Against the Grain

Posted on February 22, 2014 by harasprice

The Provost sat behind his oak desk, which had a noticeable wood-grain pattern. As I waited, my thoughts followed a line which began at one corner and meandered across the length of the desk. Before the tree that furnished this wood had been harvested and constructed into furniture, that same line once marked a pattern of growth. The desk’s owner was sitting across from me, reading and frowning as he read the single sheet of paper I handed him. He paused to look at me, and my attention moved up from my intense exploration of the oak veneer to meet his gaze.

“You don’t actually need my signature,” he said. “No one even uses this form anymore. All you need is a transfer.”

I knew that was true. I had been accepted to another University, and I simply needed to request my transcripts. But, this meeting wasn’t about my academic status. He knew that, too.

“I wanted your time, not just your signature.” That truth seemed to get his attention. “I hear that you said the values of Social Work were incompatible with Christianity. I disagree, and I wanted to explain the rationale for why.” My intention was to move into a well rehearsed speech about the radical inclusion reflected in the teachings of Jesus which ran counter to the culture of the place and time in which he lived. I was about to begin with an argument grounded in the writings of Peter Berger and planned to move on to contemporary theological applications of social action which mirrored the historical foundations of Jane Addams and the settlement house movement. I had spent the past year reading, studying, and forming my own understanding of the spiritual and vocational shift that was taking place in my life at that time, the dawning of my second decade. I was prepared to discuss it in a manner befitting the academic standing of a Provost.

I wasn’t given the opportunity, though. The Provost leaned across his desk and said, “The decision is made. It’s final. We are not having a social work major here.”

“I want you to tell me why.” I said. I was feeling bold: I was a Sophomore (thus, I thought I knew everything) and I had already effectively, and successfully, transferred from this “Christian” College to a public University. The developing Social Work program here had come under fire during its first accreditation attempt for one reason: the school’s refusal to not discriminate based on gender or sexual orientation. I knew this was the reason, but I needed this man to say it. I wanted him to hear his own hypocrisy. “This school is founded on Christian Values, and that is all there is to say.” Indeed, that was all he would say. No logical or critical reflection was allowed; that defensive, rigid veneer was it for him.

He signed the paper and handed it back to me. He didn’t rise. He didn’t shake my hand or wish me well. He didn’t even acknowledge me as I rose, thanked him for his time, turned, and let myself out.

Like the tree that furnished wood for his desk, my growth had also been sliced through. I felt this truth viscerally, deep in my soul, as tears welled up in my eyes once the interview had ended and I was alone. I was still wounded from those blades, the sharp losses that had severed my spiritual life from my professional development. The argument I would have made to him if I had been granted the opportunity to do so wasn’t even from religious conviction. My faith had been ripped from me already. My dearest friend had been cast out from religious community when it was revealed he was HIV+, my most challenging and thought provoking faculty mentors were asked to leave for allowing young adults to question accepted “fact” through critical dialogue, I was told I was flawed to my own core simply for loving who I loved, and now the profession of Social Work that had reached out to embrace me after the church abandoned me was itself banished from the school I was attending.

I had aligned myself with the outsiders, those who were cast out, the persecuted, those who were discriminated against. It reminded me of another historical figure, one whose name the people doing the discriminating seemed to toss around pretty freely. The guy who hung out with social outcasts and debated the meaning of holy scriptures with women, and fish catchers. The one who questioned tradition, who argued with the leaders, who used critical questioning and metaphor to encourage people to get at deeper truths instead of superficial meanings. Yeah, that guy. The same one who, if those stories were true, would certainly not appreciate his name being used to justify discrimination.

On my walk across campus to pack up my dorm room, I walked by the pristine pillars of the John and Charles Wesley Chapel. They looked like giant bars. I wondered: were they trying to keep something out, or trying to control something they were afraid might slip away?

Earlier that week, I had written a letter to the church to which I belonged at that time asking to rescind my membership. I originally considered asking to rescind my baptismal vows, too, but later changed my mind. I didn’t really have any animosity toward Jesus himself, nor his teachings. I would give him the benefit of the doubt, and recognize my heritage. Like it or not, it had formed me to this point. Maybe I would have hung around and fought for justice in the church as I once thought I might, but I wasn’t willing to use the Christian label any more. It had been tarnished beyond repair for me, no matter what color it was stained and how much it was polished. Call it whatever you want, but discrimination in the name of religion is still what it is: discrimination. Hate. Dismissal of the divine spark of life and potential inherent in every human being. I wanted no part of that, even if it cost me my faith.

Ironically, I now realize justice is where my faith has lived all along. Over time, each has fed and strengthened the other.

