Mining the Now

by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM  May 5, 2024

I have been heard.

Heard not by a cherished friend, family member, or spiritual director, though that of course happens. But this time, I was heard by four total strangers who left me feeling welcomed, reverenced, enveloped, held in the deepest embrace that listening can create.

My invitation came through Dr. Bo Karen Lee, founder of the Center for Contemplative Leadership at Princeton Theological Seminary. The Center offers training and resources for cultivating vision, resilience, and joy through contemplative practices both ancient and modern. I signed on to participate virtually in an entire day, Prayer as Resistance 2.1, with the engaging sub-title, “Hope from Dark Places: Suffering, Wisdom, and Community.”

All of the sessions I attended spoke to inclusion, diversity, and liberative justice and filled me with hope for our shared future. I confess I felt just a bit anxious about the afternoon session I chose, joining a Contemplative Listening Circle with four people I had never met. But the gentle facilitator dispelled every qualm as she explained the shape of this circle to include contemplative silence and pauses, optional sharing of a past or current suffering, an understanding that the listeners would hold in deep compassion and confidentiality whatever they heard, and a graced opportunity to bless the person who shared or to honor their words in stillness.

The four beautiful young women in my circle held me in reverence and compassion, listening to my story of personal pain with profound empathy. Before I even finished my telling, the mood of the virtual AirMeet room had changed. It was heavy with understanding. Filled with the fragrance of kinship. Transformed by shared losses and common dreams. I pray that my presence offered my listeners the same graces and that they also were affirmed by the hushed stillness, the tears, the tender blessings.

Now, one week later, I’m still basking. I remember with a grateful heart my graced time with four strangers who became like precious friends. I remember David Augsburger’s  wisdom that, “Being heard is so close to being loved that for the average person, they are almost indistinguishable.” I remember that I was heard. I remember that I felt loved. And I pray this transformative grace for all of us.

The entire experience reminded me of the poem, “When Someone Deeply Listens to You,” by John Cox:

When someone deeply listens to you
it is like holding out a dented cup
you’ve had since childhood
and watching it fill up with
cold, fresh water.

When it balances on top of the brim,
you are understood.
When it overflows and touches your skin,
you are loved.

When someone deeply listens to you
the room where you stay
starts a new life
and the place where you wrote
your first poem
begins to glow in your mind’s eye.
It is as if gold has been discovered!

When someone deeply listens to you
your bare feet are on the earth
and a beloved land that seemed distant
is now at home within you.

Takeaway

Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
Reflect on an occasion in your life when another listened to you with attentiveness and compassion.
Revisit the emotions of that experience.
Give thanks to the Holy One for the messenger of grace you named and hold in prayer all those in our world who long to be heard in that way.

Featured Image:  Jon Tyson, Unsplash

NOTE:

Mother’s Day blessings (May 12) to all of you who are mothers, grandmothers, guardians, mentors, to all who mother through nurturing, inspiring, and encouraging. Thank you for all you are and do to make our world a more loving, inclusive place.

Thank you for your expressions of concern after my Colles fracture and surgery. Eight weeks after gravity propelled me to a place I hadn’t expected to go, I’m now cast-free, again able to drive, committed to physical therapy, and living in awe of my body’s ability to move closer to full mobility and continued healing. Your love, prayer, and support hastened my recovering. Thank you!

If you are among the many for whom healing appears impossible, may I ask all who follow Mining the Now to hold you and your concerns in love, in compassion, in solidarity. We pray you may feel the power of our healing presence across the miles.

I’m grateful for your remembering in prayer of the Dominican Sisters of Grand Rapids, Michigan, whose guided retreat had to be canceled because of my inability to travel in April. That retreat has been re-scheduled for 2025. Thank you.

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by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM   April 20, 2024

Still fresh into the Easter season, I’m wondering just what it might mean to practice resurrection.

Here in the northern hemisphere, trees and plants are offering a visual aid each morning. Seemingly overnight, and especially after a steady rain or a day bathed in sunlight, leaves unfurl from tight buds into spring green. Jonquils, tulips, narcissus step out dressed in colorful blooms. Their appearance seems guaranteed and predictable until I remember the harshness of a lingering winter, one that would not let go of its grasp, one that threatened not only snow but deadly freeze. In the face of adversity,  greening persisted. Blooming did not hold back. Rising and rising and rising everywhere.

