Daily Dose (March 17 – 20)

TUESDAY MARCH 17 — Somewhere along the way, something gums up the system. In everyone’s life, during the low points, our inner fire goes out. In my case, more than once.
And you still want me to treasure the sacrament of the present moment—the permission to be here now? To embrace the permission to “be tiny”, and the invitation to savor to this day, to be nourished by wonder, delight and awe?
The answer is Yes. And this matters, because even if the moment—or time we live in—invites sorrow or heartache or grief, we can still bring our whole heart, to honor the life being lived here. And when we do, we spill that light to the world around us.
This I know; living with cynicism, mistrust, and fomenting rage is not a good way to live. I cannot—and will not—shut down my heart.

I need to hear the same voice that invited Peter (full of fear) out of the boat, onto a stormy sea, “Be not afraid. Look at me. Now take one step.” Jesus didn’t ask Peter to wait until he was “unafraid,” or had it all figured out. He invited him to risk, and embrace this life, even with the imperfections and limitations, even knowing sooner or later, he may sink.
Now, more than ever, we need sustenance—places of sanity and restoration.
Places and people we trust, that allow us to take a step. Will you join me?

So. My mind and heart take me back to my walk on the Camino de Santiago and what it did for sanity and the restoration of my spirit and my energy. It was replenishing precisely because of honoring the little (tiny) moments. To see and say “thank you”, and to share them.
I’m always in favor of anything that invites (encourages) us to ask questions that make space for replenishing.
“What was your favorite part about the Camino?” I was asked repeatedly.
My answer: “The surprises. The little gifts.”
And one of the liberating gifts from my Camino pilgrimage? List making is highly overrated.
You are gifted with the permission, to let the list (of expectations) go. And when you do, you make space, and receive gifts to savor.
The gardener in me thinks of that created space as soil. Because it is the dirt that matters. And this I know: in the good dirt, the good stuff grows. Like honoring and savoring, paying attention and groundedness, tenderheartedness and self-care, restoration and forgiveness.
All of it, wrapped in gratitude.
And every single one of those gifts is fortified by hope.
“When you desire to see the beauty and joy in everyday life; something magical happens; ordinary life becomes extraordinary, and the very process of life begins to nourish your soul.” (Jill Alman-Bernstein)

So. How do we re-train our own eye (or mind) to appreciate simple pleasures? Is there a spiritual practice that we can incorporate into our lives, that opens our eyes to the abundant simple pleasures that surround us? (Granted, it would be easier with a book, Simple Pleasures for Dummies.) Answer this: Can you tell me a simple pleasure that happened, that you enjoyed, in the past day?
And while we’re on the subject, it wouldn’t hurt to change the way we talk. We ask, of each other, daily, “What do you do?” Or, “What did you do?” Why not ask, “What surprised you today? What made your heart glad? Where did you see God incognito?”
This we know for certain. There is a connection between simple pleasures and gratitude. Meister Eckhart says that if you only learn one prayer in your whole life, learn this one: “Thank you.”
This week, let us learn the Jewish practice called Shehechiyanu: saying a blessing for new and special experiences. “Thank you, God, for allowing me to reach this time.”

And a blessed Saint Patrick’s Day (Feast of Saint Patrick) to all. We honor this day—March 17—the traditional death date of Saint Patrick (c. 385 – c. 461), the foremost patron saint of Ireland. If you were in our neck of the woods, I would raise a glass with a good Irish beer (or, if you prefer, a good cup of tea).

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​WEDNESDAY MARCH 18 — A Zen roshi is dying. All of the monks gather—an eagerness restrained—around the deathbed, hoping to be chosen as the next teacher.
The roshi asks slowly, “Where is the gardener?”
“The gardener,” the monks wonder aloud. “He is just a simple man who tends the plants, and he is not even ordained.”
“Yes,” the roshi replies. “But he is the only one awake. He will be the next teacher.”

This week we are invited to embrace the permission to be here now.
Yes. The invitation to be “tiny”—to savor to this day. To be nourished by wonder, delight and awe. And this matters: even if the moment invites sorrow or heartache or grief, we can be “awake”—meaning we still bring our whole heart—to honor the life being lived here. Yes, the gift of enough.
Okay. I’ll say yes. But if I’m honest, I’ll tell you that living “awake” in our world, is something that may not always be easy or pleasant or fun. Parts of our world feel really, really crazy, and there are things I would rather not see.
I would rather close my eyes.
Which is why I love this story. In 1819, a blind soldier named James Holman, was invalided out of the British Navy. His reaction? He promptly set out to “see” the world.
James traveled alone, except for one brief stint with a deaf man. James spoke none of the languages he encountered, and moved about by public transit. When he returned to England, he published several travel books about his adventures. He wrote that he “rarely felt he missed anything because of his blindness.”
When people would notice his condition, they would invite him to “squeeze things,” as a way of perceiving them.
“And this is what the contemporary travel writer may have to do,” wrote Anatole Broyard in his essay about Holman. “He may have to squeeze places until they yield something, anything.”
(Adapted from The Art of Pilgrimage by Phil Cousineau)

