Gratitudes

Blessing

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

2013 May 051

Here is a poem from this day in 2013.  It’s one of my favorites.

May the bright breeze of morning rouse your heart to singing,
May the fire of the noonday warm your heart to hopefulness,
May the cooling rains of evening wash your heart to freshness,
May the enclosing arms of the earth hold you through the midnight.

Walk in paths of the winds that awaken,
Walk through the fires that burn off the scars,
Walk in the waters that cool and renew,
Stand with your feet firmly planted on earth

Until you hear the voice of the wind,
Until you breathe the essence of the fire,
Until you smell the message of the waters,
Until you feel the heartbeat of the earth,
Until you see the sun rise
within you,
within you.

Gratitude List:
1. The wisdom and thoughtfulness of that group of students who led chapel yesterday, telling stories of their experiences of racism, opening up the conversation.  The post-chapel discussion took more than two periods because people were so caught up in it, and people were talking about it in the halls.  I am grateful for the courage they had to share their stories and get the conversation going.
2. Warm mittens
3. More readings from the desert mothers and fathers.
4. The collage assignment in Creative Writing.  I love watching them create and develop and work with images.
5. Routines.  Developing helpful habits.

May we walk in Beauty!

Living into the Wildness of Abundance

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 4 Comments

MLKDream

Gratitude List:
1.  The Lancaster Emergency Women’s Winter Shelter.  I am grateful that my church and so many organizations in Lancaster participate in making sure the program is staffed with volunteers throughout the winter.  It’s cold out there, and dangerous at night.  The motto for the program is “Safe.  Warm. Dry.”
2. Baked oatmeal with mixed berries for supper on a cold night.
3. The Here and Now piece yesterday on NPR about the hyenas of Harar, Ethiopia, and the man who feeds them.  When the city was built in the 13th century, low entry passages were left in the thick walls, so the hyenas could come and go throughout the city.
4. Getting enough sleep.  I lost sleep over the weekend because I did a shift at the shelter, but I have had time for naps, and lately I fall right back to sleep when I wake in the night.  I even struggle to wake up in the mornings instead of my body pushing me out of bed at 4.  I will receive this with gratitude for as long as it lasts.
5. Sunday’s sermon. Live with a belief in abundance: I have abundant time, sleep, resources to accomplish my Work.  There is enough for all of us.  The church has certainly twisted and skewed this concept over time: to believe in abundance is to believe that God will make you wealthy, to exploit the earth for material resources.  I have responded to that erroneous thinking by shifting to a sometimes scrimping frugality that has me living with a sense of scarcity, of never having enough time, enough sleep, enough resources–and that pushes me into a hoarding spirit, not just of stuff, but of time and spirit–and this can be paralyzing.  Writing these gratitude lists has helped me to learn to appreciate the abundance of my life.  The words on Sunday helped me to look at how I can deepen that belief and live into the wildness of that.

May we walk in Beauty!

What Have You Done?

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

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Just a little morning riff here:

“What have you done for color?” –Henri Matisse

What have you done for color,
for light, for dancing?

What have you done
for the quiet journey of the sun
over the ridgetop at dawn?

What have you done for the line,
for the eloquent curve,
for the circle?

What have you done for the pure note,
the perfect A that hangs in the air above you?

Gratitude List:
1. Pie night.  I didn’t write about that when it happened, but when I got home on Friday, Jon was making pie crusts.  He made an out-of-this world vegetable pie, and with the leftover dough, we mixed up a lemon sponge pie.  I think we will have to do this more often.  Of course, it brought to mind the cherry pie that he made for me once when we were dating.  He told the boys that he would help them some day if they want to make pies to impress their dates and their families.
2. How getting rid of things makes the things you hold onto even more real.  We gave away a rather large stack of vinyl records the other day, and suddenly I find myself playing the ones we kept.  My ears are still filled with Abba.
3. Watching a child become a reader.  Literacy is a magical thing.
4. Miracles and wonder.  These are the days. . .
5. Learning the new script for how I speak about myself to myself.  (This is a constant process.)

May we walk in Beauty!