As I’m pondering resurrection, what stands out for me among the riot of flowering bulbs are a few miniature tulips. They were crippled by a late frost and appear to have paid the price for their audacity. Their growth is stunted, their buds not dead but deformed. Each day I watch them struggle to open their wounded petals and I hear them preach new forms of beauty and of rising.

In this Easter season, when the gospel stories reveal so much unexpected hope and encouragement, we give thanks for the gifts of spring’s seeming perfection. But the tiny tulips remind us that any reflection on resurrected life must also include the showing of wounds. (Luke 24:36-40; John 20:19-20, 25-28). Wounds visible on the risen Jesus, reminding us that he not only suffered but that he fully inhabited our human condition. Wounds as a sign of life that seemed at an end but are really a new life unfolding in mysterious ways. Wounds pointing to our shared vulnerability. Wounds proclaiming that brokenness and scars and even death are not the last word or the end of the story.  

That’s why I’m keeping close watch on the miniature tulips, their misshapen petals, their ragged leaves, their crooked stems. Though they seem to be creatures of an alien season, the life force is so strong in them that they will not be denied their moment to step into the sunlight in full display, just as they are. That is my hope for all of us.

And for the poet, Mary Oliver, in “Hurricane”:

It didn’t behave
like anything you had
ever imagined. The wind
tore at the trees, the rain
fell for days slant and hard.
The back of the hand
to everything. I watched
the trees bow and their leaves fall
and crawl back into the earth.
As though, that was that.
This was one hurricane
I lived through, the other one
was of a different sort, and
lasted longer. Then
I felt my own leaves giving up and
falling. The back of the hand to
everything. But listen now to what happened
to the actual trees;
toward the end of that summer they
pushed new leaves from their stubbed limbs.
It was the wrong season, yes,
but they couldn’t stop. They
looked like telephone poles and didn’t
care. And after the leaves came
blossoms. For some things
there are no wrong seasons.
Which is what I dream of for me.

Takeaway
Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
Take an inventory of any scars, wounds, bruises, or fractures—physical or emotional– that you bear.
Reflect on any learnings that have come into your life through suffering.
Who or what is helping you to move closer to healing?
Ask the Holy One to deepen your compassion for yourself and for all the world.

Featured Image:  Waldemar, Unsplash

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by Chris Koellhoffer, April 7, 2024

One of the elements that makes the resurrection stories so tender for me is also one of the most simple, the most common, the most universally shared: the symbolism of food.

There’s the very human question as Jesus appears to the disciples in Jerusalem, “Have you anything to eat?” (Luke 24:41) He’s offered a piece of baked fish which he ate in front of them. Eating, enjoying a meal, such basic actions, yet so reassuring to those who watched it. “Have you anything to eat?” Jesus asks today. He’s really asking: what nourishes you? What sustains you for the long haul? For what do you hunger?

The bread of our despair, now become the bread of our hope. “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening and the day is almost over.” (Luke 24:29) When we’re exhausted by long labor, anxiety, illness, chronic pain, a disappointing day, an overwhelming sense of failure, or the pressing needs of ministry, there are few moments more evocative, more appreciated than stepping into a kitchen where the aroma of savory cooking fills the air. We intuitively understand that all that’s required of us is showing up and sitting down in good company. To simply be, to bask in the welcome of community, of friendship, of kin. How easily, in those moments, we recognize the Holy One in the breaking of the bread of our lives. How quickly, in those times, our hearts burn within us as we find our flagging hope propped up, even restored, by the flame of undaunted faith and audacious hope.

