Her "Yes" Becomes Mine

Her “Yes” Becomes Mine

By Sheila Conner

(“We are all meant to be mothers of God.

What good is it to me

if this eternal birth of the divine Son

takes place unceasingly,

but does not take place within myself?

And, what good is it to me if Mary is full of grace

if I am not also full of grace? What…”

~Meister Eckhart)

Bewildered

I am so afraid –

My heart pounds.

I can scarcely breathe.

My palms sweat.

She asks, “Who are you?”

I ask, “Who am I?”

She, “What do you want?”

I, “What do I want?”

Her questions become mine:

“What did I do?”

“What have I NOT done?

Am I in trouble? – again?”

You called me “Blessed”.

I’m what?

You call that Good News?

A child?

New life inside of ME?

You want an answer?

I have to agree?

His light fades.

She’s alone now.

Alone but for the Seed -

The seed she is to carry,

The Seed she has to nurture and grow.

The seed she must deliver.

(Image: The Annunciation, Henry Ossawa Tanner)

(Poetry Retreat, November 2, 2013

Surfside Beach, Richard Osler, Facilitator)

Sacred Heart

The people sitting in darkness

have seen a great light

Sacred Heart

suffering in gloomy obscurity

yearning now toward other

expanding into Infinity

breaking open

releasing light, love and Holy Energy

giving birth to abundance

goodness, mercy, grace and joy

hurtling across the Universe

dancing toward tiny speck of Finite Blessing -

At rest in the stable.

Love has suffered.

Love has broken open.

Love has given birth.

("Birthing the Holy: Celtic Spirituality Retreat for Advent" 

Week 3, Day 1, facilitated by Christine Valters Paintner

Abbey of the Arts)

The Way is Made By Walking

“wanderer, there is no road

The way is made by walking”

Antonia Machado

What would it mean to wander and allow yourself to feel the vulnerability of being a bit lost or disoriented? What new awareness might break in from this softened place?

These are thoughts presented this week in our online Advent retreat being offered by Abbey of the Arts and Cristine Valters Paintner.

It’s been a crazy week, and I haven’t really had time to sit and reflect on the subject of “wandering for the love of God” until this morning. But that’s been my call for over 20 years now.

Like Abram of old, my call was to “leave my father’s house and go to a place I know not of.” My wandering for the love of God began in 1990, with the death of my father and my second divorce.  

Dara Mallow of the Abbey of the Arts community, writes of "peregrinatio", "the idea of a sacred journey in the Celtic Christian tradition, with no other destination other than 'seeking one's place of resurrection'." It seems my heart has pretty much found its resting place for now, and the call to wander has been silenced within me. The call within me now seems to be of stillness.

But I have written a number of poems over the years that have reflected the wandering of my soul. This one written in 2010 seems appropriate for this season.

Following the Star

Do you see it?

There,

Right there,

High in the sky…

there it is!

The Star!

I’ve never seen anything quite like it.

So bright,

                    so beautiful,

                               so compelling…

I find myself longing to follow that Star.

What?

You say I’m crazy?

Maybe…may be

But,

but what if,

what if following that Star just might lead me home?

What if following that star

just might lead me to the place of peace I long for?

My heart and mind are filled with desperate “what ifs”

that make staying here, in this place,

next to impossible.

So, here I am

like a crazy fool

packing my bags

loading this camel

and heading out over this desert,

into this broad expanse of wasteland.

I have to go

I’m compelled to follow

The Star calls me home.

Sheila Conner

September 18, 2010

By the way, never trust your journey to a guide who's afraid of getting lost. That's a quote from someone else, but I don't know who. I've made it my own.

The Old Tree (Poetry)

THE OLD TREE

(…that Christ may dwell

in your hearts through faith,

as you are being

rooted and grounded in love.

Ephesians 3:17)

Elizabeth, old and barren,

unmet expectations,

finished, left out to dry—

left to dry out.

Unexpected treasure,

the sap still flows,

the old tree

still flowers and bears fruit.

Grateful for deep roots,

ring upon ring –

the golden years

that surprise us still.

Life’s not over ‘til it’s over.

