Year: 2020

by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM December 20, 2020

 “While they were there, the time came for her to have her child, and she gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.” Luke 2:6-7

Each year as the Advent season approaches, we listen to and enter into the Advent Scriptures and songs from the place where we stand, the place of our consciousness and awareness. Sometimes, we notice the ribbons of exuberant joy and expectation threading through the readings. Depending on what’s unfolding in our lives, we may be moved by the urgings to enter into deep inner soul work and change our patterns of thought or behavior. We may also be among those who have been numbed by despair in the disappearance of our jobs and our ability to provide for our loved ones, in the deep-seated divisions in our country, or in the now empty places at our tables. We may find it challenging to believe that the season of Advent has anything to offer us, anything meaningful to say to us.

At this moment, the daily headlines trumpet an alarming increase in the number of COVID-19 positive test results, the tally of hospitalizations, and the excruciating figure that lists those whose lives have been lost to this pandemic. Doctors, nurses, and infectious disease specialists raise the alarm that we are reaching hospital capacity, that there is no more room to accept the desperately ill.

Each time that very real fear is raised, I keep returning to the Nativity story where, over and over, Mary and Joseph were turned away by that same message, “There is no room.” We have no space. We have no resources. Look elsewhere.

Perhaps this Advent, the invitation before us is the creative response born of desperate circumstances that Mary and Joseph took: they laid Jesus in a manger. Let’s entertain no illusions. That manger had no porcelain figurines set up inside a warm, cozy home. That manger was a trough or open box designed to hold fodder for livestock. It was prickly with hay. It smelled. It was messy and cold. But it was there, and it was available and open.

Could the invitation of this Advent be all about something as earthy and simple as becoming the manger? Embodying a spirit of welcome and spaciousness of heart. Offering a soft space for the healing of wounds—our own and others’. Emptying ourselves of clutter and the rush of activity, so that we’re fully available. Making room for the coming of Emmanuel, God-with-us, in whatever form the Holy One appears.

This season and always, may we witness to the root of the word, manger: Old French, mangier, to eat; Latin, mandere, to chew. May all who come to the manger of our hearts find nourishment and refreshment. May they be fed by our compassion, our hospitality, our presence. May Jesus, the Holy One of God born into our human condition, be welcomed into whatever manger we find ourselves able to offer this season.

Takeaway
Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
Imagine your heart as a welcoming space.
Pray that it may be so for Emmanuel, now incarnate and sharing our human condition.
Pray that this welcoming space may open to all people who come into your consciousness.
Bless and give thanks for the manger you continue to become.

NOTE:
This reflection, “Becoming the Manger,” was originally written for my IHM Congregation’s December newsletter, and it also informed several Advent virtual retreats I offered this month. I hope it continues to have something to say for followers of my blog.

Thank you for your prayer for all who were part of a virtual Advent Evening of Prayer for the Cornerstone Women’s Group of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church, Ridgewood, NJ. Over 50 women participated! Special thanks to Nan Charters, Rose Sullivan, and Kristin Halvey who organized the evening and provided the Zoom wizardry that made our time together flow so smoothly. What a joy it was for me personally to once again have the grace of praying and reflecting and sharing the wisdom of this amazing gathering of cherished friends. You are all in my heart and prayer!

Unfortunately, the Directed Prayer Weekend at the Jesuit Center for Spiritual Growth in Wernersville, PA was canceled out of an abundance of caution. Please remember all who would have been present for these days.

May you and all those you love experience peace and continued good health as you celebrate Christmas and the New Year. I’m ever grateful to be going into 2021 in the graced company of those who follow Mining the Now. Merry Christmas!

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by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM     December 6, 2020

Even after all these years, I’m still enchanted by Nativity scenes. When I was a child, my family had one, probably a standard set from a religious articles store. I cherished the ritual of setting it up and then playing with the figures for days afterwards. I remember the elaborate setting of the almost life-sized Nativity in our parish church, how the Infant was reverently carried up the center aisle to find his place in the manger at Midnight Mass. I gazed at those silent figures both at home, in church, and in outside scenes in our neighborhood many times, wondering what they were thinking. There was something comforting and reassuring in gazing at faces that looked as if they could have been my relatives.

Only many years later did I realize that Jesus, Mary, and Joseph most probably didn’t have my German/Scots Irish features. That the Holy Family might not quite have fit in in my suburban neighborhood. That God is not limited to a certain appearance, language, or skin tone. That the Holy One is so much bigger than my childhood imagination–and my limited adult imagination. That God wears many faces in our world and that our call is to recognize and welcome every one of them.

