Rushing through miracles

John O'Donohue's Blessing for One who is Exhausted is particularly apt for me at this point.  I slumped in the chair of my spiritual director's office last week and admitted I was bone weary.  Work has sprouted one too many unanticipated projects this semester, and I feel like I rush through my days, head down, focussed on what is in front of me and nothing more, then fall into bed and do it again.  O'Donohue nudges me into the Examen I wonder if I'm too tired to make: “Take refuge in your senses, open up/To all the small miracles you rushed through.”

I sometimes wonder if I close off the possibility of tiny miracles, unable or unwilling to pick up on the clues that surround me daily (except perhaps when they are on the sidewalk in front of me).

I'm reflecting about rushing through miracles and what it might take to still myself long enough to recognize them at This Ignatian Life, and so today trying to practice being aware sometime before my midnight Examen.  Every time I looked up from my desk I peeked out the window and admired the snow, surprised and delighted again and again by the gorgeous flakes.

Thanksgiving: There will be bread

There will be bread is the name of my friend Fran's blog — where I am often fed in soul, if not in body.  It is also a pretty good description of a Miller-Francl-Donnay holiday.  I baked three types of bread yesterday.  Jesuit Brother's Bread (aptly enough, this was intended to surrender its all to the hungry hordes while the rest of the prep work went on), Red/White and Blueberry Bread (a rich, sweet loaf with dried fruits and honey to toast for breakfast) and my father's Malverne Rolls.

But the real bread broken and shared here is that of family.  What rises and burbles and surprises, what gathers and scatters, what is pulled and stretched into one body, only to be broken once again feeds us all.

Happy Thanksgiving to one and all!

Reflecting in the Light

Last Wednesday night I climbed off the hamster wheel I'd been on for the last few weeks (watch these hamsters to get a sense of what it's been like!), the result of a calendar clogged with evening and weekend meetings.  I went from class to office hours to class to a faculty meeting to....giving a reflection on the extravagance of being "unbusy" at a local retreat house.  Yes, I get the irony there.

One of my Jesuit friends says, "first we preach to ourselves" and as I wrote it, I heard in Martha's encounter with Jesus in Luke's gospel, not her whining, or Jesus' remonstrance, but her bone-deep longing for time with God, her almost overwhelming desire to be able to let go her grasp on all the stuff that bustles bossily through our days.  So I tried to preach to myself, and let God take care of the rest.

I felt as if I let go my grasp as I walked through door, from the brisk night air into the warmth and gentle light of the retreat house.  The sisters were warmly welcoming (tea!).  There was no bustling about, just enough direction to get us gathered and centering.

When I laid my notes atop the Gospel and spoke, I was suddenly and deeply aware of God undergirding my work.  God behind me, God before me, God underneath me. The stillness in the chapel was incredible, we sat there, women young and old, and listened to God, enfolded in the warmth and the light and the Word.  The service was short, less than an hour from start to finish, but just right for a midweek night.

I'm talking again on December 12th, but am looking forward to going to the one the week before where I'm not talking, but can just listen.
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Upcoming programs at the IHM Conference Center are listed here.  Recording of my talk, coming soon!  If you are in the area, stop in, it's an oasis of stillness on the Main Line...

Photo is of my back step, a place of prayer, set with a cup of tea and my breviary.

Phaith: Exercising gratitude

In these darkling days, even when there isn't a hurricane, I'm grateful for light.  The photo show my desk mid-hurricane.  No electricity, but a great LED lantern designed by Chris illuminated my grading. (You take two stacking plastic cups, half fill the bottom one with water, put the second one on top and insert a brace of LEDs inside.  The water diffuses the LEDs light nicely.)

The November issue of Phaith magazine is up and online. My post-hurricane column is on gratitude. Not only for the lights and heat of the present moment, but for gifts given throughout the years. In return? I'm committing random acts of gratitude. In the moment deprivation is a potent tool for discerning the difference between needs and wants.

...As I dressed in the dark and cold each morning, I was grateful to have clean and warm clothes to wear, even if I went to had to teach class in an outfit that was a bit more casual than my wont. (Next time my hurricane preparations will include not only finding the hand pump for the basement, but ironing a couple of pairs of pants for work!)

But memory fades quickly, even when the circumstances have been far more difficult than our brief return to the pre-electric age. Stranded on drifting ice for months after his expedition’s boat had been crushed, Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton wrote in his journal that, if he were rescued, he would never again complain of being too hot. After a harrowing trip through a hurricane in an open boat, Shackleton found himself overheated — and complaining about it — as he hiked over an island mountain pass in search of help.

I thought of Shackleton this afternoon when I reached into the (newly cleaned out) fridge and was momentarily annoyed that we had no milk. Until it hit me that I now had light by which to see that!

St. Ignatius of Loyola felt that ingratitude was at the root of sin...

Read the rest here....

Feast of All Saints of the Order

The order in question would be the Order of St. Augustine, and today, the birthday of Augustine of Hippo, the Augustinians celebrate all the saints and blesseds of the Augustinian family.   In recent years, this day has also been one to pray for vocations to the Augustinian orders.



At Morning Prayer, we pray daily for vocations:

All glory and praise are yours
God of truth, light of our hearts,
for you guide your people
in the ways of holiness.

Help those who follow
in the footsteps of Augustine
to seek you through mutual love and worship
and to be servants of your Church
as examples that others may follow.

Enlighten men and women
to see the beauty of common life
in the spirit of Saint Augustine,
and strengthen them in your service
so that the work you have begun in them
may be brought to fulfillment.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.  Amen.

I'm not an Augustinian, but after praying the Office with them for more than a quarter century, I'm Augustinian.  I am grateful to all the friars over the years who have shown me, in the beauty of their common life, and in their worship, the ways of holiness.  I have been supported and strengthened in my own work by their steadfast prayer.

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For my take on what it means to be follow in the footsteps of Augustine, you could read what I wrote about Augustinians when Robin and I began our discussion of Marty Laird OSA's beautiful book, Into the Silent Land.

Photo is of Augustine giving the rule, the stained glass window on the north wall of the main sanctuary of my parish church.