Wellspring: inspiration and guidance for a spiritual journey

When the moon is too bright, by Tina Simson

I couldn't sleep last night. There were many reasons, but I blamed the moon. It shone in my bedroom window like a spotlight on the sorrow in my heart. My dear sweet dog, Marty, died this week. His wisdom had filled many of my blogs and always provided insight to my inadequate human life. And in spite of the busy holiday obligations, my heart aches and my arms are empty. Everything hurts. And so I pray.

We often think of spiritual practice or prayer as a way to transcend our sorrow, a way to touch the divine. But in this early morning moonlight, I believe the divine exists in sorrow. There is no other companion at a time like this. Only the holy can fill this space.

Welcome, by Tina Simson

I often take a walk in the morning down the same road. I live in the country and as the seasons change, the vistas never disappoint me. I’ve see the same houses, streams and paths thousands of times in the twenty years I’ve lived here.  And I have past this one clearing each time.

It looks as though someone cleared the land and then lost focus. There are trees cut and neatly stacked along the side, and a dirt driveway prepared. Wildflowers have grown into an abundance of color. Early in the morning the sun streaks through the trees inviting me into the center.  But I’ve never gone in.

You see there’s a chain across the driveway. There’s no fence, no signs warning me away, there’s just a simple chain across the driveway. But somehow that is enough to stop me. As if an invisible authority is saying, this is not for you.

It makes me wonder how many chains I have strung in my life, across opportunities for others and myself. I wonder how I have let the invisible authorities redirect my journey.

I wonder what it takes to cut the chains. 

Wellspring Receives a Grant to Spread the Good News!

Hi there everyone, 

We have been very lax about blogging lately, sorry to all our regulars. We promise to do better.

But our Wellspring program is humming along and we are delighted to report that we received a grant from the Lay Theological Grants Program with funds contributed to the UUA's Association Sunday. With this money, we will be bringing our Spiritual Deepening Program to other UU congregations through out the country. This year we are working with two churches to initiate Wellspring programs in their communities. One is Pathways in Dallas, the other is the First Unitarian Church of Des Moines, IA - with Rev. Tony Lorenzen and Rev. Mark Stringer. 

Our own Rev. Jen Crow, Libby Moore and Joy Collins will be coaching these two churches and offering guidelines about using our curriculum and facilitating our process. With these two pilots complete, we will be offering Wellspring to ten additional churches next year. We also hope to provide a workshop, on running a Wellspring program, during GA next year in Minneapolis. 

So stay tuned for more information. We are so grateful for this grant and for opportunity to bring to others, a rich soulful experience rooted in our own UU tradition.

Resurrection, by Libby Moore

Easter, again. Sunshine and daffodils, the promise of new life after a long, dark winter. In the Unitarian church where I was raised, Easter meant getting flowers and wearing a new outfit, navy blue with white polka dots, red shoes and a matching hat. The Easter bunny brought colored eggs and jellybeans and lots of chocolate.

This year, though, I was challenged to think about the deeper meaning of Easter in our Unitarian Universalist tradition. In her excellent sermon on Sunday, our minister Kaaren Anderson preached on resurrection and the ways in which we resurrect one another through acts of kindness and love. She said that resurrection is what we do, not what we believe, but I think there's more to it than that.

In our church we often say, when someone has died, "To live in hearts that love is not to die." These past few months I've struggled against this easy-sounding phrase, one I have so often written on sympathy cards. A dear friend from my college days died in January and it simply feels too glib, too facile, to say that loving hearts make her untimely death less awful. Much as I cherish her memory in my heart, I miss her gentle, caring presence in my life.

But something else happened recently that's made me believe that loving hearts do create their own kind of immortality. Putting my granddaughter to bed one evening, I felt a sudden surge of love from my own grandmothers - who both died too young - and an awareness that they had loved me with the same fierce devotion that I feel for Evelyn. During Kaaren's Easter sermon, I understood that their love is resurrected in me, and that love is both giving and receiving - it goes both ways.

The blessing is that the love we give - to our friends and family and the world - resurrects us as well as them. It keeps us alive in the world, as long as we keep loving and the circle of love expands.

Happy Easter.

For the Interim Time, by Joy Collins

Three weeks ago we euthanized our beloved chocolate lab. He was only seven but had ruptured a spinal disc, and despite surgery and rehab, he remained paralyzed and incontinent. There was only one loving choice.

