Tag Archives: Calling

Be like the crows

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Crow on the top of bare branches of a tree against a blue sky
[A crow is perched high in the bare branches of a tree outside my house. This photo is not from yesterday, but reminds me of the crow I saw yesterday in a similar perch.]

After blogging yesterday morning about Listening for Spirit, I bundled up in warm clothes to take a walk in the cold. As I stepped off the back porch, I heard the raucous calling of crows, and looked up to see a crow high in the branches of a tree. Then I saw two others, all of them agitated and calling. They flew over our back yard and kept calling and scolding.

I walked down the driveway, turned right onto the street, went past our neighbor’s house and then around the corner, on my usual route for a morning walk. I could still hear those crows! Then I saw the cause for the crows’ alarm–it looked like a huge hawk up in a tree near another neighbor’s house. I could see the white feathers of its belly as it perched and I crossed the street to confirm its identity. Then it suddenly flew off, obviously bothered by the relentless scolding of the crows. They didn’t stop, but kept after it until it was gone.

Then Spirit said, so clearly, “Be like the crows! Keep calling out to alert everyone to the presence of a huge predator! Keep calling out together.”

I was reminded of the line in a song that I have been singing and translating. “Even as the hour grows bleaker, be the singer and the speaker.” [from The Lost Words Blessing] In Passamaquoddy, verbs are more fundamental than nouns, so the end of that line became, “…ahtolint on ktahtolewestun” “…keep singing and keep speaking.”

I have watched people talking about facing encroaching fascism by deleting their public presence on social media, by using encrypted forms of communication like Signal, by using extreme caution about what is said and what is shared. And there are situations that definitely warrant those precautions. Definitely. But I believe that there are also reasons to keep speaking and keep sharing. Keep naming our values, keep claiming our experiences, keep identifying what we witness.

If we are called to that. And not alone, but in groups, even groups of three. Three crows can annoy a hawk enough to make it leave. I felt the presence of Spirit so strongly in those crows that it gave me courage to say, I can do that. I can keep speaking here, as long as I can.

Listening for Spirit

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Dawn colors and clouds, pink and blue over trees and shadow of a house

Our house isn’t best situated for seeing the beauty of sunrise or sunset. Too many trees and buildings. But the other morning, when I opened the blinds in my room, I saw this outside my window. Dawn magic.

Yesterday I was so sleepy and almost napping on the couch when I happened upon a documentary on PBS about Howard Thurman, Backs Against the Wall. I knew of Dr. Thurman but I don’t remember if I knew so much about him as was shared in this film. African American theologian, author, and teacher, he was deeply spiritual, became dedicated to nonviolent activism, and was the mentor to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and other civil rights leaders. The film stirred something in my soul.

First of all, I found myself feeling a bit of envy–my old sin. I always wanted to “be somebody.” You know, one of those people you heard about, a saint, a well-loved thinker and author, an influential leader, recognized by the world. And I wasn’t that, except, to be fair, in the most local context. I was, for a while, a local spiritual leader. I saw something in Dr. Thurman that reminded me of myself, except writ large.

Most importantly, he reminded me of my own mysticism, my own deep connection to spirit. And I asked myself, am I listening to the voice of the spirit within me, am I paying attention to what the spirit is telling me right now, in this time? The truth is, illness dampens the energy of the body, but it also dampens the energy of the soul. It has been harder to hear the voice of spirit since my retirement due to chronic illness. I remember at first, spirit said, Rest and Joy, let that be your guide. And I did rest, and chose activities that linked to joy in me.

But I still wrestle with questions all the time. What is this chapter of my life all about? What can I do in the face of the brokenness of our world, in the face of war and oppression? If I can’t resist by marching in the streets, how can I resist such evils as the genocide in Gaza, the rising hatred toward immigrants in our own country, the demonization of trans and queer people by those coming into power?

At different times in my life, I was guided by an evolving sense of purpose. When I was in college, my friends and I would ask, “How would Jesus live in our times?” A few years later, I found the Catholic Worker movement, and to live and serve in houses of hospitality for people without homes–that felt like the embodiment of that purpose. When I woke up to the oppression of women in the church and in society, when I began to form community with other women waking up, I voiced this desire, this intention: “We mean to incarnate the goddess!” When I came out as a lesbian, I felt a deep sense of purpose in loving and affirming all of our beauty as women, as lesbians, to find the goddess in ourselves and each other.

There was always this pattern for me, listening and following the spirit as I was led into new understandings and new ways of living a purpose in the world. Following the distant voice of my ancestors into solidarity work with Indigenous peoples. Finding a home in Unitarian Universalist ministry, and serving in congregations as I was called, bringing together wider understandings of spirituality, and commitment to the work of justice activism in community. Coming to a deeper understanding of interconnection with all of life, and permaculture gardening, and a spiritual journey into earth community.

