Tranquility of Order

Annie’s forsythia bush is 

blooming. My bush, just across 

the street stands naked. Buds 

aplenty, but no blossoms yet. 

The scillia is just pushing its blue head through the leaf 

clutter.

Can you spot the scillia?

I can only see the scillia because I know just when and where

to look.

In a chaotic world finding a bit of peace can be elusive if you 

don’t know just where to look. 

 Nature is the surest place for me to find the Creator steadily

 at work crafting peace. The order of spring’s unfolding brings

 me peace.

Father Thomas Keating writes, “Peace is the tranquility of 

order. It is true security.” First snowdrops last week. This

 week scillia and forsythia. Spring and the tranquility of order

 nourishes me.

I am here in this place but a moment in eternal time. Before

 me and after me there was and will be this order: 

snowdrops, scillia, forsythia.

Around these cycles of bloom I make my own rituals. When

 the forsythia bloom it’s time to freshen the bath towels. Mine

 grew stale over the winter. So I wash them first in detergent 

and hot water, then I run them through another cycle with a

 cup of vinegar, finally I finish them off with another cycle of

 hot water and ½ cup of baking soda. If it’s warm and dry, I 

dry the towels on the line. If not, it’s OK to dry them in the 

dryer.

Fresh towels, snowdrops, scillia, forsythia—may the peace of 

the tranquillity of order by yours.

A Magic Carpet Ride to Bliss

What I wanted this week is what I want every week: a magic carpet ride to bliss.

The Universe wasn't having it this week.  It handed me the fragile beauty of these peonies.  Like me this week they were falling apart, disintegrating, past their prime.

And yet. Still. Lovely.

The week started out with the horrible tragedies in Orlando.  First the shooting of the singer, Christina Grimme. Followed close on the heels by the mass shooting at Pulse.  So many lives wrecked, ended, horribly altered. The two-year old Nebraska toddler snatched from his father by an alligator while on vacation.

A dear friend received staggeringly sad news that made all of us close to her weep and pray and hope for the best.

In all of this, there was no magic carpet ride to bliss.  Even though I pray every day and meditate and journal and pray some more and volunteer in the community and play with my friends and make my bed every day. In short, I do what we all do. I try to create order out of chaos, give each day some structure so there's something I can depend on.  And still it all goes to shit. I have more questions than answers like:

• Why can't someone else be sick?
• How can this happen?
• Why can't we all just get along?
• Why didn't someone step in and help or stop those people before they wrecked so many lives?
• Why weren't there signs?

Despite my best efforts I feel lost, confused, dazed. And yet I know that peace and love start in my own heart.  I'm angry with the shooters and with a Universe that can afflict those I love. I'm angry with politicians who can't seem to get their act together to get semi-automatic weapons off our streets and good, sustainable mental health care to those in crisis.

Yet in the asking I received an answer this week from the writings of Father Thomas Keating:

"God approaches us from many different perspectives: illness, misfortune, bankruptcy, divorce proceedings, rejection, inner trials. God has not promised to take away our trials, but to help us change our attitude toward them."

Sometimes there aren't answers that make any sense and I find I must live with the questions. Instead of demanding the Universe make sense to me, Father Keating's writings suggest that God is present in the confusion and disappointment.

Once when I was taking the disappointments of the Universe particularly personally, Prince Charming said to me, "Notice the birds singing, the sun shinning.  Yes this is hard, but there's still so much to be happy about."

In that moment I understood that I thought that if something bad happened I shouldn't, couldn't be happy. Prince Charming was telling me that even though the world is a bruising, brutal place; that isn't all there is.

This week there have been parades.

with marching bands

And old trucks

marching

and beauty queens waving

There has been wine with girlfriends

There has been gardening

This week, like every week, there has been falling apart and then putting ourselves back together again. We're not the same as were last week.  We are battered and bruised by the suffering. We are humbled by a chaotic and mean world that is still full of beauty, grace and love.  And so many of us across this country and around the world have said no to hate and yes to love.

Dear ones hold lightly to all that you hold dear and remember "We are God's work of art" (Ephesians 2:10).