Spiritual Formation

31 Days in which I am Saved by Beauty – Day 9

October 10, 2012 By Diana

I have already written about this evening walking I do.

This circle walking.

And circle praying.

Tonight I was a little distracted.

This is the season for the acorn drop,

and there are hundreds of them,

all over the paving stones of our driveway.

Can you see them in this picture?

The one below these words?

Earlier this fall, my grandgirl Gracie and I picked up a few,
and put them in a bowl on my china cabinet.
We don’t usually see their small caps,
just the cylindrical bodies.
But this year, early in the dropping season,
we found a hundred or so that had their hats.

My husband believes that
the number of acorns on the driveway
is a good predictor of how rainy it will be during
the winter months here on the coast of California.
So far, he’s been right.

I think maybe we’re in for it this year.

They’re in every crevice,
cracking underfoot as I turn circles,
round and round.
And when our cars drive over them,
they break open,
revealing the nutmeat inside.
Tonight,
a small brown bird hopped out
from his hiding place under the
oleanders,
jumping into the space I had just left.
He began busily picking at the broken pieces.
When I’d get within about 15 feet of him,
he’d hop away into the bushes again.
He did this on almost all of my 36 circles this night.

I like the crackling sound these acorns make as I walk.
That noise, these small objects – they remind me
that it is now fall,
even as the changing angle of the light
helps me remember that the seasons
are shifting.
We don’t have a lot of other clues in
central California,
just these subtleties, these small things.
To me, they are beautiful
and evocative,
reminding me of how things
stay the same,
even as they are changing.

If I have planned well,
and begun my walking early enough,
I can finish my time outdoors
by sitting in this swing,
which hangs across the yard.
It’s a beautiful spot,
sheltered under the oaks,
and the swing is strung up by sturdy chains,
wrapped around a large, twisting branch.

If I have planned well,
I try to spend between ten and twenty minutes
in this swing,
centering,
focusing quietly on one or two words
from scripture.
I breathe carefully,
purposefully,
with awareness, trying to stay
in rhythm with both the words
and with the swing.
It always feels to me like I am
held.
Secure, cradled.

Even when the words are these:
“Mercy, Lord.”
Which is what came to me tonight,
for a long list of reasons.

I choose to believe that God hears and answers.
And even when I don’t particularly like
the answers,
there is still mercy to be found.
Selah.

Filed Under: 31 Day Blogging Challenge, Beauty, Birds, family, Home, personal journey, Slowing Down, Spiritual Formation

31 Days in which I Am Saved by Beauty – Day 3

October 4, 2012 By Diana

It is dark as I begin.

I am an owl, a night owl,

so this early morning darkness

feels strange to my skin.

Yet it invites discovery.

I sense a secret,

waiting to be unwrapped.

I gently close my lodge-room door,

walk down the lighted hallway,

the one on the outside

of the building,

searching the downward pathways,

the ones that take me past the art studio,

the gallery,

the large covered pergola,

the tennis courts.

I am hunting the jogging track.

One quarter mile,

circling through the brush,

winding a bit,

decorated with deer scat,

yet carefully tended and groomed.

Like everything else in this place,

a welcoming thing.

Slowly, the morning sun

makes itself known,

and as I reach the halfway

point of round four,

I stop for a moment

on a bench, perfectly placed.

And this is what I see.
The darkness is fully rent now,
no more flash required,
that flash on my small pocket camera,
the one that bounced back
at me,
reflecting only
trunks and branches.

Now I can see through them
to the river below,
almost out of sight,
down the grade.
The river that flows easily,
gracefully,
gently.
It does so in the light,
but also,
it does so in the dark.

In the feeble, clouded light of day,

I can see the path itself,

all of it –
the edges,
the surroundings,
the general direction of things.
And somehow,
it feels more real,
more solid,
more purposeful.

Yet nothing has changed.
The river,
the path,
the trees –
all of them are there
in the light and in the dark.

But sometimes it takes being in the dark
to fully appreciate the light.
Sometimes what seems hidden
in the dark
is not really hidden at all,
only veiled beauty, waiting
to shimmer in the light of day.

And sometimes we have to walk
the path when we’re not sure
where it is,
much less where it’s going.

Filed Under: 31 Day Blogging Challenge, Beauty, Blogging, Laity Lodge, personal journey, Spiritual Formation, Writing Retreats

Psssst. . . A Sneak Peek at Something Grand!

September 17, 2012 By Diana

Have you ever had a dream?

A crazy, wild, hold-your-breath,

jump-off-a-cliff,

and-hope-and-pray-for-the-best

kind of dream?

One that you’re pretty sure came from God,

but sorta scares you to death?

My friend Deidra Riggs had exactly that

kind of dream . . .

and she is doing something about it.

Beginning October 1st,

Early-Bird registration will open

for a wonderfully-wild-and-wooly retreat designed

to encourage women of faith in the blogging world.

It will be held April 19-21, 2013 just outside of Omaha, Nebraska

This picture header from the new retreat website

doesn’t really fit on my blog page,

but I think it will give you an idea of some of the folks

who are going to be there.

And they’re going to be there in order

to encourage all who come to dream big dreams.

If you’d like to take a peek at the website (currently under construction), just click on this sentence and head on over to look around!

