Expectations

 

Many of us have some wacky, pseudo expectations such as expecting rain after we wash the car or when we plan a picnic, or bad luck if we walk beneath a ladder. Fun, but this isn't about that.

At night when I fall asleep, I expect to awaken in the morning.  It hasn't always been so, nor will it always be.

I expect stars to burn in the night sky. (I expect them to burn in our daytime sky as well, but seldom think of it!)  I expect clouds may gather and interfere with my view, but not with the existence and presence of stars.  I expect clouds to eventually move on.

In so many circumstances, I expect great sorrow to come as inevitably as the seasons.

Elation. Happiness. Ah, these keep me balanced.  They come more as surprise than expectation. I do expect surprises of all sorts, though try not to navigate my life's course by  them.

Joy. This is something I've grown to know. More than an expectation, Joy IS. It's inner presence is so astonishing, I'm almost timid about claiming it will always remain with me.

Of course I could go on and on. My expectation is that I'd become tiresome, if not irrelevant.

                

 

 

                                                                         photo Bonnie Hamilton Beuning 2014 

Upon awakening

Morning topics come to me unplanned, from somewhere, anywhere. I welcome most of them and join in on the conversation already begun in my head.

Stirring my morning brain today (despite the extreme beauty of the sunshine streaming into the bedroom) were the tears, or worse, the blank expressions of oppressed women of the world, emotionally and often physically abused.

     Do they have expectations?

     Are they devoid of hope? 

     How can Hope and Expectation feel the same?

     How do they differ, and how might one effect the other?

     In the worst case scenarios, do the abused, neglected, oppressed lose the ability to
experience disappointment?  

     In the worst, worst case scenario, does one have even a memory of being     disappointed? Or did early disappointments soon become expectations?

     To be disappointed!  Is that ability a blessing in the sense of reminding us we haven't yet  lost hope?

Well, I'm sorry if I've brought you with me on a path too grim. It led to a scene vastly populated with children and men as well as women. I simply followed the path.

I'll close without giving my considered answers to the questions above.  Your answers, if you choose to meditate on these things, will likely outshine my own

This amazing Kansas day on the cusp of spring has dawned on a good and easy life for me. I'm so thankful! I'm drawn to pray specifically for the oppressed, abused, and neglected today. Even the grim path can lead to good things.

 

                                                                             photo Bonnie Hamilton Beuning
bb

The Eye and the Heart of the Beholder

 

Beauty

 

 

 

This first photograph below is accompanied by the photographer's haiku, both of which I love! The picture speaks to me of the splendor of so many of our winter days, illuminated by that magical light cast by the southern arc of the sun.. Some of our most brilliant sunrises and fieriest sunsets occur in the wintertime. In late afternoon, the exposed white skin of the sycamore trees and cottonwoods glows against the backdrop of a sapphire sky.  On clear nights, the stars are worth the show for those willing to brave the cold night air to gaze upon them.  I find the composition and colors of this photo quite striking.

 

 

                       

photo and haiku by Glenn Gunnels 2015

Evening Haiku



                                                      Will you walk with me

                                                      if I speak in whispered breaths

                                                      as warm as summer? 

                                                                                                       

 

The next photo is one that I took several days ago. It's a color shot, but looks almost black and white.  That's good, because I wanted to capture how color seems to drain away at  sunset in the winter when the entire sky is thick with clouds.  

 

 

 

                    

photo and poem by Bonnie Hamilton Beuning 2015 

 

The February trees are bare, offering no resistance to the chill wind.

No winter flowers grace this portion of the gardeners' "zone 6."
I'd hoped for the consolation of a starry, black sky tonight,
but no, all is grim and gray and cold.
I'm sure a television meteorologist is apologizing on the air, 
pretending to have created the weather without God. BB

 

 

I recognize the contrast between Glenn's engaging and lovely photo, and then mine, which at first glance (and maybe 2nd and 3rd as well!) seems to be more about the absence of beauty. But, I'm beginning to believe beauty dwells within every natural thing, sometimes all but hidden, yet still present in its design or movement, light, or shadow.

 

Undeniably, there are special places that stir us, comfort us, fill us with peace, and cause us to call them sacred. I wonder if the tangled and dark woods to which we're not drawn, could sometimes offer a holy refuge that our broken selves would connect with, possibly heal in...a wilderness overlooked due to our love of stars and grandeur.                                                     

 

Terry Hershey had this quote in his "Sabbath Moments" this week, and I liked it: 

        

 "Each of us possesses five fundamental, enthralling maps to the natural world:  sight, touch, taste, hearing, smell.  As we unravel the threads that bind us to nature, as denizens of data and artifice, amid crowds and clutter, we become miserly with these loyal and exquisite guides, we numb our sensory intelligence.  This failure of attention will make orphans of us all."     -- Ellen Meloy



 

[Thanks to Glenn Gunnels for permission to use his photo...I knew I wanted to post it, but had no idea what the blog would be about when I asked] 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just Another Sacred Day

 

 

 

Ash Wednesday.  It was good. 

