Lessons from the Birds on a Snowy Walk

With the warmer weather the birds are really beginning to chirp and warble. Toward the end of my time at the Jesuit Center, the winter storms had past and the sun had begun to come out. With the end of the bluster the birds began coming out from all of their hiding places. So did I and I took a snowy walk around the grounds which was much more leisurely in the absence of the tempest.
I am a birder of sorts. I set out hopeful for some good pictures. Especially because my friend Scott always gets some really nice ones and I wanted to share.
As I have said, a part of Ignatian spirituality is seeing God in all things. Here is how God and I had a conversation through the birds on my sun dappled snowy walk.
I set out eagerly and am looking up in the trees and in the fields for my "conquest"- birds ready for me to encounter them.
I hear them but the sun is bright and with the reflection off of the snow, I can not see what I hear, so I have to keep on.
Maybe there will be a better spot.
Then the wind blows and birds scatter.
Finally, I happen upon a lovely group of bluebirds- they are cheerfully engaged in their activity and are just beyond my range.
Determined to get closer, I scare them off.
Time and again until I give up and just watch. Watch as they call to each other and as they rejoice in the day.
Then I hear a tap-tap-tapping and look up to see a resplendent flicker, but he is always angled so that I cannot do the "glamour shot." The flicker is oblivious to my being there- so engrossed in his own search. There are no other birds with him but he cares not at all. Another bird finally joins but he moves on- and in his own flurry to "do" startles away the chickadee.
Are there times we become so committed to "our work" that we fail to see we are not community? Do we chase off others in our enthusiasm?

Further on there are more chickadees- but in flight are the crows.
Loud, dominant, and overwhelming. They dash the hopes of the little birds as they descend. Too much.

I sit in the esplanade and decide I cannot will the birds to stay put or pose "just right" and that fortunately I chose to enjoy what they were doing rather than just focus on what I wanted.

I know this is simplistic, but often it bears repeating.
Then I hear two birds engaged in a "call and response."
Bird one: I do this
Bird two: I do it back. And I add something.
Bird one: I try my pattern again- I do what I did
Bird two: I repeat what you did.
Bird one: I do this, but Bird Two comes in and cuts me off.
Both stop.
After a pause this pattern repeats
Bird one decides that "I can't get you to follow me and you can't get me to follow you"
Both fly off.

This pattern happens to people too.
Whenever our community is more about "me" than "us."
When it is not about discerning God's will together.

When we forget what the core really is.
We all do this.
And I ponder how I do this.

Falling in Love

One of my favorite spots was a contemplative space near my spiritual director's office. A beautiful blue space with bowed windows, plants and comfy chairs and my favorite part- ladybugs!
My whole life I have loved ladybugs- they always bring a smile.
When I was little my Mom would use a hole punch and a piece of construction paper to make red dots. Then I would glue them onto note paper and make their dots and legs and antennae.
To this day one of my favorite "make me smile" things.
When LC#2 was little we had a "Ladybug Farm"- we got the little house with the plastic window and the chilled ladybugs arrived by UPS- we did not realize that there was a hole in the farm and generations of escapees can be seen in our house and at her school.
In my call to ministry it has been about joy and laughter and imagination.
Sometimes I have to slow down my energy, but deep down- I want to laugh and to dream and get carried away by it all.
No wonder this poem captured my attention:

"Falling in Love"

Nothing is more practical
than finding God
that is- falling in love,
in a quite absolute, final way,
with what you are in love with.
What seizes your imagination
will affect everything.
It will decide
what will get you out of bed in the morning,
what you do with your evenings,
how you spend your weekends,
what you read, who you know,
what breaks your heart
and what amazes you with
joy and gratitude.
Fall in love, stay in love
and it will decide everything.
- Pedro Arrupe, S.J.

Who is Christ for Us?

One of my favorite places at the Jesuit Center is the main chapel. Above the altar is a radiantly beautiful mosaic of the scene of the crucifixion. I suppose that sounds a little inconsistent- radiant beauty/crucifixion.
This depiction of Christ has a duality to it- brilliance and praise, exuberant colors, but in the midst of these vivid hues, there is Christ on the cross, pale, dying and suffering.
I know that this mosaic like many depictions, in some way is an effort for us to beautify the horror of the factual act, to cover up the horror of what we, humanity have done. And yet, in the midst of this pale suffering one, there is a glow to Christ. Depicted as the Jesus we know and yet not just Jesus we know.

