Diana

31 Days of Paying Attention — Day Fourteen

October 14, 2016 By Diana

This was the view from that place of shadow and light I wrote about yesterday! A.Ma.Zing, right? The entire San Gabriel Valley was laid out below me, from the San Gabriel mountains all the way out to the foothills near Whittier and Covina. Stunning — there is no other word for it.

But. This view is not available to me while I’m walking the streets of Pasadena, where my husband and I spent 26 years of our lives. Nor is it available to my daughter and her family who live in Monrovia, just down the road a piece from my location that day. It’s there. It’s always there. But . . . unless you step out of your daily life for a bit and climb upwards, you truly have no clue.

Which is exactly why I am a big believer in retreats, especially retreats that take you somewhere with a unique vantage point . . . a view. What is about an expansive view that opens our souls?

Lots of things, I think.

We’re reminded of our own smallness, which is always a good thing. In the day to day, we can easily become overwhelmed with the myriad details and commitments of our lives. Taking intentional time away for a few hours can bring relief from that narrow focus.

A wide angle view also causes us to breathe more deeply — both physically and emotionally. Climb a bit of a hill and then turn around and look at what’s beneath you. I guarantee you will gasp, just a little bit. The wonder of it all forces your body to breathe differently for a second — and that is a very good thing. Learning to breathe with intentionality is a great prayer practice and often goes hand in hand with paying attention. If you live in a two-story house, just climbing the stairs and gazing out a window can sometimes do this very thing.

So . . . take a break. For 30 minutes or for a week! Lift yourself out of the dailyness for a small moment in time and see what you can see while you’re there.

You might be astonished.

Filed Under: 31 Day Blogging Challenge, Beauty, Creation, Delight!, Encouragement, Gratitude, Paying Attention

31 Days of Paying Attention — Day Thirteen

October 13, 2016 By Diana

This was the veranda just down the hall from my room at Mater Dolorosa. During the night before this picture was taken, we were pleasantly surprised by a small rainstorm, something we have been sorely lacking for over five years now. When the sun came out that morning, it was glorious! Look at the shadow pattern created by the lattice work at the top of the porch. Remarkable.

I happen to love shadows. I’m not a big fan of a completely sunless day, unless it happens to be raining. So after the murkiness of the previous afternoon, I was delighted to see blue sky, fluffy white clouds, and clearly marked shadows everywhere I looked.

There is something powerful about contrasts, I think. They help us see things more clearly, bring added color to our view, even help show us where to go — and where not to go. Sometimes they can be disorienting, and some shadows are darker than I might wish! But overall, I am a fan. As is true for any metaphor, this one can be stretched beyond believability. No one goes through life looking for the darker places. But . . . they show up anyhow, don’t they. So why not pray for eyes to see what those ‘shadows’ might have for us to learn? Sometimes that learning won’t happen while we’re in the shadow’s shade, but only after we’ve stepped out of it and can look at the mark it leaves behind us. And some ‘lessons’ won’t be found this side of heaven, either.

But I wonder today — might it help us to hang onto the beauty of shade and light in pictures like the one above? If we could somehow imprint that loveliness on our mind’s eye, maybe it could help to steer us through some of the more shadowy events in our lives, offering hope that shadows always give way to light at some point. What do you think?

Filed Under: 31 Day Blogging Challenge, Beauty, Blessings, Creation, Encouragement, God's gifts, Paying Attention

31 Days of Paying Attention — Day Twelve

October 12, 2016 By Diana

Even though it came in the midst of a month of retreats and over-commitment, I signed up for a poetry workshop a few weeks ago. You need to understand that I am a lover of poetry, but not a writer of it. In point of fact, I find it terrifying and more than a little bit intimidating. But this small workshop was offered at our beautiful Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History and was led by a favorite person, Dr. Paul Willis, Professor of Literature at Westmont College. So I gulped, and sent in my registration. We met in the beautiful library and quickly learned that we were going to spend 90 minutes together. During that time, we would hear a variety of poems, talk a bit about what we heard and then spend time practicing poetic thinking as we wandered the beautiful natural setting surrounding the museum.

Paul introduced us to a wonderful and practical way to pay attention. We were divided into groups of 4-5 people and told to wander the grounds for about 20 minutes, led by one member of our group at a time — in complete silence — to some slice of creation selected by that person for us to observe for a few minutes. Then, we were to write out a metaphor in poetic form about what we were seeing. That much ‘poetry’ I was willing to try!

