Thank You Very Sweet

Last night I was led to the sermon on the mount. Jesus begins there with the beatitudes, starting off by saying “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom Heaven.”

Our Spirit is our ego. Those things about us that make us feel that we are right! Our habits and fixed ways of being. Those strongholds, pride, preconceived notions that we are attached to. So being poor in Spirit is to be void of that. To decrease so that God can increase within us.

I had a mentor when I first began as a yoga teacher who advised me regarding an empty apartment that I was afraid to rent. “I have no furniture,” I said. “Find fullness in the emptiness,” she said. I did that, and for a time my place served many purposes: it was a yoga studio, an art studio, even a dance studio at one point; it was an available space for creativity.

As I added furniture – piece by piece- I would come to grieve the empty space that it replaced.

So being poor in spirit, well it’s being non-attached.  It’s being empty and available; then yours is the Kingdom of Heaven.

This is a yoga teaching also. In the beginning of Light on Yoga, BKS Iyengar answers the question “what is yoga?”

‘When a (person) stills their mind, intellect and self through the practice of yoga, they become a Yucta – one who is in communion with God.

Still your Mind.

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“Preach the Resurrection!”   That is the one line that I remember the pastor saying during my ordination in 2008.  At the time I was just finishing Princeton Seminary and had gotten quite ‘heady’ regarding the Gospel.  I guess I’d just learned so much while I was at Princeton, I was looking for things that felt more concrete than life after death.

I’ve always loved Jesus.  And by the time I was graduating from Seminary, I was totally into the “historical Jesus;” Jesus as the revolutionary.  This man that we were still talking about more than 2000 years later  – he loved the unlovable, saw the outcast, touched the untouchable and he helped people believe that they mattered. He healed. I was into the Jesus that was so radical that he was a threat.  The government had to kill him in a public and vile way because he was empowering too many people.

This Jesus of mine was so loved that after he died people thought they saw him again, that’s how bad they wanted him back..

It wasn’t until Kesner died that I began to open. I was like a seed, buried deep in the ground.  My hard shell had to crack open so that my insides could reach up for something more nourishing. I wanted Kesner, and I could feel him.  Kesner wasn’t ever dead to me.  He isn’t.  He was there to help me find my car keys when I needed them.  When I shaved my head he whispered in my ear “natural is nice.” I felt his presence behind me when I cried.  And today when I laugh and dance he is here.

If Kesner is here – How much more is the Son of GOD!

Today I choose to wonder about all of this.  I don’t understand it and I don’t have to.  By believing that this is possible – That Jesus, this great revolutionary,  could be killed and then rise again in three days –  I remain in a state of awe over the magnificent power of God.  If this is not true, then God is somehow limited.

My God has no limits.

I WILL preach the Resurrection! And I will invite you to wonder about it with me. I will invite you to be in Awe with me- hoping that the sense of wonder and awe resurrects something in you,

as it has in me.

Several years ago I had a dream.  I don’t dream very often. I was on a stage like Joel Osteen, I was preaching the Gospel in a large open space – and I was on television too, just like Joel.  But when I looked out at the people, they were not in chairs..

They were on yoga mats.

The Holy Writings say, “No eye has ever seen or no ear has ever heard or no mind has ever thought of the wonderful things God has made ready for those who love Him.” – 1 Corinthians 2:9

A friend quoted this scripture and gave it to me in a card when I graduated from Seminary.

I choose to wonder about it all.

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I visited Cleveland for Thanksgiving and it was wonderful to be home. The city, however, feels like a construction zone. Cleveland is preparing to host the Republican National Convention this summer and so there is a lot of development happening. I came home to detours and roadblocks and must admit that my first feeling was frustration.

But then my mother explained that this is good. When the construction is complete the city will be transformed. Those spaces that are blocked off now are being remodeled and rebuilt and what is coming is better than what was.

And, OF COURSE, I have been using this analogy in my yoga teachings this week. Because it’s kind of like life..

Maybe there are areas that are blocked off? Relationships, work, creative inspiration? Our lives can sometimes feel like chaotic construction zones, full of detours and roadblocks. And it can be frustrating.

BUT BELIEVE that something good is happening just beyond those orange cones and stone barricades.  Something is being transformed, remodeled and renewed…  and what is coming will be BETTER than what was before! Just HOPE.

Hmm that’s really what Advent is all about.

Waiting.

Hoping.

I looked up the definition of detour before commencing this post. A detour is “a long or round about route taken to avoid something, or to visit somewhere along the way.”

Perhaps the detour IS the blessing?

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I visited a friend in the hospital last week who was hit by a car. He was on his bike and so pretty badly injured. I think I was trying to explain it, to explain all of the strange things that’d been happening lately: car accidents, friendships ending, the curious circumstances surrounding John Boehner’s retirement. “I feel there’s a rebalancing afoot in the universe,” I said, “a rebalancing of masculine and feminine energies…”

“What does that mean,” my friend asked.

I didn’t know, so we googled it.

masculine energy has to do with self esteem. How we feel about ourselves, the rights that we feel entitled to. Feminine energy has to do with how we feel about others, our ability to see others and allow them to be who and where they are. Ideally these energies are balanced in each individual. And in society.  People governing themselves with self respect, and also respecting others.

I’m not sure that I answered anything, but it did make me think about that thing that Jesus said: love thy neighbor as thyself.

Maybe these occurrences are to remind us?

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Where are you rooted and what are you growing?

I learned this morning that if you want to grow beets you have to plant them in deep soil in order for their roots to grow down.  If the soil is compacted and rocky, your crop will be distorted and forked.

Now back to my question, because we’re all growing something. Is it healthy? Are you rooted in deep soil? What inspires your work?

If you are wondering about what you’re harvesting, take a look at your soil.

