"DWTS - Discerning With The Stars"

If any of you have been watching Dancing With The Stars, you would see that Donald Driver (Green Bay Packers all-time leading receiver) is one of the dance contestants.  I seem to be caught up in this season’s program because of the diverse talent.  I never realized that dancing takes so much physical stamina, agility, and skill.  I googled "skills of dance" and here are some of my findings for abilities that are needed: balance, sense of beat, flexibility, interest in doing it, ability to communicate through movement, stage presence, trust, strength, mental skills, good memorization ability, and belief in yourself.

In the post Resurrection reading of Acts 3:1-10, we meet Peter and John on their way up to pray at the Temple.  Along the path, they meet a crippled man who has sat daily by the “Beautiful Gate” and begged for alms.  Acknowledging the man, Peter says that they have no money “but what I do have, I give you.  In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, walk!”  What follows is a movement right out of DWTS!  Peter takes the man by the hand, pulls him up, and his feet and ankles become firm.  He jumps to his feet and walks into the Temple with them, “walking back and forth, dancing and praising God.”  Wow! Such Resurrection energy, presence, and spirit!  Peter and John no longer bend to look into an empty tomb, but live with a “stage presence” that shouts, "God is ALIVE!"

When I ponder the process of discernment, I can’t help relating this to the skills of dancing.  Discernment is a personal but never private dance.  It calls for a willingness to be open to many dance partners, such as the Spirit, intuition, friends, mentors, vocation discerners, and spiritual directors.  Discerning calls for trust, timing, flexibility in searching, ability to communicate your needs and interests, exploring your strengths, talents and purpose, the ability to try to keep balanced with all the uncertainty of the journey, learning to be responsive to the process while creating your path as you walk it.  Also, having heart-strength and mental strength through self-reflection, self-awareness, and daily prayer.  And most of all – belief in yourself and God’s grace!

I have to admit, that through my years in religious life, I have met many STARS! Women and men who have made a difference in my life and the lives of others.  In CSA, there have been women who have established hospitals, clinics, alternative health care centers, colleges, homeless shelters - especially for at-risk women and children, hospice centers, and schools. There are many other diverse services that CSA has initiated, such as, being law aides to immigrants, theologians, musicians, parish leaders, and retreat directors, and ministers to the elderly and shut-ins, as well as artists, massage therapists, and spiritual guides.  You can find out more about the CSA’s "dance of ministry" on our website at www.csasisters.org and click on Ministries.  It has been a delight to dance with these STARS through my own partnering with CSA all these years!!

“God does call us to ‘be ourselves’ and ‘do what we are.’  But we are only truly ‘ourselves’ and can only truly ‘do what we are’ when we follow God’s call.  Giftedness that is ‘ours for others’ is therefore not selfishness but service that is perfect freedom.’” (Rising to the Call by Os Guinness)

Easter Sunday!

Let us shout our ALLELUIA ~ JOY ~ HAPPINESS ~and  PEACE!  Have a blessed Easter season!

Thank you for visiting CSA Streams 'N Stirrings! 

Holy Saturday

I wrote this reflection twenty years ago while I was attending a Holy Week retreat.  I wanted to imagine what it may have been like in this “amniotic darkness” of Mother Earth holding the body of Jesus for only a laser-like moment before the Resurrection.

The Mother-Tomb

She welcomed and embraced him within her earthen breast.  Holding him, enfolding him in her arms of caressing-clay. A struggle of new birth.  A struggle of new life. A struggle to rise beyond all time and space.

For in this mother-tomb of emptiness, she holds the Fullness of all Life; she holds the Fullness of all Love.  Nurturing him with gentle, warm love.  Whispering to him a lullaby of peace.  Blessing him with a tender-touch.  Kissing his wounds to release the pain.

For here in this womb-tomb, he will pass over from this Mother's heart to the Creator's arms.   For here in this womb-tomb, he will pass over from death to Life!  For here in this womb-tomb, he will pass over to God-Glory ~ Alleluia!

O Mother Earth, Womb of Life, embrace us in our darkness.  Hold us to your earthen breast.  Mid-wife us as we struggle with our humanness. 

Nurture us, bless us, caress us.  Place your healing kiss upon our wounds.  Teach us the lesson of passing over; teach us the lesson of letting go.  Guide us as we search with eager earth eyes for the bright brilliance of Easter Light - and to look up and see only Jesus.  Alleluia!  Alleluia!

A Friday Called Good!

Once upon a time there was a poor peasant family that had worked for years scrimping and saving to buy a piece of land of its own.  Finally the day came, and they took possession of it.  The mother and half a dozen children gathered in the two-room shack that would serve as their house, while the father walked the length and breadth of their land.  He paced it out, marking the four corners as boundaries, praying in joy and thanksgiving as he walked.  As he rounded the last corner and laid the stone in place he noticed something sticking out from under a bush.