Another time, another place, another very human post-resurrection scene. A charcoal fire and fish. “Bring some of the fish you just caught” (John 21:9) is the risen Jesus’ invitation to the weary disciples who had been fishing all night without a nibble until Jesus advised them to cast their nets to the right side of the boat. With a haul so large their boat almost sank, the disciples count the exact number: one hundred fifty-three big ones, any fisher folks’ dream come true. As they near the shore, they hear the words we all long to have uttered in our direction, “Come, have breakfast.” Or lunch. Or dinner. Or any meal prepared by the hands and heart of someone who loves and cares for us. The invitation to “Come, have breakfast” is ours today as well. Come, and be near to the Holy One. Come, spend some time in gentle prayer and quiet listening.

Here in the northern hemisphere as we’ve said good-bye to Lent and are about to say farewell to a lingering winter season, I sometimes feel like a hibernating bear waking up from an extended slumber. Like my ursine neighbors, I find within myself an appetite that is fierce and urgent—to consume food that nourishes and sustains, to deepen the contemplative spirit of my dormant season, to walk in the company of others who are also rooting around for signs of rising. May we enter these post-resurrection days with a spirit of thankfulness for the limitless ways the Holy One feeds us and we in turn nourish one another. 

I leave you with this poem by the luminous Joy Harjo, speaking of the kitchen table through “Perhaps the World Ends Here.”

The world begins at a kitchen table. No matter what, we must eat to live.
The gifts of earth are brought and prepared, set on the table. So it has been since creation, and it will go on.
We chase chickens or dogs away from it. Babies teethe at the corners. They scrape their knees under it.
It is here that children are given instructions on what it means to be human. We make men at it, we make women.
At this table we gossip, recall enemies and the ghosts of lovers.
Our dreams drink coffee with us as they put their arms around our children. They laugh with us at our poor falling-down selves and as we put ourselves back together once again at the table.
This table has been a house in the rain, an umbrella in the sun.
Wars have begun and ended at this table. It is a place to hide in the shadow of terror. A place to celebrate the terrible victory.
We have given birth on this table, and have prepared our parents for burial here.
At this table we sing with joy, with sorrow. We pray of suffering and remorse. We give thanks.

Perhaps the world will end at the kitchen table, while we are laughing and crying, eating of the last sweet bite.

Takeaway
Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
You may wish to place before you a loaf of bread or an image of a meal or of something that sustains you.
Reflect on who or what nourishes you at this time in your life.
Ask that all those in our world who suffer the pangs of starvation will receive the sustenance they need to live.
Hold these images with tenderness, and bow to the holy within you.

Featured Image: Stefan Vladimirov, Unsplash

NOTE:
Please remember in your prayer the Dominican Sisters of Grand Rapids, Michigan, with whom I expected to pray, reflect, and learn from their wisdom at a guided retreat beginning April 14.
Thank you for your kind words and messages of prayerful support as I continue to heal from surgery for a fractured wrist.

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by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM  March 24, 2024

We stand at the edge of a week made holy by witness and remembrance, a time when we can easily see the love of the Holy One written all over these days. The tenderness of God is especially prominent on Holy Thursday when we hear that Jesus “loved his own in the world and he loved them to the very end.” (John 13:1)

Perhaps we wonder what we would do if we knew in advance that our days were numbered and we were close to death. Every word, every action, every gesture would hold weight. Our last days would carry a special significance, wouldn’t they?

 What did Jesus do that has endured in memory through time and space? His final meal is rich with longing, with a sense of legacy, with compassion for his disciples who care deeply for him but still don’t get it. And so, he does what any person who loves would do: the towel is tied, the basin is filled, the feet are washed with care, bread is broken, and love is passed all around the table.

Jesus models service. He asks to be remembered. He loves to the very end. He urges us, his followers, to do the same, over and over again. This is his body that is for you, for me, for all. Let us remember, this day and always.

Takeaway

Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
Spend time reflecting on what kind of legacy you desire to leave behind.
Name the love and affirmation you’ve received from others and the love you hope to leave as a remembrance.
Give thanks for all that has come into your life, and bow in blessing.

Featured image:  Chris Koellhoffer

NOTE:
During the month of March, we have observed Ramadan, the Vernal Equinox, Purim, and Easter. Blessing of these days to all who celebrate.

May I ask for your prayerful support as I heal from a fractured right wrist and surgery, all of which happened in the last week? I’m learning patience with the slow work of God (emphasis on slow).