Now, it is twenty-five years later. As if we are children who have to keep repeating our mistakes, we are still trying to mix religion and discrimination. I read today about a group of people in Arizona who have taken their polished veneer of religion and convinced the state Senate (via SB1062) to use it to make discrimination look nicer, more appealing, all glossed over just because they applied their understanding of “God” to their hatred and fear. Jesus would not be pleased. Incidentally, neither would the Buddha, nor hundreds of spiritual and religious leaders across multiple traditions who understand that no one benefits from discrimination and hate. In fact, it is discrimination and hate that keep us from a knowledge of divine love and grace, in all the beautiful and multi-faceted ways in which the religions and spiritual traditions of this world allow us to experience and express.

Where is the small point of light in this? It came to me today as I signed a petition to veto SB1062 in Arizona. I added my name, and a favorite quote from the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” Dr. King knew a thing or two about religion, and about politics. He understood deeply that any form of discrimination of people against people pulls us away from the knowledge and love of the divine. Putting that into law further separates our civic and our spiritual lives. Why must great leaders and teachers die to convince people to take that seriously?

The small point of light in this story is in the wood grain that runs through my memory. I have learned that it is worth it to go against the grain, to trust and invest in the divine dignity and worth of every human being. My Social Work ethics tell me this. The baptismal covenant of my own faith tradition reminds me of this. My respect for and worship alongside diverse family and friends convinces me of this. My calling to a life of vocational ministry that mixes social justice, human compassion, and divine love is a response to this.

May our religion and faith not lead us to discrimination, but invite us to the grace and growth of inclusion.

If you are interested in signing the petition to ask Arizona’s governor to veto SB1062, you can visit: http://www.change.org/petitions/gov-janice-brewer-veto-sb-1062

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Mid-Winter Tea

Posted on February 18, 2014 by harasprice

My colleague and I were having lunch today at a favorite local Thai restaurant a short walk from our office. We both ordered jasmine tea, enjoying sipping over lunch and conversation. It was a simple, lovely moment in the midst of a work day. I had forgotten my phone in my office, so I was more relaxed than usual, blissfully unaware of what email may be filling my inbox. It felt good to be even temporarily untethered.

There is something so civilized about sipping tea. I was thinking about this tonight when a story suddenly came to mind about another mid-winter tea sipping.

I was living and working in Buffalo that never-ending winter. Snow piled up, inches at a time and day after day. I was so bored of my snow boots, so tired of the same sweaters and pants. I had a favorite dress that I liked to wear with mid-calf “granny boots” that had a mid-sized heel in a curvy shape. These were not winter boots, not Buffalo winter boots at any rate. But, I wore them anyhow and justified to myself that I was mostly in the office all day. It had snowed all night, and it kept snowing all day.

I worked for Hospice at the time, on the bereavement counseling team. We saw clients for community counseling in the office, and went out to make home visits for families that had been served through Hospice. On this day, I arrived to a pile of messages from several clients who were wanting to reschedule. As I reviewed my roster, I realized my one scheduled, remaining afternoon appointment was a home visit with a Hospice bereavement client, who had been the caregiver for her sister who had died a month earlier. I looked at my shoes and realized I was ill prepared for home visits on a snowy day.

I called my client, to let her know the office was open, but I had cancellations and I could come earlier than planned if she would like. I was secretly hoping she might reschedule, too. But, instead she said she was especially looking forward to the visit since she had fallen and broken her leg just after the funeral, and hadn’t been able to get out. In my mind, she sounded lonely, and my selfishness emptied into professional compassion. I said I would be there early afternoon. She warned me her steps had not been shoveled.

I thought about going home and changing, but she lived on the other side of the city. So, I set out for her house in the blowing snow and slippery roads. I arrived at her address to see what looked like an igloo piled up in front of her door. I wished I had a shovel, or at least, real boots. As I climbed the mountain of ice and snow to her front door, I felt a disconcerting slip of my footing and a sharp “crack” as I looked down to see the heel snapped off my fancy boots.

In action films and commercials for super-powered chewing gum, the brave heroine would snap off her other heel and boldly go forward to conquer the snow drift. In real life, your bare heel is exposed to ice and snow while the faux leather hangs off your shoe like a pathetic tail which will not rip off under any amount of pulling. I scooted myself to the door with a freezing cold foot, using the other heel like an ice-pick, and made it into her entry-way. She lived on the second floor and said to come upstairs and knock on her door.

I clomped up, and wanted to be as unobtrusive as possible. I had visions of an elderly, shut-in woman with a broken leg…a vision that filled my mind with sympathy and neediness. The woman who answered the door was strong, radiant, wearing an ankle cast but carrying a steeping pot of tea. She embraced me like an old friend, even though our contact had only been through mail and phone until that point. I said I would take off my boots and she waved that idea away, “come right in, no need, no worries…keep your feet warm!” I tried to hobble in without drawing attention to my predicament. We walked through her kitchen to her living room.

There, she had set up for us an exquisite tea, in delicate, paper-thin china cups that the green tea made radiant with warmth. She smiled from ear to ear, “I could only imagine what you had to do to get here. It means so much to me. We can talk all about my sister later, but first, let’s have tea.” She went on to tell me of the years of her service as an army nurse. She geographically situated her tea cups and teapots (and tea leaves) from far-reaching corners of Asia, gifts she had sent to her sister over the years, as it was in her sister’s home that she was currently residing, and in which we were presently visiting. We sipped and talked about life and travel and culture like old friends.

