Month: July 2021

I read this in the latest issue of “Listen” – the newsletter for Spiritual Companions and it was so beautiful and profound I had to pass it on. It is directed toward female-bodied folx, but I can absolutely find a way that it relates to me in my current male body as well.

Nocturn
by Liza Hyatt

In the dark, middle of night, in the deep middle of the middle of life, may you wake, feeling the familiar fear, and suddenly realize you are in the midst of slowly, painfully, giving birth, and have, for years, been in labor, losing, growing,

and may you mutter, “Midwife,” in confusion turning to prayer, begging the dark to help you, and hear the poetry, midwife, midlife, midlife, midwife,

and be calmed by this, letting Midlife do her work,

attending the birthing chamber where who you were, that too-tight, tight-skinned, tightly clothed, tightly wound young woman, has been opened out, spreading wide, like a snake-skin, like a vulva, from which is emerging that wild, white haired, loose and expansive, grinning and playful old woman, who must be your Soul.

LIZA HYATT is a poet whose books include Once, There Was a Canal (Chatter House Press, 2017), The Mother Poems (Chatter House Press, 2014), Under My Skin, (WordTech Editions, 2012). Liza is an art therapist in Indianapolis. She is currently a student in the Spiritual Guidance Training Institute. You can contact her at lizahyatt@gmail.com

Neil Douglas Klotz, or Saadi is a former member of our Ruhaniat Sufi Order and an amazing scholar, thinker, mystic, and teacher.

When I saw this posting as part of Fr. Richard Rohr’s blog I was moved to share it as something we are all in need of, and/or providing to others in these times.

Finding the Source of Comfort

Earlier this week, we [Richard Rohr’s Blog site] shared a meditation from Megan McKenna on the importance of translation. Scholar and author Neil Douglas-Klotz has worked for decades with the Aramaic language, which Jesus most likely spoke as a first-century Jewish man from Nazareth. Because translation is never an exact science, Dr. Douglas-Klotz offers several possible understandings of Jesus’ teaching “Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

Blessed are those in emotional turmoil; they shall be united inside by love.

Healthy are those weak and overextended for their purpose; they shall feel their inner flow of strength return.

Healed are those who weep for their frustrated desire; they shall see the face of fulfillment in a new form.

Aligned with the One are the mourners; they shall be comforted.

Turned to the Source are those feeling deeply confused by life; they shall be returned from their wandering.

Dr. Douglas-Klotz continues:

Lawile can mean “mourners” (as translated from the Greek), but in Aramaic it also carries the sense of those who long deeply for something to occur, those troubled or in emotional turmoil, or those who are weak and in want from such longing. Netbayun can mean “comforted,” but also connotes being returned from wandering, united inside by love, feeling an inner continuity, or seeing the arrival of (literally, the face of) what one longs for.

Dr. Douglas-Klotz offers this embodied prayer practice to help readers sense the powerful message of this beatitude.

When in emotional turmoil—or unable to clearly feel any emotion—experiment in this fashion: breathe in while feeling the word lawile (lay-wee-ley) [longing]; breathe out while feeling the word netbayun (net-bah-yoon) [loving]. Embrace all of what you feel and allow all emotions to wash through as though you were standing under a gentle waterfall. Follow this flow back to its source and find there the spring from which all emotion arises. At this source, consider what emotion has meaning for the moment, what action or nonaction is important now.

Experience a version of this practice through video and sound.

Neil Douglas-Klotz, Prayers of the Cosmos: Meditations on the Aramaic Words of Jesus (HarperSanFrancisco: 1990), 50, 51, 52.

It’s been a while since I posted as we’ve been enjoying a very full summer of 🚶‍♂️ hikes and gatherings. And we’re off again for a week on the east coast with our son. So, this seemed like a beautiful sharing to leave you all with for a bit.

From Fr Richard Rohr’s blog:

Praying the Lord’s Prayer

Perhaps some of the most comforting words Jesus shared in Matthew and Luke’s Gospels are the prayer we Christians call the Our Father or the Lord’s Prayer. While the prayer is most often said in community or as part of ritual prayer, this prayer can also be a contemplative practice when prayed slowly and mindfully, perhaps even as lectio divina. We invite you to pray this modern version of the prayer of Jesus from the Anglican Church of New Zealand, which both honors and reflects indigenous Maori culture.

Eternal Spirit,
Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver,
Source of all that is and that shall be,
Father and Mother of us all,
Loving God, in whom is heaven:

The hallowing of your name echo through the universe!
The way of your justice be followed by the peoples
        of the world!
Your heavenly will be done by all created beings!
Your commonwealth of peace and freedom
        sustain our hope and come on earth.

With the bread we need for today, feed us.
In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us.
In times of temptation and test, strengthen us.
From trials too great to endure, spare us.
From the grip of all that is evil, free us.

For you reign in the glory of the power that is love,
       now and for ever. Amen.

Experience a version of this practice through video and sound.

Church of the Province of New Zealand, A New Zealand Prayer Book, He Karakia Mihinare o Aotearoa (Collins Liturgical Publications: 1989), 181.