The Headless Marys

It sounds like the title of a zombie-esque film noir: The Headless Marys.

It is in fact the name of a contemplative prayer group to which I belong. At 48, I am the youngest of the bunch. Most are retired nurses or teachers. In other words, they are women who have been active, other-focused, do-gooders most of their lives.

They are not women who indulge in hours of bonbon-eating leisure. The group’s name, while conjuring macabre horror-film images, actually refers to our collective desire to move from our heads to our hearts as the focused centre of our spiritual lives—a la Mary, Lazarus’ sister, who sat at the feet of Jesus while her active, “do-er” sister scurried about in frenetic activity.

As women all sympathetic to Martha and thus inclined toward frenetic activity, our coming together is something of a radical act. We are pushing against our culture’s obsession with stimulation and information and noise and distraction.

As a society, North Americans are so obsessed with sensory input that, when surveyed, 67% of men and 25% of women would rather receive mild electric shocks than sit in silence for 15 minutes.

Ummmm. Hello?

Our little group has enough collective wisdom to recogonize the deep neurosis hidden in these statistics..........

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The Long-Haul Goodness of Community

“So, how’s the commune?” asks the man with floppy brown hair. I can tell by his smile he thinks he’s being original.

“It’s great,” I answer. “But it’s not a commune. It’s a community.”

He laughs. “Can’t fool me. Lots of people. Organic gardens. Shared living spaces. Sauna. You’re a commune.”

We’re not! I want to protest. And then I wonder, Why am I feeling so defensive? Why do I so NOT want to be identified as a commune?

I’m sure it has something to do with the most popular caricatures of communes. First, the hippie variety: places roiling with free-love, utopian ideals and hairy-legged women. Or, second, the fundamentalist variety: places rife with rules, head-coverings and dour expressions.

Happily, Kingfisher Farm, my home and the home of 24 others, fits neither of these stereotypes.

Here’s the backstory: About five and a half years ago my husband and I gathered some friends, a few of whom we barely knew, and asked them if they wanted to buy a farm together. (A farm that had formerly served as the A Rocha Environmental Centre we helped start.) It’s a big decision–buying a farm—and even bigger when you’re doing it with people with whom you share no blood ties and, in some cases, very little history. Therefore, we met as a group bi-weekly for about five months to discern. Together we explored if a) we liked each other well enough to live together b) Shared enough vision and values to make this place more than a glorified playground for our kids and c) did we have enough money to make it work.

On one particular rainy night, we discussed our creation care values. A man in the group (we’ll call him Ralph) argued for environmental standards for our little farm. He chose dish soap as his case study. We would all need to agree to use bio-degradable, earth-friendly dish soap, no exceptions. A few of us balked. We had nothing against biodegradable dish soap per se, we just didn’t want our kitchens legislated.

Ralph was flummoxed.

Rick (his real name), gave voice to what the rest of us were trying to articulate. “What the world needs,” said Rick in a thoughtful tone of voice, “is not people who can live united to a high standard. What the world needs is a group of people who can get along, despite their differences.”

Ralph left the conversation disappointed. So disappointed, we later learned, that he hardly slept that night. At our next meeting he announced that his family would be pulling out of the process. They were sorry, it was a very hard decision, but they needed firmer standards. The soap conversation was, evidently, just the tip of the iceberg.

“Peace takes time,” wrote Stanley Hauerwas.

This is why I live in community. There’s no walking away from an annoying friend when his signature is scrawled next to yours on the mortgage documents! A commitment to my 24 farm mates over the long haul has created a stability that has opened possibilities to grow in love and forgiveness. We have indeed held each other to our higher ideals, but not in a preachy, finger-pointing way. I have been encouraged, for example, to resist North America’s dominate narrative of consumerism and individualism because I’ve watched my farm mates shop at Value Village and volunteer with refugee claimants and grow vegetables without pesticides or herbicides....

Read the rest over at Shelovesmagazine by clicking here.

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Take a Walk on the Wild Side

Hello, Blog Chums!

