Mining the Now

by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM   January 15, 2023

Sometimes I can’t help myself. My natural curiosity impels me towards connection with strangers I randomly meet on a street, at a supermarket, in a doctor’s waiting room. That practice may be rooted in my believing that anyone can be a bearer of wisdom and my not wanting to miss a single image or word or story that might supplement my own meager supply of wisdom.

Studies have shown that a person’s overall well-being and happiness can be predicted by the depth of their social relationships, by whether they have close connections with family, friends, or co-workers. More recently, studies have suggested that relational diversity, talking with or connecting with strangers, can also contribute to our overall happiness, can complement the typical close relationships we already have with people more familiar to us.

In this sense, the “stranger” might be a person sitting next to us in church; a person from whom we buy the morning newspaper or grab a cup of coffee; a person struggling to carry a bag of groceries; a member of our choir or book club; a new neighbor; and so much more.

Hebrews 13:2 admonishes us, “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that, some have unknowingly entertained angels.” It would seem, then, that our attitude of hospitality, our spaciousness of heart, is what invites the angels into our orbit and our awareness. An open heart leads us to pause, or to greet, or to ask, or to wonder, or to notice, to hold space in our heart to welcome the Holy One who appears in the unexpected, the different, perhaps the uncomfortable, guise.

Our hospitality may be a momentary occasion of intersection, but when we can still remember those encounters many years later, there’s clearly deeper meaning that invites mining. As I write this, I’m remembering two of the many who have blessed my life in a momentary encounter that awakened me to the Holy all around.

The toll collector on the Whitestone Bridge
Many years ago, in the days of tokens or cash only, this New York toll collector broke through the monotony of his everyday job by trying to name the occupation of any driver who stopped at his booth to pay the designated toll. Not knowing that, I greeted him and handed him cash as he scrutinized my face. “You must be a healer,” he guessed, and then explained his practice of naming what he saw. I longed to hear more but the line of impatient drivers honking their horns behind me warned against that, so I drove off, shaken by what he had discovered in my face. I wonder still.

The homeless woman by the entrance to Manhattan’s West 4^th Street subway station  
Every evening, she carefully placed her sleeping bag on the sidewalk and arranged a sheet neatly turned down as if she were in an upscale hotel. As I passed by, she was kneeling by her makeshift bed, head bowed in silent prayer, oblivious to the crowds bustling around her. Her reverent ritual stopped me in my tracks. Suddenly, I was no longer one of the hundreds rushing to be somewhere else. I was here, in this sacred moment, and I was witness to a prayerful presence that lingers with me these many years later.

These angels are all around us, aren’t they? Today might hold an invitation to reflect on and share some of the blessed encounters, brief as they may be, that have startled or touched or surprised us, those times when we have suspected or intuited the presence of the Holy in a seemingly random intersection. Today or any day, may we sit with and mine the resonance that continues to linger still.

Takeaway

Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
Reflect on one memory of an encounter with a stranger that still resonates with you.
Mine the experience:
What did it look like? feel like? What touched you? surprised you? Filled you with wonder?
Thank the Holy One for this visitation and ask to be that same holy presence to all you encounter today.

Featured Image:  Alex Alvarez, Unsplash

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by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM   January 1, 2023

Does resilience flourish best in community?

That’s a wondering I’ve carried every time I watch the news and see images of the people of Ukraine. Women catching a last kiss before a husband, father, brother leaves to defend his country. Elders with canes in hand navigating the ruins of bombed out homes, absent food, running water, or heat in the grip of a frigid winter. Neighbors clawing through rubble to unearth yet another neighbor in hopes of finding signs of breath.

It’s what I’m not seeing that is so remarkable in these scenes. No whining, no complaining, no despondence or despair, no whimpers of “Why me?” Rather, a simple acknowledgment of the hardships of life in Ukraine during this war, followed by an expression of fierce love for their country and a determination to return to their homes in peace.

It’s also what I am hearing that astounds me: the full-throated singing of a passionate folk song or a chorus of defiant resistance, sung by the very people who have just been attacked by a drone strike.

