Re-visiting Agape

Once again a wonderful but short visit to Agape. I managed to make it to Francis Day from Boston with Kate! Hooray! I was glad to finally experience this event that I’d heard so much about last year. It was a gorgeously sunny and colorful crisp fall day, and there were at least 200 people there. The program’s theme was “Women and War: reclaiming our voices,” and included women speakers from Japan, Burundi, Afghanistan, and Iraq as well as Dorothy Day’s granddaughter and a U.S. veteran in her mid-20s who’d served in Iraq when she was 19. It was a powerful day, and ended with the planting of a tree in honor of the mother of two Iraqi boys who are here with their father getting treatment for injuries sustained in the car explosion (caused by U.S. gunfire) that killed their mother.

One of the highlights was the singing and dancing led by the Burundian community! It was also really nice to see so many familiar faces and catch up with a few of the people that I had gotten to know pretty well during my internship. I was glad not to be an intern though, because it meant I simply got to sit back and enjoy it all without worrying about logistics or running in and out taking care of details or dishes. Can we please stop having wars?

Visiting Agape

In the interest of consolidating my belongings, the first stop on my trip was to Agape, where I re-packed the boxes I had stored there and shipped them to Freedom Farm. I had a wonderful but too brief stay, arriving in the late afternoon on Tuesday and leaving after lunch on Thursday. It felt a little bit like coming home when Brayton picked me up at the bus station.

A number of changes have occurred since I left at the end of May! A new shed was built on top of the platform that one of the work groups moved into the garden in the spring, and it’s beautiful. The chapel has a new maple altar and wood sconces for candles in the corders. And the third floor (where I lived) finally had wood flooring put down (leftover from the chapel project) and it’s absolutely gorgeous! They also changed prayer time, which no one informed me of, and so I missed 7:30 prayer – because it was at 7. Oops.

I got to meet all three - three! - of the new interns who will be living there through next summer, answer a few of their questions, share a little advice. I think they’re going to have a great time, but Ellen wishes there was another female intern...

poem: a gardener like me

i long
for god to make a garden
of my heart
to turn it into a
growing, blooming, fruitful –useful-
place

loving hands immersed in its
soft soil
massaging it, picking out
the stones – those
all-pervasive impediments to growth;
passionately carving their way
through the closed cage of my ribs and into
the secret interior of my soul
opening up long furrows upon its
too-smooth surface deep enough
to find its tender places;
expertly, carefully, planting
each seed
one by one
gently and eagerly encouraging it to
take root and rise up!

i envision this gardener
approaching my heart-bed joyfully in anticipation
each and every day
to water the seeds;
crouching closely – hoping
to witness the first sign of growth
whispering and
singing come out!
come out, my loves!
arise!
dancing and
clapping her hands in delight
at each new green sliver of
life - yes!

yes.

i want my heart to feel like this
i want my god to be like this
-a gardener like me.

Unpacking “Ware”

A member of the United Church of Ware told me the story of the origin of the town’s curious name.  It has nothing to do with a creative spelling of “where” or with the selling of “wares”; it is not someone’s last name or the name of a town in England.  It comes from the word “weir” (no, not as in “The Weir of Hermiston,” which was my immediate association, even though I don’t even know what that means…). 

Weir (wear/weer) is a native Nipmuk word meaning “many fish.” 

Before the white settlers took over and built dams for their mills, there was a natural falls on the river.  The Nipmuks used to build nets that they would stretch across the falls to catch the salmon going upstream.

By the time Ware was incorporated, there was already a town in Massachusetts named “weir”, so they had to change the spelling, which also changed the pronunciation.

That was in the 1700s.  The Dalles Dam was built on the Columbia River in the 1950s…  A ruling was just passed last week to allow the construction of a dam in the Amazon. 

When will we ever learn?

a Resurrection truth

Last year at Easter I wrote something to the effect that it would be enough for me to just have the stories of Jesus’ life, teachings and death; I don’t need a resurrection for them to have meaning and power in my life. 

But the thought I had during morning prayer today was that the disciples needed it!  And it’s only because of the profound ways they experienced Jesus’ presence after his death that they regained hope in his message and meaning and therefore passed on and wrote the gospel stories and letters and kept the Christian faith going.

Just because I don’t believe that Jesus’ body was raised back to life doesn’t mean the the disciples didn’t believe it!  That’s why we have Christianity at all today, and in that sense our faith is utterly dependent on the historical truth of the resurrection – because somebody else believed it. 

