Why are you so angry and afraid?

Accidents can happen...and they can be weird...and beautiful...catastrophic...and mythic. Three fates? Variation of Rublev's Trinity? Magic and mystery, sorcery and holiness, comedy and wisdom are all founded, sourced in the number three (as are past, present, future; beginning, middle, end). Fly Geyser in Nevada is the result of an accident---folks were digging a well in 1916. and this happened.

I had set today aside to go exploring...i simply need to hear myself think and, more importantly, feel. i have some questions (tools needed for digging) that don't have answers, perhaps, but that might provide lamp light to this current emotional path i have wandered onto. i hope to bring myself back into the balance of this listening to myself more intentionally, listening for and to the Voice i love.

so far this morning i chose to catch up on a few insights from Nadia Bolz-Weber. "Unable to pretend we are not in need," from October 1, was a providential place to start. Then "The Little Apocalypse: Superhero Showdown of Crumpled Time" carried even more of the ideas and questions buzzing my core (also a nod of recollection to T.S.Eliot---all time is eternally present; what has been and what will be are both perhaps contained in time present and time present contained in time past. that's from memory, don't hold me to word-for-word quotation, it's from Burnt Norton of the Four Quartets. looks like i'll have to dig that out, too).

took a break to eat some oatmeal and warm my cockles and everything else; i usually watch something specific on tv while i eat. yesterday i embarked on watching all of the eps of Doctor Who from the 12th Doctor (Capaldi)---another significant number in my realm of symbology. SO * MUCH * FUN to live in the open space of synchronicity. Anyway, i just happened to be up to the third, i believe, episode called, "Listen." Their adventure into the heart of listening to fear of the dark...it is a magnificent episode ("free" on Amazon Prime) and has opened a lovely TARDIS door into my own inner-exploration.

the episode is steeped in so many different ideas that resonate for me---particularly the dreaming. and i am reminded that listening to my own dreams will be as much an imperative part of this trek as anything else. i dream wild and crazy and significant stuff with story and images every single night. i have gone through phases of tracking those dreams and images; once again it is time to seriously take it on.

then when i opened the computer to get to the page upon which to begin writing today, the image of this Fly Geyser was the (i don't know the proper word for it) screen with the password window that has random images. this was the first time this image came up. i don't think it was this very image, but the image i did see clearly (and with romance in the composition of the shot) showed the three protrusions and i was immediately delighted by the sense of the Trinity Icon by Rublev as well as the mythology of the fates and so many stories involving three persons. and when i read just a smidgeon, it was too funny---digging a well, accidentally tapping into thermodynamic watchiedoo and creating this phenomenon in 1916 that still blows water today. Strikes me as a fair companion image.

i love synchronicity. magic and mystery of things that come together as you listen to the inside and outside of being. i always like to get started on a journey early so this was quite a prolific morning. it remains to be seen how faithful i will be to return to the well-spring hidden in my soul and imagination in the coming days.

it sounds schmaltzy to pose the question that i've typed and erased three times (yeah, i know--"three" again, but it's true) because asking this question in this platform sounds stupid ... the truth is i would go to each of you, my friends, and ask you face to face and facebook or this blog for all its cool advantages and possibilities doesn't really let that happen unless you "tag" someone so that's why a sincere and personal question on this platform can come off sounding kinda hokey. but i really do wish you'd also write and share what you're looking for in 2018. i'm listening.

may 2018 bring you many blessings and delightful surprises (even those that are cloaked in sorrow, loss or pain i hope will bring those unexpected joys)....

Getting it! ... and not

083114 lectio on Matthew 16

The only time they/Peter got it right was when he channeled God.  When that Narrow Way struck and the openness to hearing God connected with speaking to God...  It was all God.  Alpha and Omega.  “You are the Son of God.  The Messiah.  The One we are all awaiting.”  Jesus marveled at such insight, such openness.  “You know this because GodSelf has revealed it to and through you!  How cool is that!”  I know that feeling.  Among students who seem to be half listening, getting it wrong, like stones they sit and stare toward me, sometimes nodding, sometimes smiling at my jokes which are attempts to check their pulse, their attention.  Then I ask a question.  One skinny arm will go up and I’ll acknowledge and then they nail it.  Deeply get it.  It is thrilling!  The reason I teach!  The reason I put up with all the idiotic bureaucratic public school bullshit—it’s for that one student who breaks the sound barrier in his head and gets it.  “YOU GOT IT!”  Sheer joy!  “Keep that up and you’ll ace this class!”  Jesus’ equivalent but of course far more profound is the “keys” to the kingdom—the answers, the secrets, the inside joke is yours, dude.  Favorite student, right there.  It is intoxicating.

But then ten minutes later, it seems, the same kid says something that completely puts everything into question.  “Excuse me?  What did you just say?  Seriously?”  My teacher brows furrow and I shake my head—more upset with how excited and fooled I was when he seemed to have all the answers before and am slapped silly with the reality that he’s just a stupid kid.

Face to face with the mirror.  I’m just as stupid.  It takes a minute to regroup and keep teaching...keep pressing them forward to learning....

We’re all like that—the poor little student who’s just trying to figure it all out.  Nadia Bolz-Weber said it well that she never really dreamed she could be called to be a preacher and yet she can so clearly hear God miraculously speak through her.  Someone will ask her a question and she responds, then is wholly shocked at what amazing things come out of her mouth that seem to be precisely what’s needed to be said at that moment.  On the other hand, she is also fully and keenly aware, and warns her parishioners and visitors, that it is inevitable they will be at some point disappointed and even hurt or offended.  It is the way of things.

It is the way of things.

But the ways of God are not our ways.

The angst is living in the tension of our reality in the hope of Reality.  One minute we get it, we see a glimpse of God, feel the breath of the Holy Spirit stir us to understanding and a peace that transcends and we have loosed on earth what is loosed in heaven!  Then the next minute we feel the sting of the Divine slap to snap us out of our own audacity, that insidious hubris that seems to be the muck and mud of our humanity—“Get behind me, Satan.”  Whaaaat?  I was just saying I want to spare you the pain and humiliation.  I just meant I got your back.  I just...  SHUT UP already.  Listen.

Insight is great.  Acting on that insight seems to be the next step.  And again with contradictions, the twisting of the plot, the shift in the conflict.  What does Jesus mean with “pick up your cross”?  What is the “cross” in this metaphor?  The great divide between what is worth dying for and what is worth living for (isn’t that the same thing?)  The fate of anyone who stands up against the abusive status quo—?  Is it simply a mandate to take responsibility for yourself and your choices?  To accept with maturity the way of things—living in the Real means possibly choosing a narrow path that will be rejected, ridiculed, misunderstood?

I should probably shut up and listen.  I am now trying to speak of things and ways beyond me.