Because of the fracture, I’m not able to fly to lead a guided retreat for Dominican Sisters in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in April. Please remember in prayer all those who would have been part of the retreat.

I’m grateful that this was not my dominant left hand and that I’m still able to continue spiritual direction and writing (although my quick typing has slowed to a rather glacial pace).

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by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM    March 10, 2024

Not a deep sadness. Not a dark heaviness. More like a soreness, a tenderness, the ache of the unfinished. Lately, I’ve been a mourner at an exceptional number of funerals, not my own relatives and friends, but those of others’. Standing as a witness to the fresh pain and loss etched on a newly bereaved person’s face has a way of turning me to remember my own not-so-recent pain and loss. To remember what it was like to be ushered into that club to which no one wants membership—the club of those who are newly orphaned, no matter their age.

No surprise to me, then, that I’m revisiting the losses of the first half of my life. In my first fifty years (yes, I’m being optimistic that I’ll make it to one hundred, as my maternal grandmother did), I experienced the death of both of my parents, ten years apart. Though I grieved their passing keenly at the time they died, their absence these decades later sometimes has the feel of a wound long closed but perhaps healed tentatively, as if there’s raw skin underneath the scar.

There’s a sharp awareness that the moment of death is not the end of grieving. Later may come the grief of “I wish…”. That I had asked more questions. That I had learned new details of what their lives were like before I came onto the scene. That for one moment more I could sit in the living room with my mother as we each entered the world of a gripping book and then compared notes. That I could again catch the delight in my father’s eyes as he fished from the surf and relished his contemplative time.

And then there are the losses out of time, the ones that leave a jagged edge on everything. The sudden death of my not quite two-year-old nephew more than four decades ago is an entirely different ache. So much was in bud and incomplete. That ache is more of a wondering. I wonder how his emerging personality would have developed.  I wonder what kind of person he might have grown into. What would his laughter sound like now, and what experiences would have coaxed that out of him? What might have broken his heart and what might have put it back together again? Who and what would he love?

I tap into the communion of saints often as I’m in frequent conversation with these dear ones. I visit my parents’ graves whenever I’m near the shore and tell them what’s going on and how much I miss them. They were always such good listeners, so why should it be any different now?

My consolation comes from a deep, intuitive knowing that those who have loved and protected us in this life continue to cherish us when they live in risen life. We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, the familiar holy ones that we have called by name and the host of holy ones with whom our past never intersected. Except that now, in risen life, we do connect. Now we stand beneath a shower of compassion flowing from countless lives given over in love and service. Now we’re blessed by the witness of others who, like us, experienced the thin line between heartache and hope, but who chose to keep hoping, chose to keep going, chose to keep showing up for the good of the planet. Because of these holy ones, we’re that much closer to grasping what they now see in its fullness: that no act of love is ever lost, forgotten, or wasted. May it be so!

Takeaway
Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
Invite those you loved who are now experiencing risen life to join you in this stillness.
Bask in their presence for a while.
If you desire, share with them what you hold in your heart.
Then give thanks for the gift of their presence, then and now.

Featured Image: Alexander Grey, Unsplash

NOTE:
Thank you for your prayer for all who were part of a Lenten retreat day I led at the IHM Spirituality Center in Bryn Mawr, PA. We had a capacity crowd whose energy was electric and whose sharing was profound. An added blessing for me was the surprise appearance of some of my beloved IHM Associates. I am truly grateful and basking in the memory of our time together.

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by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM    February 25, 2024

I was back. Back in the healing waters of the aquatic therapy pool. And apparently, it showed.

“What’s your secret?” One patient asked as we passed each other walking the length of the pool. “You’re absolutely beaming,” another remarked. A third person wondered, “What’s behind that smile?”

After an absence of nine months, I was back in the pool, back in the community of bodies and souls seeking healing. What had kept me away? Not a lack of desire. Not a lessening of my appreciation for what aquatic therapies offered my wounded body. Quite simply, time and space. A full schedule of retreats from May through December had meant I would be away from my home base for many days.

