The Voice of Love

Prayer . . . is listening to the voice that calls us "My Beloved." - Henri Nouwen

My husband wakes, alone, in the early morning dark.  While the rest of us sleep, he lets the dog out, rekindles a fire in the wood stove, and turns on the coffee pot.  By the time I stumble down, he's often sitting, cross-legged, in the arm chair closest to the stove, with his eyes closed.  With a timer set on his phone, he endeavors to start the day in silent prayer.

But, he is no monk in a cell alone.

I wander through, on the way to the bathroom, then back again with a full cup of coffee in hand.  Then, my daughter’s alarm clock goes off and she staggers blindly into the living room as well.  The dog, of course, leaves her seat and clatters around, needing a greeting from every new entrant into the room.  

His morning prayer is rarely silent, often interrupted, even though his eyes remain closed.

The other morning, before the lights were on, my husband sat in his quietening chair and I sat near the base of the stairs, scrolling on my phone.  Then, out of the darkness, six-year-old Levi yelled from the top of the stairs, “Dad? Dad?”

Wanting to preserve my husband's silence, I answered for him, “What Levi?”

“Where’s Dad?  Is he still home?  Is he going to work today?” Levi belted his questions, like a winter storm flinging hail. 

“Yes,” I said, stealing a glance at my husband, whose eyes were now open. “It’s early.  Daddy’s still home, but he’s going to work in a little while.  What do you need?”

“I want to say goodbye to him,” he called.

I looked again at my husband, seated by the stove, and he nodded his head. 

“What Levi?” he called.

“Goodbye Dad, I love you!  I’ll see you tonight!” Levi said, “Thanks for helping with my Valentines.”

“Goodbye, Levi.  I love you too.  I’ll see you tonight, sweetie,” my husband replied.

Then, from the shadows, came Levi’s twin brother's voice, “Goodbye Dad, I love you!  I’ll see you tonight!”

“Goodbye, Isaiah.  I love you too.  I’ll see you tonight, sweetie.” my husband replied.

All semblance of prayer was lost as they scampered back to their beds.  As my husband turned off his timer and prepared to leave for work, it occurred to me that, despite numerous interruptions, his time of silence was also exactly how prayer should be.  Not the absence of sound, but a listening quietly in the dark for the presence, the voice of love.  How very lucky we are when that voice descends not once, but twice, clothed in the voice of a six-year-old child.

May you find the voice of Love descending on you today in unexpected ways.  

The Wandering Hen

She stood still, and silent as stone, under the garage’s small overhang.  I had to look twice to even tell it was a hen.  Her gray coloring and curved outline made her look more like a bowling pin.  The yard and driveway were coated in a layer of February’s mixed snow and ice.  The eaves protected her from a steady rain as she stared out across the driveway.

“Is that Brownie?” I asked my husband, while peering out the kitchen window.

“Yeah,” he said, “earlier, she was perfectly centered between the two trash cans.”

“She’s so strange,” I said in a tone of awe and admiration.

Since we fenced in our flock of chickens a few months back, Brownie has been one of the only birds to persistently escape.  She’s one of our oldest hens, one of the handful of chicks we bought in 2015.  A gray, speckled, Araucana (easter-egger), she lived in our small, a-frame coop for two and a half years before being forced to integrate with our much larger garage flock.  She’s also the only hen we have who sports a real and genuine beard of feathers. 

I don’t know how much a chicken thinks, but her persistent solitude and wandering captivate my imagination.  I like to think of her as something like a Desert Mother or a John the Baptist type, led by an unrelenting urge to be alone, exposed, in the wilds of our two-acre yard.

Outside of the flock, she has no protection, no direct access to food or water.  She scrounges for seeds under the wild bird feeder and drinks from the driveway puddles.  When the garage is open, she wanders it too, but I wonder if she doesn’t sometimes sleep in the old a-frame coop where she was raised.  The other day, I found her sitting, happily feasting in the open corn bin in the garage.  Clearly, she has developed a certain level of ‘street smarts.’

My oldest son and I have put her back in the pen time and time again.  Solomon corners and herds her in through the wide fence gate.  I have done the same, but the other day I lured her close with a pretzel, then bent and grabbed her by the tail feathers.  She squawked and lunged immediately, and a few seconds of battle ensued while I struggled to get my hands around her wings.  Once her wings were tucked, she calmed, and I carried her under my arm and deposited her unceremoniously in the coop.  I was surprised by the fierceness of her fight.  She was out again the next day.

