Tag: silence

the Quiet time…

Dawn is coming…… I step quietly from my bed, alive to the silences around me. This is the quiet time, the time of innocence and soft thoughts, the childhood of the day. Now is the moment when I must pause and lift my heart – now, before the day fragments and my consciousness shatters into a thousand pieces. For this is the moment when the senses are most alive, when a thought, a touch, a piece of music can shape the spirit and color of the day. But if I am not careful – if I rise, frantic, from my bed, full of small concerns – the mystical flow of the imagination at rest will be broken, the past and the future will rush in to claim my mind, and I will be swept up into life’s petty details and myriad obligations. Gone will be the openness that comes only to the waking heart, and with it, the chance to focus the spirit and consecrate the day.

May this day begin with quiet time – time allowing for ‘ the openness that comes only to the waking heart’.

Quote: Kent Nerburn, Small Grace: The Quiet Gifts of Everyday life
Photo: David Kanigan

Zeal and holy freedom – Mary Magdalene

 

 Correct with kindness and love
but also with zeal and holy freedom.
If you do not speak out,
if you do not sound the alarm
when it is needed,
you will be justly convicted
by your silence.

 

Today the Episcopal Church celebrates the life and work of Mary Magdalene. At least the life and work we think we know. In all these 2000+ years, her name and story have circled the Christian faith, calling for curiosity and attention. Her presence has been strengthening for some and, clearly threatening to others depending on Christianity’s perspective on women at the time.

I have always been intrigued. She must’ve had an important role in the spreading of the good news while Jesus was alive. She certainly was prominent in the discovery of his resurrection. And writings tell us that the disciples relied on her wisdom and advice.

People are drawn to understand more. Studies of ancient texts continue to reveal new and intriguing possibilities. (reference this sermon by Diana Butler Bass preached recently at the annual Wild Goose Festival. “All the Marys” – Diana Butler Bass)

As a woman with a disability and an ordained priest in the Episcopal Church, I have always seen Mary as a symbol of determination and confidence. Her voice would be heard -her witness shared. An invitation and example for those of us who know how easy it is for voices to be silenced.

I look forward to this day every year. Taking time to find new images and re-reading the gospel written in her name, the only early text attributed to a woman.  The Gospel of Mary Magdalene

 It is good to take time for these things but St. Mary Euphrasia stirs me to remember that speaking out is my charge, never to be accused of silence when the alarm is needed.

 

Quote: St. Mary Euphrasia
Painting of Mary Magdalene: Clare Elam

Breaking silence

The fact that we are here and that I speak these words is an attempt to break that silence and bridge some of those differences between us, for it is not difference which immobilizes us, but silence. And there are so many silences to be broken.

Quote: Audre Lorde
Photo: Trevor Cole

shared from Gratefulness.org

Holy Saturday…

I am grateful for these words from Jan Richardson. Holy Saturdays are always uniquely quiet. All motion seems to slow or stop. There is a strong desire for connection as the earth still shakes under our feet.
“On this Holy Saturday, I have been thinking about how this is not a day for answers. It is a threshold day, a day that lies between, and so resists any easy certainty. It is a day that invites us to make a space within the weariness, the fear, the ache. It is a day that beckons us to turn toward one another and to remember we do not breathe alone.”
IN THE BREATH, ANOTHER BREATHING
For Holy Saturday
Let it be
that on this day
we will expect
no more of ourselves
than to keep
breathing
with the bewildered
cadence
of lungs that will not
give up the ghost.
Let it be
we will expect
little but
the beating of
our heart,
stubborn in
its repeating rhythm
that will not
cease to sound.
Let it be
we will
still ourselves
enough to hear
what may yet
come to echo:
as if in the breath,
another breathing;
as if in the heartbeat,
another heart.
Let it be
we will not
try to fathom
what comes
to meet us
in the stillness
but simply open
to the approach
of a mystery
we hardly dared
to dream.
Quote: Jan Richardson
from Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons
Image: “Breath Will Come to the Desolate Bones”
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