Perhaps it seems so extraordinary to me because I know how easily grief can strike us mute.  How sorrow and loss can utterly devastate or paralyze us. When we’re bereft, we can feel as if we’re in the middle of Psalm 137’s sentiment, “By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion…How could we sing the songs of our God in a foreign land?” (verses 1, 4)

In the “foreign land” of grief or heartache or dreams trampled underfoot, we may go to worship or to gatherings and be struck silent when the congregation is invited to sing. It may seem as if the notes of every song simply choke us and die in our throats.

But here’s where community and kinship come into play, much as has been on display in Ukraine. Our fragile, shaky voices are strengthened and encouraged by the many around us who are able to sing, whose voices lift up a melody, a prayer. When our voices are silenced by profound grief or inconsolable loss or a deadening of spirit, the entire community carries us. We may feel as though those assembled are singing in our place, are singing when we simply can’t. And over time, this same community may help us to find our voice again so we can ultimately sing a new song of resilience.

Wherever we are as we enter this new year, the Holy One is with us. We may be beginning 2023 in a state of consolation, a lightness of heart. Or we may find ourselves in the unenviable space of owning a voice that has been struck mute by tragedy or hushed by the heaviness of life. May we sing a new song for a new year as we are able, and if our voice is stifled, may we be tenderly carried by the kinship of the community around us.

Takeaway

Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
When you feel ready, sing: a peep, a cry, a trumpet, a roar.
If you don’t feel ready, let yourself be carried by the love of thousands.
Ask the Holy One to sing in you through this new year.

Featured Image: Nati Melnychuk, Unsplash

NOTE:
Happy New Year! I’m grateful and encouraged to be going into 2023 in your good company as you follow Mining the Now. May the days ahead be filled with peace and good health for you and for our world that is both beautiful and broken.

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by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM December 17, 2022

Perhaps by now, the tree is already trimmed. Perhaps candles glow from their place in the center of each window. Perhaps a wreath adorns the front door and the aroma of gingerbread or sugar cookies wafts from the kitchen. Perhaps one more stamped card enters the mailbox and carols sing joyfully from your iPhone. Perhaps a creche waits under the tree. Perhaps your life at this moment feels like a Hallmark Christmas movie. Emmanuel, God with us, enters into all these places of “Perhaps.”

Or perhaps none of these signs of the approaching Christmas is visible in your life. Perhaps this year, your heart is disconsolate over the loss of a loved one, and you consider it an achievement to simply pull yourself out of bed in the morning to face a new day. Perhaps the still fresh, still raw wounds of a cherished relationship severed not by your choice have numbed you to all but the necessary motions of daily living. Perhaps you’re overwhelmed by despair at the seeming insignificance or failure of your life. Perhaps the abrupt termination of a job causes you to catch your breath in fear of what your future and the future of your children will hold. Perhaps the empty place at the table breaks your heart open with anxiety over not knowing where your loved one might be at this moment. Perhaps your heart is heavy with a sense of the Holy One’s absence, or your unworthiness, or your own deep regrets over past mistakes and their impact on the people you love. Emmanuel, God with us, enters into all these places of “Perhaps” as well.

The good news: The Holy One comes to us wherever we are, in every possible state of mind or heart, in every form of “Perhaps.” More good news: the coming of Emmanuel, God with us, is not dependent on how we feel or how many carols we can sing or whether the very notes of those songs choke in our throats. Emmanuel comes as grace, searching and welcoming the exile in all of us, the parts of our lives that we hold in shadow, the corners of our being that we’re too terrified to name or befriend.

Who ever we are, and wherever our life may have led us at this moment, Emmanuel, God with us, is here. Here for us. For all of us. No exceptions.

I invite you to accept the invitation in this song, O Come, All You Unfaithful,” written by Lisa Clow and Bob Kauflin for Sovereign Grace Music.

Sit in stillness with the Holy One, and savor these words.

“Come, all you unfaithful.
Come, weak and unstable.
Come, know you are not alone.
“O come, barren and waiting one,
Weary of praying, come,
See what your God has done.
Christ is born, Christ is born, Christ is born for you.”

