In Fr. Richard Rohr’s weekly digest this week they share a timely practice for living in crisis through a spiritual lens.

First, this quote from Pope Francis:

In the midst of crises, a solidarity guided by faith enables us to translate the love of God in our globalized culture, not by building towers or walls . . . but by interweaving communities and sustaining processes of growth that are truly human and solid. —Pope Francis 

Spiritual Practice for Crisis

The Rev. Dr. Barbara Holmes offers pastoral comfort and prophetic challenge in times of crises:

The crisis begins without warning, shatters our assumptions about the way the world works, and changes our story and the stories of our neighbors. The reality that was so familiar to us is gone suddenly, and we don’t know what is happening. Where there is no understanding, we create it. When we are anxious about our lack of control, we conjure theories that quell our anxiety. The truth of the matter is that we live on a mysterious planet, with other living beings whose interiority and spiritual realities are just beyond our cognitive reach.  

Embodied contemplative practices allow us to meet the challenges that crises bring to our lives. Today, we invite you to try one or more of these practices suggested by Dr. Holmes: 

1. Breathe deeply and exhale slowly three times. 
2. Your ancestors survived many crises. What were the crises of their days that required a communal response? 
3. What is the crisis of your day that requires a communal response? 
4. Sit for ten minutes. Feel the “troubles of this world.” Breathe deeply, exhaling your sense of helplessness, inhaling Ella Baker’s strength, channeling Rosa Parks’ quiet resolve. (Substitute exemplars as needed, but include one exemplar from a cultural community that is not your own.) 
5. Remember an instance of oppression against a group that is not yours. 
   • What, if anything, did you feel called to do as an ally? Did you do it? If you did something in response to the crisis, what did you do and what happened as a result? . . . 
   • If your community were under siege, what help would you need or want?

Barbara A. Holmes, Crisis Contemplation: Healing the Wounded Village (Albuquerque, NM: CAC Publishing, 2021), 19, 37.

Explore the Daily Meditations

The inimitable St Mary Oliver reminds us with this poem, of all the sacred music and phenomenon that are always singing to us but especially in the forest. This reminded me how,, in “The Spell of the Sensuous” David Abram opens our hearts to the conversation of the more than human that surrounds us if we only listen.

With gratitude to sister Amina Janet who posted this lovely poem in her blog, “Love, Harmony, and Beauty #87”

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Ordinarily, I go to the woods alone, with not a single
friend, for they are all smilers and talkers and therefore
unsuitable.

I don’t really want to be witnessed talking to the catbirds
or hugging the old black oak tree. I have my way of
praying, as you no doubt have yours.

Besides, when I am alone I can become invisible. I can sit
on the top of a dune as motionless as an uprise of weeds,
until the foxes run by unconcerned. I can hear the almost
unhearable sound of the roses singing.

If you have ever gone to the woods with me, I must love
you very much.
― Mary Oliver, Swan: Poems and Prose Poems

Our culture is suffering gravely and terminally from our illusions of separateness. There is a more than human conversation taking place that we have forgotten to notice in our arrogance and patriarchal fear. As spiritual seekers, our work is to remember unity, administer palliative care to all those suffering harm as the culture of modernity collapses, and midwife a return to the precious oneness that is our true inheritance, what Fr. Rohr calls our True Self.

This blog post from Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditations illustrates with sound and image the way forward.

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The inner space where God dwells can often be uniquely accessed by the arts. To bring Father Richard’s message of the True Self into a deeper consciousness, we invite you to watch and listen to this music video as a contemplative practice. To practice audio or visio divina (sacred hearing or seeing) is to allow our hearts to be fully receptive to sound and image. The song and video are from Birdtalker, a Nashville-based musical group [1], that was featured at CAC’s CONSPIRE 2017: A Conspiracy for God. 

[1] Birdtalker also contributed the theme music for the first two seasons of the CAC podcast Another Name for Every Thing.  

Birdtalker, One, official lyric video, June 20, 2017, YouTube video, 3:59.

