Emerging From a Comfortable Silence

I drove up to sunflowers that dazzled me Monday at noon. The eight days of silence had gone as smoothe as any retreat I had been on, it felt comfortable from beginning to end. Well, except my spiritual director kept asking me how I felt about this, that, and the other thing. But that's her job, too take me deeper into my experience.

I fully expected to come home and storm social media with a last days drive to meet my campaign to feed the hungry. And it started that way, but it just didn't feel right. And the hours are ticking by to midnight in California turns the campaign to a pumpkin on August 31.

I want to write reflections, not flood the Internet with requests for help.

Nearly 30 years ago I was walking door to door trying to spread the good message of the environment. I was OK with getting folk to listen to me, but terrible at raising money. Thus I did not get paid to do it for very long. I am pleased to having raised over $1000.00. But I am tired of asking for money.

I have made Manna on Main known to my friends. I have passed along some information about hunger. But I feel more compelled to be in my studio, in my garden, and with friends then doing a final flurry. 

I once rode my bicycle to the Catskills. I would pull into campgrounds much to the amazement of those, who had arrived in trucks pulling campers. What I remember most from the trip is the desire those new neighbors had to feed me. I was far from starving, but I was much better fed when I moved on the next morning. I did not know where I would stop, but it always turned out that I was invited to a meal.

Now I am curious how that kindness might have led to a lifetime of supporting people who feed the hungry, and to the pleasure I have inviting folk over for dinner. As I write this, I am hoping to draw more cards of thanks for those who support my goal of 21 hundred dollars. But I am ready to be content passing on these final thoughts. 

Feed the hungry.

Donate to your local food pantry.

Volunteer, they need hands as well as money.

Put a huge basket for canned goods in your church or office.

Feed the hungry.

The journey ends where it began.

In Preparation ~ training for a week of silence part a ~ a week with John Philip Newell

I met with my spiritual director shortly before our vacation. I told her I had a plan. The problem with telling someone your intentions is that it makes those intentions more set in stone. The first part was the easier part.

Seven days. A morning prayer. An evening prayer. Each day filled with reflections on a beatitude. I was off from teaching. Lots of time. Beautiful writing calling me into Newell's hope that we can bring peace by Praying with the Earth. It will end this evening. I would like to spend another week revisiting it, but...

... tomorrow begins a 40 day retreat. Which will take me almost to the exact end of teaching this summer. Like I said, I'm in training.

 

RevGals have me celebrating the good in the world

a lovely batch of crocus planted by my students

From The RevGals ~ ... So this week's Friday Five is courtesy of my good friends Frodo and Sam. Tell me 5 things that are good in our world. Or your world. Photos are a bonus. 

1.  Spiritual Direction ~ Trips to the Jesuit Center will keep happening, but I was prompted by my friend Robin, to try once again to have a director close to home.  This week we met for the second time.

2.  NOVA science NOW ~ Thank God that PBS freely streams their recent videos.  A 50 minute video can require 180 minutes of class time to get through as I constantly stop it to ask questions, to build upon what was shown, to listen to responses from my students.   

3.  I saw my first crocus.  Bulbs are emerging.  Birds are singing a bit more.  Sunlight bathes me earlier in the morning.  Wind chills remain.  All of this reminds me of a favored line of poetry ~

Lifeless in appearance, sluggish
dazed spring approaches

William Carlos Williams

4.  Jazz is good.  Jazz programs in our schools are good.  They inspire the future.

5.  People have dedicated their lives to feeding the hungry.  That is a good thing.   In Lansdale Manna on Main Street is doing the good work. 

what I learned during silence

The Shadow of Wayne Stratz
Jesuit Retreat Center
Wernersville, PA

"Troublemakers: Since no one really knows anything about God, those who think they do are just troublemakers." -~~~~ Rabia 8th century Sufi woman.


with that said, this is what I learned and/or retaught in 24 hours of silence: 

