Daily Dose (July 16 – 19)

TUESDAY JULY 16 —

This week we will learn from the story of a two-year old helping her mama cook, but breaking too many eggs on the counter, and making a mess. And we’ll be asking: Do I want a tidy kitchen, or a life-giving relationship with people significant in my life (even the ones that include, or even create the mess)?
Helen Keller’s reflection and affirmation will be helping us. “Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much.”
And if we’re honest, we know that like any exasperated parent, we too easily give ourselves grief for myopia, instead of seeing the invitation to embrace the power of present, and of the caring and kindness in a world (yes, a messy one) that needs it.

But it’s not just about a kitchen is it? It could be any script about our life that has been muddled or derailed. Such that we’ve been led to believe (or we have assumed, or perhaps, we have hoped) that real life happens after there is tidiness, or after the cleanup, or after the enlightenment, or after the script edit.
Lord knows we are reluctant to admit to any disarray, especially of a personal or spiritual nature. You know, “I used to struggle with that problem, but, of course, not anymore.”
“Really? When did you quit struggling?”
“About an hour ago.”

As a parent, I understand that temptation, but more insidious, is the connection between our prerequisite for tidiness, and our need to hide behind the safety of labels. The labels that distance me from those in my life and world. And distance me from being present.
Eve Ensler writes in Insecure at Last, about working with a group of women at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility. She knew these women would be tough, difficult. And that everyone was there because of a mistake. And it occurred to her that we have frozen each woman in her mistake. Marked her forever and held her captive.
“Mistakes do not have faces of feelings or histories of futures. They are bad. Mistakes. We must forget them, put them away. Then I came to Bedford. Slowly I began to meet the mistakes, one by one. They had soft, delicate voices, strong hands, beautiful faces, feisty spirits, outrageous laughs. These mistakes were mothers, daughters, sisters, aunts, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Jews—they had fantasies and toothaches and bad moods and funky T-shirts. There was the mistake and the woman.”
I do know this: sometimes we attach that “label” to ourselves. I know I do. You know, “Because we should know better.” And then missing the present moment. So, I was grateful for this from Brian D. McLaren.
“Here is the simple word by which we show up, respond to the one calling our name. Here is the way we name where we are—pleasant or unpleasant, desired or not—and declare ourselves present to God’s presence….
The simple word here … subverts the assumption that we have God named, figured out, and properly ‘targeted.’ Instead, it places us out in the woods, so to speak, calling out so that we can be found by the one seeking us: ‘Here I am, in the presence of a mystery. Here I am, in the presence of a Presence who transcends, surpasses, overflows, and exceeds every attempt at definition, description, and even conception. Here you are, whoever you are…. May the real I and the real you become present to one another here and now.’” (from Naked Spirituality)

WEDNESDAY JULY 17 —

On my desk is a medicine pouch. A gift from a Native American friend. When the Shawnee and Chippewa (and other early people) went on hunts or vision quests or long journeys, each traveler would carry in a small rawhide pouch various tokens of spiritual power–perhaps a feather, a bit of fur, a claw, a carved root, a pinch of tobacco, a pebble or a shell. These were not simply magical charms; they were reminders of the energies that sustain all of life. By gathering these talismans into a medicine pouch, the hunter, traveler, or visionary seeker was recollecting the sources of healing and bounty and beauty.
All of it marinated, by the way, in an elixir of humor. Because I do know this; if my pouch is filled with a need for control and answers, I lose lightheartedness, and can easily be seized with frustration, fear, panic, rage, despair, depression and exasperation. (You get the picture?) Let’s just call it heatstroke of the heart.
But what if? What if… the “tokens” in that pouch are not a magic wand to undo life, but instead, the power and the freedom to embrace the life we have been given and to create life for those around us?
What if… wired to care, we see in this life, this day, even in the very muddle of the ordinary, even in the very chaos of “untidy kitchens”, the permission to trust our sufficiency, embrace our wounds as they become sacred wounds, and become places of empathy, compassion, healing? Because grace is alive and well.

“Spirituality means waking up.” (Anthony de Mello reminds us.) To the power of the present moment. There is no doubt that waking up isn’t always cheerful. Or easy. It is, however, worth it.
Because wholehearted people live present, susceptible to tenderness and mercy, human touch and healing.
Here’s why my medicine pouch resonates; I need something visceral, incarnational, liturgical. I am, literally, grounded.
We cut ourselves little slack. Because we need invitations to marinate in grace. To remember that the sacred is close by. To see life in fullness, hopefulness, wonder, gratitude, beauty, silence, prayer, connection and sufficiency. And from this marinade of grace, we embrace our humanity and all that enriches it; empathy, tenderness, inclusion, forgiveness. We let ourselves spill the light we receive, we give, offer, hold, touch, care, soothe, empathize and invite sanctuary.
We all have the capacity to care. Let us raise a glass and tell stories in grateful awe, for ordinary people who in ordinary ways, make our world kinder, more caring, and more compassionate, one heart and one life at a time. Taking Helen Keller’s reflection and affirmation with us, “Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much.”
So. What’s in your medicine pouch this week?

