Retreat

Be still, and the world is bound to turn herself inside out to entertain you.

Everywhere you look, joyful noise is clanging to drown out quiet desperation.

High Tide in Tucson, by Barbara Kingsolver

When I was a youngster, I absolutely loved going to camp. There was something surreal about the experience, and the setting. I loved the connection to God I felt there. I felt that same thing last week as June 16-18, 2012, I was able to attend a three-day meditation retreat. We arrived on Saturday shortly after lunch. My dear friend, Claudia Mierau, has been attending this particular meditation retreat for about nine years. She and I were assigned to the same room so we brought in our luggage, and Claudia showed me around, introducing me to others she has known over the years. I had the sense that we were all a bit like children in our excitement and anticipation.

The retreat was held at The Emrich Retreat Center at Parishfield—nestled among 5,000 acres of state park land in Brighton, Michigan.

The Emrich Retreat Center at Parishfield in Brighton, Michigan.

We gathered for an opening session in the meditation hall (held in the chapel), and each person introduced him- or herself, sharing a bit about our meditation experience, and telling if we had previously attended this specific retreat.

There was a wonderful mix of newbies and veterans, and I found some of the stories of what brought each of us there very touching. Easy conversation was shared over dinner—especially sweet as we all knew that once we entered the evening gathering we would all be in "noble silence" for the balance of the retreat. Being silent allows you to have your concentration on your practice of mindfulness as you walk, shower, open and close doors, do our work assignments, etc. I am not new to the practice of silence, but this was the largest group (maybe 50 people) and the longest time frame (3 days), and I found it to be a welcome and wonderful gift to body, mind, and spirit. 

During the interview process with the teachers, I was given the suggestion of focusing especially on walking meditation during the free-time for practice. I was blessed to enjoy my practice in a marvelous labyrinth in the meadow near our dorm.

One of the first "lessons" came as I watched a bee drawing nectar from a buckhorn. In my mind, I was aware of the way I have experienced jealousy when other teachers have audience and fame. It was as though I was aware of an intrinsic knowing of the bee as to where to be. Deep peace came to my heart as I let that truth seep into my wounded perspectives of not being recognized or valued. Each awareness blessed me more and more deeply as the silence allowed me to witness my own inner states with compassion. 

According to the chef, the labyrinth was home to fourteen varieties of dragonflies!

One exercise was particularly profound. To see beyond the mundane, we were encouraged to look with defocused eyes or if we wore them to take off our glasses. I took my glasses off and spent the next hour walking in the labyrinth with that soft focus, seeing just the outlines of shapes and colors (big picture), rather than being focused on the details. 

When I got to the center, I put my glasses back on and the beauty of the detail of the wildflowers nearly took my breath away! 

I came away from my time at Emrich with a profound sense of inner peace. I will do my best to recall the experiences I had there and to make time to practice that holy awareness every day. What gift you give to the world when you can do that... and what gift you receive!

Opinions, Truth, and Trees

Over the weekend, a wonderful young, Zen worker gave my front walkway a facelift, replacing the old, worn out, poorly installed concrete sidewalk with some beautiful new pavers—artfully designed and lovingly installed. Thank you, Rob Roy! 

Thank you, Rob Roy, for designing and building our new Zen walkway!

This morning, I am enjoying the surprisingly cool air and the peaceful ambiance while having my inner time out here. As I listen to the sounds of the birds—and the sounds of the traffic—I am reminded of the saying that opinions are like @$$holes. Everyone has one.

In my opinion, the bird sounds, and the gentle singing of the leaves blowing in the breeze, are sounds of nature, and the traffic sounds (both near and distant) are not.

Seng-ts'an said there is no need to seek the truth—just put a stop to your opinions.  If his name is new to you, an internet search will reveal that his life was lived in the late sixth century, and he was the third patriarch of the early Chan (Zen) lineage in China. One teaching story about his life is that he had leprosy when he met his teacher, Hui-k'o, when Hui-k'o asked Seng-ts'an what he could possibly want since he had leprosy.

According to one website, Seng-ts'an is supposed to have replied, "Even if my body is sick, the heart-mind of a sick person is no different from you heart-mind." Impressed by this response, Hui-k'o accepted Seng-ts'an as his disciple, and later named him his spiritual successor.

It probably comes as no surprise that our earth is under some stress right now. That is something a lot of people have a lot of opinions about. I have a few of my own. Yesterday I took this photo of some beautiful trees, all of which had been brutally maimed to accommodate utility lines. As the horror of the butchering came into my awareness, I heard these words of wisdom inside my head, “This could have all been avoided by simply putting the wires underground or realizing how big we would grow to be and planting us in a safe place.”

There is a better way.... Utility wires can be underground.

Both yesterday and today I have drawn the Gecko card, the subtitle of which is: Do What We Must in Struggles. Gecko teaches the importance of righteous anger and the need for proper responses to the causes of that anger. We lessen stress by doing what we can. 

We can place utility wires underground and we can plan sufficiently as to give trees room to  take root and grow tall and live long and happy lives filled with just the right amount of rain and sun and wind and calm. And we can remember that all humans are a part of nature—rather than a part from nature.

One opinion I hold is what the world needs now is awareness…. My life is dedicated to expanding my own and that of others. I will begin right now by surrendering my opinion in order to let truth find me sitting here on my beautiful new walkway enjoying the early morning air and the sounds of all of nature.

