I spend just about every day with people who are dying. People hear that I work for a hospice and they often recoil. “How can you do that work?” “How can you be around all those dying people?” I have stopped trying to come up with answers. We’re all surrounded by dying people. All of us will die. It may be sooner it may be later but it is certain. The only difference with the people I spend my days with is that they know it and they have a slightly shorter time frame.
What is amazing me today about these angels in the making that I am journeying with is what scares them. It’s different for everyone as you can imagine. For some it’s pain, for some it’s losing control, for some it’s leaving loves ones and family. For one gentleman who I have recently come to know it’s that some of his hair is changing color.
Of all of his symptoms, all of his pain, and loss of function, weakness, weight loss, it’s this odd, unexplainable symptom that has him the most bothered. And when I ask him why he tells me “fear of the unknown.”
Death is the ultimate unknown. What will it look like when we cross that veil? What is it to spend your days knowing this unknown is waiting to meet you?
And can we meet the unknown with something beyond fear?
August 19 2008 | Uncategorized | No Comments »
To journey with someone as they pass into the next life. To say goodbye. To forgive. To be thankful. To accept. Wow. This job of walking with the dying and their families in hospice is truly humbling.
I’m not quite sure what to reflect on it all yet as the newness of this work settles in. So I want to share a poem that I discovered.
Is Life the Incurable Disease
Is life the incurable disease?
The infant is born howling
& we laugh,
the dead man smiles
& we cry,
resisting the passage,
always resisting the passage,
that turns life
into eternity.
Blake sange alleluias
on his deathbed.
My own grandmother,
hardly a poet at all,
smiled
as we’d never seen her smile
before.
Perhaps the dress of flesh
is no more than a familiar garment
that grows looser as one diets
on death, & perhaps we discard it
or give it to the poor in spirit,
who have not learned yet
what a blessing it is
to go naked?
Erica Jong
August 09 2008 | Eternal Life | No Comments »
Sorry, so, so sorry….. I have been a BAD blogger. Over three weeks and not a Sage reflection to speak of….. ugh… I could hide my head in shame but it’s time to speak again! To re-enter the blogosphere and trust that while three weeks may seem like an eternity for a blogger, it is but a blip on the spectrum of eternity!
Eternity Now!!
So I am back :) And I am back coming to you live from a whole new spot on the globe. Yes, I haven’t just been hiding from my computer over the last three weeks I have been moving to Portland, ME and starting a new job with Allegiance Hospice.
My call has shifted, I have had to say goodbye for now to the parish, goodbye to my many beloved friends at The Church of the Holy City in Wilmington, and hello to a grand new adventure. A new adventure of journeying with people on the edge of this world and the next. Journeying with people saying their goodbyes and preparing to say their hellos to a even bigger spiritual future. It will be an adventure!
So stay tuned!
I will leave this initial entry with just one very simple reflection that is sitting with me this evening. If I make it to very old, what will I be like? What will you be like? Thoughtful? Dreamy? Crotchety? Content? Flamboyant? If you become a lot more what you are right now what will that be?
Hmmmmm. Good to be back!
July 16 2008 | Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
This image from a garden in Taormina, Sicily was was taken by Alan Misson the developer of one of my favorite Swedenborgian Sites www.spiritualwisdom.org.uk. What a great depiction of congugial angels, partners in heaven. This is one of my favorite aspects of Swedenborgian spirituality. The strong conviction that our propensity to love one another here on earth, is not just a physiological drive, or convenience, but a deep spiritual call that continues unto eternity.
When we enter into loving partnership with another human being, when we decide to face life together, we are signing up for a grand adventure that as Swedenborg describes will deepen our individual humanity, widen our capacity for compassion and joy, and etch out and complete our personal character. And this adventure, continues far beyond our physical lives.
I love to imagine myself throwing my head back on a sunny day in heaven in the arms of my conjugial partner. Setting off on an adventure together with our bags packed!
While discovering love and making love stay are not always easy tasks, it is profound to consider them divinely ordained, gifts from God, and tasks that lead not to an end, but a continuing adventure!
June 16 2008 | Partnership | No Comments »
I know that summer will not officially arrive for a couple more weeks, but here in Pennsylvania it “feels” very much here. The sun is hot, the air is muggy, and night doesn’t come until close to nine o’clock at night. The kids in our Sunday School are beginning to take on the restlessness of school’s end, summer is just around the corner.
I love summertime. I love the green, walking in wet grass with bare feet, the warmth of the sun on my face, and the smell of sun tan lotion. Summertime is a lush season of fullness.
