More Rohr, Simplicity, The Art of Letting Go

...and so technology has gone on developing, but not our wisdom. 

  Since this book is late being returned, and since I'm racking up fines, I might as well share Rohr's words. He's still speaking to me.

  At Pentecost the Spirit came down on “all,” (Acts 2:1) giving them the power to recognize and affirm life within themselves and in one another. That is the richest meaning of authority. It is the power to author life in others.

  The love of power does not have the capacity to nurture anything that it cannot explain or control.

  For far too long we've preached the Gospel only in individualistic fashion. We thought we could have a personal relationship with Jesus without calling into question the systems and institutions we participate in and to which we belong.

  Bartimaeus is the blind man who isn't blind – in contrast with the rich man, who's really poor. Between these two stories Mark presents a great warning from Jesus against the real enemies of the Reign of God. These are the three great obsessions: power, prestige, and possessions. In the Sermon on the Mount it's quite clear that these are the three great barriers we have to overcome to understand Jesus and understand the Reign of God. But in Christianity we have always been concerned with ecclesiological questions, with sacramental questions, sacerdotal questions, and, needless to say, sexual questions – questions that Jesus practically never bothered with.

  Let's all be honest and admit that our various denominations (and yes, other religions too) have picked out only certain Bible verses that backed up our theological biases.

  This time (with Bartimaeus) Jesus takes the initiative: he knows that he can really give this man something – the rich young man wasn't open to that. With this man there's an openness, a readiness, an emptiness. He is not stuffed full of prefabricated answers and theology; he's full of desire, full of longing. We have no proof that this blind man ever did anything “ right” in his life, but Jesus says: “Go your way; your faith has made you well.”

  It could be that Jesus will lead us to a place where we ourselves don't even know any more whether we're holy, where all we know is that we have to do what we have to do, where we have to obey the word we have heard in our heart. Often we don't even get the satisfaction of being in the right; and there's no security that everyone will agree with us.

  I think a large part of Jesus' teaching is a critique of “mammon” sickness. Jesus describes that disease as follows: Those afflicted by it are continually driven by unrest, cares, and anxiety, (ouch) because the present isn't enough for them. But for those grounded in Christ the present contains great abundance, even though we don't yet live in the full Reign of God. This is precisely the peace that the world can't give, and the peace the world can't take away from us. It's the only real gift we can bring into the existing system: the health (salus) of a central life.

  As for the Reign of God, why should God give us something that we don't even want? Why should God give us something that we're not ready to work and do our utmost for? Why should God give us something that we at most pray for, but don't strive for? God doesn't believe just in our prayers.

  And yet prayer moves mountains. I believe this. Prayer is the foundation upon which we get up and act as people, have the courage to live intentionally, and one of the primary ways we hear the voice of God. Further, prayer shows us the way to head because He says in Psalm 25:12, that He will show those who love Him the path to take. Of course, we have to listen for that path.

  It seems to me that a Christian is a person who has the freedom to feel the pain that's part of being human. This means a person who has the freedom to enter into solidarity with the suffering of the world, precisely because this person is sure of the Father's love.

  The final effect of mammon disease is that we've lived with a split consciousness, that we're incapable of really integrating faith with the tragic mystery of things.

  And the reality: there is a lot of tragic. If my twenties was idealism, my thirties was a perpetual wayside stopping of reality checks, and learning my limits. And now my forties, seems to be about the fortitude required, in ever more abundance, needed to get up each day and face a world that seems to be melting away.

  Why have we made faith into a kind of security blanket? We've taken what for Jesus was a journey into the unknown and turned it into a life insurance policy. I'd be glad to find a clear economic plan in the Gospel; but the only thing Jesus gave us unequivocal enlightenment about was the great danger of wealth. He said quite clearly that we're not supposed to get rich. We live differently in the poverty and ignorance of faith- which consists in our having no plan. Faith has a much higher price than I ever would have expected; the willingness to walk in darkness makes other people see you as naive.