An Invincible Host

Your success and happiness lie in you....

Resolve to keep happy,

and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties.

~ Helen Keller

It seems as though I have used this quotation before. Helen Keller's attitude always touches me. A few years ago, the beautiful daughter of my dear friend, Tanya, played the role in The Miracle Worker at our local community theater. It is quite significant to realize that challenges can create character. 

Forgiveness can feel a lot like the dawn coming up over the horizon.

Recently, I have been working as administrative assistant to Johnny on the Spot Window Cleaning Service. It is amazing to me the difference in attitudes people have. What makes that difference? Is it personality or circumstances? I certainly know at times I bring my best to the table and at other times I fall far short. 

And just last night, worn to an emotional breaking point by a very demanding schedule complicated by two days of rain, we were edgy with one another, having gone to bed in stony silence. Fortunately, this morning the sun is out. He came down the hall and said simply but honestly, "I am sorry for being such a crab last night." My response, "It's OK. We have both been under a lot of pressure."

The following is excerpted from “I’m Still Learning to Forgive” by Corrie ten Boom (Guideposts Magazine. Copyright © 1972 by Guideposts Associates, Inc., Carmel, New York 10512).

It was in a church in Munich that I saw him—a balding, heavyset man in a gray overcoat, a brown felt hat clutched between his hands. People were filing out of the basement room where I had just spoken, moving along the rows of wooden chairs to the door at the rear. It was 1947 and I had come from Holland to defeated Germany with the message that God forgives.

It was the truth they needed most to hear in that bitter, bombed-out land, and I gave them my favorite mental picture. Maybe because the sea is never far from a Hollander’s mind, I liked to think that that’s where forgiven sins were thrown. ‘When we confess our sins,’ I said, ‘God casts them into the deepest ocean, gone forever. …’

The solemn faces stared back at me, not quite daring to believe. There were never questions after a talk in Germany in 1947. People stood up in silence, in silence collected their wraps, in silence left the room.

And that’s when I saw him, working his way forward against the others. One moment I saw the overcoat and the brown hat; the next, a blue uniform and a visored cap with its skull and crossbones. It came back with a rush: the huge room with its harsh overhead lights; the pathetic pile of dresses and shoes in the center of the floor; the shame of walking naked past this man. I could see my sister’s frail form ahead of me, ribs sharp beneath the parchment skin. Betsie, how thin you were!

[Betsie and I had been arrested for concealing Jews in our home during the Nazi occupation of Holland; this man had been a guard at Ravensbruck concentration camp where we were sent.]

Now he was in front of me, hand thrust out: ‘A fine message, Fräulein! How good it is to know that, as you say, all our sins are at the bottom of the sea!’

And I, who had spoken so glibly of forgiveness, fumbled in my pocketbook rather than take that hand. He would not remember me, of course—how could he remember one prisoner among those thousands of women?

But I remembered him and the leather crop swinging from his belt. I was face-to-face with one of my captors and my blood seemed to freeze.

‘You mentioned Ravensbruck in your talk,’ he was saying, ‘I was a guard there.’ No, he did not remember me.

‘But since that time,’ he went on, ‘I have become a Christian. I know that God has forgiven me for the cruel things I did there, but I would like to hear it from your lips as well. Fräulein,’ again the hand came out—’will you forgive me?’

And I stood there—I whose sins had again and again to be forgiven—and could not forgive. Betsie had died in that place—could he erase her slow terrible death simply for the asking?

It could not have been many seconds that he stood there—hand held out—but to me it seemed hours as I wrestled with the most difficult thing I had ever had to do.

For I had to do it—I knew that. The message that God forgives has a prior condition: that we forgive those who have injured us. ‘If you do not forgive men their trespasses,’ Jesus says, ‘neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses.’

I knew it not only as a commandment of God, but as a daily experience. Since the end of the war I had had a home in Holland for victims of Nazi brutality. Those who were able to forgive their former enemies were able also to return to the outside world and rebuild their lives, no matter what the physical scars. Those who nursed their bitterness remained invalids. It was as simple and as horrible as that.

And still I stood there with the coldness clutching my heart. But forgiveness is not an emotion—I knew that too. Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart. … 'Help!’ I prayed silently. ‘I can lift my hand. I can do that much. You supply the feeling.’

And so woodenly, mechanically, I thrust my hand into the one stretched out to me. And as I did, an incredible thing took place. The current started in my shoulder, raced down my arm, sprang into our joined hands. And then this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes.

‘I forgive you, brother!’ I cried. ‘With all my heart!’

For a long moment we grasped each others hands, the former guard and the former prisoner. I had never known God’s love so intensely, as I did then.

One of the many crosses I saw in Europe last year.

I am coming to appreciate how much my physical well-being is connected to my emotional well-being, and vice versa. When I am tired or hungry or have not been eating well, I have fewer emotional resources. Likewise, when I am angry or afraid, annoyed or frustrated, my hormones and my physiology are adversely affected by those emotions. If Corrie ten Boom could forgive, perhaps there is that sacred space within each one of us as well. 

It reminds me of the reading for today in Mark Nepo's The Book of Awakening, "Tragedy stays alive by feeding what's been done to us, while peace comes alive by living with the result." We truly are human beings having a physical experience, aren't we....