Tag: travel

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Ode to Mary Dyer

Part of the Pilgrimage Summer 2013 Series

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Mary, Oh Mary,
here your statue sits.
So calmly,
hands together in your lap,
upturned,
as if open to receive.

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Your head is bowed slightly,
face softened.

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Both feet planted firmly on the floor,
back straight on the bench.

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I wonder.
Maybe you’re sitting in
Quaker Worship,
waiting in silence for the Spirit to move.

You look so calm and peaceful.
Serene.

I wonder.
Is this how you looked when
they taunted you and tortured you?
Was your face full of such grace
when your fellow Christians
persecuted you
because your spirit-filled Quaker ways
didn’t fit their Puritan sensibilities?

Oh, Mary.
You loved as a martyr.
You kept showing up.
When they kicked you out of Boston,
when they jailed you,
persecuted you
When they hung you in the square.

You put liberty of truth above your life.
You moved from white martyr,
to green,
to red,
with your blood.

We look to you.
Your face that has become so familiar,
as it sits on campus back in Indiana,
in front of Stout Meeting house.

I’ve looked at your slightly lowered eyes
and lowered mine as I sit.
I’ve looked to you as a feminine example,
a faith leader to follow and emulate.

But Mary, Oh Mary.
Seeing you here in Boston,
flanking the State House,
across from the memorials,
I remember.

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You, Oh Mary,
you stood for truth and faith
in ways that I only want to read about
in history books.
When you were persecuted
by the moralistic fundamentalists
within your religious tradition–
you stood up.
You spoke.

When you were jailed and silenced,
you leaned into the silence,
gained strength and courage
and stood up
and spoke
again.

Your hands gently cupped to receive,
the same hands that grasped and fought for justice.

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Your eyes lowered,
The ones that flashed and sparkled
as you proclaimed uncomfortable truth.

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Your feed firmly planted,
stood your ground,
walked many miles,
kept showing up,
emerging from the Silence,
witness for the Light.

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Swedenborg Chapel Cambridge

Part of the Pilgrimage Summer 2013 Series

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On Sunday I started a 10 day church immersion internship at the Swedenborg Chapel in Cambridge on the Harvard campus.

I enjoyed co-leading the service with Rev. Kevin Baxter, meeting the congregation, and touring the building. Over the week I’ll learn more about the congregation, experience some of the broader community connections, and prepare a sermon for next Sunday.

Cheers to Cambridge!

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Nashville Yarn

Part of the Pilgrimage Summer 2013 Series

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As part of my summer adventures, I am crocheting a long scarf, a prayer shawl, for which I am gathering yarn each place I go. One of my hopes in this venture is to get to know local people and connect in with the communities I’m traveling to. And what better way to connect with people than through a shared love of color and yarn!

Athena and Jesse and I scoured the internet to find the best yarn shop in Nashville and we and google agreed that the Haus of Yarn was the place to go. Athena and I got in the car on the rainy Friday afternoon and after a few misled turns on the GPS, arrived at the Haus.

It was a lovely full-fledged local yarn shop, overflowing the colors and textures and I quickly was lost in looking and feeling. They had one shelf of local yarn, which was my first choice, but then was quickly out of the running based on the price-tag… I narrowed it down to three good choices under $10 and decided on a knobby green variegated.

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When I took it up to the register, I pulled out the beginnings of the shawl and told them about the project. A minute later three women were all crowded around the counter and feeling the existing yarn and asking about where else I would be on the hunt for yarn shops. They were very friendly when I asked if I could take their picture and they insisted I take a small gift of a tape measure with their Haus of Yarn logo proudly displayed.

After going outside, Athena and I stopped and I quickly finished off a bookmark with the newly found yarn woven in and ran it back inside to reciprocate the gift. Thank you Nashville!

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Loosening Threads

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Part of the Pilgrimage Summer 2013 series.

In order to go on pilgrimage, you must leave somewhere. Be it physical or metaphysical, in order to go, you must leave. And in leaving, that place becomes part of your journey.

I have begun weaving the stitches (crocheting actually, but that doesn’t sound nearly as poetic) into the pilgrimage prayer shawl. As I have final visits, pack boxes, sit in a classroom one more time I stitch in snapshots.

I try to pay attention as I drive these street that have become so familiar to me over the past few years.

The Milk House mural at the end of my ally. Covering a whole wall with the words, “The Most Convenient Connivence Store in town.”

The cherry blossoms and magnolias, the iris and daffodils, overflowing and reminding me this is my third spring here.

The way the path curves around under the bridge in the gorge, and my favorite tree root, twisted into a seat, poised on the edge, leaning over the stream.

The red gate through which I walk for the healing of acupuncture and the wisdom of spiritual direction.

The walk to school, where to cross, through two alleys, one jaywalk on a quiet day. And the crosswalk where I continue my delicate battle of teaching Richmond drivers about pedestrian rights without getting run over.

Clear-Creek Co-Op and Roscoes Coffee shop, Firehouse BBQ with their pulled pork nachos that are always lunch AND dinner. Incomparable in size however (though far superior in ingredients and taste) to the nachos from Joe’s Pizza which come an a full-sized round pizza pan, loaded with chips, chopped pepperoni, ham and melted cheese. There was the night Hoot and I sang there, and the night we broke out in a polka. And Pete’s Corner Cafe where I had lunch with Carole today, as we have many times before, eating the burger with no bun and hearing from Pete about the newest recipe he’s trying.

People’s faces fly by my eyes as I think of the rich conversations over theses tables, cup of tea or glass of wine in hand.

Threads of this life in this town.
Do I un-weave them?
Or simply loosen their daily hold?
I thank them for being the fabric of a season.

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Pilgrimage Summer 2013

yarnThis summer holds many things for me. This is my smorgasbord summer, chock full of ordination requirements, classes, travel, and moving.  It is the summer where I will pack up my things at the beginning of May in Richmond Indiana and unpack a mere carload of them in a yet to be found home in San Francisco at the end of August. It is the summer where my Sherpani carry-on suitcase and I (a splendid birthday gift from a dear friend) will become close companions. It is a summer where I fear I could feel disconnected, homeless, overwhelmed, and unraveled.

Thanks to the wise spiritual direction and coaching of Amy and Martha, and the wisdom of the many saints who have pilgrimed before, I choose to be intentional about this journey. This summer is a pilgrimage. This summer is a beautifully connected series of events, which will be woven together with a divine thread that is already at work.  A journey of calling. A journey of discovery. A journey of adventure and service, exploration and growth.  An inward journey threading through the outward journey.

As part of intentionally paying attention to this Weaving of the Spirit, I am going to work on a prayer shawl as I travel.  Stitch after stitch in the foundation of cream-colored-cotton, creating a continuous framework. A framework that I will then weave in yarns and ribbons, colors and memories from each of the places I sojourn.

On this pilgrimage I remember that we are always held and breathing in the body of God, present in the gratitude, the beauty, the brokenness and the stories.  And that we do not walk alone.

And so I invite you, any of you, to pilgrim with me this summer. Whatever your plans are, whatever your travel itinerary might hold. Join in a summer of paying attention to what the Great Weaver is doing in your life. Together we can notice what practices sustain on the journey. Share snapshots of your pilgrimage, as I share mine.