Here's a piece I wrote a few weeks back for Shelovesmagazine. In case you didn't see it there, I offer it to you now. Actually, if I do say so myself, I think it's one of my better ones. :)  So, read on and then click the link at the end to read the rest over at Sheloves.

I step off the northeast corner of our little farm and into a forest. It’s a small patch of trees really; semi-trucks can be heard barreling down the roads that border two sides of this small Eden. But despite its diminutive size this woodland packs a biodiverse punch. On my arboreal path I have encountered white tale deer, an American beaver, red-legged frogs, rough-skinned newts and birds of copious variety from owls to warblers to heron flying in cruciform overhead. And then there are the trees—magnificent Douglas Firs and towering Western Red Cedars whose branches fall like shawls off the shoulders of giant women.

As I walk amongst these trees I brake spider webs with my face and am reminded ofMary Oliver’s poem and the spider with her “surplus of legs” and injurious glare.

In the fall, when the spiders have grown to the size of coins I walk with a stick, held out like a machete, allowing me to hack my way through the gossamer threads, a hacking which sends the spiders sailing like trapeze artists to safer shores under twigs or leaves. But in spring and early summer I let my face lead the way. The light is usually so dim I don’t see the webs coming, but I walk on anyway, until strings of web and pencil point-sized spiders dangle from my head like Hasidic curls, imply a vow.

And this is my vow: to map this place with my walking. To, every day, wake to the gratuitous wonders served up by the hand of a generous Creator. To breathe in creation, and in that breathing find myself restored, recalibrated.

It sounds very Walden Pond Wonderful, doesn’t it? Walk in the wood, and, voila, a new saner self. It sounds so Walden Pond Wonderful, that even I, an every day forest walker, am tempted to roll my eyes and get on with the daily work of making the world a better place.

But what if I told you that science backs me up on this one? What if I told you that walking in woods lowers the stress hormone cortisol in the brain, while at the same time increasing cerebral blood flow, immune defense and overall mental health—all health benefits that the same amount of walking in the city or on a treadmill do not confer. This is true—studies have shown it, my friends!

.......but wait, there's more!!!......

Read the rest of the article by clicking this link:  Shelovesmagazine

My Half-Way Through Summer Reading List: Books I Have Read, Am Reading, or Intend to Read in These Warm Months

Compass of Affection by Scott Cairns (poetry): This slim volume of new and collected poems has been on my shelf for years. I’ve dabbled in it, but have never read it cover to cover. I’ve picked it up again because a.) Annie Dillard calls Cairns “one of the best poets alive,” and b.) because Cairns penned of one of my all-time favourite terms of endearments (from God to humanity): “beloved numbskulls.”

What a Plant Knows, A Field Guide to the Senses by Daniel Chamovitz (non-fiction, science): This book was one of Amazon’s Ten Best Science and Math Books of 2012. So of course I’m reading it. Actually, I’ve never read a Math book for pleasure and Science books only make my reading list if they are fascinating and accessible to art majors – this one seems both. Here’s a bit of a summary from the back cover: “an intriguing look at how plants themselves experience the world—from the colors they see to the schedules they keep…Chamovitz encourages us all to consider whether plants might even be aware.” Hmmmm!

My Bright Abyss by Christian Wiman (memoir): Oh my goodness! I recently finished this amazing book and I am still reeling (in a good way). Christian Wiman served as editor of Poetry magazine (the most prestigious poetry gig going). Not so much a narrative sort of memoir, but paragraph-long musings on faith, doubt, love and hope, all set against the backdrop of Wiman’s devastating cancer diagnosis and prognosis, this book required a thinking cap, but the mental effort is so worth it. As I read I felt my heart/soul/insides expand to near bursting. And throughout the last chapter I wept.

Medicine River by Thomas King (novel): Another book that has been on my shelf for years. I grabbed this one on my way out the door for our annual holiday on Galiano Island because it looked like good beach reading. And it was. It’s the story of a good-hearted, generous half-Blackfoot man who bumbles along with little self-awareness but bucket loads of kindness. It’s also the story of family, community, identity, love and healing.

