Year: 2024

by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM  February 11, 2024

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Featured Image: Victor Serban, Unsplash

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

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by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM    January 28, 2024

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Featured Image:  Marco Aurelio Conde, Unsplash

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by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM    January 14, 2024

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Featured Image:   Chris Koellhoffer, My First Quilt

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