And Swedenborg describes as much as he discusses the spiritual significance of this season. He writes that summer signifies “a state of fullness of the church (Emanuel Swedenborg, Divine Love and Wisdom #73.)” Summer is the time of fruition, or completion. No more planting, no more planning, no more waiting. Whatever lay dormant under the earth germinating in winter, whatever was planted in spring will soon be here in it’s completeness. This time of “fullness” also can correspond to the stage of adulthood, the time in our cycle of regeneration when we have become who we are to be, and are fully “being it.” While we certainly are always growing and learning, we can think of the approaching summer’s spiritual significance as a time in our cycle of growth where what we are most called to do is just rest in the reality of who we are and live that to the fullest.
This is my meditation right now as I feel the sun on my face. May we all bask in the joy of who we are right now, the fullness of our own journey with God. For there is much to be grateful for.
June 07 2008 | Seasons | 2 Comments »
I dream a lot. I have long winding dreams, with huge casts of characters, that seem at times like English novels with long run on sentences and hard to follow plots. AND, when I take the time to parcel through my dreams, to look at what they might mean, there is always gold. My dreams always give me a picture of where I am, what’s growing in me, what’s changing, what’s calling. Always.
Last night I dreamed that I was at my high school reunion and everyone had grown up to become diverse and interesting adults. I didn’t recognize any of the people in the dream as actual kids from my high school but there was a fellow minister, a friend from seminary, oh, and Jon Bon Jovi was there :) And the reunion took place on a school bus headed to the Mid-West as if this was a destination point.
In my waking life I know that there are certain things about me that are “being reunited.” Attributes that were strong in high school, that I am rediscovering in my 30’s as core elements of who God has created me to be. Core elements that have reunited again on this strange school bus reunion, more mature, and having a great time.
I see my dreams as angel talk. And boy do angels have a way with words. I had a dream teacher in seminary, Jeremy Taylor, a great student of dreams, who said that “All dreams use the most effective image possible to communicate their content.” And I really believe that. Angels don’t mince words. I believe that my dreams are always gifts from the spiritual realm, written by angels to speak to me about my place in the Divine design, to help me understand where I am, and where I am going.
When I remember my dreams and work with them I tend to start seeing more levels to my day, it’s as if the dream follows me into my waking life and begins to unlock the mystery of what I’m learning now. It makes my days more magical, more full, and it reminds me of the angelic connections that are constantly with me.
So apparently today Jon Bon Jovi will be along for the ride :) I wonder what mysteries he will help me unlock?
May 16 2008 | Dreams | 1 Comment »
Have you ever felt spiritually “vulnerable”? Like you’re standing in the stream of providence with no pants? I’m beginning to believe that in order to become spiritually mature beings it is this muscle movement, of practicing “spiritual vulnerability,” that is the most important to our spiritual regeneration.
What are some examples of being spiritually vulnerable? Well, it’s likely different for everyone but in general I believe we make ourselves spiritually vulnerable every time we show up with total honesty, with ourselves, with God, and with the people in our lives about where we are at, what we believe, who we think we are, what we want, and then leaving the outcome of all of this to God.
Phew…. it makes me a little dizzy thinking about it.
To be vulnerable is to be exposed. The dictionary definition of vulnerability is to not only be exposed, but exposed to possible attack or injury. It points first to the dangers of this state, because in all honesty there are dangers. If there weren’t it wouldn’t be hard! It is hard because when we leave ourselves open we can be hurt, we can be criticized, we can be taken to places we may feel afraid to go… AND it is in this state of openness, honesty, and trust where we can also be led to the most exciting, most nourishing and most heavenly new opportunities we could never imagine.
So what shall we choose?
To be spiritually vulnerable will likely be often an uncomfortable and overwhelming ride. Much more intense than any amusement park roller coaster, because this ride won’t necessarily let you off at the cotton candy booth. But perhaps it will bring us all some place much sweeter.
April 30 2008 | Spiritual Struggle | 2 Comments »
“[Divine] peace is like the morn or dawn in springtime, when once the night is done, all things of earth begin to live anew from the rising of the sun; the scent of the leaves is wafted here and there, awakened by the dew that falls from heaven; the gentle warmth of spring makes fertile the soil and grants as well a joy to human minds. This is because morning and dawn in springtime correspond to the state of peace of angels in heaven.”
From Heaven and Hell #289
Peace. The bursting buds, the sprouting green, the colors and scents of Spring that are so quickly overwhelming the landscape correspond to the “peace of angels in heaven.”