  The no plan thing? It goes against the grain, big time. It rubs hard against the get up and live intentionally. Intentionality is the only way to ever get where we're going, but what of the compass? Rohr constantly challenges my compass. If advertising bombards us each day, and if the world becomes my compass, I find that so familiar emptiness seeping in and sapping my joy. When I'm using the wrong compass, the world's emptiness begins to gnaw at me. Dissatisfaction takes over.

  I believe circumstances change us, not sermons. We're changed when we move on to a new place and when we expose our selves to the truth of a different standpoint, one that's not our own....Religion is a very dangerous business. I always say, it's the surest way to avoid God.

  Where I go on Sunday, is surely not as important as what I live on Monday. Certainly being fed on Sunday, living in community, and what I intake is important, but who I am Monday through Saturday is more important to God.

  A Christian is someone who's animated by the spirit of Christ, a person in whom the spirit of Christ can work. That doesn't mean that you consciously know what you are doing. As it says in Mathew 25: “When have we seen you hungry? When have we seen you thirsty?” These people had no idea that they did what they did for Christ.... But Christ said: “Because you did it, you did it for me.” This is the final consequence of the Incarnation of God. The Word is no longer word; it has really become flesh. That means it never depends upon whether we say the right words, but whether we live the right reality.

  We are slowly, through Safe Families, being invited to get a taste of the Word made flesh. To see if we will stick it out. Live it. Know Him in the flesh. To throw open the door of our home in ways we have never done. We are intellectually aware of what the journey will entail, but emotionally and spiritually naive as to what the journey will require. We have lived an incredibly sheltered life, but we want more. We don't have a clue what we are doing, but we trust He does.

 ...In our time something wonderful is happening:. For the first time in its history the Church is becoming truly universal. This means the Gospel is being reread and rediscovered by altogether different eyes. In the process altogether different questions are being raised.

  For a few years we dance around on the stage of life and have the chance to reflect a little bit of God's glory. We are earth that has come to consciousness. If we discover this power in ourselves and know that we are God's creatures, that we come from God and return to God, that's enough.

  Less is really more. Only those who have nothing to prove and nothing to protect, those who have in them a broad space big enough to embrace every part of their own soul, can receive the Christ. And Christ himself will lead us on this path. 

Simplicity, The Art of Letting Go by Richard Rohr

Girls in Education, January Middle School Book Group

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world. ~ Nelson Mandela

Reading

Rickshaw Girl

I am Malala, Young Readers Version

I am Malala, Adult Version

Malala, A Brave Girl from Pakistan

 Dear Malala, We Stand With You

The Red Pencil

     Half the Sky, shares the stories of women and girls worldwide who need justice, hope, and help.  Acceptable for jr. high and high school, but I do not recommend for students younger than 14, as these are exceedingly difficult subjects. 

   Sheryl Wu Dunn, speaks at TED on the global oppression of women worldwide. Appropriate for jr. high, high school, and some mature middle school students.

 

Cooking

  Chicken Biryani

Bangladeshi Soft Coconut Cookie

 Freedom of Movement  

  Use a twin sheet and dress in a "sari" for class. How well do you manage moving around in a tight dress? 

Pondering

Ten Questions On Inclusive Education

Creating Opportunities for Women, Girls, and Families

Room to Read
Kiva

Heifer International

The pen is mightier than the sword. ~ Malala 

A Pearl in Portland, The Center for Architecture

   After weeks of working to arrange schedules for five very busy families, one Executive VP/CEO, and one amazing historian and tour guide, we got it done! Friday, our First Lego League robotics team visited The Center for Architecture in Portland. 

   Set in the heart of the Pearl District, The Center for Architecture encourages architects in their inventing, designing, and building.

   A dual purpose building, it hosts the offices of the Architectural Institute of America, AIA Portland and AIA Oregon, and The Center for Architecture. In what was once the old Mallory Stables, you now find a space bringing Oregonians pivotal new designs, inventions, and buildings for the next generation. 

