​by Susan Rowland

"Holiness comes wrapped in the ordinary.
There are burning bushes all around you.
Every tree is full of angels.
Hidden beauty is waiting in every crumb.
Life wants to lead you from crumbs to angels,
but this can happen only if you are willing to unwrap the ordinary
by staying with it long enough to harvest its treasure."
— A Tree Full of Angels, Macrina Wiedeker


The 50 days of Easter has just finished and Ordinary Time begins. This is the juncture of the Liturgical year that stiches together the two more familiar cycles of the church. The Christmas cycle (Advent, Christmas, Epiphany) and the Easter cycle (Lent, Holy week, Easter, Pentecost). This year Ordinary Time began on June 6 and ends on November 26.

It is somewhat ironic to observe the arrival of Ordinary Time when the world is experiencing such extraordinary events with significant future impact. It can be overwhelming to discern where our energy should focus. Many I know had hoped that 2022 would bring relief from the two years plus of Covid. The dream was 2022 would just be ordinary or normal, whatever that might be.

This liturgical season is ordinary in name only, referring to how the weeks are numbered. But, it is not a time of bland rhythms or lack of inertia. It’s not a spiritual summer break, unless that is your calling. It is active, living hearts attuned to bold callings for change.

Ordinary Time offers an invitation to reflection and action. It is a living out of all we have gathered through the celebrations of the other two cycles. The color of the season is green symbolizing a maturing and ripening within our Spirit as we reflect during these next weeks.

I like to begin with a slow, repeated reading of Acts 2. Here we see the disciples begin to live what they have been taught through parables, the Sermon on the Mount, the bread of life story and so much more. They were surprised by the power that was available, they were just ordinary people now doing extraordinary things. There was no apathy with Jesus’ departure rather an incredible transfer of power to the disciples.

Here are a few other suggestions that might help bring meaning to this season for you: 
* Reading the gospels, watching the Master of the Ordinary transform lives with simple encounters.
* Evaluate your practices that may have been rich in Lent, that now feel stale.
* Engage in a daily examen of gratitude that focuses on the simple parts of your life.

As this season unfolds may you “unwrap the ordinary by staying with it long enough to harvest its treasure."

​Internal Family Systems (IFS) is a contemplative, soulful, and non-pathologizing approach to personal healing and spiritual transformation. A contemporary spiritual path, it deepens our connection to a sacred Source of loving energy; it tends, with care, the cacophony of emotions, impulses, and interior self-chatter that so often swirl within us; and it restores us to our true Self, that reservoir of personal power, expansiveness, and compassion that dwells within every human being. This workshop explores how IFS offers a model and process for compassion-centered spiritual direction that deepens connection with the sacred, with others, and with our own spiritual essence.


ABOUT FRANK ROGERS
Frank Rogers is a spiritual director, supervisor, IFS practitioner, retreat leader, writer, and professor of spiritual formation at the ecumenical and inter-faith Claremont School of Theology. He has taught and written in spirituality, contemplative practice, and compassionate social engagement for over 30 years, and is the author of Practicing Compassion and Compassion in Practice: The Way of Jesus. As the Co-Director for the Center for Engaged Compassion, he offers and teaches compassion-based approaches to spiritual direction and supervision.


EVENT DETAILS
This is an online event and the zoom link will be sent the day before. It will run from 9am to 11:30am PST and is hosted by The Contemplative Center of Silicon Valley. Spiritual directors and those in training to be spiritual directors are welcome to attend. Suggested donation is $20-40. 

By Susan Rowland

When will we take off our masks?  When will the front line medical workers feel rested and relieved? When will they feel restored from the day to day intensity of service and care? When will the division of pandemic procedures cease to be what drives apart rather than brings us together?  How do I manage the need to stretch my heart and provincial mind to recognize how small the world really is and how similar we all are? How do I even think of these questions without even including the many issues that trouble and unnerve us this day?
 
Breathe. Take another breath and yet again. With this prayer may you sense the Presence of the Holy One who has the more compelling questions for the unique individual you are. Perhaps, you might consider listing what may be weighing on your mind and use this prayer as a means for comfort in such uncomfortable times.  
 
This prayer by Ted Loder in his book “Guerrillas of Grace” provides an opportunity to pause, listen and let go. 
 
 Guide me into an unclenched moment 
            
            Gentle me,
Holy One,
Into an unclenched moment,
                        A deep breath,
                                    a letting go
                                                of heavy expectancies,
                                                            of shriveling anxieties,
                                                                        of dead certainties,
            that, softened by the silence,
                        surrounded by the light,
                                    and open to the mystery,
            I may be found by wholeness,
                        upheld by the unfathomable,
                                    entranced by the simple,
                                                and filled with the joy
                                                            that is you.

“Grief is the least linear thing I know,” says Jan Richardson. As someone well acquainted with sorrow following the sudden death of her husband and creative partner, Jan has engaged the chaotic labyrinth of grief as an artist and writer, bringing poetic grace and honesty to the complexities of loss. In this event, we will be in conversation with Jan about the endurance of love, the stubbornness of hope, and the solace of creative practice in times of grief. She will share from her work, including The Cure for Sorrow, as part of the invitation to reflect on how we continue to listen our way into our unexpected, unfolding lives.

All are welcome to attend. Registration is required.
Sliding scale donation $20 to $40. To register click here.
Zoom meeting link will be emailed before the event.


Blessing the Fragments 
The Cure for Sorrow, pg.161
-- Jan Richardson

Cup your hands together, 
and you will see 
the shape this blessing 
wants to take. 
Basket, bowl, vessel: 
it cannot help but hold itself 
open to welcome
what comes. 

This blessing
knows the secret
of the fragments
that find their way
into its keeping,
the wholeness
that may hide
in what has been
left behind,
the persistence of plenty 
where there seemed only lack. 

Look into the hollows 
of your hands
and ask
what wants to be gathered there, 
what abundance waits 
among the scraps
that come to you, 
what feast 
will offer itself from 
the fragments that remain.