen your spiritual practices to enthuse and inspire, so that you are empowered to live out your calling to love God and each other.