The gospel stories were written after the resurrection, because of the resurrection, in light of the resurrection.  And that IS a historical fact!

a blessed Easter

my easter weekend was full of wonderful easter-y things:

It began with a Maundy Thursday tenebrae service at Christa’s UCC church involving a simple, candlelit seder meal of lamb eaten in silence interspersed with the passion week readings and a few songs, ending in darkness.

We did a Stations of the Cross in front of the State House in Boston on Good Friday from 12-3pm. It is done as a statement against the death penalty and all state-sponsored violence, including war and economic exploitation. I wrote and read the 12^th Station (Jesus dies on the cross) and sang and played music (flute) with Fran Reagan (guitar) in between the stations. There were about 30 people participants taking turns reading, holding the cross, and holding banners. It was warm and sunny and i didn’t wear sunscreen…

That was followed by a Passover Seder at my cousin Jon’s house in Hadley. I met my cousin Amity in Boston and carpooled with her. There were 16 people total, including my aunt Lenore and Bill. The rest were Liz’s family. It was fun – my first REAL seder experience – i.e. how a real American Jewish family does it, not a presentation to show non-Jews how it’s done. Celia played the violin, Rita asked the four questions in sign language, and their other two cousins also participated with music and a modern-day interpretation skit about the Exodus from Egypt. I got back to Agape at midnight…

On Saturday, we had an Easter Vigil service here at Agape. I of course was on the music team. I sang the “Exsultet” at the beginning, which is basically an intro to what the service is all about: we rejoice, we remember what God has done for us, etc. I had never been to an Easter vigil before and never heard it before, so I plunked out the melody on the piano and found it to be very minor, modal, and chant-like. So I said, “this is a happy declaration , it should sound more joyful than that!” So I spent a half hour modifying and practicing it. A couple hours later, as I stood there in front of the 30 people in attendance, I looked down at the music and realized I didn’t really remember what I’d practiced… John, the priest, must have noticed my nervous hesitation because he laid a hand on my shoulder and said a little blessing prayer, which was exactly the boost I needed to get started and not get wrapped up in the perfection of the performance, trust in my own ability and rehearsal, and just sing whatever felt right. it wasn’t “perfect”, but it was good – and I got a lot of compliments from Catholics who had never heard it done that way before. I have to say I was impressed too, because I’ve never done anything like that before and wouldn’t have thought It’s something I could do!

i only got 6 hours of sleep Saturday night, but i managed to get out of bed at 6am on Sunday and drive to Ware for the Easter sunrise service at the United Church. They did it in the adjacent cemetery, which was nice symbolism, and we were facing a stand of trees with the golden haze from the shining behind them. It was short and nice – about 20-30 people present – followed by a pancake breakfast. Then I went for a walk in the park along the Ware river, below the church. It was cool, beautiful, and calm, with lots of birdsong.

later in the morning, i went to the UCC church in Hardwick (Christa’s parish again) for a lovely, fairly traditional-style Easter service including a brass quartet and music by Handel. To my surprise, Christa’s parents invited me to attend Easter brunch with them afterward! It was a lovely buffet at a local “Herb farm.” Apparently they have beautiful gardens and host a lot of weddings in the summer.

In the later afternoon, i drove to a nearby state park with a small lake and sat, read, walked, journaled, in the breezy sunshine. It was about 70 degrees outside and there were people fishing, kayaking, and playing on the little beach. On my drive home i stopped to watch the sunset.

what a beautiful Easter!

can a mountain die?

Today I went for a hike on Mount Wachusett, the highest peak in Massachusetts east of the Berkshires. The view from the top was a 360-degree panorama with Boston to the East and New Hampshire to the North. Unfortunately, it happened to be a somewhat hazy day, but I could just barely make out the lookout tower at the southern end of the Quabbin reservoir in Ware…

The mountain contains 1,000 of the state’s 10,000 remaining acres of old growth forest. It was a crazy trail, and not what I was expecting at all! A lot of it was walking on basalt slabs, part of it was a stone staircase, and in other places I was clambering up a hillside over rocks and roots following the blue blazes.

Part of the trail went through a hemlock forest and short, alpine-like deciduous trees. Another side of the hill was practically barren of undergrowth with a lot of downed trees and branches.

