Tag — England

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Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness, you who seek God
Look to the rock from which you were hewn,
and to the quarry from which you were dug.
Look to Abraham and to Sarah who bore you;
For they were but two when I called them,
but once I blessed them they multiplied.

God will comfort Zion; God will comfort all her waste places,
God will comfort all her mounds of ruins.
I will transform her dead ground into Eden,
her moonscape into the garden of God,
a place filled with exuberance and laughter…

This was the lectionary reading from Isaiah this Sunday. When I heard it read aloud in the clipped Danish accent of Hanna, my sister in liturgical ministry, I was immediately transported back to Stonehenge, where I lay my hand upon an ancient heel stone. It made me think of my ancestry, held in ancient stories, and of my—of our—deep connection to the earth. These words and this memory released inside me a wellspring of gratitude for the very real connection I have to such an ancient heritage.

When I returned home and read the text again, I was struck by the feminine language that Isaiah uses for Zion. This is a word which has many meanings, but perhaps most meaningfully to me is how it holds the idea of homeland–the physical or metaphysical place in which we find our source, our identity and our solace. It encouraged me to know that this ancient statement of true things, this old poet’s tongue, still stands. It is an affirmation to me and to my soulsisters, known and unknown, who are feeling as though bits of them have been converted in mounds of ruin–who feel as though they are living in wasted places.

As my dear Jen always says, “Whatever you do hold on to hope…that this is not the end of your story.” Our sisters, our mothers, our ancestral Sarah’s, have been holding on to the hope that the homeland of our hearts and hearths would be comforted—would be made into gardens like unto Eden. Whatever you do today, in whatever way you can, hold on to hope—like a seed in your palm, like the scrap of a fortune cookie paper cupped in your hand. For this is not the end of our story, but the very place from which it is born. Amen. May it be so.

click for more podcasts: Beaches and Bodies, The Care and Keeping of Sacred Stories.
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Posted in Immigrant Diaries, Soulstories, podcasts
Tags: England, Immigrant Diaries, podcasts, Sacred Life Sunday, Soulstories |

That’s my daughter in the water….

Posted in Immigrant Diaries, Soulstories
Tags: England, Immigrant Diaries, Sacred Life Sunday, Soulstories |

a small sketch from my travel journal

It’s the night of Summer solstice. At home in Seattle the sun is at its highest right now, and hopefully the skies are clear to give the locals some much-onged for warmth during this cold Summer on this, their most treasured day. Here in Copenhagen–which is not yet home—the sun is starting to set, though the light has barely ebbed. Well after ten o’clock I can still read easily in the twilight glow that’s stretching over our high city balcony.

John Mayer is in town, the poet whose blues have sustained me through these strange and wrenching times. I searched for tickets—begged, borrowed and threatened to steal in two languages—but alas, none were to be found. Instead I’m sneaking smokes and playing all the live songs I could download one after another too loudly through the open windows of the living room. Message in Bottle (which I once heard Sting perform on an awkward date in an enormous arena). My Stupid Mouth (The Blogger’s Lament.) 83 (whimsical. nostalgic.) And finally, Gravity, my touchstone, my anchor.

I have been dreading this day, alone and away from my community on one of our most holy days. Paul is at a work party. One which has a reputation for being a bit of an orgy. One to which spouses are not invited. The girls are asleep after what for me was an exhausting night of homemade pizza, sing-a-long movies, and reading aloud extraordinary long chapters of Harry Potter. The grand finale for mom was one of those long, drawn out bedtimes only clever children can create, and enough dishes to make a restaurateur cry. But now that I’m here, alone with the dog, listening to John and watching the swallows dart after invisible insects; I find that I am actually okay in with this solitude, watching the sun slip into sleep, being grateful for the light.

At Stonehenge this morning the sun crested over softly arching hills, struck the blue-hued Heelstone, and drove its light between the arches of the great trilithon. Hundreds were there in dreadlocks and druid robes, smelling of travel and patchouli, trying to name something unnamable, making it up as they go along. Isn’t that what we all do? Cobble something together from shards of history and intuitive pull? Look for the meeting point between what we know and what we hope to be true?

I was at Stonehenge not long ago, fresh from the opulence of Europe’s finest cathedrals, ready to be unimpressed by a ring of stones surrounded by security fencing. I was surprised to find such holiness there, walking in a round where people have paced for thousands of years; waiting for the shard of light to crack the sky; hoping for a life continued. I followed the tour and when I reached the Heelstone, paused to touch its side. As I felt the warmth of the sarsen stone under my hand, I noticed a young woman walking counter clockwise to the organized tour, her shoes in her hand, her feet on holy ground. Seeing her example, I wanted suddenly to sink to my knees. It was all I could to do still my voice, to not incant ‘Holy, Holy, Holy.’ But I was unaccustomed of being a stranger in a strange land for so many long months, worn down from always sticking out, from always being obvious. I did not have the confidence to kneel in front of so many tourists in windbreakers and cameras. (Who knew the bending of the knee could be an act requiring so much strength?) Iinstead I stayed my hand on the stone, leaned my weight into my palm, and let my soul pour out thanks. Gratitude for the light. Gratitude for continuance. Gratitude for all that we need to go on.