The Holy One comes into our world, into our lives, into our hearts. No “Perhaps” about it!

Featured Image: Davidson Luna, Unsplash

NOTE:
The blessings of Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanzaa, and the peace of holy days to all! Thank you for following my blog, Mining the Now, for your comments and your support. Know that you are ever in my prayers of gratitude today and through the new year to come.

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by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM December 3, 2022

Christians are a week into the season of Advent, a time when we’re called to reflect on the Incarnation, the coming of Jesus into history. We remember how Emmanuel, God with us, took on our human condition and fully inhabited his body, his time, his place. We remember that God in this human form knew what it was to feel hunger, to know fatigue, to long for a quiet space, to suffer rejection, to cry out in pain. We remember and stand in awe before God’s extravagant love for us.

Perhaps that’s why, after living through so many Advents, I’ve been taken by the phrase, “embodying Advent.” To embody means “to give tangible and visible form to an idea, reality, or feeling.” So how, in my body, am I witnessing to the Incarnation? How can I make that awareness my practice for Advent 2022? After some discernment, I decided to let my body and its wisdom lead me. Here’s a bit of what it suggested.

Lingering for a few quiet moments as I wake at dawn in this very form, this body. Breathing my morning sigh: “Thank you for another day of loving and being loved by you.” Slowly climbing out of bed and standing in place, assessing my readiness to move (my body has not forgotten the wounds of surgeries and fractures and urges me to take notice of whatever is not fully healed. I do). Stretching and noting both the wonder and the limits of this body I inhabit. Praying for the bodies who are unable to move at all or who struggle with unrelieved pain this day. Asking the Holy One to move with me as I take my first few tentative steps. Savoring my steaming cup of tea and entering the stillness of contemplative listening.

Later, opening up my datebook or phone calendar to review what the day holds and where I’m being called to a deeper presence. Booting up my laptop as the sun streams into my office. Begging to be blessed with words, with something meaningful to say. Greeting my jungle of green neighbors and telling them my gratitude for their company in this space. Gazing with appreciation at the slow but steady blossoming of my tribe of African violets and the astonishing (almost creepy) growth spurt of my amaryllis bulb.

Realizing with appreciation that it is through my body that I express the presence of God to others. Praying to recognize the Holy One who greets me in the person at the other end of the phone or email or text, or the face that appears on Zoom, or the body that arrives for spiritual guidance, or the bodies I gather with for a meeting or a retreat session.

Later, uttering thanks as I take into my body a serving of mashed potatoes (with butter, of course), or a spread of avocado on Wegman’s 7 Grain bread, or a bite of Ina Garten’s raspberry crumble bars. So grateful to inhabit a body that delights in food. And yes, I never fail to thank the Holy One for that!

These are a few of the ways I’m trying to embody Advent this season. And what about you? What wisdom of the body do you have to share? What does Emmanuel, God with us, look like in your life?

Takeaway
Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
Linger with your body. Listen to its wisdom.
What might you hear about being tender with yourself? about offering a loving presence to those who will come into your life today?
Give your body an embrazo, a hug, a gesture of gratitude.

Featured Image:  Kira auf der Heide, Unsplash

NOTE:
Please hold in your prayer the Grey Nuns of the Sacred Heart and all who are part of a guided retreat in Philadelphia this weekend. Special thanks to Sisters Eileen Spanier and Mary Elizabeth Looby and their team for tending to all the details and creating the space where we can best listen to the Holy at work in our lives.

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by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM   November 20, 2022

They are beloved and long-time companions: silence and space. They are the reason I never drive a car or start out on a walk, even a brief one, without a pen and a notebook. They provide an opening where I can listen to my soul, hear the voice of the Holy, and fall down in worship before beauty. They offer a refuge from the clamor of the day, a sanctuary where I can discover what I really think, a chance to devour poems and prose—my own and others’— reading them aloud, coaxing a reluctant image out of hiding, savoring every delicious syllable.

