Still

I want to spend some time this late afternoon, 4:00 post meridian, sitting in a worn wooden rocking chair, it's varnish totally ground away by three years of rains and snows and wind and morning sun, with a cup of Two Leaves and a Bud green tea with Italian orange essence.

I brew my tea - boil water to warm the mug. Fresh water to just a scant boil for the tea. Four minutes to steep, in a mug with flowers made of little hearts and the words, "I love you" scrawled on it.

After the brewing, I take my mug, and a volume by Lauren f. Winner (she uses the lower case for the "f"). The book is Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis. I sit on the porch with my tea, sipping it and reading. I read about six pages.

The breeze is a bit too brisk, the cold too sharp. I give up, and I give in the the compulsion to write - anything, this note.

I chose the stopping place. The writer is explaining Epiphany, the season in some Christian faith expressions, and specifically the Episcopalian expression of the Christian faith, and why the baptism of Jesus is the first gospel we read in this season. "Epiphany (the word comes from the Greek for 'to manifest' or 'to show forth')..." she writes, "...is a season of questions and answers: who is Jesus...how can we bear Jesus' light in the world?"

Then the official reason for including the baptism of Jesus as an Epiphany story, it is "that after Jesus is baptized, a dove alights, and a voice comes from heaven declaring, 'This is my beloved Son...' "

But, the author wonders, is this is the prime meaning of including the baptism of Jesus in Epiphany. She reminds us that at Christmas we recognize Jesus as Emmanuel, God-with-us. And she says, there he is, in the line with all the other sinners of the world, waiting, like them, to be baptized. He is truly with us, in the midst of us, "...the One who stands with humanity in this line that is all about our sinning...".

Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis - by Lauren f. Winner, Copyright (c) 2012, HarperCollins Publishers, New York, NY.

I pick up my mug, cup it in my hands, feel its warmth, and sit and drink.

More germination

Two of the nasturtium seeds are peeping out of the potting soil in their tray.
Some of us are slower starters than others.
It has no bearing on the fruits of the labor.

Germination

The zinnia seeds are sprouting in their trays. That was quick!
I have just read a note of thanks for a person's sprouting. Slower work, but in terms of human spiritual and vocational germination, and the germination of zinnia seeds, pretty quick. Though maybe more like the nasturtium seeds, which are not sprouted yet.
It is recommended that the seed be filed a bit to make germination easier. I have never done that, so I don't know if it helps or not. I do know, however, the expression, "a hard nut to crack". That describes me, in the hand of a formative God.

Saturday: A day for planting

Yesterday was perfect, if a bit warm.
I read with dismay that I was supposed to sow the mixed seeds of the butterfly collection two to four weeks before the date of the last frost! This is because there are perennial seeds in the collection which require lying about in cold earth in order to germinate when it warms up.
But I planted the seeds anyway, even though the ground was warm. I prepared the plot, in front of the side porch, where my grape hyacinth, scilla and snowdrops are planted. This is the plot where the church's lawn guy mowed down all the grape hyacinths two weeks ago because it looked like a grass patch to him, I guess, never mind the beautiful flowers blooming there. Anyway, I loosened the soil between the remains of the bulb plants, scattered the seeds, raked them in, covered them with potting soil, and watered them in.
Last night it rained and the temperature dropped. Thank God for even the smallest of mercies.
I also sowed, in my kitchen garden tubs, french breakfast radishes, petit carrots, arugula, mesclun (a lettuce mix) and basil.
Now, the kitchen garden, in the back yard, is fenced, but that does not deter the squirrels from digging in the tubs and in the pots of chrysanthemums and herbs, even the smallest pots. So, with mi esposo on the road for the weekend, I had to remember how he covered those tubs last year to protect the sowings. I hope I did a good enough job. Those squirrels - really, rodents, tree rats with bushy tails - are determined critters. If I could have found the canister of Rodent-be-Gone, a garlic oil preparation, to sprinkle on the tubs, I would have done that, but with the rain last night, and the torrential downpours coming today and tonight, a waste of time.
So, next is the preparation of the main kitchen garden bed, for beans, parsley plants and the flower seedlings I sowed earlier this week.
Then, when it's warm enough, tomato plants will go into the patch along the rectory wall outside the kitchen door, along with seeds for various beans. (Must check and make sure beans and tomatoes go together. Maybe carrots instead.)
It's always a balance between the weather, my energy level, and my schedule, getting gardening done at all. But my soul requires me to muck about in the dirt and try to bring things to life outside, in order to be alive inside.
Once in awhile everything comes together in perfect time: a sunny day for being in the garden, with a day of rain to come for watering in, and cool night temperatures to help set those seeds that like that sort of thing, as well as a day with no sermon prep to do or appointments to keep. And I still had time to go up to Stew Leonard's to get bottles of sparkling lemonades for the reception today after church to send off our Seminarian Intern into the world after Yale-Berkeley.
And now, breakfast.

