CONTAINER

~What is contained within us, I wonder?

~Birth, life... that is what is contained. So, our endings are held in these our vessels of grantedness.

~In the original seed is the fallen shades of winter; and, in the blooms of light, there too, are the shadows of nightfall and demise.

~Casts of living are sacred and the mercies of God give us at our inceptive pools, life and death at the very same time and in the very same place. When we are conceived, the rose seems already to be snipped and placed in an earthen urn, to wither and drop its pedals in due time. As infants, the elder lay within us, too. The cradle and coffin, the east of sunrise and west of sunset occur at once, simultaneously, most directly, in the Now.


~In our box of humanness, we cannot witness this for the truth that it is; that the seas’ breakers have long since crashed upon the Shores and the tastiness of salt in the air has already since been savored and swallowed.

~But, for grace, we live. But for the mystical election of God, do we travel and still live as a People, standing in deserts of not our own devisings.

~How simply we can be snuffed as pieces of short enjoyment or embittered sorrows; and how great is our creation, our Creator, and journeys toward our individual changings, toward our given freedoms. To assume the sweep of night mists will be among us; to assume the white moon will past through her phases and wanes; to assume that we shall breathe as we rise, is in the direct, divine hands of happenstance and Hope.

~No, the fragility in which all move is likened to the delicacy of neonatal drifts in crystalized snow that bear reddened beats of sun’s rays. For, I am delicately poised in a wood, in a pasture, in a meadow, in a briny ocean pond, upon a great undulant hill; looking out and knowing that I, too, am a relic, a fossil, something already shed, already molted, yet surviving still in grace and gratefulness.

~And although passed as mistings of my own simplicity, I live; and today my eyes close in thanksgiving with my palms raised to all there is; and to all that occurred; and to all that ever shall be.

THE BLUE AND THE BLACK SKY

Up, in the blue and the black sky, I spend much time in thought and thinking,
trying to make sense of how is it that each of us, throughout time, within our histories, over the course of our lives and living,
Dwell
under this blue and black sky together; yet, hurt each other so often knowing, unknowing...senselessly, poignantly, for always.

So after looking up and squinting all day at this blue and black sky, I go to the bench.

The Schubert f-minor, plaintive and calling, places my questions to the blue and the black sky into staccatos and sixteenths.
Pages of asking and thought and wondering and why, moving in time and sequence, my hands begin to give way and beg stop.

Tired questions hang upon my fingernails as I enter my bedroom and see my cat, deep in his slumber upon a fattened furred face.

And,

I fall silently down next to him.
In the deep of featherbed, in the undulance of his tiny body with the exhaustion of my own, I lay down and look up.

And, I noticed that he lays in curves and his breathing moves in curves,
then, I, too,
felt the curves within me, circling and encircling as the shimmerings of the blue and black sky beheld the both of us,
down under, into the empty still question.


His honesty began to envelope me, and I started to float in a kind of blankness wherein he was teaching me and showing me...
Immediately, it seemed
the questions to the blue and the black sky, which plague and harass me most constantly, began to wane a bit.

And, too,

that depth of the f-minor entered me now, returning questions to the blue and the black sky with the White of pulsations,

in the unassuming fellowship of my sleeping muted cat, who knew this song long before it began in the very first place.


And,


I learned then that it is gossamery Peace, and purity’s Acceptance, into the very way of all living things.

Simply,
a suspended acknowledgement,

inside the curves,
inside the notes,
inside the questions,


to the blue and the black sky.

TITLES AND ENTITLEMENTS

What is it, I wonder, about honorifics?

Father this?

Mother that?

Brother such and such?

Sister so on?

Bishop and Reverend Father/Mother?

Why?

This is self-revealing. In certain ways, it is driven by ego and a lack of esteem for self.

The titles offer personal sanctuary and spiritual elevation where, perhaps, that risen state

is not appropriate. The title lifts where the person may hide. I say this for I feel that I do this and it is become a revelation to me.

In my day, I meet people. 'Sister, they nod' ... That is a feel good and personal/emotional massage. People show their respect for the Life of a Religious and that is all well and good; however, if I thrive on the attention, live for the recognition, need that noticing: something is very amiss, indeed.

In my heart lies a Hermit. In my heart lives a Hidden life for Christ. Wearing a Habit on the outside of my enclosure where others peer into my privacy and perhaps wonder of the life being publicly displayed, prayer is being said and pondered about that.

A monastic Habit worn outside the Hermitage is a signpost of a life lived for something larger and more potent than myself. That I do believe. How I wish to state that another way exists in this land of profound materialism and 'give-everything-to-me-now-especially-if-it-new' mindset and culture.

What need be kept in the forefront of my mind and heart is that the black monastic Habit does not become something of vanity, pride, and self-absorption. Indeed, that the black monastic Habit state both to myself and to all that this person has died to the World and lives NOW in Christ Jesus, through Mary, ever-Virgin.

Oh, may this be so.

WHERE ARE WE NOW?

Alas, the Computer Age has stolen from us Humanity. Humanity, the gift of God from throughout the ages. Humanity, from which sings the angels in Paradise. Humanity, which God entered to become One with us! Where are we going, people?