And that Christmas shows that the ways of God are often the opposite of what we might predict, that they seem inside out according to the measuring stick our culture uses as a standard of importance. In writing of the Nativity scene in “Inside Out?”, Peter Trow notes that the shepherds come from outside the city, spending their nights vulnerable with their flocks. Mary and Joseph come, Galilean outsiders with no reservations, and they’re refused room–because they’re poor? because they speak with strange accents? Jesus comes, born an outsider, living with outsiders, teaching and healing outsiders, even dying as an outsider outside the city.

And then I come, perhaps carrying my own experiences of being an outsider, of not always finding room in the heart of another or of struggling to hide my limitations for fear I might be less welcomed and accepted. And then we come, born into a world that is beautiful, yes, but also a world wounded, a world fragmented by division and longing for wholeness.

The Nativity scene will be set up for several more weeks. Long before it’s packed away for the next Christmas, Howard Thurman calls us to do the deep inner soul work of this season:

“When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flocks,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among the people,
To make music in the heart.”

May we embody this work of Christmas. May we prepare a place of welcome, a home for Emmanuel, God-with-us, the one who brings outsiders in and names them as welcome guests. And may this holy work begin right here, right now, in our place and time. Advent blessings!

Takeaway
Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
If you have a Nativity scene set up, gaze at it.
Reflect on the outsider status of the Nativity characters
and on what is lost, broken, imprisoned or in need of music in our hearts and in our world today.
Ask the Holy One to grow your spaciousness of heart.

Featured image: Jon Tyson, Unsplash

NOTE:
Thank you for your prayer for all who were part of the virtual day-long Advent retreat I led through St. Cyril Spiritual Center, Danville, on December 5. Special thanks to Sisters Jean Marie Holup, Michael Ann Orlik, and Susan Pontz for giving graciously of their time and gifts to bring the day together.

Now may I ask you to hold in prayer all who will be part of 2 upcoming events:

December 9, Virtual Advent Evening for the Cornerstone Women’s Group, Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church, Ridgewood, NJ

December 11-13, Directed Retreat Weekend at the Jesuit Center for Spiritual Growth, Wernersville, PA (in person). I’ll be one of the guest directors for this retreat. Thank you.

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by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM    November 22, 2020

It’s not only a difference in the verb–saying, praying, giving, or offering our thanks—but a difference of purpose. This Thanksgiving my family, like so many others, will be standing our thanks. Though our hearts are longing to gather at the site that became my parents’ home in their final years, this year my sisters, brothers, relatives, friends and I will all be standing apart, staying in our respective houses, condos, or apartments for the holiday.

We may attempt to replicate the recipe for Mom’s spoonbread or Grandma’s sausage stuffing wherever we are. We may decorate our own tables, trying to rival the inspiration and artistry my sister always brought to that task. We may try to carve a turkey with the expertise and sure hand of my brother-in-law. We may compose a personal, creative Grace before Meals like the one I usually offered as we gathered. But the day will not be the same. And that’s exactly the point, isn’t it?

As we look around our tables wherever we are, we’ll be missing the usual physical closeness to familiar beloved faces. We’ll be standing our thanks, standing in our gratitude miles away—for some of us, states away–from family and friends. And that will be the profound act of love we offer one another this Thanksgiving holiday.

We range in age from twelve months to wisdom years. We have our share of elders, though I still can’t believe I’m considered one of them. We count among our relatives precious loved ones with compromised health issues. So for us, the decision was straightforward: we simply have chosen not to take the chance that COVID-19 might be an invisible, uninvited guest at the table.

I ache every time I realize that I haven’t seen any of these beloved ones since Christmas 2019. Christmas! And I miss them, miss them more and more as I try to hold them tightly while the calendar turns.

As we deliberately keep our distance from one another, we’ll be saying, in effect,
I love you, I care for you, I long to sit down beside you at the Thanksgiving table.
I long to hear your stories or laugh over the latest exploits of the little ones.
I long to enjoy those once-a-year side dishes rich with tradition and full of memories.
I long to catch your eye and see you smile across the table.
Read my absence as a sign that I hope to be sitting beside you for many Thanksgivings to come.

Wherever and however we may celebrate the holiday in 2020, may we be safe, may we and our loved ones stay well, may our list of reasons to give thanks grow longer and deeper.

Know that you are ever in my grateful heart as you follow Mining the Now.
Thank you, and Happy Thanksgiving!

Takeaway
Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
Spend time holding in your heart your own personal litany of gratitude.
Savor and name the gifts for which you’re most grateful.
Tell the Holy One why you especially cherish these.
Offer a profound bow of reverence and gratitude.

