Let Me Know (On Letting Go and Taking Flight)

 

Let me 
know
when you
are ready
to go.

I've 

taken

that leap 

before.

I know,

the fear,

the lies

that bind you

to the edge

of that prison

wall.

They 

boast such 

certainty.

"This

is all

there ever,

was, all  

there ever 

will be,"

they say.

But, 

if your heart 

whispers shadows 

of another land, 

let me know.

I will

stand

at the edge

with you.

I, too, 

know 

the fear 

of falling,

of landing 

in a wilderness

far beyond

settled lands.

But, 

I also know

what they will never know:

the rush of wind

on your face, the feeling

of taking flight; the courage

it takes, the love.

- K. Chripczuk

As a new year approaches, I'm pondering the things I have left behind this year and wondering what more might need to go. Letting go is never easy, but it's worth the work it takes. Perhaps, you are facing a difficult letting go. Let me know, I'd be happy to "stand at the edge with you." I can't wait to see your life take flight. 

A Circle of Waiting: Mary, Elizabeth, & the Elephants

The Visitation, by Jacopo Pontormo is one of the paintings I most often display in my Spiritual Direction office during the season of advent. Pontormo depicts the moment of Mary and Elizabeth's meeting, as described in Luke 1:39-56. In it, the two women, each carrying a seed of a promise within them, stand belly to belly. Their arms create a circle of waiting, a space in which hope's fragile seed might be held and protected, nurtured into being. 

Catholic writer, Henri Nouwen, explains, "Elizabeth and Mary came together and enabled each other to wait. . . . These two women created space for each other to wait. They affirmed for each other that something was happening that was worth waiting for."

//

Recently, a dear friend sent me a small, cloth elephant ornament in the mail. We have both been through a LOT this year and, despite our own intense struggles, we've worked quite deliberately to support each other. Attached to the elephant was a note explaining that female elephants support each other in times of stress. Intrigued, a quick look online revealed a beautiful picture - when an elephant goes into labor (a time of great vulnerability and stress) the other elephants in the herd back themselves into a circle formation around her. Then, when the baby is born, they trumpet in celebration. 

The elephants, like Mary and Elizabeth, form a circle of waiting.

//

Nouwen goes on to say, about Mary and Elizabeth's circle of waiting, 

"I think that is the model of the Christian community. It is a community of support, celebration, and affirmation in which we can lift up what has already begun in us. [This visit is an expression] of what it means to form community, to be together, gathered around a promise, affirming that something is really happening."

//

Circles of waiting require intimacy, trust, and safety. Too often, for many of us, these things have been absent from our church experiences. What we have received, instead, is a conditonal welcome, an attitude that says something more like "we'll wait and see how you turn out before we support you" instead of, "we believe God has begun a good work in you and we can't wait to see how it all turns out." Churches fail to be circles of waiting when product (appearances, image, income) take priority over process, when control replaces trust. 

Thankfully, though, many of us, including Nouwen himself, find and form circles of trust outside of traditional church structures. For me, this has been one of the great gifts of spiritual direction - the opportunity to be encircled in my own waiting and to offer to circle with others as they wait upon God's often surprising and mysterious activity. 

I hope you find such spaces. I hope, if you are able, you offer such spaces to others. 

//

For reflection:

Where have you found circles of waiting and with whom? Perhaps now is the time to let that person or people know how much their presence means in your life.

If you are need of community in your waiting, who might you reach out to? Perhaps now is the time to begin a spiritual direction or counseling relationship as God begins something new in you.

Who do you know who needs support in their time of waiting? Who's circle might YOU complete?

* Quotes are from "Waiting for God," by Henri Nouwen in the collection, Watch for the Light: Readings for Advent and Christmas.

Advent Videos Pt 2: Christmas Day in the Morning, by Pearl S. Buck

 

This advent, I'm sharing a few brief video reflections on my facebook page: Kelly Chripczuk, Writer, Speaker, Spiritual Director. You can find the first two videos in this series by going to my fb page and clicking on the "videos" tab. Or, simply click on the link below to be taken to a reading of Pearl S. Buck's classic Christmas tale, "Christmas Day in the Morning." 

//

A young farm boy has a sudden realization of his father's real, but unspoken, love and searches his heart to find an adequate response to this unexpected love. My reading includes a few brief reflection questions and, at 12 minutes, might be perfect content for your personal or family advent time. 

Watch now: Advent Video Series: Christmas Day in the Morning.

Tell Me Again (Of Shadows and Faith)

One night, when he was three, Levi asked as I was putting him to bed, "Where does the shadows go?"  The question tickled my imagination and, in the morning, my answer had settled into a poem.

//

Faith is . . . the conviction of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1)

"Tell me again, Mommy, where does the shadows go?"

By morning’s light, my love, as dawn creeps

over the mountain, I roll them up tight, every shape

that echos an object. Soft like velvet, slipping smoothly

through my hands, I gather night’s shadows,

tucking them into the far corners of your closet

and behind the attic door. All day long they wait, 

deepening, exuding the smell of the rich,

dark earth, of damp caves and mushroom spores. 

When evening descends and you’re busy with dessert,

I roam the house, stretching shadows out again,

smoothing them flat across ceiling or floor,

these soft shapes of remembrance, the dark reminders

that what you cannot see does not cease to exist

when the lights go out. Shadows lengthen, like faith,

as darkness descends, reminders of things unseen,

until morning's light reveals what was always present.   

//

Looking for a simple, sweet Christmas gift for a reader or pastor you love? Check out my poetry collection, Between Heaven and Earth, available on amazon (signed copies available locally for delivery as well). 