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupery (Children’s lit): Can you believe my kids (aged 12 and 14) had never read or been read this book? When I discovered this horrifying fact a few weeks ago I set out to remedy the situation pronto. We finished reading it aloud last night. It was as good as I remembered.

Inner Compass, an Invitation to Ignatian Spirituality by Margaret Silf (non-fiction, spiritual formation): This book is a layman’s Jesuit/Ignatian Theology and Practice 101. While the writing style is a bit clunky, the practical exercises have been helpful especially the insights on consolation and desolation.

Hold Me Tight, Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love by Dr. Sue Johnson (non-fiction, marriage): Attachment theory meets marriage advice. Johnson is a psychologist and the creator of the groundbreaking Emotionally Focused Therapy. Throw out all that advice you've read about unpacking your childhoods, learning how to argue better, making grand romantic gestures. ”Instead," says Johnson, "get to the emotional underpinnings of your relationship…” Just finished this one last night too. Really good.

Why Did the Chicken Cross the Word? The Epic Saga of the Bird That Powers Civilization by Andrew Lawler (non-fiction, journalism/natural history): Here’s the blurb from the jacket: "Why did the Chicken Cross the World presents the sweeping history that this humble fowl deserves. Queen Victoria was obsessed with it. Socrate’s last words were about it. Charles Darwin and Louis Pasteur made their scientific breakthroughs using it. Catholic popes, African shamans, Chinese philosophers, and Muslim mystics praised it. Neuroscientists studying the long-abused chicken brain are uncovering signs of a deep intelligence as well as insights into our own behavior.” This is why I’m reading it. And because one reviewer said that it reads like a mystery novel. And because we keep chickens.

What are you reading, Blog Chums?

The Slow Sacred Texts of the Dying

photo credti: Macia Pevey

My sister sits daily at the bedsides of the dying.

She is a hospice chaplain. This is her job.

On a recent visit to a private residence, my sister was greeted by the 80-year-old daughter of a 104-year-old dying woman. The daughter, white-haired and stooped, opened the door and in a sing-song drawl called over her shoulder, “Mama, the preacher’s here,” a pronouncement that had my sister rubber-necking over her own shoulder looking for “the preacher” who had snuck in behind her.This geriatric announcement, “Mama, the preacher’s here,” while so funny on so many levels, is also so true. My sister is a preacher. She preaches from the slow, sacred texts of the dying’s last days.

This is what she preaches:

We need to fearlessly affirm. The dying shed all inhibitions. My sister, middle-aged and of normal attractiveness, has been told she’s beautiful by more patients than she can count. The approach of death has not affected these people’s eyesight; it’s affected their inhibition, shattering the veneer of decorum that has kept them from voicing their true feelings and thoughts. The words come forth in childlike innocence and honesty and are therefore the furthest thing from flattery because they are offered by those with nothing to lose or gain. My sister receives these words like the benedictions they are.

We need to connect at all costs. On one particular visit, my sister entered a hospital room to find the patient’s children hunched, each in his or her own chair, paralyzed in isolation and anxiety at the decline of their mother. My sister sat with them, holding their mother’s hand. Gently, she suggested that the patient’s 60-year-old daughter place her hand on her mother’s leg.It was a simple act, but in touching her mother, this grieving woman broke the spell that held her apart from the one she wanted to love. Soon she was massaging her mother’s feet as her siblings swapped stories from their childhood. One truly hilarious story involved a rabid squirrel, a garbage can, and a baseball bat. Soon they were weeping with laughter, the beauty of their connectedness restored by physical contact and their shared stories............

But wait, there's more! To read the rest of this post take a little jaunt over to Shelovesmagazine. The ending is just a click away.

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Postcard from Portugal (so why the cranes?!)

Every spring and fall, the North American prairies host a remarkable event. It’s called kettling. Migrating Sandhill CranesGrus canadensis pause en route to come together and ride the thermals. Their numbers reach hundreds of thousands, all aloft, all rising and soaring in a mysterious symmetry. I’ve stood below such a spectacle of swirling flight and marveled. What calls them to come together? Why not just set off in their individual flocks, as efficiency would dictate? I am not an ornithologist. I’m a storyteller and so my anthropomorphized version would go something like this: the Sandhill Cranes come for a family reunion of sorts – swap stories of the past season, make plans for the next, and encourage one another for the next leg of the journey.

