Mining the Now

by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM    December 2, 2023

Amazing what connections come to our consciousness when we pay attention. I’d like to think I was doing exactly that when I came across a local honey display at a favorite health and wellness store.  I sometimes use honey in recipes (brussels sprouts-honey-balsamic vinegar) and have recently become fond of adding a bit of sweetness to a morning cup of tea. But in the average supermarket what I find is pretty much honey. Period.

Here in this specialty market the choices were more expansive and varied. Raw and unfiltered honey. Honey with pieces of the comb clearly visible. Descriptive names of seasons and origins. Buckwheat Blossom. Cinnamon. Fall. Orange Blossom. And this one that called out to me: Wildflower.

I purchased it, hurried it home, and spooned out a drop of syrupy, concentrated wildflower magic. Bliss! I suspect this is what Mary Oliver felt “At Blackwater Pond” when she cupped cold water in her hands, took a long drink and exclaimed, “oh, what is that beautiful thing that just happened?” When I took these sweet wildflowers into my body, I tasted fields of purple aster, goldenrod, pink phlox, and wild clover. I saw them blossom under summer sun. I heard them calling out to every passing bumblebee. I imagined worker bees covered with pollen and carrying their dusty gold back to a waiting colony. I felt the tender care of a thousand beekeepers. And yes, all this I could do–take in bee-ness, blossom-ness, wild-ness, essence of wildflower and essence of bee–because I have a body, because they gave their bodies over to transformation and to service of the whole.

And since it was the beginning of Advent, my thoughts connected with this season of preparation. With Jesus, who fully inhabited our human body, taking on the wonder and the limits of our human condition. Had he perhaps, like me, enjoyed this liquid bliss? In the wanderings of his public life through the land of milk and honey (Exodus 3:8), in his trekking through fields and meditating on the natural world around him, had he also at some point dipped his finger into a dish of honey, tasted it, and exlaimed after he swallowed it, “Wow! This is really good stuff!”

The call of Advent is to prepare our hearts and our consciousness for the coming of Emmanuel, God-with-us, in our time and place. Perhaps part of that call might be to spend some time reflecting on our human condition. To whisper prayers of gratitude that we actually have a body with all its dazzling complexity and its persistent limits. To give thanks at all times for our human bodies, even when we are weary, or arthritic, or wrinkled, or slowing, or aching, or confined to a chair or a bed. To look at our human bodies as fearfully, wonderfully made, no matter that these same bodies sometimes seem to betray us and sometimes cannot take us where we want to go or do what we once did.

So when you first get up in the morning and shuffle into the bathroom, take a long look into the mirror. Notice that gazing back at you is a human body, perhaps one whose hair is disheveled and scruffy, perhaps one whose eyes are bleary and shaking off sleep. Remember then the mystery of the Incarnation and the mystery of you, with your human and holy and wondrous body. And when you do remember, say aloud for all the world to hear, “Wow! This is really good stuff!”

Takeaway
Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
Wrap your arms around yourself in a gesture of love and tenderness.
Thank your body for helping you enter into yet another Advent season.
Show compassion for any part of your body that carries pain or wounds or sadness.
Ask the Holy One for the healing you desire, and then ask for healing for our beautiful yet wounded world.

Featured Image:  Dmitry Gregoriev, Unsplash

NOTE:
Please hold in your prayer my air travel and all who will be part of a guided retreat I’m leading:

December 12-18
Monroe, Michigan
“Advent:  Pilgrimage of the Heart” for IHM Sisters and friends

Blessings of this Advent season to you. As we wait for the coming of Emmanuel, God-with-us, may the witness of our hope contribute to the healing of our beautiful yet wounded world.

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Thank you for following!

by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM   November 19, 2023

As a constantly curious person, there’s one question I’m perhaps most curious about and will voice to anyone, but especially to wisdom figures. I want to know, “How did you come to be the person you are today?”

Inevitably, the person on the receiving end of that question will mention someone who knew how to mine. This spiritual miner might be a parent, a teacher, a mentor, a friend. This miner possessed singular sight, able to see beyond the bravado and swagger of younger years and to uncover the timid or frightened or doubting child within who needed assurance or affirmation. This miner whose “I believe in you” litany offered an unfailing source of encouragement. This miner whose cheerleading evolved into a speech act.