Featured Image: Christo Doulou, Unsplash

NOTE:
Please hold in your prayer those who will be part of an all-day virtual retreat, “Entering the Advent Rhythms,” I’ll be offering through St. Cyril Spiritual Center, Danville, PA, on December 5. Thank you.

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by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM    November 8, 2020

Sometimes we scribble it without thought; sometimes, with careful deliberation. Sometimes, from a hesitant hand; sometimes, as a bold, emphatic statement. Though there are many ways we can sign our name, all of them are consequential.

Not long ago, I signed my name to my mail-in ballot, blessed it, and then dropped it off in a ballot collection box. Like so many of us, I was mindful of the significance of that gesture. In the days leading up to national elections in the U.S., I lived with awareness of the implications of voting and sought out many practices to nurture calm and a sense of hope. Breathprayer, a long-time daily practice, became an anchor for my own peace of heart. On Election Day itself, I silenced the TV and social media during the day. I signed on to the company of others who shared my desire for inclusion and welcome: a Prayer Vigil on Zoom offered by Shalem Institute; a prayer service with my IHM Sisters, Associates, and friends who gathered remotely wherever we were at 1:00 pm to enter into an intentional coming together for the common good. Perhaps you were able to join in the wave of prayer with people of good will from across the globe, all of us spending the day leaning into contemplative prayer.

And I did one other thing to sustain my hope. I searched for a story that might speak to the promise of which the human family is capable, even in—and perhaps especially in—times of crisis and division. Justin Turner met my search with a story about Chiune Sugihara, who was new to me. Sugihara was a Japanese diplomat in Lithuania at the time the Nazis began to round up Jews for deportation to death camps. His wife, Yukiko, is credited with suggesting to him a plan that would save the lives of their Jewish neighbors although also placing their own lives at risk.

The plan: to sign and issue travel visas to Jews. After attempting three times to receive permission from the Japanese Foreign Ministry to lawfully grant visas, and after being turned down three times, Sugihara began to grant visas against direct orders. Mindful of the Nazi presence closing in, he hand-signed visas 18 hours a day. According to witnesses, on the very day his consulate closed and he had to evacuate, he was still writing visas and throwing them out the window of the train as it pulled away. It’s estimated that the Sugiharas saved between 6,000 – 10,000 Lithuanian and Polish Jewish people by this single courageous act of resistance: signing unlawful travel visas.

A year before he died in 1985, Sugihara was honored as Righteous Among the Nations and he and his descendants were granted permanent Israeli citizenship. Even with those honors, he died in near obscurity in Japan, leaving his neighbors shocked when people from around the world showed up at the funeral for this quiet, unassuming man.

Years later, in 1998, Sugihara’s widow, Yukiko, traveled to Jerusalem. There she was met over and over by tearful survivors of the Holocaust. Each of the survivors clutched in their hands a paper that held the difference between life and death: a yellowing travel visa bearing the signature of Chiune Sugihara.

Most probably none of us will ever need to sign our name at the risk of our lives as the Sugiharas did. But we are called to sign on to invest our lives in a more loving world:
whenever we parent a child into attitudes of service and kindness;
whenever we sit with a friend weeping heartbreak and disappointment;
whenever we exercise our right to vote in an election;
whenever we listen to a lonely neighbor tell the same story over and over;
whenever we add our signature to petitions supporting the needs of the most vulnerable among us;
whenever we hold a steaming cup of coffee or tea and breathe our morning prayer for the healing of our planet.

We thank you, Yukiko and Chiune, for your bold witness. We thank you in the name of all the neighbors for whom your signature made possible the promise of life and more life.

Remind us, please, to notice this day: 
Where are we being invited to sign our name with courage and compassion for a more just and loving world?

Takeaway
Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
Rest your hands on your lap, gaze at them, and bless them.
Savor the power that is yours to create, with God’s grace, a better future.
Ask the Holy One to grow your awareness of where you need to “sign” your name today.

Featured image: G Jao, Unsplash

NOTE:
On November 8, please hold in your prayer a gathering of my IHM Sisters, Associates and friends. We are hosting a tree planting ritual to commemorate the planting of 175 trees in honor of the 175^th anniversary of our founding as Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. In this ritual, we’re welcoming our neighbors of the tree and branch and bud families who have joined our Welcoming Space in Scranton during this anniversary year.

Please also remember all who would have been part of a professional day for spiritual directors I was scheduled to lead on November 12 at the Franciscan Spiritual Center, Aston, PA. That day has been re-scheduled to March 12, 2021.

