Bread for the Journey

As I continue to share my stories of faith, I’ve continued to feel a bit uncertain about sharing stories of joy in a world so full of hurt. But then I read the following beautiful writings by Kathleen Norris, a voice I needed to hear:

Mary’s telling of the good news is a task she has passed on to us. How do we recognize that we have seen the Lord, and how do we reveal this glorious truth to others? How do we dare speak of salvation and hope in a world so full of injustice, hatred, violence and deadly accident? This is the challenge and the mystery of Easter. For me it helps to remember that the victory song of Miriam is one of the most ancient in our scriptures. For many thousands of years the faithful have been able to stand tall and sing: “Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously.”

We thank and praise you, Lord, for the gift of your victory over death, for the gift of holy awe that comes upon us as we enter into our Easter joy. Christ has passed from death to life; may we always know you as our way through the desert, our food and drink as we thirst. You are our safe passage through treacherous waters and the home that awaits us at the end of all our journeys. In our doubts and in the pressures of our busy lives, we seem to lose you. Help us remember that you are always with us and that your way is always before us; we have only to pay attention to hear you call us by name. Teach us to recognize you in one another and with deep gratitude continue to bear witness to the life and hope with which you sustain the world. Amen.

A White Peacock butterfly, photographed by our son. Since my maiden name is White, I feel as if the butterfly and I are soulmates since we share the same name! My butterfly story continues…

After returning home from the “week of butterflies” (yesterday’s post), I began to read more books; books on spirituality. Reading When the Heart Waits, by Sue Monk Kidd, solidified the answer to my quest for the theme of an art reception following my program on the life of Jesus. In her spiritual memoir, Kidd wrote of a time she saw butterflies everywhere. Wait, that had just happened to me! I read more. Each chapter of the book ties different life stages of this mysterious creature to faith. I began my search for art representing various life stages of the butterfly to include in the art reception. Butterfly art was easy to find. My grandmother had a hand-painted butterfly teapot set, a church member who created sculptures from recycled metal contributed a butterfly, and another member displayed her photographs. One friend let me borrow a tray full of beautiful blue butterfly wing designs and another offered a butterfly kite from Japan. The other stages were not as easily found. Where would I find caterpillar art?

That fall, we traveled several hours to spend Thanksgiving with my grandmother. Our children enjoyed hiking at the nature center there, so we took some time to visit. My mouth dropped when I noticed an entire exhibit of caterpillar art on the walls. Inquiring at the front desk, I got the artist’s information and contacted her. The following spring she personally brought twenty pieces of her art, each depicting a different species of caterpillar, to display at our reception. I put our kids to work creating a few eggs and cocoons out of clay. In my final attempt at procuring fine art for the exhibit, I contacted my college freshman advisor from thirty years ago, George Olson. He was an art professor at Wooster, and his detailed paintings of prairie plants have been on display at the Missouri Botanical Gardens. Traveling three hours, George brought his paintings of plants and flowers to the reception exhibit as an expression of nourishment for caterpillars and butterflies, just as we receive nourishment by the Word of God. God’s nourishment sustains me on my journey through life. I will continue to have times of trials which eventually cycle back up, just like the butterfly’s life cycle. But knowing God’s love and forgiveness for me keeps me from falling as deeply as before. I am in awe of how this exhibit was drawn together by so many creative individuals, including an artist I didn’t even know. I believe God’s hand touches everything and each piece of art is a unique expression of the artists’ soul.

Creation has a unique language of proclamation and praise. Each part of the created order speaks eloquently of its Creator, just as artistry reveals the soul of the artist. ~Marjorie Thompson

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. -Psalm 42:2a

Today I get to share my butterfly story! I’ve been eager to tell it, but I knew all along I needed to patiently wait for Easter. If I hadn’t shared some of my previous stories, this Easter story would not make sense…like the summer the butterflies entered my life.

Once upon a time…ten years ago…I was in search of something. I needed a theme for an art exhibit to be displayed during the reception of my program, Life Revealed. I am a very determined person and will search at great length to find what seems to be the perfect choice. Well, I was stumped. Several themes came to me, but none of them had the spark I desired. Then it happened that summer during a trip with our church’s high school handbell choir. We were on tour giving concerts across the country. I had purchased small items to give each member of the group as part of our devotions before the concerts. The first night I gave each person a butterfly replica before guiding them in Centering Prayer. The next morning, after showering in my host family’s home, the humidity of the shower caused an etching of butterflies to appear up high in the skylight. The church hosting our concert that night served us dinner in their fellowship hall. The room had no decorations, just tables and chairs, and a small netted cage in the corner beckoning me to glance inside. In the enclosure was a butterfly cocoon in the process of metamorphosis. The next day the woman hosting me overnight had decorative rhinestones, shaped like a butterfly, on the side of her glasses. Day after day these sightings occurred. Walking around town on a free evening, butterflies appeared in storefront displays and also begged my attention as a woman approaching me on the sidewalk was wearing a large butterfly brooch. By now it was beginning to seem ridiculous. The final day as we returned home, our group ate dinner together. Towards the end of our meal the song playing over the speakers was about butterflies. I wasn’t familiar with the song, but it did frighten me a bit that butterflies were following me everywhere! Reflecting on that week woke me up to the art exhibit theme I had been searching for. The life cycle of the butterfly made complete sense in relation to our own life journeys. There is more to the mystery of this story…to be continued tomorrow.