It started small at my Parish, the Healing Service at the Mary Chapel. I would stand in full Habit, with an Acolyte holding the Chrism. We would wait for anyone to come for anointing and prayer. At first, it was a trickle. But, each one who came were embraced and held and kissed with the Kiss of Christ, anointed and bid the Love of God. In short, each single person was touched and loved humanly, as Jesus did and desire us to do.

Each Sunday the line toward the Mary Chapel grew.

This past Sunday it began at the High Altar and snaked all the way to the Narthex and front doors. The anointing continued until the last Congregant wandered out. It was for me the largest crowd ever.

Why? Why do you think it is happening?

I have placed that question before Mary, ever Virgin. And, the answer is so clear. We live in a hands-off, Internet run, sexual misconduct ridden world where folks are frightened and filled with anxiety around physical embrace. In the Church, the word of the day is: Stand Clear. This, sadly, as a result of decades of abuse. We are afraid to embrace and the vapidness of the Internet support the dying of our spirits.

Do you not see that if I changed my ways at the Chapel and used this 'stand-off' approach that people would not come, would not feel Christ in their heart, would not be touched. We are so hungry to be touched and loved in this Age of Distance. Somehow, the Church must break open our tiny shells and allow the goodness known to God, through Jesus and Mary, to fill our hearts and give us the healing and health God desires of us!

LISTENING WITH A SPIRITUAL AND/OR AN EARTHLY MIND

Outside my Cottage-in-the-Trees Hermitage, I meet others in the Marketplace.

Because of my religious Habit, conversations in the Marketplace are opened whereas without the Holy Habit it may be closed.

Everyone I greet.  Smiles are abundant; although not always returned.  Some sneer or stare. That is OK; Jesus was spat upon and who am I to expect anything finer.

When folks share with me I put on my spiritual mind, that is, their worries and fears and stories go heaven-ward as I empty myself inside to offer a vehicle for God's grace and wisdom to flow. Ofttimes, I never make a comment or suggestion for people need to speak; need to share;  need to be heard and validated; need to feel as if someone has stopped and taken time to listen to just them.  

For me, placing my spiritual mind at moments such as above stated gives room for witnessing and experiencing the Christ in the other.  Honestly, I find and discover that I love them.  

The earthly mind is different; indeed, radically different.  The earthly mind has schedules to keep and agendas to make.  The earthly mind attempts to get something out of the conversation for themselves which they can take.  It tries to place an "I" in the way; instead, of "you".  That is ego; not the Christ.  That is Self; not God. For me, that may harm and hurt the soul at this moment in time.  

People at this moment are new blooms which are tender and fresh and their sweetness is flowering in time.  These are sacred, holy moments.  The souls are responding to a spiritual mind and an earthly mind has capability to squash and ruin.  

To not create an 'either/or' situation, this kind of listening is 'both/and'.  With practice, the weight of this listening falls upon the spiritual than earthly; however, since I am fallen and

never have the purity of motive as the Christ,  I imitate and fall short. 

HERMITAGE MAGDALENE

Tibi dixit cor meum, quaesivi vultum tuum
vultum tuum, Domine, requiram:
ne avertas faciem tuam a me.
Ps. 27


HERMITAGE MAGDALENE



In the muted silence of my Magdalene hermitage
In the greenness of my windows still,
migratory Mallards call and I stand.

GOD IS PRESENT i listen


HIS whereabouts are everywhere and
inside me felt.





And, what do I feel?
What do I see in my petite cell?
What is it that my Life is witnessing?



L O V E
THAT IS WHAT I KNOW.

L O V E
THAT IS HIS PURPOSE.

L O V E
THAT IS OUR NATURE.


My Hermitage Magdalene, enclosed in LOVE, condenses a consort of Happiness
and Freedom sought by but few!


THE ALMIGHTY ONE is here for the air is made thick by Him.
Viscous and sweet is He.
OH, so dewy Christ, come nearer to me.


Yes, I love so my greenery of God where do the lacy trees and eucalyptus bend to HIM.

I watch and tumble too.

GOD is not INvisible to me. GOD is seen.


For,
what moves the dust
and hastens the leaf
and birds to crackle
and rains to dampen
and dawning colors to come
and the shadows of dusk to widen so long?

It Is The Visible God: That is what It is. VISIBLE DEITY.


In my Hermitage in Magdala,
I perch inside peering for God;

I am secreted, buried behind a wall, within a window;
all day I whisper to His Majesty
as HE comes over me, pronouncing HIS REALM of Glory.


Shall I not open NOW to this LIGHT!


SILENCE:

It holds no-thing.
For my sins have occurred and
yet have settled long before the inception of me.
And, so past has HIS forgiveness sprinkled me anew.


That remains the SECRET of Hermitage Magdalene.

A START OF SOMETHING

For I do not fear

instead, I hope

For I do not struggle

instead, I dream

For I do not wince at the cool night

instead, I see clearly

For all eternity is graced

and All grace is but an Eternity

Returning is my path

for in You have I found my housing