The Gift of Today

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kittykisses

Gratitude List:
1. Today.  What a gift.  Here’s another one, with all the same hours as yesterday.  And tomorrow, another one will come.
2. Good Work.  English teachers tend to fuss a bit about the stacks of grading (and I have a massive stack of last semester’s papers to finish in the precious hours of today), but it’s Good Work.  Meaningful.
3. Nourishment.  Nurture.  I want to ponder those words a little.  What are the shades of difference in their meanings?  How are they similar?
4. Laughter.  One of my mentors in a previous teaching job once told me, “Make them laugh every day.”  I think that applies to families and friends and oneself as much as to the classroom.  Laugh every day.
5. Clearing out.  We are working on getting rid of 2016 things from our house in 2016.  It’s a real challenge, about 39 things a week, 168 things a month.  And it feels good.  It also makes me more aware of not bringing in more stuff.
6. The sun has just lifted over the ridge and into the kitchen window.  Hello, Bright Friend.

May we walk in Beauty!

Stretching

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2013 August 175
This is a firebird in a campfire, but it feels like it belongs with the sunset thunderbird story.

Gratitude List:
1. Thunderbird Firebird Sunset: Can we do another sunset here?  It’s just that last night’s sunset was so much like a portent, like a message.  The sky behind was shading to tender aquamarine, the way it gets lighter and brighter before it darkens into night.  The clouds in front, layered lines of tufty fluff, were tinged with magenta on the bottom, with the realest indigo above, and true violet between.  The sky where the sun had just been was the glowing orange of coals.  But the most striking thing about it all was that in the space where the orange was, there was the clearly delineated shape of a thunderbird, like the ones carved by the Susquehannock people in the rocks of the River.  It was rising up out of the earth into the sky, a bird of flame.
2. An empty box: Last night, I picked up an empty cardboard box to take upstairs (we store the strongest ones in the attic).  I noticed that it was the box where I had kept the notes from my first teaching job, at Butler County Community College.  I had brought it down to put my papers in the recycling bin, and they went off in the truck early this morning.  And there’s an odd weight lifted from my shoulders.  Getting rid of my old notes and papers (which I never look at) means that I can now completely trust my own inner resources and my ability to find answers in the present day.  I can believe that what I learned in the past is part of me today, and I don’t have to keep papers as a link to my past to remind myself of what I might have forgotten.
3. I’ve got this: That’s my mantra for the time being.  I realized that although I think of myself as a fairly positive person, I have been continually feeding myself shameful messages about how I never seem to be able to stay organized and on top of things.  At the same time, I would set unrealistic goals about what I might be able to get done in any given amount of time.  In this coming season of my life, I will be setting realistic goals, and I will feed myself the message that I can do it.  Talking to a colleague yesterday, I mentioned that I am trying to keep my messages to myself positive, and without knowing my mantra, she said, “You’ve got this!”  Yes, yes, I believe I do.
4. Shakespeare and teenagers: We’re studying A Midsummer Night’s Dream in English 9 right now.  Yesterday one girl came to me after class and said, “I thought this Shakespeare stuff would be boring because it’s so old and hard to understand, but I really love this story!”  This is why I became a teacher.  Those words are a bright, bright, shiny stone that I will carry around with me for a long time.
5. Why am I at a loss to find the fifth today?  There are so many, many things that I am grateful for, but nothing seems to be quite the one that finishes this list.  Stretching.  That’s it.  Stretching.  Slow, careful, breath-infused stretching.  Yes, and that means more than it means.

May we walk in Beauty!

Being Interpreted

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DSCN8116
Remembering my days of quiet contemplation at the monastery last summer.  Longing for another weekend there in a few months.

Gratitude List:
1. Elderberry syrup, which being interpreted means: I have kept the cold at bay so far.
2. The coming 3-day weekend, which being interpreted means: Sleep.
3. Those crows–how can I stop writing about the thousand crows?–which being interpreted means: Something inside me is flying into the wind.
4. These quiet morning moments of feeding the introvert, which being interpreted means: Silence.
5. Poetry, which means words, which means layers of language, which means a bridge.

May we ever walk in Beauty!

Season of Owl

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2013 May 032

This is the season of owl,
of winds that howl through the hollow,
the season of the sharp bark
of the fox, voicing longing in the bosque.

This is the season of bitter,
of fierce flakes feathering cheeks and hands,
the season of crystal, crisp and cutting,
of beauty that will slice you open.

This is the season of rising,
thin and pale, into the dawn air,
but also of burrowing, huddling deep
into the layers that hold you.

