Prayer - The Rev. Angela Herrera

We give thanks. We give thanks for hope, and that change is possible. We give thanks for this moment, and for our lives.

We give thanks for all that sustains us, for all that is the very ground of our being: for the air, which bathes us night and day: the air, our breath, and the breath of our ancestors, and the breath of the trees and the beasts, the air, which passes through ocean and sky.

We give thanks for the water, which flows in streams and storms and in our bodies, water, which formed a womb with the earth in primordial times, and gave birth to life and to us and to everyone we love.

We give thanks for the fire, burning in the sun, warm energy that dances with water and air, feeds the plants and trees and plankton.

And we give thanks for the earth, our mother, our home. For her nourishing darkness and mountainous strength, for her ageless patience. We give thanks for the earth.

In our gratitude, may we be wise, grounded and strong.

May we love and be loved.

May there be peace in our hearts.

And may we make our lives a blessing upon this world, through our manner of being.

Amen. Peace be with you.

"Ring the Bells that Still Can Ring" (poem) by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

 

(Title taken from the first line from Leonard Cohen’s song, Anthem)

“Let this darkness be a bell tower / and you the bell. As you ring, /what batters you becomes your strength.” (Rilke - Sonnets to Orpheus II)

Batter me, Love, like a bell. Till I ring
and ring and ring because everything
I am, my whole being, is vibrating
with the urgent, pressing call
for love—not the sweet love
of lullabies, but insistent love
that rings through walls,
love that drowns out any voice
not in service to the whole.
Batter me love, until there is no one,
including me, who cannot hear
the pounding imperative to be kind,
to find compassion,
until all beings feel real love pealing
through their bodies—
a resonant command
so true it cannot be unheard.
I have heard other love-battered
bells of humans, and the song of them
is charging me, changing me,
making me long to be rung only by love—
It is not easy to keep asking for the battering.
But worse to be silent.
Worse not to be bell.
Worse not to be an instrument of love.
Once I feared the battering.
Now, I fear it and thrill in the ringing—
love, the only song I want to sing.

"How the Light Comes" (poem) by Jan Richardson

 

I cannot tell you
how the light comes.

What I know
is that it is more ancient
than imagining.

That it travels
across an astounding expanse
to reach us.
That it loves
searching out
what is hidden
what is lost
what is forgotten
or in peril
or in pain.

That it has a fondness
for the body
for finding its way
toward flesh
for tracing the edges
of form
for shining forth
through the eye,
the hand,
the heart.

I cannot tell you
how the light comes,
but that it does.
That it will.
That it works its way
into the deepest dark
that enfolds you,
though it may seem
long ages in coming
or arrive in a shape
you did not foresee.

And so
may we this day
turn ourselves toward it.
May we lift our faces
to let it find us.
May we bend our bodies
to follow the arc it makes.
May we open
and open more
and open still

to the blessed light
that comes.

"Winter Poem" by Nikki Giovani

once a snowflake fell

on my brow and i loved

it so much and i kissed

it and it was happy and called its cousins

and brothers and a web

of snow engulfed me then

i reached to love them all

and i squeezed them and they became

a spring rain and i stood perfectly

still and was a flower

Compassion Drill

 Modified from:

"Just Like Me Compassion Practice" 

Become aware that there is a person in front of you... A fellow human being just like you. 

This person has a body and a mind, just like me. 

This person has thoughts and feelings, just like me. 

This person experiences pain, just like me. 

This person has been disappointed in life, just like me. 

This person has been hurt by others, just like me. 

This person sometimes feels unworthy or inadequate, just like me. 

This person worries, just like me. 

This person will die, just like me.

This person is someone's friend, just like me. 

This person is learning about life, just like me. 

This person is trying to be kind to others, just like me. 

This person wants to be content with what they have in life, just like me.

This person wishes to be safe, strong, and healthy, just like me.

This person wishes to be loved, just like me. 

I wish that you have the strength, resources, and support to live with ease.

May you be free from pain and suffering. 

May you be peaceful and happy. 

May you love and be loved. 

Purgatory

We are in the middle of a house renovation to make our master bedroom and bathroom bigger and add a sunroom (read: yoga space!). 

That's the good news. The bad news is that we've been sleeping in our living room for 6 months. It's ... fine but starting to grate on us. 

All the living room furniture is in a pod out in front of our house, along with bedroom detritus that we didn't need at first, but eventually... you need your stuff! (First world problems, yes, it's true...)