And of course we continue to pray for hope and healing for these United States, as well as for our neighbors throughout our beautiful yet wounded world.

Looking ahead, you may be interested in these two Advent events I’ll be leading:

December 5, 10:00 – 3:00, a virtual retreat day on Zoom, “Entering the Rhythms of Advent” hosted by St. Cyril Spiritual Center, Danville, PA,  (570) 275-3581, https://sscm.org/spirituality/spiritual-center-retreats/2020-retreat-and-spiritual-presenters/

December 11-13, Directed Prayer Weekend, Jesuit Center for Spiritual Growth, Wernersville, PA. I’ll be one of the guest directors for this weekend. http://www.jesuitcenter.org/

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by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM   October 25, 2020

Just one more time. If we could only see a beloved face or hear a tender and familiar voice calling our name. Just one more time.

Here in the Northeast, as we’re approaching the somber days of November, we see orange, red, and gold leaves abandoning their homes and fluttering to the ground. Colors that remain are muted now. Green and growth give way to a season of decay and death. All around us in the northern hemisphere, the natural world speaks of letting go of the life that once was.

The stage is set to usher us into those quiet days of remembrance, All Saints and All Souls, when we celebrate precious lives but also grieve their disappearance from our view. We’ve most probably all lost someone dear to us. Perhaps we continue to grieve their death in new and sometimes raw ways.  And what we wouldn’t give to hear a loved voice, long silenced, call to us once again.

John Bull and later Annie Reneau both tell a story that speaks to our personal and collective longing for “just one more time.” They note that, in the Underground system in London, there are many announcements a traveler hears, automated instructions and various recordings. Among those announcements is a voice that warns, “Mind the gap.” For decades, that same voice repeated the reminder to be cautious, but it was replaced by a new digital system in 2012.

Weeks later, though, the old voice was back. And it was back because of the kindness of Underground workers. Around Christmas time that year, the staff at Embankment Tube Underground station were approached by a woman who was clearly upset. She kept asking them where the voice had gone, but they had no idea what she was talking about.

“The voice,” she explained. “The man who says, ‘Mind the Gap.’”

The staff noted that all the old Underground messages had been replaced in 2012 by a new digital system featuring different voices with more variety.

Still distressed, the woman blurted out her reason for being upset at the change. “That old voice,” she revealed, “was my husband.”

In the seventies, Dr. Margaret McCollum explained, her husband, Laurence Oswald, had been the man who had recorded all the Northern Line announcements. He had died in 2007.

She was bereft, and only one thing seemed to console her. Every day, on her way to work, she got to hear Laurence’s voice. Sometimes, when her loss was especially raw, she found comfort in just sitting on the platform at Embankment and listening to her husband’s voice cautioning, “Mind the Gap,” over and over. Listening to his voice had been her routine for five years, and now the sound of his voice had been abruptly taken away from her.

The staff at Embankment were apologetic, offering to copy the original recording of her husband’s announcement if it could be found. She thanked them politely but knew that was unlikely.

But one day in the New Year, as Margaret McCollum sat in Embankment Station on her way to work, over the speakers she heard a familiar voice. It was the voice of a man she had loved so much and never thought she’d hear from again.

“Mind the Gap,” said Laurence Oswald.

Because it turned out that many of the staff at Embankment and within London Underground understood firsthand what it meant to lose loved ones. They knew what a consolation it would be if they could hear those beloved voices one more time. So they searched Archives, pored over old schedules, hunted for tapes, restored and digitized them. They held Margaret’s grief as their own. And together they gave her the gift of just one more time. And then some.

What about us? What voices do we long to hear? What hands do we yearn to hold again? Which of the holy ones who have walked among us and who now live in glory in risen life would we give anything to see and hear again, even if for just one more time?

As we remember our holy ones on the feasts of All Saints and All Souls, we may grieve, yes. We may weep, yes. We may feel an ache, an emptiness, a void, yes. But let us also give profound thanks that in this life we were loved so extravagantly by these friends of God, not just one time, but for always.

Takeaway
Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
Call to mind and hold in tenderness your deceased loved ones.
Tell them what you are most grateful for in them.
Spend as long as you like holding this graced memory.
Ask them to bless your life going forward.

Featured Image: Lewis Parsons, Unsplash

NOTE:
Please know that I hold in my heart and prayer the memory of your dear ones now living in resurrection light.

I also ask you to hold in your prayer the Grey Nuns of Pembroke, Ottawa, Ontario, with whom I would have been offering a guided retreat October 18-28. With the U.S.-Canada border closed and the pandemic surging on the U.S. side of the border, that retreat was postponed to 2021.

