A Community Needs A Soul…

A community needs a soul if it is to become a true home for human beings. You, the people must give it this soul.” –Pope John Paul II

I hold immeasurable gratitude for all the dear friends and family in Seattle who give this place its soul, who make this community a home for me. Thank you for your Love, and for this blessed season together.

Next blog post…from Boston!

Do I have patience, even for this?

“When I lead retreats, a bell sounds to indicate our transition from one part of the day to the next. The bell sounds, and immediately we shift mental gears, moving from meditation to preparations for mealtime.  What will lunch be today? Where will I sit? The bell rings, and we shift from walking meditation to preparations for a sitting meditation. Where did I leave my seat cushion? Will my aching back be a distraction during this sit? So much of life is like this–we are so quick to escape the present moment with anticipation and anxiety about what’s coming next.”

On Tuesday evening I joined my cousin for a meditation class facilitated by the Seattle Insight Meditation Society.  The class commences with a 45 minute meditation sit, followed by a lesson by one of the society’s Meditation teachers. That night, the talk focused on patience, one of the ten paramis, or “qualities of character that can be developed to support the path of awakening,” in the Buddhist tradition practiced by the group.  The teacher used this illustration about the bell on his retreats to demonstrate how much impatience we often have for the present moment.  Mainstream perceptions of life have taught us that the present is to dismissed for what ever is next.  We so hastily move from one thing to the next.

The teacher said that he has begun to ask his students to pause when they hear this transition bell at the retreat. It is an exercise in patience.  Rather than eagerly fleeing the moment, they exercise attention to the present by remaining where they are while the impending transition awaits its proper time.  The teacher said this intentional pause between one thing and the next is incredibly difficult for the retreatants.

This does not surprise me, for the bell has rung and I also struggle to pause in the present as I await the major impending transition in my life.  

Condemned to Greatness

Adam said, “I’ve wondered why a man of your knowledge would work a desert hill place.”

“It’s because I haven’t the courage,” said Samuel. “I could never quite take the responsibility. When the Lord God did not call my name, I might have called His name–but I did not. There you have the difference between greatness and mediocrity. It’s not an uncommon disease. But it’s nice for a mediocre man to know that greatness must be the loneliest state in the world.”

“I’d think there are degrees of greatness,” Adam said.

“I don’t think so,” said Samuel. “That would be like saying there is a little bigness. No. I believe when you come to that responsibility the hugeness and you are alone to make your choice. On one side you have warmth and companionship and sweet understanding, and on the other–cold, lonely greatness. There you make your choice. I’m glad to chose mediocrity, but how am I to say what reward might have come with the other? None of my children will be great either, except perhaps Tom. He’s suffering over the choosing right now. It’s a painful thing to watch. And somewhere in me I want him to say yes. Isn’t that strange? A father to want his son condemned to greatness! What selfishness that must be.”

I love this passage from Steinbeck’s East of Eden. It’s maybe my favorite of the whole book. When I read it for the first time, I was captured by Samuel’s recognition that greatness–which in my mind is really the result of anyone’s fervent and loyal pursuit of some vocation–comes at a cost. It is easy to glorify our goals and aims in life while overlooking the fact that a “yes” to one thing is often (if not always) a “no” to something else. I’d like to think that it isn’t as black-and-white as Samuel suggests; that real community and companionship is possible as we take on the individual responsibility necessary for major vocational commitments; that life infrequently occurs in this “either/or” fashion.

Champagne from the Bottle

“Well, folks…the cup I left on the table flew away, so do you still want to have the champagne…um….from the bottle?”

No, that was not a line from some classy college cocktail party gone wrong. The line was straight from my lips, and it was spoken during the Communion service at my cousin’s outdoor wedding last weekend.

The wedding officiant, a Protestant pastor and friend of mine, asked me to help facilitate the intimate ritual during the ceremony. When the marrying couple, the pastor, the two Best Men, and I, the Maid of Honor, circled around the small Communion table in front of 200 guests, I immediately noticed that the empty plastic cup I had placed there before the wedding was no where to be found. The mountain breeze must have carried it away during the vows!

We passed the grainy loaf around while the pastor read scripture, and I said, “This is Christ’s body, broken for you.” As we chewed my eyes darted around inconspicuously searching for the cup. “WHY did I pick a clear cup!” I wondered silently to myself. When our jaws stopped chomping and everyone’s eyes turned to the uncorked bottle of champagne we had grabbed before the ceremony (someone forgot the intended Communion wine), I divulged our Communion predicament.