My client was a magnificent human being who had lived a fascinating life. She had moved here to care for her sister, decided to stay on a while longer after her accident to settle her sister’s estate, and would soon return to her own home, friends, and community in another state. She knew if we didn’t meet today, the meeting would likely never happen. She was craving closure with her caregiving, her time in this community, her life here. It was incredibly unexpected; she was hosting me as a guest of honor when I thought I was coming to serve her needs. We both had empathized with the other’s predicament, instead of our own. We eventually spoke of her sister, and I listened to her stories, her memories, her caregiving, her missed conversations and “what ifs” and pangs of grief about their relationship over the years. We covered a month of counseling visits over pots of tea that mid-winter afternoon. Were it not for my cancellations, I would never have had the luxury of time I could offer, or enjoy, that day. The afternoon passed, and the sun began to fade. We suddenly realized our visit needed to close.

At the same time, we both noticed my broken boot. She looked and said, “oh no! That happened getting to me!” I had tried to hide it, and I tried to brush it off again now. Finally, we just laughed. “I am a country girl who lives in snow country and I should have known better than to wear these today!” She found an old pair of boots…wrong size, but workable…in a closet. I gladly accepted the gift in order to climb the snowbank, and I thanked her for her tea and hospitality, as she thanked me for listening and companioning her journey.

In retrospect, I should have thanked her for a mid-winter afternoon of world travels that melted the snow and warmed my spirit. But, I could see on her face that we had both received gifts: time, listening, human connection. In fact, I think we were both graciously bestowed gifts by the Universe that day. Sometimes, one intersection of a person into your life can leave a truly lasting impression.

A small point of light, over shared mid-winter tea, was shining brightly on both our paths that cold winter day.

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My Funny Valentine

Posted on February 14, 2014 by harasprice

I am a huge fan of vintage paper, and especially valentines. In years past, every flat surface of my house has had cards from the sentimental to the hopelessly tacky displayed on it. There is a special place in my heart for the “double entendre” genre of vintage paper, young couples riding together on rockets that say, “You make me want to blast off” for example. For years, my spouse and I have been in competition for the tackiest array we could find for each other, from the tastelessly over-traditional to the nerdy professor giving love advice. I even have a whole kitchen series, with captions like like “let’s dance to the tuna wedding bells” and “you’ve got a pizza my heart.”

I realized only this morning that we hadn’t put any of our usual valentines out. I opened two storage boxes and sat down by the lovely vase full of red, pink, and white tulips that my spouse had sent to me the day before. They were accompanied by a great bottle of wine and a modern card on an office theme, “I love you a hole punch.” This was especially appropriate since I have been working from home a lot more lately, given our bizarre southern weather and frequent school cancellations. I sifted through my vintage collection and found two snow themed vintage postcards that were perfectly suited to yet another southern snow day to display with my flowers. It seemed too late to set out more.

Valentine’s Day is a funny holiday. It is loathsome to those who have been scorned by love, and sentimental to others. It has childlike glee, and adult overtones. It can be a day that marginalizes people who don’t fit a certain norm of sexual orientation or gender expression. It has the name of a saint, but is used to sell lingerie and erotic merchandise. It may be the epitome of of human extremes, the desire to be fully loved and the fear that no matter what we do, we will never really be loved enough.

As I sat there today, looking through my boxes of vintage papers, I was caught in the juxtaposition of it all. A part of my soul celebrated the news-breaking federal count decision striking down Virginia’s ban on same sex marriage. Meanwhile, this same afternoon, I knew my own partner was paying his respects to a former student, now in high school, who had ended his own life apparently unable to fathom that it could get better for him based on who he happened to love, and how he identified. We have come far, but have so far to go. I couldn’t help but struggle and wonder, when will love win out over our fear and self-righteous judgment?

I wished every human person could simply feel as light hearted and loved as these silly valentines.

I decided my funny valentines would remain tucked away this year. I didn’t have the heart to put them out today, even though I enjoyed looking through them, laughing, and knowing they would find their way to my usual decorating cycle again in the future. Instead, I prayed. I thought of all the people…men and women…that I have loved both romantically and in deep friendship over the years. I sent out my love, my heartbreak, my crushes, my longings and my admiration for them to the heavens. Our love makes us deeply human, deeply lovable and deeply loved. The real Valentine gift is that we are loved, deeply and profoundly, exactly as we are.

May that love find you today, and always.

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Million Dollar Moment

Posted on February 13, 2014 by harasprice

I am incredibly fortunate that, for the most part, I have been able to spend my career doing things I love to do. That does not mean that I enjoy every moment of my working life…not by any stretch of imagination. On a good day, I go home feeling like I have been sufficiently challenged, and that I accomplished some degree of positive change in my corner of the world. This is what separates the good days from the not-so-satisfying ones.

