God sends the portents we crave, and sometimes we are befuddled

Roslyn Chapel

ROSLYN -- All day Saturday, and into the evening, we discussed the knotty topic of spiritual discernment at our Vestry retreat. All of us here at the retreat are very grateful for being ably led by Canon Susan Goff.

We've talked about prayer and spiritual practices, and tried to get at the difficult question: What does it look, sound and feel like when God is speaking to us? Are we hearing only our own voices? How will we know it when we've truly found God's will for us?

Today at our Vestry retreat we will be electing our wardens and officers for the year and have Holy Eucharist together before returning to Charlottesville.

A member of our Vestry shared with us a poem that speaks to the question of discernment in a quirky kind of way. Maybe I like this poem because we have chickens at our house on the hill, and the chickens do just as described by the poem. Or maybe I like this because discernment often comes by surprise especially when I am befuddled, or maybe I just like this poem because it made me smile.

Enjoy your Sunday and here is the poem:

Our chicken Betty, photo by Lori K. Richardson

Celestial Favor
By Ethel Pochocki

Last night
I asked God
for an answer,
a sign of approval
that my step was sure,
my intent pure,
anything would do, I said.

This morning
there is a chicken
at the winter feeder
on the railing of the deck,
a plump white chicken
of dazed demeanor,
holding her own
amidst the jays
and mourning doves
squabbling and feasting
in the twelve-below freeze.

What farm is missing her,
I wonder,
what providence blew her here?

She roosts atop the feeder
like a feathered weathervane,
cocks her head at me
as I stare in disbelief.
“You called?” she asks.

I know God sends
the portents we crave
in our neediness,
each with meaning

for the one disposed –
a flurry of doves,
the whisper of an angel,
bedside visits from the Little Flower
or Saint Anthony glowing in the dark,
God himself
to a holy few!

To me God sends a chicken,
a befuddled chicken,
who, like me, suffers
a deficiency of direction.
I deduce I am dealing
with a Prankster.

Seeing with two eyes

Salisbury Cathedral

ROSLYN -- I’ve been away from the parish these last few days on a personal retreat, and naps have definitely been a part of the agenda. I’ve also read a book by John Phillip Newell, a gift of a parishioner.

Newell is best known for his work in Celtic spirituality. This recent book, A New Harmony: The Spirit, The Earth and The Human Soul, is really an essay about his expansive journey through many spiritualities including into India in the 1990s and how he has found a harmony within all of them.

Newell notes, as many have noted, that western Christianity over the centuries had put God “out there” or “up there,” keeping God at a distance while we ourselves go about our daily business. Church architecture, though beautiful, underlines that concept, with spires pointing skyward.

Newell re-discovered the harmony and the balance in God’s presence in creation by traveling to India. God is up there, but God is down here, and God dwells within. To see God is to see God in both places, to see God with two eyes, and not just one. He traveled far to find the balance that was always looking him in the face.

For me, that is not a new concept, but I am one who left the church to seek God before returning to church. I also needed to travel far, though not as far as India, to see what was already in front of me. My moment of harmony, as Newell might put it, came years ago while walking on a road late at night in Mojave Desert. The stars and galaxies, the desert floor and sage brush, and my own body seemed that night to be as one.

I could sense that night how G-d, the One who has no human name, courses through all of existence and time. We are made not merely by G-d, but we are made of G-d because G-d dwells in all things, and all things are knit together with G-d. You might say I have spent the rest of my life, in one way or another, trying to understand that one night in the middle of the desert.

And while we over-educated western Euro-centric folks may find all of this new and foreign, it really isn’t. The ancient Hebrew writers of the Bible lived with that idea daily, and the balance of God’s transcendence and immanence exudes from their writing.

Psalm 85, appointed for today, is a beautiful example:

Mercy and truth have met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
Truth shall spring up from the earth, and righteousness shall look down from heaven.

Even our church architecture can be made new if we see it new. We can look at the ceiling and the spires with one eye, and look at each other with another eye. When we do, we will be very close to seeing that which knits all together as one. We really don't have to travel far to see with two eyes.

Blessed be God in holy places!

ROSLYN, Virginia -- For the next couple of days I am on a personal retreat at the Roslyn retreat center near Richmond, a gift of the diocese to the clergy.

There is no program, no seminars, no small groups, no easel boards and pens. The only plan is go to chapel when I feel like it, pray, sleep, go on walks, meet with a spiritual director, and enjoy the hearty Southern food they serve here. There aren't many of us here, and that is fine with me.

Today's morning prayer began with the complicated (and overly triumphant) Psalm 68. I like the last line because it fits where I am:

How wonderful is God in holy places! the God of Israel giving strength and power to his people! Blessed be God!