Of course, I grabbed my camera for our silent walk. There were four people in my group and throughout this month, I’ll be interspersing both the picture and the words that came to me on that Saturday afternoon, with a bit of commentary, just for fun. Our first ‘leader’ was a young man, a recent graduate of Westmont, who fairly quickly took our quartet over to this bushy shrub. Not a lot to look at, you might think. But we each came up with something. It was such fun to read them all — just within our group of four — at the end of the workshop. Here’s mine . . .

a 4-sided star
brightens the
dark-hued stem,
waiting its turn
to darken
and fall

It’s hard to see from this photo that the leaves were in quartets on this shrub. I noticed that almost all my metaphors circled around a common refrain of transition/change/aging. Hmmm. . . wonder why that might be?

I thoroughly enjoyed this exercise and heartily recommend it as a practical way to practice paying attention. Give it a try and let me know how you like it!

Filed Under: 31 Day Blogging Challenge, Beauty, Blessings, Creation, Encouragement, God's gifts, hope, Paying Attention, Poetry

31 Days of Paying Attention — Day Eleven

October 11, 2016 By Diana

That Catholic retreat center I visited in southern California had several lovely sets of stairs hidden here and there. This one led up to a central fountain area, with benches and small grassy areas. I am drawn to tiles of all kinds, and find the repeating — though slightly different — pattern on these steps restful and lovely to look at. Yellow, blue, white, terra cotta offer a soft palette to the eye. Repeated geometric patterns are also soothing, lovely without being intrusive in any way.

I focussed my camera on the steps alone this year, trying to pay more attention than usual to the craftsmanship, the subtle gradations in color, evidences of wear and tear. Our small group of spiritual directors was last in this place about 18 months ago, and on that trip I took these pictures. Hunting for them as I began to lay out this month’s posts, I remembered more clearly the setting for the stairs I focussed on this year. Can you see how lovely it all looks?

As we reflected a few days ago, sometimes you need to change your perspective, your point of view, in order to see something new. So I offer these earlier photos as a way to underscore that powerful truth. The steps alone are intriguing, colorful, beautifully crafted. But seen in their larger setting? They become spectacular, beckoning the visitor to climb, climb, climb.

And if you choose to climb, this restful spot awaits. A curving bench, under the hanging branches of bright green tree.

And the refreshing music of water gently dropping into a pond.

Paying attention can lead us in so much beauty!

Filed Under: 31 Day Blogging Challenge, Beauty, Blessings, Creativity, God's gifts, Paying Attention

31 Days of Paying Attention — Day Ten

October 10, 2016 By Diana

Yes!! Love IS ingenious! When we are living out of a place of love, creativity soars, diversity is welcome, old truths take on fresh new meanings. I love this small line of text, maybe because it is surprising. “Ingenious” is not an adjective often applied to the noun “love,” but somehow it is perfect, don’t you think?

Jesus was a person of surprises. Teaching the upside-down nature of the kingdom of God, touching lepers, welcoming children — even telling us to be like children if we truly wish to know God. He told stories, he did not pontificate. He was not afraid of truth-telling, but as Eugene Peterson so beautifully used Emily Dickenson’s gorgeous line, “Tell the truth, but tell it slant. . . ,” Jesus always told that truth sideways, upending expectations and astonishing listeners.

Do we astonish others regularly? Do we do so out of that centered place of living loved and living love? I do believe this is the only way forward out of any morass in which we might find ourselves.

Love-centered ingenuity! I love it!

And this surprising oasis-like fountain surround by palm trees at the base of the San Gabriel mountains is a picture of what it can look like. A beauty spot, right there atop a middle-class suburb, inviting one and all to stop a while, to pay attention, to savor the ingenious love of the creator, given expression by the willing hands and hearts of human artisans.

Filed Under: 31 Day Blogging Challenge, Beauty, Blessings, Creation, Encouragement, God's gifts, Grace, Paying Attention

31 Days of Paying Attention — Day Nine

October 9, 2016 By Diana

Do you see that lovely arch out there? It is the source of the name of the state park in which it is located – Natural Bridges. We drove out there from our retreat center fairly early in the morning of our first full day. Discovering that it would cost us ten bucks to drive onto the campground, we opted to go in the opposite direction, toward the parking lot right at the edge of the cliff that overlooks this rock. From that viewpoint, this is what we saw:

Do you see any sign of that lovely arch from this angle?

Nada. Zilch. Nope.

Your point of view, your perspective, your position makes a huge difference in what you can actually see. I’ve had days, I’ve had seasons, I’ve had YEARS when parts of my life looked like a solid, dark wall. And then, a simple shift in my viewpoint, a slight difference in my perspective, a new angle of vision made all the difference in the world.