1. If you are really tired, then God will let you sleep through dinner and then will encourage you to go off grounds to get a meal.
2. God will provide you with prophets who speak of hope and allow you the time to reflect upon your childhood.
3. God will encourage you to draw designs, once you are rested.
4. God will let you see the nature of time and retreats.
5. God will have you listen to your heart and when it aches with some spiritual anxiety over letting go of your annual 8 day retreat, your spiritual director will send you a message:  "God knows what you are letting go of and will find a way to provide what you will miss."
6. God will give you a plan that lifts your spirit and hope to face the future.
7. God digs hanging out with people who listen to jazz.

My to do list, Examen the next Day

Back in August, in the midst of silence at Wernersville, well, in the midst of the one conversation I had that particular day, my spiritual director gave me a book to read.

I may have said something like this... "even the thought of how it may be good to get ready for my 8 days of silence, did not bring me back to praying the Examen."

My spiritual director handed me a book by Jim Manney while telling me about how it had rejuvenated her passion for the Examen. So I read it. And what struck me was how I had always resisted/ignored/avoided the part of the prayer about examening the next day. So I placed it into practice, and now four and a half months since I left that hill top, almost every night I sit down and look at my expected day. I check off what I did, but also examen what did not happen. The goal for me is to list what I fully expect to do the next day: teach about momentum, plant marjoram seeds, consult with a colleague, listen to jazz, hope, continue on with the big mandala project, pierogies for dinner, e-mail this friend, lift weights, ..... As I examen my future, I ponder: which are bringing me the gladness of anticipation for the next day and which bring me reluctance to face the day...

and which have I been avoiding but keep placing on the list.

So I came home and ordered the book.  I loaned it to a friend, and now I can imagine taking it out to the Jesuit Center when I spend a night there in February, a fine time to get recharged with a second read

.

The Fortune Cookie Was Correct

A month or two before I headed out to the Jesuit Center in Wernersville, I got a fortune that read something like this:

An old love will return to your life.

Mosaic Woman was a bit concerned, however, as the days went by and no old love showed up here or there or anywhere as far as I could tell.. I forgot about the fortune.

It was well into my week of silence before I realized the fortune had been true.  For the first time in several years I had been meeting with a spiritual director, who I loved dearly but because of scheduling issues had not been available to work with me.  But as the years went by, things change.  Our conversations were still amazing but I left the room feeling that I was clearly more a part of where I was being guided to go for the next 24 hours.  Had her style changed?  Had I matured a bit spritually?  No matter, it was good.  It felt right. 

And yes, I told her about the fortune cookie, and I told Mosaic Woman about the fortune being true.


...

M is for a special Mandala

"I can hardly find the words to describe how it affects me to look at it. I can feel the healing energy and it touches me very deeply. Thank you for creating tangent pieces of healing for the world. Blessing on you and peace to Dr. Ed's soul." Anne Mascelli

*******

Here is the secret to Mandalas: Draw a circle. Fill it with love and hope. Your work is done.

Or it may be the beginning of your work.

Often I draw mandalas for friends and send them off, but one day I sat down a drew a design to make out of stained glass.

The last time I saw my friend in public he walked slowly away from our booth carrying a bag with a mandala.

In his memory, I name the design after him.

His wife and two daughters leave our booth carrying a bag with two mandalas.

A woman I never met before leaves our booth with tears in her eyes and a mandala. She has handed me her story of cancer taking a loved one and gratitude for my work.

Friends of Ed hang mandalas in their homes.

My work place is dedicating a space to the man and a mandala will be there.

I love to say that I joined twitter to sell our craft, but instead I ran into jazz musicians. Recently a jazz singer, Andrea Wolper made it known to me that she was interested in buying some stained glass. I thought it was for herself, but when she chose a piece, I found out it was for a friend. Now what is the chance that her friend would happen to be a spiritual director, who has been to a place I blog about often. Anne Mascelli has kindly let me quote her recent e-mails.

