Year: 2024

by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM   June 30, 2024

Deeper kinship with all of creation. How I long for it! Even just the desire for it seems to be set in my spiritual DNA. And here’s something of a seeming contradiction I’ve noticed in my relationship, our relationship, with all who are kin in the created world. The paradox is this: when we give attention over to the seemingly smallest of creation, our focus also includes the very largest and encompasses all of life, yes, the Universe, the Cosmos. When we gaze with reverent appreciation at even the tiniest single-celled life form of the created world, we are doing far more than the simple act of noticing; we are actually taking in and gazing at not only that very tiny microscopic organism, but also the entire Universe and beyond to the still unseen and unknown parts of the Cosmos.

Isn’t this what William Blake was hinting at in the opening words of “Auguries of Innocence?” He calls us “to see the world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour.” Ah, William, you got it so right! And so did Gary Paul Nabham, who urges us to expand our sense of just who is our neighbor, our relative, our kin. “What would happen,” he asks, “if we begin to include the fungi, the flowers, the fritillary butterflies, and the flock of wild geese as our neighbors, our family, and our Creator’s expressive face?”

Recently, I came across statistics while listening to a podcast from This American Life. I don’t have a mind that’s often moved by statistics, but these numbers made me shudder. Why? Because these numbers held a dire prediction of what is in danger of happening to some of my dearest relatives. I heard that right now in our world, one in eight bird species are threatened. 1/5 of all reptiles. ¼ of all mammals. 40% of all plant species. Threatened. Moving closer to extinction and vanishing from the face of the Earth, never to be seen by us again.

The mere thought of such an absolute and irreversible good-bye utterly breaks my heart. I’m reminded of my dear friend, Hafiz, the most beloved poet of Persia, now Iran, who lived in the 14^th century. He sang beautiful, intimate love songs from the created world to the creator. One of those poems is called, “I Have Come into This World to See This,” and it includes this line: “We have finally realized that there is just one flesh we can wound.” Just one flesh. Whatever we do to one another, we are doing to the human family, to the Earth community, to the Universe.

Oh, Hafiz, you got it right also, and so many centuries ago! There is just one flesh we can wound. Who among us would ever want to imagine a world where, because of our carelessness or inattention, the lilting whistle of a cardinal is stilled? Where the scent of lavender and honeysuckle and mock orange are a distant memory? Where the haunting song of humpback whales heading for home is silenced? Where bustling honeybees no longer model for us what authentic community looks like? Where we have lost our chance to catch our breath in awe at the grace and speed of a cheetah or the majesty of an elephant?

May those irreparable losses of neighbors, friends, relatives never be so! As we do the deep, inner soul work of growing our relationship with the Holy One, may we also get our relationship right with Earth and all her creatures. May we cultivate William Blake eyes and Gary Nabham wisdom and Hafiz hearts before it’s too late. May we continually open our souls to reverence and love and care for the fragile and the vulnerable, the small and large of our kin, in this sacred community.

Takeaway

Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
You may want to place before you an image of one of your fragile created neighbors.
Offer your kin tender and affirming praise and words of gratitude.
What care might you promise your kin for the future?
Ask the Holy One to strengthen you in keeping your sacred pledge.

Featured Image:  Dmitrii Zhodzishskii, Unsplash

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by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM  June 15, 2024

I’m a writer, so I pay close attention to words–the sound of them, the power of them, even the way they feel in my mouth. I don’t know about you, but I can live off a compliment or a word of praise for at least 6 months! That’s the weight of words, and today’s readings have something to say about them.

The readings for June 15 invite us to notice the weight of our words and the significance of our gestures. To ask: How closely are what we say and do expressions of loving what God loves, as God loves?

In the Book of Kings (1 Kings 19:19-21), we meet the prophet Elijah. He’s discerned that he can best hear the voice of God in silence, just as we can during times of retreat. And right after that, when Elijah sees Elisha plowing the fields, Elijah throws his cloak over him. It’s a tender gesture. A gesture that says, “I have confidence in you, Elisha.” We’re left to wonder: could this gesture have given Elisha the courage he needed to begin a radical change in his life? Perhaps today holds an invitation to remember those persons in our own lives whose belief and confidence in us called forth our very best self, the self that is becoming a contemplative in action. To remember also those times when we’ve responded to grace and ourselves been a healing presence to another. 