And, of course, please join me in holding in prayer the upcoming U.S. elections.

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by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM     October 11, 2020

If you, like me, live with an awareness that every act is consequential, read on. If you hold to the tenet that no act of love is ever lost, forgotten, or wasted, read on.

Last week I drove to the Post Office and was approaching the front door when a man who was exiting held the door open for me. As I saw him, I realized I’d forgotten to put my mask on, so I murmured my thanks and said I had to go back to the car to retrieve it. When I returned a few minutes later, the man was still waiting for me and still holding the door open. I thanked him profusely.

“Oh,” he responded. “No need for thanks. It’s such a little thing.”

Not at all! I shared with this stranger that what he had done, an act of kindness in waiting patiently and holding a door open, was in no way a small thing in our world. It had consequences. It sent me into the day feeling noticed and valued. In my understanding of how the Universe is knit together, “little” should never be used by ourselves or another to downplay the force field of love that we can offer one another.

I confess, the word “little” is a trigger point for me, and not because I’m 5’2” and petite. I say “Yes” to little when it’s used to describe things that are actually small in size. But “No” to little if it’s being used to diminish or dismiss the worth of any act for good set in motion by the human family. I believe our Universe is bonded and held together by incalculable words and deeds of care and compassion that might seem slight or insignificant but that are the stuff of our lives. They enrich our everyday moments with blessing. And they are not little.

An attentive mother cutting her toddler’s grilled cheese sandwich into fourths because that’s the way she likes it.
An exhausted father reading a favorite bedtime story one more time.
A teacher spending extra time on Zoom to help a struggling student.
A caregiver finding a favorite song to play for an ailing parent.
A teenager bagging groceries with care.
A writer wrestling to bring to birth words that she hopes will inspire.
A housekeeper wiping down touchable surfaces to insure the safety and protection of customers.
An activist living with intention and protesting peacefully for the common good.
Any one of us pausing to pray while viewing the day’s headlines.

Alison Luterman calls much of what we’re about in our everyday lives “the slow invisible work that stitches up the world day and night, the slow unglamorous work of healing.” There’s nothing little about this! Childcare. Cooking meals. Nurturing the growing needs and gifts of a young child. Ferrying children from one sports event or dance practice to another. Creating art. Praying with intention and awareness. Seen or unseen, this invisible work makes the Universe a place of greater beauty and hope. And it is not little.

Last week I led days of retreat for forty-three Sisters from three different religious communities. We began every session with an extended period of breathprayer, holding in love and compassion the needs of our world and breathing peace and acceptance out the windows from our chapel space and into a world longing for welcome and inclusion. Perhaps you felt those energies of love.

I wonder if the poet, Hafiz, had that in mind when he wrote:
“Now is the time for the world to know
that every thought and action is sacred…
Now is the season to know
that everything you do
is sacred.”

Sacred, yes. But little, never.

Takeaway
Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
If you are beginning your day, ask for blessing on your thoughts, attitudes and actions that you will carry into the hours ahead.
If you are near day’s end, review the actions that have been part of your day and name the energies of love that you have sent out into the Universe.
Ask the Holy One for a deepening awareness of the power of love and intention.

Featured image: Sai de Silva, Unsplash 

NOTE:
Thank you for your prayers for the October 5-9 guided retreat I offered for the Nursing Sisters, Sisters of St. Joseph, and Cenacle Sisters who reside in Rockville Centre, NY. Special thanks to Joan McCann, CIJ, for her amazing organization and hospitality, and to all the Sisters for their prayerful presence.

Before the limits put in place because of COVID-19 restrictions, I was scheduled to travel at this time to Pembroke, Ontario, to offer two guided retreats for the Grey Nuns, October 18-26. Please hold in your prayer all who would have been part of these days. The retreat has now been re-scheduled to 2021.

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by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM September 27, 2020

When Basil Pennington wrote, “I am a place where God’s love turns up in this world,” might he also have been thinking of creatures beyond the human family? I like to think so.

Most recently I read about a female humpback whale who had become so entangled in hundreds of pounds of crab traps that she struggled to stay afloat. Her tail, her torso, her mouth were wrapped in ropes and lines. After a fisherman discovered her and radioed for help, a rescue team arrived, assessed her condition, and concluded that the only way to save her was to dive in and untangle her. An extremely dangerous attempt, because a simple slap of her tail could easily kill a rescuer.