"The more I look at the mandala the more it draws me in. I feel like it somehow expresses who I am at a very deep level. I think it is a testament to the connection Andrea and I have, from over 20 years of friendship, that she chose this mandala for me. I think I will be seeing more and more in it for a very long time." Anne Mascelli

The Jesuits ask me to imagine things, so how about this---- One day I am sitting at a table sharing spiritual journeys with Anne, when the lights dim, Andrea begins to sing, and Dr Ed's soul smiles upon us.


Like I said, "draw a circle..."

Jazz on Tuesdays... following the Moon

Last night I blogged about what happened when my spiritual director directed me to a lunar happening. Well, what does one do after experiencing nature so fully. Well you listen to jazz of course and maybe drink a Belgium ale while your at it.

So I pulled out my iPod and searched "moon" and made a new set list that contained 49 songs covering over 30 tunes.

The retreat was centered around, Sophia, or Wisdom. It was a return to the director who had introduced me to Sophia soon after I started this blog. One thing I had carried with me from that time was that Sophia is given 21 attributes in The Book of Wisdom and I read somewhere that 21 was especially Holy as it emerged from three times seven. So in honor of Wisdom, the Moon, Jazz, and the number 21, I will post three moon jazz tunes for seven straight days. Here we go with the three that popped up the most on my iPod...









Moon Inspiration
Moon Jazz 2
Moon Jazz 3
Moon Jazz 4
Moon Jazz 5
Moon Jazz 6
Moon Jazz 7

stained glass, part 2... a sacrificial gift for the Temple????

As I said here, I felt a strong urge, calling, message, desire... to take a stained glass design on my retreat this year. I said, "Sure," to whatever it was. I figured it would be nice to look at while on retreat. so simpleminded am I.

But when I arrived the message grew, "Leave the glass here." It was quite similar in some ways to the message that inspired me to draw 68 cards in five days. (see my answers to Kathryn at the end of the post for some clarification on the drawing of the cards).

Anyway, I woke up this morning transformed back into a human (got home well after the midnight deadline of not turning into a pumpkin) and my mind came back to telling the story of my retreat. I saw my stained glass as a sacrificial offering. Instead of taking a goat or dove or part of my garden bounty to the temple, I took stained glass to Wernersville.

However....

It was one thing to be told not to take something home, it is another to be told directly where to leave it. I pondered leaving it in my room as a gift for all those who seek silence and end up in room 185. I thought about hanging it in a public window at the Jesuit Retreat Center. Then I took the low road, I decided it wasn't my job to decide and figured I could dump it off on someone else to decide.

And that felt right, until I did it. The eyes of my spiritual director told me where it belonged. But I could not get beyond telling her to keep it for 27.25 days (inside joke) and during which time SHE could ponder where it belongs. Back in my room, it didn't feel right. It still does not feel right, so chances are it is not right.

So I begin to reflect on words... did God to tell me that the stained glass was to stay at Wernersville meaning not to come home with me or stay at Wernersville meaning it stays in the retreat center?

Would God lead the glass, which matched my director's home decor and brought light to her eyes, to my director, if it was not meant to go to her house? I doubt it. Take it home. God and I think it belongs there. (the comment button leads you into this discussion)...

best of the not so great photos...

time consideration... the Wernersville 2009 retreat

Tonight I had my first meeting with a spiritual director. In 80 minutes I managed to talk about the retreat which I began blogging about many days ago when I wrote about the last morning.

more this weekend.

school and jazz rule the day till then, but here is a thought...


Sunday I spent much of worship feeling out of sorts as I was getting used to the Episcopal service after 8 straight days with the Jesuits. Then the opening line of the final hymn had these words... I fell to my knees.

I thought that is familiar and I saw it was from Ephesians, the verse I shared on the first post about the retreat (see link above). Wonderful choice of a closing hymn if you ask me, but I forgot the name. feel free to help me out Holy Trinity folk.