I'm trying to stay grateful for what we DO have - another den where we can still hang together as a family, fun family bed conversations and kids wrestling on the new king size bed, a robot vacuum cleaning the floors while I do a puzzle... and on and on. 

So life goes on, and the practice of being ok where you are, how you are, settles deeper into my bones. 

What I will work toward

On the morning after Trump was elected President for the second time, I am trying to find my courage and resolve. 

I will work to understand what people voted for. What do they want that they believe he can provide? And if it's a return to white supremacy and the violence of exclusion and racism, I will work to understand the fear that drives that anger. I will work on releasing the fear that drives me to reject difference and focus on what connects, what softens, what embraces. 

I'm hearing the quote by civil rights activist Ruby Sales from the podcast On Being that I keep returning to:

How is it that we develop a theology or theologies in a 21st-century capitalist technocracy where only a few lives matter? ... What do you say to someone who has been told that their whole essence is whiteness and power and domination, and when that no longer exists, then they feel as if they are dying? ... I don’t hear any theologies speaking to the vast amount — that’s why Donald Trump is essential, because although we don’t agree with him, people think he’s speaking to that pain that they’re feeling.

...Where is the theology that redefines for them what it means to be fully human? I don’t hear any of that coming out of anyplace today.

There’s a spiritual crisis in white America. It’s a crisis of meaning. We talk a lot about black theologies, but I want a liberating white theology. ... I want a theology that begins to deepen people’s understanding about their capacity to live fully human lives and to touch the goodness inside of them, rather than call upon the part of themselves that’s not relational. Because there’s nothing wrong with being European-American. That’s not the problem. It’s how you actualize that history and how you actualize that reality. It’s almost like white people don’t believe that other white people are worthy of being redeemed.

It is okay to be white. It is not okay to be white and wield disproportionate power to exclude non-white people and disavow past injustice that led to the inequality for BIPOC today. 

It strikes me that I've wasted time not learning how reconciliation worked in Germany after the Holocaust, or in South Africa after apartheid. On a micro level, I'm thinking about Brené Brown's emphasis on boundaries being the prerequisite of compassion.

We can't want what's best for someone different from us unless it's clear that there is space for each of us to thrive. 

And I want America to thrive as a place that believes in one person, one vote. How radical that seems in this dark moment. Justice and freedom for all. Not some. Not those who win. All. And not just freedom to oppress but a promise that rights will not be abridged. The land of opportunity. 

I will work for systems that promote justice. 

I will work on softening myself to stay open to connection and love. I will look for the good in everyone. 

I will practice calming myself and acting out of a boundaried place that leaves space for everyone to thrive. That is the American Dream I believe in. 

Special Meetings

 Life has gotten busy again. Teaching, working, mothering, and churching. I've said yes to things that serve me or that I can serve through skills I enjoy. All good things. 

And yet, they've coalesced into 2 months that feel more than full, a little frantic, a little frenetic, a little too much. 

Last week, I didn't do yoga AT ALL. !!! Not good!!!

"Rise up and hear your calling..." we sing in church. Yes, ok. But can my calling pace itself a little?

Good lord. 

And in the meantime, "I am grateful for the winding road that brought me to this place," the choir leader has us sing. 

Yep, so grateful for all these opportunities. I am. And I'm trying to remember to take things one at a time, just in time, and let that be enough. 

It's a lesson that my kids actually have learned, somehow. They are both really good at choosing where to put their effort, giving themselves permission to skate through some things, get Bs, do just enough - or let what they do in the time they have be enough. I remember my mother trying to tell me that it was ok to get Bs. (And then try to tell me I couldn't do my homework in front of the tv. I told her when I didn't have straight As, then she could tell me to turn off the tv. That never happened.) But the lesson never stuck. 

Today, our community minister reminds us that in the everlasting now, we are joined by all other beings in their search for meaning and purpose. And... even better news ... there were many who came before and many who will come after. (So take a breath, keep perspective, and do what you can. Let the rest go.)

And so, a special meeting that was a to-do for me turns into a meeting of past and present doers, who all hold the flame.

How does life get better?

In the spirit of trusting the great AI in the sky, I typed in "does life get better" into Google search bar, and the first response was a Reddit forum "AskOldPeopleAdvice." Yessssssss.

