A Voice of a Future:

The Earth and this Universe, course thru my veins, animate my marrow, charges each of my smallest cells of Being with life.  I love this Earth and all the paradise of each moment lived, taking in the gifts of our natural world.   So, how can I not ache with our mother Earth as well?  And how can I not respond?

Despite every agony and loss, she nourishes us all, with beauty, inspiration, holy movements of birds’ songs, wind, seeds, fruits; abundance, with clouds emoting the soul of all, using a color palette I only dream with.

I cannot help but grow in love, with all these gifts and graces.   I respond without trying:  I was in a pet store the other day; I wish it was a ‘companion shop’, by the way, but it is not.  In this store, I noticed how the parakeets, on that very day, began a startlingly joyous song, as my daughter and I stood close beside their glass cage, nearly 30 of them, some looking downtrodden or haggard, others singing away.  We stood still, so still, taking them in, really listening to these parakeets, really seeing them.  My inner voice couldn’t help but respond to the deeply sweet song some of them were singing together… with a poem that was also a prayer/chant for them.  It went like this:

How can I not hear the parakeet’s song?  They are singing.  They bless us with their song.  We hear them.  It is beautiful.  We celebrate your presence here, you parakeets in the glass cage in this store. (When I begin my inner response to their song, their dispositions change and shift.  They relax and shiver, turning to look at me closely.)  We ask for blessing now, to you and all your ancestors:  past, present and future.  (At this point they shiver again and most seem to be taking in more of our presence with diminish ment fear and anxiety.)  We hear you, we announce:  nothing can separate you from oneness as we are all connected. Your song is heard and known. You have a home that no one can take away.  The parakeets belong to this world, to God, to Life.  This glass cage, this store cannot interfere with the rightful place God gives them, in the sacred fabric of oneness.  We hear your beautiful song, all you parakeets.  We acknowledge your origins; we send you love, healing and blessing in response to the beauty you have shared.  We are family.  We are one.

As their songs quieted, so did my prayer-chant response within.  And they felt my response.  Animals always respond…. they feel vibrations, feelings, intentions, as these underlying elements are tied in so deeply with instinct and survival.  And more than that, animals are in the now, open and listening.

My response was in the now.  I spoke for Love.  That was the “we” I spoke of.

As they sang and I responded with my heart’s voice within, I saw clearly, the parakeets looked as I have seen human beings look (in my times of ministry at the hospital and with Reiki) when they have been validated in the midst of turmoil.  Like when a human being looks when s/he has had a barrier lifted between self and their right to be in relationship with God –released from abuse, interference and/or oppression.  And, these parakeets also were like a person who trembles at repeated experiences of joy and goodness after too many dark years of neglect and sadness.  Yes, the parakeets did.  I have not given much thought to parakeets before this.  Except to say Namaste as I passed them on my way to get cat or dog food.  Or to pause and know, birds do not belong in cages.

God was there.  Angels were there.  Holy Spirit was making movements…wanting great love for the parakeets and for us.   It was as a gentle wave of motion, set to bring healing to the weaving of life in that specific place, a store, where neglect, desensitization and commodity have bleached God given connections, belittling them.  Oh, the voices that go unheard, countless gentle creatures, kept apart from all they had evolved to know.  As we are….all too often.

The parakeets responded to us with an abandon of song that was unusual, it seemed to me.  Or maybe they had done it all day, I don’t know.  It felt special to me.   I responded by remaining present and allowing the moment to touch me, despite how silly I may have looked to others.

As I lay in bed that night, I remembered them and imagined them together (in my mind’s eye, with my heart’s remembrance) in the darkened store that night.  As I pictured them with love something new happens:

A voice speaks to my heart, says, “I am a voice of a future, I am the voice of Soul dwelling with God. Abundance is an attitude.  Abundance also requires balance, response– a stewardship.  True abundance, Divine abundance is messy, wild, dirty, personal, sacrificial (with a non violent approach), generous, wise, perfected orchestration.  Resurrection applies.”

A voice of a future continued to say to me that night:  “The present voices of this time say, ‘If you want abundance, think abundance, be grateful.  Have an ‘attitude of gratitude’ and that will gift you with all you need and more.’