I love the visceral, wholehearted permission to literally, be here now.
And yes. I want to see (to be awake). To squeeze every bit of life. Even the bits that differ from the hand I should have been dealt.
There is any number of reasons not to squeeze the moment. Or, at the very least, to wait… for the right moment, day, person, circumstance, you name it. What we fail to recognize is that our reluctance literally shuts us down, and in the end, truly blinds us. And only serves to flip life on its head. As a result, we feel hemmed in, at the mercy of, overwhelmed or something akin to spinning out of control. If I see only cacophony and uncertainty, then I live defensive.
Not unlike the story about the woman who lived in an elegant house with windows looking out onto stately trees and an English style garden. (My kind of garden.) And yet. She kept all of her shades drawn and sat in darkness to save her carpets from sun damage. When asked, she said, “I know that outside is an interesting world, but I am afraid to breathe the fresh air.”
Of course, we say, she sounds crazy.
And that’ll never happen to me, I tell myself.
Even so, while it is not my druthers, I too, can live stingy with my heart.
And when I do, it affects the way I see.
It affects the way I receive.
It affects the way I give.
Let us unpack our two invitations. To live awake, and to squeeze life. Both allow us to choose. Both allow us to honor what really matters. And the good news? From that place, we are tethered and grounded.
So, it’s paradigm shift time.
“Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the earth gives me daily and I must return the gift.” Robin Wall Kimmerer
If I were giving a talk, I would say “Let’s read that again. Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy.”
This takes me back to my garden: It’s the dirt that really matters.
When we focus only on the “flowers”, what really matters—the dirt they grow in—gets lost, hidden, unseen, so we don’t draw on it.
It is the same with the world we live in. When we embrace the gift of “squeezing” the “dirt,” we gratefully honor that hope, renewal, rebuilding, kindness, connection, forgiveness, reconciliation, integrity, and human dignity still exist.

“When you desire to see the beauty and joy in everyday life; something magical happens; ordinary life becomes extraordinary, and the very process of life begins to nourish your soul.” Jill Alman-Bernstein

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​THURSDAY MARCH 19 — There is no doubt it is easy it is to close the door to our minds, our hearts, our spirit.
When I do not let all of life in, of what am I afraid?
And here’s the irony; I’m most often afraid of (yes, doubting) the really good stuff—wonder, touch, tears, delight, surprise, joy, gladness, astonishment—wondering if I do deserve it after all.
Soul nourishment and replenishment grows from the soil (the “dirt”) of grace… and affirmation and compassion. Yes, self-care.
To nourish and replenish my soul begins here: peace and gentleness to oneself.
Well, sign me up. Where do I begin?
That’s just it. There is no script.
As my mentor, Lew Smedes wrote, “Gratitude dances though the open windows of our hearts. We cannot force it. We cannot create it. And we can certainly close our windows to keep it out. But we can also keep them open and be ready for the joy when it comes.”

Let us live “awake” one window at a time.
This from Eleonora Duse makes me smile real big. “If the sight of the blue skies fills you with joy, if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has power to move you, if the simple things of nature have a message that you understand, rejoice, for your soul is alive.”
I am so grateful that my garden put me in a frame of mind where I could hear and see and feel again, as if some part of me that had ossified came back to life. I cannot say with certain that I heard God’s voice (for I’m not sure what that voice would sound like, were I to hear it), but I suspect that God was the one who planted the seed to begin with, and was watching over me while that seed took root. For in the garden I found, in the words of Quaker teacher Thomas Kelly in A Testament of devotion, the “amazing inner sanctuary of the soul, a holy place, a Divine Center, a speaking Voice.”
I do know this. I did not set out to find answers, health, happiness, the good life, or even God. In fact, I did not “set out” at all. I knew only that my soul felt malnourished.
Then one day I found myself in the garden, and quite without fanfare, the journey began. I watched my garden grow. I fussed and frittered. I dug and danced. I came face to face with apart of myself that had been missing.
And I liked what I saw.

So. Let us pause and remember: this is not an assignment. This is a gift. An invitation, pure and simple. An invitation to be front row and center to this sacred moment, this sacred life, wholehearted. And the portal to this invitation is gratitude.
I can tell you that the “power of tiny” has a special place in my heart, grounded in my rituals over this past year. On my morning walk, I love stopping, noticing, pointing and smiling big… and taking pictures of tiny delights. Tiny sufficiencies. Moments I would easily walk, or rush by, and miss. Yes, the tiny delights that transform our tiredness, into moments soaked in grace. (Thank you, Jenneth Graser.)

And speaking of journeys… I want Sabbath Moment to continue to be a community resource for sanctuary, replenishment, grace and wholeheartedness, finding ways to keep us spiritually hydrated. And a reminder that radical kindness always matters.
And, that no one of us is on this journey alone.
“Which is more important,” asked Big Panda. “The journey or the destination?”
“The company,” said Tiny Dragon. (Thank you James Norbury)
Thank you for being a part of Sabbath Moment. Let us squeeze this life, and let us together build sanctuaries of empathy and renewal.