In Loose Leaf Lectionary, Mark Strobel writes that a speech act is a single word or phrase that carries the power to effect change. A speech act happens in a circumstance where someone says something and the mere fact of saying it actually makes it happen. Imagine the first time a person utters the words, “I love you” and what that sets in motion. Scripturally, think of the Genesis account of creation where God says “Be!” and calls into being the universe, creating light and sky and oceans and all that swims there and all that crawls or runs on land. “Be!” God says to us and all our kin. And so it is. And it is good, so very good.

On the wall in the space where I write is a print with the reminder, “Words are so powerful, they should only be used to heal, to bless, to prosper.” Words, then, are potential speech acts.

So there’s an invitation to reflect on our own words, uttered or written. They may not be as dramatic as the primordial word spoken to creation by the Holy One, but like that divine invitation, they also possess immense power. Perhaps we’ve been blessed to hear in our lives speech acts such as, “You can do this!” “You got it.” “You have a gift.” “I believe in you.” How a life can be transformed by a steady hearing of such speech acts! These words or phrases invite our own mining and deep inner soul work. These words help to coax or spur into being our best selves, our infant talents, our transformation into generous, compassionate members of the human family.

In this season of voicing gratitude, may we reflect on and give thanks for the significant persons in our lives whose words set into motion our journey from a shaky and wavering belief in ourselves to a profound knowing that we are beloved of God. May the Holy One, who rested with contentment after the work of creation, gaze at us with all our quirks and limitations and doubts and say once again “Be!” And find us good, so very good.

Takeaway
Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
Reflect on a person who has invited you into greater confidence and deeper belief in yourself.
Hold that person in tenderness and in your prayers of gratitude.
Remember as well those in our global family who long to hear words of affirmation voiced for them. Give thanks for all the gifts you have received.

Featured Image:  Ashley Whitlatch, Unsplash

NOTE:
In this season of giving thanks, know how grateful I am for your following of Mining the Now, for your comments, and for all the ways you use words and you encourage me to use words that heal, and bless, and prosper. Happy Thanksgiving, and blessings to you and all those you love.

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Thank you for following!

by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM   November 3, 2023

As someone who often drives distances of three or more hours at a stretch, I’m delighted to be living in the age of podcasts. I’m grateful for their company at any time, but especially on monotonous highways that might offer little by way of breathtaking scenery or diversity of landscape. Besides, there’s something intimate about being the only person in a car and having one or more of those sonorous podcast voices speak directly to me on a long trip or a lonely road.

Recently, I chose to take Route 206 in New Jersey. It was one of several options for my destination, and it was the longest one, but the fall foliage was at its peak and 206 would take me on roads promising autumn’s brilliant colors on full display.

Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me, the NPR news quiz, was streaming, and it featured an interview with writer James Patterson. As the prolific author of over sixty books on the New York Times bestseller list, Patterson was asked what motivated him. He said that early on in his career, he heard a quote that reminded him his time was limited, and because of that, he should ask himself, “So what can I do most beautifully?” For Patterson, that clarified what became his life’s calling: telling stories.

As I heard Patterson ask the question, I was passing under archways of trees shining crimson and gold and orange above me. I sat up straight, always an indication that I’m meant to pay attention. I reflected on my conscious choice to take the longer way to my destination, simply so that I could experience beauty and thank the trees for sharing with me.

The question Patterson noted took me in another direction, towards the importance of bringing beauty into our lives. As much as we possibly can. Whenever and wherever we can. Seeking the beautiful with intentionality is soul work that can lead to our own transformation over time and can enable us to share the beautiful with others.

On the day I chose Route 206 because I knew it would bring an experience of awe and gratitude into my day, I was doing just that kind of intentional soul work. That leaning explains why I cultivate a tiny garden and welcome fuzzy bumblebees, the scent of lavender, the wildness of black eyed Susans. That’s why I don’t use headphones on my walk, so that I can better hear birdsong and the crunch of fallen leaves underfoot as well as the movements of my own heart. That’s why every day, yes, every single day, I read a poem aloud as part of my practice of prayer. That’s why I delight in relationships with others who appreciate my love affair with words, my need for whimsy, for the arts, for story telling, for compassion, and of course, for chocolate.