Into our lives, some of both kinds of days will inevitably fall.

In my mid-twenties, I made a decision that made logical sense at the time. I was recruited to a job that paid a lot more than I had been making, doing similar work to what I had been enjoying in a non-profit setting, but kicking it up a notch to work in a corporate setting. I was determined and idealistic. I worked hard and chose to take the high road through some particularly nasty days. For example, the person several decades older than I was whom I supervised, and who would come in dressed in perfect Talbot’s Petites attire, look over her glasses at me in my inexpensive, larger woman’s clothing and say, “What a lovely outfit you’ve chosen to grace us with today!” with a piercingly smug look on her face. I would ride the wave, focus on the clinical issues of the clients, and let the water roll off me. I would go home an emotional wreck, but no one knew that. I was still effecting some change, so I sucked it up.

After about a year, my corporate employers also started showing their true colors. One day, the day of the “Million Man March” to be exact, we (supervisors) were asked to write down the name of every employee of color who didn’t show up to work or called in for any reason and tell them they may lose their jobs if they failed to report. I refused, and when my anger at racist injustice started to rage, they suddenly said it was “just a joke.” It wasn’t funny. The final straw came for me when I worked really hard to resolve some concerns regarding dignity and quality of life in the most run-down of the nursing facilities the company owned. I was called in to the corporate office one day and commended for my work. I began to have hope, to feel like I was making a difference, when my supervisor burst my bubble and told me that my work saved them a lawsuit, and he was giving me a bonus of a percentage of the money that they would have paid to settle out of court. He pledged to do this every time I worked my magic and convinced a family not to file a law suit.

There’s an old adage about knowing what you are and realizing that at some point, you’re just haggling over the price. I looked in the mirror that night, and I looked at my bonus check. Yep, that was me. But no, it wasn’t me. I started sending out my resumes, and I handed in that bonus check and my resignation shortly after.

I moved from that job to an amazing, wonderful workplace where all my skills, my heart, and my values were put to work and supported. I took a huge cut in pay, and times were tight on my budget. But, I had great colleagues and a meaningful role in the lives of people living with grief and loss.

One day, about a year into my new job, my phone rang. I picked it up, and it was one of the nursing staff members I used to work with at my former job. She had tracked me down, she said, because she now worked for the corporate office. “We’re trying to turn things around,” she told me, “and we realize we need you back. I want to set up a time for you to come and meet with us. You can name your salary. We just want you back.” I told her I would think about it.

During the next hour, I raided the snack cabinet for our children’s support group and found a bag of Doritos (sorry, Jill…I did replace them, though!). I felt a queasiness overtaking me that wasn’t even related to the fake orange cheese I was ingesting. Why is it that ethical conflicts always seemed linked to money? I was so tired of struggling to make ends meet. Was it so wrong to try again, to be paid well and possibly make a difference? Maybe it would be different this time.

–crunch, crunch–

More Doritos and more queasiness. My next client appointment was about to arrive. What was I doing eating all these damn cheesy empty calories, anyhow? I had started exercising, I was eating healthier in spite of my reduced salary. Well, maybe just a few more.

–crunch, crunch–

I was standing at the cabinet getting one more handful when I had the epiphany. I hated that old job where every day, I was asked to compromise my values for the almighty dollar. Here I was, already trying to fill the void with anything that could compensate for the fact that I was thinking about selling out. Ten minutes until my client would arrive. Just enough time.

I called her back. “That was fast!” said my former colleague as my call was routed through. “I know,” I said. “I just called to say that I wouldn’t go back to work for you, not even for a million dollars.”

I hung up, smelling the smoke from the bridge I had just burned. Someone else would have to tend that fire, because I was done. I tossed out my crumbs of Doritos, poured myself some water, and went to greet my client.

It is now almost 20 years later, and I still remember that moment. I was young and impetuous. But I was also wise. I knew myself, and I knew when to walk away. You cannot put a price on being able to look yourself in the mirror and respect the person looking back at you. That is priceless.

There was a reason I needed to remember this story during this past week. It provided exactly the right-sized beam of light I needed to make a good decision. You couldn’t pay me a million dollars to move my focus away from all the things, paid or unpaid, that bring such great fulfillment to my life right now.

That realization is tonight’s small point of light.

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Windows to the Soul

Posted on February 8, 2014 by harasprice

Yesterday, I woke up looking like a blood-hound, with two bright red, aching eyes staring back at me in the mirror. The day before, I had tried out a different shade of deep slate blue eyeliner that felt a little more daring than my usual moss green. My eyes are very sensitive, so that little foray into something new came with a price.