They are among the many reasons I appreciate retreat ministry where I get to enter into silence in a sacred place with sacred people, all of us gathered with a single intention: to better hear the Holy at work in our lives. They are underneath the sigh of a busy parent at day’s end when the children are tucked into bed and a hush descends and envelops. They are the impetus for building a she-shed or creating a space in the garage, for laying claim to a closet or a porch or a corner of the basement as our own, at least for a few moments. They live in the pause before a word is uttered and the atmosphere in a room changes. They feel like a hiding place, but one that somehow reveals and uncovers.                                                                                                            .

When I first moved into the home where I now live, I discovered a room at the end of the hall that a previous occupant had used for storage, a holding space for the no longer useful broken chair, cardboard box, old lamp. But with three large windows on one side, two on the other, sunlight streaming in, the room cried out to me. I heard its longing to be something more, its desire to offer refuge. So I spent several days cleaning it out, inviting it to direct me. It insisted on becoming my office, my writing and creating and praying space, home to my flourishing jungle of African violets, pothos, cyclamen, and some unnamed neighbors I’m nursing back to greenness.

Whoever we are, no matter how full or active our lives are, we all need to make friends in some way with silence and space so we can hear our lives and pray with them. I suspect the deeply contemplative writer Gunilla Norris claimed such a space, for she notes that, “A room devoted to silence honors and invites the unknown, the untamed, the wild, the shy, the unfathomable—that which rarely has a chance to surface within us.”

Let us not be afraid to step into this space and invite the hush to reveal just such a diverse and boisterous crowd. Imagine the friends we’ll make and the places we’ll go and the ways in which silence and space, with God’s grace, will transform us into our best selves. Imagine what might happen if we let the hush enter our rich and full lives and linger there in some blessed and mysterious way.

Takeaway
Find a quiet space and sit in stillness with the Holy One.
Invite as your guests the untamed, the wild, the shy, and the unfathomable within you.
Welcome, listen, and give thanks.

Featured Image: Anthony Tran, Unsplash

NOTE:
Happy Thanksgiving to all who are celebrating this holiday in the United States and beyond.

I also want to express my profound thanks to all who are followers of my blog, Mining the Now, anywhere in the world. You are ever in my grateful heart and prayer.

December 2-4:
Please pray for my safe travel and leading of a guided retreat for the Grey Nuns of the Sacred Heart in Philadelphia, PA.

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by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM    November 6, 2022

One of the lingering side effects of the pandemic has been the way in which food is served. Although I’m still missing the amazing salad bar at Wegman’s, I understand the safety and health concerns that led to its disappearance. (And of course, I still live in hope of its return). In most retreat houses, conference centers, and motherhouses I’ve traveled to this summer, retreatants no longer served themselves from a buffet line, but instead were served by gracious professional people waiting to hear of their selections from the options offered.

For me, this has been something of an issue because of the servers: they are simply too generous! I eat well but don’t eat huge helpings of anything, even my favorite mashed potatoes. So the first few days of a retreat, I’m continually whispering, “Just one spoonful, please” over the buffet table to the servers. Whose joy seems to be in giving me more. Whose puzzlement seems to be that any human would want less than two heaping serving spoons full of the delicious food being offered.

Lately the refrain of “Just one spoonful, please,” has led me to reflect on some wisdom a spiritual director offered me decades ago, wisdom that has enlarged my appetite not for food, but for the divine. My director encouraged me to be less cautious, more intimate, and bolder in my relationship with the Holy One. She reminded me that God is longing to be more. To me. That the Holy One desires to share the fullness of divine love. With me. That God’s grace isn’t a limited supply that has to be rationed out bit by bit, a spoonful at a time. That when it comes to grace, God doesn’t want to hear “Enough!” from me. That my call is to let God be God. Big, extravagant, unconditional, beyond limits when it comes to loving me and all of creation.

Some spiritual leaders note that the longing we feel for God is actually the Holy One’s first longing for us. What we experience is a mirror, a window into the immensity of God’s desire for us. This divine desire isn’t dependent on our goodness or worth, isn’t diminished by our failings, isn’t lessened by our lack of attention or awareness. No matter what is happening or has happened in our lives, God’s love for each of us is there for the taking, available and unending.