What I can do most beautifully is also related to how I can be most beautifully. It invites reflection on and a closer look into what we are taking into our lives. If our entire diet consists of a twenty-four hour news cycle that blares stories of humankind’s inhumanity to others through war, conflict, racism, and cruelty, we can become numb to and perhaps worst of all, indifferent to the suffering of others. But beauty can be an antidote to violence. To live beautifully, we need a nutritional supplement of wonder and awe, of music and poetry and dance and painting. We need to take in whatever makes us more alive and hopeful, whatever moves us further away from apathy or callousness, whatever moves us closer to the wholemaking the Holy One desires for all of us.

So let’s ask of ourselves today: What can I do most beautifully? How can I be most beautifully? And what will help me to consume the beauty all around me and in some meaningful way share it with a world that longs for more? 

Some of you who have followed my blog for a while know of my practice of picking up earthworms from the pavement after a rainstorm and carrying them over to a patch of moist earth or grass so that they don’t die when the afternoon sun dries up the pavement. Well, imagine my delight this morning when I turned the page and the next poem to read aloud and savor in my morning prayer was this sweet one from Lynn Ungar. I suspect it’s no coincidence that it speaks of what we take into our lives.

Earthworms

Imagine. The only thing that
God requires of them
is a persistent, wriggling, moving forward,
passing the earth through
the crinkled tube of their bodies
in a motion less like chewing
than like song.

Everything they encounter
goes through them,
as if sunsets, drug store clerks,
diesel fumes and sidewalks
were to move through our very centers
and emerge subtly different
for having fed us—looser somehow,
more open to the possibility of life.

They say the job of angels
is to sing to God in serried choirs.
Perhaps. But most jobs
aren’t so glamorous.
Mostly the world depends upon
the silent chanting underneath our feet.
To every grain that enters: “Welcome.”
To every parting mote: “Be blessed.”

Takeaway
Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
You may want to place before you a photo, image, or object that speaks of beauty to you.
What do you notice about your choice?
What moves within your heart as you gaze at it?
How might it draw you into wonder or awe?
Spend some time in reflection, then bow and give thanks.

Featured Image:  Annie Nyle, Unsplash

NOTE:
Please remember in your prayer my Congregation, the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (IHM), as we celebrate Founders’ Day on November 10. We were founded on November 10, 1845 in Monroe, Michigan by Theresa Maxis Duchemin, IHM and Louis Florent Gillet, CSsR.

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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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Thank you for following!

by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM   October 20, 2023

This is a difficult acknowledgement for me as a writer. But let me acknowledge it and admit that sometimes, there simply are no words. Sometimes grief is so searing, so massive, so leaden, so overpowering, so consuming that in its presence we are struck mute, we become utterly inarticulate, we collapse under its deadening weight.

From the past five months, I’ve accompanied retreatants through six to eight day stretches of time in beautiful retreat centers through retreats both guided and directed. Usually in beginning to accompany a person through a week of directed retreat, I ask about what they carry into the days, about what their hope might be for the time of retreat. I am in awe of the stories I hear: about a longing to live meaningful lives that make a difference in our world; about a desire for richer relationship with the Holy; about attention to some deep inner soul work; about profound joy or gratitude for the way their lives are unfolding.

Sometimes what I don’t hear is telling. Sometimes we’ve completed our second day together and I still have no idea of why persons have come to this place at this time. Because they haven’t been able to utter a word. Because their language spills out in a torrent of tears, a flood of strangled sobs. Because the weight of what they’ve swallowed both silences and engulfs.

So I sit with. I wait. I listen. I pray to the Holy One. Help me to accompany as you would. Help me to be your face, the tender face of love in this room.  

Ever so slowly, words emerge. Sometimes of relationships estranged. Of connections severed and not by choice. Of a beloved friend, soul mate, partner, mentor taken by illness or death. Of finding oneself left out, excluded, overlooked. Of loss unimaginable. Of the cruelty of which our human condition is capable.

As I sit with, listen, and pray, I muzzle my Big Sister tendencies that want to fix, to make everything better, to push pain away, to offer solutions. I try to stay grounded in the Holy and to be fully present. Sometimes that is all we can do, and yes, it is everything.

Now that the extended summer retreats have paused, I step back, assess, and reflect on the blessings and the challenges of the people and places that have occupied my heart and my prayer. I give thanks for my call to bear witness to how the Holy is at work in our world in times of utter delight, in times of profound sorrow, in all times.