I don’t know what that hen has to tell me, to teach me, but I continue to watch her with admiration as she persists in holding steady, defining her own way of being in this large and lovely world.   

Vulnerability & Trust in the Classroom

Every once in a while, I have the opportunity to teach a full semester's worth of introductory biblical studies materials over a period of fifteen days.  This, January, is one of those once-in-a-whiles.  Which is why I haven't been posting much here.  But I have been listening to my life, thinking, paying attention and the thoughts that follow are just a bit of what I've been noticing.

  

"I don't know."

I said those three scary words at least twice in class the other day.  

From the front of the room.  

As the professor. 

I can’t tell you how alarming that would have been for me when I first started teaching college level classes.  I was fresh from seminary then, wearing the one suit I owned.

 

That suit was – as they often are – something like a suit of armor.  It was a symbol that I was an adult (even though I didn’t feel like one) and that I knew what I was talking about (even though I didn’t feel like I did).  Looking back, I can see how fear-driven my teaching was, even though I didn’t want it to be.  I wanted to connect with the students, to engage, but I was unable to allow the kind of vulnerability that forms community. 

I was too attached to my armor of rayon/polyester and knowledge. I set up every aspect of the class in a way that guaranteed I would know the answers to any question that arose.  I chose the passages we studied based on papers I’d written in graduate school – a sure-fire way (I hoped) of ensuring I would know more about the topic at hand than any one else in the room.

I often wondered why I felt so isolated, lonely, and frustrated as a teacher.

//

This time around, some fourteen years later, I purposely wore jeans on the first day of class.  Mostly, I wanted to feel like myself and, as someone who works from home, I wear jeans almost every day.  Feeling like myself meant drawing on the sense of authority I carry day-in-and day-out as a parent, writer, spiritual director, and middle-aged human being.  Also, I wanted to lessen the distance between the students and myself, and jeans seemed like a concrete, visual way to do that. 

First thing, on the first day, I explained that every class would start with five minutes of silence.  This would be our way of acknowledging the presence of God which dwells - like silence – above, below, and in-between all our words.  After silence, I explained that, because this was their class, the first twenty minutes of every class was theirs to use as they saw fit.  Every student has an opportunity to submit a topic for conversation and we use silly questions to decide who will draw a question out of the stack. 

Those twenty minutes were a little awkward the first day – and still are, sometimes – but we’ve had some laughs, heard some differing perspectives, and even witnessed a little passion.  I like to believe giving the students some time and space up front, is one, small, concrete way of reminding them that this class is for them.  It also gives me an opportunity to observe and eavesdrop on who they are, how they interact with each other, and how they think about the world we live in.  In short, it gives me a chance to listen and builds community.

Finally, before lecture that first day, I explained that we needed to choose a passage to explore together in class the following day.  I gave them a few minutes to think about it, then invited them to offer suggestions.  Many offered favorite, well-known passages, but there were some random ones thrown out too.  I didn’t even flinch (hardly, anyway) when someone tossed out a story I’d never heard of from the apocrypha.  After we had ten or so to choose from, the students voted and chose Jeremiah 29.

I stopped by the library after class and grabbed a couple of commentaries.  That night, I spent about a half hour familiarizing myself with the context and reading through the passage.  Mostly, I figured, we’d figure it out together the following day.  And we did.  

Rather than worrying about the class, I looked forward to it.  I suppose part of this is the confidence that comes from teaching and preaching for years – a gift I’m grateful to have found.  Under-girding my decision, though, was the belief that what would be gained by working together, side-by-side, was more than what might be lost by me not knowing all the answers. 

//

I have a great group of students this semester.  They’re older, and more prepared to handle the course material.  Many are seniors and already thinking about how the things they learn now will apply to life in the ‘real world.’   All of this leads to a more enjoyable class environment.  But the thing I’m most grateful for, is a deeper capacity to be with the students, to create an atmosphere where those three little words, “I don’t know,” are nothing more than a fertile starting point for conversation, exploration and comradery. 

Writers' Retreat: March 3rd 2018

Savor a day focusing on your work and identity as a writer. 

Reconnect with the reasons for your art, the source of your words. 

Network with other writers and gain insight on integrating writing into your everyday life. 

Author, Editor and Writing Teacher, Andi Cumbo-Floyd will lead a retreat for writers of all skill sets.  

When: Saturday, March 3rd 

Time: 9:00 - 4:00

NEW Location: We will be gathering at the Silver Spring Retreat Center in Mechanicsburg, PA.   The center's Historic Waugh-Wilson farm house dates back to the 18th century and offers a blend of gracious space and natural beauty. 

