LisaColonDeLay – Page 330 – Lisa Colón DeLay | Spiritual Formation and the Way of the Desert Elders

Aug & Time off

na&Bob police tat umbr1 What an August so far. I finished my ancient Hebrew class final. 12 verses from the Hebrew Bible, are done, and I’m glad it’s over with. I just had a chance to catch up with some friends from college, and some I hadn’t seen in a decade and a half! And then came a sudden awful tragedy–The violent fatal road accident , my husband and I witnessed. I doubt those horrific images will soon fade from my mind. It may be a while before I write about that, and what I’ve been thinking about regarding that. It’s all still a bit raw.

Yesterday was a day at the beach. It had high points, frustrations, and perils. The low points involved regurgitation, but I won’t get in to that. Some of the high points included getting to know Rachel better. She will be a senior this year. It was watching my son get thrashed by the waves time and again, continue to have fun, and learn how to ride them toward shore. It was giving Nathan and a few other people body drawings with a fine sharpie pens, and watching their faces light up. It was wrangling the umbrella that decided to bolt. It was people watching, and jumping the warm ocean swells. It was seeing my daughter play well and cheerfully with a new friend.

I need a few days to, in a sense, congeal, and pick up some pieces I’ve dropped. Fall, Winter, Spring, and Summer studies back-to-back-to-back have made me too long gone, in ways that couldn’t be helped, but can take one’s wind, and leave one panting, and weary. So there is pain and wound I’m only now realizing, and I need to tend to it, and see whatever it is.

More soon.

Lost Dog Tootsie

tootsie Jumpy, foolish, and run amuck. That was Tootsie. I didn’t know her name, but when a skittish dog weaved up the center of my street towing a 20 foot chain, I called out to her, and tried to help.

She was friendly, but fearful. She panted and started for me, but when she realized I might end her dash toward total independence, she started to scoot away–her long chain clattered behind her. Instead of heightening my urgency, I scaled it back, and made my tone friendlier. “Come here, it’s okay!” I tapped my leg in what is a sort of international signal for dog to come. She perked up her ears, and darted around, still unsure of her next move. She was going to bolt. The long muddy chain was her foil. I edged after her, and she made a break for it. Then, I stepped on the chain, and used it to reel her in. Once arrested from flight, she was friendly and excited. With a hyper spirit only a very inbred dog exhibits, she jumped, and spun, and zipped about. My daughter was delighted.

Now to find the owner. The last thing I wanted was to keep a dog like this for too long. I sighed relief–her dog tag had a phone number. I phoned–the number was disconnected. She began barking, and jumping, popped two of our plastic balls, and knocked over her new water dish for the fourth time. I hoped there would be a big reward for finding her.

About an hour later, three children who had heard familiar barking came to get her. They said her name was Tootsie. Their gate was open, and they didn’t know how she got away.

I got to thinking about Tootsie, and her recklessness. Her ignorance of her freedom, and the danger she didn’t know she was in apart from her caretakers. The wild look in her eye, and the confusion of being on her own–excited, yet quite lost, and ultimately alone. Until I stepped in, her fate was dubious.

I wonder if we think of people with the same kind companion we do for animals. When someone has lost their way, feels alone, or is out of the watchful care they need, do we hurry to help them? Or do we size up everything first? Do we decide if it’s worth it, or if they are worthy of the work we’ll have to put in?

Maybe it’s easier to help an animal because we assume they are quite helpless, but people can do far better helping themselves. But, the truth is, no one can go it alone. Not Tootsie, not me, not you, not anyone. Reaching out is the only way things genuinely improve. And I don’t mean reaching out just any way, but with true graciousness. Real compassion, and the kind of love we hope is shown to us, or those we love.

How do you feel about it?

And have you ever rescued a person or animal?

Go ahead and talk about it in a comment. :)

Thanks for reading.

Christmas Spirit (in July)

snowmansand

It’s July 25th. Christmas day is exactly 6 months behind us. It seems far away from my mind now. Time has shot by, but the happenings of the day are sort of fuzzy. Every year I hear people say, “I wish the season of Christmas spirit lasted all year.” Or, maybe they even claim it does in their hearts. It does in some ways for me, but the greater reality is that I go from season to season, and at different times certain things stand out as more special. In the summer, I enjoy the outdoors more probably for the simple reason that I spend more time outdoors because of good weather. In the winter, I appreciate my close ties with immediate family and working on my interior life in substantial ways that play out in the months that follow the hard work of that time.

Defining what is the Christmas spirit can be slippery, because each person may hold a bit of a different emphasis. The gift of the Incarnation is celebrated that day, and the love, goodwill, grace, and peace of that event can inspire us to live that out toward, God, others, and hopefully ourselves.

What is the “Christmas Spirit” to you? What of it can play out in July?

What one (or more) thing/s will you do to fill your life with this spirit this weekend?

Let’s try a concerted effort at a Christmas in July experiment for the next day or so, and see what happens.

Thanks for coming by.

Prayer / Sacred Reading

Lectio Divina means sacred reading, and it can be a wonderful way to involve Scripture to meditate and pray to our Creator. It is a worshipful time away with God that helps to build a time of close communion with the Divine. It isn’t a time of pouring a heap of requests at God’s feet, but it’s a time of respectful listening for God, waiting, and allowing God be made known.

A friend of mine from New Zealand describes this spiritual practice in simple terms. (click the link) I will add more posts about it myself, later. I thought many of you could benefit from his input. Enjoy a time of lectio divina with your maker soon.

And please get back to me (leaving a comment, or on the contact page) with what it was like for you (whether positive, negative, or neutral).

How can life become prayer

One big reason I set out to try to spend time on this message (with a book proposal and a blog) is to show that God is usually different than we make him out to be. This comes out in the Bible. He’s full of surprises. He sews leather outfits for the couple who betrayed him. He gives clemency to the first murderer. Jacob the devious trickster is father to a great nation. “Jacob have I loved, Easu have I hated.” In a better translation of the Hebrew, God says: “I am favoring Jacob, but not Easu.” God points this out much in a twist of the plot, and our normal assumptions, much to our surprise. It’s all to show his wild grace, which none of us deserve. The running narrative in the Bible isn’t much of a “how to do right living” book. The characters featured are usually full of flaws. It is rather a collection of stories where God’s power and grace shines through and saves the day.

This is a God we can love and trust. It is often a God we weren’t taught about too much in church or Sunday school. Perhaps Jesus was taught to us this way-a lamb draped on his shoulders, and such. But, God is often taught as something of a splintered off honcho, a petulant Being who has had a habit of smiting people.

The idea of understanding God’s character anew, through informed context, is that it leads us to understand the Reality of “him,” and the omnipresence of this Being, God Almighty, always in the regular moments of life. Every moment may be a chance for greater awareness and communion with the lover of our nefesh (soul-whole being). It doesn’t boil down to a set of rules or rituals. It is a relationship, a prayer between us and the Supreme Other. Our life becomes prayer.