Wherever we may be at this moment, may the Holy One who makes all things whole move each of us ever closer to the fullness of abundant life. And when we are in need of reminding that wholeness is always God’s dream for us, I leave us with this blessing, © Jan Richardson, janrichardson.com:

Blessing for a Broken Vessel

Do not despair.
You hold the memory
of what it was
to be whole.

It lives
deep in your bones.
It abides
in your heart
that has been torn
and mended
a hundred times.
It persists
in your lungs
that know the mystery
of what it means
to be full,
to be empty,
to be full again.

I am not asking you
to give up your grip
on the shards you clasp
so close to you

but to wonder
what it would be like
for those jagged edges
to meet each other
in some new pattern
you have never imagined,
that you have never dared to dream.

Takeaway
Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
You may want to place before you an image of something that is broken or mended or entirely whole.
Share with the Holy One why you have chosen that specific image.
Ask the God of wholemaking to help you hold in tenderness everyone in our beautiful yet wounded world.

Featured Image:  Brett Jordan, Unsplash

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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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Thank you for following!

by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM    October 7, 2023

I suspect it’s not by design but by Providence that every guided or directed retreat I was part of from May through October this year was near a salty body of water. The Atlantic Ocean. The Sound off the shores of Connecticut.

Today at a break in a retreat in Madison, Connecticut, I was watching sea birds find respite on the tip of a large boulder. During high tide, the boulder couldn’t be seen from the shore but the way the waves broke against its spot hinted of something large underwater. Now that the tide has gone out, the boulder is exposed and a flock of cormorants has discovered it and perched on the rock. I might have named it a cormorant convention except for the fact that the birds have all gathered in silence. No twittering, no fluttering of wings or shaking of feathers. Meditative, it seems.

I’m reminded of Bawa Muhaiyaddeen who observes, “For those who have come to know God, the whole world is a prayer mat.”  For the cormorants, and certainly for me, the ocean is one of my preferred places of prayer. With my formative years rooted so deeply in New Jersey, I’ve found that nothing more quickly settles me into a prayerful mode than the breaking of waves and the rhythmic lullaby of the ocean. So I’m especially grateful for all the invitations of these past months to minister seaside, to inhale salt air, to catch my breath at the rising sun at daybreak or a pastel sunset over the Atlantic.

My reality the remainder of the year is that I live in land-locked Pennsylvania. Fortunately for me, there are countless other prayer mats where I find myself. I can be immersed in contemplation when I tend to my tiny garden and its inhabitants of echinacea, lavender, marigolds and their visitors, the industrious bumblebee and the graceful butterfly. I can stand on the patio late night and breathe in stardust and a waxing moon. I can crunch leaves underfoot as I stroll along the Heritage Trail. I can savor the aroma of still baking pumpkin bread or lose myself in the haunting notes of “Gabriel’s Oboe.” I can sense the nearness of grace in the insistent way a Golden Retriever happily leans into me. I suspect that for each one of us, the list of what invites us into contemplative space is long and growing longer by the day.

But enough about me. Where do you most easily find the Holy? What gifts of our beautiful yet wounded world take you out of or beyond yourself? What transports you to a place of stillness and reflection?

In “Praying,” the luminous Mary Oliver reminds us not to overthink this, but to live with awareness and to be grateful for what comes.

“It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.”

Takeaway

Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
Perhaps you may want to find your preferred prayer mat and bless it.
Savor the experience of being with whatever invites you into contemplative space.
Give thanks for the ways it helps you to lean into the Holy.

Featured Image: Job Savelsberg, Unsplash

NOTE:
Thank you for remembering in your prayer all who are part of a directed retreat at Mercy by the Sea in Madison, Connecticut, still going on. I’ve been privileged to be one of the guest directors in this beautiful place.

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. 

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Thank you for following!

by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM    September 24, 2023

This weekend we observe the autumnal equinox. Equinox, two Latin words meaning equal and night. On the equinox, day and night last almost the same amount of time, approximately twelve hours. With the autumnal equinox in the Northern hemisphere, we move forward from this day to the inevitable dimming of daylight, with less and less sunlight each day as we head towards the winter season of stillness and gestation and hidden contemplative time.

I was reflecting on the lessening of light this week as I watered my tribe of African violets, cyclamen, and pothos. Clearly, they respond to phototropism, that movement of leaning or bending towards the light. Weekly, I notice their tilting in the direction of the sun’s rays and so I give their pots a turn of 90 degrees to adjust their growth. This insures that they won’t grow in ways that are lopsided, that they can remain balanced and centered. It’s a reminder to me to do the same in my own inner soul life.