Cost: $60 (as you are able - please contact Kelly if cost is a significant burden) 

20 Spaces Available

Registration deadline: Tuesday, February 27th 

Includes:

     * Two free-writing sessions with prompts

     * Craft-talk on balancing discipline and gentleness   

     * A brief workshop experience giving and receiving feedback
     
     * Homemade lunch
     
     * Opportunities to network and connect with other writers

Andi Cumbo-Floyd is a trained Writing Teacher, highly-sought Editor, and author of several self-published books.  Her first traditionally published book is due out May 2018.  Kelly Chripczuk is a Writer, Spiritual Director, and teacher and has self-published two books.  

With a wealth of knowledge and experience, Andi and Kelly excel at creating a retreat space that is safe and enriching for all participants, no matter what your experience, skill level or goals may be.  Our desire is for you to leave the day refreshed and encouraged in your writing life.  

Questions?  Contact Kelly at Chripczuk.Kelly@gmail.com or leave a comment below.

Reserve your spot via Paypal: 

Slow (adjective)

Slow (adjective) : moving or operating, or designed to do so, only at a low speed; not quick or fast. synonyms: unhurried, leisurely, steady, sedate, poky, sluggish

Every year, January 1st brings a wave of declarations and intentions splashing across my facebook page.  I've hardly started purging the house of Christmas clutter and somehow it seems everyone else has already shaken off the dust of the old year and moved headlong into the new.  

In the face of it, I find myself feeling out of pace.  Here I am spinning my wheels while the rest of the world races ahead.  

Pining my slowness earlier this week, I thought of my paternal Grandma.  She never did anything fast, as far as I can remember.  She ate slow, walked slow, talked slow.  She buttered bread slow and somehow managed to make large dinners that were ready right-on-time while working at a snail's pace.  

Recalling her slow ways, I remembered the comfort she gave even in the midst of (or perhaps because of) her predictable slowness.  I remember her lamenting once, during a visit to an Amish farm in Lancaster PA, how she missed the slowness of the old days, how everything was so hurried now, she felt she couldn't keep up.

Remembering my Grandma's slowness, I felt less alone, more able to accept my own, often poky, pace. 

//

Slow isn't sexy.  A poky puppy is cute, but doesn't hold our attention span for long when the rest of the world is racing by.  And, though we offer lip-service to the value of 'slowing down' or embracing an 'unhurried' life, we're quick to defend our productivity lest we somehow be deemed lazy or, worse, slow.  

I guess it's one thing to choose slow.  Another to be slow, by nature.  

//

This morning, while pushing myself to get ahead and make up for my slow, I remembered a conversation my husband had with my mother-in-law when he first told her we were dating.  

His mom asked, among other things, "If she fast?  Can she get things done?" 

It's was a funny question to ask, because my husband lives on the slow side of things as well.  Maybe she thought he needed someone to kick-up the pace and keep things moving along?  

Whatever she had in mind, it was not to be.  My husband answered immediately and with certainty, "No, I've never seen her do anything fast."

Remembering his reply, I smiled, and felt another layer of self-imposed judgement about the pace at which I live, slide off, like an ill-fitting skin.  

//

I think there are a lot of people who miss slow, but most of us feel we can't really afford it.  Here, I guess, is where the slow people (like me) have something to offer.  Hitching along at our leisurely pace we seem to stand out as a symbol that slow is not lost and, what's more, slow is sustainable.  Slow may even be the only sustainable speed in a world committed to fast without pause.  

What struck me most in the online definition of slow quoted above, is the phrase "designed to do so."  Maybe that's what I am - designed to move slowly, to offer steady in a world off-kilter.  I like the way that phrase hints at the intentionality of making something (or someone) slow.  Almost like slow itself has a purpose or is a gift.  

Who needs the gift of your slow today?  What practices help you live more in tune with your own natural pace?   

The Wood Stove (Need Draws Us)

Our need for warmth draws us and keeps us together, sprawled where the seating is too limited for six, the noise levels too much.  The dog, also, is there, taking up more than her fair share of the love seat.

In the corner, the wood stove ticks as the cast iron absorbs a slowly growing fire’s flames.  On the coldest mornings, the twins stand directly in front of the stove, blocking its window’s orange glow.  The older children stand within a foot, one on either side, squeezed between the wall and stove.  The smell of drying laundry fills the room as their clothes absorb the pulsing heat.  They stand until their pants are so hot they can barely walk and sitting down, forcing the hot cloth against chilled skin, ceases to be an option.