Walk the thin line of today with care,
one foot precisely placed, the other. . .
Perhaps you will notice,
when you raise your eyes for a moment,
how the line curves out ahead of you,
bringing you
always
back home.

Gratitude List:
1. Yesterday’s really lovely start to the new semester.  Nobody, including myself, is very squirrelly yet (we’ll get there, I’m sure).
2. The energy of teaching a new class.  Like being the newbie again.  I’m a little terrified, but in a good and energizing way.
3. Clouds.  Whole fantasy worlds and landscapes there above us.  This is the time of year when the clouds are tinged with sunset as I drive home, and tinged again with sunrise on my way to work.
4. Snow.  Just a dusting.
5. How a hot drink warms hands and face.

Blessings on your day!  May you find Beauty.

Hot Tea and the Moon

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DSCN7423

Gratitude List:
1. That tiniest sliver of a moon last night
2. A hot cup of tea on a cold winter evening
3. Freshly tidied spaces
4. Tabula rasa–today, we begin a new semester
5. The way my hands will sometimes remind me of my mother’s hands.

May we walk in Beauty!

Anything is Possible

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

IMG_0068
Another of Ellis’s funky photos.  This may actually be me, caught in a swirl, against the barn, against the sky.


when the dream has shifted,
sifted away into the mist

will you still find yourself
moored to the rocks of the day

or off in some alternate realm
where anything is possible?

Gratitude List:
1. Yesterday’s message: “You are a beloved, precious child of God.”  Pass it on.
2. Chili lunch yesterday, thanks to the Junior Youth.  And there was a delicious vegetarian option.  And Cholulu Chipotle hot sauce.  And both cornbread and rice.  I’m suddenly feeling hungry again.
3. Outlining my classes.  I love the feel of possibility, the sense of organization at the beginning.  I am vowing to hold onto that careful organization more solidly throughout this semester.
4. Staff Development Day.  Sometimes I hate meetings, but Staff Development Day is a school day when I don’t have to be responsible to prepare anything for anyone else.  I can look forward to receiving all day.  I love the bustle of the full group of teachers from all the campuses.
5. Language.  What an amazing gift language is, the web of words that we build between us, to channel ideas and thoughts and dreams and feelings between us, bridging the separate worlds of our bodies.

May we walk in Beauty!

More on Prayer

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / Leave a comment

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I have been pondering more about prayer in the last day.

Do you remember the story of the Fisher King?  His land is dying because he is mortally wounded, and no one can save him or his kingdom, until Sir Perceval (on his quest for the Holy Grail) asks him the Necessary Question.  In some mystical versions of the story, Sir Perceval simply asks the Fisher King why he is suffering, or he asks him, “What do you need?”  Being asked the right question is part of the Wounded King’s healing.  So too, perhaps, with prayer.  On Friday, the students who gathered in my room and asked if they could pray for me asked me what I needed them to pray about. There is some incredible power in that intensely human interaction in the moment of asking someone,
“May I pray for you?” or
“How can I pray for you?”
“What do you need?”

There is an ethical question related to informed consent when praying for people.  Not everyone appreciates being prayed for, especially from a particular religious perspective.  Asking the question, simply and with love, gives someone the opportunity to graciously refuse the offer of prayer.

There is someone in my life who believes pretty firmly that I am spiritually misguided.  She has tried many different tactics that feel to me very much like she is trying to pressure and manipulate me into changing my basic belief system.  Would I want her to be praying for me?  Would this feel like a further sort of spiritual manipulation?  Possibly.  Still, I think I would welcome prayer, even from someone in a situation like this.  I don’t think that the Great Mystery is going to change me against my will–and prayer opens a channel, casts a web.  Prayer is as likely to change the one who prays as it is to change the one prayed for.  Perhaps if she and I would pray for each other, we might find ourselves in a circle that could contain us both.  The next time I feel attacked, I think I will suggest that we pray for each other.

And a final word.  I don’t always use the term prayer to mean what I mean.  Like God, I think the idea of prayer is too big to be contained in the box of a single word.  Up there, I called it casting a web.  Opening a channel.  It’s sending energy.  Sending light. Being hopeful on your behalf.  Finding feathers. Holding the bowl.  Holding stones.  Holding.  Always holding.

How may I hold you?

Gratitude List:
1. Catching up
2. Catching new visions
3. Holding and being held
4. Plotting goodness
5. Rain

May we walk in Beauty.  May we hold each other always.