Going Deeper, the fourth day --- Tanner and Mary and the blue Sky

After the first dinner of the retreat, you have a social activity, of sorts. All who are going to be companioned by a director show up at her/his office. I was the last to arrive and I was guided by a gesture to a chair. The chair offered quite a view.

But first this... I have been going to the Jesuit Center in Wernersville for about ten years. During that time you get to recognize the staff, from the maintenance folk, to the chef, to the woman who used to serve food but now cleans my room before and after I leave, to the office staff. One of these good folk would always pop up at mass and I was quite covetous of a job where you not only get a coffee break but you can get a Jesuit homily and the holy Eucharist while you were at it. And there she was guiding me to a chair in her office.I never knew she was also a spiritual director.

The chair had me facing a wall and on that wall was a painting. A highly favored painting by Henry Tanner. I live just north of the museum that own it. Prints and images of it seem to follow me.

By our fourth meeting a routine is set. My director gives me a meditation which I use as morning and evening prayer, I fall into a favored passage for my afternoon prayer. She is off making a copy of a meditation and I am staring at Mary. I decide I will do the Magnificat this afternoon. She walks in with a meditation on Mary's trip to Elizabeth and the Magnificat (Luke 1: 39-56).

She says, "When you speak of your friend, I think of Mary and Elizabeth." An hour later my imagination takes off once again and I am guiding Mary by hand to the Honda Fit and we hit the PA turnpike driving west. Mary changes from a teen to a woman my age mourning a son. I need both for this trip. A trip that takes me to a door step I have never seen and to my childhood. For days I have been wondering what to say when I write my friend. Now the letter takes form and I draw another card to fit inside that envelope.

after listening to those jazz tunes about Blue Skies... oh my, cool crisp Canadian air arrives and there it is...

deeper places, part 2 falling into silence, search for a calling

a friend reading this post, asks...

So this was a completely silent retreat? 8 days?

I arrived in time to unpack before dinner, send out one last facebook status, then went to eat. The dinner does not require silence so you have one opportunity to discern a friend or two before you stop talking. Then the silence begins... for next seven full days the only sustained conversation is a daily meeting with your director. A handful of times a day, I will break silence to say something profound like... Good Morning or Thank You. The daily mass allows for liturgical speech and singing, and you do get to pass the peace out loud.

Like I said, sometimes it ain't no vacation. The 8th morning you can converse at 7:30.

The first two passages given to me for reflection were callings, Isaiah 43: 1-7. and Jeremiah 1: 4-19. A couple years back I asked God if there was a calling in my life and if so I would pursue it with my whole heart. I didn't get an answer.

In Isaiah's passage God says he is honored to know the man. The word honored flew out at me, well not the first, or second, or third time I read it, but when I returned to it in the evening. I have thought of being loved, healed, taught, redeemed... by God. But is God honored to know me? This was something new. How could an all powerful knowing loving God be honored to know a lowly fool human like myself?

The next day I woke up with this thought, "May I live out this day in such a way that you will be honored to know me." I thought... "OK, that is good enough, I can pack my bags and go home." and then I said (silently of course),

"and feel free to tell me what you are calling me to do?"

That day my director gave me Jeremiah, one of my favorite passages. "I will put words into your mouth" and "As you prepare yourself for action..."

I thought about staff meetings and what ended up happening to the prophet.

...

where the old friends were and 34 cards of Peace

In silence I found not only God but many an old friend....The last three posts were written as I retreated with Jesuits in Wernersville, Pennsylvania.

It may have been some other old friends that resulted in my weight gain... banana cream pie, black raspberry ice cream, sticky buns, tiramisu ...

I do lots of art when retreating and though I tend to give a few things away, most always comes home and sits doing whatever a pile of art does that comes home from a retreat center. As I unpacked the prismacolor pencils from my suitcase I heard, "don't take any art work home with you." The voice didn't tell me what to do with the art work.