I’ve just come back from a similar sort of family reunion. It was seriously lacking in the plumage and spindly legs of the cranes’ gathering, but we did come from varied flocks to fly together for a while in Portugal. A Rocha leaders and other participants from over 20 countries, on every continent but Antarctica (we’re still waiting for the penguins to send a delegate) came together for a five-day gathering that occurs just once every three years. We sang with gusto in at least three languages and were challenged by the wise words of biblical theologian Ruth Padilla DeBorst. But most of all we were encouraged by the incredible stories shared − stories of saving forests in Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya, stories of opening the eyes of children to the wonders of creation in New Zealand, the UK and Uganda, stories of significant conservation research on elephants, storm-petrels, and plovers.

They were good stories. They were bolstering stories.

Would you like to hear one?

This one comes from Mwamba, A Rocha’s field study centre in Kenya, on the Indian Ocean coast and was told to me by Jaap Gijsbertsen who, along with his family, spent a year and a half helping lead the work.

He was asked to provide a retreat and teaching for Erisata, a community development organization in the Masai Mara reserve. Jaap happily agreed and put together a one-week course that included the theology of creation care as well as practical application, with plenty of time spent getting up close and personal with habitats and creatures surrounding the A Rocha centre.

At the end of the week, the A Rocha team took the Masai participants out in a glass-bottom boat over a coral reef reserve where they conduct their conservation research. None of the participants had ever been in a boat, let alone swum in water. As herdsmen, living 700 km from the ocean, learning to swim is completely irrelevant and even going into water is seen as dangerous and irresponsible behaviour.

Therefore, when Jaap offered these dignified Masai land-lovers snorkels, fins and masks, they balked. But with a bit more coaxing the village headman and pastor showed his leadership by accepting Jaap’s offer.

After strapping a flotation device around his waist, he took the plunge, and proceeded to float face down over the coral reef. He floated so long, without coming up for air, that his fellow tribesmen began to grow restless. Just as they were arguing about who should go to the headman’s rescue, he shot his head from the water. His face broke into a wide smile as he shouted, ‘Halleluiah! God is truly amazing! You will not believe what is under there!’

His amazement at the beauty of what he had beheld was infectious and almost all the other participants went in as well, each emerging with his own wonder-struck expression.

The week came to a close and the participants left transformed. They left not only with a fuller biblical understanding of God’s love for all of creation and their responsibility to actively care for the Masai Mara, but with an awe-inspiring first-hand understanding of a world they never knew existed.

And because, as leaders of A Rocha National Organizations, we came together and heard this story we left transformed as well – transformed in the knowledge that creation care begins with wonder.

Creation care begins with wonder and is sustained by gathering in friendship, song, wisdom and the sharing of stories.

Hate Mail and the Good Christian Woman

“Hate mail” and “good Christian woman” are not phrases usually found in the same sentence. Good Christian women certainly do not write hate mail, and heaven forbid they should act or speak in a way that warrants receiving it.

And yet, when a good Christian woman steps outside the bounds of her prescribed social or political boundaries, when she dares to speak or act without permission from those setting the status-quo agenda, watch out. And get ready for an avalanche of vitriol.

Katharine Hayhoe is one such woman. She receives up to 250 pieces of hate mail a day—some of it so obscene and threatening that the FBI has been called in to investigate.

Her offense?

She’s a Christian woman of a theologically and politically conservative stripe and she is a Ph.D. climate scientist. Her mission: convince fellow Christians of the realities and dangers of climate change, a mission that last year landed her on Time Magazine’s “100 Most Influential People in the World” list.

Hayhoe is accomplishing her mission by presenting the irrefutable science in presentations across North America. She also is demonstrating how the proponents of climate change denial have purposefully targeted conservative Christians. It’s quite sinister, actually.....