I so much enjoyed this post today by Terry Kylo on the Paths to Understanding site that I wanted to share it with all of you.

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This weekend I will be speaking with a Christian youth group about how multi-faith relationships, partnerships for the common good, and public solidarity is a faithful expression of the Christian wisdom tradition.

The sad reality is that for many Christians, the answer is that it is not possible to be faithful to Jesus and to respect, relate to, learn from, and partner with other traditions. What I hear from many Christians is the “salvation” is to be recognized as a part of an exclusive in-group. They don’t say it quite this way, at least at first. But when you press them this is where it goes.

I spoke to a person lately who asked why I was supporting and working with people of other traditions. She told me that if I wanted to be faithful to Jesus, I should be working to convert them “because you can’t get to heaven unless you follow Jesus. It’s okay that you are being nice to them but if you love them you must try to convert them.” Love, it seems, was for her only a strategy to make others like her. As she said this her face, voice, and body resonated with a kind of superiority and certainty. I could tell she enjoyed it.

I have met people of many traditions who have a similar attitude: everyone from Atheists to Zoroastrians. (Well, actually I have never heard this from Zoroastrians, but you get my point:). Indeed, I have felt the rush of superiority and certainty in myself many times, and for many years.

I responded to her this way: “I am so grateful that the Creator has found me and encountered me through the Lutheran Christian and Episcopal Christian traditions. But I think it is simply beyond my pay grade to tell the Creator how to find and encounter others. If you want to walk up to the Creator and tell her how to do her work, well, go ahead. But I won’t be doing that.”

This seemed, at least for a moment, to give her pause. In fact, she seemed quite disturbed. I was too.

My wife and I saw a beautiful sunset recently. (Pictured) It went on changing from color to color for over an hour and a half. We saw the light of the sun, but that does not mean we own or control or possess the light.

• We may be encountered by the Divine.
• For those who don’t do God: We may be encountered by a Meaning beyond our imagination or effort.
• But that does not mean it is only for us, or that all people see the same colors.

As the sunset was ending we saw the shape of a grey whale and heard the sound of its breathing. On that magical evening, I wondered, “Was not the sunset for the whale, too?”

The word “faith” in the Christian Scriptures really means “trust” in the One who is beyond our idea of God. Understanding this, exclusive in-grouping is actually the result of a lack of faith, a lack of trust that the Divine has agency to reach out to all the human family in a way that each needs.

Just because the Divine has reached out to me in a particular way does not limit how the Divine will reach out to others.

Unless, you want to walk up to up to Creator and tell Her how to do things….  In that case, let me just back away a bit as the sound of a Holy Laughter reminds us how small and beautiful we are – and others, too.

Photo by Terry Kyllo

This is a prayer of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov. Breslov is in the Ukraine.

Translation by Rabbi Deborah Silver. (Biblical texts quoted in this are from Leviticus 26:6, Amos 5:24, and Isaiah 11:9)

May it be Your will,
Holy One, our God, our ancestors’ God,
that you erase war and bloodshed from the world
and in its place draw down
a great and glorious peace
so that nation shall not lift up sword against nation
neither shall they learn war any more.

Rather, may all the inhabitants of the earth
recognize and deeply know
this great truth:
that we have not come into this world
for strife and division
nor for hatred and rage,
nor provocation and bloodshed.

We have come here only
to encounter You,
eternally blessed One.

And so,
we ask your compassion upon us;
raise up, by us, what is written:

I shall place peace upon the earth
and you shall lie down safe and undisturbed
and I shall banish evil beasts from the earth
and the sword shall not pass through your land.
but let justice come in waves like water
and righteousness flow like a river,
for the earth shall be full
of the knowledge of the Holy One
as the waters cover the sea.

So may it be.
And we say:
Amen.

As interpreted by Daniel Ladinsky

With a deep bow of gratitude to sister Amina Janet who posted this lovely poem in her blog, “Love, Harmony, and Beauty #79”
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Take one of my tears,
Throw it into the ocean

And watch the salt in the wounds
Of this earth and men begin to disappear.

