The Wind

Alias prevails again. 1st episode of season 4 featured this song by legendary musician Cat Stevens.  In the youtube video he says, "It's about the journey."  Someone else said, "it talks about instinct and thirst for knowledge.....that's what the water part is about."   Of course, you'll have to decide for yourself what it means.  A beautiful song that deserves to be played in a silent house or car with the volume on high.

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I listen to the wind

to the wind of my soul

Where I'll end up well I think,

only God really knows

I've sat upon the setting sun

But never, never never never

I never wanted water once

No, never, never, never



I listen to my words but

they fall far below

I let my music take me where

my heart wants to go

I swam upon the devil's lake

But never, never never never

I'll never make the same mistake

No, never, never, never

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wf0VP01JauQ&feature=related

The Lotus Blossom

I found a card from my "Relax Deck" and thought I would post the quote, along with a photo of lotus flowers that I took on Mother's Day at a local garden.  One of the things I like about the lotus is that it opens and closes each day.   In Nepal, and in Hinduism, the lotus flower is a very symbolic flower. Here is one quote I found that is pertinent to Liberated Menno Momma's:  "According to Hinduism, within each human inhabiting the earth is the spirit of the sacred lotus. It represents eternity, purity and divinity and is widely used as a symbol of life, fertility, ever-renewing youth and to describe feminine beauty, especially the eyes. One of the most common metaphysical analogies compares the lotus' perennial rise to faultless beauty from a miry environment to the evolution of woman's consciousness--from instinctive impulses to spiritual liberation." 

Another quote . . .

"'I am the being, who in spite of my miry surroundings, have remained untouched and stood up to be the exemplar of beauty and purity.'" If the lotus could speak it would have said these words and bragged about itself which is so unlikely for the humble lotus. It has been the symbol of detachment from worldly desires and illusions according to the Hindu religious scriptures. It symbolized purity in the true sense of the term in spite of its seed being the stagnant water. Lotus symbolizes Life ever renewed and revitalized when it peeks out of the muddy waters every morning."

"The lotus flower, even though has its roots in the muddy waters, blooms above the water without becoming dirty by the mire below."

From the Relax Deck:

"Amid the frantic pace of modern life, it is easy to get caught up in material concerns and to neglect your spiritual side. To get in touch with your inner self, visualize a lotus blossom in a pond and imagine light pouring outward through the petals, filling you with radiant calm. Just as the lotus shines out from its muddy surroundings, so you will find that focusing on your inner self will restore harmony in your busy life."

God be with the Mother

God be with the mother.

As she carried her child
   
      may she carry her soul.

As her child was born,
    
      may she give birth to her own, higher truth.

As she nourished and protected her child
    
      may she nourish and protect her inner life
    
     and her independence.

For her soul shall be
    
     her most painful birth,
    
     her most difficult child,

     and the dearest sister to her other children.

                                                     ~ Michael Lunig

Fishbowl Metaphor

by Sue Monk Kidd, Dance of the Dissident Daughter

“But it came to me suddenly and without question that I must leave the Baptist world. I sat still on the little chair and breathed in and out very slowly, taking this in. A goldfish bowl sat on a piano across the room. It was empty of fish and water, but I saw almost immediately the metaphor it represented. For so long the Baptist world had been both my goldfish bowl and the water I swam in. I’d come to think of it as the whole realm. I’d grown used to seeing everything through that water. It had never occurred to me that it was possible to leave. At a deep level, I’d not known I could make such a large choice.

“It sounds silly, but at the time leaving this realm seemed as daunting to me as leaving the goldfish tank might have seemed to a goldfish. I wondered if I could survive outside the safe perimeters I knew so well. And I was not even thinking at that point about taking my leave from the entire church. I wasn’t yet thinking about learning how to breathe in brand new spiritual environs, in a feminine realm where the old breathing mechanisms don’t work at all.

“Despite the growing disenchantment women experience in the early stages of awakening, the idea of existing beyond the patriarchal institution of faith, of withdrawing our external projection of God onto the churn, is almost always unfathomable. It’s that old the-world-is-flat conviction, where we belief that if we sail out on the spiritual ocean beyond a certain point we will fall off the edge of the known world into a void. We think there’s nothing beyond the edge. No real spirituality, no salvation, no community, no divine substance. We cannot see that the voyage will lead us to whole new continents of depth and meaning. That if we keep going, we might even come full circle, but with a whole new consciousness.”