Our challenge is to keep listening to the echoes of longing that we notice, the nudges that claim our attention, the moments that resonate, and to realize, “Ah, there you go again, God!” Then to simply bow down in amazement and gratitude at the Holy One’s wild extravagance, serving up heaping spoonfuls of love from an endless buffet.

Takeaway

Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
If you have a symbol of God’s love, place that before you.
Be bold and ask for more: more grace, more love, more intimacy.
Sit in a spirit of trust that your desire will be heard.
Give thanks for the extravagant and always available love of the Holy One.

Featured Image:  Chris Koellhoffer, IHM

NOTE:

Thank you for your prayerful support of the guided retreat I offered for the Sisters of St. Francis at Assisi House, Aston, PA, this past week. My deep thanks to all the retreatants whose prayer and presence continue to bless me and all of our beautiful yet wounded world.

Please hold in your prayer the mid-term elections in the United States this week, that all who are elected will commit their service to the common good and to building a more just, inclusive, and compassionate country. Thank you.

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by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM   October 23, 2022

“We see from where we stand” is one of my favorite Haitian proverbs.

I think of it often when I’m leading a retreat. I usually begin a presentation by inviting the retreatants to engage in breathprayer, an ancient practice of paying attention to our breath and then inhaling and exhaling for several minutes in blessing the space we’re in as well as the world beyond. Both the retreatants and I close our eyes while praying this way, but towards the end of the breathprayer, I open my eyes to bring the prayer to a close. That’s when perspective really matters.

Because as I open my eyes and face the group, I see a mass of people who hold no intention other than to breathe compassion and welcome from our space out to the world. My one regret is that the group can’t see what I see: dozens of people sending the energies of love in blessing our beautiful yet wounded world. As the week of retreat moves on, that blessing becomes more and more palpable. And that sight brings me to the edge of tears.

Perspective made a rich difference to me last weekend also, when family and friends celebrated the wedding of my niece, Jennifer Kline, and her then husband-to-be, Ryan Hilla. I was invited by the bride’s Uncle Paul, a deacon, to be a co-minister for the wedding service, affording me a perspective I rarely have in any church: the view from the sanctuary.

My co-celebrant grounded his words in tenderness and welcome and invitation. What an honor for me to also stand before the wedding couple, to see their eyes well with emotion, to bless their rings, to notice how at times their hands reached for one another, to offer a blessing to send them into the newness of married life. And to look out at the congregation from the sanctuary: into the eyes of their parents who had shown them what love looks like when it walks through this world. Into the faces of siblings who had companioned them since childhood. Into the gaze of relatives and friends, each carrying a story of connection and support. I tell you, the air was heavy with the fragrance of such collective love.

That scent lingered and carried over into the reception, where Lauren, maid of honor and sister of the bride; Evan, best man and brother of the groom; and Kevin, father of the bride, offered stories full of connection and humor and tenderness. So much love was woven through every word that when it came my turn to follow their toasts and offer a Grace before the meal, I had to first ask those gathered, “Can you feel the love in this room? Can you feel it?” And then to invite the gathering to pause and notice where those beautiful words we had just heard had landed in their souls. Because we were witnesses to the leap of faith and the profound act of courage that marriage, or any life commitment, is. Because it felt like we were standing in a holy place. And so we were.

Many years ago, the Trappist monk and spiritual leader Thomas Merton, standing at the corner of Fourth and Walnut in Louisville, was suddenly overwhelmed by the realization that he loved all the people passing by, the secret beauty of their hearts, the person that each one was in God’s eyes. He yearned for everyone to see themselves as God saw them. At the same time, he acknowledged, “There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.”

Perhaps. But from where I stood last weekend, it seemed that people had already claimed their light. And I am shaken even now by the sight of that shining. By the tenderness in that space. By the love that lingers still.

Takeaway
Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
Call to mind an experience where the love of others was palpable for you. Perhaps your own wedding, or profession of vows, or a special event.
Savor what that felt, looked, and sounded like.
Offer thanks to the Holy One for bringing such blessing into your life.
Ask that you may be that same kind of holy, affirming presence to others.

