A Weekend of Celebrations, Both Sacred and Secular

Today is Halloween and celebrations will be taking place across the world this weekend to honor this occasion.  Some of the celebrations will have secular focus, while other celebrations will have a sacred focus, and still others will be a wonderful combination of both.   This unique combination of secular and sacred celebrations is due to the fact that Halloween is always celebrated one day before All Saints Day (November 1) and two days before All Souls Day (November 2), both important holy days in the Christian faith.  Another name for All Saints Day is All Hallows, and so the evening before All Hallows came be known as Hallows Eve, which was then morphed to Halloween.  These two holy days, All Saints and All Souls, are times when people remember and make holy (the meaning of the word hallow) the memories of the lives of the saints, known and unknown, and the memories of loved ones who have all departed this life. So given the unique combination of secular and sacred celebrations that mark this time of year, how might we honor both?  How can we make this a, “both and,” rather than an, “either or,” experience.  One suggestion is to both fully enjoy the fun Halloween celebrations and activities that come our way and to at some point this weekend pause to reflect on what we hallow, what we hold to be sacred in our lives.  It seems an especially appropriate time to pause and remember those whom we “love but see no longer,” those whom we miss and whose memory and spirit we wish to honor and celebrate.  You might want to write about your memories or speak them out loud to a friend or loved one.  You might want to say a special prayer of thanksgiving for their presence in your life.

This time of year might also be a good time to celebrate the sacred gift of the friends and loved ones who are still very much with us and without whom our lives would be greatly diminished.  The saintliness and soulfulness of these people are what gives our lives their unique richness and thickness.  There is no need to wait for our friends and loved ones to pass on to remind them of how sacred and hallowed they are in our lives.

So let's live it up this weekend.  Let's fully celebrate the tricks and fun that are part of Halloween and let's fully celebrate the treats of friends and loved ones, both living and departed, who make our lives sacred, hallowed, and holy.

The Church of Baseball

It's that wonderful time of year again, World Series time, and so it seems appropriate to reflect on a few of the great spiritual truths that baseball has to teach us about life and wellness. I am certainly not the first person to think of the game of baseball in spiritual terms. In the great baseball movie "Bull Durham," there is a point in the movie where Annie Savoy (played by Susan Sarandon), refers to the "Church of Baseball."      "I believe in the Church of Baseball. I've tried all the major religions, and most of the minor ones. I've worshipped Buddha, Allah, Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, trees, mushrooms, and Isadora Duncan. I know things. For instance, there are 108 beads in a Catholic rosary and there are 108 stitches in a baseball... It's a long season and you gotta trust. I've tried 'em all, I really have, and the only church that truly feeds the soul, day in, day out, is the Church of Baseball."

While I don't consider baseball to be a religion, I do in fact believe that there are indeed many spiritual truths that it has to teach us.

There Is No Time Limit--It Will Take As Long As It Takes

Baseball is different from most other sports in that there is no clock keeping track of time for a game. A half inning, which consists of a team making three outs, could be over in as quickly three minutes or it could take as long as thirty minutes, it all depends on what unfolds. When a game begins one does not know if it will last for nine innings or sixteen innings, for three hours or six hours. It will take as long as it takes. The spiritual lesson here, an important reminder in our sometimes over-schedules lives, is that not all that is important in life can be measured by the clock. Many wonderful things unfold slowly and I know that I, for one, simply need to learn to put away the watch or clock and live fully in the present moment without worrying about how much longer something is going to take to happen. A good conversation will simply take as long as it needs to take. Helping a friend in need will simply take as long as it takes. Raising a child or serving as a caretaker to a loved one, will simply take as long as it takes.

You Never Know When It's Your Turn, And So You Always Need To Be Ready

When a baseball team is in the field playing defense, the infielders and outfielders never know when the ball might be hit to one of them, so they must ready at all times. Attend any Little League game and you will inevitably hear the coach shouting out to the players in the field reminders such as, "Look alive out there!" or "Be ready, because this one might be coming your way!" Being ready involves being ready both physically and mentally, as alert players stay aware of the ever-changing game situation at every moment. This is important, as then they will know just how to react if the ball comes their way. When it comes to wellness, it is equally important to stay alert, ready, and prepared for whatever comes our way. An important decision affecting your own wellness, or an opportunity to serve or be there for someone in need could present itself at any moment, so "Look alive out there," and "Be ready, because this one might be coming your way."