I couldn’t figure out the sensation I was having until the very end of the hike when the word “desolation” settled in my mind and I was overwhelmed by this sense that “the mountain is dying.” It looked like some giant behemoth had clambered along the hillside, pushing trees over, uprooting them, tromping on them once they’d fallen. I don’t understand why the western side of the mountain in particular was so strewn with broken trees. Weather? Is it the effects of wind, ice, water, and snow? It was pretty tragic. I was grateful for every little sign of spring I found along the way.

here comes the spring!

It’s spring in MA! The ground is thawed and the birds are singing. Listening to the birdsong reminds me of being in Honduras.  There’s a pair of bluebirds living in the birdhouse right in front of Francis House. Royal blue backsides, reddish fronts.  beautiful creatures. 

Trees are pruned and beginning to bud, lettuce has been planted in the greenhouse, garden beds are being turned, mosquitoes are hatching…  We had almost 2 full weeks of over 60-degree weather with sunshine! With a few days of flood-inducing rain in between…

We had 2 college groups here on work trips during that time, so we were able to get a LOT of work done!  My body got really tired the first few days because it wasn’t used to doing that amount of physical work in one day – hasn’t happened since the fall!  We did lots of wood hauling down from the woods.

I can’t wait for everything to be green and colorful – a season I haven’t experienced since I’ve been at Agape!

A 2-woman monastery for a week

At the end of February, Brayton went to Haiti to be with some close friends who are medical missionaries there.  While he was gone, it was just Suzanne and I running the show here: two women, one 64, the other 25, praying together 3 times a day and doing all the daily work to run the place, including hauling wood in for the woodstoves.

Suzanne joked about us being like two nuns at a monastery, especially when she saw me sitting in the chapel with my black sweatshirt hood pulled over my head looking like a habit!  The next day we wore matching purple sweaters (unintentionally, I swear!).

We couldn’t help but see the parallels between that and my sister’s life in Honduras and laugh at how two daughters from the same family ended up where we are today…does that mean our parents did a good job?  

moonsong

Oh mystic moon,

before we knew what you were,

you gazed on us

lovingly,

pulling us with you

into some great unknown.

We gazed back,

and were gifted with

sacred glimpses

of God.

We danced,

as the waters of the oceans,

moving to your mysterious rhythm.

Then science explained away

your incredible patterns

and we,

disenchanted,

no longer followed your lunar dance.

But oh glorious glowing globe,

you still gaze on us

lovingly,

mournfully? hopefully?

and waltz with the waters

to the music of an unending

universal

heartsong

Nature as Metaphor

God happened to Suzanne and me yesterday.  We were sitting in the chapel for morning prayer with heaving snow falling all around us and a forecast for 7 inches on our minds, when I opened the bible to the day’s assigned reading from Isaiah (55: 10-11):

“For as the rain and snow come down from heaven,

and do not return there until they have watered the earth,

making it bring forth and sprout,

giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,

So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;

it shall not return to me empty,

but it shall accomplish that which I purpose

and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”

What a stunningly beautiful metaphor of God and life to read in the 3rd month of winter…

We had no choice but to follow it by singing Rain Down (“rain down, rain down, rain down your love on your people, rain down, rain down, rain down your love, God of life”)!

The trees, the water, the flowers and stones, the birds, the ice – nature constantly provides us with metaphors for the spiritual life: trees bending, flowers blooming, seeds sprouting, birds singing and soaring, ice melting, water filling…

But they aren’t trying to do any of this, they aren’t doing it for us, they are simply being.  Being themselves, being what they were created to be.  They are not thinking about it, not choosing to be an example, not wondering if they are correct; just simply living and being. 

And that makes it all the more powerful.

fireboxes

I am a firebox.*

The fire is the Spirit of God alive within me, “luminously glowing,” keeping the “house” of my life warm and vibrant.

To keep a fire going, you must pay attention to it, tend it, stoke it. If you forget about it, it will go out, and if the ashes get cold, it will need to be completely restarted, which is not an efficient use of energy. and meanwhile the house gets cold.

Be always mindful of holding the light of Christ, of God, within you.

*Brayton’s terms for woodstove

first impressions

I went to church in Ware today for the fourth time.  The pastor stood on his head.  The 60-something balding man did a head-stand on the cement floor of the fellowship hall. 

It was his first Sunday.  Which is the only reason we were in the fellowship hall in the first place – because there was actually a coffee hour (!) to welcome him. 