The Gospel (Matthew 5:33-37) holds some admonitions about false oaths. Not by heaven, not by the earth, not by Jerusalem. A whole lot of talk about swearing. I’d like to turn this on its head and suggest another, more positive perspective. It comes from a poster in my office. The poster reads, “Words are so powerful. They should only be used to heal, to bless, to prosper.” To heal, to bless, to prosper underscores the weight of our words.

What is our intentionality when we speak? What happens when we utter expressions of welcome, acceptance, tenderness, blessing–instead of curse? Well, just look at who we then become through God’s grace: agents of healing in a broken world.

Years ago I read a survey where children were asked to respond to the question, “What is love?” Their answers were profound! My favorite came from 6 year old Billy. What is love? Billy says this: “When someone really loves you, even the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth.” Safe in their mouth. Blessing instead of curse. That’s the weight of our words.

As we move closer to the end of our retreat, may these days confirm the call we each have: to be places of safety, of encouragement, of sanctuary. To say NO to injustice, NO to all the places in our world where love has been extinguished. To say YES to blessing the bruised reed and the smoldering wick. YES to becoming a healing presence and the face of Love in our beautiful yet wounded world. May it be so!

Takeaway
Sit I stillness with the Holy One.
What words of love or encouragement might the Holy One be speaking to you today? Pause for a while and listen for them.
What word(s) do you desire to offer to our world that is both beautiful and broken?
Ask the Holy One to tenderize your speech and your gestures going forward.

Featured Image: Tim Mossholder, Unsplash

NOTE:
This reflection was offered on June 15 at a directed retreat at Eastern Point Retreat House in Gloucester, MA, where I’m serving as a guest director. The retreat continues into next week, so please hold in your prayer all who are part of these holy days. Thank you.

Happy Father’s Day to all fathers, guardians, mentors, all those who foster life through your nurturing and encouragement and help to create a more just, inclusive, and loving world. 

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by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM   June 2, 2024

I want to be water. Those words, the title of a piece by Elizabeth Lesser, recently traveled with me to some restorative time on the Gulf Coast of Florida. Lesser’s reflection underscored her growing awareness that small acts of kindness can be a bridge in fiery times.

She writes, “I am beginning to think that the most effective thing I can do as one human being in these hot times is to respond to everyday situations with small acts of human kindness.”

In other words, become water, the kind of water that helps to cool down the rhetoric. The kind of water that engages in peaceful and inclusive behavior.

Now, suspended in the warm, gentle waters of the Gulf Coast, I say out loud, “I want to be water.” To welcome every small wave washing over me. To float alongside pelicans and gulls and cranes, all of us with our different purposes—seeking silvery shiners or calming respite. To become so permeable that I absorb this peace, taking it into my very bones and tissues down to the cellular level.

At this moment, I am buoyed by this contemporary version of Eden—all of us in a harmony reminiscent of our collective beginnings. Beyond holding these days in memory, I wonder how to carry this water home. If I scoop some into a bottle, I’ll surely lose it at the security checkpoint en route to my flight.

The only way, it seems, is to become this water that has held me so tenderly this week. To counteract the fiery words thrown by an angry diner at an undeserving waitstaff by offering praise a few minutes later. To comfort a child who has heard only a steady litany of “You’re stupid” by instead imitating the spirit of Aibleen in “The Help” to little Mae Mobley: “You is kind. You is smart. You is important.” To listen with an open heart to those I encounter, especially those whose worldviews are vastly different from mine, just as this calm salt water has held me and thousands of others today without exception.

I want to be water that discerns the difference between violent swells that harm and smaller waves that offer healing. I want water to teach me the timing of the sea, the rhythm of the life of the spirit, when to hold onto whatever is precious and blessing for me and for our world and when to loosen my grip on whatever doesn’t serve the purpose of the Holy One for our collective good. Yes, I want to be water!

