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If you want a regular read/notification of new blog posts, it might be helpful for you to subscribe.

That way, you will receive an email with my latest and new post.

Up to you of course, however from my perspective, it would be awesome and I would be very thankful to have more email subscribers and thus, readers.

We write because we must..and a mystery and joy-filled exchange transpires from writer to reader..something hard to describe.

Thank you.

Peace to all and lasting Shalom, wholeness for you and the beautiful planet which is our home.

I pray and I dream of such a present and everlasting LOVE for and to All, ourselves, one another, the Creator, and Creation.

Your friend and sister-who humbly and gratefully attempts to give and receive…

And so, I love you.

Patty

Voting in America

Voting in America
Is an act of free will
The dignity of choice
epistemology

We are not robots
Tied to computers
But beautiful creatures
of human grace

We will go into our booths
A shroud of privacy
Emerge triumphant
Our sticker in hand

We are a theology
Of creation
Of original sin
And salvation

We are wonders in a wonderful system

The Spiral Prayer and Cone of Grace

Yesterday’s blog was about the prayer of faith. The bold prayer that has the audacity to demand a miracle.

The prayer of Jacob, the wrestler, who from the womb tackles everything.

The prayer of Moses that throws God’s mercy into God’s face and causes cities to be spared.

The prayer that causes the sun to stop shining and the rain to come. The prayer that heals lepers and liberates wanton women.

Today, I want to speak of a different prayer, although they are related. Perhaps, even integral to one another.

I call it the Spiral Prayer and it takes a different tone. Instead of a commanding bass or shrill soprano, it is more of a tenor.

It is cone-shaped and spring-like.

It energizes through its revolutions which cycle around like garland on a tree or a string of Christmas lights.

The circumference of the Spiral Prayer grows smaller and smaller with time, and maybe eventually, ends with a star–or is topped off by an angel.

I don’t know. I haven’t gotten that far.

I am about midway up the tree, and it is a large Hemlock, lovely in its mysterious, dark branches.

I get lost in the limbs, looking for bird nests. And before I know it, I am not moving at all, stuck on the back side, but enjoying the stroll. I have my binoculars and field guide. I think I know what I’m doing.

And then, I start moving again. I keep going and as I turn, the spiral winds to a new branch, a different view.

I believe the Spiral Prayer is the Cone of Grace.

It invites us to move with God where we grow more and more like God as we circle ’round.

Maybe, ‘like’ is not the right word as much as are simply ‘with’ God. Joined in the Journey for a while as we travel.

It’s hard to stay there. We tend to like the back side and are almost compelled by life, by the forests and the trees of longing and desire, of heartbreak and disease, of love and death and all that is between, to move away from God.

But just as surely as we do, make the circle, we are only a moment on the backside, before we come ’round right again. Like a Shaker hymn. We are travelers.

I can see why Mystical Theologians have been ex-communicated and even killed throughout history.

They are a threat and their prayer and practice and theology asks much of us.

It asks us for a while to not just see God, or imagine God, but to be God.

For a period of time, we are Oned. There is no ‘Other’.

This Union is Terrifying in its Consequences, but so very Beautiful.

Thankfully, we don’t stay there forever, but continue to Spiral in the ever-dynamic Cone of Grace.

Fresh Bread and New Wineskins

No one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the new wine will burst the skins and will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins.

   —Luke 5.37-38

I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.

   —John 6.35

I’ve seen it rainin’ fire in the sky.

   —John Denver, Rocky Mountain High

Is there anything better than the smell of fresh bread baking in the oven? Perhaps what comes after is the closest rival; when the first slice is cut, spread with butter and jam, and is still warm. Mmm.

I am not a great baker but on occasion will feel the inspiration to pull out the giant stainless steel bowl used for mixing, the whole wheat flour in the canister, and my Tassajara Bread Book. The book is old, the cover torn and brown with oil stains and years, but in it is the best recipe I know for whole wheat bread with wheat berries.

The book was a gift when I lived in Colorado in 1973. It was published in Shambala, wherever that is, and in Berkeley, as in California, in 1970. It has tan pages, even before they were old, and brown print, and is filled with simple drawings on mixing up the sponge, arrows pointing above a bowl to illustrate how one ducks the spoon under the surface “pulling the batter up in a circular motion” which makes the dough stretchier and incorporates air. Feminine hands demonstrate how to knead.

The book came from a natural foods store in Estes Park, the first natural foods store I had ever seen. It was run by thin men with dark beards and braless women with long skirts.

Estes Park in 1973 was a mecca for young people who wanted to live on the land, return to Mother Earth in a way that was fresh and beautiful. They migrated from places like Chicago and Arizona and San Francisco, many inspired by John Denver’s song Rocky Mountain High.  There were Polish Catholics and gifted artisans who wove thick natural fiber on looms. There were musicians and young people from working class families who grew up fast. One friend from Kansas City drove a pickup so old, it could have been on the set for Lassie. He affectionately referred to it as his humble truck.

In sum, the brief summer I spent working there was an eye-opening experience for me–an eighteen year old surburban girl who was rather upper-middle class and waspy from a provincial town in Georgia.

There, I climbed the highest mountain I have ever climbed and the highest one in the Rocky Mountain National Park, Longs Peak, with an elevation of 14,259 feet. I remember each inch. And I remember the joy at reaching the summit, and my desire not to linger. The air was very thin.

It is so easy now to mock that time with its idealistic innocence, an innocence which sought something fresh and new, yet old at the same time–the desire to be close to nature. John Denver’s lyrics captured the desire for many:

Now he walks in quiet solitude the forest and the streams
Seeking grace in every step he takes
His sight has turned inside himself to try and understand
The serenity of a clear blue mountain lake

And the Colorado rocky mountain high
I’ve seen it rainin’ fire in the sky
You can talk to God and listen to the casual reply
Rocky mountain high

Since that time, I’ve seen it rainin’ fire in many places and known it in my heart. The intense and pure space where one can talk to God. I have walked in quiet solitude, seeking grace in every step I took.

I’ve learned to bake bread and I’ve drunk new wine and I know how they both taste, the warmth and goodness of something fresh, the bittersweet love of something new, and at the same time, very, very old. Something earthy and organic, red like blood and soft like grace.

Jesus had so much to say about grace, and so much to do. He broke bread on hillsides and in upper rooms. He lifted cups for blessings. His own blood, dark-red like Cabernet, spilled to the earth.

When we taste the bread of the eucharist on our tongue, when we drink from the cup, we participate in the life of Christ and his death.

We die to the old and become new. We are made fresh over and over like bread. There can be nothing stale or stagnant about our life in Christ and the sacrament makes sure of this. It is Presence and it is Mystery and it beckons us like Mecca where pilgrims come, diverse and seeking, to get close to nature and to learn to bake bread.

Our faith is an ever-changing sacrament, old like a forest but new like the evergreens-trees whose rings and apex continue to move outward and upward towards the sun. Branches fill the canopy, needles softly fall and cushion its floor.

I like my old bread book whose pages are stained. I may pull it out soon to bake bread in my new home. And when I do, I will remember a time in my life filled with sweet aroma and the Mystery of Presence, ancient like the Rocky Mountains but which continues to beckon all of us through hand-made drawings to a life that is fresh and new.