I think the congregants were shocked, or at least highly amused at his antics.  But all he was doing was making friends with the 5-year-old girls who were jumping rope with a pink scarf (which was amusing in itself!)   Reminded me of Dad.  :)

It was nice to finally get to meet some of the members of the congregation, actually talk to people, introduce myself, learn some names, and be welcomed into the community as more than just a guest.  How is a guest supposed to be drawn in to a congregation if there’s no fellowship time after worship?  Thank goodness for new pastors, I guess…

Welcoming the new year

What a wonderful way to end one year and begin another – a reflective mass with 6 other people in the chapel, sharing our prayers and hopes for the coming year.  So much more meaningful and purposeful than your traditional New Year’s Eve celebration, which often seems to be just another excuse to have a party.

I can hear fireworks going off, echoing through the valley.  It would be quite a sight to see them from the edge of the Quabbin, looking out across the water…but I will enjoy imagining the beauty of it, and not think about the fact they are really imitations of exploding bombs…

Happy new year, and may this one be filled with more love, more spirit, more peace, more hope in our lives and our world.

Advent

Now it feels like Christmastime is upon us!  The Advent Evening last night was beautiful and it snowed an inch and it was a gorgeous day today and I’m listening to Christmas music in front of the fire.  =)

There were about 30 people here last night, despite the weather forecast.  That included three young children who helped with the lighting of the Advent candles and six college students who participated in our dramatic performance.  It was a festive, fulfilling, and filling evening (with quite the pot-luck spread!), and a great thing to be a part of. 

It began with a prophetic reading from Isaiah about God restoring the world to a peaceful and just order, followed by a song calling us to “prepare a way for the Lord”, which Christa and I accompanied with a flute duet.  After the lighting of the candles, I led that most wonderful of Advent hymns “All Earth is Waiting” (toda la tierra). 

The best part of the evening was the dramatic poetry reading by Suzanne: a prayer for a Christian soldier to lay down his arms and leave it all behind.  With a young man sitting on a stool center-stage, Christa did an interpretive dance while the poem was read.  It ended with a few of us holding hands and joining in a song of peace. 

There was a gospel reading, a homily by Brayton, and a ritual that involved lighting candles and sharing what “tools of enmity” we were going to lay down.  As that ended, Christa and I played a hauntingly slow flute duet of “Down by the Riverside.”  The program ended with the another poem, the O Antiphons, and everyone singing “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” 

After our souls and spirits were filled, we filled our bodies with delicious food, and then sat around in the living room sharing more music and poetry together until 10:30 at night.       

Happy Adventing, everyone!

awed & astounded

“A tree gives glory to God by being a tree…The more a tree is like itself, the more it is like [God]…This particular tree will give glory to God by spreading out its roots in the earth and raising its branches into the air and the light in a way that no other tree before or after it ever did or will do…

The little yellow flowers that nobody notices on the edge of that road are saints looking up into the face of God. This leaf has its own texture and its own pattern of veins and its own holy shape, and the bass and trout hiding in the deep pools of the river are canonized by their beauty and their strength…Nothing else in the world ever did or ever will imitate God in quite the same way. That is [their] sanctity…

For me to be a saint means to be myself…Trees and animals have no problem. God makes them what they are without consulting them, and they are perfectly satisfied. With us, it is different…”

(Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation)

Wow. What a glorious Sabbath. A day of sunlight after yesterday’s soaking. A long walk with the saints – trees, leaves, rocks, salamanders, slugs, beavers, birds… I am awed and astounded, enchanted and enamored by God’s amazing, incredible creations. By God, as it were.

Today for church, I went on a four-hour walk to the Quabbin and back. I just love the smell of leaves on the ground after it’s rained, and the quietness of the soft, damp ground under my feet made it easier to listen to the sounds of the woods.

I was surprised and overjoyed and the sight of a small bright orange salamander at my feet, and stopped to watch it cautiously edge off the path into the matching leaves.

I went to say hello to a beautiful old tree and discovered a human-inflicted scar on it. I laid my had on the gash, leaned my forehead against the trunk, and prayed breath and life, compassion, apology, healing. Then something caught my eye, dangling and spinning in the air, curved like a pine needle – what was it? A slug? What kind of slug hangs from a thread? Was it caught? The closer I looked, the more fascinated I became. It was indeed a slug of sorts – very small and skinny, about an inch long. It was hanging upside-down from a “string” attached to a piece of bark about a foot above it, and it was slowly but surely descending. I did not know slugs could do that! I stayed there watching it twist and turn and contort its body to steady itself in the precarious breeze as it oh-so-slowly lowered itself down…finally, 4 feet and at least 15 minutes later, it swung forward and clung to a piece of bark about 6 inches above the ground. I could not help but let out a gasp of incredulity and joy at this amazing feat of nature.