In this moment, I’m remembering with affection all of you who follow these musings. No need to add the phrase, “Wish you were here,” because you and your intentions are held in my heart and prayer each morning, so of course you’re always in my consciousness. And because you are, let me close by asking you this essential question: in what ways do you desire to become water for our beautiful yet wounded world?

Takeaway
Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
If you are near a lake, a stream, a river, a creek, an ocean, you may want to pray near that welcoming place. Or place before yourself a bowl of clear water.
Reflect on some of the properties of water: to cleanse, to quench, to restore.
In what ways might you be such a presence to others?
Ask the Holy One to help you move from desire to practice.

Featured image: Joe Ciciarelli, Unsplash

NOTE:
June 11-18
Please hold in your prayer safe travels and all who will be part of a directed retreat at Eastern Point Retreat House, Gloucester, MA. I’ll be one of the guest directors for this time of retreat. Thank you.

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by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM    May 19, 2024

This spring, resurrections appeared early and everywhere. I saw notices of rising in the blooming forsythia in our front yard and the tribe of dandelions dotting our lawn. Daily, I scrutinized these first golden appearances, feeling like a contemporary Mary Magdalene searching for proof of life in a hidden garden. True, we still had patches of stubborn snow in the parking lot and piles of decayed leaves scattered along the street. But they were no match for splashes of bright yellow interrupting a dull landscape.

Surrounded by so much golden aliveness, I was reminded of one of the first poems I ever memorized, Robert Frost’s “Nothing Gold Can Stay”:

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

The poet is right on about nothing gold staying around for long in early spring. Now, some weeks after its glorious display, the forsythia bush shows only leaf subsiding to leaf. The dandelions have lost their color and launched wisps of seed into the universe. In the natural world, our chance meetings with beauty may be fleeting. However, even a brief encounter with the beautiful or the good or the holy has the power to in some way move us toward transformation.

I thank these harbingers of spring for reminding us that the life of the spirit isn’t governed by the same calendar or timetable as the spring gold that can’t stay for long or the seasonal gold that quickly fades. In the life of the spirit, beauty lingers. Goodness touches us. Compassion remains. We are forever marked by people and experiences that dwell in memory.

So yes, we may be long past the spring season when nothing gold can stay. But by the grace of the Holy One, may we be blessed by other, more enduring kinds of gold that impel us to be our best selves. The teacher who encourages our curiosity and ignites our love affair with learning. The friend who is powerless to change our circumstances or take away our pain, but who sits with us in our anguish, saying little but listening intently. The parent or guardian who cheers our every sign of growth. The furry companion who wants nothing more than to settle beside us and embody unconditional love. The peony returning every year to unfold its petals and scent our garden. The holy ones who give their lives over in love to create a more just, inclusive, and tender world.  May their presence abide with us. May we hold them all with a grateful heart and may their memory rise in remembrance. May the gold of these lives remain, persist, endure forever.

I’m grateful to Carlo Carretto in “Blessed Are You Who Believed” for naming so beautifully the resurrections that continue for us each and every season:

When you forgive your enemy
When you feed the hungry
When you defend the weak
you believe in the resurrection.
When you have the courage to marry
When you welcome the newly-born child
When you build your home
you believe in the resurrection.
When you wake at peace in the morning
When you sing to the rising sun
When you go to work with joy
you believe in the resurrection.

Takeaway
Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
Place before you an image or photo that speaks of resurrection. Or take a walk in your neighborhood and notice whatever reflects courage or promise.
Take in what you see and hear and smell and touch.
Reflect on the rising of life around you.
Give thanks to the Holy One and hold in tenderness all those in our world who are yearning for signs of fresh hope.

Featured Image:  Dominick Scythe, Unsplash

NOTE:
Blessings of Spirit as we celebrate Pentecost. Thank you for sharing your gifts of encouragement and prayerfulness and openness as you witness to Spirit in your everyday lives.

May all who travel this Memorial Day week have safe and peaceful journeys and may whatever you’re about these days be restful and restorative.

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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.

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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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.

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!