    Our day began with a quick talk and presentation by Robert Hoffman, the Executive Vice President/CEO of The Center for Architecture, AIA Portland, and AIA Oregon. He was incredibly kind to arrange this tour for us, welcome us to Portland, and give the kids his time. While his presentation was short, it was almost impossible to keep the kids from rolling around in the fabulous AIA chairs. I think architects must enjoy rolling around on their ideas until they gel.

   Next, we headed out the door with Portland expert Eric Wheeler for a tour of the Pearl District. A historian, teacher, and expert on all things Portland (and many other cities), Eric generously shared his time, showed us around the Pearl, and taught us why the Pearl is so very special in terms of modern urbanization. 

   An old warehouse area, east of Burnside, the Pearl District was not an area we ever explored when I was a kid, as it was not considered safe. These days, it's a fabulous example of modern urbanization done right.

 

Looking and learning in the EcoTrust Building. 

Portland still has her Mounties, and they are loved.

 

Snack time on the loading docks. 

We did not need snacks; we had cupcakes before our walk.

 A goofy art installation in the Wieden and Kennedy Building

Does this remind anyone else of the Seattle Gum Wall?

The Gerding Theatre is located in what was once The Portland Armory.

 Of course, we had to make a stop at Powell's.

This oldie, but goodie, was also spotted in the Pearl.

Portland in the News
The new Tilikum Bridge - the first of its kind in the nation.
Portland Design Week, Portland fosters partnership in design
ADX, a Portland Maker Space 
The American Institute of Architects

When Women Were Birds by Terry Tempest Williams

Word by word, the language of women so often begins with a whisper. 

Within silence our voice dwells.

The blank pages of a Mormon mother's empty journals become the basis for Terry Tempest Williams, When Women Were Birds. Words that create, sustain, and enrich.

The degree of our aliveness, depends on the degree of our awareness.

There are two important days in a woman's life: the day she is born and the day she finds out why. 

It has never been more urgent for women to live the why we are here.

Finding one's voice is the process of finding one's passion.

The success of any teacher is to recognize what one doesn't know.

For a woman or man to speak from the truth of their heart is to break taboo.

We can no longer deny the destiny that is ours by becoming women who wait - waiting to love, waiting to speak, waiting to act. This is not patience, it is pathology.

What are the consequences when we go against our instincts?

And I realize, I'm never going to journal here. I may catalog, label, write our days, write our adventures, write of our lives, laugh here, and ponder here, but this space will never be a journal.

For far to long we have said yes when we wanted to say no. When we don't listen to our intuition, we abandon our souls. And we abandon our souls because we are afraid if we don't, others will abandon us.

Soul utterance: to speak through our vulnerability with strength.

I leave names off this space. Who am I, to utter the lives of others? They may read my words, if they wish, but it's not for another to search them out. They too, will choose what to share, and what to savor.
 
True eloquence has an edge, sharp and clean.

I am learning to live with my edges. I am learning to let go of what others think. There is so little time. No time. No time to waste caring what the world thinks, except for those who cannot care for themselves. There is no time to waste, thinking about thinking about what others are thinking about. Me.

My voice is born repeatedly in the fields of uncertainty.

We can choose to move like water rather than be molded like clay.

Beside a well, one won't thirst; beside a sister, one won't despair.

The sin we commit against each other as women is lack of support.

I have found what I need most to heal a broken bond is time together - the very thing I avoid is the thing most desired. 

If we have no shadow, it means we are invisible. 

There shall always be sacred spaces, sacred utterances, that are mine alone.

If I leave,
blank pages,
possibilities,
for the children,
I have REALLY lived.

If I leave Nushu,
secrets,
for the sisterhood,
we shared wisdom.
 
If I leave,
old notebooks,
it's okay,
burn them.

I thought,
once,
I'd give my journals,
to a women's museum.

I was young.

But then I grew.

Older.

I knew,
you'd know,
how crazy, I was.

So I hid,
them,
in the rafters.

High,
for a season.