After hours of cutting and removing lines, the divers successfully freed the whale, who swam off in circles, then came back to each rescuer, one at a time, nudged them and pushed them gently. Some divers said her movement, which felt like exuberant gratitude, was the most touching and profound experience of their lives. Certainly, the man assigned to cut the rope out of her mouth felt himself exposed to her soul. He said that the entire time he was freeing the line from her mouth, the eye of the whale followed his every move intently. He was so haunted by looking into that enormous eye that he says he will never be the same. He was shaken by soul.

In this story, the place where God’s love turned up in the world was in the skills and the care of the rescue team, certainly. But couldn’t it also be true that God’s love turned up in the jubilant dance of a freed humpback whale and the grateful gestures she offered to her awe-struck rescuers?

God’s love has turned up for me in a Golden Retriever who offered the wordless comfort of laying his head on my lap and nuzzling me at a time when I struggled with a painful dilemma from which I longed to extract myself.  God’s love has looked back at me in the unblinking, inquisitive gaze of a wild pony on Assateague Island. God’s love has appeared off the coast of Vancouver in the witness of a pod of orcas tenderly caring for their calves.

Hopefully, we’ve all been moved by incredible acts of compassion and care offered by the human family. Might we not also expand our worldview to embrace our animal and plant kin, our relatives who also serve as that sacred place, that mystical reminder, of the presence of the Holy?

Where has God’s love turned up for you recently?

Takeaway
Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
If you have a companion dog or cat or other animal, invite them to sit with you, if they’re so inclined.
If you’re without such a companion, call back the memory of a non-human creature you have loved or cared for.
Offer thanks to these creatures who reveal the face of God to us.
Offer praise to their loving Creator.

NOTE:
Thank you for your prayerful support of all who were part of a directed retreat at the Jesuit Center for Spiritual Growth in Wernersville, September 21-27.

Now please hold in your prayer the Nursing Sisters, Sisters of St. Joseph, and Cenacle Sisters who reside in Rockville Centre, NY and who will be part of a guided retreat I’m offering October 5-9. Thank you.

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by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM    September 13, 2020

Let’s hear it for words that open doors, invite exploration, encourage daydreaming. Let’s savor questions that send us down the rabbit hole to be transported into new, unexpected, and transformative ways of knowing. Let’s linger with phrases like “Why?” and “What if?” and “I wonder…” Let’s applaud parents, teachers, mentors, caregivers, friends, and so many others who have liberated our curiosity and imagination by encouraging our use of the question mark.

And let’s take in the wisdom of Robin Wall Kimmerer, a botanist and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. In an interview with Krista Tippett she relates that when she entered forestry school as a young woman, she offered a question as her main reason for studying botany. Her why: she had long wondered why purple asters and chrome yellow goldenrod, often intermingled in the wild fields where she lived, looked so beautiful together. She was really asking her signature question, “Why is the world so beautiful?” In response, she was told “that that was not science, that if I was interested in beauty, I should go to art school.”

Fortunately for us, Robin Wall Kimmerer moved forward undeterred. She focused her deep attention on the living world of plants, seeking to know not only their names but also their songs. In time, she discovered a biophysical reason for why New England asters and goldenrod often grow together: the complementary colors of purple and gold, being opposites on the color wheel, are so vivid that they actually attract far more pollinators than if those two plants grew somewhere apart from one another. Each plant benefits from combining its beauty with the beauty of the other.

Kimmerer observes that she pays a price of sorts for what she notices in aster and goldenrod, because their beauty requests something of her. “When I am in their presence,” she reveals, “their beauty asks me for reciprocity, to be the complementary color, to make something beautiful in response.”

Perhaps you, like me, have sensed that expectation of reciprocity your entire life. Perhaps your formative years were grounded in what we now call creation spirituality. Perhaps you were encouraged, even expected, to “waste” time daydreaming. To ask sometimes unanswerable questions. To befriend tulip trees and marigolds and phlox. To ponder the caginess of crows. To wonder what the dog hears beyond our ears. To marvel at the industry of ants. To star watch.

Hopefully, these months of social distancing and showing respect for the human lives  around us have kept us all at a respectful space apart from one another. But happily, the same precautions don’t apply to our neighbors in the plant kingdom. Perhaps we’re among the blessed who have spent hours, maybe even days, inhaling the fragrance of a summer garden, or discovering mystery on a nature trail, or simply sitting and gazing and feeling ourselves welcomed into the plant kingdom.

If any of those are true for you as they surely all are for me, then clearly we have taken in an abundance of wild, extravagant artistry and grace these past months. And then Kimmerer’s question arises: What does such beauty ask of us? How are we becoming the complementary color? How are we making something beautiful in response to our immersions in awe, astonishment, wonder?

How are we continuing to embrace the question, “Why is the world so beautiful?” And what, then, does such beauty ask or expect of us?