Something Else

I just started watching Season 3 of ALIAS.  In general, they have amazing music selections.  This was no exception.  I was even more amazed when I read the lyrics.  I just started reading Sue Monk Kidd's "Dance of the Dissident Daughter" which happens to be amazingly timely in relation to the journey I'm on right now.  I'll write more about it sometime soon, but I will just say that this song resonates with me in a very real way.  It also happens to be a lovely song.  Enjoy.

Something Else by Gary Jules

They never tell you truth is subjective
They only tell you not to lie
They never tell you there's strength in vulnerability
They only tell you not to cry


But I've been living underground
Sleeping on the way
And finding something else to say
Is like walking on the freeway


They never tell you you don't need to be ashamed
They only tell you to deny
So is it true that only good girls go to heaven?
They only sell you what you buy


And I've been living underground
Sleeping on the way
And finding something else to say
Is like walking on the freeway
I've been living underground


Trying not to burn
And finding something else to learn
At Hollywood and western

Listen to this lovely, amazing song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpvGsNCBRz0

How I thought I lost my faith…and why I am thinking of making it official!

Note: I actually wrote this about 4 months ago. At that point, I wasn't ready to post this.  Now I am.  And, I've come to a conclusion and will be posting that soon. Until then, read on...

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I’m not sure I’m ready to go in depth about how I lost my faith. That is still a pretty touchy issue with me. Though I had some significant faith experiences in my teens and 20’s, I think now I can fairly say that my faith wasn’t very deep. Otherwise, why would I feel like I just wanted to ditch it? So, before I have to think too deeply about why I lost my faith, let me just cut to the chase and tell you why I’ve been debating about leaving it.

For the past 3½ years, I have been contemplating withdrawing my membership from my current church. This church, while I didn’t grow up in it, felt like home in many respects. Despite the fact that it felt huge and somewhat snooty, I liked it. I developed wonderful relationships with the children that I taught in Sunday School. I developed relationships with some of the older ladies that I led in Bible study. I was frequently called upon to read scripture, or help out with this or that type of thing. I had good relationships with the pastors. People liked me.

After the relationship that changed my life…I slowly began to distance myself from my church. I still taught Sunday School (and if I was there now, I’d still be teaching…it was the kids…I loved the kids! They loved me. And I loved making things interesting and new and exciting for them!). But things changed. Things changed even more drastically after the event that changed my life. Many of my relationships at church changed. After all these life changing things, I thought about writing a letter which would essentially say, screw you. It was after a public “confession” of sorts that I really had it in me to do it. But something kept me from composing a letter and withdrawing my membership. Even after no one offered to bring me meals after the birth of my first child (wait, that’s not true, no group from my church offered, no Sunday school class offered, but three or four individuals from that church did). Even after I was no longer invited to read scripture, I still couldn’t bring myself to write the letter. So, it's three years later and I’ve still been thinking about it. So why haven’t I done it? Let me count the reasons:

1) I still want to be on the email list to get bulletins and prayer updates

2) I’m afraid that it will somehow erase the impact that I had on the children that I taught in Sunday School. I know this isn’t true. But I feel like it.

3) I’m afraid

Hmmm. Is that all?

Maybe everyone else at that church has totally forgotten about this.  The reality is, if I ever (and I really doubt I ever will) move back to that particular Menno-bubble, I will not go to that church. I would want to go somewhere, but I don’t think I could, in good conscience, take myself and my child there as full-bonafide members. Hmmm…I think to myself, then do it! Withdraw!

“But,” I retort! “What if I want to get some sort of Mennonite job? They always need to make sure you’re a member of a Mennonite church.”

“Do you really want to work in a Mennonite institution anymore?”

“No, probably not, unless it’s Ten Thousand Villages, that’s different.”

“Fine, but I don’t think you need to be a member of a Mennonite church to work for Ten Thousand Villages.”

“True.”