Matthew 13: 3-8 “What do you make of this? A farmer planted seed. As he scattered the seed, some of it fell on the road, and birds ate it. Some fell in the gravel; it sprouted quickly but didn’t put down roots, so when the sun came up it withered just as quickly. Some fell in the weeds; as it came up, it was strangled by the weeds. Some fell on good earth, and produced a harvest beyond his wildest dreams.

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I officiated a wedding yesterday and was reminded of how much I love this part of my job. It’s my favorite part.  I also thought about what the Pope said a few weeks ago on 20/20. Prior to his visit to this country, there was a town hall meeting and a teenaged girl asked him what he hoped for her generation. Pope Francis said ‘I want you to walk together, not alone.  And when you walk together, walk with courage.”

Getting married is courageous. It’s beautiful.

These couples? I married them 🌷🌷.

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I’ve been thinking a lot about Jacob and Esau this week. They were brothers; twins, who were constantly at odds. Esau was the first born twin and so had all of the rights and priveleges that came along with being the first born son – he would be the one to lead the family after his father died. He would receive his father’s blessing. And his father loved Esau; he was athletic and strong, a hunter. Jacob stayed closer to home and was appreciated more by his mother.

One day after a hunt, Esau came home hungry; Jacob was making stew. He asked Jacob for some stew and Jacob said ‘only if you sell me your birthright.’ This meant selling his brother all of the rights and priveleges associated with being the first born son.  Esau sold his brother his birthright for a bowl of stew.

I read in a commentary this week that this would be the equivelant of selling your wedding ring for a hamburger. It’s the equivelant of selling something of tremendous value for a very cheap price.

and how often do we do this? How often do we compromise our value because we’re hungry. Maybe for affection, change, the need to be liked or to fit in?

Lets not be like that Esau.

Genesis 25:29-34

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My friend Andy told me a story once about a group of people that he encountered who had an interesting way of catching monkeys.  They would take bananas and burry them in narrow holes and in narrow pots.  When a monkey would pass by, it would smell the banana and stick it’s hand in the hole or pot to try to yank it out.  And while the monkey would stay there, struggling with that banana, it would get caught.

If only the monkey would let go of the banana, then it could free itself.

Whether the story is actually true is less interesting to me than this metaphor.  To me, this is a story about attachment. I’ve told this story in a sermon or two, and a yoga class or a few… because I believe that many of us can relate to that monkey!  Many of us have our hands in narrow holes, holding on to ideas/thoughts/jobs/relationships/ ways of being that are not serving us. They are keeping us stuck.

If only we would let go of the banana, then we could be free for something else…

Let go of the Banana.

Love Kim

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Plato’s Republic (written around 380 BC) begins with a series of conversations about the meaning of Justice. These conversations are between Socrates and the men of Athens. Socrates asks, what is justice? And several men offer their responses to him: one says that justice is honesty, another says that justice is the art of giving good to friends and harming enemies. A third man says that “Justice is in the interest of the stronger,” and a very potent conversation ensues after that.

This third man deems himself to be quite “sophisticated” and his argument implies that there is really no such thing as justice at all. Rather, this third man argues that justice is something that is created by those who are the most powerful in any given society, for the purpose of benefiting them.

Socrates pokes holes in this argument but one wonders: Does justice really exist in our world or is it merely a concept that is created by the strong?

The events in Ferguson MO seem to fortify this third man’s argument. I have no question in my mind that had officer Wilson been black and Michael Brown been white, that a grand jury would have been able to deliver an indictment. I have no question about that.

But does that make this third man right?

On my way home from New Jersey to Cleveland today my car spun out of control in the Pennsylvania Mountains and it (and I) fell into a ditch off of the side of the road. I was driving on an un-plowed stretch of I-80. I immediately called 911 and within minutes Pennsylvania State Trooper, Mark Ruscavage, came to my rescue. I felt so safe when he arrived – he asked me if I was hurt, he called me a tow..

And then he wrote my a ticket for $128.00 for reckless driving. No mind that it was a nor’easter, that my car has 2-wheel drive or that I had been driving 35 miles-per-hour with my hazard lights on. No mind that he hadn’t even been there to witness my driving, or that I was a single young woman stuck in a ditch on the side of a snowy mountain on the day before thanksgiving.

I cried.

I hadn’t cried up until that point. But receiving a ticket while stuck in a ditch was horrifying to me. It was just so..

Unjust!

And you see that’s the thing of it! We all know when an injustice has occurred. Even small children, they know when something is not fair. So if injustice exists, then justice – it’s opposite – must also exist!! It’s not just something that is created by the strong – it’s bigger than that.

And that is Socrates’point. Justice may not be easily defined and we may not always see it administered in the societies in which we live. But it does exist. So it is worthwhile, therefor, to practice being just individuals. To pursue justice as a virtue in our daily lives.

As officer Ruscavage left me sitting in the ditch with my ticket, I did the only thing I could do which was to look him directly in the eye and tell him that what he had just done will come back to him. Because I wholeheartedly believe that it will.

What we put out always comes back.

So be just.

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Welcome to Thank you very sweet – my odyssey.  You are here for a reason, maybe there is something here for you?  Some spiritual food? This is a book.. no a blog..  no, a journal?  I’m not sure what to call it, one day I just started writing. Or maybe that was God writing..?

All I know is that it makes more sense if you start at chapter 1 and read these in order (you might also want to read the “About” page for more context) – here is the link to chapter 1: Grief Sucks .  Grief does suck..  but things get better over time.  And there are lessons.  And tenderness.  And LOVE.

I hope this story helps you.  It helped me to write this. This blog/book/journal is a She-ro’s  journey.  My quest.

what’s yours?

welcome.

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