I’ve learned that plant responses to light depend on a plant’s ability to sense light through photoreceptors. And I wonder, given my allurement to light, if some of those same photoreceptors might have migrated to my human body. Is it possible that I and others who are so drawn towards the sun, are perhaps part plant? Is it imaginable that, on some deep, primal level, we might be kin to the very tribe of green leaves and flowering buds we tend so lovingly?

My office, where I’m writing now, is drenched in the fullness of afternoon sun. Sometimes when I walk into this space around three o’clock, I sense the pull of the sun’s rays. It’s both palpable and startling. “Oh, it’s your favorite time of day,” I say aloud to my plant neighbors. I thank them for their quiet company, for purifying the air, for enhancing the quality of my inhaling and exhaling.

And I remind them, as I remind myself, that the surges of growth that late spring and summer invite are now left behind us in memory. In the northern hemisphere, autumn  brings not the lush growth of the past few months but instead a change of form. As she paints the trees with vibrant brushes of color, she invites us into quiet and daydreaming and wondering and awe.

In The Circle of Life, Joyce Rupp and Macrina Wiederkehr reflect, “Autumn is a wondrous metaphor for the transformation that takes place in the human heart each season. When we notice a subtle change of light outside our windows, we know the dark season is near.” The authors invite us to ask significant questions about where we find ourselves in our own inner harvest: “What do we need to gather into our spiritual barns? What in our lives needs to fall away like autumn leaves so another life waiting in the wings can have its turn to live?”

So here we stand on the edge of a new season unfolding. May we welcome autumn with a steady spirit of quiet expectation, of assessment, of reflective time, of taking stock as the external light lessens.  May we take up the invitation to enter into this season of burrowing, of waiting, of gathering, of harvest.

Takeaway
Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
What might you see ripening and nearing harvest in yourself at this time?
Is there a gift that you long for in this season of surrender and letting go? Ask for it.
Give thanks to the Holy One for all that grace has enabled to flourish in you season after season.

Featured Image:  Dewang Gupta, Unsplash

NOTE:
October 1 – 8:
Please remember in your prayer all who will be part of a directed retreat at Mercy by the Sea in Madison, CT. I’ll be one of the guest directors for these days of retreat. Thank you.

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.

Thank you for following!

by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM   September 7, 2023

You’re doing it right now. And not just now, but 25,000 times today. Probably without any awareness unless breathing is made more challenging by respiratory issues. You’re breathing. Inhaling. Exhaling. Over and over.

So why not make of our breath a prayer? No equipment needed except our attention and intention. We can experience the simple practice of praying with the breath, what I like to call breathprayer, every morning as we greet the dawn and every evening as we gratefully drift off to sleep. And any and many times in-between, especially when a pause or a centering is needed or desired.

We know that breath is a sign of life. Our human life cycles testify to its beginnings and endings. Perhaps we have stood among the concerned and eager faces in a delivery room. Listened expectantly and leaned forward as if one body, awaiting the first wail of a newborn. And when that longed-for cry broke through the hush, perhaps we have wanted to bow our heads in worship at the miracle that another breath, another new life, was visible and among us.

Or perhaps we have sat in stillness night after night as the shadows deepened around a sickbed. Whispered prayers of pleading or made promises to God, if only…. Listened intently as the pauses between one labored breath and the next lengthened. Witnessed a final deep sigh as breath, life, departed the body and ended our long vigil of accompaniment. Perhaps we have then wanted to bow our heads in worship, knowing ourselves in the presence of holy mystery.

Inhaling and exhaling, such simple, basic human acts, so easily adapted to our prayer. In the ancient practice of breathprayer, we connect to Ruah, Spirit. We remember Jesus’ appearance to the disciples who had gathered in a locked room after his death. (John 20:19-22) We imagine him looking into those haunted and terrified faces, revealing wounds in his hands and side as proof that he was indeed risen and alive. And we participate in the joy and utter relief in that locked room when Jesus exhaled and breathed peace, Spirit, on his disciples.