The matron’s voice still strong

belts out her song to the young:

“Blessed are you among women,

and blessed is the fruit of your womb.”

Time comes,

the Crone gives birth.

Glory to the Ancient One

Who yields new life.

(Week 1: Birthing the Holy: Celtic Spirituality Retreat for Advent

Christine Valters Paintner, in preparation for Pilgrimage to Ireland, 2014

Sunday, December 1, 2013)

Lovely Old Crones (A Poem)

LOVELY OLD CRONES

live across the creek

appearing only in Winter,

when their clothes have fallen round their knees

and they become naked, all.

 Nine old crones have dug their roots

into the leafy loam;

planted firmly on the edge, their boots

have found a home

Refractured light of winter’s day

reveals translucent bones;

brittle, broken by decay

I hear their silent groans.

Glory gone and faded now

their youth renewed in Spring

verdant leaves will return some how

since they’ve made this offering.

S.M. Conner

11/14/11

Thinking of Mother, and remembering.

Passing The Torch

I’m taking an on-line Advent retreat with Christine Valters Paintner, of Abbey of the Arts .   I confess, I would not be taking the retreat except that it’s part of the package for my Pilgrimage to Ireland next Spring.  It’s kind of one of those synchronistic things: I had been pondering Advent and how it’s been gift to me over the last couple of years, and I had thought about taking some kind of retreat, but not really focused on it. Then this offer came, and it was too good to refuse, so here I am.  The timing seems right. The subject matter is one of my favorites, "Birthing the Holy".

Christine opened our retreat talking about thresholds and how Advent is a sacred threshold, a space when we move from one time to another, or from one awareness to another as in times when our old structures start to fall away and we begin to build something new. 

I immediately sensed she was onto something and that this time was liminal space for me. I have known since my mother died in August that I am moving into a new thing. I have thought about it, even scheduled the pilgrimage to help me embody this new thing, but I had not really sat with the knowing. 

Then my son said it Saturday, as we celebrated Thanksgiving in his new home. As I was preparing to leave, he whispered to me, “Time to pass the torch Mother.”  Now I was able to put my finger on the feeling I've been having. I feel my mother’s presence as she seeks to pass the torch to me. 

Christine’s opening questions to us were: “What is the grace you seek in this season ahead? What is your heart’s deep desire?” Then as I was pondering the usual thoughts, she leaned in with another suggestion: “Before you let your thoughts rush in with their well-reasoned plan, see if you might lean into a deeper wisdom, listen to what your intuition and body are telling.” As I sat with the questions and the thoughts, I could feel my mother’s presence. When Christine suggested making a nature altar, I knew where I wanted to go.

I drove out to a friend’s property after church, put on my hiking boots, and took a short walk into her lovely woods. 

As I meandered through the brush and vines, I realized how many thresholds were there – openings into new spaces and new perspectives everywhere, so I paused at a few of them.

then I found her – the tree that I was looking for.  The tree that would help me answer Christine’s questions.

Next year will be a big year for me, passing from the middle years into the golden years, the “wisdom years”. I am headed toward 65 and Medicare. And I confess, I’m a little nostalgic. Perhaps that’s why I haven’t really sat with myself and observed what I feel happening in my bones. My mother is passing the torch to me. I feel it coming, the letting go of what has been, the sweet time being with my mother, and heading toward the days of being as my mother. It’s coming, as surely as the Light we wait for during Advent, old age is coming. The end is coming. 

So what do I want for myself for the next 20 years? I want my roots to deepen, my branches to spread, and my fruit to ripen. Branches that spread in order to offer shelter and shade, and fruit to ripen so that others can be nourished by my life. A large shade tree must have healthy roots, deep roots, roots able to draw up nourishment from the soil it’s planted in.

As I walked through the wood and after I sat with the tree, I knew it was time to make my altar, I took the few little nature items I had spotted and took them to this small Madonna, and left them there to mark my intention: to enter this time in my life with intention and focus, to face my old age, my golden years with my heart wide open, and to allow my roots to keep growing deep into Christ's Love so that the rest of my heart's desire can happen.