I am struck by this today because I must admit to often associating peace with stillness, truce, quiet time and inactivity. Spring is beautiful, joyful even, but it is certainly not still! There are bees mating outside my window, there is creation growing and changing all around me! It is not a time of stillness but tremendous activity! And this is what heavenly peace feels like?
Well, perhaps it is? Perhaps true peace necessitates activity, living out our love in the world, being useful one to another, being in the flow of offering our skills and gifts and passions to one another.
Of course this would be the peace of angels.
My prayer today is to look for peace within the activity of my life, not as something I must step away from my life to find, but that peace that exists within being of use in the world. The peace of heaven.
April 25 2008 | Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
I went sailing recently for the first time and there was a Nor’easter. AND as the boat pitched and rolled over waves as large as itself, I found myself on the second morning, singing. While my body reeled with cold, sleeplessness and nausea from the continual sloshing of the sea, I somewhat instinctively began to sing and despite my physical suffering was reconnected to the majesty of the sea.
I share this story because yesterday I found myself in an incredibly similar situation on dry land. Again the same instinctual drive to sing came over me. I realized, as I rolled down the windows, turned up the stereo and began to belt out The Prince of Darkness by the Indigo Girls, that while I was not on the high seas, for all intents and purposes my boat was pitching.
We can be pitched around well enough in life without ever stepping foot on a sail boat. Life is hard. It is! And we will be prone to sea sickness, feeling overwhelmed, scared, frustrated, and more. But like being on a sail boat far from land, we don’t have the option of exiting the ride.
So what can we do?
Well, I chose to sing.
I wonder what you choose when the Nor’easter starts to blow and you feel like you are only barely keeping it together. Is there something you’ve found that helps you to smile in the midst of it, that helps you to hold on, that helps you to reconnect to the majesty?
I have to tell you reconnecting to the majesty won’t necessarily take away the sea sickness. It didn’t make me warmer or less nauseous, but it did make me smile, and it made me grateful, and well… eventually we made it to land.
When we reconnect to the majesty, we remember what is the most real. We can choose to give our attention to the difficulties, the fears, the frustrations, or we can turn our attention back to what is the most real, the peace that is always present in the midst of every moment, the glory of God.
I have a friend who goes to the movies to feel human again, she’ll go to the theater and see three films in one afternoon! Maybe you go to the gym, bake banana bread, or do somersaults. Whatever the practice or habit or hobby is for you don’t discount its power. Don’t think, oh, that’s silly, or there’s no time, or people are watching.
Life is hard. When you need to sing, sing!
April 17 2008 | Spiritual Struggle | No Comments »
This past week I’ve been meditating on the beloved Psalm 23rd as it has come around again in the lectionary cycle.
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…..
I didn’t really “get” the power and significance of this Psalm, until I spent a year as a hospital chaplain. This was the psalm that most people turned to, most of the time.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside still waters, he restores my soul.
These words, their rhythm, bring powerfully close the miracle of the Lord’s abiding presence with us, the Lord’s unceasing love, and persistent guidance. My present experience takes a drastic shift when I allow these words to remind me that moments of peace, gifts of insight, and all that I am continually sustained with physically, emotionally and spiritually comes from God.
He restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
If you’ve met me, or have read my blog for a little while you know I suffer from the disease of perfectionism. While my faith tells me this is not what God wants or expects of me, something about my genetic makeup, my upbringing, the culture I live in, and my humanness continues to insist upon it. To remember that the Lord is leading me in the paths of righteousness, that I do not have to discover those paths on my own, but just keep walking, where I am, and that the Lord will guide me. It changes everything.
Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.
For thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff comfort me.
A very good friend of mine, who didn’t always walk the easiest path, used to often say to me, “Even if I’m not OK, I’ll be OK.” She really got the truth of what it is to know and trust that the Lord walks with us through the valley of the shadow of death. We are always “OK.” No matter what. No matter what.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
I have been afflicted by this line. Some scholars say that this line speaks to how the Lord will bless us in sight of our enemies, in a sense to snub them, preparing a table for us to be fed at, while leaving them to watch. I prefer to imagine the Lord preparing a table for me and my enemies. And as I meet, and face, and stand honestly and with compassion in the face of those who I would see as enemies, whether these enemies be other people, or so often parts of myself, I believe the Lord does provide a table, where we can meet, and be offered real healing and bountiful nourishment.
Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.
Surely it will.
April 14 2008 | Bible | 1 Comment »
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