Onward to the Quabbin. I sat on a fallen tree along the shore, just listening and looking, overcome by the beauty and stillness that surrounded me. I immersed myself in it, took my shoes off to feel the cool graininess of the sand, let God bathe me with sunlight and sound. Was that a loon I heard making that haunting cry from across the lake? I could hear each bird as it slipped under the water to search for food, the rhythmic beat of wings overhead, far-off birds twittering in the woods, the sound of branches rustling and snapping as an animal moved through the underbrush. I watched a bird and a beaver cross paths in the water, birds soaring and diving to skim the surface, saw the mist begin to gather at the edges…observed the stillness, the quiet, the goodness, the holiness of it all. Life. God.

“And on the 6th day, God looked at everything that had been created – the land, the waters, the trees and plants, the birds of the air, the creatures of the sea, the land-dwelling animals of all sizes, the humans, everything seen and unseen…and God said it was good. And then God rested.”

Drenched

I went for a walk in the drizzle yesterday, turned my face to the sky, and just stood there for five minutes, letting the raindrops fall on my face, remembering those New York summer storms in which we would run outside, laughing, and get drenched in the wonders of God…

life-work

I love the fact that I was instructed by my “boss” to stop early and not work so hard and wear myself out; that I deserved and needed a break.

“Stop!” She said. “Take a break and rest! Go for a walk in the woods before it rains. It’s not healthy to be stuck in the house all day, you need to get outside! You’ve done enough today – go!”

So go I did – out to the Quabbin to sit on the rocky shore and breathe with the waves and watch the sun set behind the dark hills and windy clouds; to relax my body that was tired of cooking and cleaning; to soothe my mind, rejuvenate my spirit; to connect with the God that is in all and through all; to feel the presence of the Spirit around me and let it fill me.

Being in nature – letting myself be overwhelmed by it – is the best way I know of to connect with God, and if I want to live my life so that everything I do is an expression of my spirituality, then I need to have regular, intentional time in nature.

Here at Agape, that is understood as an integral part of life.

Life here is not about the Job – although there is certainly lots of work to be done! But the goal of life here is life itself. We don’t live in order to work or work in order to live, the way many people do: people who get a job simply so they can pay the bills and, if they earn enough, go enjoy themselves on their time off; people to whom life is meaningless if they can’t prove their worth to their family or society by being employed.

Rather, at Agape the work is a part of life, but the purpose is to be living and practicing a simple, spiritually grounded life, a whole life, that is supported by community and grounded in nature. It’s not about being a “good” worker who will do everything the boss says and beyond, in spite of your opinions about the task you may be assigned, in order to be appreciated and prove your value and maybe even get a raise. The work that happens at Agape is about living your beliefs and witnessing to your convictions and teaching other about how to go and do likewise.

It’s been a while…

Hey people – it’s been a while since I put anything up on this blog, so if that’s the only way you keep up with what I’m doing you would have been completely in the dark since August…sorry! My life has been pretty unsettled, with lots of traveling and decision-making.

After JVC ended, I went back to Philadelphia and stayed with my aunt for a few weeks. Not be able to decide what to do with my life, I decided instead to go on a trip: first to Asheville, North Carolina to visit Leah McCullough (former campus minister at Oregon State) and attend a Carrie Newcomer workshop and concert. Then, I flew to Chicago where I spent 2 and a half days with two good friends from my college days, Tracy and Sarah. From there I took the Megabus to Minneapolis and visited my aunt, uncle, and cousins for a week, along with getting to see a couple college friends and spending a day in Northfield visiting professors and church folk. when that was over, I flew back to Asheville, where I spent a few more weeks at Leah’s house, walking in the “mountains”, and attending a number of interesting lectures (Marcus Borg, Elias Chacour, Shane Claiborne…).

Eventually, I returned to Philadelphia – the first week of October. It was the epic kind of Greyhound bus ride you never want to experience…to put it briefly: delays, overbooked routes, overflow buses, missed connections, and unorganized boarding got me to Philly 7 hours later than I was originally scheduled to arrive…

So there I was, back in Philly again, trying to figure out where to go from there…finally – finally! – I made enough of a decision to put me on the road again, not sure exactly how it would turn out, but happy to be moving on.

And now I’m here at Agape, living in the woods about two miles’ distance from the great Quabbin reservoir. Hiking, reading, praying, working, and mastering the art of driving a stick-shift. Read more about it here.