This is how we start and end each of winter’s darkening days, as the sun slips its way to and from arctic nights.  During the day, our circumference expands.  With time, heat grows, and the kitchen, the laundry, the sun-warmed front room, all become habitable and we spread, easing into the furthest reaches. 

But, when the sun sinks, we return.  Our need for heat draws us into the heart of the house, into the space of one another, into the stove’s orbit again where we hover until need is met.

These winter days, I find myself grateful for the warmth and the need that gathers us around our own glowing sun.  Need is also a gift and, often, the clearest path to communion with others and with God, who draws us also; God, like a great pulsing heart, a glowing sun, a wood burning stove, drawing us all close and closer yet.       

    

Honey Bees in Advent

Each bee senses that her one obligation is to give the smallest motion of her flight muscles to the collective work of keeping the queen and the colony’s honey stores warm.  The whole hive knows they survive only if they shiver together. 

Some of them in the shivering cluster will die of old age.  Had they hatched in the flowering season, their labor for the hive’s survival – harvesting nectar and pollen from as many as two thousand flowers a day – would have killed them in four weeks or less, their wings worn to nubbins.  But hatched on the cusp of winter, they may live six months.  They will know only the dark hive, the press of their sisters’ bodies.  They will never fly, never fall into a flower.  They give their lives to shivering together in the dark, the tiny repetitive gestures of each, added together, a music beyond our hearing, sustaining a future for the community.

- from “Honey Bee” in All Creation Waits: The Advent Mystery of New Beginnings by Gayle Boss

My kids buzzed around the dining room table covered with a crowd of mismatched candles.  Darkness deepened outside the window and the wood stove breathed its warm breath in the far corner as we read Gayle Boss’s description of how honey bees endure winter. 

The bees, huddled in the hive, ‘shiver’ their tiny flight muscles, located just above their wings, to create life-saving warmth. 

“One honey bee shivering her flight muscles does not make much heat.  But twenty thousand, huddled together, shivering, can keep the queen and the colony’s honey supply at their core a tropical ninety-two degrees Fahrenheit, even as blizzard winds, inches away, flail. . .”

Wow.  This was impressive, we all agreed.  But then, Boss went on to describe the bees, “hatched on the cusp of winter” who will, quite possibly, never see the outside of the hive.  Those bees that “give their lives shivering together in the dark.”

“What?!” we said.  “Can you even imagine?” we asked. 

Then we prayed and argued (as always) about who would get to blow out the candles.

//

This past week – between an ailing car, a dying washing machine, and some questionable medical results - we had our own little season of stress.  It felt like winter was here and, with it, darkness both deep and wide.  My husband and I wondered how to keep our hope, our faith, from freezing over while the ordinary blizzards of life beat against our little hive. 

Messaging with our Pastor, he mentioned the passages for Sunday’s sermon spanned five hundred years between Isaiah’s prediction of salvation and John the Baptist’s proclamation. “God delivers,” he wrote, “just as promised . . . five hundred years earlier . . .”   

//

This is what I thought of when we read about the winter bees – all those people, shivering together in darkness, keeping faith alive in the hope that someday hope would become reality.  Five hundred years of generations lighting candles, telling stories, waiting, watching for the moment when the world would tilt toward new rays of light and life.

I thought about my own faith, so quick to cool when the waiting is long, so short-sighted and dependent on knowing in the here and now.  What can I learn from those bees, made for spring breezes and blossoms?  Does the dream of a future they cannot even imagine and will never taste keep them alive?  And, just as important, who is shivering still, in the darkness now?  How can I partner with those still waiting, working, for light and life that has come and is still yet to come?

//

Our winter passed fairly quickly – a friend delivered a washing machine this Monday and I did up the waiting piles of laundry with a welcome sigh of relief.  John’s sister and father worked together to gift us with a new-to-us car, one much newer and nicer than any we’ve ever owned. 

Crisis averted, thanks be to God.

Still, I think about those bees, and the reply I sent my Pastor last week.  “I’ve been thinking,” I wrote, “that faith is something like the belief that everything will turn out better than you thought it could, but different than you expected, coupled with the acceptance that the thing you have been longing for, the thing you hoped for most, may not happen in your own lifetime."  

I imagine there were times (and are times still) when this description of faith would not sit well with me. As an intellectual prospect, it seems both valid (biblical) and also terribly unsettling.  But faith is rarely warmed by intellectual assent.  When I wrote those words to my Pastor, I knew them to be true, by the golden glow of something deep in my heart.  Like the bees, I know now this is my job, to give my life to keeping that golden center warm and soft, no matter what the weather may bring.