Takeaway
Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
If possible, do this in the presence of a living plant, flower, shrub, or tree.
Inhale their gift of healing oxygen.
Listen to and take in any wisdom they offer you.
Speak your profound thanks for their beauty.
Bow to the Creator of this green energy, this irrepressible life force.

NOTE:
I’m grateful for your returning to Mining the Now after a pause during August.
I’m grateful also for your prayerful remembrance of all those who were part of two retreats I led during August, a virtual guided retreat for the Sisters of St. Joseph, Brentwood, and a virtual directed retreat.

Please remember in prayer also those who would have been part of a guided retreat, “Many Voices Made of Longing,” that I was scheduled to lead August 27- September 3 at St. Mary by-the-Sea, Cape May Point, NJ. That retreat has been re-scheduled to August 26 – September 2, 2021.

Now may I ask you to hold in prayer all who will be part of these coming events:

September 18: A virtual Zoom Retreat for members of the Ignatian Volunteer Corps of Northeastern Pennsylvania.

September 21-27: An in-person Directed Retreat at the Jesuit Center for Spiritual Growth, Wernersville, PA. I’ll be one of the guest directors this week. Thank you.

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by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM      July 26, 2020

Perhaps you, like me, need no alarm clock on spring or summer mornings. Whether we’re immersed in the natural world or surrounded by brick and mortar, most probably the barely rising sun is accompanied by birdsong of some sort. The chatter of robins and chickadees and cardinals, maybe the clucking of pigeons or the cooing of mourning doves, is as reliable as that 5:30 AM buzzer for rousing us from sleep. Birdsong is our invitation to enter into a new day.

It was birdsong that lingered in my consciousness as I worked on another writing project and came across this astounding quote from Scott Hoezee in Earth Gospel:

“Some time ago an ornithologist observed a single red-eyed vireo singing its song 22,197 times in a single day! Conservative estimates say that in North America alone there are as many as six billion land birds. So let us be conservative and say that on a given day in the season of spring—the time of year when birds tend to sing the most—each of these birds sings its song ten thousand times. That would be, in North America alone, sixty trillion songs in just one day.”

Besides being amazed by this statistic—a bird singing its song ten thousand times in one day–I get why birds would be singing the most at this time of year. Spring is the season of so many joyous milestones: finding a mate, starting a new life, discovering a purpose together. It’s the season of brooding over eggs, watching in awe as chicks make their way to the light, learning to be a fierce protector. It’s the season of plentiful plump earthworms and returning insects to round out the menu for ever-hungry, ever clamoring little beaks.  It seems birds simply can’t keep themselves from singing at such a happy time.

Summer continues the season of excitement and discovery. Feeling the sun’s warmth, sheltering a growing brood, testing the flap of unsteady but eager young wings as fledglings learn to fly, teaching a master class in foraging for a next meal. Singing and singing and singing.

But what about the rest of the seasons, I wondered, thinking about our own cycles  where abundance seems to give way to diminishment, where delight is sometimes replaced by pain and loss. Do birds still sing in autumn when greenery begins to enter into the cycle of dying, when food sources give way to decay? What about when some are summoned to follow an internal compass and navigate to foreign lands? What about when the endurance of feathers and wings is tested to the verge of utter exhaustion? Singing and singing and singing.

And then the harshness of winter: snow and wind and ice pelting their feathers; barren shrubs and trees offering no protection from the elements; last year’s nests abandoned as no longer life-giving. Is it even possible to find anything to chirp about in winter?

I’ve learned that our feathered neighbors may sing a bit less in fall and winter, but that they never stop sending out their cries and caws and whistles and songs. Their early morning chatter may become subdued, but never muted. Singing and singing and singing in every season of life.

I thank our winged neighbors for reminding us that, no matter what is unfolding in our lives, no matter what season we may find ourselves in, there is always, always a song lingering in our throats. At times it may be as faint as a whisper or as muffled as a broken cry. But it is there, at the ready, always as near as the Holy One.

The poet, Mary Oliver, wrote that she believed in singing “especially when singing is not necessarily prescribed.” I invite you to delight in the following song pouring out from 140 musicians and singers at the height of the pandemic in New York City. Broadway was dark, jobs had vanished, the future was uncertain. And yet, these artists gathered together, summoned their gifts, and opened their hearts to ask the rhetorical question: How can I keep from singing?

How, indeed.

Takeaway

Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
As you pause, pay attention to whatever song your heart is singing at the moment.
Name that song with tenderness and compassion.
Ask the Holy One to help you to sing it as best as you are able.
If you’re so inclined, sing your heartsong aloud as a blessing.