 

In the morning, I was heard, informed, encouraged, and supported at a supervision meeting with my Stephen Ministry group.

 

In the afternoon, I met with my spiritual director from whom I received affirmation and clarity on some issues often encountered in the growth process.

 

Midafternoon, after taking care of a couple of errands and tasks, I built a slow-burning fire in the fireplace.  I pulled a chair close to it, held my dog, and read a while. 

 

Ash Wednesday didn't beckon me to a church service this year, but I observed it in my own way at home. The ashes stayed among the burnt pieces of firewood and I felt fine with that.  

 

Here are some photos I took while thinking about the first day of Lent.

 

The sun was shining, and bathed everything in a simple light.

 

BB

  

 

       

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I decided to change my profile picture on Facebook this morning. To do this, I scanned a picture, which is printed on a blank greeting card I bought years ago.  The picture, a reproduction of a painting by Lori Preusch, more than captured my imagination.  It illustrates something that I feel about my own sense of "being here." 

In it I somehow recognize the person I am, and see glimpses of my past, present, and possible future. It speaks to me of the region of our country where I was born and raised and now live. I see the overriding joy of my life journey, regardless of what I confront and gather along the way.

This is the beauty of art, isn't it?  As in nature, we can study it and connect with so many things. Learning to see with our hearts, I believe we can gain an understanding that's at a higher level than the reality we've constructed or had constructed for us. At times, though, we intuitively know that what we are seeing speaks to our innermost selves.

When I posted this image on Facebook, I received a response that surprised me.  A cousin  simply commented, "Embrace." (I'm assuming she read my last post.)

How strange that I never saw the essence of my word-of-the-year in this painting until she mentioned it!  But there it is.  Like the prairie dragon, I feel the word clinging to me, and I've come to be happy about carrying it, fire and all. 

May your life be a Spirit-filled quest, undeterred by the ways of the world. 
May you be of light heart and deep thoughts.
May we all become conscious of what we carry, and why, discarding that which serves no honorable purpose.

Till next time, I'm heading out into the wind with my hoop and ever-present dragon.  

Blessings,
bb

Note:  I temporarily removed the photo from my FB page until I received written permission from the author to use it, which she immediately gave. I don't know if that's required, but it seemed like the right thing to do.  (Thanks again, Lori.)

Look here for more of her work:    www.dandelionpress.com

And the word is...EMBRACE

 

 

EMBRACE
 

to hold someone in your arms as a way of expressing love or friendship;

                             to accept (something or someone) readily or gladly;

to use (an opportunity) eagerly

Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary

 

 

The word stood out when I came across it. I began noticing it more frequently in my reading. Was this to be my focus-word for the year? It connotes such a feeling of warmth, kindness, and love--at least at first glance.

 

Until you live a word, walk with it and in it, and feel how your life reacts to it, you can't know how thought-provoking and challenging it can be. I've been holding the word in the forefront of my mind through the recent weeks of good days and bad days.

 

I decided EMBRACE was too hard to live with for a whole year!

But...

I couldn't shake myself free of it.

 

The easy stuff? I've managed to embrace the 8 degree mornings we've had, probably because I don't have to work outside.  It's a snap to embrace the warm winter days, like today!

 

A bit uncomfortabIe? Embracing what I see of the good in me and, much harder, the not-so-good things that I often believe make up the larger part of me.  

 

Hmmm, it's usually, but not always, easy to truly embrace relationships in your life. Humans will inevitably fall short of what you crave and think you need from them.  

 

Ewwww.  Without too much difficulty and with some careful definitions of Love, I can say that I love my enemies.  But embrace? To embrace seems so much more personal. It involves acceptance--not approval, but rather, recognition of a situation's or person's worthiness to be loved. Are my mind and heart required to virtually hold someone in my arms?

 I ponder the "embraceability" of Life assaulted with all these things and more:
 

 

crippling disease, pain, and death

wars, torture, torturers

self-serving politicians

birth defects

greed

hunger

abuse

hatred among people

 

And yet, I embrace it.

At this point I should add, I'm also considering this bit of scripture:

 

Ecclesiastes 3:5   New English Translation (NET Bible)

⁵ A time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

 

I know there is wisdom here, and it reminds me slightly of Jesus' instructions to the apostles in this verse:

Mark 6:11   (NET)

If a place will not welcome you or listen to you, as you go out from there, shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them."  

 So, here's how I think it will go:  I approach a person or circumstance, pleasant or otherwise, and in my good moments, I think "embrace."  If I'm able to enhance or adjust my focus to see in a way of cherishing, accepting, or availing myself of opportunity, the experience should be transformational.

I'm making a list of tools that may help me. It includes Love, of course, and patience, prayer, hope, gratitude, forgiveness, humility, service to others, and I'm sure there are many, many more. Oh! I have to add courage!  .....and.....etc. etc. etc.

And that's about it for now.  I have many things waiting for my embrace.

Peace--bb

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Word for 2015



Some who love birds are called birders,
so are ones who love words known as worders?

(Just wondering--b)

I'm happy to be a member of a small covenant group.  We've each decided to choose a special word of her own to carry throughout 2015, and to share it with the rest of us.  