It was not, and this is not, the Solstice I have come to remember. It is not the riotous and ridiculous parade; the familiar and homespun pageant built with our own hands; the silly, colorful crowd of thousands. Instead it is a new lesson in holy moments—stumbled upon alone (yet with casts of thousands now past); a mishmash of vices and virtues, of new songs and old stones. I feel as though I am soaking somehow in this history, in this present, and in the sun—always our promise of a future. I am melted. I am melded, somehow, me in this chair alone. And I think—held in this mystery of solitude amidst the companionship of souls—I think as the sun now fades, “Dayenu, it is enough.”

Posted in Immigrant Diaries, Soulstories
Tags: England, Immigrant Diaries, monkfish abbey, Soulstories, summer solstice |

One of the things I love to do when I travel is too look for what the Celts called “thin spaces”—places where the natural and the spiritual intersect. Most often these are places in nature—streams, wooded glades, or sacred stones. But being the city girl that I am, I often find these holy spots in unexpected urban places. Here’s a stream-of-consciousness journal entry I wrote while visiting two of London’s famous chapels: the ornate and royal Westminster Abbey, and the lesser known and a more austere White Chapel (aka St. John’s Chapel) at the Tower of London.

Walking into this famous cathedral I am immediately disappointed. The view from both the left and right is a jumble of overwrought memorials, each one trying to outshine the next. There are so many of them that at first, I think some have been moved from another part of the cathedral for restoration work. But no, this is the cobbled together result of centuries of hero worship—a marble bonfire of vanities.

This is not a cathedral, but a tomb. Not mosque, but mausoleum. A place of worship, perhaps, but what is one to worship here? Power it seems. Money. On our more optimistic days, perhaps we could say artistry is worshipped here, as the stone has given way to sculptor’s hands, as the tombs shift from warlords to writers.

There is a staff of dear men here, trying to hold back the encroachment of effigies. Men who don red robes and hold wine aloft, who offer candles and incense, and who insist on a minute of stillness at the top of each hour to send their prayers out on a loudspeaker amongst the tourists.

I am standing in the ornate Lady’s Chapel when the bell of my first hour here chimes. The high arched ceiling is an architectural wonder of pleats and patterns. The eye is overwhelmed by its intricacies. In this visually explosive place, I am surprised and grateful for the crowd’s quiet acquiescence to the hourly call to prayer. The room goes silent as a vicar prays for survivors of Burma’s’ flood and China’s earthquake. Tears come to me unexpectedly, and I look longingly at the altar piece – Mother Mary caring for her young—and wish that I could sink into this moment and hold a little space for the parents who are mourning losses today, for the children whose mothers are gone. But although the crowds is willingly stilled for sixty seconds, they are balanced like racers on the balls of their feet, ready to spring forward and consume more sites. The second he says the Amen, the flow of traffic proceeds again, drifting quickly past the Marian shrine, and on to the huge black-and-gilt memorial of King Henry that dwarfs the small white altar.

< Yesterday I sat in another White Chapel, this one at the infamous Tower of London. Compared to the Lady Chapel at Westminster, the White Chapel of the Tower is barren. No, not barren, but spare. There is symmetry here between the clean arches and the rough stone, and a purity of line. It is not ornate. The kings never stayed here long and all the furnishings had to be simple so they could be carried with the court on progress. There is only a simple altar with a central cross, rows of wooden seats, and a single center aisle. All of the beauty is held in the Roman arches, and the age of the stone.

It feels very thin in the chapel, surrounded by all of the uncarved stone. The only representational shape the small cross on the altar. Even though we are several flights up into the Tower, I am drawn to the earthiness here. The altar is roped off, but I come as close as I am able and stand in the heavy stillness. I feel my body align into a centering pose, and I ask to be shown something of this holy space. It comes at me in rush then: the weightiness of the decisions made in this place, so regal in its starkness. Pious rulers knelt here seeking guidance. Greedy rulers came as well, justifying their often vicious actions by naming them as God’s own.

People stream behind me as I feel the importance of the White Chapel. They are flowing through this space to see what lies on either side. The chapel is merely a hallway to most. The portion of the Tower where the White Chapel stands is flanked on either side by rooms full of weapons: colonnades ringed in flintlocks, cannons in every corner, a whole hall of armor with enormous codpieces designed to intimidate one’s foe. Warfare and trickery lay heavily in most of these spaces; bloodshed and sorrow have baptized so many of these rooms. Power misapplied and malingered. But here, in this still stone room, in this dim light, even amongst all these shadows, a un-distilled power resides—some kind of force I cannot quite name: God’s power perhaps, too often ignored, man’s too often honored, and the ongoing strength of stone and silence.

More on Westminster Abbey and looking for London’s thin spaces coming soon…