The Goal Is To Help Each Other Get Home

Most sports have a goal, a place the athletes are trying to get to. It might be a finish line, a goal line, a hole, a net, or a hoop. What is the goal in baseball? The goal is to get yourself and your teammates around the bases in order to get "home." If you come up to bat with teammates already on base, your goal is to get them safely home. That goal is so important that you might even sacrifice yourself intentionally with a sacrifice bunt or sacrifice fly to advance your teammate one base closer to home. Getting home strikes me as a great metaphor for getting to that place where we are integrated and whole, that place where our actions and our beliefs are fully aligned, where we are well. When we are home in this sense, we are able to experience a peace that then empowers us to help others get home as well, which along the way may well require some sacrifices on our part.

Whether you are rooting for the Giants, the Royals, or just enjoy watching a well-played game of baseball, I hope you enjoy the World Series. As you do, you may find yourself pondering about some deeper life lessons that baseball has taught you. If the Spirit moves you, feel free to drop us a line or comment on our Facebook page about the spiritual truths you see being played out whenever you attend the "Church of Baseball."

What Kind of News Are You Spreading

 A recent study showed that good news travels faster and farther than bad news, at least when it comes to Facebook. This study showed that good news stories posted on Facebook were shared and "liked" at a much higher rate than stories that were reporting bad news. I was encouraged to hear about this study because it often seems that the bad news stories get all the attention in the media. It seems, though, at least on Facebook, that the general public is attracted more to positive news stories.

There are certainly important times and circumstances when bad news does indeed need to travel far and travel fast. The recent Ebola outbreak is a good example of such a time when the bad news needs to travel far and fast in order to warn people about potential danger. At the same time, the level of fear surrounding this story has been inflamed well beyond what most experts agree is the realistic danger of this disease for those of us living in the United States. Fear, like the Ebola virus itself, can be highly contagious and can spread exponentially if we are not careful to contain it.

This past week there was another news story that traveled far and fast. This story, clearly a story of good news, was the announcement of Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi as the co-winners of this year's Nobel Peace Prize.

News traveled fast about Malala Yousafzai. At age 17 she is the youngest recipient ever of the Nobel Peace Prize, receiving the award for her courageous advocacy work to make quality public education accessible for all, especially girls, in every part of the world. Her advocacy work began in her native country of Pakistan, where she spoke out against Taliban forces that were destroying girls' schools and banning them from attending any public school. Her public position nearly cost her her life when the Taliban tried to assassinate her in 2012.   She now lives and goes to school in England where she continues her worldwide advocacy work.

Kailiash Satyarthi, the other winner, received the Nobel Peace Prize for his work to abolish abusive child labor practices around the world. Starting in his native country of India, Satyarthi founded the Save the Child Movement in 1980, which has acted to protect the rights of more than 83,000 children from 144 countries.

Watching the news stories regarding Ebola and the Nobel Peace Prize winners spread this past week caused me to pause and reflect on the kind of news I spread in my corner of the world. Am I spreading mostly good news? Am I working and speaking out for justice and peace? Or am I spreading mostly negative, fear-based news?  Do I too easily get caught up in the anxiety of others and mindlessly spread that anxiety to others?

The answer to any of these questions can be "yes." We all indeed have the capacity to spread negativity in a way that is not helpful or healthy, for any of us.   We each also have the capacity to spread good news of people we know, who live in our own communities, who are making a positive difference in the lives of others. And on a good day, we might even be that person who is making a positive difference in the world. Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi can be role models to all of us, inspiring us to do good in our own neighborhoods, creating and spreading our own good news.

How about you? What kind of news are you spreading? Are there ways you might be more intentional about both spreading and creating good news in your community and in your relationships with family and friends? The fact is that the news we spread can be contagious. Let's do our part to be sure that what people catch from us is positive and life-giving.

Love Heals

I'm not usually moved to tears when listening to a person speaking to room of a hundred people, but I was so moved earlier this week when I had the privilege to hear one of the most moving and inspiring stories of healing I have ever heard. Ty, a woman in her late 40's, shared her story with over a hundred clergy from the Episcopal Diocese of Chicago as part of our annual clergy conference.

     Ty was a victim of physical and sexual abuse as a child. She ran away from her violent home at the age of fifteen, soon finding that the only way she could survive on the streets was to sell her body. In order to endure the pain and degradation of prostitution she soon turned to drugs and quickly became addicted to heroin. The next twenty-five years of her life consisted of a repeating cycle of despair. The cycle consisted of getting arrested, going to prison, getting clean, and then, because she had no safe place to return to when she was released from prison, getting arrested again for prostitution or selling drugs. As these were the only ways she knew how to survive at that point in her life, the cycle would start all over again.