In breathprayer, we first pay attention to how our breath is in any given moment. Steady? Anxious? Weary? Rapid? Relaxed? However our breathing may be, the Holy One blesses it. After a few moments of attentiveness to our breathing in and breathing out, we may want to continue praying with the breath alone. Or we may use a line from  Scripture. Or add an intention for the day, such as “Holy One,” (as we breathe in), “breathe through me” (as we breathe out).

I once heard an ancient parable claiming that it is the prayers of the many that hold up the world and keep the earth from disintegrating into ashes. I’m sure the Holy One has something more to do with that! But what I understand as the spiritual core of that statement is that prayer breathed with intentionality is an antidote to attitudes of hatred, racism, indifference, and cruelty that have the potential to burn up and destroy our earth and all who call it home. In contrast, I suspect there are few daily moments more tender or selfless than coming together with no intention other than to hold in love and compassion the known and unspoken needs of our world.

When we enter into breathprayer individually or collectively, we become, with the grace of the Holy One, agents of healing. We create what Judy Cannato called fields of compassion, exhaling tenderness and welcome and a deepening sense of kinship.

So if you are new to breathprayer, I invite you to try it. If you’re a long-time practitioner, thank you. And now I’ll simply stop writing, exhale a blessing to you, and envision all of us breathing closer to fulfillment God’s dream for our beautiful yet wounded world.

Takeaway
Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
Spend some time noticing how you feel as you inhale and exhale.
After a few minutes, you may wish to add words or an intention to accompany your breath.
Continue inhaling and exhaling this breathprayer for as long as you wish.

Featured Image: Zac Durant, Unsplash

NOTE:
Thank you for returning to my blog, Mining the Now, after my brief hiatus during the month of August. I hope that time was restorative for you as it was for me.

And thank you for holding in prayer the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (Immaculata) who were part of a guided retreat I offered August 8-15 at Villa Maria Retreat House, their beautiful new retreat center in Stone Harbor, NJ.

Thank you in advance for remembering specially my niece and Godchild, Lauren Kline, and her husband-to-be, Peter Wilkins, who will be married this weekend, September 9.

And please hold in prayer all who will be part of the next retreat I’ll be leading:
September 15-22:  Guided retreat for the Sisters of Mercy and Associates, Sea Isle City, NJ

Thank you!

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by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM    July 28, 2023

During the summer months when I’m at home, I go out to the patio before 8 AM to water and check on my container garden and tiny flower garden. The timing of my visit often coincides with my downstairs neighbors who are preparing to go out in a van for the day. One of those residents waits on the patio in his wheelchair. As soon as he sees me, he begins directing me without words: pour the watering can on this pot of mint, not that one; use the shears on this bit of lavender, not the one over there. We also have a daily ritual where I snip a sprig of mint, he sniffs it, and he then gestures for me to add it to his backpack.

This morning he surprised me by wanting one of the flowers from the black eyed Susan patch. I was about to clip one and offer it, but no, he wanted a specific flower. From a bed of over a hundred blooms. “This one?” I would ask, and he would shake his head “No.” Finally I landed on the one he wanted so I cut it and carried it up to him. He sniffed the offered flower tentatively, then held my hand that was holding the black eyed Susan, and simply gazed at it. He kept gazing, with great tenderness.

I’ve been wondering what he saw that I didn’t see. What made him single out that one particular blossom? What did he notice? What caught his attention? What summoned him to pause and take a long look?

Our lives are often so full and lived at such an accelerated pace that simply to pause might seem a luxury. Joan Chittister observes that when we can’t remember how long it has been since we simply sat and looked at something we love, it has been way too long. Even the hard-working fuzzy bumblebee, moving from flower to flower and setting in motion the complex process of honey-making, lingers. Bees are selective, hovering and discerning before landing on the blossom of their choice. Pausing and gazing are an essential part of their search.

Gazing helps us attend to the holy that surrounds us in nature, art, and other people. We pause in stillness. We contemplate. We look with soft eyes and without judgment. We open ourselves to wonder.

So we might ask: what have we been gazing at this summer (or any season)? Where have our eyes lingered? What has captured our attention and invited us to look long and lovingly? With whom, with what, have we chosen to “waste” our time? Gazing reveals who or what we value and cherish.

