In the Fall of 2019 just before the pandemic, Pastor Gary VanderPol, of Church Without Walls, Berkeley, where I serve as a spiritual director, introduced the image of the redwood tree in a sermon series titled, “From Survival to Revival.” Redwood trees, the tallest, oldest and most majestic of trees, have very shallow roots. The redwood tree maintains its stability by intertwining its roots with other redwood trees. Although the redwood tree looks tall and separate above ground, it stands strongest when connected to other redwood trees via this underground network of roots. Likewise, Christians, though they may be strong in their individual faiths, are most stable when closely connected to other Christians.
Come and Listen for the Still, Small Voice
Even as a good Protestant girl, I knew a little of St. Ignatius and had participated in some contemplative practices (Lectio Divina, centering payer, and the practice of silence), though not with great regularity. But the practice of the Ignatian Exercises was unknown to me. When the option came up in the midst of the COVID lock-down, my husband was quick to jump on joining in. So, we did.
Green Lives
I have lived in the northwest corner of Arkansas for fifteen years now, and I am still waiting to find out what a “typical winter” is. We’ve had a record-breaking ice storm, dumps of snow, and days warm enough to putter around the garden without a sweater. One thing we can rely on are the shorter days and long, cozy evenings. For a bedtime story this January, I plucked The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett from my big kids’ bookshelf of classic paperbacks to read to my littlest. Her name is Whimsy and she is six years old. As her name indicates, she is a pleasant surprise, a decade younger than her three older siblings. In this strange pandemic year, instead of attending Kindergarten, she has been at home, lonely, and isolated from the friends she made in preschool.
Jesus Moved into the Neighborhood: Do We Have Eyes to Recognize Him?
Written by Dr. Ruth Padilla DeBorst, June 19, 2018 [1]
Ruth Padilla DeBorst, PhD, is the speaker for the 3rd Annual Berkeley Palmer Lecture. Dr. DeBorst is a well-known Latin American theologian who has been involved in leadership development and theological education for several decades. She passionately pursues ecological justice, authentic community, and participative, contextual forms of theological education. Dr. Padilla DeBorst is currently a visiting faculty at Regent College in Vancouver, B.C., Canada.
Trade is going strong. And it is horrendously shameful and painful. Because what is being exchanged across the US border is not really a what but a who. Many, many “whos.”
Assault on the Jericho Road: Attempting to Read Luke 10:25-37
I’ve been having quite a time with The Good Samaritan. By “quite a time,” I mean I’ve been working for years on understanding how it works – linguistically, cognitively, and as a narrative. I want to understand it in its original context, and I want to think carefully about its implications for early Christian ethics and for contemporary social ethics. But a colleague recently opined that if she were to choose one New Testament parable which utterly fails to communicate its point to modern readers, it would be this one.
How could she say that? Well, I’ll tell you. And then I want to tell you why I both agree and disagree with that assessment. But first, please pause and read the passage in Luke.
Why Write "Spiritual Autobiography" ––and Why Now?
This February, less than three weeks after what is possibly the most fraught and fought-over inauguration in our national history, I’ll be teaching a short course on “Approaches to Spiritual Autobiography.” In light of recent disturbances in public life and in the midst of calls to active, organized response, such self-reflection might seem to some a bit untimely—perhaps a bit too inwardly focused when so many feel we’re at a political turning point or tipping point.
The Holy Way
January—the new year. The time of Epiphany—discovery and illumination. So we hope. We hope, too, for mass immunizations against the novel coronavirus and for a peaceful transfer of power in the United States. Every day I feel the intense longing for good news.
We’ve yearned toward the Holy One throughout the season of Advent, and in this new year the adventure continues. In our COVID-19 moment I’m reflecting on the fact that the word “adventure” underwent some evolution in its meaning many centuries ago. In 1200 it referred to that which happens by chance, with the possibility of wonder, miracle, and marvelous happenings. Then disaster struck and the word’s sense changed to denote risk and danger. In 1347 the Black Death struck Europe, and over the course of four years more than 20 million lives were lost on the continent, about one-third of the population. Everyone suffered. It’s no surprise that the understandings of common words would shift in grim ways. Over the course of the last year, I’ve developed an aversion reaction to the word “unprecedented.”