So of course I was beaming and smiling at my return to the pool. As anyone who’s engaged in physical therapy knows, water is so much easier than land as a medium for exercise. The pool was the conduit to wholeness and that partially explained my visible joy. But beyond that, entering the therapeutic waters was a deeply spiritual experience.

I imagined myself returning to my mother’s womb, afloat in that warm, protected, nourishing space. No wonder babies wail when they emerge under the glaring lights of the delivery room! Who would want to leave such a sheltering place? I imagined myself at my Baptism into the faith, feeling the holy waters poured over my infant face. I imagined standing knee-deep in the Jordan as Jesus stepped into the water and heard the words addressed to him but also to me: “You are my beloved.”

In the healing waters of the warm pool, stiffness was soothed. Limbs were set free. Bodies were no longer fettered. The pool offered all of us a liberation, a loosening, a harbinger of what might be possible.

Which led me to reflect on this Lenten season, for after all, isn’t that our call in these forty days? For the hardened heart to become tenderized. For the dry bones to take on muscle and flesh and move freely, maybe even dance in gratitude. For the crushed in spirit to discover hope. For the tight fist to unfurl itself in a handshake or an embrace. For the soul hardened by anger to open in a slow, halting knowing that grudges hurt only the one who holds them, that it is forgiveness that tenderizes and heals.

A few questions to accompany us on our Lenten journey:

What healing do I long for in my life at this moment?
What might help to loosen or unfetter my spirit during this season?
What is the kindest thing I could do for myself right now?
What practice could grow my spirit and also draw me closer to the heart of the Holy One?   

Takeaway
Sit in silence with the Holy One.
Place your hands on your lap, forming a tight fist.
Reflect on any issues that constrict or limit your ability to be a loving presence to others.
Slowly open your fists and keep your hands on your lap, palms upturned.
Ask the Holy One to fill you with the gift of healing for yourself and for our beautiful yet wounded world.

Featured Image: Haley Phelps, Unsplash

NOTE:
March 4-6:  Please hold in your prayer my travel and presentation of a Lenten retreat, “A Heart for Our Time and Place,” at the IHM Conference Center in Bryn Mawr, PA. Thank you.

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by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM  February 11, 2024

Some people dream in technicolor and are able to recount their dream in full detail. Some remember portions of a dream to share. And then there are people like me who rarely remember even the smallest fragment of a dream, never mind descriptive details. I wonder if that’s because I dream while awake, if my imagination is so exhausted by the time I get into bed that it mercifully allows me to slip into a deep and seemingly dreamless sleep.

If I recall anything at all, it seems to happen in the twilight hours of dawn, you know, that in-between time when you’re just awakening from a night’s sleep but are not yet fully alert. That’s the time of day when I sense most clearly the palpable presence of the Holy. I’ve learned to pay particular attention to what I see, hear, feel.

One morning last week, I awoke to the image of a massive poplar tree. The poplar was bowed down from the weight of thousands of harps hanging on its branches. I was standing under the tree, looking up into it. That’s the fragment. 

Just that week I had been praying Psalm 137, that poignant song of separation that begins,  

“By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and wept, remembering Zion;
On the poplars that grew there, we hung up our harps…
O, how could we ever sing God’s song in a foreign land?”  (Psalm 137: 1, 4)

Perhaps when praying the psalms, you share my practice of relating the psalmist’s words from hundreds of years ago to what is unfolding in your life, our world, at this moment. In this song from the Babylonian captivity, we hear the contemporary ache of refugees driven from home by war, conflict, famine, threats against life, or natural disasters. We hear the terror of displaced families forced to flee to places that may be safe but that hold constant reminders that home is not where they now find themselves. We hear the utter weariness of those who live in chronic, unrelenting pain. We hear the unspoken anguish of people who have been struck mute by grief, struggling to navigate a foreign landscape in the absence of their beloved.

When there simply are no words, when the notes die in our throats, may we remember that the Holy One never ceases singing for us. May we remember that our longing to find meaning in the place of exquisite pain and fragile dreams has not gone unnoticed. May we remember that the communion of all the holy ones is here for us. Carrying us. Standing with us under the harp tree. Holding us in tenderness and prayer.