I made cards. On each I wrote four things:

1. STRATOZ
2. the date
3. PEACE BE WITH YOU
4. and a name from the list of retreaters.

I prayed that the cards would not distract me from my retreat or distract others from theirs. Some folk broke silence to say a quick thank you. A few wrote notes. Others were mystified by who Stratoz was. As I came back from shaving the last morning, a note sat at my door.

A seminary student from Pittsburgh was on his way out but wanted to thank me. He would add my wife and me to the prayer list at the seminary. He had remembered a prayer I had put out concerning Mosaic Woman on the day we entered the retreat house.

Now I was amazed for sure. I fell into silence and the connection came. I had been guided to reflect upon Jesus handing me a loaf of bread and sending me out to feed the five thousand. "You are a disciple of Christ after all," said the Jesuit, who was guiding me.

I took that bread and I went to family and friends. I imagined a young woman holding a flood damaged violin at the U of Iowa's music dept, I went to China to feed the mourning parents, then down to those we hold captive in Cuba, and I even gave myself a piece to chew on along the way. Could my art work be that bread?

At the final mass those of us who stayed the distance are given a chance to share a thought. I share mine, some of which I wrote above. A half hour later I am sitting, looking out at the nearly empty parking lot. Stories that came to me after the mass were filling my heart and mind about how my cards had entered the lives of those who had entered into silence. Did I do the right thing by handing out those cards? Will I ever do such a thing again?

All week I had watched a woman in mourning. Her pain was immense. I would close my eyes and ask God to be with her, to bring her comfort. As we shared during that final mass, she told us her story, and the room felt her grief. Out of character, I approached her after the mass had ended. She told me that the card had arrived on the one day she had not found any consolation. She hugged me. Then she amazed me. "I did not have the energy to say prayers for many at the retreat, but I did pray for you and your wife."

Normally I feel connected to those who enter silence with me on these 8 day retreats. This time something bigger happened. Somehow given pencils, color, and paper I had fed some people. I am grateful and in awe of what can happen.

and glad that Michelle Shocked singing HOLY SPIRIT by Victoria Williams just kept coming into my head as I walked in silence. Peace to all those good folk who prayed for me, and thank you for accepting my prayers, my bread, and my hope for peace.

The final night

When I step away from this post, I will enter my last prayer time for the exercises in everyday life. Tomorrow is my last meeting.

what happens next..

self-directed Bible study will return.

continue with daily examen.

try to hook up with a friend to read a book on spirituality together, slowly, and with regular chats.

continue with my role of leading Tuesday night discussion twice a month at my church.

return to group spiritual direction.

continue with spiritual direction, but most likely not with the man I have been meeting with weekly since August.

continue to consider a route to be trained in providing spiritual direction.

continue with times of silence at Wernersville.

continue blogging.

sit back and wonder about what has happened since August.

try to truly accept life as a gift, and use the joy in knowing, to give back to God.

so, as I say to my students when I want their focus.... "Onward."

being pruned

When I brought up the pruned tree I saw at Wernersville, my spiritual director went to John 15. So when I looked up fruit in my concordance to prepare for my Tuesday night gathering at church, it became one of five that I gathered up for the evening. Yes, five passages in an hour was ambitious, but it worked.

we talked about a society that was commanded by God to celebrate and give thanks for harvests and how our own no longer celebrates harvests (Exodus 23: 14-19). We talked about the pastry chef who changes his menu with the seasons and the complaints he gets from customers. We talked about a psalmist (128) whose blessing is for a family that is fruitful. A parable from Jeremiah (17: 7-8) compared a person with God to a fruit tree planted by a stream. Fruitful even in droughts.

Then we went to Jesus being the vine and we being the branches. Yesterday, while teaching a workshop on the spirituality of growing your own food, I read that passage from John again. The man to my left catches two things and holds on.... He is upset that we are commanded to do something and that we will be thrown into a fire if we don't.