(two broken branches making a cross, bark that has been broken up and shed for the new, berries that nourish and add beauty, and mottled leaves that were once shade)

Welcome To Advent

December 1, 2013 - The first Sunday of Advent.

I didn't grow up with the tradition of Advent. At our house growing up it was always Christmas, full throttle, the moment the Thanksgiving Day turkey was eaten and the dishes washed and put away.

Growing up as a child, that was great. And the time was slower, so it wasn't such a burden, but as an adult, the joy faded. The Christmas lights glared, the tinsel, the tree and all the hoopla became just too much. And the rush between Thanksgiving and Christmas was exhausting.

Christmas celebrates family. A family grows up celebrating certain traditions, then you get married, add a few from his family, and come up with a few of your own. Perhaps that would be manageable, but then divorce happens. Traditions are ripped apart, as well as families. Even years you have your kids - odd years they're missing, and it's a huge hole. Then you remarry. Add a few of his traditions, make the shifts, but then another divorce, another tear in the fabric of Christmas happiness, and now it's harder than ever to make the holiday work. Add another marriage, the loss of parents, and you have the makings of Scrooge, angry and weeping over the Ghosts of Christmas past.

I have been Scrooge for the better part of 30 years. And no one likes Scrooge at Christmas time. But the bar is held so high this time of year, expectations are extreme: the perfect family, the perfect traditions to celebrate, the perfect gifts. And the expectations get dashed over and over and over again until a person would really rather curl up in a ball at the end of October and not emerge again until after Christmas.

And I had my own standard. I was raised in a family that honored the birth of Jesus. There were lots of church activities and spiritual traditions that were very special to me growing up - and I married into families who may have offered what my dad used to call "lip service" to the Christ Child, but who's traditions weren't as spiritually focused. Truth be told, reading the Christmas story and making Jesus the point of Christmas became a particularly heavy burden, another bar raised that I couldn't meet.

Scrooge. He was the only one who understood how I felt about Christmas.

I was introduced to Advent in 2002 when I entered the Catholic tradition, but at that time, it was just another tradition that I had to try to keep - lighting candles, advent calendars, special prayers to say with my family...yeah, right!

Then, in 2009, our rector at St. Timothy's, Andy Parker. preached a sermon that began a real turning point for me. He simply and quietly said, "This isn't the Christmas season, it's the Advent season, the season we wait for Light." That's all he said, but there was a small shift inside me, that I could feel.

If we wait for Light during Advent, then it must mean that we are sitting in darkness - which I had been for many, many years during the holiday season. All of a sudden, it was OK for me to be in the darkness.  All of a sudden, I wasn't bad because it was dark in my life at this time of year. That's the way it was supposed to be...Scripture is replete with tales of people sitting in great darkness, waiting and longing for light to come. Winter is a season of death. The sunny days of Summer are gone. We weep in the night time; joy comes in the morning, with the light. Andy's few simple words broke a space open in my heart to welcome the darkness I felt, to grieve what I had lost, to begin to lay aside the expectations of perfection, and to just be sad.  I, Sheila Conner, had to wait for my own Light to come.  And it was OK. Not just OK; it was good for me to be in the darkness, waiting for the Light to come.  All of the natural world around me was going through the same process.

Tiny shifts have happened over and over since 2009. I think I can truthfully say, Advent has become my favorite liturgical season. If I grieve so much now, it's for all of us who have no season to honor our own darkness. We are thrown into the glaring light of Christmas all too soon, way before we're ready. And we wind up being Scrooge all the way through the holiday season. Advent is the blessing we Scrooge's in particular need. And I am exceedingly grateful for the slowness of Advent.

There is no greening of our sanctuary until December 22; no tree lit up until then. No carols sung. No great loud celebration until Christmas. Advent's darkness has its place, and THEN the bells ring. Baby Jesus doesn't get put into the manger until Christmas Day. Christmas isn't Christmas until December 25, and THEN the 12 days of Christmas.

I bless Advent.  It has been my salvation. I wish you and yours a sacred, holy Advent Season. If you're sad and lonely, if you'd rather not face the glare of too much Christmas, pause and welcome the darkness of Advent. Wait with with me for the Light, for surely it will come.