When our songs have been struck silent and our harps abandoned and stilled, others are singing when we cannot. By the grace of the Holy One, may our voices ultimately be restored and find their way back to us so that some day we can finally sing a new song. Whether soon or late, we trust that it may be so!

Takeaway
Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
You may want to place before you an image of our world’s suffering or an image of someone you love who has been lost to you.
Simply hold that image in love and compassion.
Thank the Holy One for constantly companioning you and all who are in pain of any kind.
If you’re able, sing. Play a piece of soothing music. Or sit in silence.

Featured Image: Victor Serban, Unsplash

NOTE:
This week we celebrate Valentine’s Day, the feast of love, and on the same day, Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Lenten season when we remember that we are dust–stardust–and when we accompany Jesus in the crucified peoples of the world. Blessings on all who begin this journey deeper into the loving heart of the Holy One.

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Enter your email address in the space provided and then click on “Subscribe” and follow any prompts. You’ll then be subscribed to automatically receive any future blog posts from Mining the Now. 

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by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM    January 28, 2024

I heard her long before I saw her. Howling might be an accurate description of the shrieks that filled the front of the plane. Wailing, perhaps. No doubt about the source. Clearly it came from the high pitched decibels of a child’s distress. I found myself wondering about the why. Wondering about the when. Wondering about…and then the inevitable thought, “Oh, please, not my row!”

I was comfortably seated in my preferred place, an aisle seat, but the other seats in row 14 were empty as people were still boarding. Then began the scanning of each approaching passenger as the sobs grew closer. Could it be that woman? Did he look like someone searching? Was she holding the hand of a passenger under the age of five?

Finally, a man with weariness written across his face approached and murmured apologetically, “So sorry, but we’re in your row.” I stood up to allow them passage and smiled at the little girl. “Mommy! I want Mommy!” she cried. Her father tried gently and unsuccessfully to soothe her.

Once we settled in, something prompted me to ask, “Is ‘Mommy’ on this plane?” The father nodded yes. “By any chance, is she in an aisle seat?” Yes, again. I’m slightly claustrophobic and the pre-holiday flight was long and full, so his answer was important. “Do you suppose she might want to sit here?” became my next question.

“I couldn’t ask you to do that,” he replied, “because she’s in a bulkhead row and there would be no place for you to put your purse.” He was pointing, of course, to my gigantic, overstuffed shoulder bag that I dig out of the closet only when I’m flying. Between that and my wheeled carry-on loaded with my laptop, Bose speaker, and electronic equipment for a retreat, I more than filled the luggage restrictions.

“Let’s try,” I replied. “Mommy” was five rows ahead of me across the aisle, so I approached her and asked if she might want to switch places. Her face lit up, she nodded, her eyes filled with tears. Within two minutes, we had switched seats, both parents mouthing their gratitude. Even more remarkably, the incessant wailing ceased.

That might have been the end of this story except, as we landed, I remembered that my wheeled carry-on was five rows behind me in an overhead bin and I had a brief window of time to get to my connecting flight. How would I ever squeeze through five rows of passengers pulling their luggage from the bins and crowding the aisles?

That’s when I noticed the little girl’s father pointing overhead and mouthing to me, “Do you have something up there?” I nodded yes, and shrugged. “Mommy” got out of her seat, looked into the bin and questioned, “Does it have a floral design?” Yes, again. She pulled it down.

Another passenger who had witnessed our earlier switching places announced to everyone, “This kind lady,” pointing to me, “gave up her seat so a little girl’s mother could sit with her. Let’s return the favor by passing her luggage up the aisle.”

Like something out of a choreographed ballet, all hands between me and my bag immediately went up and passed the carry-on forward and into my arms. “Thank you,” I exclaimed gratefully. “There’s so much kindness around us, isn’t there?” With that, everyone in coach broke out into cheers and applause.

Why am I re-telling this story? Because when the pain of the world becomes too much for me, when I’m feeling overwhelmed at news of yet another account of shootings or violence, of cruelty or meanspiritedness, I return to stories like this one from last December. I give thanks for the impulse to good that lies in the heart of every person, even if we’ve yet to see it. I hear once again the cheers and applause of a plane full of holiday travelers, all of us simply trying to find our way home. And I remember that no act of love is ever lost, forgotten, or wasted.

