Ordinary Time: X is for X marked in the box

I honored the remembrance of 9/11/2001 by exercising my right as a citizen to accept my call for jury duty. I put my x in all of the right boxes.

In this election season, I am especially aware of the privilege it is to be an American citizen in our imperfect nation. To be willing to serve on a jury, even when it is inconvenient. To vote even when choices may not be clear.

I’ve been praying earnestly, daily, for all candidates (all means all of the candidates) and for all of us who have the privilege of voting:

+Praying for us to listen carefully to those with whom we disagree.

+Praying for us to be respectful of all candidates, especially when it is difficult to do so.

+Praying for the speaking and the hearing of truth, and the discernment of truth from untruth.

+Praying for those who serve in order to make our elections possible.

+Praying for those who use violence as a means to communicate and to protect others from the harm they cause.

+Praying that in all things we will seek to rise to the other’s best and to serve the common good, especially when it might not be the best thing for us as an individual.

On 9/11, I gathered in downtown Houston with a cross section of citizen siblings. What a wonderful group of Americans were gathered in Jury Assembly Room One. We raised our right hands and swore that we were United States citizens, lived in Harris county, and not convicted felons. We were also repeatedly thanked for honoring our civic duty.

I wasn’t chosen to serve on a jury that day, but I was still paid $30 for showing up and my parking was validated, too. I could have gotten a free cup of coffee also if I’d chosen to do so.

On 9/11, I decided the best way, as a citizen, was to donate my jury money to two candidates I am supporting.

In choosing who I will vote for (and all is not yet decided), I’ve done my best to read carefully all I can about the candidates, trying to stay away from more partisan sources that can be more fun, frankly, to read, and searching for more thoughtful facts and opinions. It takes time.

I’ve also spent time trying to clarify what I value most, and to use that as one of my filters for discernment.

If you’ve read this far and disagree with the candidate choices I’ve made, I would love to sit and have a cup of coffee or tea with you. To listen to what you think and hear how you’ve come to your decision. Not to change your mind, but so that we can be a more perfect Union. If you ask, and only if you ask, I will tell you how I’ve discerned my vote.

It’s how we might hear the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

Ordinary Time: W is for waiting, welcoming, and watching

For the fourth time in the past week, I’m in the air again. My two week Covid bout in July resulted in a slew of rescheduling. The last two weeks of August, which were planned as quiet, are now full of appointments and travel.

This trip is my rescheduled July trip to Oregon for the second leg of the Percy Jackson trip (Chicago and St. Louis) with my grandson, Austin. But more on that in another blog. The bonus of the rescheduled trip is that I will get to be with my son for his birthday.

I’ve been up since before 3 AM for my 6 AM flight.

I was at the airport a little after 4 AM, a time when many service people work while others still sleep.

There was no coffee to be found until 5 AM, and I waited in the airport chapel.

The only sounds I heard were suitcase wheels rolling down the terminal halls. As I read the morning scriptures and prayed, another early flyer came into the chapel and kneeled in prayer.

Waiting.

A friend had given me a Starbucks card, and I was the first to be served when the store opened.

I boarded my flight, and was welcomed by friendly United crew and my seat mate who hoisted my bag into the overhead bin and then took it down at the end of the flight, volunteering to do both.

Welcoming.

I had gotten so busy getting ready to leave last evening that I had completely forgotten to look for the blue moon. What a gift to be welcomed by it outside my window and to be able to watch it the entire flight to San Francisco, from night sky, through sunrise, until it faded with daylight.

Watching.

Where shall we wait and welcome and watch this Ordinary (not ordinary) time day?

Still Ordinary Time. Still V is for Virditas

This long weekend of not so ordinary time in New Mexico has been observed with amazing drives where the greens of summer, punctuated with the colors of flowers, continue to fill my spirit.

Worship has been not inside churches but in stops along the road that are so beautiful we have to pause. I paint. We pray.

Centering prayer on Sunday was in a space in the Harwood Museum that has been a chapel for me for years. Seated on the aspen yellow stools placed in the shape of a cross in the Agnes Martin room, I used her painting, The Perfect Day, as my visual icon.

Vespers on Saturday night, from the Book of Common Prayer, were framed by the sunset near the Rio Grand Gorge.

Prayers in the evening, called Forgiveness (from Daily Prayers for All Seasons), with an emphasis on how we have cared and not cared for God’s creation, were prayed on a road to Arroyo Seco.

More prayers from Daily Prayers for All Seasons were prayed at midday on a road through the Taos Pueblo.

Beauty has been my invitation to pause to pray, that is, worshipping God in the beauty of holiness. (Psalm 96)

Ordinary Time: V is for Virditas

Hildegard of Bingen, a 12th century mystic, Benedictine abbess, and one of the rare female “doctors of the Church, ” wrote about and lived the theology of virditas. From the Latin for green and truth, Hildegard proclaimed the wisdom of the holiness of God’s creation.

Is there a better word for the long green season of Ordinary Time? Virditas.

My best traveling friend and I are back in Taos for a long weekend to attend the opening of our friend, Abby’s, opening of her show at a local gallery.

Since we usually are here in the grays, browns, and whites of winter, the summer virditas of New Mexico is full of gob-smackness.

The colors are even more stunning because we’ve had rain everyday. It has been a perfect amount of rain—not too much, not too little; no mosquitoes, and leaving it cool enough to sleep with windows open. Meals can be pleasantly eaten outside.

We had an unplanned midday walk yesterday due to unexpected car trouble. Our steps along busy Paseo del Pueblo Sur between the car repair place to our favorite coffee place down the street, where we waited, was lined with wildflowers. A midday walk without a drop of sweat, parenthesed with color.