I was scheduled to sing with my choir at an ordination that was being hosted at our church. This event was important to me on several levels. First, our little church is not the typical site for a Diocesan ordination, and I wanted to do my part to help us shine for the simple, lovely inclusive elegance of who we are. Second, we were singing an amazing piece by Brahms which I love and which makes my spirit soar. Third, we were bringing our authentic selves to this event, complete with own choir, “Bluegrass Mass” musicians, and a youth gospel choir from the school where our soon to be ordained friend, Rock, currently teaches. Most importantly, we were witnesses to this journey for Rock, who is taking in and taking on this role of ordained priest in the Episcopal Church after his own lifetime journey of faith, challenges, questions, and renewed commitment and belief.

My red eyes were not going to keep me from this auspicious day. But, I was keenly aware of my eyes, reflecting all day on these windows to the soul.

Eyes are a highly sensitive subject for me, I have to admit. This is difficult to write on a public blog, although I know I must, because it is part of my story, a pathway that leads to today’s small point of light.

I was young, in first grade, when eyes started to be a focus for my inner turmoil. I was sure during those years that I was one of the unworthy. The church we attended in those mid-1970’s years preached an apocalyptic message of an “anti-christ” coming and stamping everyone left on the earth with the mark of the beast, so they could neither buy nor sell. Children and parents would be separated. Co-workers and friends would suddenly disappear. At best, I would be flying up to heaven amid dead bodies being ripped from the grave during the rapture. At worst, I would be “left behind.” It was like going to church to have a Grade B zombie movie described to you in pamphlets, sermons, and sunday school lessons. Except, that was supposed to be the basis of your faith. I did take that in, and it scarred me deeply. I am sorry to those who remember this time differently or practice in these traditions still, but to me it was my own personal horror movie. I was terrified, constantly. I developed a habit of sitting with my eyes closed, rolling my eyes around in a self-comforting way while I prayed (more like begged) the god of wrath to not leave me behind. I made up a little “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry” prayer to go along with it. And I started pulling my eyelashes out as proof of how sorry I was.

It has taken me years of grown-up therapy to come to terms with the origins of the repetitive behaviors that plagued my childhood and adolescence, and that still sometimes linger. I am the eyelash-less girl in the school pictures. I fielded countless questions about my eyes, I was called, “pig-eyed” even from people I loved. I lied and told people my eyelashes all fell out; this gave me yet another thing to beg forgiveness for. It was a vicious cycle. My parents did the best they could with what they were seeing. I didn’t tell them what was happening, what my real fears were, because I didn’t want them to know I had thoughts of being “left behind.” That confessional would mean I didn’t have faith, and that meant I was an unbeliever, marked for eternal destruction. I wish now that I had said something, but I never did. They took me to an eye specialist at Children’s Hospital. I was prescribed sunglasses for being outside, the optometric specialists thinking that maybe I was having a sensitivity issue. I couldn’t really say to them what was going on, either, and I felt badly that people were trying to blame my eyes. It was my spirit that was broken. My eyes just took the hit.

I was thinking of all this yesterday, as I grow into new iterations of my life and my faith where I have to confront the painful places, where growth requires reconstruction of my understanding of divine presence, even in our darkest moments. We have to tear open old wounds sometimes, to allow the brokenness to make room for the small points of light to pour in and illuminate the dark places.

Because our friend Rock spent years as an ordained clergy in another tradition, we sang many songs yesterday that were familiar refrains from my own childhood, blended together with the liturgy I now know and love in the church I have joined, the voice of Christianity I am reclaiming, in the path I myself am walking into a renewed vocational calling. Yesterday, different tears were forming in the windows of my soul. Reconciliation. Grace. Healing. Reclaiming music and spirit and preaching as transformational forces not for fear and judgment, but for divine love and growth.

The windows to my soul are not so red and swollen this Sunday morning, physically or spiritually. Yesterday, eyes offered me a lens to ponder, reflect, and offer up in prayer the petitions of a small child that I now know were never ignored, that were always heard. An answer that was there in my fervent prayers all along, the still small voice that also echoes through the spheres: you are loved, because I am Love. That persistent, divine presence has always been with me, patiently awaiting me to be still and know.

When I greet my friends and neighbors today, when I offer them the gifts of welcome, hospitality, peace, Eucharist…that light is what they will see reflected in the windows to my soul.

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Sometimes

Posted on February 7, 2014 by harasprice

Sometimes I find myself in a group of strangers
and I realize I am looking for myself.
Usually, we are gathered in a place together for some reason–
common interest, perhaps.
A compelling topic,
a common cause,
or at least, children of the same age.
A common chord is among us, something
stirred us from complacency to presence.
We are all in this place.

People mill about, making conversation
and I wonder if I am here, too.
Or at least, another incarnation of me, a soul sister.
Someone whose spirit brought her body into this venue
seeking something.
Something similar to what I am.
Assuming, of course, that I know what exactly that is.

I haven’t lived here long,
but long enough
to know that the probability exists
that I will know someone
or be known.
But for now it is just me
in the midst of them.
Soon, one or both of us will break the ice
and we will become us.

I haven’t seen her yet.
But I know, in the midst of this crowd of strangers,
she is also looking for me.

