We cannot live in a world that is not our own, in a world that is interpreted for us by others. An interpreted world is not a home. Part of the terror is to take back our own listening, to use our own voice, to see our own light.
Don’t let yourself forget that God’s grace rewards not only those who never slip, but also those who bend and fall. So sing! The song of rejoicing softens hard hearts. It makes tears of godly sorrow flow from them. Singing summons the Holy Spirit. Happy praises offered in simplicity and love lead the faithful to complete harmony, without discord. Don’t stop singing.
— Hildegard of Bingen
Earlier this year everywhere I turned I was hearing quotes or stories about Hildegard of Bingen. She was showing up in books from fiction to spiritual, in talks, and even on {my favorite show} Call the Midwife. When an episode of Call the Midwife included a scene about Hildegard I realized it was time to pay attention. (How hard was this ancient mystic working to get my attention?) I did what I do and found a book. (Where else is one to start?)
I try and pay attention when I start to see patterns. Smaller & Deeper this week is about being caught off guard by an ancient mystic, cataracts, and poetry.
It took discovering Mary Oliver for me to begin to understand the power of poetry. I’m late to the party but doing what I can to make up for the lost time.
I’m reading Anatomy of the Soul by Curt Thompson, M.D. it’s about how our brains work and what the implications are for our spiritual life. Thompson talks about how important it is to share the narrative of our lives with caring listeners. It’s part of integrating our mind and body, and the right and left hemispheres of our brain. He believes that integration is the spiritual work of our lives. While story is a primary tool he also shares the importance of poetry. He says:
Poetry is another powerful literary tool. It has several distinctive features:
By activating our sense of rhythm, poetry accesses our right-mode operations and systems.
Reading poetry has the effect of catching us off guard. Our imaginations are invigorated when our usual linear expectations of prose (that one word will follow obediently behind another on the way to a predictable end) don’t apply. This can stimulate buried emotional states and layers of memory.
Finally, poetry not only appeals to right-mode processing but to left-mode as well, given its use of language. This makes it a powerful integrative tool.
Poetry catches us off guard. I’ve learned this through the practice of Haiku writing, reading, and sharing that I’ve done over the past (almost) two years. Haiku is just seventeen syllables. The structure and form force the discernment of essence. Each word is chosen carefully and often interesting words are used to express more. Comparisons are often fun, unique, and unexpected. Which invite new ideas and seeing with new eyes.
You can watch one of our Haiku talks here. This is from last month. It’s a good example of how poetry catches us off guard. We each understood a word differently and it impacted our understanding. We were all right and it added many layers to the short haiku and our conversation.
Haiku by Amy Hoppock Designed on Canva
Earlier this week I was flipping through The Beautiful Not Yet: Poems, Essays, and Lyrics by Carrie Newcomer. I opened to page 101 the lyrics to a song entitled Where the Light Comes Down. In her introduction to the song, she wrote the following.
In the beautiful poem “Monet Refuses the Operation” by Lisel Mueller, the French Impressionist painter Claude Monet tells the eye doctor that he does not want the cataract surgery that would restore his eyes. He says it took an entire lifetime to learn to see the world as he does now. What the doctor considers an affliction is actually the outcome of long work and effort. It takes a long time to see the world as mostly made of light and to sense ache and awe at every turn. It takes practice, forgetting, and remembering to learn how to pay attention to small things. There is great reward as well as a cost to living such a life. But for the painter, it could not have been any other way.
The introductory paragraph caught my eye because just a few days before I had been watching {my current obsession} Call the Midwife (Season 7, Episode 6)Sister Monica Joan needed cataract surgery. She was initially not open to the idea and willing to lose her sight for fear of the knife. It was a really thoughtful episode about the thought process that Sister Monica Joan went through to finally agree. Cataracts for her, like Monet, were not an affliction it was a part of her journey she was willing to accept. {I love those moments when the same idea pops up two times in completely different contexts.}
Listen to the poet Lisel Mueller read her poem Monet Refuses the Operation, or Carrie Newcomer sing Where The Light Comes Down as a Lectio Divina practice. Listen slowly, paying attention to what words or phrases stand out to you, jot down the phrase, walk with it through the week. See what you learn, notice, feel as the words sink deeper into your soul.
Is there something trying to get your attention? Do you keep hearing about a person or idea in different contexts? Can you go deeper and learn more?
ideas.poems.quotes.songs that sparkled for me this week.
(I try and pay attention to words or phrases that stand out to me in my reading and listening. There is a spiritual practice called Florliledgium that is collecting short, interesting pieces {words that “sparkle” up} and putting them together. This is kind of like that. Watching for things that sparkle. Gathering them and seeing how they work together and what message, mantra, or new idea might arise.)
A Practice:
Read slowly.
Notice if a word or phrase stands out to you.
How do the words make you feel?
Is there an invitation?
The world insists that we are what we do and achieve, but contemplation invites us to practice under-doing and under-achieving, and reminds us of the simple grace and humility of being human.
-Richard Rohr (Daily Meditation 2/17/21)
..the connection between art and faith, and how both teach us how to pay attention to the remarkableness of our lives, to watch for the greatness in the ordinary, and to use our imaginations to see the greatness in others and love them well. As we begin to stop, look, and listen to our lives and what God is doing in them, we begin to uncover the plot of our life’s story. And as we learn where the plot is taking us in our search for meaning and peace, we finally have the eyes to catch glimpses of joy through our devotion and prayer.
-John Sloan (Foreword to The Remarkable Ordinary: How to Stop, Look, and Listen to Life by Frederick Buechner)
“The further I wake into this life, the more I realize that God is everywhere and the extraordinary is waiting quietly beneath the skin of all that is ordinary. Light is in both the broken bottle and the diamond, and music is in both the flowing violin and the water dripping from the drainage pipe. Yes, God is under the porch as well as on top of the mountain, and joy is in both the front row and the bleachers if we are willing to be where we are.”
― Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have
When The Roses Speak, I Pay Attention
“As long as we are able to
be extravagant we will be
hugely and damply
extravagant. Then we will drop
foil by foil to the ground. This
is our unalterable task, and we do it
joyfully."
And they went on. “Listen,
the heart-shackles are not, as you think,
death, illness, pain,
unrequited hope, not loneliness, but
lassitude, rue, vainglory, fear, anxiety, selfishness.”
Their fragrance all the while rising
from their blind bodies, making me
spin with joy.
-Mary Oliver
Photo by Tyler Davis on Unsplash
A Smaller & Deeper Blessing
May you have eyes to see the small delights.
Ears to hear the deeper call.
May you find ease in the right yes and peace in no.
Through the highs and lows of this week, may you know you don’t walk alone.
Photo by Biegun Wschodni on Unsplash