IMAGES:
Vincent Van Zalinge
Gary Bendig
Kyle Szegedi

NOTE:
It’s my custom to take a break from blogging during the month of August so I can savor some time for my own retreat and renewal. 

After that, from August 15-21, I’ll be connected with the Sisters of St. Joseph, Brentwood, for a virtual retreat instead of their in-person retreat at Hampton Bays, NY.  

And I will miss gathering with retreatants at St. Mary by-the-Sea, Cape May Point, NJ, August 27 – September 3. That retreat has been re-scheduled to next year, August 26 – September 2, 2021. 

Please hold all who are or would have been part of these retreat experiences in your prayer and know that we will remember you in ours. Thank you. 

I look forward to returning to Mining the Now in September. Meantime, stay safe and well and have renewing and relaxing summer days whenever you can!

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by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM    July 12, 2020

We seem to follow the same start-of-the-day schedule, the bumblebee and I. These days I’m working virtually from home, so in the cool of the early morning, I head down the stairs and out to the patio to water my pots of young mint and basil and lavender. Then on to the large container that is home to Chatty Cathy, a yellow hibiscus who lives up to her name. From there, down the steps to a tiny garden patch bursting with black-eyed Susan, marigold, echinacea, and a single lavender plant that is the lone survivor of a brutal winter. Though the plant is listed as a perennial, this is the first time I’ve ever had lavender return, and it’s celebrating this triumph by sending up purple spikes continuously.

A lone fuzzy bumblebee makes his morning rounds with me. Who can tell if it’s the same bee at the same time each day? I’ve read that bumblebees can actually recognize faces so I like to imagine he gives me a quick sideways glance with his compound eyes,  remembers that I’m a place of both safety and welcome, and then enters into the work of the day as we move side by side. The bumblebee is as much in love with the lavender as I am and seems to spend its entire morning being present to one purple blossom after another. One time, in fact, he embraced a single bud and remained motionless for so long that I thought the bee had died. Not a bad way to go, inhaling beauty, I thought. But it seems the bee was simply intoxicated, made drunk by flowery extravagance, and eventually had his surfeit of bliss and moved on.

As I watch my bumblebee neighbor flitting from flower to flower, I’m reminded that we’ve both been put into this world for essentially the same purpose: to be a pollinator. Pollinators are mutually beneficial to other species as well as their own. As a pollinator, I desire to move from relationship to relationship, from person to person, from my own species to other families, all the while leaving a trail of compassion and kindness and care and beauty in my wake. I hope that after any one of these encounters, the person or animal or flower that has just been in my company will exclaim as Mary Oliver did after drinking cold water At Blackwater Pond,

“oh what is that beautiful thing
that just happened?”

What indeed? I suspect Paulann Petersen, Oregon’s poet laureate, must have been secretly observing the activity in my garden and predicting where the dialogue between the bumblebee and me would inevitably lead. Her poem, “A Sacrament,” paints such a charming picture and calls us to a heightened awareness of our place in this world:

“Become that high priest,
the bee. Drone your way
from one fragrant
temple to another, nosing
into each altar. Drink
what’s divine—
and while you’re there,
let some of the sacred
cling to your limbs.
Wherever you go
leave a small trail
of its golden crumbs.

In your wake
the world unfolds
its rapture, the fruit
of its blooming.
Rooms in your house
fill with that sweetness
your body
both makes and eats.”

Today, may we drink of what’s divine. And at day’s end, may we notice that some of the sacred is indeed clinging to us, leaving a trail of golden crumbs in all the places our feet or our hearts have taken us.

Takeaway

Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
If your day is just beginning, image yourself as a pollinator leaving traces of the Holy wherever your day takes you.
If you’re near day’s end, reflect on the people and places you’ve encountered. Where and how have you been a pollinator?
Sit with these images and remembrances.
Invite the Holy One to cling to you as you enter the day or prepare for your rest.

NOTE:
Please hold in your prayer two Zoom mini-retreats I’ll be leading: 

July 17, “Discovering Abundance,” Our Lady of Grace Spiritual Center, Manhasset, NY,    https://www.olgretreat.com/programs-retreats or (516) 627-9255 

July 20, “Breathing Our Prayer,” The Church of St. Gregory, Clarks Green, PA 

Please also send good energy my way as I’m in the process of converting my 6-day guided retreats to recorded Zoom presentation formats, a time consuming but necessary effort. Thank you! 

The safety and well-being of the Mining the Now community and our world continue to be in my heart and prayer. Please stay safe and well these days.

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