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getting to “yes”

Posted on February 2, 2014 by harasprice

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any–lifted from the no
of all nothing–human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

e.e. cummings

I woke with these words from e.e. cummings running through my mind. I have two musical settings of this poem that I know well. The first is a complex, modern choral piece by Lloyd Pfautsch which is a vocal arrangement filled moments of complex harmonics mixed in with lovely, deep and strong unison. The other version is an upbeat camp song that my daughter and other youth love to sing, complete with a series of hand motions and ever increasing, frenzied speed as the verses continue.

Both versions seem to provide quite a good metaphor for me this morning.

There is something about these poetic words of e.e. cummings that is so deeply human. Many of us see the divine in the splendor of nature, or the powerful presence that overtakes our senses and leaves us convinced there is something more than merely the touchable, observable world. These are the mountaintop moments that stick with us, that fill our spirits with divine longing to stay in that space where it doesn’t really matter exactly how it all works: it’s enough to feel like it simply is.

And then, we walk back down the mountain, and life resumes.

It seems to me that getting to “Yes” is about what we do in the everyday to respond to that sense of something greater. This brings me back to my musical selections. We can say “Yes” in an ever increasing fury of voice and activity that spins us into a happy exhaustion. Maybe a few of us have done that in our lifetimes. Its great, but it isn’t sustainable. Others of us see and hear the complexity of the “Yes” and wonder if learning the discordant places is worth the power and strength of Unison that eventually will emerge. It can keep us out of the proverbial choir loft, assuming there are plenty of other singers who can do it better or with more ease. The truth is, it takes every voice to get through the discord and harmonics, and it isall the more powerful when diverse and plentiful voices pull together in Unison.

I am heading into the Annual Meeting at my church today, not generally considered a mountaintop moment on the liturgical calendar by most, I realize. But, this past year has been an important one for me to learn something about the divine Yes. Last year, I said yes and was elected to vestry, something I swore I would never do. Church politics had burned me up before in other times and other places. I was terrified of mixing all that “real” of budgets and property and organization with my faith journey, which sometimes felt needed to be tucked up inside and protected. I had every reason to be cautious, too. But, every sense of my being also asked me to leap in faith and say a divine Yes. I took the risk. I have not one regret.

This year has brought me so many opportunities for reflection and growth on my journey of spirit. Not all of those moments occurred over budget spreadsheets and property estimates, nor can I profess my vestry colleagues and I were in divine unison all the time. But, my faith community is accomplishing something together that is greater than the sum of our parts, and I am so grateful to be in the midst of that. It has restored my faith in the Presence which is greater than we are, that allows us to do and be more than we could have asked or imagined. That has changed my own journey of faith in community, and my understanding and experience of the divine constantly working in us and through us in our daily lives.

Now, the ears of my ears are awake. Now, the eyes of my eyes are opened.

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Compelled

Posted on January 31, 2014 by harasprice

Its 1:00 a.m. as I sit to write.

It amazes me that I am awake, and that what I am choosing to do at this post-midnight, pre-dawn hour is to write here on my blog. I have been doing a good deal of contemplative work, and writing quite a bit of it in my reflective journal this week. I am excited to have scheduled a personal writing retreat for tomorrow as part of my New Year resolution to formalize a sustained, year-long writing project. I am also working hard to pull together a Lenten project for my faith community; I was just engrossed in music, art, and writings in preparation for “Cultivating Sacred Space” in the coming liturgical season. None of those noble pursuits involves this blog, though. I feel like with all my other projects, I have neglected this little space that has, in the past year, become a home for my stories and my snapshots of divine light and inspiration. Who knew that would happen? Surely, not me. But undeniably, it has.

I had just stretched out to rest when my blog entered my mind, and I was compelled to write.

Compelled to write.

I heard those words in my mind, and suddenly I was awake. Those words are important to me, and deeply familiar. I have struggled with this notion of being compelled to write for nearly a decade. I came to the academic life not really knowing what compelled me to write. Certainly, I was compelled to write my dissertation so that I could complete my PhD. I was compelled to publish articles to climb my way to tenure. But, that kind of “compelled” is really about feeling obligated and goal-driven. I was writing for an outcome, and that is perfectly fine and utterly reasonable in the academy. But, I was always hoping and searching for something more. As the song goes, I still hadn’t found what I was looking for.

In the office I worked in for the past six years, I lined my ample desk space with many quotes to inspire me in my academic work. Together with my card deck of famous women writers, I always hoped they would free up my inner muse. One of those quotes that I hung up stood out to me in particular because it reflected a mysterious longing, something that I wanted to feel and experience, but really couldn’t quite imagine:

“In the deepest hour of the night, confess to yourself that you would die if you were forbidden to write. And look deep into your heart where it spreads its roots, the answer, and ask yourself, must I write?”

― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

I had never felt that. I imagined that people did, and I longed for it. But for me, writing remained a chain-myself-to-my-chair proposition, just as it had been all throughout my life. I wrote because it was necessary to document my words and experiences. Writing was evidence of what I had done, peer reviewed proof of something observed. Sometimes, I have even had moments where I enjoyed it, and I felt like I was contributing to the academic dialogue. I even thought, and occasionally was told, that I might be pretty good at it (except for the dubious Reviewer 2 who loves to break down any shred of remaining ego). But to feel compelled to write? That one must write? Or die if forbidden to write? That seemed mysteriously distant and utterly unattainable.

But here I am. I am in the deepest hour of the night, and I cannot rest. I must write. It doesn’t even matter what I write, because I have come to know…experience…believe…that inspiration will find me. It doesn’t matter for whom I write, because the message finds its way to where it needs to go without my directing that process. My words take root and sink more and more deeply into my own soul, spreading their reach to others whose words also touch me. The roots spread in the darkness and emerge into light. The words are life, and light. I am simply setting them free.

I didn’t know when I first began this blog, nearly a year ago, that I would start to take in those mysterious and elusive words of Rilke. I didn’t know that their mystery would become real, words made flesh in my visceral experience of spirit finding free passage through words, phrases, stories. But now, I must write. I am compelled. Writing is living, and breathing, and being.

Writing has become my small point of light.

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I Pray

Posted on January 25, 2014 by harasprice

Today, I was checking my Facebook during a break at Diocesan Annual Council. I read a status update from someone who shared a personal tribute to and extended a desire for prayers for a loved one. I wrote that I would be keeping her in my prayers. Within a few minutes of writing that, I bought a new chaplet of prayer beads that caught my eye. They are made of olive wood beads, and have a tree of life pendant. My personal, daily centering prayer has been focusing on roots…which I suppose is not a surprise to those who read my blog…but these simple, rustic beads seemed very fitting for this wintertide contemplation in which I have been engaging. I am reaching down deeply into the soil of my soul, finding treasures and nourishment I hadn’t realized were still part of what grounds me. I have put my new prayer beads in a place I will use, daily, keeping them close to me.

I pray.

I have been doing that lately. Not just the praying, but actually saying it. Writing it. Acknowledging that I pray. Putting down the “P” word unabashedly. Reclaiming this word that I had run away from. Although praying has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember, I also have avoided the word with fierce intentionality. “I will be thinking of you.” Fine, but it has always been more than that, really. “I will be sending good vibes.” Of course, but those vibes come from somewhere. They source with intentionality in my spirit, with a belief that all that which is greater than we are connects us, beckons us, reaches to us. When I sit in that space, holding those I love in my mind, caring for them and loving them in my heart with all that is within and beyond us, sending those good thoughts and positive vibes…I pray.

Maybe it was growing up a child of the 70’s, caught in rhetoric about prayer in schools or other public venues that gave the word “prayer” a distasteful, partisan flavor. Maybe it was something more noble, like the socialization in the self-determination and person centered dignity and respect of my social work training that made me temper my words, to insure that my beliefs never privilege me over any other person’s beliefs or uncertainty. Maybe it was that prayer held a very concrete meaning and purpose in my early life: intercessing, asking, directing the course of divine energy to a purpose I was instructed to believe. Prayer equated with highly specific lines of communication from the humans to the divine. Certain prayers were privileged, apparently, if answered. But some of us begged and still did not receive, so what did that say about the divine if that is what prayer meant?

Maybe that is why many of us stopped saying it. We stopped talking about praying.

But, some of us who didn’t speak of praying walked through the majesty of nature and felt the warmth of the sun touch our spirits. We breathed in and out thankful gratitude as we opened our hearts to what was offered in that moment of spiritual connection. Others of us walked quiet paths of stillness and solitude, listening. Still others heard the music of the spheres or saw the artistry of colors or words or images. We connected something within us which also enfolded us, connecting us. We tried to give other words to this experience, an attempt to make meaning for something we craved but shied away from at the same time. We engaged in patterns that were familiar, words that were comforting, rituals that gave meaning. We didn’t call it prayer. But, we prayed.

I pray.

I pray in the quiet hours of morning, breathing in gratitude and hope for all that will unfold. I pray with prayer beads in my pocket or a touch-stone in my hand when no one else even knows, or needs to know. I pray when someone comes to my mind, or a familiar memory catches me off guard and makes me pause. I connect, remember, hold sacred the person or experience that chose to find me in that moment. I also pray familiar words, alone or in the company of others. I pray in liturgy. I find meaning in the tradition that connects my spiritual ancestors and I, who could only ever know each other through that ritualistic connection of human speech and divine longing. I pray with my fingers, slipping over beads. I pray with words, and images, and stillness. I prayed when I had no church, and no religion. I pray now that I am part of a community of faith, in my times of certainty and in my times of doubt. I am prayed for, for which I am grateful. And I pray.

