The Blues as Contemplative Opening

"The moan is the birthing sound, the first movement toward a creative response to oppression, the entry into the heart of contemplation through the crucible of crisis..." -- Barbara Holmes

Betye Saar, Frieze

This moan, I think, is where the blues comes from. The blues as an unstoppable cri-de-coeur, the heart breaking within the pain as God seeps through the cracks -- Christ who weeps with us -- Jesus who is close to the shattered. With that moan Spirit flows through and widens the heart  in ways that cannot happen through our small separate self willing it. Something beyond ourselves enters in through the wailing, silent or sung, enlarging our capacity for compassion and the broader reaches of love and care that stem from that. We cannot do this on our own. But we can join our moans with the moans of others, invoking the God of our weary years, and be brought to a strength and a "peace that passes all understanding." We might find that we are carried--or graced with a mysterious capacity to carry--"for my yoke is easy and my burden light." (Matthew 11: 28-30).

Diurnal and Nocturnal Impressions

Some writing mined and revised from my handwritten journal. Recently, I am capturing impressions of the hours and seasons. It is writing practice. It is also one of the ways that I pray. 

Before the storm: The charcoaled bellies of the clouds hang low. May midnight thunder rumble.

After the storm: All the crows and l'il brown birds pecking the rain-drenched ground! There is food to be found.

Spring, midmorning: The breeze is blowing through the trees, now lush with leaf and blossom. With the daylight streaming through the branches, dappled patterns play across the ground: a slow shimmering of shadow and sun. It is not a rare effect, but I have loved this dance of dark and bright, this gift of leaf and wind, since girlhood.

I linger in this moment. Like the tiny insects that hover a few feet above the ground, I remain there—floating, quivering—savoring the brief sweetness of the season.

*     *     *     *     *     *    

Summer, first unmasked walk through the neighborhood after a year of pandemic: 

It is twilight, the hour of rose-hued horizon and moon-flowering sky. I am lucky to live in a place that is often quiet at dusk, with paths largely deserted. I relish the evening chill on my lips; my unshackled nose takes in the spice of blooms that open when the day dims down.

How I have missed these walks. How I have longed for that moment as the light pauses before revealing its primal aura—oh liminal hour of celestial presence—when planets appear and owls’ wings unfurl. 

Somehow, hope retrieves me at this hour. Somehow, possibility returns. Of course, I am familiar with the sleight-of-hand that low light plays – softening the edges, warming the coolness, inviting invisible crickets. It does not matter. The unbraided edges of dreams can now trickle in through my re-opened heart and loosen the rigidities of the day. Soon, the sleep-breathing of mammals sweetens the air. Soon, the cocoon of night wraps us in its luminous expanse and lifts us out of the callousness of the day.

 

Prayer For When You Forget to Say Grace

I was raised to say grace before meals. Usually when I was called on to do so, my reliable and to-the-point prayer was "God is great. God is good. Let us thank him for our food. Amen."

When it was my dad's turn to pray, his recitation was so fast that I never really knew the words to the prayer until I was old enough to look them up. It always came out as, "Bless us O Lord, and these thy gisswhissweroboutaceveshuthbounty, through Christourlordamen."

I got the sense that God might be a bit miffed if you were out somewhere, maybe at McDonald's with friends, and no grace was said -- not even your own little silent secret prayer (your default to keep folks from perceiving you as a goody-goody)...

Nowadays, I know that no scolding Deity in the Sky keeps track of such things and that Spirit savors authentic gratitude, however and whenever it is expressed. But I offer this prayer for all who might experience that sting of contrition when you eat and later realize you forgot to say spoken or silent grace.

Bless me O Lord

for what I just ate.

You know how I always

start praying too late.

I'm ever grateful

for the food I've received.

When my prayer is delayed,

please don't be peeved.

Amen.

O Holy One Weeping

O Holy One weeping

with us and through us,

widen our hearts

to receive your 

peace in the thick of this

chaos and pain

so that we turn to --

    not on --

one another,

becoming vessels of mercy

and wild tenderness

as we ride these storms

of our world

in transition.

Amen.