Joy in Pain?

This week Bill Moyers interviewed poet, Christian Wiman, who held us spell-bound as he shared his experience of deepening faith since receiving a fatal diagnosis. ". . . faith is folded into change, is the mutable and messy process of our lives rather than any fixed, mental product," he said. My current experience of being with family as my niece lives into her third week on a ventilator, opened me to hear Christian's description of how God's Incarnate life with us is terrible in pain as well as in exquisite joy. "We grieve the reality of our loss, not the loss of our reality." "This is why," Christian continues, "even in moments of joy, part of that joy is the seams of ore that are our sorrow." "For many people God is simply a gauze applied to the wound of not knowing, when in fact that wound has bled into every part of the world, is bleeding now in a way that is life if we acknowledge it, death if we don't." "Christ is contingency." (Those are challenging words.) "Christ's life is right now," not by any necessity other than who he is and who we are.

More on Gratitude

Here is the poem I had sent to June.
It doesn't fit into what she was looking for.
So, I can share it with you:
Thank you God,
for the seed of gratitude which
an innocuously tiny act of kindness
planted in my heart.
Sown so secretly, by surprise
it rooted beneath my awareness.
Now, a tree of thanks spreads
limbs of potential
for a harvest of friendship.

Gratitude is, indeed, a very powerful gift with infinite potential.

A Week of Gratitude Thoughts

Or, a week of thoughts about gratitude. This week I received an invitation to write a prayer of gratitude.


This prayer would be for possible inclusion in a book author, June Cotner, is preparing. June previously published a book of "Graces." We sometimes page through that book before a meal to find a grace prayer that might open new doors of awareness of the gifts which surround us.

As I am thinking about gratitude, I am more aware than ever of interactions that arouse grateful feelings in my heart. I notice that when I'm busy doing whatever I think is so important, I let kind words pass right by! Today, for example, another guest said some very lovely words about her stay at Clare's Well. Instead of, "Yes, I know what you mean," I made myself really listen to her. This might not sound like much, but it was quite profound for me. I saw her and heard her on a level that I usually let pass under my conscious radar. I noticed not only her gratitude, but also mine. What a lovely, lovely shared moment I almost missed.

Bonding Through Retreat

Here are women who would lay down

their lives for each other, and

for you, too.

Want to nuture such relationships?

Spend a retreat together.

These five Sisters - Ruth Lentner, Carolyn Law, Michelle L'Allier, Ange Mayers, and Isabel Berrones Morales began 2012 with Paula, Carol and Jan at Clare's Well for a week of prayer and sharing materials on Franciscan Discernment: how do we hear the will of God in our lives? The three of us 'elders' couldn't have appreciated this experience more.

I look at this photo of five of our younger members seeking the voice of God in their Franciscan lives, and I see God's face and heart. The evident love and commitment, joy in each other, hope and faith in an unknown future can only come from the impossible, non-practical Spirit we all share. None of us has clarity about what and where our community will be twenty years from now; we don't need to know the details. We know the heart and spirit.

Preparing for Christmas

Sisters Carol and Paula have been at it: decorating Clare's Well living room. The new LED lights on our "tree" reflect in the windows and on the ceiling adding new dimensions of beauty for the corner of plants that we have traditionally grouped together to make up our tree the last twenty-some years. The mantel crib set is new this year. It is a gift Carol purchased from artistsans in Nicaragua when she was there on one of the mission trips she and a group make to Father Teddy Niehaus' parish down there each January.

I am touched by the extent of the world represented in Christmas each year. We not only have Bethlehem and Nicaragua but also friends and family from years and years of gifting in the ornaments on the tree. It is wonderful to remember persons like Julia Barkley who painted some of the bulbs, Connie Lacher who gave us bells from a Lorie Line concert, and beautiful 'antique' ornaments we received from our Sisters who had them many years ago at our school mission in Osakis and passed them on to us. We treasure items from Mary Kranz Odendahl who is no longer on earth. The list goes on and on.

I pray your Christmas decorations bring warm memories of treasured experiences, friends and family. Merry Christmas.

Call of the Cellar

We have used short meditative readings on the nature of the season of fall before our meals these days. The season's natural movement is from outer activities to inner reflection and renewal. I notice our trees -- how can I help but notice! Their leaves are very much underfoot all over our yard even though we've had one significant picking-up-leaves-day. Letting go of showy productions, tree energy retreats to rest. Walking out of doors today, I feel the trees calling me to follow their example.

As sunlight is lessened in our northern hemisphere, I pray to own my own and the Divine light within. I'm happy to let go of harvesting and canning -- filling the cellar shelves -- and to take hold of more time to be in my own inner cellar. I pray with growing gratitude and praise for the earthy quiet of this restful, waiting, trusting soul space.