Here are some gems:

"It does get better but you have to look for the positive things. You have to work at being happy. No one tells us this. We are conditioned to believe that happiness is something that just occurs or happens to us but it doesn’t." - Maxwyfe

"It gets much, much, MUCH better. As you get older, you get more agency over your life. You free yourself from toxic parents or stepparents; you finish school; you get some kind of job and have some freedom because you have your own source of income. ... I am your grandpa's age and I am so, so, SO much happier than I was at your age. And every decade, it got better. I promise you. Try to look for the joy, to focus on the positive. And see if your college offers therapy--that's what made the biggest difference in my life." - ThaneOfCawdorrr

"I have sought therapy three different times when I was struggling, choose my friends very carefully, and try to find things every day to be grateful for. It's not always easy, but I want to enjoy my life as much as possible. It's not that things really get easier or harder, but rather that life is always changing. Probably the three best things you can do for yourself to stay positive are to:

• exercise everyday, 
• choose your friends carefully, and 
• don't compare your situation to that of others." -- emu4you

"It gets better when you work to make it better. I know that's probably what you don't want to hear. But most of us go through that mid-20s slump where it feels like we're hemmed in on all sides. What things will fix it? What do you have to do to get there? Don't worry how long the journey might take. Do you want to be 5 or 10 years older with nothing to show for it, or do you want to be 5 or 10 years older, having achieved your goal? The time will pass no matter what you do. Most of the big wins in life come from being willing to play the long game, and sometimes that means taking a few hits while you're heading toward that goal." - nakedonmygoat

"Does life get better? Yes but not how you think, it stays the same but you get so much better at dealing with life. Stuff that would have broken me in my 20's doesn't even rate me noticing it anymore. You learn to live in the moment, to enjoy the good moments because you know how precious they are. You know how strong you are and what you can survive, because you've survived it. It's a little like weight lifting, that barbell you could barely move when you started out at the gym, gets so much easier to lift the more you do it. Being in your 20's sucks, but hang in there because you're 30's are around the corner and it all gets so much better, your 40's are going to rock and every decade afterwards will just get better." wwaxwork

"I’m 55 and my life is SO much better than when I was 24.

My advice:

1. Make genuine human connection your top priority. Read the book “How to Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety”. Even if you don’t have social anxiety, you might find that some of it resonates.

2. Regularly exercise outdoors for mental health. The benefits are too numerous to mention but combining movement, daylight, and nature has more proven benefits than any pill or therapy. I do rucking, which is just walking with weight in a backpack.

3. Read the book Tiny Habits for practical, well-researched approaches to change. I use these with myself and my clients.

4. Reflect on what kind of person you want to be, and start acting as if you were that person in little ways. Remind yourself of who you want to be every day." -- OffbeatCoach

Self regulation vs. Emotional regulation

 https://connectedfamilies.org/equipping-kids-calm-self-regulation/

Self-regulation is the ability to monitor and manage your “arousal state” or energy level. 

More specifically, it means being aware of your energy level (and basic emotions) that result from either external experiences and/or your internal thoughts. The next step is choosing strategies to adjust your energy level for the most effective response. 

Energy self-awareness + healthy coping strategies = SELF-REGULATION

Emotional regulation is when you understand, evaluate and even problem-solve what you are feeling.

Emotional regulation involves the skills to answer these questions (after you are calm):

• What am I feeling?
• What thoughts or beliefs are driving those feelings?
• What is a wise course of action? (i.e., let it go or ideas to solve the problem)

Energy self-awareness + healthy coping strategies + emotional insight = EMOTIONAL REGULATION

self-awareness → calming strategy → emotional insight

“Motion changes emotion.” 

Sensory activities do two important things: 

• They use up the big muscle fight-or-flight chemistry so that it doesn’t feed an ongoing anxious state.
• They tap into the miracle of our sensory systems to signal an “all-clear.” Life is calm and pleasant, so the danger must be over.

There are 3 kinds of self-regulation:

• Cognitive: Observing and challenging unhelpful thought patterns.
• Emotional: Noticing and feeling emotions without letting them take over.
• Behavioral: Choosing intentional behaviors instead of reacting impulsively.

What causes the inability to self regulate?

The most common circumstances under which self-regulation fails are:

• when people are in bad moods, 
• when minor indulgences snowball into full blown binges, 
• when people are overwhelmed by immediate temptations or impulses, and 
• when control itself is impaired (e.g., after alcohol consumption or effort depletion).

What is dysfunctional self-regulation?

