Stranded on the Mainland: Inner Pilgrimage and Living Alone as a Spiritual Path:

This Lent I have been thinking about how blogging is a lot like the art of Japanese Kintsugi. The broken pottery pieces are the posts, photos, and links. "Prayer, gratitude, and waiting are precious connecting metals of gold, silver, and platinum used to fill cracks in wholeness and replace missing pieces." (source: dictionary.com paraphrased) . The mind (mine anyway) boggles at this thought. It free associates: Leonard Cohen. Rivers of gold. Basho. The soul. New pathways in the brain. Empty before the sunrise. Connecting metals. Resurrection. The soul holds. On one last note, I'm remembering a short Youtube talk I heard recently.  If you want to google the talk it's called About Soul by philosopher and photographer Tim Wainwright. Amen. https://stock.adobe.com/ca/search?k=kintsugi

Today is the second time I heard Fr. Leo give a homily! So on this Solemnity of the Feast of the Annunciation I wanted to share some notes and thoughts I wrote in my journal this morning.  Notes I wrote while watching (on-line) Fr. Leo being installed at St. Mikes as the new Archbishop of Toronto: Woke up late, ten minutes into the installation mass. I see Sr. Gaudia and Sr. Rose Patrick! "We will love those who are near and far from us.  We will love those who mock us... " (St. Pope Paul VI). Watched a Youtube webinar yesterday that I can't find the words to describe, except to say, afterwards I felt like a bird who had flown into a window pane and woken up in stunned peace.   If you want to google the talk it's called, "Healing From an Unloving Mother," by writer Peg Streep. For me the writer Peg Streep has validating truths to share. And now it's time for Spiritual Communion, I am so grateful for this. My Jesus,  I believe that You are present in th...

Today I was walking home with take out pizza for dinner and the cutest thing happened. But before I tell you, picture standing on a sidewalk at a major intersection at a red light. Picture massive construction fencing behind you, there is only so much room to step back (it's Toronto). Suddenly you see a group of four or five school girls running full-speed towards you and your pizza. What do you do? Here's what I did:  Remember the construction fencing-- I couldn't move backwards. Without thinking, I lifted the pizza box over the girls heads making room for them to run under it. Laughter and looks passed between us. I hadn't intended my pizza moves to be funny, but they were. Sometimes the best encounters happen without words! Amen

We are now well into the 3rd week of Lent.  The gospel on Sunday was the one with the Samaritan Woman at the Well.  But instead I'm thinking of the gospel about the Woman Caught in Adultery. It seems to me both stories have scapegoats in common-- something that has been on my mind this Lent. Suddenly I find myself slipping into imaginative prayer: I am on the beach with Jesus. We are sitting beside each other in beach chairs. I can hear the ocean breathing... in-and-out, in-and-out, in-and-out. I smell suntan lotion. I am telling Jesus all about the old roles and trauma I am stuck in. He leans forward in His beach chair. He draws a line in the desert sand. Then He tells me this: Their stones of judgment, anger, guilt, and shame do not belong on your side of the line. I do not want my little sister to be a scapegoat. My Father does not want His precious daughter to be one either. So how about we do this. I will write a word in the sand (loneliness, grief, fear, expectation, anx...

A few blogs ago I promised I would share a new technology I'm learning about.  A technology that makes it impossible for me (or anyone) to hear criticism, judgment, blame, diagnoses, assessments, etc., ever again. As we approach the 3rd week of Lent I thought it was a good time to share it. Here it is:  Jackal and Giraffe Technology: https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=QjQVzgYsEns Amen!     empathymagic.com      

I don't fit into structures very well. That said, most of my life this has been a source of loneliness, guilt, frustration, and shame. But this Lent I'm finding that not-fitting-in is a mysterious source of freedom. On another note, I have been thinking all morning about the Parable of the Talents . (Matthew 25). Could God use my talent for not fitting into structures to make a good and trustworthy servant of me?   I don't see why not?   Who knows what talents we've outgrown. What new talents we're growing into. Amen

As week two of Lent deepens, I'm thinking of scattering ashes on Mount Tabor. I'm thinking about Peter wanting to pitch a tent at the top of Mount Tabor with Jesus, James, and John, when he sees the shining Jesus. I can understand how Peter might have felt. I can remember a breathtaking summer night with some friends, in a boat, in the middle of Georgian Bay-- looking up at the stars.  I couldn't stay there either. But what if today the mountain top is now a place where we need to unpitch the tents (roles) others pitched for us?  Tents and roles concealing our true identities as daughters and sons of God. I continue imagining:  Now I am with Peter, James and John on Mount Tabor. There is an old jar of ashes beside me. Somehow I know it is holding an equally old lie that there is something wrong with me. I start back down the mountain with Peter, James, and John scattering the ashes as I walk. At the bottom of the mountain I imagine an Angel handing me a shining message...

Scapegoat Duty is a job no one will ever fire you from-- you have to quit. I'm thinking of Pope Francis and something he said during a recent trip to the Congo. "Let us not start with the history books, but with what changes history." With this in mind, I imagine walking in the desert this Lent and finding a message in a bottle. I open the bottle and begin reading the message: "The path to healing for scapegoats is establishing safety and stability, building self-esteem and healthy boundaries, and replacing compulsive coping patterns with self-awareness, self-compassion, and reciprocal relationships."  (Julie L. Hall, psychologytoday.com) . Fear not and rejoice, you are relieved of duty. Amen

We are approaching the end of the first week in Lent 2023. I have to admit I like Lent better than Christmas.  Maybe because there isn't  a "violent" expectation to shop, be happy, attend parties. Which brings me to the three things on my mind today: The first is "nonviolent communication" ( Marshal Rosenberg) . Second is how deeply essential nonviolent communication is to hear God.  How it connects to the Isaiah quote in my (first) blog introduction, "Therefore, I will now persuade her, I will bring her into the wilderness, and I will speak tenderly to her" (2:14) .  I can understand why seekers, believers, and writers went into the desert. Third, how can I hear God speak tenderly to me in the desert through my own and other's evaluations, judgments, criticisms, even compliments? In a future post I will share a "technology" I'm learning about that will not even allow me to hear these things again. But for now I want to end with wh...