At different times of the day the chapel may be bathed in light streaming through the stained glass windows, or deep still darkness, almost like a tomb. For most of the time, the chapel mosaic is lit. In the midst of those deep darkness times, it almost leaps off of the wall. When it is dark and the mosaic is not lit, the space is somber yet compelling.
One of the other retreatants had shared with me that there is a tiny balcony on the third floor of the building. When you are there it seems as if you are floating above the chapel space. At the same level as the mosaic, but at opposite ends of the nave.
I looked at the mosaic the first time- there are the three crosses. On the left, the thief to whom Jesus has said, "Today you will be with me." Beneath him are onlookers who are walking away- though one has his head turned back toward Jesus. They have decided Jesus' death means nothing to them.
Beneath Jesus in the center are the Marys and John, and on the right, the other thief and the soldiers who have cast lots.


That first time I focused on the onlookers for whom this meant nothing worth sticking around for. Then I focused upon Christ.
What does it mean that Jesus died for you?
Who is Christ for us?

The second time, I returned when the chapel is in utter darkness- all I can see are layers of shadow. Places where nothing is clear and I am seemingly alone-places we have all felt in our lives. That proverbial shadow of the cross. Can I still sense Christ in that space?
Not by seeing, or by touching, or hearing. Not by anything overtly physical.
Yet still in this space, and maybe especially here, where I have stepped out of all that surrounds me- there is only God.

Henri Nouwen lifts up this experience -
Solitude "shows us the way to let our behavior be shaped not by the compulsions of the world, but by our new mind, the mind of Christ."
Silence "prevents us from being suffocated by our wordy world and teaches us to speak the Word of God that emerges from the silence."
Here in this space, where we can engage in unceasing prayer, such prayer gives solitude and silence "their real meaning... we descend with the mind into the heart-through our heart into the heart of God who embraces all of history with His eternally creative and re-creative love."


The third time I returned, after praying for awhile, focused upon Christ, I was drawn to the kneeling Mary Magdalene as I became aware that someone was in the chapel below who was crying. Mary is on her knees at the foot of Christ's cross, with her head in her hands, sobbing.
"Were you there when they crucified my Lord?"
"Who was the guilty? ... I crucified Thee."
I looked back at Christ who though pale and dying has a rainbow of waves and gold rays emanating from behind him in the mosaic. Pale but powerful. Each wave or ray touching one of the others at the foot of the cross.

Forgiveness.

Now I look at the onlookers again- walking away- walking away from forgiveness.
Are there things I hold onto that exhibit walking away from, or refusing to accept forgiveness?


In Christ there is that radiant light. The sky around him of vivid blue and gold may seem lovely, like all that calls us away, but in the end, it is a dark sky. Christ is the light in that deceptive darkness. Calling us to live in the knowledge that we are given the ability to not be stuck on our knees, sobbing, but to be re-created in newness by that pale yet powerful, suffering yet triumphant One who touches us across time and space forever.

Patient Trust

I decided to make this retreat as a way of stopping and taking stock of my internship year at the mid point. As it turns out, I have completed seven months as of the weekend of my time apart. A time to reflect and pray about all that has gone on my life these last seven months in a large parish that has been around since 1730 with a staff in the double digits. There is a very different perception of time and of timing.
A vicar's time in the parish is short- a year.
The ongoing work of the collective body spans a much larger and longer spectrum. Vicars spend time in class preparing to integrate learning.
Time in the parish shows that the flow of integration in real life in the parish is vastly out of sync with the world of the semester. None of this is earth-shattering news, and yet reality "on the ground" must be processed.
Where are the joys and moments of God's grace?
Where are the challenges and how might God be speaking in them?

"Patient Trust"
by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J.

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress that it is made
by passing through some stages of instability-
and that it may take a very long time.
And so I think it is with you;
your ideas mature gradually-let them grow, let them shape themselves,
without undue haste.
Don't try to force them on,
as though you could be today
what time (that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new spirit gradually forming in you will be.
Give our Lord the benefit of believing that His hand is leading you
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.

Who's at the Door?