So I spoke about being commanded to stay connected to God, to be nourished, to love others and thus to be fruitful. I also said that a plant with dead or diseased branches should be pruned and it is fine practice to burn those branches. God does not want to burn us, God wants to prune us. God can see the things inside our hearts which separates us from loving others and God desires that we stay a branch of the vine so that we can be pruned. Then we moved to Paul.

It is in Galatians (5: 23-25) that we are told what those fruits will be. Once pruned, the spirit will produce the fruits seen as joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trustfulness, gentleness and self-control.

So may the love of God prune what is preventing these things from happening, and may we be fruitful. And may we be aware of what is growing in our locality, both the fruits of the labor of gardeners and farmers, and the fruits of the spirit.

being a sponge... more thoughts on Wernersville

I am telling my spiritual director about my time in the cemetery, and she feels I had a sponge moment.

Ignatius said that when we are with God, we are a sponge catching a drop of water. Other times we are a rock. She believes that what I experienced is the joy of the resurrected Christ, and even mentions the phrase, communion of saints. We talk more and then we offer to pray for each other, a deal sealed with a hug. 24 hours ago we had been strangers.

Mass is about to begin when a Jesuit sits down next to me. He was to lead the mass the day before, but is suffering from shingles. One of my favorite memories is this quiet man giving a homily as a boisterous group of women shouted out AMENS. Another Jesuit stepped in for him on Saturday and preached on how difficult it can be to feel the joy of Easter, especially if we expect the wrong response. I guess it can be more like the appreciation of hundreds of years of men choosing to be Jesuits than like a big rolling laugh emerging from one's gut.

Two hours after being told about sponges and rocks, I am once again told about sponges and rocks in the homily. As I leave the sanctuary, I am next to my director who agrees with me that God just may have wanted me to get the sponge message down before I left the retreat.

Joy came in many ways ... Before I headed to breakfast while the only blue sky on Sunday glowed outside my window, I turned on my I-Pod to find Ella Fitzgerald singing Blue Skies .

Later in mass, the Gloria was just a hoot to sing...

who out there is shocked I found joy in music?

OK, so there was also the woman from South Carolina, who says to me on Friday when we are yet to be silent... "I loved the pile of sticks you made in August... you are always here when I am here... what did you write on the path?".... IGGY WAS HERE

The white-breasted nuthatch that stopped by when I paused on a walk.

The tree that caught my attention as I sat looking down at the Jesuit cemetery.

Sunday night the last thing I hear before I fall asleep ... Mosaic woman says... "I am glad you are back home." and my stoic self melts into a sponge that soaks in that drop.

not well known

few if anyone will tell you that I read things closely, especially memos and directions. So when I re-read the top of the sheet my spiritual director handed me on the last Thursday in March, I said hmmm.

"get set" I swear those words were not there.

I swear it said ... leap into Joy. It clearly had said ... expect to experience all of Easter this week.

Last Sunday, my minister said that it was a shame that we do not give the season of Easter the same attention that we give Lent. The book of common prayer does, but we don't come very night like we do during Holy Week. No Wednesday night services.

Just go to church and have a family gathering and Easter is over.

I was not feeling that. As I said a few posts back, I wasn't even ready for Easter when Easter came and I am far from being ready for it to be over. The disciples are in an emotional storm and the exercises have led me to be with them.

Having heard all this, my spiritual director tells me that I am fortunate. I have 5 more sheets to be handed. I take one and head back into Easter (I chose simple).

100th post and I am almost ready for Easter

I am tired, and a bit frustrated with technology, but I do believe my (first ever) powerpoint presentation, which is on hot peppers, is saved on a CD... I enjoyed the project up to this point.

