One of the books I find most sacred is Mary Oliver’s compilation of poetry called “Devotions.” Mary Oliver’s poetry, at times, feels to me like a continuation of the Book of Psalms, except written in a modern context.
Continuing with my practice of florilegia I discussed previously, below I present verses that sparkled up for me this summer as I meditated through this book.
“I have refused to live locked in the orderly house of reasons and proofs. The world I live in and believe in is wider than that.” (from “The World I Live In”)
“Be still, my soul, and steadfast. Earth and heaven both are still watching… Let God and the world know you are grateful.” (from “The Gift”)
“Maybe the desire to make something beautiful is the piece of God that is inside each of us.” (from “Franz Marc’s Blue Horses”)
“Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.” (from “Evidence”)
“Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous to be understood… Let me keep my distance, always, from those who think they have the answers. Let me keep company always with those who say ‘Look!’ and laugh in astonishment, and bow their heads.” (from “Mysteries, Yes”)
“… remember that we receive then we give back.” (from “At the River Clarion”)
Within Christianity, some traditions emphasize a more mystical and spiritual approach than others. One tradition I’ve been particularly intrigued by is Quaker spirituality.
Part of Quaker spiritual practice is to identify, share, and meditate on specific advices and queries. Some of these can be traced back to George Fox in the mid-1600s. In some ways, these advices and queries translate Quaker experiences and insights about the Gospels into modern life.
Communities might lead a service with reference to an advice or query, and individuals might meditate on one for an hour, a day, a week, or a year.
I’ve been studying Quaker advices and queries shared by meetings across the world for several years. Below I’ll share some of my favorites, which mostly come from the London, New York, and New England yearly meetings.
Apponegansett Meeting House, Jean Schnell
Advices:
Take heed to the promptings of love and truth in your heart.
Bring the whole of your life under the ordering of the spirit of Christ.
Seek to know an inward stillness, even amid the activities of daily life.
While respecting the experiences and opinions of others, do not be afraid to say what you have found and what you value.
Try to find a spiritual wholeness which encompasses suffering as well as thankfulness and joy.
Each of us has a particular experience of God and each must find the way to be true to it.
Listen patiently and seek the truth which other people’s opinions may contain for you.
Avoid hurtful criticism and provocative language.
Think it possible that you may be mistaken.
Try to make your home a place of loving friendship and enjoyment, where all who live or visit may find the peace and refreshment of God’s presence.
Let your life speak.
Responding to divine guidance, try to discern the right time to undertake or relinquish responsibilities without undue pride or guilt.
Search out whatever in your own way of life may contain the seeds of war.
Do not let the desire to be sociable, or the fear of seeming peculiar, determine your decisions.
Try to live simply.
Stand still, wait for divine guidance, then act.
Be grateful for the gifts you have. Neither be too proud of them nor value them too little. Do not waste time coveting the gifts of others.
Attend to what love requires of you.
Beacon Hill Meeting Room, Jean Schnell
Queries:
Are you open to the healing power of God’s love?
How does Jesus speak to you today? Are you following Jesus’ example of love in action? Are you learning from his life the reality and cost of obedience to God?
Do you respect that of God in everyone though it may be expressed in unfamiliar ways or be difficult to discern?
One habit I’ve sort of unintentionally fallen into in recent years is a year-end review. That is, I’ve been finding it interesting to take some time between Christmas and New Year’s every year to consider the highs and lows of the year, reflecting on what I can take from this year to build on for the next. With all the highs and lows that made up 2022, this poem I first heard on Parker Palmer and Carrie Newcomer’s podcast stands out:
Small Kindnesses, by Danusha Lameris
“I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs to let you by. Or how strangers still say ‘bless you’ when someone sneezes, a leftover from the Bubonic plague. ‘Don’t die,’ we are saying. And sometimes, when you spill lemons from your grocery bag, someone else will help you pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other. We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot, and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress to call us ‘honey’ when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder, and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass. We have so little of each other, now. So far from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange. What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these fleeting temples we make together when we say, ‘Here, have my seat,’ ‘Go ahead – you first,’ ‘I like your hat.’“
In particular, what gives me pause are lines that “we have so little of each other, now… only these brief moments of exchange.”
Like so many others,’ my life has changed during the past few years. COVID has meant I see students and colleagues far less often. My kids are getting older – one now in college – and they spend less time with us. The people I care for the most I don’t actually spend that much time with.