I thought about writing of the outpouring of love and support during a long six weeks of attempted rehab. That in all our despair, exhaustion and grief there was this amazing alive connection all around us. Neighbors who knew us from years of dog walking rang the doorbell. Family members who rarely spoke to us came over with a hug. Church members brought food and dog biscuits. Even the postman who refused to carry treats for that bundle of wagging love left us a card. We were touched by the motley community who held us during our siege and subsequent grief.

But instead, what feels important to me now is the spiritual practice of hanging in there during the grayness of recovery. What John O’Donohue in his book To Bless the Space Between Us calls the Interim Time. When we are still occasionally “ambushed by grief”, where “no place looks like itself”, where “everything seems withheld” and “The path you took here is washed out; the way forward is still concealed from you.” Much of the raw grieving for our baby is past, but the tide turning back to a world of color hasn’t happened. In our culture it’s ok to feel this way for a week – but THREE weeks? For a DOG?

And worse, because Toby was only seven, and we had put our older border collie down just four months earlier, the easy path seems to be a slow slide into cynicism. I don’t believe Toby is up in heaven catching Frisbees with all our past pets. I don’t believe I’m going to see him again when I die. He’s dust in a tin on my bookshelf. Life is a series of losses and then you die. So my skeptical story line goes. And how true is this for other UUs?

And yet. And yet. As a person dedicated to a spiritual life, I refuse to let myself fall into total pessimism. I sort of recognize that in its extreme, it’s no more valid than my friends’ enviable Frisbee beliefs. But without this afterlife perspective, what do I DO? Hence my current meditation (and life) practice of hanging out in the grayness. The Interim Time. Believing things will eventually shift, but not on my schedule. Not judging myself for the feelings of flatness, and lack of delighting in the world. Maybe even being curious about them. Realizing this is a counter-cultural radicalism of having no answer but also not yet moving on.

And so I move, in fits, starts and slides.

What about Lent? by Tina Simson

I envy the devout Catholics who seriously observe the Lenten season. I see them streaming from the small church outside my office window with ashes on their forehead. A badge that seems to say, "This means something to me." It brings their faith into each of the next forty days with reverence and sacrifice.

So I thought about what I could do, as a UU, to honor this time of preparation. If I recognize that these forty days precede  both Easter and Passover, I can consider them leading me to renewal and freedom. That's certainly something to prepare for. 

A friend of mine offers wonderful interfaith e-courses on the site Spirituality and Practice. 

This month there are several offerings that could inspire one's observance of Lent such as the one on Forgiveness-Growth in Love

I took a course from them last year on Rumi and it was a great. The daily reminders that came to my inbox, kept my focus and enriched each day. 

Another wonderful resource I find inspirational is the World Prayer Wheel where you can spin the prayer wheel and find a gift of a prayer from the world's many spiritual traditions. I like to take a spin and then use whatever comes up as a daily meditation. 

When I was a little Catholic girl, we were encouraged to give something up for lent.  I always tried to give up homework but then gave up chocolate instead. As a enlightened adult, I thought this was a trite way to observe Lent, until I realized that this is how my father gave up smoking decades ago. He now says that giving up smoking became a promise he made in the presence of a higher power, no longer just a habit to break.  So I think about this for me, is there something I should stop doing or start doing? Is there a way I behave with those around me that needs tending? Am I judgmental or harsh when I need to be forgiving and gentle?  

I'm looking forward to this season, it's so cold today and in 40 days, give or take, there's a good possibility it will be warm.  If nothing else, that's something to note.

The Divine is Portable, by Joy Collins

What is the one thing you would not consider doing in our scary, tumultuous economy? Buy or sell a house unnecessarily. Yet that is exactly what Maggie and I did in the last month. On a whim, we checked out an open house in our neighborhood, knowing that our home is too small for two folks each needing a home office. We were surprised how wonderful this new place was – and “priced to sell” as they say. We put in an offer contingent on selling ours, and surprisingly, ours went two hours after the first open house.

In shock, we came to grips with the fact we are moving sooner vs. later. Mostly I am excited. But I am also experiencing this odd sense of dread. You see, I am a total homebody . I bond to my house like other people bond to humans. Newly single, I bought my current house seven years ago. It is very small, but light and open. Skylights, cathedral ceiling, few walls between the rooms, looking out on a beautiful ravine. As my friends say, it’s got that “wow factor.”  The new place is older, built in 1940. Mostly updated, with a wonderful office for me and many beautiful classic features. But the windows are small, there are no skylights, and it backs up to another house in our neighborhood. I began feeling buyer’s remorse.