I've been brain-storming, stacking words up in my journal. They each present me with meaning and challenges, but I'm looking for one that resonates deeply with my life right now.  And that's rather hard to pinpoint--I ought to know it when I hear it, right?

It needs to maintain its relevance all year, and also be a word that draws me forward, because I definitely plan to progress on my spiritual journey.
 

Yahweh, please guide me through life and, when I pause in dark places, remind me that your will is not done in a state of stagnation nor of fear.

Lately I've heard and read on blogs about others who use this focus-word practice, and prefer it over making resolutions.  One of my sisters, doing this for the first time, has chosen "mindful." A friend's daughter chose "dare."  I love hearing the words, why they've been selected, and how they'll be used during the year. 

Anyway, I may have found my word now.  I've studied it awhile through a "prism" of sorts, allowing the facets of prayer and contemplation to reveal its many colors. It seems to be a good word for me, but  rather than share it now, I think I'll hold it, wear it, and live it a day or two. Then I'll let you know.
 

The Little Haiku that Couldn't...and then Could

 

On a totally different note about words, I don't think it's a rare thing for people to  occasionally awaken with prophetic or poetic words firmly planted in their minds, words begging to be part of something.  One morning last week, the phrase "warm shoulders of earth" was in my head when I woke up. It seem like great bones for the beginning of a haiku, so I grabbed a scrap of paper off my bedside table, and scribbled and tweaked syllables till it was done. I thought it was pretty, but a bit too vague (as in "what's she talking about?).  

As I carried my little scrap from upstairs bedroom to downstairs office, I stopped along the way to make coffee, find something to munch on, and attend to various other distractions.  Yes, I lost my haiku. I never saw it again, and suspect that I accidentally tucked it into the pile of newspapers headed to the recycle bins down the street. My temporary frustration over this small loss was pretty silly, considering the mediocrity of the poem. I only needed to sit down and write a better haiku!

Still inspired by the words I woke with, here's the better haiku along with a photo of our backyard river.

 

 

river never sleeps

within earth's warm embrace

her soft breath rises

B

p.s. I just realized there is a moral for me in this story.  No, it's nothing to do with senior moments, or disorganization, or even about poetry. The moral for me is that when God sends inspiration through dreams, words, nature, and people of all sorts--it's not always the sight, literal word, or person that is his message. Many times it's just the invisible inspiration itself, to be breathed in and then used to his glory in some way.

 

The Drama of the Atacama






In October of 2006 I traveled to northern Chile on a mission trip. My friend Ann was living there for a year, serving in mission through the United Methodist Church. She was based in the coastal city of Iquique, on the edge of the Atacama Desert, and had set up a project for us at the Insituto Agricola Kusayapu, located in Pachica. She took our small team to the school to live and work for a week. We traveled in a large van by way of one of the most perilous roads I've had the excitement of traveling.

 

The desert is vast, and said to have never received rainfall in some areas. It's like no other place I've ever been. I've spent most of my life within a day's drive of the verdant Rocky Mountains with their 12,000-14,000-foot peaks of stone and snow. I lived a short while in southwest New Mexico, and am well-acquainted with the vibrance of the Tucson, Arizona deserts. But the Atacama? I was awestruck by this desert's monochromatic, rounded mountains of dirt and copper. Rocks and boulders lie about. Some stones are stacked into cairns, standing alone miles beyond any other sign of civilization.   

I loved the other-worldliness of it, even (perhaps especially) in the dark night when starlight makes its soil glow like the moon. When I came back to Kansas, it began to sink in that I had sensed something sacred in the Atacama. 

 

And now, so very far away from it, I'm still moved by that feeling when I think about it just being there, unseen by most of the world. I can't touch it, or hear it, or see it except in my memory, imagination, and in my growing knowledge of the Creator.  

 

I simply can't explain how the Atacama has affected me. It's as though I've seen a long-ago earth in the making, bare yet revealing the handprint and heartbeat of God for any who seek to know Him. As though forever waiting, it lies silent beneath glowing stars and blazing sun. The desert is so fertile it would surely bloom into a profusion of flowers and food, an Eden, were rains to bless it.  Meanwhile, its soil carries the bones of ancient and modern people, as well as the tracks of those living good yet hard lives. 

 

 

 





A woman walks along the desert road--photo by BonnieB

 

 

An Incredibly Dark and Sacred Hour

I lie on bare earth that is the Atacama.

With God we are moving, Atacama and I, unheard and unseen.

No wisps of grass nor leafy trees grow here to rustle in the breeze.

It’s four a.m.

I stare into a moonless sky draped in sorrow-less black.

No grief can exist amid so many stars!

I long for, belong to, the mystery above.

A brilliance beyond starlight beckons soulkind to soar;

This soul, my soul, joyfully responds.

Surely I’m floating, detached from the world.

I am one with the Source and with all of creation

in this hour long before the desert sun rises--

when the heavens will have shifted

and a dozen satellites will have silently slid by.

Bonnie Hamilton Beuning 

©March 9, 2013