My Soul Magnifies the Lord
Advent, like Lent, is a speed bump in the galloping year, slowing us down, and waking us to deep realities. And how we need Advent in the blur of the pandemic and the rush of Yuletide. Advent and Lent are also confessional seasons and, in effect, extended Sabbaths. They exist in Kairos time, the time of reflection, of prayer, of communion.
It’s, as it were, folded time. We remember other Advents in our lives as though through a wormhole in time, and they seem near as we enter into the familiar patterns of Advent worship, even in this strange, isolated year. Perhaps especially in this particular year, we also anticipate future Advent seasons. Times of gathering together again in worship, retreat, caroling, and feasting.
Thanksgiving 2020
All Jesus did that day was tell stories––a long storytelling afternoon. His storytelling fulfilled the prophecy: I will open my mouth and tell stories; I will bring out into the open things hidden since the world’s first day. Matthew 13:34-35; MSG
Dear friends,
When I was a child, my great-aunt Hat would gather her grand-nieces and grand- nephews around her and recite a looping tale. Brown eyes wide open and her expression mock-somber, she would recite:
High in the windy hills of Italy lived a little band of bandits.
One night as the lightning flashed and the thunder roared and the rain came down in torrents, the Captain turned to his lieutenant and said, “Sandy, give us a story,” which he did in the following manner.
“High in the windy hills of Italy lived a little band of bandits. One night as the lightning flashed….”
We squealed with delight at the absurdity, even the youngest among us knowing that—silly, Aunt Hat!—stories ought not to loop like that.
Stories need to go somewhere.
Anchored to Christ in These Windy Times
Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you. Discipline yourselves, keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour. Resist him, steadfast in your faith, for you know that your brothers and sisters in all the world are undergoing the same kinds of suffering. And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, support, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the power forever and ever. Amen. 1 Peter 5: 6-11
Beloved Resident Aliens
The Lord protects the resident alien,
comes to the aid of the orphan and the widow,
but thwarts the way of the wicked. Ps. 146:9 (NABRE)
Beloved, remember you don’t belong in this world. You are resident aliens living in exile, so resist those desires of the flesh that battle against the soul. 1 Peter 2:11 (VOICE)
Throughout this attenuated pandemic season, the words “resident alien” have reverberated in my mind, and I’ve sought reassurance in how God views people in such straits as beloved. We are in a strange time and place, and we are loved.
Searching for the Sacred in the Faith & Film Series: Four films to watch on your own
What is sacred? Christian artistic pursuits, for almost 2000 years, have been an attempt to articulate our “quest for the sacred”.
In fact, we see artistic questing for the sacred expressed throughout human history. In the caves of Altamira Spain, dated over 35,000 years ago, we see charcoal and ochre images of human hands and animals. The Paleolithic people documented their experience with each other and nature. We humans have always tried to express our search for existential meaning and identity.
Working Toward Sustainable Allyship
It has now been several weeks since the inhumane murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd, which re-ignited not only national but global attention to the Black Lives Matter movement. Social media posts expressing lament and outrage and detailing calls for action through protests, donations, policy changes, and institutional reform have flooded our news feeds. As these conversations slowly revert to our ego-centered lives, I have been reflecting on how we as people of faith can keep ourselves accountable to continue combating anti-black racism in the United States. What does sustainable allyship look like?
COVID Kavod
God’s grace is with us, we trust, even in a strange time of pandemic which has prevented us from gathering together in person with anyone outside of our own households. The crisis time fell within our seasons of Lent and Eastertide, bringing us through Ascension Day (when, some people are saying, Jesus began “working from home”). Now following Pentecost, we’ve entered what Christian liturgical calendars call “Ordinary Time,” days of trusting that Jesus is with us, sometimes noticing him and many times not being sure if we do.
The Companionship of Candlelight
“When near the end of day, life has drained out of light, and it is too soon for the mind of night to have darkened things, no place looks like itself, loss of outline makes everything look strangely in between, unsure of what has been, or what might come.”
– John O’Donohue, “For The Interim Time” from The Bless the Space Between Us
“Prayer is a matter of relationship. Intimacy is the basic issue, not answers to problems or resolutions ‘to be better.’ Many of life’s problems and challenges have no answers; we can only live with and through them. Problems and challenges, however, can be faced and lived through with more peace and resilience if people know that they are not alone.”