As the website nears completion, here are some important details to keep in mind as you think and pray about attending. Details like – dates, cost, and a peek at the retreat center. Clicking on that sentence up there will let you read about the speakers/leaders and the Big Dream ideas that will be the thematic thread of our time together. I am excited! And I’m honored to be there as a Pastor-in-Residence. Any opportunity to become Real Life Community is a gift. And this one is a doozy.

Early bird registration will begin October 1 and run through October 6.
The retreat will take place April 19-21, 2013.
Early bird tickets will be $249 and will include a retreat pass, two nights lodging, and five meals.
Regular price tickets (purchased after October 6) will be $299.
A day pass will also be available for those who may live nearby and choose not to stay at the retreat center. The cost for a day pass is $99 (early bird) and $139 (regular price) and will include lunch and dinner on Saturday.
Ashland, NE is a 30-minute drive from the Omaha airport. We will provide a shuttle from the airport to the retreat center.
The retreat will be held at the Carol Joy Holling Conference and Retreat Center. Here’s a link: http://www.cjhcenter.org/the-sjogren-center
Optional “Be Brave” activities will include the ropes course and zip line, under the supervision and direction of Retreat Center staff members. Participants can add this activity as one of their breakout sessions for an additional $10.
The event is designed to be casual, cozy, and small — we’re planning for about 60 overnight participants, with a possibility of up to 100 total (including those who choose a day pass)

Filed Under: Blogging, God's gifts, personal journey, Spiritual Formation, Writing, Writing Retreats

Backsliding – The TSP Book Club

June 14, 2012 By Diana

It has been a very strange week.

Last week felt so full,

so productive,

so rewarding on lots of different levels.

And I began to see some connections between

those feelings and the work that we are doing

over at TweetSpeak Poetry as we plow our way through

“The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity,”

by Julia Cameron.

I began to think that the Rebellious Resistor

had left the building.

No such luck.

Apparently, it doesn’t take much to discourage me.

Sigh.

I did manage to catch up with the reading,

skimming through the two chapters for this week.

But.

It was the end of last week’s assignment,

the chapter on, “Recovering a Sense of Possibility,”

that cut hard this time –

and in many ways, I do believe,

inhibited my ability (willingness?) to move forward

through the muck with alacrity.

She said that working through the dang pages,

(otherwise known as The Morning Pages)

should lead us ‘to treat ourselves more gently.’

She said that we are ‘learning to give up idolatry.’

She said that, “many of us have made a virtue

out of deprivation.”

And the thread she drew through those three phrases

followed the needle right into my psyche.

“The Virtue Trap,” she labeled it.

And I wrote an all-caps, bright blue,”OUCH,” next to that one.

Because I know all about making nice.

I know all about martyrdom.

I know all about this one right here:

“Afraid to appear selfish, we lose our self.”

And I have done a whole lot of inner work around these issues.

I’ve studied the Enneagram and realized that I am a #2 – The Helper.

I once said through tears that I never would have answered

God’s call on my life to be a pastor if my husband hadn’t made enough money so that my schooling would not be a sacrifice for anyone in my family.

I know this crap.

Yet, I resist the dang pages.

(So I won’t be more gentle with myself?)

I still have to fight the urge to put my closest human relationships before my relationship with God.

(So I won’t have to learn more about trusting the only True God?)

I fall too easily into the trap of the false self, the one that

‘is always patient, always willing to defer its needs

to meet the needs or demands of another.’

(So I won’t have to risk being who I truly am?)

I’m not sure I know the answers to these queries.

I’m not even sure I like the queries, to tell you the truth.

Finding my way to truth with a capital “T” is an ongoing process,

one that requires me to be ruthlessly honest with myself,

to be ruthlessly honest with God,

to be willing to say,

“I need some time alone – maybe a lot of it,”

even if it makes the people I love unhappy –

well…

this is no small thing.

No. It is not.

At this end of a very ‘dry’ week creatively,

I am wrestling with what’s going on inside me.

I am wondering how to cut through the noise and hear the Voice.

I am feeling the need to cultivate a sense of possibility.

Joining this strange set of musings with TSP and Lyla and the gang who are reading along. I think tomorrow is the last family graduation for a while (Gracie passed kindergarden!) and there are no scheduled drives south for about a week,

so maybe I can carve out the time I need to breathe, think, pray and create.

Anything is possible, right?

Do you see this ‘ts’ right here? That is all that shows itself on my blog when I paste in a copy of the TSPoetry Book Club button. Here in the draft version, I can see the full HTML tag. On the blog itself? Only the ‘ts.’ Weird, right?

Filed Under: Book Club, personal journey, Spiritual Formation

Beauty in the Backyard

May 11, 2012 By Diana

All my life, I’ve been a reader – I.love.books – all kinds of books. And some of them have been formational for me, sometimes in ways I didn’t fully recognize at the time I initially read them.

Today, I’m talking about one of those books – over at Sheila Seiler Lagrand’s place.

This one I read almost 50 years ago – can you imagine?

And I just downloaded it to my Kindle and read it again.

Come on over and find out why it was such a key piece of my own story.

Sheila is a most gracious hostess and I’m sure you’ll find lots of other interesting stuff to read while you’re there. You can find her by clicking here.

Filed Under: Book Review, Guest Post, Spiritual Formation