Worlds collide

I grew up in the midwest, the heartland of America, where the oceans are made of dark dirt and fast-growing corn. And now I live on the San Francisco Bay, where life follows the rhythms of the Pacific ocean.

But I spent the last week far from home, traveling near Boston, and I got to spend some time dipping my toes into a different ocean.

Even more than the vast blueness of the water, I was most drawn to the color and texture of the shoreline: the plants and animals tucked into the tide pools, the sun-soaked rocks lining the cost, the dramatic splashes of color. The details are so stunning in this place where water meets land.

It’s like a merging of two different worlds.

This season of life has felt like that for me. Walking on the edge between past and future, the edge between graduate school and career. All the travel and change of the last few months has left my life feeling disjointed, sudden, and unfamiliar.

But, like the coastline meeting of water and earth, there has been much beauty in transition. In this no-man’s-land that belongs neither there nor here, the details from both places are able to stand out.

The parts of me that are sea and the parts of me that are land are both beloved and necessary here. And I am grateful for the meeting places of the world, and the meeting places inside my soul.

Friends, where are the meeting places in your life or heart? How do you feel when you encounter them? What do you learn from walking through those places?

The Welcome of Worship

Come, come, whoever you are.
Wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving — it doesn’t matter,
Ours is not a caravan of despair.
Come, even if you have broken your vow a hundred times,
Come, come again, come.
(J. Rumi)

The morning we showed up to worship, all of creation was already there praising.

The long prairie grasses were bowing, “Yes, yes!” and the trees also swayed to their rhythm. The slow buzzing of bugs laid a subtle accompaniment. Hawks swooped regally overhead, gliding on the summer sky. The farms dogs played along to the sound of movement, and the sun presided over the entire arena, reaching down to caress and hold each worshiper.

And we, also creatures here to praise, showed up after the whole show was already going.

We sat in lawn chairs under a tent and fanned ourselves with straw garden hats and baseball caps. We closed our eyes and breathed in the hymn. We set up a tiny altar by the peace pole, of flowers and stones and candles.

We sang about love, about wonder, about God.

And when it came time to preach, we passed a small stone from hand to hand among us, each of us offering words. Each of us sharing the light in our lives that shines from our very centers.

“I have a knack for explaining abstract concepts to people who have trouble understanding them,” said the lady on the beanbag.

“I make really good soup,” said the woman on my right, looking into her lap.

When my turn came, I, too, had trouble raising my eyes in such a holy moment. “I can write,” I shared. “I can write from my heart.” And they all nodded and murmured in agreement, these people who had never met me before.

And like that, we wove together our light to create a sermon, a message of hope.

And I wonder if we had passed the stone next to the hawk, or the sun, or the panting farm dogs, or the lazy buzzing bugs, or the prairie grasses… what would they have shared? How do they reflect the light?

But, oh, there’s no need to ask, they are already throwing themselves into the worship with everything they have. They are wearing praise like a cloak, emanating the light of God.

And then I know: even if I break my vow one hundred times, I am still as radiant as these. When I stumble, or wander, or despair, I am yet welcome in this sanctuary of creation’s praise to God.

And how beautiful and deep that truth is.

—–

Shared with the wonderful community of light-shining people at:

The seeds that never grew

Every moment and every event of every person’s life
on earth plants something in their soul.
For just as the wind carries thousands of winged seeds,
so each moment brings with it the germs of spiritual vitality
that come to rest imperceptibly in the minds and wills of men.
Most of these unnumbered seeds perish and are lost,
because men are not prepared to receive them:
for such seeds as these cannot spring up anywhere
except in the good soil of freedom, spontaneity and love…
We must learn to realize that the love of God seeks us
in every situation, and seeks our good.
His inscrutable love seeks our awakening.
Thomas Merton, “Seeds of Contemplation”

“Why is there a gap here?” I ask. The neat row of corn stops abruptly before starting again two or three feet later.

“I planted a packet of zucchini seeds there,” the farmer explains, “but I guess they never came up.”

It’s a small loss, one packet of seeds. Only a few plants would have grown here anyway, and he tells me that he’s had serious trouble with squash beetles the last few years so the plants may not have thrived anyway. There are some cucumbers growing further down the row, but this spot is empty except for weeds.