He bent and scratched at the dirt, digging with his hands, and soon unearthed the corpus from a crucifix.  It had obviously been in the ground a long time.  Its hands and arms were gone, and its feet and legs missing. It was mangled, scratched, cracked, and paint nearly all gone.   He picked it up and carried it back in his arms to the house.  It was a good size corpus.   The crucifix it hung on must have been ten or twelve feet tall.  He came in and laid it on the kitchen table.

The family stood around it, looking at it, in an awkward silence.  The father explained that he had found it on their land.  It was the first thing he had dug out of the ground.  What should they do with it?  Should they take it to the church and give it to the priest?  Should they burn it?  Should they bury it again?  They all stood and looked at it.

Finally, the youngest spoke: “Father, I have an  idea.”
“What, my child?”
"Why don’t we hang it on the kitchen wall and put a sign underneath it.”
“What would you put on the sign?”
And the youngest told them. There was a long silence.Then the corpus was hung with care on the whitewashed wall of the kitchen and a small sheet of paper was tacked underneath.  It read: “Jesus has no arms or legs.  Will you lend him yours?”           (author unknown) 

                                                                                                                                                           

Holy Thursday

Today is a day of story-telling of God’s deep love for us. God puts on an apron and washes the feet of his friends.  A simple gesture of profound significance. Jesus desires to show his disciples how much he loves them before he takes leave for the events in the garden and beyond.  He desires this to be carried on again and again - washing the feet of those among us in need of love, healing touch, tenderness, forgiveness, acceptance, justice, and freedom.

I have witnessed in parishes where there would be chairs set up in the aisles with towels, a bowl for washing feet, a pitcher of water, and an attendant.  Then the people of the congregation would take their turns at these stations to wash one another’s feet.  I have always been deeply moved when I watched little children wash the feet of their parents or grandparents.  Or a husband and wife washing each others’ feet.  How holy is this?  “This night is about bread and wine, about bodies and blood, about feet and washing, about intimacy and unbounded, unexpected love, about a God who bends before us hoping that one day we will treat each other with the same regard and dignity that he has always lavished upon us.” (Megan McKenna, Lent)

I

“Spy Wednesday”

This Wednesday is sometimes referred to as “Spy Wednesday” in Holy Week because the Gospel selection for the day tells of the secret negotiations Judas has with the religious authorities about betraying Jesus.  Here we are in this liminal space – meaning an in-between space – a threshold, so to speak, moving us from darkness to light, from death to life, from close friendships to betrayals and back again.  Last week in the Scriptures, we heard of Jesus turning the tables over of the money changers in the Temple.  Today’s readings tell us of the night of the sharing of the Passover meal – a table of friendship that will be “turned over” with the betrayal of Judas. 

I often reflect what that may have been like for him and the others who shared so much of their lives, hopes, feelings, fears, and gifts. We, too, are often challenged with choices of darkness and light, good and evil, fear and courage, doubt and faith. In her book, Radical Gratitude, Mary Jo Leddy writes that we are “set up” for challenge in our culture. The pull of consumerism for instance, she says: “This artificially induced dissatisfaction afflicts all types and classes of people. It is manifest in the unhappiness of the rich … in the anxious strivings of the middle class, and in the bitter resentments of the poor who sit and watch the young and the restless and the bold and the beautiful drive their cars.” Also this hum can find its way into our very psyches, for it whispers to us - “I don’t have enough which becomes I am not enough which becomes I am not good enough.” Maybe this is what Judas heard within and got consumed by something that turned over his table of intimate relationship and unconditional love shared with Jesus. Let us all pray for the grace to be people of authenticity, integrity, and trust.

Thank you for visiting Streams ‘N Stirrings!

God Is Taking My Picture

A little girl walked to and from school daily.

Though the weather that morning was questionable and clouds were forming, she made her daily trek to the elementary school. 

As the afternoon progressed, the winds whipped up, along with lightning.  The mother of the little girl felt concerned that her daughter would be frightened as she walked home from school and she feared the electrical storm might harm her child. 

Full of concern, the mother quickly got into her car and drove along the route to her child's school.   As she did, she saw her little girl walking along.  At each flash of lightning, the child would stop, look up, and smile.

Another and another flash of lighting followed quickly and with each, the little girl would look at the streak of light and smile.  

When the mother's car drew up beside the child, she lowered the window and called to her, 'What are you doing?' 

The child answered,  

'I am trying to look pretty because God keeps taking my picture.”
Author Unknown

When I read this little story, I thought of the camera I recently purchased.  It has a function button that “reads” smiles. Somehow if I adjust the camera to a certain icon, it can notice the smile of the person I wish to focus on and when they smile the camera flashes!  Wow!  Is it not so in life when someone we focus on beams us a giant smile we just respond in kind and sense that we are loved, noticed, accepted, welcomed?  That’s probably why God can’t get enough of us as well!  Happy Holy Monday!

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