Then, I,
burned them myself.
Smoke,
floating high.

Then, I
started,
more journals.

~ Kim

 Another tome comes to mind: Booked, in which Karen Swallow Prior explores how books brought her to God, and to herself. Recommended.

Be aware of what can never be tamed. 

~ The Little Prince

Of Winter Bread, Books, and Wonderings

   The written word has the power to change a woman and make a woman. Within the word, parchment thick, there are worlds that beckon. Thoughts that cause us reckon. 

   Based upon St. Francis of Assisi, Richard Rohr's, Simplicity, The Freedom of Letting Go, is exactly what I needed to begin a new year. Rohr reminds: it's not about stuff, it's not about the Church, and it's not about me. It's always about the One.     

   I can't help but ponder where we are with church. There's a tension. I believe the Church is emerging, personally, spiritually, and corporately, and those who seek their identies in Christ - will be the church nourishing and nurturing. Churches still seeking to define themselves by their ministries, their relevancy, by their form and function - will fade.  In churches lacking the One, we can be assured to find lack. To know the Gospel, does not mean I hold the Gospel within or the grace of the Son. Ouch. Each new day is an new journey. Today, I knew Him. Tomorrow, I might only know of Him. It's a daily embrace, a daily dance. And I know, I'm not home. Yet. This place is not where I belong. There's more. So I hold the tension within, and remember my Jesus loves me, His is for me, and He is for us. 

   The great temptation of the Western Church has been to imprison the Gospel in our heads. Up there you can be right or wrong, your position can be correct or false, but in any case everything always remains firmly in your grip. Action never allows us the illusion of control, at least not for long. True action never permits the illusion that we will always understand everything. When we get involved with the pain of this world, we notice very soon that we have only a little fragment of the truth.~ Rohr

 

Lila by Marilynne Robinson, is a must read. For all we cannot reconcile, but desperately want to. Deeply moving. My words cannot do this story justice. 

Against All Grain Because feeding those we love is a creative force for bodies and souls.

When Women Were Birds by Terry Tempest Williams 

I'm writing a post. Look for it this week. 

Lilith, by George MacDonald, rocked my boat this month, and the reality is, I can't write more on this book, or I'd have to type up the entire ending! I will say, spoiler alert, even Lilith is redeemed. Loved it. 

   The fact is, no man understands anything. When he knows he does not understand, that is his first tottering step - not toward understanding, but toward the capability of one day understanding. ~ Lilith

A Path Appears, by Kristof and WuDunn is chock full of engaging, helpful, and hopeful essays. It's overdue at the library and I'm keeping it...for awhile. It reaffirms in my spirit that the best hopes are found in preventing pain in the first place. Prevention. Preschool. Prevention. Community. Prevention. Making it personal. Prevention. Community kitchen. Prevention. Opportunities abound.

He who opens a school door closes a prison. 

~ Victor Hugo

Lilith by George MacDonald

    His best characters are those which reveal how much real charity and spiritual wisdom can co-exist with the profession of a theology that seems to encourage neither. MacDonald illustrates not the doubtful maxim that to know all is to forgive all, but the unshakable truth that to forgive is to know. He who loves, sees. ~ CS Lewis

Lady Lilith by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

   Headed over to the dark side today, even if just for a bit. I don't usually choose science fiction or darkness in books, but this new year, I've determined to step up and stretch my fiction writing skills. Therefore, I'm stretching my reading roster. In Lilith, I got more than I bargained. I really don't have much to add, but to say that this book speaks to me. I'm not quite through it yet, and will likely post more quotes. But, oh the words and truths. Sister and I read the passage on Eve and Lilith the other day; it sparked quite the conversation. 

Lilith Quotes

When a heart is really alive, then it is able to think live things.

All live things were thoughts to begin with, and are fit therefore to be used by those that think. When one says to the great Thinker: - “Here is one of thy thoughts: I am thinking it now!” that is a prayer – a word to the big heart from one of it's own little hearts.