FRIDAY MARCH 20 — Buddha’s teaching method was counter intuitive, to say the very least. More often than not, he didn’t even talk. He just sat there.
There is a well-known story about The Buddha sitting in a place with hundreds of people gathered around him. (Waiting for pearls of wisdom I suppose. That would make sense.) However, he just sat, and after a while, those gathered started grumbling about how he was a fraud. Then he stood up and held out a flower. One of his disciples, Kashayapa, smiled. He understood. (Kashayapa became one of the forbearers of Zen Buddhism).
So, that’s it?
He held out a flower?
That’s the moral to the story?
Please tell me there’s more…
On this spring early evening, I can tell you that for me on this day, with the well-being of my spirit on tilt (with the heaviness—war, uncertainty, mistrust—in our world), it may well “depend upon a flower”. As I write this, a vase of Camellia blooms and buds, and a vase of daffodils, both from our garden, settle my spirit and do my heart good. And remind me to hit the “re-set button”.

I’ve known this story about the flower for many years, although I wasn’t planning to use it for a Sabbath Moment. I suppose because it’s interesting how we’re wired. We want tales that we can parse or figure out. Tales that in the end, resolve something, or at least provide a band aid. I get it. I know that when my world is rattled, I want someone to make it right, or help it make sense.
In other words, “what’s the lesson here?” (In the New Testament, Jesus’ disciples were continually aggravated because he wouldn’t give them the Cliff Notes to understand his parables.)
But here’s the deal: all the while we are looking for the revelation (or “resolution”), we miss the flower.
What does the flower represent? Well, that’s just it. I don’t know.
Perhaps it’s the heart.
Or being present. (Yes, showing up.)
Or awareness.
Or openness.
Or vulnerability.
Or, most likely, all of the above.
Yes: It is the gift of the sacrament of the present moment.

I do know this to be true: when I require certainty (tidiness or resolution) it is easy to be drained, and I will most assuredly miss the moment, the sacred, the serendipitous, the delightful, and the unfeigned. Or, in the words of Paul Tournier, spend my entire life indefinitely preparing to live.
I’ve been asked—often—what I believe. Or for my “doctrinal statement.” This is an occupational hazard for anyone who cavorts with fervent religious folk, those who find serenity in doctrinal purity. Catch phrases become de facto passwords into the fold of many religious organizations and communities.
Here’s the odd part. I have never once been asked about what nourishes my soul.
Or, to make a list of what moves me.
Or for stories about what warms my blood, sends gooseflesh up my arms, or makes me want to dance, laugh, and cry all at the same time.
I’ve been asked about what is “appropriate”, but not about what is important.

“For the past eighty years I have started each day in the same manner. It is not a mechanical routine but something essential to my daily life. I go to the piano, and I play two preludes and fugues of Bach. I cannot think of doing otherwise. It is a sort of benediction on the house. But that is not its only meaning for me. It is a rediscovery of the world of which I have the joy of being a part. It fills me with awareness of the wonder of life, with the feeling of the incredible marvel of being a human being.” Pablo Casals (at age 93)

It may be that we miss the point that our spiritual nature is enhanced precisely when, for these precious moments, we are able to shake that voice and find ourselves knee-deep in the colors, smells, and emotions of the day.
What does it mean to rest in beauty?
Not tidiness. Rest in beauty. The sacrament of the present moment.
It is a gentle reset button about what truly matters.
During this Lenten Season, I want to tend to my heart. Which means that there is a place I will choose to visit from time to time; a place called, the Gift of Enough. You know, that place where the heart finally slows, where gratitude spills, where we can touch the root of inner wisdom (a taproot some call the soul), where we are not afraid or adversarial, where we do not need to shy away from sadness or sorrow or disappointment. Where grace is alive and well.
I’m sorry that yesterday’s Sabbath Moment got snafued, tech wise, and arrived quite late. I can blame it on my age. But I’m not sure that works anymore. And I’m smiling big because in re-reading, I noticed quite a few typos. Lord have mercy. I would say that a spelling class is in my future.
Tomorrow I’m off to Reno, to St. Therese of the Little Flower Catholic Church. I’ll see some of you there on Saturday. 

Prayer (poem) for our week…
God,  
Let me breathe today.
Breathe in the soft air of spring.
Breathe in the wonder of your hand print
In the color of crocus and narcissus blooms
And the sound of the stream over moss covered rocks.
Let me breathe out worry.
Breathe out the urgency of today’s
or tomorrow’s list.
In this space, let me hear my heart,
And let my breathing by my prayer
of gratitude.
Amen. 

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Photo… “Dear Terry, I’ve been wishing for snow and here it is with the Wishing well at Point Defiance (WA)! God bless always,” Marguerite Gerontis…