I continue weeding, clearing the ground of lamb’s quarter and purslane. It’s strange to think of those lost little zucchini seeds, somewhere under the soil, lying dormant. I think about the seeds planted by the sower in Jesus’ parable that never grow. I wonder if one of the fates may have befallen these seeds: perhaps they fell on rocky soil, perhaps they were choked out by weeds or eaten by birds or scorched by the hot sun.

Perhaps they were just not ready to grow, to be received by the soil.

Later, we take some of the tiny cucumber shoots – the struggling ones that got crowded out by their healthier neighbors – and move them to the newly cleared gap in the row of corn. Because the zucchini seeds never grew, these little cucumber plants will have room to wiggle their cramped roots deeper into the open soil. Because the zucchini seeds died, these seeds will live and bear fruit.

After all, sometimes, tragedy is not as it seems. Sometimes it is only making room for something small and struggling to thrive.

What spiritual lessons have you learned in your garden? What do you take away from the parable of the sower (Matthew 13)? Have you planted seeds in your life that never grew? Did their death somehow make room for new life?

Life well spent

This trip has already been filled with so many sweet gifts. They are almost too many to number, but not too many to share.

Early mornings, summer sunshine, bright flowers, handmade doughnuts, fresh coffee, farmers’ markets…

Muddy toes, sun-warmed shoulders, patient horses, gleeful children, friendly kittens, colorful buttons, stately buildings…

Secret swimming holes, riverbed hikes, conversations over tea, afternoon naps, new (old) books, frog sounds, forest canopies…

These are days well-spent. This is life well-lived. Hope you’re soaking up summer, my friends!

For me, these are steps toward gratitude (#57-77), shared with this community:

West to East

Hi friends! Over the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing stories and photos from my travels in the Eastern US where I’m volunteering, soaking up summer, and visiting friends and family. Enjoy!

I arrive in New York groggy but on time. The flight from SFO to JFK is brutal no matter what time of day you do it, but my body still hasn’t recovered from my 4:15 a.m. wake-up call.

My two hour layover lengthens as, predictably, my connecting flight gets delayed. So I settle into my seat at the gate and start mentally listing all the people I know within a 50 mile radius in case I’m stuck here for the night. The terminal is full, buzzing with that cosmopolitan New York City feel, everyone armed with a blue-tooth and a Starbucks latte.

A skinny kid next to me, bright-eyed and eager, leans over and asks what I’m reading. He’s 17, from rural Virginia, on his way to Canada to visit his girlfriend who he met over World of Warcraft. It turns out this is also his first time flying, which might explain why he doesn’t know that actually socializing with strangers in airports is considered a faux pas. Especially if they’re reading. But I like him, and I think I can spare a few minutes to explain to him that if he really wants to be a fantasy nerd, he needs to start reading George R.R. Martin and playing Magic the Gathering (neither of which he’s heard of). I think maybe he’s mistaken me for a fellow high-schooler, but he tells me I’m the first person at the airport who’s been nice to him. That’s New York.

He’s really anxious about the flight delays, and I try to convince him that this is actually pretty normal. But then, our flight gets canceled, and I lose him in the pandemonium of frantic re-scheduling. When I catch sight of him an hour or so later, I check to see if he’s gotten himself re-booked on a later flight. He hasn’t. He’s kind of panicked: he wasn’t sure who to talk to and his cell phone is dead. So I let him use my phone to call his girlfriend’s parents and explain the delay, then to call his dad to tell him he’s alright. I take him to the airline counter and help him learn the ropes of groveling to ticketing agents.

The whole night turns out fine. We pass the time by making friends, playing checkers, and obsessively checking our flight status. There’s something magical and surreal about the micro-community that forms among a bunch of stuck airline passengers. Once you realize you’re all in this together – and that elbowing each other out of the way doesn’t actually get you on a plane any faster – you tap into this deep well of solidarity, wishing each other luck and sharing trays of french fries.

Finally, we’re lucky enough to board one of the only flights that makes it out of the terminal that night, arriving in an empty Buffalo airport at midnight.

As I slump sleepily to the baggage claim, happy to have survived my 16 hour travel day, I catch a glimpse of my friend, hand-in-hand with his girlfriend, beaming and chatting to her family. I try to wave but he doesn’t see me. He’s a veteran traveler now, ignoring all the strangers who walk by.

Do you remember your first time flying? Have you ever had a miserable travel experience? Do you talk to strangers in airports, or do you prefer to stay silent?