Now, this voice of a future says:  “I am Soul dwelling with God, we say: Gratitude is the beginning.  It is not an answer.  It is a doorway, like death and forgiveness.  Gratitude is a doorway to Being, to Being Love.  Gratitude goes hand in hand with awareness in the present moment.

The parakeets received a gift from you today.  And they gave a great gift to you today.  Sharing love is always fertile with an abundance of seeds to grow even more, to give even more.

The parakeets who sang, sang in the most beautiful way they were capable of.  They shared a gem of their being.  You then recognized that gift given, because you stood with love and mindfulness for the full reality before, around and within you.  You responded to that reality by relinquishing the constraints of commercial commodified environment, in order to fully embrace the beauty of the little song being sung in the pet store.  Moreover, Holy Movement prepared you for this moment when you were at the park a couple days before.  You were watching your daughter and her friend play in the water and suddenly you heard an angelic voice singing in another language.  You turned and saw a young Hmong girl walking home from playing in the water, singing in a way that was Holy and startlingly beautiful.  You sat in awe as you watched her walk, disregarding all norms that would have liked to bind.  She allowed her spirit to Be.  She was a free Human Being.

You did not remember this when you stood by the parakeets, but now you do, as I remind you.

She was the angel preparing you for the next step of Being Love, sharing Love.  This is what it means to move from ‘an attitude of gratitude’ to Being Love.  This voice of a future says:  All life in this present moment depends on this practice, on this awareness.  Resurrection still applies.  And the Earth has accepted.  What do the people say?

A voice of a future says, have courage to disregard the norms that would bind all from loving.

This courage is a sign of great Love and hope, taking the place of fear and distortion.”

How can I not listen?

What is true for me and the parakeets, in our own small moment, is true for all life, for all living beings, for all the Earth and universe–for all:  Nothing can separate us from the Sacred Fabric of Divine Mystery.  Our origins with Love, our right to ongoing relationship with the Holy Spirit cannot be undone.

(As I shared this story with my husband and daughter in entirety here, they told me excitedly, that they had also had a recent experience with a Hmong girl singing in the most beautiful and free way, in the Hmong language, at the playground.  They both expressed feeling like she was an angel, and that it was something they had never heard before.  They felt the awe and freeing joy of this as well.)

With peace love and Namaste,

Chandra

Advent is a Hopeful, Pregnant Silence Waiting

Silence can take many forms. In meditation, prayer and mindfulness, silence takes on a garment of the Sacred. It is as if silence reveals herself to be an indication to the presence of Holiness, to the presence of Holy Spirit (and of Jesus, for some).

There are a few profound moments when silence became something grand that made me realize God, the great I AM, was present in such a way, that I became especially aware. One of those moments was when my daughter was baptized. After the water splashed upon her brow, I heard and felt the silence as a strong full presence, an exclamation point of spirit, before us and around us. I will never forget it. The poem I wrote below expands upon it.

I speak of silence in the feminine at times, much like wisdom is referred to as Sophia. This is because it is a feminine quality in some ways, and yet, is expressed by either gender, just the same. God and the Holy Spirit are neither male or female to me; I trust they are both and neither and beyond. Therefore, the feminine language here is metaphorical, giving voice to an aspect that is too often lost and silenced, in a violent sense.

There is a silence that is healing and deeply vibrant. This silence is the one I speak about now, which I seek and try to practice to uphold in this precious Advent season and beyond:

Silence

Wherever Silence has entered…
may she stay.
This silence who is pregnant and heavy,
I hear her breathing
and the breath is full of golden lit compassion, and spaciousness.

This silence, as she sits among us,
stirs a memory from the soul
not from earthen stone times,
before this…in timelessness.

Her presence is loudly silent, peace filled,
and she is needed.
She serves and loves without pause,
as angels adore her; they study her.

Sacred Love has made provisions
for each one

each one
in case silence should get edged out or twisted,
with the hurry, busy, booming basses, with the push, and pushes, with more and the more and the more…

Provision for a louder silence
one that does not nag, sell, or box us in, but,

one who
is true and faithful, abiding, deepening, profoundly gentle.

