The Slowing of the Deep

Much of the symbolism in worship centered around water during a recent professional development retreat near the Gulf of Mexico.  That makes sense - we could see the ocean from outside our classroom.

A group of us "students" volunteered to create the closing worship and I though of this poem. We did not end up using it, but given that today we are in the midst of a winter storm, it seems appropriate to post.

I have been the turbulent ocean

By Tess Baumberger

Ah Adonai, Kali,

I have been the turbulent ocean

Frenzied by the winds into steep dark liquid hills

Crashing into bitter valleys

Powerless in the gale’s fury.

Ah, Adonai, Kali, I have been the turbulent ocean.

Oh Allah, Brahmin,

I have been the restlessness of the ordinary sea,

Its incessant worrying waves

Wringing its saline fingers

At the moon’s constant variations,

Excesses of moody thought,

Brooding threat of silent resentment.

Oh Allah, Brahmin,

I have been the restlessness of the ordinary sea.

Ah Kwan Yin, Grandmother,

Let me become the slowing of the deep

As it comes upon the outward islands,

Entranced by their more constant shores.

Let my soul ponder their rocky edges,

Savor their cinnamon and sugar sands.

Let me drink the honeyed milk of the tender streams

Flowing towards me from the mountains.

Let me slip inside the shelter

Of the quiet cove to idle

In the wide hollow of Grace.

Let my tides whisper in and out

Conspiring with the seaweed,

Thrilling the tidal grasses.

Oh Kwan Yin, Grandmother,

Let me become the slowing of the deep.

I Need Thy Sense of Time, or Howard Thurman Rocks!

Oh, I have not posted to this blog in too long.  I have bad news and good news.  
Bad news first.  
I have been working way, way, too hard and too much
mired in old patterns of trying to please people 
(patterns which criticism seems to trigger and 
this has been a year of criticism at the church).  
So I stopped working out.  
I started eating too much (stress-eating).
For the most part, I stopped dancing.
I stopped going to see my chiropractor in November.  Too busy.


Then a few weeks ago my back and neck were in such a sorry state that I went back to my chiropractor.  It turns out a rib in my back was out of place.  This has happened since high school and I can usually tell, but it had been so long since I'd checked in with my body that I didn't notice until there I was on my chiropractor's table for the first time in months.  I felt it.  I told him.  He put it back.  My muscles, used to it being out of place, did not like this.  One bit. They started yelling.  Oy. Major spasms, stiffness, pain.

Several treatments later, driving out of his parking lot, I remembered something my mentor told me years ago.  If you are serving a contentious church, you need to take care of yourself to the point where it feels like pampering, until it feels indulgent!  How did I forget that?  So I called my massage therapist and booked an appointment.  I called my sweetie and said, "Let's go away for a couple days during April school vacation!"


And that brings me to the good news.  I have a sweetie!  We met online last summer and in person in August.  His name is Rich.  He's a civil engineer and works on road construction projects for the state.  

He's a middle manager, oversees several projects at once - so he knows all about having lots of responsibility and no real authority.  Like ministers.  Ha ha.  And he's very sweet and very grounded and wise, and affectionate and generous.  I am one lucky woman.  He has made this year of criticism bearable.


Recently I re-discovered this poem/prayer with them by the wonderful, the awesome Howard Thurman.  It speaks volumes right to my soul.  And I love the "Gentle Father" towards the end.

I Need Thy Sense of Time

Prayer by Howard Thurman (1951)

I Need Thy Sense of Time

Always I have an underlying anxiety about things.

Sometimes I am in a hurry to achieve my ends

And am completely without patience. It is hard for me

To realize that some growth is slow,

That all processes are not swift. I cannot always discriminate

Between what takes time to develop and what can be rushed,

Because my sense of time is dulled.

I measure things in terms of happenings.

O to understand the meaning of perspective

That I may do all things with a profound sense of leisure, of time.

I Need Thy Sense of Order

The confusion of the details of living

Is sometimes overwhelming. The little things

Keep getting in my way providing ready-made

Excuses for failure to do and be

What I know I ought to do and be.

Much time is spent on things that are not very important

While significant things are put into an insignificant place

In my scheme of order. I must unscramble my affairs

So that my life will become order. O God, I need

Thy sense of order.

I Need Thy Sense of the Future

Teach me to know that life is ever

On the side of the future.

Keep alive in me the forward look, the high hope,

The onward surge. Let me not be frozen

Either by the past or the present.

Grant me, O patient Father, Thy sense of the future

Without which all life would sicken and die.

Last week Rich and I spent two days in Maine.  I came back to dance at the New England Folk Festival all weekend.  By mid-day Saturday my heart had begun to sing.  I can still hear it, through the criticism.  Oh yes, nearly pampered. Almost right.