1. underregulation, which refers to the inability to contain emotional experiences sufficiently to engage in goal-directed behavior, and 
2. overregulation, which occurs when emotion regulation strategies are used to consistently stop emotion experience from unfolding 

Resources:

• Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child, researcher John Gottman, Ph.D. 
• Emotional Intelligence, psychologist Daniel Goleman 
• My Grandmother's Hands, psychologist Resma Menakem
• Somatic practice

Kamala Harris - Favorite Books

"[I]n October, Kelly Jensen asked all of the 2020 Democratic presidential candidates about their favorite books. Harris, she notes, was the first to respond with her list—a good sign. 

Here are her stated favorites:

Richard Wright, Native Son

Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner

Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club

Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon

C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

And in a 2016 Facebook post wishing readers a happy National Book Lovers Day, Harris added Barack Obama’s Dreams From My Father."

LitHub

Permission to Feel - Marc Brackett, Ph.D. (Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence)

Website

Podcast / YouTube

Brene Brown - Unlocking Us Podcast

Strategies when you are feeling overwhelmed / out of control (emotion regulation):

1. Mindful breathing
2. Forward-looking strategies
3. Attention-shifting strategies
4. Cognitive-reframing strategies
5. Meta-moment

Mindful breathing: "helps us calm the body and mind so we can be fully present and less reactive or overwhelmed by what's happening around us"

Forward-looking strategies: "anticipate something [that] will cause an unwanted emotion and either steer clear of it or modify our physical environment"

Attention-shifting strategies: "we can temper the impact of emotions by diverting our attention away from its source... turning on the TV, walking away from a stressful encounter, or repeating a positive phrase to ourselves."

Cognitive-reframing strategies: "analyze whatever's triggering an emotional experience and then find a new way of seeing it--essentially, transforming our perception of reality as a way of mastering it."

Meta-moment: "a tool that helps us act as our best selves would, as opposed to reacting (and overreacting) to emotional situations."

Judith's question: "What if I were 5% better than I am?"

Me: The poster about "dealing with a problem" on our door

Me: Brene Brown podcast on space between stimulus and response (quote attributed to Viktor Frankl)

"In the chemo room, I wear mittens made of ice so I don’t lose my fingernails. But I took a risk today to write this down." (poem) - Andrea Gibson

Whenever I spend the day crying,
my friends tell me I look high. Good grief,

they finally understand me.
Even when the arena is empty, I thank god

for the shots I miss. If you ever catch me
only thanking god for the shots I make,

remind me - I’m not thanking god. Remind me
all my prayers were answered

the moment I started praying
for what I already have.

Jenny says when people ask if she’s out of the woods,
she tells them she’ll never be out of the woods,

says there is something lovely about the woods.
I know how to build a survival shelter

from fallen tree branches, packed mud,
and pulled moss. I could survive forever

on death alone. Wasn’t it death that taught me
to stop measuring my lifespan by length,

but by width? Do you know how many beautiful things
can be seen in a single second? How you can blow up

a second like a balloon and fit infinity inside of it?
I’m infinite, I know, but I still have a measly wrinkle

collection compared to my end goal. I would love
to be a before picture, I think, as I look in the mirror

and mistake my head for the moon. My dark
thoughts are almost always 238,856 miles away

from me believing them. I love this life,
I whisper into my doctor’s stethoscope

so she can hear my heart. My heart, an heirloom
I didn’t inherit until I thought I could die.

Why did I go so long believing I owed the world
my disappointment? Why did I want to take

the world by storm when I could have taken it
by sunshine, by rosewater, by the cactus flowers

on the side of the road where I broke down?
I’m not about to waste more time

spinning stories about how much time
I’m owed, but there is a man

who is usually here, who isn’t today.
I don’t know if he’s still alive. I just know

his wife was made of so much hope
she looked like a firework above his chair.

Will the afterlife be harder if I remember
the people I love, or forget them?

Either way, please let me remember.

Andrea Gibson

Learning from Trees (poem) - Grace Butcher

If we could,
like the trees,
practice dying,
do it every year
just as something we do—
like going on vacation
or celebrating birthdays,
it would become
as easy a part of us
as our hair or clothing.

Someone would show us how
to lie down and fade away
as if in deepest meditation,
and we would learn
about the fine dark emptiness,
both knowing it and not knowing it,
and coming back would be irrelevant.

Whatever it is the trees know
when they stand undone,
surprisingly intricate,
we need to know also
so we can allow
that last thing
to happen to us
as if it were only
any ordinary thing,

leaves and lives
falling away,
the spirit, complex,
waiting in the fine darkness
to learn which way
it will go.