-William J. Barry, SJ from Letting God Come Close: An Approach to The Ignatian Spiritual Exercises
As I write this piece, well after midnight, I am awaiting another text or phone call from my sister or brother-in-law to update us about her condition. I wonder if it will be yet another sleepless night of enduring radiating pain down her left side, her leg, her left arm, as well as pain within her chest. Seemingly around midnight the pain had migrated to her face. If this sounds alarming enough to warrant a visit to the ER, or a call to 911, or at the very least phoning in to the advice nurse on duty – you are thinking as we all have. It has been a week-long stretch of being in constant contact with the hospital and her doctor. Still, she has not been able to qualify for a test for coronavirus despite her obvious presentation. These neuromuscular and neuralgic symptoms along with strange bouts of overwhelming fatigue, stomach distress, elevated liver levels, headaches, and nausea seem to be the lingering after-effects of what we (“we” includes several doctors within the family) all suspect is COVID-19. It has been two months now of a strange and frightening ebb and flow in and out of sickness. And for those of us who love her, it has been an agonizingly painful time of remaining vigilant with her from afar as best we can.
And so I sit in my office trying to write by the same candlelight I use for my directees and clients each day. I pray desperately for God’s grace to remain in a palpable way for my sister and her family. I sit and wait, and I cry. Staying awake, waiting for another fearful text in the dark of night is the only thing I can do for her now. She has asked if I can be with her in this way as she knows I am a night owl, but also, I’m her older sister…and some things just don’t change with time.
I restlessly make tea and re-arrange meaningless things in my kitchen and then I come back to my computer and stare at the screen. The paralysis feels thick as the hour-hand hits two, then three hours past midnight. No word from her so I pray that she was able to sleep. I get lost momentarily in a YouTube spiral as one is prone to do when attempting to dissociate from the stress of it all. But eventually I come back to a place where I can handle the silence, save for the clacking of my fingers upon the keys. I come back to the candle and attempt to find some focus. And it is in this coping loop that I am reminded of a universal truth that has struck so many of my clients in this time—that it is imperative to not rush through lament.
In fact, perhaps many of us find ourselves still lingering in Good Friday even though eighteen days have passed since Easter Sunday. I so appreciate the gospels for offering the very real and very human responses with which the disciples dealt with traumatic grief. Some (namely the women) stayed vigilant and remained. The day after Sabbath they were back at the tomb ready to tend to Jesus’s body, again. Some fled the scene altogether. At least one railed in his grief and needed to see the proof in order to believe. So many of us can relate to at least one of these responses, I’m sure. And yet, in all of this I observe and I am drawn to how Jesus was with them. It doesn’t appear that he rushes them through the process of their grief. At times his way is mysterious and even feels too slow for my liking. Nonetheless, he remains where they are. He lingers long enough to wait out their veils of confusion and disorientation. He walks with them, cooks for them, allows them to touch his wounds…and he rehearses life with them until they can see the familiar signs that intimate true and long-suffering companionship.
I am not sure I am offering anything new, but perhaps it is enough to reinforce things we already know at a time like this. As a trauma care practitioner and spiritual director, so often these days I find myself ruminating over healthy coping skills and resiliency patterns with clients, friends, and family. My invitation is less about how to build and discover resilience in this moment than it is about remembering and recalling what your body already knows. We can too quickly move toward the recovery process when it is enough to simply remain present to our response. The world is still enduring the pandemic and recovery from a collective trauma such as this is a slow, graduated process that can only happen if we move through the experience one moment at a time, both on an individual and communal level.
A few contemplative questions come to mind to close this piece. My hope is that something may rise to the surface or linger from these next reflections (maybe just a word, phrase or image), but certainly it is okay if does not. What do you need to remain present to in this time? Are there things that have remained hidden or that you have set aside for the sake of coping? Who might witness you in your journey and remind you that you are seen and heard? How may remaining present to yourself invite you to notice how Jesus/Holy/Divine/Spirit may remain with you? And how may this allow you to slowly increase your capacity to hold space for others as well?
Whatever your experience, my prayer and my hope is that grace does not feel far removed from you and that, somehow, the presence of the Holy remains with you in exactly the way that you need – if even just by candlelight.
Naisa Wong, Mdiv, DASD, New College Berkeley faculty in spiritual direction