While walking the dog I found myself envying the big picture windows in other homes. Noticing how many panes are in THEIR windows. Seeing the natural settings others have for back yards. Having thoughts about how much better they have it. Mild panic that maybe this new house isn’t for me.

Over these last several years, I find that if I MEDITATE through the obsessing versus ACTING on the obsessing, I do start to question what’s really going on for me. And in this case, it has to do with the feeling of  “home.”

I am most aware of the divine when I am outdoors, or looking out a window onto a tree, or feeling the sun beating through a sliding door onto my face. Below my panic about small windows in an old house lies a primal fear. Fear that I won’t be able to connect with the divine in my new abode. And that without that connection I will feel adrift. I will have lost that feeling of “home.” So I’ve been feeling deeply into where home in fact is. And I must say, when I analyze my past, I see I’ve been adaptable over a life filled with many moves and business travel. I've had many different houses, apartments and hotel rooms. Some with views, many without. I do re-bond if I let go of the old. And that’s because in the end, the divine is portable. She, and "home" are always within me. Gosh, how I keep needing to re-learn that lesson! And so going into our new place, I will try and remember John O’Donohue’s blessing:

May this house shelter your life.
When you come in home here,
May all the weight of the world
Fall from your shoulders.
May your heart be tranquil here,
Blessed by peace the world cannot give.
May this home be a lucky place,
Where the graces your life desires
Always find the pathway to your door.
May nothing destructive
Ever cross your threshold.
May this be a s safe place
Full of understanding and acceptance,
Where you can be as you are,
Without the need of any mask
Of pretense or image.
May this home be a place of discovery,
Where the possibilities that sleep
In the clay of your soul can emerge
To deepen and refine your vision
For all that is yet to come to birth.
May it be a house of courage,
Where healing and growth are love,
Where dignity and forgiveness prevail;
A home where patience of spirit is prized,
And the sight of the destination is never lost
Though the journey be difficult and slow.
May there be great delight around this hearth.
May it be a house of welcome
For the broken and diminished.
May you have the eyes to see
That no visitor arrives without a gift

And no guest leave without a blessing
. 

It’s not about the turkey, by Libby Moore

Like many people, I love Thanksgiving best of all the holidays. I actually love cooking Thanksgiving dinner, preparing all those wonderful dishes and offering family and friends the bounty of our table. Thanksgiving is a time to gather and be grateful for so many things – for new snow covering the leaf-strewn streets, for the sun sparkling and making the day magical, for the blessings of heat and hot water on this chilly cold morning. For friends who feed us beautiful soup on a cold Sunday evening and greet us with hugs. For singing at church and the joy of being with others to worship and celebrate. For the small things – a cup of hot tea, the smile from a stranger in the bustling grocery store, a moment of laughter with a four-year-old.

Some years ago, the last year he was alive, my step-father summoned all of my siblings for Thanksgiving at my house. He had suffered a stroke six or seven years earlier and it left him with aphasia, a difficulty forming words, although his body functioned and he could communicate through a kind of Twenty Questions mode. When I was younger, he and I had battled it out. He was a strict high school vice principal and I was the rebellious daughter, the anti-war demonstrator, the counter-cultural dropout. Once I'd moved away from home, we rarely talked. If he answered the phone when I called, he'd say hi and then hand it off to my mother. After my mother died, we were cordial but remote until his stroke, when he moved to an assisted living places nearby and I became his "primary care-giver." It wasn't onerous, really, just taking him to his many doctors' appointments and checking up on his medications, keeping him company now and again. But over the years, as I spent more time with him and he grew more frail, I grew to appreciate him and to understand that he was who he was. He was an important part of my life and he cared for me in the best way he knew how. At that Thanksgiving dinner with my all my siblings, we went around the table and said what we were grateful for. When my dad's turn came, he pointed to me and said, "Her." It was all he could say, but it was enough for me.

And so, it's not about the turkey. It's about gratitude, and the pain that sometimes goes with it, and the sadness and the hurt and the loss that go along with joy. It's about knowing that there are others who don't have enough and understanding that we share their suffering because we are all part of this human family. It's about knowing that we are blessed with love and sharing and holding one another close in our hearts. May it be so.