Take one of my tears
And cradle it in your palm.
Mount a great white camel
And carry my love into every desert,
Paying homage to every Prophet
Who has ever walked in our world.

O take one of my tears
And stop weeping only for sadness,

For there is so much More to this life
Than you now understand.

Take one of my tears
And become like the Happy One,
O like the Happy One —
Who now lives Forever
Within me.

When a drop from my Emerald Sea
Touches your soul’s mouth,
It will dissolve everything but your Joy
And an Eternal Wonder.

Then,
The Beloved will gladly hire you
As His minstrel

To go traveling about this world,
Letting everyone upon this earth

Hear
The Beautiful Names of God
Resound in a thousand chords!

Hafiz himself is singing tonight
In Resplendent Glory,

For the cup in my heart
Has revealed the Beloved’s Face,
And I have His oath in writing

That He will never again depart.

O Hafiz, take one of your tears,
For you are weeping like a golden candle-

Throw one tear into the Ocean of your own verse

And let the wounds
Of every lover of God who kneels in prayer
And comes close to your words
Begin, right now,
To disappear.

From: I Heard God Laughing – Renderings of Hafiz – Daniel Ladinsky

This wonderful practice was sent out with several others in Atum O’Kanes most recent “Deeper Story” blog post.

Atum’s programs and other information are available at: www.atumokane.com.
Recordings, teachings, and other information are available at: www.atumokaneteachings.com

The Good Seeds Practice
 As Reb.Zalman so generously shared, ”I am only the Aha’s that I integrated into my being and life. The others came and went like the weather.” Below are the four stages of integrating the good seeds insights that you long to have become a fruitful reality in you and your journey, rather than a potential that was never realized.

1. Plant the good seed deeply in the fertile soil of your heart. Spend time feeling how it touches the core and what arises in response.

2. Water the seed regularly. This is a practice that nurtures the seed as it is unfolding its potential in one. Pir Vilayat spoke of remembrance as the secret of life for we are always forgetting. Each time we water the seed we are deepening the impression of the wisdom within it upon our heart and mind.

3. Cultivate the good seed by creating conditions in your life that support its growth. Seek to remove or transform habits or circumstances that will block its full realization. As Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche advises, be very clear about what supports your spiritual path and what hinders it. Step out of ambiguity.

4. Harvest the fruits that have emerged from the good seed in you and in your life. Hazrat Inayat Khan advised one to honor the fulfillment of a calling. When we do so there is a blessing or empowerment that is given.

Good Seeds for 2022
•It must be a great disappointment to God if we are not dazzled at least 10 times a day. Why does this not happen in our culture? – Mary Oliver

• Kindness is my true religion. Love, compassion and tolerance are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity would not survive. – The Dalai Lama

• Throughout society today people feel great loneliness. The only thing that will bring happiness is affection and warm heartedness. – The Dalai Lama

•If I practiced anger, bitterness, or jealousy, my smile would disappear. – The Dalai Lama

• There is a Tibetan teaching that says what causes suffering, in the general pattern of how to be with others: envy toward the above, competitiveness toward the equal, and contempt toward the lower. – The Dalai Lama

• It takes time. We are growing and learning how to be compassionate, how to be caring, how to be human. – The Dalai Lama

• God created us and said, “Go my child, you have freedom.” And God has such incredible reverence for freedom that God would much rather we went to hell than compel us to come to heaven. – Desmond Tutu

• I would usually go to my chapel if I had something that really upset me. I would lambast God. You can go to God and speak all you have, pouring it out in that fashion. – Desmond Tutu

• Righteous anger is usually not about oneself. It is about those one sees being harmed and whom one wants to help. – Desmond Tutu

• Hope is based on the firm ground of conviction. I believe with steadfast hope there can never be a situation that is utterly hopeless. – Desmond Tutu

• A question to Desmond Tutu: You have been able to maintain joy in the face of suffering. How have you been able to do that? “Well, I have certainly been helped by others. One of the good things is realizing you are not in a solitary cell. You are part of a wonderful community. That helped very greatly. You open, you blossom, really because of other people.” – Desmond Tutu

• See yourself as a playful being in a blessed universe. – Meister Eckhart

The quotes of the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu are from the book they created together, The Book Of Joy. If you have a negative view of Christianity and do not see its relevance in our time, I suggest reading In God’s Hands by Desmond Tutu.

