Kenosis

Kenosis.

Don’t you just love that word?

Not sure what it is?

Neither was I until I learned about it in a conversation with my spiritual director, and it’s stuck with me ever since.

Kenosis is the act of self-emptying. It’s the practice of using who we are and what we have to offer in order to love, help, and heal the world within our reach.

The best example of this practice is found in the life and times of Jesus the Carpenter, the one I love and attempt to follow. In his short time here on the planet, he did some really cool stuff. He turned water into wine, and healed the sick. He raised his friend from the dead and cast out demons. He gave TED level talks to the crowds that followed him, and then, as if that weren’t enough, he turned a tiny snack of a few fishes and a little bread into a banquet for the masses. And don’t even get me started on his voluntary death on the cross and the mystery that came after.

It’s exhausting just thinking about it all.

However.

All that doing was only half of the practice. The other half is what made all that pouring out of his life possible. Time and again, after giving of himself until he had nothing left to give, he drew away, often into the wilderness, for a time of rest and renewal. Yes, I’m sure he prayed and contemplated and reflected and meditated. But I’ll bet he did some other things too. Like napping.

With a little imagination I can see him eating all of the fish and all of the bread, because a guy’s gotta eat. He’d sip a cup of French Press coffee as the sun came up because, well, he just would. He’d wander along a deserted shore, take a little dip to cool off, and probably vent to his Dad about the sad state of the world to which he’d come.

Give it away.

Fill it back up.

That’s what we’re here to do.

If Jesus had to do it that way, I’m pretty sure that we do too.

Something Afoot Just Beyond Our Sight

This morning, Gracie-the-chocolate-labradoodle and I were out for our normal morning walk, but somehow it didn’t feel like a normal morning. Rather than wander about and explore as she usually does, she stayed close, stopping often to peer out into the woods as if sensing that something, or someone, was afoot, just beyond our sight.

Partway down the road I stopped and turned around, the sky above the hills behind our home ablaze with color. Gold, pink, orange, and crimson. Reaching for my phone to capture the image, probably for use in a blog, I was disappointed to realize that I had left it at home.

In that moment it was as if whatever it was, and it was something, that was afoot in the woods and just beyond our sight, invited us to stop observing the moment and actually be in the moment.

Time stopped. The mental chatter silenced, and the sounds of cars on the road faded away. It was just a girl and her dog on the road. Gracie quietly sat down and together we weren’t watching life, we were life. The calls of two ravens caused us both to turn around just in time to see them emerge from the pines, leisurely making their way to the grove of cottonwood trees just beyond the fence. Landing on the highest branch they talked to one another as ravens do, taking turns, not talking over one another as humans often do. Just beyond the cottonwoods the morning sun was hitting the flanks of Mt. Adams, the light beating back the darkness, as given time, the light will always do.

The ravens flew off, still deep in conversation. Gracie and I watched until they disappeared from sight beyond the pine trees. Turning to head back to the house, the sky that had just minutes before been bright with color was now just so many shades of gray.

The moment was over.

Walking back to the house I wondered how often whatever it was, and it was something, that was afoot in the woods and just beyond our sight, is beckoning us to stop observing the moment and actually be in the moment. To stop watching life and be life. My hunch is, whatever it is, and it is something, is there all the time.

(NO PHOTO FOR OBVIOUS REASONS)

Walking The Refuge

We took the dogs and headed out to the Conboy Wildlife Refuge. It was cold, and sunny, and the contrast of the brilliant yellow-gold tamarack trees with their nearby neighbors, the lodgepole and ponderosa pines could not be more stark.

Once on the three-mile loop trail, we talked about things big and small as the dogs raced ahead, always coming back to check on us. From the viewing platform at the half-way point, it was obvious that fall was giving way to the coming winter, which in turn could only mean the eventual coming of spring and the appearance of new growth. New growth that is only made possible by the death and dropping away of this year’s growth.

Walking the refuge loop trail is always a reminder that life is a series of new beginnings, leading to eventual endings, only to come upon new beginnings once again. It is also a reminder of the need we have as human beings to find refuge from our personal storms with a select few sacred souls. Those who will walk with us as what has been drops away in order to make way for what can be.

Finding A Church Home

Recently I returned to a neighborhood from my childhood. Almost every week we used to drive up a hill past a little white church that I fantasized turning into a home one day. Even back then I had a longing to live in sacred space. To dwell where God dwells.

Today, more than fifty years after those childhood drives and dreams, I discovered that someone has indeed turned that church into their home. Looking up at the white spire and leaded glass windows, it hit me, it isn’t the building that makes a space sacred, it is the spirit that fills it. God, at least any understanding that I have of the Creator that, one way or another, started it all, dwells wherever invited.

Church as home. Home as church. It’s all sacred space. Or at least I think it is meant to be.

For What The Bell Tolls

 “We seldom notice how each day is a holy place

Where the eucharist of the ordinary happens,

Transforming our broken fragments

Into an eternal continuity that keeps us.”

~John O’Donohue, To Bless The Space Between Us: A Book of Invocations and Blessings

I love where we live. I love our home, and the mountain that watches over us. I love the pine forests that surround us, and the wide sky overhead.

However.

I’ve decided that there is just one teeny-tiny thing missing; an ancient church with an ancient bell that rings like clockwork, every morning at 8:00, and every evening at 6:00. Speaking of clocks, it also rings out the hour, every hour, on the hour, all around the clock.  For the past week in the tiny ancient village of Lindum, Denmark, the ancient bell in the ancient church, next to the old home in which we are staying, has done just that.

When it rings at 8:00 in the morning, it is as if to say remember, it is a new day, a holy day. What will you do with this day that has been given to you?  

When it rings out the hour, every hour, on the hour, it is as if to say remember, it is a new hour, a holy hour. What will you do with this hour that has been given to you?

When it rings at 6:00 in the evening, it is as if to say remember, it is the end of another day, a holy day. What did you do with this day that was given to you? 

It is so easy to forget the holiness of time as it marches on, day after day. 

And if time is not holy, then what is? For it is within our hours that we live out our lives.

And if our lives are not holy, then what is? For it is with our lives that we are able to love, help, and heal the world that is within our reach.

And if the world is not holy, then what is? For it is within the world that we live out the one life that we have been given.

And so it goes. Holy lives, spent in holy hours, in the midst of a holy world.

All is holy. 

Photo: Tom Pierson