Saturday was a day when I planned to do everything I had put off doing on my week off, so when I sat down and read that I was to rest with those who were facing the longest Sabbath of their lives, I was defeated. How was I to give Peter the time as he faced his pain of having denied Jesus? Mary was being comforted by John, but he seemed a bit overwhelmed by this new role. Mary Magdalene was in tears as were most in the room. Jesus was dead.

The paper in my hand said to do this for a week. My spiritual director told me to do it in a day. I was defeated. I chose to keep busy, but I did skip going to the school.

Easter I drove to the school to check on things. Near full moon in front, sunrise behind...






The seedlings were fine. Moravians sang out Jesus Christ Has Risen Today, but unlike the last time I sang with them in Bethlehem, PA; it did not quake my soul... the doxology from my childhood did that. Family feasted.

Easter evening I sat to pray. I was still with the mourning believers in Jerusalem, and I was celebrating with Moravians. But I was not ready for Easter, and decided to wait on that celebration. I will explain that decision to my spiritual director tomorrow. For the last few nights I have gone back to that sad place. I need that sadness to fill me, then I will be ready to feel the joy.

movies

I have written nearly 100 posts and there has been little or no talk about movies, my passion of which waxes and wanes... but I have seen many since August.

Most of the movies I see outside of my house are seen in the Ambler Theater, I went there by myself on Wednesday, then read about the good thief that night. Thursday morning I tried to tie it all together with my spiritual director.

Now I will try again.

In Bruges ended and I was an emotional wreck, movies can do that to me. If I want to be numb, I should avoid them. I wanted to scream out, "This is not the way movies are supposed to happen." And there I was at the foot of the cross understanding those who had believed but were seeing the wrong ending. No movie has gotten to me like this in a long time. Maybe back to when I saw Crash and came home and watched Johnny Cash making a nine inch nails song his own .... to truly let out the emotions.

How did I grow to care so much for a violent character, who would take money to take a life? Maybe it was the emotional pain he was going through while stuck in a town he hated. He is on one cross. By the end of the movie he knows he is supposed to be there, but has hope. Next to him playing the role of Jesus (only in my take of this film) is a friend who would likely give his life so that this man can repent and be saved. Maybe that was it. The Good Thief knows he is guilty, but wants a new life with Christ. There is nothing I see better in a human than a desire to turn away from what is preventing us from living a full life.

That is why I left the theater into a steady rain shocked by the violence I had encountered and like those who were shocked at the cross... trying to have some hope, in this case for the future life of a character written into a movie. Placed into my life.

not so lifeless

etsy shop

well, I am done with hearts for now... makes me think of the the standard.."I'm Through With Love." When I was making the icy blue heart, I nearly swerved away and directly into this project. I see it is an icy blue heart being melted by love. Maybe we all have icy blue hearts that need love. maybe my heart was never icy blue. But it sure feels warmer and less lifeless when love is around.

Ash Wednesday was looking like a busy evening... YMCA, dinner, church, some time with mosaic woman, finish work for my college class, pray... The classroom phone rang and I said, "Sure, I have the time" & "No, I don't live over that way." I got off the phone and was glad for this chance. It has been nearly two months since I went to see my friend and colleague who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. My offer at work to deliver food was accepted and as I drove over to his house I couldn't help from wondering if he would even be up for a visit. His daughter answered the door. She said she would let him know I was there. The man came out and we chatted for over an hour. He has not holed himself up from the world. He has invited us in and I have accepted. I hope I can face illness in the same manner. He asked me questions showing he had clearly listened to me the last time we chatted. Another ember enters my heart.

Jesus cleared the Temple. I didn't even catch the connection to the storm at work till I was in front of my spiritual director. I guess sometimes you have to leave the silence to see things. Is that hope building that I may work in a more positive atmosphere?

and now for some poetry from William Carlos Williams poem Spring and All, which hangs in my classroom.

" Lifeless in appearance, sluggish dazed spring approaches"


No No No... Look down. Spring is emerging and though it is sluggish it is filled with life.