Indeed the business of the universe is to make such a fool of you that you will know yourself for one, and so begin to be wise.

You can tell what sort a man is by his creature that comes oftenest to the front.

Your world is such a half-baked sort of place, it is at once so childish and so self satisfied.

You know nothing about whereness. The only way to come to know where you are is to begin to make yourself a home.

“Two objects,” I said, “cannot exist in the same place at the same time.”

"Can they not? I did not know! - I remember now they do teach that with you. It is a great mistake - one of the greatest ever wiseacre made! No man of the universe, only a man of the world could have said so!" ~ The Raven

Cindy Lee Jones, The Raven

 Of Little Ones

“She will never go bad and grow big! When they begin to grow big they care for nothing but bigness; and when they cannot grow any bigger, they try to grow fatter. The bad giants are very proud of being fat.” “So they are in my world.” I said, “only they do not say fat there, they say rich.”

“He is forever eating those apples now!” she said. “That is what comes of Little Ones that won't be little!”

“They call it growing up in my world!” I said to myself. “If only she would teach me to grow the other way, and become a Little One! - Shall I ever be able to laugh like them?”

Pondering as I went, I recalled many traits of my little friends.

Once when I suggested that they should leave the country of the bad giants, and go with me to find another, they answered, “But that would be to not ourselves!” - so strong in them was the love of place that their country seemed essential to their very being! Without ambition or fear, discomfort or greed, they had no motive to desire any change; they knew of nothing amiss; and, except their babies, they had never had a chance of helping anyone but myself: - How were they to grow? But again, why should they grow? In seeking to improve their conditions, might I not do them harm, and only harm? To enlarge their minds after the notions of my world – might it not be to distort and weaken them? Their fear of growth as a possible start for giant-hood might be instinctive!

In this world never trust a person who has once deceived you. Above all, never do anything such a one may ask you to do.  

In Bulika (The Evil Netherlands)

“Doubt,” I said to myself, “may be a poor encouragement to do anything, but it is a bad reason for doing nothing.”

I was too daring: a man must not, for knowledge, of his own will encounter temptation! On the other hand, I had reinstated an evil force about to perish, and was, to the extent of my opposing faculty, accountable for what mischief might ensue!

I asked how they were rich if none of them earned money. She replied that their ancestors had saved for them, and they never spent. When they wanted money they sold a few of their gems. “But there must be some poor!” I said. 

 

“I suppose there must be, but we never think of such people. When one goes poor, we forget him. That is how we keep rich. We mean to be rich always.”

“But when you have dug up all your precious stones and sold them, you will have to spend your money, and one day you will have none left!” 

De Beers Venetia Mine, South Africa Photographer Unknown

Every now and then as she spoke, she would stop and look behind her.

I asked why her people had such a hatred of strangers.

She answered that the presence of a stranger defiled the city. 

“How is that?” I said.

“Because we are more ancient and noble than any other nation. - Therefore,” she added, “we always turn strangers out before night.”

Mr. Vane comes out of Bulika and is home in the library. He was saved from the Princess; pulled through the Silent Fountain by the Raven

When a man will not act where he is, he must go far to find work.

But for the weeping in it, your world would never have become worth saving!

Is not a little knowledge, a dangerous thing? 

 

That is one of the pet falsehoods of your world! Is a man's greatest knowledge more than a little – or is it therefore dangerous? The fancy that knowledge is in itself a great thing would make any degree of knowledge more dangerous than any amount of ignorance. To know all things would not be greatness.

The Persian Cat

“But if I found a man that could believe

In what he saw not, felt not, and yet knew,

From him I should take substance, and receive

Firmness and form related to touch and view,

then should I clothe me in the likeness true

Of that idea where his soul did cleave!