Featured Image: Denny Muller, Unsplash

NOTE:
Thank you for your prayerful support of my family’s celebration last weekend. Now I ask you to hold in your prayer these upcoming events that I’ll be leading:

October 29: A virtual retreat day for IHM Associates and Sisters.
IHM Associates are women and men from all states of life and various creeds who are seeking a deeper experience of God for their own transformation and for the transformation of the world. I’m honored to be in their good company.

November 2-4: A guided retreat for the Sisters of St. Francis at Assisi House, Aston, PA.

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by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM     October 9, 2022

Lately I’ve been reflecting on scent. Who knows if it’s because here in the North the delicate perfume of summer is giving way to the earthiness of autumn. Or because scent can linger long after its source has moved on.

What I do know is that scent is often evocative. As one of those people blessed (and sometimes cursed) with a very refined sense of smell, I can be transported by a whiff of anything to another time and place, another person or thing. Every year for Christmas I would give my mother a bottle of her favorite perfume, Coty L’aimant. Although my mother has been deceased for over twenty-five years, I sometimes catch myself thinking of her at the same time that I notice the scent of her perfume wafting towards me as a person passes. There’s a certain type of talcum powder that immediately summons visions of my grandmother’s home with its window seat and overstuffed chair. And the aroma of cookies or cakes still warm from the oven—well, I’m grateful to say that there have been in my life a multitude of gifted bakers whom I recall with delight. And gratitude.

I wonder, can the aroma of a person’s soul linger in the same way? A room can go dark and unsettling after its occupant leaves. But a room can also hold a soft energy and sense of welcome long after the person whose presence filled the room departs. I believe the energies of love, the fragrance of the holy ones, can and do linger. In John’s Gospel (John 12:1-8) Jesus is enjoying dinner at the invitation of his friends, Lazarus, Martha, and Mary. While Lazarus sits and Martha serves, Mary takes a jar of expensive nard, the equivalent of a laborer’s annual wages, pours it over the feet of Jesus, and wipes his feet with her hair. Can we hear the collective gasp of the stunned dinner guests?

John notes, “The whole house was filled was filled with the fragrance of the oil.” Of course it was, John! In her extravagant gesture, Mary wasn’t taking note of anything but the feet of Jesus. I suspect no amount of scrubbing could dispel the scent of nard that spilled over and seeped into the floor or soaked the ground. I suspect that the fragrance of that oil lingered in the house in Bethany for many weeks. And I suspect the remembrance of Mary’s bold act remained even longer, much as lives given over to kindness and extravagant love leave behind a distinct spiritual fragrance.

I don’t claim to have an olfactory sense capable of sniffing out the saints among us. But perhaps you, like me, have occasionally been in the presence of a person whose very being radiates compassion, kindness, softness and spaciousness of heart. Long after such a person departs, the place where they once sat or stood is redolent of grace. The house, the space, is filled with the fragrance of their presence.

With the grace of the Holy One, may we encounter in our everyday living the saints whose lives are given over to tenderness, who carry the scent of holiness. With the grace of the Holy One, may we also be among that number, leaving a trail of blessings wherever we go.

Takeaway

Sit in stillness with the Holy One.
You may wish to place before you a fragrance you enjoy.
Call to mind a person who embodies the presence of God.
Reflect on the qualities that lead you to describe them as saintly.
Ask the Holy One to deepen those same qualities in you through deep, inner soul work.
Inhale your chosen scent and offer thanks for the holy ones in your life—including yourself.

Featured Image:  Muldavi, Unsplash

NOTE:
Please hold in your prayer a joyful occasion: the wedding of my niece, Jennifer Kline, and Ryan Hilla on October 15. I’m honored to be a co-minister of their ceremony. May they be blessed with a love that is patient, kind, and enduring.

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by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM September 25, 2022

When I told a friend that I’d be offering a reflection on the departure day of a retreat, which was also the memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows, he asked me what I’d be preaching about. I said, “Posture and grammar.” And he replied, “Well, that should empty out the chapel pretty fast!”

So permit me to explain. All during this directed retreat (September 7-15), we’ve cultivated a posture of openness, a deep listening to the Holy One. And what’s the very first word we heard in John’s Gospel this morning? Standing. Standing by the cross… Standing is also a posture.