Build on, and make thy castles high and fair, rising and reaching upward to the skies; Listen to voices in the upper air, nor lose thy simple faith in mysteries. ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Therefore we have been buried with Christ by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in the newness of life. -Romans 6:4

Alleluia! Christ is risen!

Patience, silence in prayer, and listening with the ear of the heart requires me to bend toward God. Inside the still, silent chrysalis the caterpillar’s body breaks down and a new life is forming. “Making a cocoon and the transformation that goes on inside it involves weaving an environment of prayer, but not the sort of prayer we usually think of. No, this is something mysteriously different. This prayer isn’t about talking and doing and thinking. It’s about postures. Postures of the Spirit. It’s turning oneself upside down so that everything is emptied out and God can flow in.” ~Sue Monk Kidd

In all those dark moments, O God, grant that I may understand that it is you who are painfully parting the fibers of my being in order to penetrate to the very marrow of my substance… ~Teilhard de Chardin

I try to take time to let go, to listen, in much the same way that I listen when I am writing. This is praying time, and the act of listening in prayer is the same act as listening in writing…And then there is time in which to be, simply to be, that time in which God quietly tells us who we are and who he wants us to be. It is then that God can take our emptiness and fill it up with what he wants, and drain away the business with which we inevitably get involved in the daily-ness of human living. ~Madeleine L’Engle

The fruit of silence is prayer. The fruit of prayer is faith. The fruit of faith is love. The fruit of love is service. The fruit of service is peace. ~Mother Teresa

We hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. -Romans 8:25

Music can represent tensions and resolutions. ~Jeremy Begbie

Although not wanting to revisit the memory, I had to choose Samuel Barber’s Nocturne which represented a time of darkness and anguish for me. This seemed like the perfect piece to represent Holy Week’s tensions and resolutions in Life Revealed, a program of music, reading, and art reflecting Jesus’ life and how our lives are newly created through Christ. Going back to music in 2007 and creating Life Revealed helped pull me out of a time of desolation. Barber’s Nocturne was tied to some of that darkness as I performed it in a recital at college not long after Mom died. I have always struggled with perfectionism, so in college my unsuccessful attempt to perform it by memory along with embarrassment over making numerous mistakes caused me to run back to my dorm room sobbing. When I relearned it years later, I was in a very different place in my spiritual journey. Barber’s musical tensions through overlapping melodic passages and weeping motifs began to make more sense to me. I grew to love the piece; especially the beauty in its hope-filled ending.

The sky has fallen and no one seems to notice. Mountains have fallen into the sea and people are oblivious. Floods cover the land, and tornadoes topple the buildings, and earthquakes divide the land. Everywhere I look there is nothing but devastation, and yet, everyone goes about their business as usual. O God, my life is destroyed, but people go to the bank and to the store. They eat and they drink, and I crumple under the weight of my heart. O God, it is the end of the world! Why aren’t people weeping and wailing? Why isn’t the world on its knees asking forgiveness? The whole world is one great wailing wall and I will live here forever! God Almighty, why am I all alone? Couldn’t you, O God, come and sit with me by the waters of Babylon? Couldn’t you come and sit with me on the rubble of the Temple? Please, O God, rebuild my world! Have mercy on me, for I am all alone. No one sees that the sky has fallen, no one, O God, no one, but you. All-knowing God, you are the only one who can put the stars back in place. Take pity on me and hold up the sky. I will walk by the river of hope, and you will find me there, and you will reach out your hand and push the heavens back into place, and I will kneel and give thanks, for you will be with me. You will put the stars back in the sky. ~Ann Weems (Lament Psalm Thirty -Five)

Sometimes I do things that require sacrifices. Why do I do them? I’m not always sure, but by listening to my heart I usually know it’s the right thing to do.

Caterpillars are willing to dissolve and transform without knowing what the end result will be. Inside the chrysalis the caterpillar’s body breaks down and a butterfly’s head, body, and wings take shape.