Reincarnation

 Today's sermon is about reincarnation, and it's got me thinking about the limits of redefining oneself, starting a new chapter, and how much you pull your old habits of thinking with you. Nature / nurture / karma. 

The older I get, the more I think about change.

Grumpiness

Trying to have patience with my grumpy set point. I have so much to be grateful for, so I bristle at myself when I start the day - pretty much every day - feeling the bah humbug of it all.

My family knows to tread softly around me before the first coffee. My exuberant morning husband knows to warn of coming in hot. 

This summer has been the first time in years that I've been able to wake, get ready, and head to work without taking a kid somewhere first. There are many days there are no words until after 8 am! So great!

I thought maybe I'd age out. Get to be one of those retirees that tweets with the birds in the morning, singing as the coffee drips.  

Flying dream

 I've been lucky to have flying dreams on regular rotation. 

Most are joyful - flying solves a problem or feels miraculous and so right.

Last night, flying was a short-cut to my car after cutting class in high school (something I never did, but Umea does all the time, I've discovered). But the wind currents were strong and pushed me out over the ocean, which was right there between New Mexico and Colorado. But I rowed (in the air, more like rowing than flapping wings) successfully over land and down over a Colorado river town, the river bed, actually, where a river rafting group (young, vigorous, blond!) was packing it up. And got a ride. And stressed out about calling my mom to pick me up. Trying to find a map to figure out how far home was from where I'd landed. Too far to bus?

And so, flying was fate - a simple choice leading to a whole lotta adventure.  And although it was stressful, it was also great. What I thought my day was, it wasn't. What I thought the radius of my life was, it wasn't. Life can be travel. And figuring out how to get from here to there, or there to here. And I did. And Colorado was beautiful in my dream. And the ocean was gorgeous. And terrifying. But gorgeous. 

And I love that I dreamed all that. Go brain!

(I suspect the shape of the dream was heavily shaped by reading Demon Copperhead for the past week. Good lord, what a book.)

Prayer - the Rev. Gretchen Haley

Hard to let love in, to do its work on you, healing backward and forward

It’s ok to go slow in your letting go
In letting your arms fall to your sides
In finding your sigh, and then your shout of joy and praise, wonder and awe

The world teaches us to defend and protect
Hide and get by, rush and push through -
It is ok to take your time In trusting there is no hidden agenda
Except the learning to love And to be loved

It is not easy, we know - to let love in
To let love do its work upon your heart
Healing backwards and forwards
Softening cynicism, releasing judgment
Finding forgiveness, and believing not all is lost -
Finding that you have always been worthy of love just as you are
That we all are worthy of love
Just as we are:
Queer and complicated; messy and miraculous
Creatively gendered;
caring, and kind of confused

It’s ok to go slow - just don’t stop
Keep moving towards this light that wants only to love every part of you
This light that is longing to call your scars sacred, and your hope holy

Ready to brave this world in all of its brokenness
Armed only with truth,
and the power of a community held in promise

The vision of a world unafraid to change, to keep changing
To hold, and to be held across every wave and rush of wind.

What to be grateful for

Tennis and that feeling of play. Joy in what my body can do.

Yoga and that feeling of grounding and reaching that glories in the biggest space my spirit can embody.

Parenting and the joy that these whole-ass PEOPLE can bring as they grow into themselves and the world.

Working and the feeling of putting my skills to service of a team and my community. 

Church and the joy of a community of people who believe that searching for meaning, and living into the meaning you find, is a worthwhile endeavor.

Living, which sometimes feels like aging, but at its best, feels like deepening and unfurling the fractal flag of self into the endless sky.

Friends and the continuity of knowing and being known, laughing and living out loud, and playing. Celebrating the endless stream of life events and holidays. 

Family and good conversations every so often. 

(Secret gratitude: meditating, smoking, and drinking coffee, which, dear god, is about the best thing in the whole world.)

Sonnets to Orpheus, Part 2, XIV (poem) by Rilke, Translated by Anita Barrow and Joanna Macy

See the flowers, so faithful to Earth.

We know their fate because we share it.
Were they to grieve for their wilting,
that grief would be ours to feel.

There's a lightness in things. Only we move forever burdened,
pressing ourselves into everything, obsessed by weight.
How strange and devouring our ways must seem
to those for whom life is enough.

If you could enter their dreaming and dream with them deeply,
you would come back different to a different day,
moving so easily from that common depth.

Or maybe just stay there: they would bloom and welcome you,
all those brothers and sisters tossing in the meadows,
and you would be one of them.