Now it’s your turn. What might you add of your own story?

Takeaway
Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
Call to mind a time when you were moved or touched by the kindness of a stranger, or when you yourself offered an act of thoughtfulness to another.
Savor the feelings that were part of that story.
Ask the Holy One for the grace to be the face of love wherever you might be this day.

Featured Image:  Marco Aurelio Conde, Unsplash

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by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM    January 14, 2024

Because we’re human and limited, some element of imperfection or incompleteness may be found in whatever our hands and hearts attend. The typo scanned by multiple sets of eyes that jumps out at us only after we’ve finally hit “Send.” The letter sealed and mailed without the enclosure we intended to include. The shot missed at a critical juncture in a basketball game, no matter how many times we’ve practiced.  

At the foot of my bed is a folded quilt, a compilation of dreams, of beauty, and of human error. My childhood is filled with the memory of my thrifty grandmother saving scraps of fabric from threadbare blouses and many-times-mended-skirts to create parasol quilts, each square displaying a woman with a parasol, its scraps of fabric matching the colorful pieces of her billowing dress.

Those parasol ladies planted in me a long-held desire to one day craft my own quilt, so  I enrolled in a class for beginners. While every other student followed precisely the template and colors of a baby’s quilt, I was seduced by my search in a fabric store. Rows of batik, the delicate watercolors of Indonesian artistry, lured me over to their shelves. Once I saw those intricate designs of waxing and dyeing, those swirls of emerald and teal and rose and raspberry, there was no going back to ordinary.

In my sewing and piecing together, I was so dazzled by the batik fabric that I sometimes lost focus and veered away from the prescribed quilting pattern. As we neared the end of the classes, the instructor gently pointed out where I had gone astray but I decided to leave things as they were and keep the quilt for myself. I’d like to imagine that I was unconsciously following the spiritual practice of those who deliberately include a flaw in their artistry, a nod to the imperfection of all that is humanly made. But let’s be honest, the errors were unintended and all mine. I wore them like a badge of honor. As someone who had always tried to do things perfectly, I discovered in this quilt a newfound compassion for my own humanity, a knowing that I was part a world at once both beautiful and broken.

Since then, I have given away countless works of my hands and heart: Phlox and Black-eyed Susan cultivated and carried to a friend wounded by life’s cruelty. Italian Lemon Pound Cake feeding co-workers during a meeting break. Cherished words spilled out into poems and essays and reflections like this blog post you’re reading right now. Each of them created with care and thoughtfulness, each of them a container for my hopes, my whimsy, and sometimes my human error. My constant youthful striving for perfection as an end goal has given way at last to a world in which I offer the best of which I’m capable, move on, and am at peace with that reality.

In “The Liberating Lessons of Imperfection,” Sheryl Chard is not asking us to cease trying our best. But she proposes that our seeming mistakes and our carefully thought out plans gone awry can be schools of profound learning. She wonders, “What if all of us could remember to ask ourselves: When was I searching for the ‘perfect’ (fill in the blank here) and instead was surprised and delighted by something completely different? When were my imperfections met with compassion, and how was I shaped by that generosity?”

Going into a new year she asks, “What if this year I could walk through my days appreciating all the imperfections that actually bring me joy, tell a story, teach something, invite my contribution, or add surprising beauty?”

What if, indeed? A few weeks into this fresh and young new year, may we move forward with trust in the Holy One who always accompanies and completes us. May we learn to look at what is askew, awry, lopsided, ludicrous, or unexpected in our plans with an unfailing humor that carries us through this year and far, far beyond.

Takeaway
Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
Name any scars, bruises, fractures, or pain that your body has experienced.
 Reflect on a learning that has come to you through limitation or diminishment.
Ask the Holy One to bring to fullness and completion the dreams of all who struggle in our beautiful yet broken world.

