Recent poetry and reflections
From our gatherings on Zoom
Dear friends of Contemplative Chapel:
I do not normally send these posts with poetry and reflections we have used in recent Zoom sessions, for fear of cluttering inboxes. However, I have been especially delinquent about posting this one, so I decided to send it to you all. This comes with my best wishes to all of you for a peaceful and blessed Advent.
Cynthia Bourgeault writes, “What goes on in those silent depths during the time of Centering Prayer [or any contemplative practice] is no one’s business, not even your own; it is between your innermost being and God…. Your own subjective experience of the prayer may be that nothing happened – except for the more-or-less continuous motion of letting go of thoughts. But in the depths of your being, in fact, plenty has been going on, and things are quietly but firmly being rearranged.” (Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening, by Cynthia Bourgeault)
In our last two gatherings, we’ve used a poetic reflection by Steve Garnaas-Holmes. Steve has been watching the geese on a frozen pond near his home, and he wonders, “How do they know when to go?” It’s a reflection that conveys the deep way in which God can engage us when we surrender ourselves and our agenda to God in our practice of silence. Our engagement with God is beyond the reaches of the discursive mind: “Something in us (the scientists will never find it) / reaches out to us,” and, “We allow the needle of our compass to be turned.” A longing emerges in us, as if a new life is awakening and “spreading its wings in us”:
The Deepest “Yes”
Geese abide on the pond, even as ice descends,
reflected in the iron water, walking on air.
Winter closes in. How do they know when to go?
In the stillness they kneel
on the slate tiles of their water chapel.
Earth tilts in them, southern lakes open.
Something in them (the scientists will never find it)
reaches out to them.
When it is time they don't know, they simply go:
not an understanding achieved, but a beckoning accepted.
We enter that sanctuary, let the silence reach out to us.
We kneel, and allow the needle of our compass to be turned.
We wait for the longing that emerges in us,
stronger than our mere desires,
the invisible, deepest “Yes” that calls.
It leans us, until we lose our balance and step forward.
It spreads its wings in us, and only then
we rise and go.
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net__________________
We also pondered two poems by a poet whom I contacted to tell her how much her work has meant to me, Andrea Potos. The first poem, as I told Andrea, is a perfect way of illustrating the mysterious dynamic that sometimes attends the practice of “Lectio Divina." In this poem, the poet has just read something she found in a book; she was drawn to the title of a poem and lays the book aside, so that she can write down the word that attracted her attention:
When a Certain Word Comes to You, by Andrea Potos
This morning it was fluency,
the title of a poem I found in a book
I laid aside so I could write this down and find
myself inside generous syllables rippling along
waters leading somewhere hopeful I am sure
like a readiness of well-being or forgiveness, and just now
the face of the woman who had wronged me bitterly
came to my mind and in place of my common anger
this time I felt a streaming around my heart only
the residue of her own wounding, and I was,
for the moment, sorrowful and healed.
(Used by permission of the author.)__________________
Another wonderful poem by Andrea illustrates something essential about the disposition we hope to adopt, when we sit for our contemplative practice:
When Beginning the Poem may there be a listening rather than a making curiosity over expectation, lightness and ease, no straining toward some glut of air. May you step aside like a watcher at the meadow’s edge as the doe finds her way to the center. By Andrea Potos, from Marrow of Summer (Kelsay Books, 2021, used by permission of the author)
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Parker Palmer echoes Andrea’s poem with his image of the soul as a wild animal that will stay hidden in the woods and will only emerge when it knows it is safe. Stillness and quiet are essential for the soul to emerge. As I have often said, poets are our most eloquent theologians.
Here in the season of Advent, as we await a birth, we also returned to that beautiful opening paragraph of Thomas Kelly’s classic, A Testament of Devotion:
Meister Eckhart wrote, “As thou art in church or cell, that same frame of mind carry out into the world, into its turmoil and its fitfulness.” Deep within us all there is an amazing inner sanctuary of the soul, a holy place, a Divine Center, a speaking Voice, to which we may continuously return. Eternity is at our hearts, pressing upon our time-torn lives, warming us with intimations of an astounding destiny, calling us home unto Itself. Yielding to these persuasions, gladly committing ourselves in body and soul, utterly and completely, to the Light Within, is the beginning of true life. It is a dynamic center, a creative Life that presses to birth within us. It is a Light Within which illumines the face of God and casts new shadows and new glories upon the face of men. It is a seed stirring to life if we do not choke it. It is the Shekinah of the soul, the Presence in the midst. Here is the Slumbering Christ, stirring to be awakened, to become the soul we clothe in earthly form and action. And He is within us all.
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James K. A. Smith, the editor of Image Journal, recently quoted another poet whom I did not know, Kenneth Steven. Kenneth lives with his wife in western Scotland, and I was delighted to communicate with him the other day. He’s quite prolific, and in addition to writing poetry, he regularly leads groups on pilgrimages to Iona, a place he has loved since childhood. Kenneth’s recent book of poems, Iona, is published in the United States by Paraclete Press. Although we are often looking for God in the extraordinary and the spectacular, the poem we recently considered in Contemplative Chapel, “Nativity,” anticipates the birth of the Divine here where we all live, in the everyday. And perhaps most importantly, the door is open:
Nativity When the miracle happened it was not with bright light or fire— but a farm door with the thick smell of sheep and a wind tugging at the shutters. There was no sign the world had changed for ever or that God had taken place; just a child crying softly in a corner, and the door open, for those who came to find. Kenneth Steven, Out of the Ordinary: New Poems, St. Andrew Press, 2020. Used by permission of the author.
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And recognizing that many are feeling exhausted this Advent, with spirit-exhausting news from around the globe, the usual pressures of the holiday season, and the ever-darkening days, we concluded one evening with a portion of a blessing by John O’Donohue, “For one who is exhausted”:
You have traveled too fast over false ground; Now your soul has come to take you back. Take refuge in your senses, open up To all the small miracles you rushed through. Become inclined to watch the way of rain When it falls slow and free. Imitate the habit of twilight, Taking time to open the well of color That fostered the brightness of day. Draw alongside the silence of stone Until its calmness can claim you. Be excessively gentle with yourself. Stay clear of those vexed in spirit. Learn to linger around someone of ease Who feels they have all the time in the world. Gradually, you will return to yourself, Having learned a new respect for your heart And the joy that dwells far within slow time. From To Bless the Space Between Us, by John O'Donohue