I see how lucky I have been, to be able to follow an inner stirring, to live and work from a sense of calling and purpose. Whether known or unknown. But I am still wrestling with questions now. What is my calling now? Can I hear the voice of spirit to guide me now? Here is something Dr. Thurman wrote about all this:

“How good it is to center down!
To sit quietly and see one’s self pass by!
The streets of our minds seethe with endless traffic;
Our spirits resound with clashings, with noisy silences,
While something deep within hungers and thirsts for the still
moment and the resting lull.…
The questions persist: what are we doing with our lives?—
what are the motives that order our days?
What is the end of our doings? Where are we trying to go?…
Over and over the questions beat in upon the waiting moment.
As we listen, floating up through all the jangling echoes
of our turbulence, there is a sound of another kind—
A deeper note which only the stillness of the heart
makes clear.
It moves directly to the core of our being. Our questions are
answered,
Our spirits refreshed, and we move back into the traffic of
our daily round
With the peace of the Eternal in our step.
How good it is to center down!”

I guess that is what I am trying to do, even now, to center down, to hear the deeper note. To let the questions come into that stillness. Even when it feels empty and dark, before the dawn has come.

Women’s Herstory

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Tall thin woman with big curly hair, in old newsprint photo, singing open-mouthed holding a tambourine.
Me at 29, singing and holding a tambourine

I’ve been going through old boxes from my past, and am currently working on the time I lived in Grand Rapids, Michigan, from 1979 to 1983. It was such a different time–not many photos, for example. But I found this one in a clipping from a women’s periodical, attached to an article I wrote about how women’s history is not just reading about women from the past, but an imperative for us to make history in the present–herstory. I still believe that!

My partner at the time, Gary, and I were trying to make history/herstory through non-violent activism, and through running a Catholic Worker hospitality house. We called it Grimke Community, named after Angelina and Sarah Grimke, white southern women who worked for the abolition of slavery in the early 1800s. We opened our house to a person or family in need of emergency shelter, often in cooperation with the local battered women’s organization. The house was in a kind of land trust, and we lived there rent-free. We could pay the bills if one of us had some sort of half-time job at minimum wage.

I held various jobs during those years, from being a maternity aide for a home-birth midwifery group, to visiting women in the local jail, to cleaning houses, to being a library “page.” I was also doing a lot of music those days, and performing in any local venue I could arrange, from nursing homes to social justice rallies. It is funny to look back at my big naturally-curly hair, my extremely thin torso, and my wide-open mouth. I was learning to use my voice!

In early 1983, when this picture was taken, I was trying to make sense of how to follow my calling. It was something like a call to ministry, but still being Catholic, and being a woman, I felt like I had to invent something totally new. Eventually, I was able to take the next steps by going to Chicago to attend the Chicago Theological Seminary, where I was lucky to receive a full fellowship. Gary and I moved to Chicago to take over also, serendipitously, the leadership of St. Elizabeth Catholic Worker House. Those were years of profound transformations. And after seminary, I did invent something new for myself–a ministry which was a combination of activism, offering feminist therapy for women, and leading feminist ritual and community education. (This was years before I eventually was ordained as a Unitarian Universalist minister.)

Now, looking back at my own herstory, I can feel the continuity between the me of now and the me of back then. But I feel some sadness that the changes for which I struggled, while meeting some success, have also faced incredible backlash and new challenges. Still, I don’t regret any of it.

What now?

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chickadee-bird-bath-mj-dsc00898

Are you getting thrown off-balance by the shocking pronouncements every day from the Trump administration?  I have been wrestling with my heart, needing quiet, needing spaciousness to hear, underneath the din, the voices of the Spirits.  I think I am coming to some clarity.

It is easy to want to pass along the latest Facebook post with one more horror that is being perpetrated on innocent people or the earth.  So much outrage fills my heart when I hear about what is being done.  But it is their plan to stun us with horror, so that we are debilitated and unable to act.  So I plan to stop passing along horrifying posts. I will try to pass along posts of resistance and beauty and solidarity and compassion. I will also continue to post what news I hear from the resistance at Standing Rock, since that is often kept from the media.

Every week I am invited (via Facebook) to several rallies or vigils or demonstrations.  I am happy to see people in the streets–it is important.  But for me, I need so much solitude to keep on track, so much quiet to hear what is going on.  Unlike some people, I don’t find it empowering to be anonymous in a passionate crowd.  I can’t go to the rallies and marches every week.  Maybe I can do this once a month.  Rather, I need to make connections at a personal level.  So when something is coming down that might be hurting people, I will try to reach out to those with whom I have some possible link, to offer more personal support.

Similarly, we’ve been encouraged to inundate our elected representatives to try to stop what is happening.  I know this needs to happen, but it is generally not my own area of strength or passion.  (I have also come to understand that petitions aren’t usually effective, so unless it seems particularly well-suited, I am not going to spend energy on those.)  Phone calls are supposed to be the most effective way of getting counted.  So, I have found a website that sends an email once a week, with simple options for making phone calls on the current issues.  5 Calls uses your location to find your local representatives, and provides phone numbers and scripts so that calling is quick and easy.  I can do that once a week for 5 minutes, and maybe it might work for others too.

I don’t want the Trump administration to hijack my own calling, my own work.  I don’t want to be overwhelmed with guilt or “shoulds” or some internalized expectation of what an activist must look like.  The Spirits say to me, “Be a human being! You don’t have to have all the answers. You don’t have to be the “savior” of the world. Risk your heart. Use your preaching voice to speak the truth. Keep doing your core work.  It is still necessary to wake up to our connection to the earth, our connection to spirit, our connection to each other.  Stay centered in that work.”

Do you have core work that you need to do?  Please know that it is okay to Listen.