Spring thing

I am always late getting my seeds for the spring planting started. I have just this afternoon started in trays three kinds if zinnias, and three kinds of nasturtiums. I particularly like the giant zinnias, and especially the scarlets. So I have two packs of giant scarlet zinnias (one for seeding directly in the ground), two packs of mixed California giants (one for direct seeding, again) and one of cut-and-come-again, a short, cutting zinnia for bud vases.

In the nasturtiums, I have one pack of empress scarlet, one of whirlybird mixed colors and one of night and day (dark and cream mixed).

I had two bags of starter mix. The first I opened had gone moldy. It was damp inside. It must have had a small leak in the bag. Thank God the other bag was fine.

I am dismayed at all the early crop seeds I haven't put in the ground yet, because it got hot way too soon - carrots, arugula, lettuces. The beans, according to the charts for my area, shouldn't go in the ground for a long time yet.

So why post this on the spiritual life blog? Few things are more connecting to the spirit for me than gardening. The only thing that limits me to how much I can do in a day is that my body is old and getting decrepit - back, knees, right rotator cuff, that sort of thing. However, my spirits have perked up a bit since filling those trays with potting mix, watering them in, and seeding them.

Now the waiting begins. Like the life of the spirit, the trays have to be tended every day. I have a tendency to leave them to themselves and suddenly, when I remember to check them, the seedlings have popped long ago and are already leggy. It's a balancing act between taking them down off the fridge too much and not doing so enough. Fortunately for the spirit, the Gardener is, presumably, more expert than I am with my kitchen garden.

The next day

Feeling very fecund

Something is trying to be reborn

Returning to a beginning

decades in the past

Revisit

Recapture

Restore

Renew

Re - bear

Something new is happening

Something old is being born

Can I sit with it?

Yesterday was a very high energy day after writing.

Today I walk the labyrinth and wait.

New Beginning

This is my new blog, dedicated to retreats, quiet days, contemplative prayer and the spiritual life. Not exclusively my spiritual life, but the possibility of a life in the Spirit.

I am one of a number of men and women retreat leaders in the Diocese of Connecticut who are forming a network of resource people like ourselves, and who will launch our new group webpage in the beginning of May: Fresh Springs Retreats.

I have been thinking about putting up a new blog for some time, and since putting up my info page on the Fresh Springs site, I am inspired to make the name Julian House live again.

Some time ago, long before I even thought about seeking ordination to the priesthood of the Episcopal Church, I stumbled across contemplative prayer.

I have for some years wanted to have a "proper prayer life", the kind that God would approve. Many times I tried to have this prayer life. I would begin by saying the daily offices of the Episcopal Church's Book of Common Prayer - Morning Prayer, Noonday Prayer, Evening Prayer, Compline. I wanted to be like the monastics but being married it would have to be outside the convent.

The first to go would be Noonday Prayer and Compline (night prayers before going to bed). In addition, I would read all the scripture readings for the day, and meditate on them, adding, along the way, devotional texts. After a couple of weeks I would begin to weed some things out of the offices, until, after a month or so, I wouldn't be praying at all.

I wanted to get my prayers right. It had to be all or nothing. And since I couldn't do it all, I ended up with nothing, time and time again.

One day I sat down to start my prayer life all over again for the umteenth time. I laid out my Prayer Book, the Bible, the devotional texts I felt just had to be read, and I thought about beginning, but I never got any further than that.

I just sat there, in the right hand corner of the sofa, with my books before me on the table. And all I could do was close my eyes.

After time, I thought, "Well, at least I should be saying petitions for others, thanksgivings, prayers of adoration, prayers asking for forgiveness." But nothing was there. My head was empty. I sat in silence, worrying what was wrong, and at the same time, it felt right, which made me feel guilty.

I remembered Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation. I phoned them and got a catalogue. Voila. I had stumbled into being a contemplative! It was normal. It had a long, long history and was one of the prayer traditions still being carried into the Episcopal Church.

I took all the courses in prayer I could from Shalem. One day, I was asked by the clergy of my church, the cathedral in Delaware, to lead a four week study in contemplative prayer. I began with Julian of Norwich, and her influence on me. I first encountered her and her "Showings", her Revelations of Divine Love, when on retreat at a convent in Philadelphia. From there, I had branched out into others of the mystics. Now here I was, being asked to teach.

I did. And the rest is history.

I don't know ahead of time what I will post here. I do know that I want to honor Julian and the others who gave me life, and I want to honor the gift I was given, one I have tended to take for granted, now that I am a parish priest, deeply embroiled in all that entails. I want to remember whose I am, and from where I came.

And I want a place where I can begin to chart where this gift is now taking me. I wonder where Fresh Springs Retreats will lead, and what part Julian House will play in it.