Yesterday I ended with words from Joyce Rupp's Open the Door. "Ask, seek, knock." When I arrrived at my room in the House, there was a note for me from my spiritual director, introducing herself and telling me she would not be able to meet me until the next day. While I was slightly disappointed, certainly with the weather I understood. I began to get settled in and had read the "Open the Door" sheet as well. I had come on this weekend alone and having never been here before, knew no one. I pondered what I might do until the evening meal.
Then I heard a tiny knock on the door- when I opened it, there was my spiritual director, who had found the time in her busy day to stop and introduce herself and ask if I had any questions. She gave some useful "lay of the land" tips. Boy, that sure was welcome!
It reminded me that in addition to the "ask, seek, knock" reference, we also hear of Jesus saying "Behold, I stand at the door..." I began to contemplate what this says about prayer- the door to our relationship with God.
Ignatian spirituality teaches looking for God in all things- yes, there was a literal knock at my door- thanks for checking in, God!
Over my first full day on retreat I wondered about keeping silence. I dreamt that I broke the silence and talked to others. But in reality I had not. But when I was out walking, in the snow, trying to take pictures, and trying to look at the stations of the cross and trying to remember what time my appointment with my director was, I slipped on the ice.
And to no one else around me I found myself saying, "you're right, God I DO need to slow down. I am here all weekend." It was like God knocking on the door and reminding me I had promised that this was a weekend when we would talk.
I walked by a snow covered statue of the pilgrim- "you're right, God that is me!"
If anyone had heard me it would have sounded like somewhere in space was the other end of a conversation.
And throughout the weekend there were times I was the one knocking- just wondering, just thinking, can you help me with this?
And then there were those other times where God knocked back.
And instead of prayers of formality, or a litany of carefully constructed petitions and responses,
it was like God and I taking turns walking through the door.
Like good friends sharing time and advice.
My director shared with me a prayer nook that is located just off of the chapel- a space where women could observe worship that they could not be a part of in days past. A special space with iron-grated windows that looked onto the altar and the beautiful mosaic and windows.
It was hard to see through the grate- I began thinking that it was not really a special space for me.
Then I heard- open the door.
I looked and noticed that the center window was made of two swinging panels. They could be opened. And when they were it was as though I could almost reach out and touch the altar- it became sacred space.
As I kneeled there it became a totally "God and me" time- nothing more needed to be said.
So often we think of doors as locking or clicking shut, or needing a key.
Sometimes maybe we see prayer that way- not always available, needing certain keys to work.
But prayer is meant to be not so much a fixed door, but perhaps a swinging door, like moving in and out of conversation - with questions, with news, with all of the things we think of in our closest relationships. Comfortable and easy- where we walk in and hear, "How was your day" or "I've been waiting for you."
Maybe eventually the door would swing back and forth so often we would decide just to take it down and come and go at will.
Sometimes for long sit downs and other times just to drop in.
Never really gone for long.
In many ways God seeks us and God sends people into our path- for those same conversations. How might God be speaking, looking to have a chat?
Who's at your door and what would it mean if you answered?

Entering the Silence

This past weekend I was priviledged to be able to take time away on retreat at the Jesuit Center in Wernersville, Pennsylvania.My weekend was one of directed silent retreat. Over the next several days I plan to share about my experience. For those who know me, some were dubious when I pronounced I was going to engage in a weekend long silent retreat. Frankly so was I, and yet I was drawn to the opportunity.
In the weeks leading up to my time away, I began to wonder if I was over-reaching. Even joking about how when I cracked up and couldn't take it anymore that conveniently there is a state mental hospital nearby. The day came and the weather was not cooperating- which in these parts lately means- snow. Early in the day the call came that the roads were slick and if I wanted to come they would welcome me and if I wanted to not travel they understood. And in that message I had a profound sense of sadness for the potential that I was not going to go. I recognized that I truly desired this. I decided to wait and see how the weather played out in the hours before I would need to leave. After all of the tempestuous winds, squalls, drifting and ominous forecasting, I was able to follow the fine work of plows and salting. My journey was uneventful. And within an hour of my arrival the snow began again.
Before entering the house, I spent a few minutes listening to "O Lord Hear My Prayer" and prayed that I would be able to set aside all of the busy-ness, to call upon God to meet me and embrace me in this time apart, to enter into God's presence and listen. I heard a lone bird chirping and the wind begin to rustle.
Listen. Enter into a place where you cannot give words but only receive them. Enter this space where there is humility of purpose.

When I entered my room there was a paper on the desk with words from author Joyce Rupp in her book, Open the Door, a Journey to the True Self. Contemplating Luke 11:9, she offers this:
"What is it we are to ask for when we come to the divine door and knock?
Jesus encourages his followers to be deliberate about searching and requesting. He promises they will find what they are seeking. The assumption has been made by many that Jesus is talking about intercessory prayer, the container of those big and little things we petition God for each day...perhaps this is so.
But could it also be that Jesus was speaking not so much about our external world as our internal one? Could he have meant knocking and searching for what will enhance the relationship of love that flows between God and ourselves?
Are we to knock on the door and ask for what enriches this bond?
What will transform us into our truest selves, our firmest faithfulness, our deepest joy?
Perhaps our petitions at God's door might become not so much "What can you do for me?" as
"Who can you be for me?"
There is so much the Holy One can be for us:
the mentor of our loving
the source of our courage
the keeper of our troubles
the teacher of our prayer
the guide of our pathway
the nurturer of our virtue
the companion of our soul."


A walk in the snow, a meal (the last one with talking) and evening prayer. Then enter the silence- enter again conversation that God and I have been having lately.