I resonate with the notion that the moments we have together may be “the true dwelling of the holy.” If I can remember to take one thing from this year into the next, it’s this: remember the sacredness of the times we have together – really appreciate them and make the most of them – for they are the essence of a good life.
In the Christian calander, Advent refers to the four Sundays and weeks leading up to the celebration of Christmas. In Latin, Advent means “coming,” and this season provides a window in time for Christians to intentionally dwell in a spirit of longing, hope, and patient waiting and anticipation. In a year of public health crisis, financial and work uncertainty, racial unrest, and political strife, this emphasis strikes a new resonance in our life experience and has the potential to impact us more powerfully than in the past.
As I seek to understand and live out my faith, I find I become consumed, from time to time, with different perspectives and voices. As I look on my bookshelves, for example, I am fondly reminded of times where I have been enamored by the insights of Frederick Buechner, Shane Claiborne, Kathleen Norris, Parker Palmer, Barbara Brown Taylor, and, of course, C. S. Lewis, among others. Recently, I have acquired a new hero: Kate Bowler.
Kate Bowler
Kate has put out a free Advent devotional, and I find I am profoundly drawn in by her thoughts, as she so beautifully and compellingly connects traditional Christian faith with the suffering of this year and this moment. Part of this ability surely stems from her own experience and struggle with as someone who suffers as a stage IV cancer patient, (which she discusses in her amazing TED talk). For example, in the “liturgy” she shared today, Kate invites us to pray:
“blessed are we with eyes open to see the suffering from pandemic danger, sickness and loneliness, the injustice of racial oppression, the unimpeded greed and misuse of power, violence, intimidation, and use of dominance for its own sake, the mockery of truth, and disdain for weakness or vulnerability, and worse, the seeming powerlessness of anyone trying to stop it.
blessed are we who despair for our democracy, and ask: what can we do to protect it?
blessed are we who ask: where are you God? and where are Your people the smart, sane, and sensible ones who fight for good?”
***
As I meditate on these words, I am stunned by the realization of how much pain this year I have consciously or unconsciously tried to suppress. I feel my perspective broadened and made more whole by inviting and welcoming “eyes to see” those who are sick, lonely, and oppressed. I recognize, afresh, the extent to which truth, weakness, and vulnerability are being mocked, and how that makes all the problems we’re facing worse. I appreciate the despairing concern for our democracy and world. And, I agonize over why “God’s people” so often are part of these problems, and why they are not more often involved in the fight for good.
This prayer validates my experience and urges me to have more empathy for those who are struggling right now and do what I can to help. As Kate concludes her “liturgy,” it builds a conviction to “take hold of hope, as protest.”
As we look toward Christmas this year, we do so with a realization that God doesn’t shy away from awfulness (like I tend to do). In fact, God enters in vulnerably – rejected, in the midst of a genocide, and in the humble form of a baby. Emmanuel remains with us, in suffering, and God calls us to be present, in suffering, as well.
Last week, I stumbled upon an opportunity to join a Zoom book club in South Africa in which famed Yale theologian, Miroslav Volf, agreed to participate. I’ve admired Volf for years, beginning with this interview in which he expounds upon some of his ideas about religion, genocide, and violence. I ultimately featured many of his insights in this piece I wrote about Christianity and the Holocaust.
To my surprise and delight, there were only a handful of people in the zoom call, which gave me stunning access to Volf. My daughter joined me over lunch, and we ended up discussing themes raised related to Christianity, genocide, racism, and social justice.
Miroslav Volf
What most struck me during this discussion was a comment Volf made, in passing, which I paraphrase to the best of my memory here: “Every time I post to social media, I pray: ‘Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.‘” The thought was that, if the message to be sent didn’t line up with this prayer, Volf would change it, but if it did line up, the prayer was for the message to have this intended effect.
I’ve been reading and discussing Parker Palmer’s new book, “On the Brink of Everything,” recently, and with great benefit. Many of my discussions seem to return to a portion of a poem, which I share below. Its insight requires no elaboration.
“Love means to learn to look at yourself
The way one looks at distant things
For you are only one thing among many.
And whoever sees that way heals his heart,
Without knowing it, from various ills.”
This is Mary Oliver’s most famous poem, which ends with one of the most important questions we ever could ask ourselves. I love how she frames it.
***
The Summer Day
“Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean –
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down –
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?”
Andy Tix 