Monday, December 31, 2007

At the end, at the beginning...

Dear Friends,
As 2007 ends, we can each take time to reflect on the past year. Where have I been? Where am I going? Is this the life I want to lead? What can I change about my life at this time? What can I put on hold for the time being?

The end of the year is simply another opportunity to reflect on your life, to surrender to those things that will not change, to decide what things you have the power to change. If you make resolutions, remember that you may not keep the resolutions perfectly, but they serve as a guide to move in the direction you would like to be moving.

Today - New Year's Eve - or tomorrow - New Year's Day, spend a few moments sitting quietly. Allow yourself to consider what your most heart felt dream is, at this moment in time. You may have more than one dream - but try to keep it to only 2 or 3 at the most! As clearly as you can, write your dream, or your intention, on a piece of paper. Place the paper in a place that is private and special to you, wherever that may be.

Now your intention, your dream, your prayer, is in the hands of God, of the Universe.
From time to time, remember that you are being led in the direction of your dream.

Happy New Year!
Warmly,
meb

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Dropping into the Darkness

I've been reflecting on "darkness" and "light" during this season of the year. One way to think about Christmas and Hanukkah is as festivals of light. Solstice celebrations are also ancient reminders of the season when the darkness reaches its peak and the light begins to come into being again.

We are often afraid of the darkness. Do you still use a nightlight? As a teenager, I remember that my older brother sent me on an errand into the basement of our house as he worked on his car on the street. It was after dark. I moved slowly into the darkness of the basement, a place where I had been many, many times before, as if it were a place with which I was completely unfamiliar. When I found what my brother wanted, I rushed safely outside into the darkness of the city street, lit by street lights! We often hear of children who take a special toy to bed to protect them from the darkness.

"I said some words to the close and holy darkness," Dylan Thomas writes in "A Child's Christmas in Wales." Culturally, we associate darkness with something bad, or perhaps evil. But darkness is often a gift: at the end of a long and tiring day, at the end of a long illness that inspires others to say: "she's not suffering anymore," and even times in our lives that seem to be dark but actually hold a change or transition that will be life-giving for us. While we may still be afraid of the dark times in our lives, the darkness is simply another place where new life begins, like the seed in the cold and dark earth during the winter.

Say some words yourself to the close and holy darkness this season. Maybe you can even say "thank you" for the things in your life that seem the darkest. What gift is there in those places?

Warmly,
meb

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Staying Centered During the Holidays

If the ads we see, if the messages we hear during this season are correct, we should all be happy! The truth is, the activities added onto our already full schedules, the list of names of those for whom we want to buy the "perfect" gift, the threat of not completely happy family gatherings, make the holidays less than happy for many - if not most - of us. At this time of year, we also remember those who are no longer with us, and holiday time can actually be a time of sadness, and longing for an ideal we will never achieve. Remember this: you are not alone! Everyone you meet is as frazzled as you may be!

Time to practice coming back to yourself, even for a few moments! This is an opportunity to practice!

Take a few moments right now to come back to yourself. Feel yourself sitting in the chair. I mean "feel," - be aware of your seat touching the chair seat, notice how your arms feel, whether they are suspended in the air or touching the arms of the chair. Is there tenseness anywhere in your body? Don't try to relax the tenseness, simply notice it. Do you feel heavy or light? Are you comfortable, uncomfortable? Shift one part of your body ever so slightly - so slightly that someone watching you could not see you move. How does that feel? Breathe.

The best gift you can give yourself this season is a few moments of serenity, of calm in the middle of chaos. The more you do this, the more you will bring calm to others around you, too!

Warmly,
meb

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

A poem

Before I slept
I saw the moon dance with the clouds,
dancing red ribbons across the sky.
In the middle of that night a great horned owl
called his song
over and over -
waking me from sleep.
I lay there, wondering at the aw-ful beauty of the night
and how the owl knew the moon, also.

meb 12/07

Monday, December 3, 2007

When the birds come...

In late November and early December the little birds - finches and sparrows - come to feast from the tree outside my living room window. During the rest of the year I think of them often, and I look forward to their return. This year I had some worries, because several of the neighborhood's cats have taken to sitting on the stoop on my front porch. But the little birds have returned to their feast!

I love the little birds. Sometimes I watch them and I think about how completely themselves they are! They flit around the branches, looking for food. They fall upside down sometimes in their earnest pecking at the branches! How much do they weigh, I wonder? Do they know they bring me such pleasure, just by being themselves? Would they be frightened, if they looked to see that I was here?

Every moment in the day is an opportunity to be present and to reflect. Look for the simple pleasures in your day, in the middle of this busy, busy season. Your life will be complete, as it is, then.
Warmly,
meb

Sunday, December 2, 2007

Waiting for Light in the Time of Darkness

Today marks the first Sunday of Advent in the Christian tradition. Advent is a season all to itself, and Advent - the season - is actually longer than the Christian season of Christmas. As you and I know, television and radio and newspaper advertisements would have us think that Christmas - or Hannukah (a festival of light, like Christmas) has already arrived. Every year the seasonal colors are driven into our awareness earlier and earlier, it seems. This year I know I saw Christmas ads before Halloween.

Back to Advent. Advent means: waiting. Advent is the season when we wait for the Light to arrive in the Time of Darkness. People of all places and all ages have known that the cycle of the year leads to a time of darkness. And it is precisely at the moment of deepest darkness that the Light arrives. In Advent we mark this passage of the year into the time of deepest darkness, when our experience and our memory and our lives serve to remind us that the Light does, indeed, come.

Many years ago during Advent, I spent a week on a silent retreat at a monastic community in Big Sur, California. Every morning I worshipped - in the darkness of the morning - with the monks. The worship was sombre. The setting for Advent that year changed my perception of Advent forever.

In our lives, we experience many, many Advents. Advent is the time when we are uncertain about the future: when will this time of difficulty, of emotional turmoil end? When will my prayers be answered? When will there be peace? When will I know peace, so that I can become a movement of peace in the world?

Sometimes Advent is a time of longing. Such was the longing of the people of Jesus' time, who had waited generations for someone to come to save them from being political and social outcasts, oppressed people. Such is our longing when our wishes are unfulfilled, when life falls apart and we don't know how to put it back together again. Advent is a time of longing, a time of hopeful longing.

May you wait - silently and hopefully - for the Light to arrive in those dark places in your life.
Warmly,
meb