At these words such a howling, such a prolonged yell of agony burst from the cat , that we both stopped our ears.... “Now we have her, I think!” and returning to the cat, stood over her and said, in a still, solemn voice:-

“Lilith, when you came here on the way to your evil will, you little thought into whose hands you were delivering yourself! - Mr. Vane, when God created me – not out of glory – He brought me an angelic splendor to be my wife: there she lies! For her first thought was power; she counted it slavery to be one with me, and bear children for Him who gave her being. One child, indeed, she bore, then, puffed with the fancy that she had created her, would have me fall down and worship her! Finding, however, that I would but love and honour her, never obey and worship her, she poured out her blood to escape me, fled to the army of the aliens, and soon had so ensnared the heart of the great Shadow, that he became her slave, wrought her will, and made her Queen of Hell.

The one child of her body, she fears and hates, and would kill, asserting a right, which is a lie, over what God sent through her into His new world. Of creating, she knows no more than the crystal that takes its allotted shape, or the worm that makes two worms when it is cloven asunder. Vilest of God's creatures, she lives by the blood and lives and souls of men. She consumes and slays, but is powerless to destroy as to create.

The animal lay motionless, it's beryl eyes fixed, flaming on the man: his eyes on hers held them fixed that they could not move from his.

“Then God gave me another wife – not an angel but a woman – who is to this as light is to darkness.”

The cat gave a horrible screech, and began to grower bigger. She went on growing and growing. At last the spotted leopardess uttered a roar that made the house tremble. I sprang to my feet. I do not think Mr. Raven started even with his eyelids.

“It is but her jealousy that speaks,” he said, “jealousy self-kindled, foiled and fruitless, for here I am, her master now, whom she would not have for her husband! While my beautiful Eve yet lives, hoping immortally! Her hated daughter lives also, but beyond her evil ken, one day to be what she counts her destruction – for even Lilith shall be saved by her childbearing. Meanwhile she exults that my human wife plunged herself and me in despair, and has borne me a countless race of miserables; but my Eve repented, and is now beautiful as never was a woman or angel, while her groaning, travailing world is the nursery of our Father's children. I too have repented, and am blessed. - Thou, Lilith, has not yet repented, but thou must. - Tell me, is the great Shadow beautiful? - Answer me, if thou knowest.”

Then at last I understood that Mr. Raven was indeed Adam the old and the new man, and that his wife, ministering in the house of the dead, was Eve, the mother of us all, the lady of the New Jerusalem.

“I am beautiful - and immortal !” Lilith said. - and she looked the goddess she would be. 

 “As a bush that burns, and is consumed,” answered he who had been her husband.

“Lilith,” said Adam, and his tone had changed to a tender beseeching, “hear me, and repent, and He who made thee will cleanse thee!”

She gave the cry of one from whom hope is vanishing. The cry passed into a howl. She lay writhing on the floor, a leopardess covered with spots.

“The evil thou meditatest,” Adam resumed, “thou shalt never compass, Lilith, for Good and not Evil is the Universe. The battle between them may last countless ages, but it must end: how will it fare with thee when Time hath vanished in the dawn of the eternal morn? Repent, I beseech thee, repent, and be again an angel of God!”

She rose, she stood upright, a woman once more, and said,

“I will not repent. I will drink the blood of thy child.”

My eyes were fastened on the princess; but when Adam spoke, I turned to him: he stood towering above her; the form of his visage was altered, and his voice was terrible.

“Down!” he cried; “or by the power given me I will melt thy very bones!”

She flung herself on the floor, dwindled and dwindled, and was again a gray cat. Adam caught her up by the skin of her neck, bore her to the closet, and threw her in. He described a strange figure on the threshold, and closing the door, locked it.

Then he returned to my side the old librarian, looking sad and worn, and furtively wiping tears from his eyes.

Jewish Lilith Theology

* I love MacDonald's use of punctuation. There's hope for those who use commas generously!

Oregon Zoo in Winter

   Recently, we lucked out at the Oregon Zoo's $4 day. The zoo wasn't swamped with people, the sun shone bright, and the animals were outside and active.

 Thankful for fun at the zoo and meaningful relationships too!

A study in winter's nature. 

 Found this resource again. Super excited.