One who is all good, only good, all love, only love, with spaciousness,

with a way and ways for each one…

‘Do not kid yourself’, a wise fellow once mentioned to me,

as I was heart open but mind closed,
‘Holiness is moving and has not abandoned the Soul,
not amidst frenzy or horrors.’

Silence, sweet silence, followed, and healing for me – in that moment.

This love abides,
deeply loving
respectful revolutionary Presence,
for Good.

Silence, we welcome you
into this day,
Watching over us,
with us in each breath.
between each breath

Our surprise of joy meets you,
needs you.

May silence meet and bless you in special myriad ways this Advent,

with peace and gratitude,

Chandra

Merry Christmas!

There were nearly 1,000 people at the funeral Wednesday night. Fr. Tom O’Neill gave the eulogy. He said, “I am a better priest and a better human because of Earl, can any of you say anything less?” Fr. Tom also spoke of the hope of eternal life, but stayed true in acknowledging the reality, the grief and sadness that is the here and now. That was true and good, much appreciated. Joseph, Rachel and Marci had the light of love in their eyes. Our prayers, love and Christmas wishes stay with them.

It is nearly Christmas. So often grief is woven through Christmas, despite the promise of joy and hope within it. It is a season of contradictions and the world appears to be covered in a darkness. I turn to an old friend,

“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
–C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

“It is hard to have patience with people who say ‘There is no death’ or ‘Death doesn’t matter.’ There is death. And whatever is matters. And whatever happens has consequences, and it and they are irrevocable and irreversible. You might as well say that birth doesn’t matter.”
- C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

The memory of the newborn Jesus in this season brings forward the beauty of birth to our deepest pains and grief. It is a Divine Mystery. We step into the darkest day of the year and offer love and gratitude for all good and peace in our lives and soul.

Thank you God, for the water, the sun, the air, please bless it and us in all of this world, in all of it’s directions, with your Holy Spirit, and the newborn God.

Amen.

We so often find love in the midst of death and darkness, thank goodness for that. I find my own sorrow is lessened with the company of dear friends who also are bearing the sorrow.

The Psalms of the bible are songs. They were to be music, with singing and dance. My psalm is a song of grief, but it is woven with great love and faith. I think of how Earl would sing and Marci would dance.

In the Master’s program, in Earl’s stewardship class, he asked us to write a psalm. I wrote one, born of loss I was experiencing at the time and also greatly from Earl’s teaching and care he showed me and the class. I offer it again today for Earl and all who grieve:

Psalm:
Sacred Life, Love Eternal

Source of all Truth and Love,
Love in fullness and maturity,
Love of all Time, ever enduring,
Source of all Goodness,
Please, hear my cries of sorrow, sounding from the heart of my smallness.
Like a wolf, the grief seizes my throat.
Please hear my silent calls for you from the bottom of the deep well of loss.
I gaze upward; I see a graceful, strong three trunked tree stretching skyward.
You grace me with understanding in feeling and seeing.
Your compassion is unimaginably deep, profoundly outstretching, like the tree,
Like Beloved Jesus, who calms me, calms the waves of grief washing over me.
Your love is discreet, filled with dignity.
Your love is eternal and refreshing, like pure spring water flowing
Softly on a shining day.
As clouds gather and oppress me, when coldness seeps through me,
You do not leave. You never leave me.
Your Divine Mystery is my safety.
Your gaze is strong and knowing, making me squirm like a child.
Your Spirit’s Grace is unutterably good, ever unfolding, unceasing.
Your power takes hold within me, I tremble, I falter.
Dearest Holy Spirit, your unbelievable depth saves me, daily.
Your Holy Spirit cleans my breaking heart, tenderly embracing every piece of me.
Source of Holy Grace, send me your Love now,
Untold, unsaid, unutterably holy, hold me now in your understanding.
You have found me crouching in a hidden space,
Crying under the weight of death, and the ironic emptiness.
While life is still unfolding,
Please hear my praise for your Grace and Presence. You will not leave me.
This Love is Sacred and unending.

-C.S.S.