Read the rest at Shelovesmagazine

Becoming the Woman in the Mirror

Every time I look in the mirror I receive a jolt. Who is this woman staring at me through eyes marked by a spray of smile lines, with hair the colour of antiqued pewter? It’s not the signs of age that shock me—it’s the overall effect. The woman in the mirror looks mature in all senses of the word. She certainly doesn’t match the image I have carried of myself through most of my life—the image of someone young, a child even. Someone who giggles and speaks in a sing-song voice. Someone gentle and mistake-prone and completely lacking in authority and wisdom. 

But the grey hair and smile lines have started to dupe the outside world. Apparently, they think I have something to say, as evidenced by the number of invitations I am starting to receive to share “my wisdom” at conferences and gatherings...

Read the rest of this post (...how will it end!?!...) over at ShelovesMagazine

Daring to Love Your Neighbour

I share a farm with five other families, a few singles, two cows and lots of chickens. Our farm balances on the crest of suburbia. As in, across the street from our muddy fields lie 600 cookie-cutter homes, almost all built within the past five years.

Back in December, as an expression of neighbourly cheer and communal togetherness, we decided to go Christmas carolling in this brand-spanking-new neighbourhood. We put up flyers on neighbourhood mailboxes and invited them for hot apple cider before and after the wassailing.
The first two homes we approached proved very promising. We belted out Frosty the Snowman with gusto and the children laughed and the moms’ eyes sparkled.

This was such a good idea! We would be like pied pipers spreading neighbourly affection! This was sure to become a cherished neighbourhood tradition and all our neighbours would sing our praises because we had started it!

The next string of houses proved not so promising. People opened their doors a crack and then slammed them shut. Some peeked out their front door windows and then walked away without a smile. The saddest moment came when we met a woman on the sidewalk. She emerged from her car, donning party clothes and had a gift in hand. As our paths crossed, someone in our group started singing We Wish You a Merry Christmas and we all joined in. In response, this woman tucked her chin into her chest, stared straight down at the ground and sped past us, ducking into the house without a glance or smile. Our voices died out like a record player that had been unplugged.

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Stepping Out of Small

In elementary school I was the second smallest kid in my class. The only person smaller was a pinched-face boy with the nickname “Mouse.”

Even my identical twin had a 1-½ inch advantage on me from the day we were born. Our height discrepancy was the only way some knew how to tell us apart. My shortness was the clue to who I was.

As a child I learned to stay small, not only in size, but presence. Small people are better at ducking and weaving–avoiding responsibility and attention. I am now middle-aged and middle-sized, but the psychological symptoms of smallness are not shed with added inches.

Not all short people strive for a smallness of influence, of course. One’s influential presence is much more a symptom of personality and resolve than size. A roll call of the vertically challenged easily shatters the myth of a size-equals-influence corollary: the Calcutta missionary Mother Teresa, the abolitionist Harriot Tubman, founder of the American Red Cross Clara Barton, anthropologist Margaret Mead–all women who never made it past 5 feet tall. All women who changed their worlds.

Rosa Parks was 5’2 when she refused to relinquish her seat to a white passenger on a Montgomery city bus, thereby breaking segregation laws and helping start a movement.

What did these small women have in common, besides their size?

Vision.

And the courage to take the next small step toward that vision.

I don’t like controversy and I don’t like limelight, so starting the first Christian Environmental Centre in Canada (with the ministry of A Rocha) at times has felt like a job for someone stronger and bigger. A Rocha started out so small and so humbly–in basements, with meetings attended by only handfuls of people–that sometimes I forgot to be scared. But those humble beginnings have led to some expansive places. And I’ve learned to take small steps toward a bigger vision.

This spring the donation of a three million dollar property–a property we’ve been stewarding and operating out of for the past five years–will be complete. A Rocha will own theBrooksdale Environmental Centre. It’s been a 13-year journey from an office in our basement to this place that looks like a cross between an English Tudor village and Shangri la.

While I rejoice in this gift and want to fall to my knees in gratitude, I also want to acknowledge that being big and successful hasn’t been our goal. The value of A Rocha’s newest Environmental Centre lies not in its stunning aesthetics, but in the change it creates. If I’ve learned anything from being small it’s that big does not necessarily equal better.

The thing that matters is change.

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