Featured Image:   Chris Koellhoffer, My First Quilt

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by Chris Koellhoffer, December 30, 2023

This deep into the Christmas season and approaching a new year, I can’t escape our present realities when I gaze at my beautiful little clay Nativity from Mexico. I see Jesus coming over 2,000 years ago in history and Jesus continuing to be born in our time and place. Jesus entering a world that had longed for his appearance for centuries and Jesus born anew in a world yearning for the fullness of his kin-dom. Jesus, Prince of Peace, arriving at the little town of Bethlehem and into a world marked by oppression, and Jesus, the embodiment of peace, coming now into a world equally wounded by conflict.

Already here and not yet, this kin-dom. That’s the mystery of its unfolding. That there is still, amid days and nights of terror and the unnerving nearness of bombs, the milk of human kindness. That there are still signs of the kin-dom of justice and inclusion, the kinship that proclaims and acts and hopes in God’s dream for our world. That there is still the desire to live lives of meaning, to in some way make a difference in our world. Still the longing to leave the space we inhabit more tender and more welcoming, to leave things better than they were when we came onto the scene.

These thoughts surfaced as I listened to a podcast, This American Life, a special December edition on “Yousef’s Week.” Over the space of a week, producer Chana Joffe-Walt recorded phone conversations with Yousef Hammash, who lives in Gaza and works for the Norwegian Refugee Council. The calls were often interrupted when bombings drew closer to Yousef’s location. In his 30’s and married with two children, Yousef also shoulders responsibility for his large extended family which includes four sisters and their children. He was having a hard time persuading his sisters to leave Khan Yunis and move to Rafah, which he believed would be safer. In Khan Yunis, the sisters had a home where their basic needs were met and so they were reluctant to pack up and move. Until a drone strike leveled the house next to them. Then moving was the only choice. And moving was made more treacherous because of the nearness of bombs.

And yet, even with the concrete dust next door still rising in thick clouds, the sisters didn’t immediately move.  Yousef noted that his sisters refused to leave the house before they did something unbelievable: they cleaned everything—the kitchen, the bathrooms, every part of the house, cleaned while bombs were falling all around them. “I really respect it,” commented Yousef on his sisters’ behavior, “because we leave it better than the way we have begun. This is how we show respect.”

To leave this world, our corner of the world, better than it was when we first arrived on the scene–that has the sound not so much of a New Year’s resolution as a mantra for all of life. To leave our family, friends, neighbors, community, employment more loving, more compassionate, more welcoming than when we first entered those relationships. To leave our house, our workspace, more clean than when we first inhabited our living areas. Oh, Yousef, you and your sisters are right! This is how we show respect.

As we stand at the edge of 2024, may we carry with us, may we deepen within ourselves, this awareness: to leave our beautiful yet wounded world more beautiful and less broken than when our lives began. As we enter into a fresh and unknown year ahead, may it be so!

Takeaway

Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
You may want to place before you a 2024 calendar, a journal, a diary.
Reflect on any choice you’ve made or action you’ve done in the past year that brought into our world a little more beauty, a little more compassion, a little more justice.
Ask the Holy One for the grace to leave your mark of kindness on the year to come.
Ask this for all of us who inhabit this beautiful yet wounded world.
May it be so!

Featured Image:  Chris Koellhoffer, Nativity set from Mexico

NOTE:
Happy New Year!
Thank you for your prayer for my safe and uneventful flights home from Monroe, Michigan and for your prayer for all who were part of the Advent guided retreat. It was my great joy to be with my Monroe IHMs. Special thanks to Sister Paula Cooney, IHM for her technical support and to Sister Judith Bonini, IHM for the initial invitation and encouragement.

May you and all of our beautiful yet wounded world know the peace and kinship that are the Holy One’s dream for all of us in this new year, and beyond.

To automatically subscribe to receive new posts from Mining the Now: 
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Enter your email address in the space provided and then click on “Subscribe” and follow any prompts. You’ll then be subscribed to automatically receive any future blog posts from Mining the Now. 

NOTE: If you are trying to subscribe while using a mobile phone, you may have to take another step. As you look at the blog post, there should be 3 horizontal lines at the top right of the page. Click on these lines and you’ll be taken to what’s on the left hand column (on a laptop or PC). Scroll down and follow the directions at * above.

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