So, if you see me and share with me a piece of your life and spirit, I may tell you that I will pray for you. And I will. I hope you will pray for me, too, in whatever way or form is meaningful for you. I take back this word, reclaim it for its simple mystery and divine promise that transcends creed, dogma, or division. We are beings of spirit, whose lives touch each other in divine and meaningful ways. I am grateful for that connection, and transformed by its divine power.

And that is why I pray.

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Blizzard

Posted on January 22, 2014 by harasprice

Like most people who have spent a chunk of time in cold, snowy climates, I have no shortage of stories about ice storms, snow storms, and frigid cold weather. In Buffalo, snowstorms are measured in feet, and continuous days of snow under seven don’t really count. I have driven to comedy club shows in what others would deem a blizzard, and I know what a sidewalk plow looks like. If it weren’t for the chaos created on my schedule, I would find it hysterically funny that many children living here, in Virginia, will be getting their third day off from school for two inches of snow and some sub-freezing temperatures. While I scoff, a part of me also yearns for those snowy days past. I pause tonight to remember what I learned from growing up in a rural town amid the snow belt of Western New York. There are some really valuable life lessons hidden among my treasured memories.

I was in first grade when the Blizzard of ’77 struck Buffalo. That storm still lives in people’s memories as if it happened yesterday. The Blizzard even became a popular board game, which is practically poetic. We were house bound for around 2 1/2 weeks that January. We had plenty of food because we squirreled away non-perishables and our own canned peaches, pears, beans, tomatoes, and grape juice all through the summer and fall. We had water to drink and to use when the pipes froze because we quickly filled all the metal canning kettles and roasting pans we could find with water and set them on the porch to freeze when we heard that the storm was brewing. When the taps wouldn’t work, we carried the frozen pots in and thawed our water on the wood stove that heated our little house. The worst part for me was dragging frozen firewood from the woodpile outside to the house, which I did grudgingly even with a metal sled to pull the wood on. It was a different time, and a different age. I learned somewhere deep down that I must always be prepared. No running to the stores for milk, bread, and eggs at the last minute (everyone wants French toast during a blizzard here in Virginia it seems). Instead, I learned to value slow, steady preparation across weeks and months. Squirrels know this instinctively, and we learned it, too. Blizzards were the ultimate test of endurance.

Blizzards also taught me that we are all a little crazy around the edges. OK, maybe “crazy” isn’t the best word to choose, but I want to get this point across. If you talk to birds outside your window as though they are people on an ordinary day of the year, others may deem you crazy. After 2 1/2 weeks where the same three people look at each other all day, I contend it’s perfectly fine to strike up conversation with a black-capped chickadee scavenging for the seed and suet left in the trees before the storm. Preferable, perhaps. In no small way, blizzards taught me we are all frayed around the edges, and we need to be able to take ourselves and each other lightly, and respectfully. Over my years of counseling and social working, I have learned that we are all much more empathetic people when we realize that none of us are are truly normal all the time. Put us in the crucible of a deep freeze and some will start to get angry, others withdrawn, others manic and giddy. We know to grant some space to each other but not lose sight of the core person we know is there in spite of the rough edges that start popping through. When we connect to the human race and see ourselves as all uniquely and beautifully frayed, we become less judgmental and more compassionate. We are capable of greater love.

It was in a blizzard that I remember sitting and pondering the deep meaning of life, the “why” and “how” of what makes us tick as human beings. In blizzards, I finished cross stitch projects and latch-hook rugs instead of abandoning them after start up. I read voraciously and transported myself to King Arthur’s court, or Laura Ingalls Wilder’s prairie. If we were lucky and the mail came, spring bulb catalogs would fill us with joy, imagining the white tundra surrounding us on all sides spotted with bright yellow daffodils and fiery red tulips. It is an act of faith to believe that spring will come again under five feet of snow. It is divine grace and eternal mystery to find a purple crocus or pink hyacinth blooming through the snow, or pushing up sideways from under a snow bank or a tipped over flower pot. Magic and mystery are ever present in the glinting diamonds that form at dusk when freshly fallen snow meets moonbeams in the darkness. It is deep, beautiful, and soulful. I source my mysticism in the snows of winter, and I close my eyes and take in those images even now. These images are guardians of the sacred spaces in my soul.

Even our two inches of swirling snow holds some power over my mind and imagination tonight. I felt some righteous indignation today sitting in a meeting during a snowy day. Snow is so rare here. A typical day was too ordinary, too matter of fact. Snow beckons me to somewhere deeper and further in my soul. I couldn’t concentrate, and started wondering what some of my sacred spaces looked like on this snowy day. I began to picture the labyrinths I have walked this year dusted with snow, before I was called back into the here and now. These are my own beautiful, frayed edges showing through. I am happy, finally, sitting down to write this, looking out my window and see glinting, icy white against the night sky and hearing the passing crunch of icy snow beneath feet or wheels. Bliss.

If there was a chickadee nearby, I would tell her or him about this small point of light. And I know my bird friend would understand.

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