The wonderful Emergence Magazine has published these ten love letters to the earth by Thich Naht Hahn who died last week on the 22nd of January.

It seemed a beautiful and fitting way to honor his legacy so I am passing that link on to all of you beloveds:

https://emergencemagazine.org/essay/ten-love-letters-to-the-earth/

I was just blessed to spend two days in a webinar by Mirabai Starr on Theresa of Avila. We dove deep together with 60 or so other souls into the words and poetry of this amazing saint who, through her work, carries us into the crystal palace of our innermost longings. I can’t recommend highly enough Mirabai’s books on the subject. Per her suggestion, I’d recommend beginning with “Saint Theresa of Avila – Passionate Mystic.”

On today’s Instagram posting, Mirabai (assisted by Willow) offered this blessing that struck me with such resonance I felt I had to share it.

“It’s not as if falling in love with the Divine rescues us from the travails of the human condition. Our partners betray us sometimes and our dead remain dead. It’s that keeping the heart open, even in hell, makes space for the Beloved. It is in the darkest nights of our souls, when all we know is that we know nothing, that the presence of the sacred may quietly well up, mingling with our pain and connecting us to a love that will never die.”

~ Mirabai Starr – from her most recent and profound book “Wild Mercy.”

One of my favorite and most treasured practices from my Sufi Tradition is called “The Four Surrenders.” A link to the full practice is included below.

Lately, I have been feeling a deep sense of unraveling and re-assessment of everything I “know” – all of the stories that make up the life I walk through.

It all started with an intense and vivid dream in which I was walking with friends, one of whom was indigenous, in a large garden or arboretum. As we walked we found signposts identifying different aspects of the garden but they were full of colonialist stories that simply didn’t reflect the reality of the land and its ancient stories. So at each place, we stopped and put up arrows pointing in many different directions.

As I sat with this dream in meditation and consultation with beloved friends and teachers, I understood this was a view of my inner garden. And a calling to consider all of the stories I thought were real and the many different ways they might now be able to evolve.

But my ego put up quite a fight when I started this work. Fear of loss and being abandoned and alone all rose up in my heart as I considered letting go of all those stories.

I sat one afternoon in my sit spot near a lovely creek and was reminded of what it does so exquisitely and beautifully – surrender and flow.

I began the four surrenders practice. Briefly, either using the breath or prostrations (or both), that entails letting go of all that is standing in the way of being in the now; then letting go of all your identities, the small self, the labels you assign to yourself (e.g, teacher, father, social justice worker…); then surrendering the need to KNOW anything, and finally surrendering into the arms of the Divine.

As I sat in this practice in the presence of the manuscript of Nature that demonstrated perfectly what I needed to remember, with the guidance of the creeks flow, I fell into a fifth surrender – letting go of even the lap of the Divine and accepting that none of it is real. That there is NOTHING there.

From that place of emptiness, each breath became a new blessing, each moment a new opportunity to open to a new story. A new story, granted by grace, that at that moment was the story that lifted up the whole creation in beauty and harmony and love. But with no attachment, because in the next breath – all five surrenders happened again and everything was emptiness.

The Sufi poem by Shabistari (that is also a Dance of Universal Peace) circles and splashes in my heart:

Go sweep out the chambers of your heart
Make it ready, make it ready
To be the dwelling of the beloved.

When you depart, love will enter
In you, void of yourself
God will display [their] beauty.

So, as the light begins its return for us in the Northern hemisphere of this heartbreakingly beautiful and magnificent and wounded planet, as the clock of our invented time tells us a new year has begun, as we are blessed with noticing our stories and making new choices – I offer this fifth surrender with love to all of my beloveds. May we all find hope, love, joy, community, and resilience in the face of the many challenges that stand before us.

Link to The Four Surrenders Practice