As a former English teacher, I’m very fond of the present participle form of verbs. What I call the ING verbs, words ending in i-n-g. Verb forms like standing, staying, listening, noticing.

These I-N-G verbs are full of action. The –ing indicates that there’s movement. Everything is evolving. We haven’t become women and men for others, once and for all, over and done. We are constantly becom-ing such persons. We are always in process, cooperating with grace.

So standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. That’s their posture. They were standing. Sarah Otto writes that, “As almost all of Jesus’ followers flee from the scene of the crucifixion out of fear and disappointment, these women are standing. Not crouching in fear, not turning their backs, not slumping on the ground in defeat, not walking away. They are standing.”

And they are staying even though this seems like the end of a cherished dream. They are remaining even as their hearts are broken open. They are refusing to leave even though they can’t change what’s happening right in front of them. They are standing  when it’s beyond their power to save Jesus. They are standing and staying with someone who is dying. Sometimes, that is all we can do, and it is everything.

Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk and spiritual writer, was once asked what his vocation was. I love how he described the essence of his call. Merton said that his vocation was really just this:

Sitting. “Sitting with the insoluble dilemmas and unanswerable questions of his time.” That’s quite a mouthful, isn’t it? Sitting with the dilemmas for which there seem to be no solutions. Standing with the questions for which we can’t find answers. Mining the place of Mystery. Merton’s vocation and ours: Not to run away. Not to be satisfied with glib, easy answers. Instead, standing with, staying with, remaining in the struggle.

It’s what I call the “school no one ever wants to attend.” The school of pain and loss and diminishment. There’s no waiting list for this school, no registration. I mean, who would ever want to sign up? But here’s the thing: there are some things we can learn in this school that we can’t come to by any other way. Learning that we can’t fix everything. Learning how to remain with people in pain even when it’s beyond our power to change their circumstances. Learning to trust that God’s grace will reveal itself somehow, some way, even in darkness. Learning how to wait. Learning what it means to be present.

Today, we are called to be standing with the crucified peoples of our world in their pain, their despair, their loneliness. And standing as well with our sisters and brothers in their joy, their delight, their gratitude.

Today also calls us to a place of remembering. To remember and give thanks for the many who have been standing with us through our lives. Accompanying us. Giving us the gift of presence and deep listening. Staying with us even when nothing can be fixed or changed.

Today, we are carrying with us the graces of retreat. I suspect that for a long time, we will be breaking open and pondering what these days have been about. As we leave, with God’s grace, may we keep standing with, staying with, remaining with these graces. And as we do, may our lives continue to be a blessing for our beautiful, yet wounded world. May it be so!

Takeaway
If you are able, stand in stillness with the Holy One.
Reflect on a recent time in your life when another person has remained with you in your pain or loss.
Recall how their presence, with or without words, made you feel.
Give thanks for all those who have accompanied you in your life.
Ask the Holy One for the grace to be that same kind of presence for others.

Featured Image: Melissa Askew, Unsplash

NOTE:
This blog has been adapted from a homily I offered on the last day of an 8-day directed retreat at Eastern Point Retreat House, Gloucester, MA, September 15, memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows. I served as one of the guest directors at Eastern Point.

Thank you for your prayer for all who were part of that retreat. Please now hold in your prayer all who will be part of my next retreat:

October 2-7, Guided Retreat for the Sisters of St. Joseph, Rochester, NY. Thank you.

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by Chris Koellhoffer, IHM     September 11, 2022

I’m a fan of summer’s ripening. There are few seasonal moments I await with more anticipation than the first appearance of a beefsteak tomato. Not the kind of tasteless thing that shows up in supermarkets in November. No, this tomato comes from the summer farmstands of New Jersey and Long Island, the farmers’ markets of Pennsylvania and beyond. This tomato has heft and substance in the hand. This tomato demands the simplest of pairings with white bread, a sprinkling of salt, and a generous spread of mayonnaise (We won’t get into the Hellmann’s vs. other brands right now, but of course, it’s Hellmann’s!). And finally, this tomato yields the utter joy of a first bite as its abundant juices run down one’s face. Chin, neck, fingers taking a tomato bath.