When important times of transition came for Jesus, he entered enclosures of waiting – the wilderness, a garden, the tomb. Jesus’ life was a balanced rhythm of waiting on God and expressing the fruits of that waiting. ~Sue Monk Kidd

Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet, not my will but yours be done. -Luke 22:42

When I took a week long pilgrimage last year along roads I had never traveled, I felt lonely at times, but I never felt alone. I felt God’s constant presence. Within the quiet moments I seemed to perceive unexplainable things. Memories of this week and of similar experiences energize me with the conviction to remain faithful to Christ even when tempted otherwise. Rekindled by listening in the silence, I realize more closely what I believe to be God’s will for my life. Then I return to community with a fresh, new spirit of eagerness to act out God’s will and to share my story.

…The secret of Jesus’ ministry is hidden in that lonely place where he went to pray, early in the morning, long before dawn. In the lonely place Jesus finds the courage to follow God’s will and not his own; to speak God’s words and not his own; to do God’s work and not his own. He reminds us constantly: ‘I can do nothing by myself…my aim is to do not my own will, but the will of him who sent me.’ (John 5:30) It is in the lonely place, where Jesus enters into intimacy with the Father, that his ministry is born…Somewhere we know that, without a lonely place, our lives are in danger. Somewhere we know that, without silence, words lose their meaning, that, without listening, speaking no longer heals, that, without distance, closeness cannot cure. Somewhere we know that, without a lonely place, our actions quickly become empty gestures. The careful balance between silence and words, withdrawal and involvement, distance and closeness, solitude and community, forms the basis of the Christian life and should therefore be the subject of our most personal attention. ~ Henri Nouwen

I love butter! Especially on fresh bread. I ordered a butter churner several months ago and marvel at how cream transforms into butter and buttermilk so quickly. But that turbulence is necessary for it to change. I think of my visits to the ocean watching the waves churning sand, seaweed, and wildlife. Storms give freedom to the water, creating breaches in the dunes. Although this is destructive, it is necessary for growth and rebirth of something new and remarkable; something not always visible.

A friend said to me, “If you think God leads you only beside still waters, think again. God will also lead you beside turbulent waters. If you have the courage to enter, you’ll think you’re drowning. But actually, you’re being churned into something new. It’s okay, dive in.” Storms happen. That seems to be the way of the universe, inner and outer. We need to accept them as part of the crossing over to a new season. ~Sue Monk Kidd (When the Heart Waits)

I called to the Lord out of my distress, and he answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice. You cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the flood surrounded me; all your waves and your billows passed over me. The waters closed in over me; the deep surrounded me; yet you brought up my life from the Pit, O Lord my God. –Jonah 2:2-3;5,6

My husband and I just attended a gathering of local alumni from The College of Wooster. I remember, during my own college days, the wonderful feeling of returning home on break. There are no words to adequately express that feeling of homecoming. And there are no words to express the joy of receiving our own children returning home.

Dear Lord, I will remain restless, tense, and dissatisfied until I can be totally at peace in your house. But I am still on the road, still journeying, still tired and weary, and still wondering if I will ever make it to the city on the hill. With Vincent Van Gogh, I keep asking your angel, whom I meet on the road: “Does the road go uphill all the way?” And the answer is: “Yes, to the very end.” And I ski again: “And will the journey take all day long?” And the answer is: “From morning till night, my friend.” So I go on, Lord, tired, often frustrated, irritated, but always hopeful to reach one day the eternal city far away, resplendent in the evening sun. There is no certainty that my life will be any easier in the years ahead, or that my heart will be any calmer. But there is the certainty that you are waiting for me and will welcome me home when I have persevered in my long journey to your house. O Lord, give me courage, hope, and confidence. Amen. ~Henri Nouwen, The Angel on the Road

Come, let us return to the Lord; for it is he who has torn, and he will heal us; he has struck down, and he will bind us up. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up, that we may live before him. Let us know, let us press on to know the Lord; his appearing is as sure as the dawn; he will come to us like the showers, like the spring rains that water the earth. -Hosea 6:1-3

“I first saw the dawn because we got there the night before and camped. I was spellbound in the silence, you know, because as it got lighter and brighter then you could hear the birds chirping and nature coming to life. All of a sudden, bingo! There it was, the sun. I couldn’t hardly describe it in words because words would be inadequate.” ~Frederick Grofe

NPR continued their interview; “Grofe used music, the language he knew best. Ferde Grofe knew how to use every instrument in the orchestra to bring his compositions to life. In the ‘Grand Canyon Suite,’ he evoked the natural sounds he’d heard on his visit there. He made the woodwinds sound like birds and the trumpets sound like crickets.”

Today, Palm Sunday, we celebrate Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey and I am reminded of Grofe’s depiction of the burros heading down the steep canyon trail. His coconut shell percussion helps me to imagine their heavy load and rhythmic stride. As we enter Holy Week, I can’t imagine what this week would have been like for Jesus. Where will this week take me? How easy it would be to turn around and travel away from the darkness or to fly above the deep canyon marveling at its beauty from high above, returning for the dawn of Easter Day. But you and I know this is not possible. We must journey through the desert to discover new life.

This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. Psalm 118:24