At no point in time can we see every possibility that exists in a given situation. WE don’t have the power, the ability, the intelligence, the vantage point to make such a thing possible. But . . . there is Someone who does. There is Someone who can. Sometimes the most important thing we can do is to wait. To trust that with the passage of time and the accumulation of more experience, the gathering of more facts, the readiness to engage in more of those ongoing conversations in life, we will begin to see an old, impossibly bleak problem with freshness and new insight. Maybe that blank wall has a lovely big hole in it! Maybe we can sail our small craft of a life right on through it and come out the other side with a deeper appreciation for the beauty of a brand new view.

Filed Under: 31 Day Blogging Challenge, Beauty, Creation, Encouragement, Fighting Scarcity, God's gifts, Grace, Gratitude, Hard Things, Living the Questions, Mystery, New Things!, Paying Attention

31 Days of Paying Attention — Day Eight

October 8, 2016 By Diana

Yes, this is the very photo from which the button for this series was created. At that same University arboretum where we discovered the buckeye butterfly posted yesterday, we also enjoyed wandering through a long and winding World Gardens pathway. And our eyes were drawn immediately to a wide variety of these strange and wonderful flowering shrubs called protea.

Protea are native to South Africa but are showing up more and more in southern California landscapes. The conditions between the two climates are remarkably similar. How do I know that? Because many years ago, my husband and I spent a tiny bit of time in South Africa on our way up to our home-for-two-years-as-newlyweds in Choma, Zambia. Surprisingly, these plants also seem to thrive on the sloping hills of Haleakala on the island of Maui in the Hawaiian archipelago, a much more tropical and humid environment. They are hardy, unusual and quite beautiful, in their own unique way. The one above was the first fully open bloom on a huge bush full of buds. The bush was at least two feet taller than I was, so the display must be spectacular right about now.

This smaller, lower to the ground variety is similar to ones sold in grocery store flower markets and is commonly called a pincushion protea. Can you see why?

And this one, I’ve never seen before. It looks for all the world like a particularly capacious ear of corn, doesn’t it? This bush was also quite large — more like a small tree — and was covered in these interesting, bright yellow blooms.

Paying attention to protea helps me to remember that God delights in variety. It also reminds me that what might at first seem strange and peculiar to my untrained eye might be a source of refreshment and appreciation to someone who has grown up with these prolific flowering shrubs. Sometimes, it’s what you’re used to, isn’t it? And it’s really, really good for me to see things I am not used to. To try out new ideas, meet new people, consider a perspective different than my own. What about you?

Filed Under: 31 Day Blogging Challenge, Beauty, Blessings, Creation, Encouragement, God's gifts, Paying Attention

31 Days of Paying Attention — Day Seven

October 7, 2016 By Diana

During the only unscheduled time available to us while on that retired pastors’ retreat, we took a side trip to the Arboretum at the University of California Santa Cruz — a beautiful spot to practice paying attention. There was a tiny butterfly garden in one corner and this guy was flitting from flower to flower, sipping the nectar and showing off his magnificent coloring. This one is called a buckeye and is very common along the California coast. Strangely, however, I don’t think we’ve ever seen one in Santa Barbara during our 20 year sojourn in this place.

Look at the color on this dude. The basics are plain to the point of drabness — just plain ole brown. But then . . . there are those large orange eyes, the white lines and circles, and not clearly seen in this photo, a shimmering violet color with a hot pink edge in the center of the spots on the lower wings. (check it out here).

This lovely small thing was unperturbed by our presence that warm, late summer afternoon, allowing me to take his picture pretty easily. And it is the picture I took that allows me to pay attention to him, to wonder about his evolution, to thank God for creating such beauty for our enjoyment, and to say a mental ‘thank you’ to the butterfly itself for its contributions to the pollination of plants up on that sea coast hillside.

A scientist named Lorenz came up with the formula for what he called, ‘the butterfly effect,’ a long-held but previously unproven belief that tiny movements can have huge outcomes. Here’s the more complicated wording for this idea:

In chaos theory, the butterfly effect is the sensitive dependence on initial conditions in which a small change in one state of a deterministic nonlinear system can result in large differences in a later state.

Somehow, the whole idea of ‘chaos theory’ just reeks of God to me. To our eyes, so much of what happens in this world appears to be chaotic, doesn’t it? And yet when you add the word ‘theory’ to the word ‘chaos,’ somehow it takes on layers of meaning hidden beneath the turmoil that appears on the surface of things. I cannot know what ripples in the biosphere might be unleashed by this guy’s flapping wings.