So many of summer’s fruits are juicy: the plump, dusty peach offering a sweet experience from the first bite of summer to the licking of peach nectar from one’s hands and neck, every drop liquid gold.  The strawberries of June and the blueberries of July. Raspberries on the vine, slowly turning from green to red. Succulent plums showing off the darkness of hidden delight. Watermelons offering their refreshing sugar to our eager mouths.

As we savor these gifts of summer, we give thanks for all the elements that converged in just the right way at just the right moment to bring such juiciness to our tables. A balance of warm sun and cooling rains. The watchful gaze of farmers. The tender touch of laborers carefully plucking by hand, for many of these gifts are too fragile to withstand harvesting machines. The truckers carrying summer’s best along the highways. The workers who weigh and bag our selections and hand over their labor to us.

Perhaps we can taste their collective labor as we bite into these fruits. Perhaps, along with our thanks, we might want to pray with every sweet mouthful, “Keep me juicy!” It’s a simple way to articulate our desire to intentionally cultivate a different kind of year-round juiciness. A ripeness of spirit. A tenderness of manner. A sweetness steeped in gracious hospitality. Perhaps we might offer spaciousness of heart to the family new to our school, parish, or neighborhood. Or donate our time serving meals in a local food kitchen. Perhaps recycling with a consciousness of care for Earth, our Common Home. Or we might practice courtesy on the road, navigating traffic jams and the challenges of driving in rush hour. Perhaps we might find a few extra minutes each day to sit in silence and breathe a blessing to our world. Juiciness upon juiciness!

We might wish that the perfectly ripe local summer fruits we enjoy would offer their juiciness all seasons of the year. No worries there, because until these summer delights return here in the North, and certainly after they return, we can cultivate the spirit of their juiciness every day, offering compassion, kindness, and deep listening to the orchards of people all around us. I leave you with this ripe and lovely poem from Li-Young Lee, a September offering from Gratefulness.org:

From Blossoms From blossoms comes this brown paper bag of peaches we bought from the boy at the bend in the road where we turned toward signs painted Peaches. From laden boughs, from hands, from sweet fellowship in the bins, comes nectar at the roadside, succulent peaches we devour, dusty skin and all, comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat. O, to take what we love inside, to carry within us an orchard, to eat not only the skin, but the shade, not only the sugar, but the days, to hold the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into the round jubilance of peach. There are days we live as if death were nowhere in the background; from joy to joy to joy, from wing to wing, from blossom to blossom to impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom. Takeaway You might want to begin by savoring this poem and then placing a symbol or image of juiciness in front of you. Sit in stillness with the Holy One. Where in your life do you show juiciness of spirit? Might there be anywhere that you notice a call to more ripening? Ask the Holy One for an infusion of the juices of kindness, understanding, or whatever you most desire. Bow and offer your deep thanks for the abundant grace that the Holy One offers you at every moment.

Featured Image: Caju Gomes, Unsplash

NOTE:
Thank you for returning to my blog, Mining the Now. During August, I took a pause from blogging but offered a guided retreat at St. Joseph’s Villa in Hampton Bays, NY. I also took some time for my own self care. Thank you for your prayerful remembrance of all who were part of the August retreat and for your good wishes for my briefly stepping away from my blog. Welcome back if you’re returning to Mining the Now, and welcome if you are a new follower.

As I write, I ask you to pray for all who are part of a directed retreat taking place now at Gonzaga Eastern Point Retreat House, Gloucester, MA, September 7-15. I’m serving as one of the guest directors for this retreat. Thank you.

Twenty-one years ago, on September 11^th, I was in New York City on my first day of studies to be certified as a spiritual director. The memories of that day have not faded. May we hold in tenderness and prayer all those who were killed, wounded, or traumatized by the terrorist attacks, as well as all those who suffer violence every day in our beautiful, yet wounded world. May our lives given over to compassion, justice, and juiciness move closer to fulfillment God’s dream of peace for all of us.

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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