THURSDAY JULY 18 —

This week we carry Helen Keller’s reflection and affirmation. “Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much.”
And it is ‘good for the heart’ story time.
A young girl returned home from school in tears. Her Mother worried, asked, “Sweetheart, what happened?”
“It was awful,” the girl told her Mother. “My best friend’s cat died. And she was very, very sad.”
“But why are you still crying?” her Mother asked.
“Because I don’t think I’m a good best friend. Because I didn’t know the right words to say, to try to help her.”
“Well, what did you do?” the mother asked.
“I just held her hand, and cried with her all day.”
Yes. And Amen.

Okay, I have an idea. Let’s make attention (presence), the permission to be here now, our new authentic-self currency. Gratefully, it’s a currency every one of us carry (whether we know it—see it—or not).
And a blessed reminder that no one of us is on the journey alone. And we are walking one another home.
When we require (even demand) a certain script, we see only that script. We assume that the script will take us where we need to go. When we require tidiness, we see only the mess (the “broken eggs on the counter”) and we miss the beautiful complexity and gift of this moment. We miss the gifts of liberation and connection and healing that live in the sacrament of the present moment.

“Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into the places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion, and anguish. Compassion challenges us to cry out with those in misery, to mourn with those who are lonely, to weep with those in tears. Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.” Henri Nouwen

I am writing this on the flight back home to the PNW. Grateful for two days with dear friends who make my life, and our world, a better place.

FRIDAY JULY 19 —

“Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much.” (Thank you Helen Keller)
This is all well and good until our two-year old (helping out in the kitchen), breaks too many eggs on the counter, and makes quite a mess.
So, this week, we’ve been asking: Do I want a tidy kitchen, or a life-giving relationship with people significant in my life (even the ones that include, or even create the mess)?
Life is not about avoiding broken eggs.
Life is about presence (broken eggs and all).
The invitation and permission to bring our heart to the present (often messy) moment—where we make space for sanctuary and gentleness, and compassion and empathy, and growth and kindness and healing.

We’re told not to mistake kindness for weakness. But if we’re lucky, sooner or later we discover that kindness is the only true strength there is.
Here’s the deal: there is no force in the world better able to alter anything from its course than loving kindness.
Often, I go back to revisit an old LIFE magazine photo. It does my heart good.
Two little girls. They look no more than seven years old. Pig tails, their faces uncertain. They walk through a gauntlet of people. The girls are black. The people in the crowd are white. The contrast is stark in this black and white photo. The faces are screaming epithets. They are strained, twisted, raging, apoplectic, as if a flame doused with gasoline. In this photo, the crowd’s anger appears a caricature, exaggerated for affect. Staring at the photo, I feel a chill.
I want to turn away from such ugliness in the human spirit. I want to say that this has nothing to do with me, with my world. I want to say that this is the behavior of only bad, evil or crazy people.
There is a story that the microphones connected to the TV cameras recording this event, caught a conversation between the little girls. She says to her friend, “Don’t worry. Momma said if we’re nice to them, they’ll be nice to us.”
I see these faces in that crowd, and I wonder. Have I ever shared their anger?
Their fear of the unknown?
Their rejection of someone because they are different?
And I wonder. Of what are we afraid?
I hear the sincere and profound courage of these little girls, and I wonder. Where does such courage come from? Is it in all of us?
I need to remind myself of these stories whenever I am tempted to label and dismiss. Including the dismissal of my own bravery or beauty.
We are, all of us in this world, broken. And the grace of God is the glue. We will go a long way toward healing if we see vulnerability as our common bond. We are ‘all of us’ held and sustained by God’s grace. Yes, “together we can do so much.”
So yes, we may yell and point and label and condemn one another, but in the end, it all collapses in grace. Either God’s grace is bigger than anything which distances and separates and wounds us. Or it is not.

Prayer for our week…
I lay my head to rest,
and in doing so,
lay at your feet
the faces I have seen,
the voices I have heard,
the words I have spoken,
the hands I have shaken,
the service I have given,
the joys I have shared,
the sorrows revealed,
I lay them at your feet,
and in doing
so lay my head to rest.
Amen.
Celtic Prayer

Photo… “Hi Terry – you are always so prompt responding to me. When I didn’t hear from you yesterday, I thought ‘that’s strange’. Then I realized I sent the note as text rather than email. So I’m copying and pasting here. Hope you’re staying cool up there and ready for an excellent Fourth of July. Loved your story this morning about God’s desperados! And I too love my garden but gardens are different here in Texas in July! This ‘volunteer’ sunflower loves the heat and brightens the day of everyone who sees it. Bless you for starting my Monday with a big smile.” Marge Austin