   There was only one thing powerful enough to break this cycle for her, and that was the power of love. Six years ago, Ty experienced love for the first time in her life through a residential program for women in such despair entitled Magdalene. The Magdalene program, located in Nashville, Tennessee, was started in 1997 by Becca Stevens, an Episcopal priest and chaplain at Vanderbilt University. There are now Magdalene houses and programs across the country serving other women like Ty. The motto for the Magdalene program is, "love heals," because that is exactly what happens for the women in the program.

The Thistle Farms website (www.thistlefarms.org) offers the following description of the Magdalene program:

Magdalene is a residential program for women who have survived lives of prostitution, trafficking, addiction and life on the streets. Thistle Farms is our social enterprise where many of our women are employed.

For two years, we offer housing, food, medical and dental needs, therapy, education and job training without charging the residents or receiving government funding.

Our six homes function without 24-hour live-in staff, relying on residents to create a supportive community, maintain recovery, and share household tasks. 

   Ty shared with us her story of healing.  She reported that what healed her, slowly but surely, was the love of other women who had also been healed through the Magdalene program.  Ty has healed her addictions and her deep wounds of abuse, and is now helping other women do the same. Ty now works in the social enterprise arm of the Magdalene Program, called Thistle Farms, which employs over fifty women who have graduated from the program. Thistle Farms, run entirely by the women from the Magdalene program, produces and sells lotion, shampoo, candles, and lip balm through its online store and through over 250 retail stores, including Whole Foods.

   Ty's story is every one of our stories--if not the part about abuse and life on the streets, then certainly the part about how love heals. Each of us can tell our own stories of when we were hurting in some way or another and what healed us was love. As important as it is to hear and remember the stories of how love heals, though, it is even more important to continue to write those stories in our own lives and the lives of others. May Ty's story inspire us all to do just that.

Connecting Soul and Role

If you are a baseball fan, you know that Derek Jeter retired this past Sunday after playing for the New York Yankees for the past twenty years. In those twenty years Jeter earned great respect through how he conducted himself both on and off the field. He was an ethical person the entire time and was never once involved in any sort of embarrassing incident. When asked about what influenced his high standard of on an d off field behavior, he replied, "I always have tried to treat people with respect, the way I want to be treated. I've always been very cautious with what I do. You know, that started at a young age. I always had the approach that I never wanted to embarrass my parents." Jeter will be remembered for two things--the role he played for twenty years on the New York Yankee team, and for the soul--the character and values, he embodied while playing that role. A dear friend of mine, Rick Oberheide, retired this past week after serving in ordained ministry for thirty-five years. The church from which he retired this week was one he has served for ten years, the last of many places around the world where he has served through the years. There was a wonderful celebration of his ministry this last Sunday at which people of the parish expressed their gratitude for the role he had played in their lives and for the soul--the character and values that he embodied during the ten years he lived and served in community with these people.

Just today I spoke with a mother who was sharing her grief around her last child leaving home this fall. She spoke of her grief knowing that while her role as mother was not ending, it was certainly shifting. She beamed as she talked about how much she has loved the role of mother, feeling that she was "made" for that role. In her own way, she was saying that her soul was made for that role.

One of the great delights in life is when our soul and our role are connected. We are blessed, when we truly love what we do and when what we do genuinely aligns with our soul, with our character and values. When we have been blessed to experience this alignment in a role, then it can be especially hard when that role ends. We need to take some time to grieve this type of transition, the loss of a beloved role, as Jeter, my friend Rick, and the mother I spoke with will surely do.

The good news is that although roles change throughout our lifetime, our soul endures. A beloved role may come to an end, but the soul will continue to whisper to us, guiding us toward new paths and new roles. We are wise to listen to those whispers, because when our role is aligned with our soul, not only will this serve us well, but it will serve the world around us well, too.

I wish Derek Jeter, my friend Rick, and the mother I spoke with today well as they let go of one role and begin to be open to potential new roles that will most likely emerge at some point for them. There is indeed grief in letting go of roles that we have loved, but at the same time there is great joy in following the soul's guidance to as we discover a new role in this wondrous life we live.

What new role might you be being called into today at home, at work, or in your community? New opportunities are all around us to connect our souls to important roles that only we can fill.

     If you would like to read more about "soul and role," I highly recommend Parker Palmer's writing on this subject, especially his book A Hidden Wholeness.