Not sure? Read what poet and reviewer Laura Brown had to say: 

The poems in her new book, ...are made of common work; building fires in the stove every cold morning; caring for children with nosebleeds and other late-night needs; stripping death from last year's flowerbeds. They are made of memories of a grandmother who took her to church, fed the chickadees and kept a shotgun by the door to discourage the bluejays. They are made of joy and sadness, grief and hope, and thinking in the dark. Mostly, they're made of watching, waiting, and. listening. 

Far Too Dangerous: The U.S. Elections, Violence, and Love

Half Dome, U.S. Photo by Denys Nevozhai on Unsplash

Out

of a great need

we are all holding hands

and climbing.

Not loving is a letting go.

Listen,

the terrain around here

is

far too

dangerous

for

that.

- Hafiz

Here in the US, pre-election, I hear the words "civil war" being tossed about - as though violence is a real possibility, a real option, in the wake of whatever happens in the next 48 hours or weeks or months. I wonder if we really hear ourselves when we toss those words about? I hear the fear in our voices, that much is clear, but I wonder: do we hear the pain, the loss in those words; the devastation? I can't imagine we do if we're tossing them about so freely.

Then again, maybe those words describe a reality that's already present - a nation divided, at war with its self, ready to cut off its nose to spite its face. I hear the arguments too, on many sides, that sometimes violence is necessary. I hear you.

But, I am an anabaptist. I am dedicated to the way of Christ which I understand to be a way of deep, costly love. Love for enemy, because violence toward another is also, in the end, violence toward my own deepest self.

Do you remember, way back in the beginning of the pandemic, how clear it was that we are all connected - my wellbeing tied up in yours and yours mine? "We are all holding hands," as the poet says. "Not loving is a letting go."

Everywhere around us, the voices of fear are chanting, loud enough to shake the very ground upon which we stand. Yet, the voice of love is here too. Can you hear it? Beneath the tumult, love's voice hums, quiet as the gentle whisper Elijah heard after the wind, earthquake, and fire had passed.

Get out and vote. Work at the polls. Offer a ride to anyone who needs it. I'm not saying this election doesn't matter - I believe it matters very much. I feel, some days, that America is perched on the very edge of a deep well of darkness - not a new darkness, but shadows we have dabbled in and out of since the founding of our country. The terrain is, indeed, dangerous.

We cannot afford to abandon love.

Smile with your eyes, if you can, at the poll workers, the store clerk, your children. Make eye contact long enough to remember that the person across from you - politically, socially, ethnically - is human too. Listen for the whispers of love. Listen harder when fear is loud. Let your actions give voice to love. The terrain around here is far too dangerous for anything less.

An Icon of the Wilderness: St. Kateri of the Iroquois

 

Photo by Collie Coburn on Unsplash

Our dog, Coco, is curled on a chair in the corner of my office, heaving deep, sleepy sighs, in-and-out. It’s a damp, gray day and napping long hours sounds like a wonderful plan. I am on my third glass of water, first cup of tea. I am not napping, but rather tending to email, scheduling zoom meetings, and reading about the wilderness motif as it appears in the Hebrew bible. 

Google dictionary tells me the wilderness is an “uncultivated, uninhabited, and inhospitable region.” An examination of the wilderness as imaged in the Hebrew Bible reveals it is a place of “intense experiences;” particularly, hunger, thirst, isolation, and danger. It's also a place of divine encounter. 

Looking out my home office window, I wonder at the wildness of this place, this space I find myself in. Is this small land, just two acres, wild enough for an encounter with God, or nature, or both? Is this way of life, this season, off the beaten path, its own wilderness? 

They say our bit of land, indeed much of the United States, is in drought this year. In the kitchen in the morning, after the kids have left for school, I tell my husband of the drought in my life, the lack of refreshment and nurture, the isolation. 

Later, settled in my office, after reading and prayer, I google for a once-discovered, then forgotten icon of St. Kateri of the Iroquois, and image I associate with the invitation to dwell in wilderness spaces for awhile. I spent just 15-20 minutes with this icon in one of my two years of spiritual direction training and she has hung around in the background of my mind ever since. Kateri, born in the forests of New York state, was the daughter of a captive Algonquin woman and Iroquois chief. Converted to Christianity by Jesuit missionaries, she walked 200 miles to join a Christian Indian village near Montreal. One website concludes, "She was a sign of contradiction to two cultures and a prophetic presence in both. She is an icon of Otherness." 

Although the details of Kateri's life and the traditions that surround it are complicated, the woman in Br. Robert Lentz's icon captivates me. She stands at the edge of a birchwood forest, with the trees receding behind her. I sense her invitation to the wilderness places of contradiction and betweenness; I sense her strength and prophetic presence. 

Later, I pray again for the strength to stay awhile in my own wilderness space; to commit to the wandering and waiting, as the Israelites did; and to trust the call to this journey, knowing I am not alone. 

This Cat's Purr

 

Cats purr … with a consistent pattern and frequency between 25 and 150 Hertz. Various investigators have shown that sound frequencies in this range can improve bone density and promote healing. . . in bones and muscles. - Scientific America, “Why do cats purr?” April 2006

After a good cry,  

I pick up the cat, 

who's sprawled

across my office floor, 

limp and heavy

with sleep. I curl

his body against my heart, 

where he settles and purrs 

himself back into unconsciousness. 

Did five-year-old me know, 

when she begged to own a kitten, 

that even this need would be met? 

No, of course not. 

This cat’s purr, 

radiating healing, 

is pure grace – a combination 

of creation’s wisdom and a little 

girl’s intuition, to hold what is 

soft and healing to her 

gentle, loving heart. 

Me, age 5, holding two of my very first kittens.