But God can. God does. Thank you, Lord, that the limits of my understanding do not in any way reflect the reality of life. Thank you that you are the Steadying Force in the midst of what looks like a whole lotta unsteadiness in this wacky world of ours. Help me to remember that truth — send butterflies my way when I get lost in hopelessness and worry.

Filed Under: 31 Day Blogging Challenge, Beauty, Creation, Encouragement, God's gifts, Gratitude, Paying Attention

31 Days of Paying Attention — Day Six

October 6, 2016 By Diana

The week before my husband and I attended that retreat for retired pastors/spouses, I was given the gift of two days away at a Catholic retreat center in Sierra Madre, California. It is one of my favorite places to go to be quieter than usual, to think more deeply than usual, to absorb some of the beauties offered by our Catholic sisters and brothers, beauties which always encourage me to pay attention to my life.

This retreat house is owned and operated by the Passionist Order, which was founded by St. Paul of the Cross. This is how they describe themselves on their American website:

The Passionists are a global order of Roman Catholic priests, brothers, nuns, sisters and laity who proclaim God’s love for the world revealed through the Passion of Jesus Christ. Founded in 1741, today we continue to carry a message of compassion and hope to 59 countries throughout the world.

It is a place of great beauty — I wrote a photo essay about one of the gardens on their grounds here. Another spot on those grounds had four lovely granite pillars engraved with the names of a long list of donors. Interspersed throughout that list were some thought-provoking quotes from their founder and I took pictures of several of those. I’ll be interspersing them throughout this series, challenging myself to think about them more deeply — paying attention to the words and the thoughts behind them. Here is the first one:

Do you believe this? Do I? Oh, I hope so! Because I think it is one of the most deeply true sentences ever written. Love is the best teacher in the world. It is at the heart of creation, at the center of the gospel, and is the distillation of everything Jesus came to do, to teach and to be. According to him, LOVE is the greatest of the commandments — love of God, love of neighbor and love of self.

Why then, do so many of us who call ourselves Christ-followers engage in so many un-lovely, un-loving actions, words and thoughts? Perhaps because of what I wrote in the paragraph just above this one — because it is at the center of who we are called to be. Staying centered in love requires vigilance, humility, honesty, patience and openness. And our enemy knows exactly how to derail us as we seek to follow after Jesus. Bigotry, cruelty, and all the isms you might care to list are tools in that Enemy’s kit and WOW, do we let him have a field day in our deepest selves.

My prayer today, and every day, is for more love. I pray for an interruptor — an inner Voice to call me back, again and again, to who I am called to be, who I am designed to be: one who lives loved first, and then one who lives love.

That’s where it has to start, with living loved. If I forget — even for an instant — that God loves me, cherishes me, delights in me — then I am vulnerable to the crippling self-doubt and self-hatred that fuels so much of the vitriol that is flooding our world. When I do not stand tall in the truth of my own belovedness, then I am unable to live love out in the dailyness of my life.

More love, Lord. More trust in the truth of who I am. More ability to live in the center of that truth in ways that reflect my Jesus.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

31 Days of Paying Attention — Day Five

October 5, 2016 By Diana

There was an elderly redwood tree right outside our bedroom door. The top of it looked a bit forlorn, like it had survived a lot of rough weather. That tree had been around a while. But on my way back to our room after the allotted twenty minutes for mindfulness, I took another look at that old tree and found all kinds of new life springing out of its lowest point. The old codger was not givin’ up the ghost anytime soon with all that burgeoning newness!

Those of you who have subscribed to my newsletter know that I’ve been struggling a bit this year with the realities of aging, occasionally feeling a bit superfluous, even invisible in the youth-oriented culture around us. God has been poking me about all of that, reminding me that age is as much a mental game as it is a physical one. Yes, I must move a bit more carefully. Yes, I tire a little bit more easily. Yes to all of those signs of time passing. But the key is to remember that time is not passing me by. If I so choose, my life can continue to be about newness until the day I leave this planet. As I watch my mom walk further and further into the vagueness of dementia, even there, I can see beauty, signs of newness. Even there.

So I will continue to smile, to pray regularly for kindness and patience to rise to the top in my conversations, particularly with the ones inside my own home, to nurture an open spirit and reject the closing of my mind to new ideas, new people, new directions.

I love this close-up shot of all that newness around the bottom of that old tree! 90% is green and flourishing. The other 10% is evidence of old things fading away and dropping to the ground. That’s how I want to live — fresh, green, willingly jettisoning old ideas and attitudes. May it be so.

Filed Under: 31 Day Blogging Challenge, Beauty, Creation, Encouragement, God's gifts, Paying Attention