In our pausing and our gazing, may we look with compassion at our beautiful yet wounded world. And when we do, “Let’s Remake the World” as Gregory Orr suggests:

“Let’s remake the world with words.
Not frivolously, nor
to hide from what we fear,
but with a purpose.
Let’s
as Wordsworth said, remove
‘the dust of custom’ so things
shine again, each object arrayed
in its robe of original light.
And then we’ll see the world
as if for the first time,
as once we gazed at the Beloved
who was gazing at us.” 

Takeaway
Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
Place before you something that has meaning for you: a photo, a plant, a pet, a child, whatever it may be.
Simply gaze with deep and unwavering love at what you’ve chosen.
Offer thanks to the object of your gazing and to the Holy One who created it.

Featured Image:  Chris Koellhoffer, “Summer­ Garden”

NOTE:
Since I began writing Mining the Now in 2016, it’s been my custom to take a break from writing my blog and other ministry responsibilities during the month of August. This frees me to spend time in my own retreat and renewal, as well as offering one retreat:

August 8 – 15:
Guided retreat at Villa Maria, Stone Harbor, NJ
Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (Immaculata)
I’ll be leading this retreat and ask you to remember all who will be part of it.

Blessings on your days during August. I’ll be back to writing for my blog, Mining the Now, in September. Hope to see you again then!

To automatically subscribe to receive new posts from Mining the Now: 
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by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM    July 15, 2023

Perhaps it’s a shift in emphasis. I know I’m a part of this beautiful yet wounded world. Yet when it comes to a full experience of just what that belonging means, I’m only gradually unpacking a deeper knowing of my membership and asking, what might it mean to belong to this world so loved by the Holy One? What might it mean to be fully at home?

I’ve been away for the past few days. I stayed in a house not far from where I live. What did I do during those days? Stillness and rest. Nothing more than listening to my body. Nothing more than sitting on a porch, gazing out onto the vast expanse of a peaceful lake. Nothing more than looking with delight at two young deer who made a tentative appearance, or being startled by a hungry bass who broke the water. Nothing more than turning my face up to a starlit sky late at night. I banished any agenda, to-do list, or deadline. I welcomed instead the persistent thread of belonging and let it settle and weave itself through my thoughts.

Perhaps at times we need to go away and return home in order to more fully notice the blessings that are all around us at every moment. When I came home and got out of my car in the parking lot, the neighbor’s dog woofed in acknowledgment of my homecoming. As I rounded the corner to my door, the scent of lavender from my tiny garden wafted towards me and I caught sight of a fuzzy bumblebee lounging in a profusion of purple. Buds on the echinacea and black-eyed Susan had slowly unfurled themselves in my absence. I paused, drank in their beauty, and thanked them.

On the patio, the miracle of growing and greening and nourishing lay right in front of me, served with a side of welcome. My container garden promised a salad of romaine and red leaf lettuce, mint, and basil. Since the mint plant is the Mojito variety, a mocktail suggested itself, and who am I to ignore the sage advice of any green neighbor?

When I came inside, my tribe of African violets greeted me with a new display of  purple and white and cream. Two containers of ivy cascaded over the sides of their pots. As a lost spider crawled into view, I scooped him up and carried him to more familiar terrain outside. These sightings reminded me of a Quaker Mealtime Blessing: “Let us give thanks for unknown blessings already on the way.”

This is what kinship is about, I thought. Every day, we are greeted by all our relations, the human, certainly, but also our kin of leaf and petal, of fur, feather, and fin. Sometimes we can be oblivious to their presence and pass them by, but we were never meant to live as strangers from creation, distant from all that the Holy One named as good. We were meant, as Thich Nhat Hanh observes, to awaken from the illusion of our separateness. To live in full communion with creation.

When we cultivate awareness and attention, our worldview grows larger as our focus becomes more intimate, more personal, more connected. We “see the world in a blade of grass. And heaven in a wild flower. Hold infinity in the palm of our hand. And eternity in an hour.” In tending to the smallest and most delicate of our neighbors, we practice loving compassion for the Universe that exists fully in them. In us. We wade into holy Mystery and get a glimpse of just how blessed we and all of creation really are, day after day after day.

Takeaway
Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
Take a few moments to imagine what home is for you.
What creatures inhabit your space and brighten your days?
Offer thanks for their blessed company, and welcome them all into your awareness.