Peace and Quiet, by Libby Moore

We've had some gorgeous fall weather in western New York over the past few weeks, although today has reverted to the typical gray rain that I associate with November. The colors have been dazzling, brilliant golds and oranges and reds on maples and oaks and Bradford pears. Some trees have held their leaves until now, but most have dropped in a colorful mosaic, carpeting the lawns and streets and creating a gorgeous kaleidoscope of color. And of noise.

No matter how beautiful they are, those leaves can't stay on the ground where they fall. Somebody's got to suck them up with a giant vacuum cleaner attached to a tractor, or blow them across the lawn to the pile on the street, or mulch them with a riding mower. Whatever method they use, it causes loud whining, screaming, buzzing noises that shatter the quiet peacefulness of my daily walk through the neighborhood and along the canal. I find myself recoiling against the incessant noise, wondering why people can't do this when I'm somewhere else.

My hearing aids amplify the high pitch of those kinds of noises, bringing them to the foreground and forcing me to notice. I discovered something on one of my recent walks, though, that I could just turn off the hearing aids and ignore the buzzing and whining. It felt like a whole new interior world, quiet in my head and peaceful. As I walked, I could quiet my mind, listen to my thoughts and to the still small voice within. It felt powerful, to be able to shut off the world like that.

But turnng off my hearing aids also limited my contact with the real world. I couldn't hear the bicyclist calling "on your left" or the ducks quacking near the house where they get fed twice a day. I couldn't carry on a conversation with the lady walking her lovely golden retriever. I missed the connections with people along the route.

So I turned the hearing aids back on and returned to the real world, which is where I live and interact and connect with people. The noise of the blowers and mowers and vacuums is just part of life in our part of the world at this time of the year, and I'm grateful for all of it, for the beauty, for the colors, for the people, and for their caring about their yards. May we care for one another with as much energy and diligence.

Open to the possibility of God, by Tina Simson

I’ve been thinking a lot about prayer this month. It’s our topic for Wellspring and as an Interfaith Ministry candidate, my colleagues all request, believe and recite prayers in the work we do together. There are Jewish and Hindu prayers, there are Catholic and Muslim prayers and even Pagan prayers spoken in my circle. We express a deep acceptance and understanding of all prayer. So why do I struggle? Why am I more comfortable among the UUs in our bunch, who seem skeptical as the rhythms of childhood prayers fill our ears?

 I grew up steeped in a prayerful tradition. Being raised Catholic we had prayers for everyday of the year, every day of the week and every transitional event in our lives. I remember my first prayer book and the rosary I held that let me count the prayers I said. I remember after confession being given prayers for penance, to ask God’s forgiveness. I even remember writing the “Hail Mary” on 15 pieces of paper and clipping them to the clothesline in order to assure a lovely day for my cousins wedding. I remember my mother’s last question to me every night. “Did you say your prayers?” The answer was usually, yes.

 But as I grew older I moved away from prayer, maybe because it didn’t seem to work for me. I sometimes felt as if I didn't do it good enough, or maybe I wasn't good enough. My mother never got well and my cousin did go to Viet Nam. But then when a prayer wasn’t answered the way I wanted, someone always said, God works in mysterious ways, or God has his own plan. With this trumping all my hard work, I figured I would just try another tack.

 Except for one night, the night my mother died, I soothed her restless ranting by holding her and reciting the prayer over and over and over,

Hail Mary full of grace, the lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women…
Pray for us now and at the hour of our death

 So this morning I was paging through the paper and found a whole column of prayers in the classified section. All of them seem to be Catholic and most are the same exact prayer…Prayer to the Blessed Virgin (never known to fail)…and I wonder what compels someone to pray so publicly and what are their many petitions. And is it true, does this prayer never fail? I’m flipping through the radio stations as I come home from grocery shopping and I hear the Christians reciting Bible passages.  There’s a new Islamic station that comes in from Toronto and I hold the dial as the Call to Prayer fills my ears

I turn the corner and see before me the steel grey sky of an ominous November morning, the sun beaming behind me illuminates the golden oak tree and a flock of birds swoop down showing me their white bellies. I almost forget I am driving as the wordless prayer wells in my heart.

 And I think perhaps that’s what we all have in common, the Catholics with their rosary, the Jews at the wall, the Christians with the Bible and the Muslims five times a day. Through prayer, we all open to the possibility of God. That’s it, that’s all and that’s all that’s needed.