The enormously ironic point of this whole thing is that when I was in high school, I delayed my baptism because I did not want to become a member of my then-home congregation. There was nothing wrong with the congregation. In fact, it was a wonderful congregation. I don’t know if it was partly adolescence, or the sense that I wasn’t going to be there my whole life (so why become a member if I wasn’t going to be there?). I just knew that there was nothing in the bible about having to become a member of a church as a result of baptism. (Let’s not get started on how baptism as John the Baptist and Jesus did it, was simply for the forgiveness of sins…something we should probably do yearly, not just once in our life.) After a year or two of struggle, I finally said, “Well, I want to follow Jesus. And I want my faith community to know that I am making a commitment to follow Jesus. So if that means I have to become a member of this church, then so be it.”

What’s ironic is that now I find myself at the same question, and even the same reasoning, but leaning the other way. I mean, I did this whole faith thing because something inside me told me, or rather believed, that Jesus, that God, was – IS – real. Jesus is a person to be reckoned with…a person worth studying, questioning and even emulating. However, over the past 3 years, I am not sure what to do with Jesus! I know God is with me, sometimes…but that is my logic (history… a kind of “institutional knowledge” that God was there 20 and 15 and 10 and even 5 years ago, God surely has to be here with me now) and the occasional serendipitous occurrence that tells me God is still somehow involving Godself in my life. Basically what I’m getting at is that church is now getting in the way of my relationship with God…my desire to have anything to do with, let alone faithfully follow, Jesus. At least, that’s what I think. Who knows, it could be that I’ve just been away from church for so long that my faith is slowly corroding. But I think it’s more that I assume my church felt like I was being “unfaithful” to it (by doing the unimaginable in an unimaginable relationship), I also feel like they were unfaithful to me. Jesus said to welcome back the sinner and I felt like I got stoned. What Jesus does and says is sometimes quite a bit different from what happens inside the church. And maybe this was the shove I needed to experience and follow Jesus outside of the confines of my denomination.

I have no idea if and when I will be in proximity to a Mennonite church again. If I find one that I want to be a part of, I will. My best support, spiritual and otherwise, in my new home half way across the world are in fact Mennonites! I don’t think I will carry this baggage with me all my life. If I find another, non-Mennonite church that I want to be a part of…well that would be good too. I’ll leave that for the future. My point is I was born and raised and chose the Mennonite faith . . . but it’s not serving me well. And I’m not serving it. Either I’m being a slave to it, or it’s being a slave to me. So, if I embarked on this journey to serve Jesus…why not ditch the baggage and serve or at least attempt to follow Jesus.

And this brings me back to my opening. In all honesty, I’m not really ready to leave my faith, now, am I? I do in fact want to find it again. I’ve told my dear mentor/spiritual director/amazingly wise and Jesus-like woman, that if I had to choose a Biblical analogy for my life right now, it would be of the Israelites wandering around in the desert. You know those 40 years post-exodus, post-slavery (hmm...), pre-paradise. They were learning to follow God all over again: away from the confines of everything that they knew, away from everything that was safe, comfortable and familiar. Moses was essentially setting up a new set of membership guidelines. The most basic of which could ensure a fairly sane and just life.

Lately, I often feel like I’m in that desert, wandering: around the same parts of this stinky underdeveloped city half-way around the world, dreaming of the day when I won’t have to look at cement walls and trash and mangy dogs, when I can be independent and drive myself to the mountains for a hike, when I can talk to people and understand what everyone around me is saying. I sometimes feel like I’m living on manna…the same foods day in and day out, dreaming of the day that I’ll be able to eat ice cream out of a box (and not get sick). I miss my former life. Like the Israelites, I have the same desires for aspects of my former life and “culture of origin”. It looks so much better than this! But maybe God is doing something with me here. I’m not sure what and I sure hope it doesn’t take 40 years.

Brain, Child

For the Faint of Heart . . . read Brain, Child. My new favorite magazine. The magazine that actually gives me things to ponder. When I’m done with the articles, I lay them on my chest and think. I often feel like I’ve had a really good, deep discussion with a friend. Sometimes I cry. Sometimes I just wonder. And I usually put it away feeling a little lighter and much more refreshed. Thanks Brain, Child. Maybe one day, I’ll write something for you!

www.brainchild.com