Featured Image: Fern M. Lomibao, Unsplash

NOTE:
Please hold in your prayer my IHM Congregation’s Assembly and Jubilee taking place July 28-30, and also St. Joseph Center’s annual Festival in Scranton the same dates. Rooted in the core values of care, concern, compassion and commitment, Saint Joseph’s humbly serves people who are diagnosed with intellectual disability and those who seek pregnancy support, adoption assistance, outpatient therapy or medical day care services. Thank you!

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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by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM    July 1, 2023

Today is June 19, Juneteenth, the day when African Americans in Galveston, TX were told that they were free. We remember, this was almost 2 years after the Emancipation Proclamation. 2 years later! So today is symbolic of the end of 400 years of slavery, and an invitation for all of us to reflect on how near or how far we are from God’s dream of a world where all are welcome and none are excluded.

What St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians (2 Corinthians 6:1-10), he might have been saying to us as we come near the end of this retreat, or really, at any point in our lives: “As we work together with God, we urge you not to receive the grace of God in vain.” All this week, we’ve been praying for grace, haven’t we? So what are the signs that we’ve not received it in vain? Just how do we know if grace is effective?

I’d like to suggest that one of the signs of our cooperation with grace is the size and scope of our worldview. How closely is it aligned with the mind and practice of Jesus, where all are welcome and no one is excluded?  Whom do we always have room for, or whom do we try to keep outside of our circle of belonging? If we made a list, who would be in and who would be out? I suspect those boundaries are a pretty good indication of the width and breadth of our worldview, of how well we look at the world with the eyes of Christ.

The mindfulness teacher Sharon Salzberg (On Being, May 31, 2017) tells a story about worldview, about how we look at the world around us. She says that when she was searching for a cover for one of her early books, her publisher sent her a depiction of a Van Gogh print. In that print, much of the space was taken up by a dull yellow sky. And way down in one corner there were a few crumbling huts. Salzberg looked at it and thought it was a scene of utter devastation. And she said, “This looks like it should be the cover of the Grapes of Wrath or something like that.” Her publisher looked at the same image and said, “This looks like a world that could use some love.”

A world that could use some love. On a global level, the world that could use some love is every place where love has been extinguished. It’s where we hold the tension between the world as it is and the world as it could be, God’s dream of abundant life for all of us.

Closer to home, the world that could use some love might be whatever realities we’re going to meet at the end of this retreat, or at any time in our lives. Our partner, our family, our friends, our community, our co-workers and beyond. In this world, we ask: What is the loving thing to do? How is the loving way to be?

In the Gospel (Matthew 5:38-42), Jesus reminds us to put away our calculators because God does not know to count or keep score. Jesus invites us to grow into this same largeness of heart. To do the counterintuitive and the seemingly impossible thing: “Turn the other cheek. Hand over your coat as well. Go for two miles instead of one. Do not turn your back on borrowers.” Stop counting! Stop keeping score in this world that could use some love.

And here’s the thing about that love: it’s unconditional!  The writer, Jason Garner, asks the big question: “When we look around our world, with wars, terrorist attacks, people killing each other over race, religion, gender, sexual orientation…how can we possibly hold a space for loving everyone? But this is, in fact, exactly why we must.” 

Because “We’re called to practice a love that is more courageous than all the terror we see in our world…so we love one another even when it’s seemingly impossible; we look for the humanity behind the acts of hatred; we find our own pain in the pain of the world; and we meet it all with an intensity of love that is fitting for our intense times.”

May the grace of God which we’ve received not be given in vain. May the graces of this retreat sustain us and inspire us and grow our worldview. May we go forth to be a healing presence in our beautiful yet wounded world, a world that could certainly use some love.  May it be so!

Takeaway
Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
You may wish to place before you a globe or an image of a person or place in our world where it appears that love has been extinguished.
Spend some time breathing healing and compassion into that part of our world.
When you are finished, open your arms wide in welcome.
Bow to the Holy One.

Featured Image: Ben White, Unsplash

NOTE:
As you may have noticed, this blog post is adapted from a homily I offered on June 19 while a guest director at Eastern Point Retreat House in Gloucester, MA. Thank you for your prayer for all who were part of the directed retreat in that beautiful place by the sea.

Thank you also for your prayerful support of our IHM Associates’ Assembly, June 22-24. We’re still basking in the glow of being together.

Happy Canada Day (July 1) to all my dear friends to the North, and happy Independence Day (July 4) to my dear ones in the States. May our lives be given over to the healing of our beautiful yet wounded world.

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.

Thank you for following!