Harsh Reflections on a Sunny Day

“Polygon Gallery, North Vancouver” Phone Photo DS

Trigger Warning: violence against women

Pussy Riot Exhibition

I entered the Polygon Gallery: I wanted to be a witness. Even before the first image performed, a whole body sob escaped from my throat. I had to take a moment before continuing. I was fine, even happy that day, in the middle of the North Shore Writers Festival. I think it was the yellow bruises on her inner thighs. I think it was the thought that women have to go to such lengths and suffer so much to push back against injustice; to be heard. The Gorilla Girls information was there alongside the Pussy Riot Graffiti. I had the ear mufflers on to survive the volume of the 50 plus videos of Pussy Riots in Russia.

My breath caught when I saw that in the Medieval churches, they were pleading to the Virgin Mary to help them. I found myself praying that God would help them. I thought, could anything like that happen here? Violence against women in Canada has risen so much in the pandemic. Now that the pandemic is over there is silence. But silence has always been the fallback position to continuing trauma. We Canadians are very polite.

In Canada, in 2022, 184 women and girls were violently killed, primarily by men. One woman or girl is killed every 48 hours (Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability, 2022).

https://canadianwomen.org/the-facts/gender-based-violence/ Accessed April 14, 2024.

The Gleanings Project: Field Notes for the Wilderness

“Century Gardens” Phone Photo DS

Bessey, Sarah. Field Notes for the Wilderness: Practices for an Evolving Faith. New York: NY, Penguin Random House LLC, 2024.

475 Words

Above all, trust in the slow work of God. (Teilhard de Chardin in Bessey, 1)

Dear Wanderer . . . We are in the midst of a shift in the church . . . If the city is a metaphor for certainty and belonging, then the wilderness is for our questions and our truth. (Bessey,3)

We come across little clearings like this, where we can spread our quilt for a while, sit around the fire together, and share some time, maybe a thermos of tea. (4)

It’s here I discovered that the wilderness isn’t a problem to be solved, it is another altar of intimacy with God. (5)

My soul was as parched as the landscape around us. (6)

Every answer I had memorized had become inadequate. I wrung my soul’s hands. (8)

We’re always evolving in how we understand words and texts, and the meaning of those words. (10)

Prayer isn’t a vending machine . . . (14)

It’s always been about the love of God, for and in you, and also for and in this beautiful tragedy of the world. (16)

The invitation of rest and gentleness, of journeying with Jesus in the wilderness, is likely the exhale you’re craving. (19)

It turns out that, yes, the yoke has been too heavy. It’s not all in your head. (21)

Telling the truth is its own holy comfort. (22)

I began to see the subversiveness of Jesus, long-tamed, interpreted away, and inoculated. (24)

What I thought was exile became home, and the misfits became my friends. (25)

Sometimes reality comes to us slowly, in a dawning realization . . . I’ve learned by now that most of us cross that threshold to the wilderness because of our grief. (30)

Like most women raised in church, I was unacquainted with my own anger. (32)

Secrets were coming to light . . . (33)

We start to think that nothing is redeemable. (34)

Three are some homes –– and beliefs –– that deserve the burn-it-down treatment, absolutely . . . able to see the foundation or the character of possibilities. There is so much that love and care can heal. (35)

Those places, if left unchecked, will poison the whole home . . . (36)

The four stages of faith formation . . . Simplicity, Complexity, Perplexity, and Harmony. (McLaren in Bessey, 38)

In Simplicity we are dualistic and committed to constructing. This is the stage of our life when we rely heavily on black-and-white thinking. We are eager to please authority figures. Like our parents or pastors. We highly value loyalty and purity. There is good and there is evil, all is sorted. Sometimes we can be narrow-minded and judgmental, sure, but we’re also very committed, and we often are trying to do good in the world. (39)

We are unlearning bad habits . . . (47)

The Gleanings Project: Sacred Spaces: Stations on a Celtic Way

Photo Collage of Paintings and Shells
Deborah Torley Stephan

Silf, Margaret. Sacred Spaces: Stations on a Celtic Way. Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press, 

2001.

 

492 words

 

“In ancient as in modern times, the human heart has always been looking for a way.” (Silf, 7)

 

“The spirit of the Way will not allow us to pitch camp and stay forever with these artificial certainties.” (8)

 

“One branch of the human family, in the Celtic regions, in the early centuries, after the life of Christ . . .” (8)

 

“We speak even today of some places as being ‘thin places’, meaning that the presence of the invisible and the spiritual in those places is almost palpable. Our Celtic forebears revered such ‘thin places’ as sacred space.” (9)

 

“Space can become sacred . . . when it is saturated in prayer, perhaps because it has been a place of retreat and reflection for prayerful pilgrims through the centuries. It might be an island of Iona in sacred history or it might be an island of prayer in our own daily lives.” (10)

 

“Woven into this exploration of sacred spaces is the thread of our own story . . . weave their own patterns . . .“ (11)

 

“Beginnings . . . times of commitment . . . seasons of setting out . . . turning and returning . . . seasons of companionship . . . boundary seasons . . .” (12)

 

“Christians believe Jesus is God’s sacred space –– one in whom the transcendent creator interpenetrated the created world . . . the Christ-life is being  lived out through time, energized and directed by the Holy Spirit, until every life has been lived and every death has been died. This is the scale of the journey . . . from Alpha to Omega.” (14)

 

“The Celtic infinite knot is one picture of God’s weaving . . . What is it about this symbol that has the power to reconnect?” (25)

 

“My small piece of thread is just one snippet of an eternal spool that God is weaving into [the] Dream.” (26)

 

“Weaving can only happen when two or more strands come together. It is a symbol of community.” (28)

 

“The High Cross . . . the ladder of reconnection.” (43)

 

“In the summer of 1999, British TV viewers tuned in to the sight of the liberation of 800 cats and kittens that had been breeding them for the sole purpose of medical research. It was the last farm of this kind in Britain . . .” (53)

 

“The Weeping Stones . . . Outside the window there was bright sunshine. A short summer heatwave. The garden beckoned. I couldn’t resist to find a few moments of healing peace beneath the trees. A final vigil . . . my on mother . . .” (56)

 

“I have spent many weeks of my life walking the hilltops of my homeland . . .  strings of summits . . . “ (61)

 

“They feel like something very significant is breaking into our lives.” (67)

 

“Listening to the heartbeat of God . . . (78)

The Gleanings Project: The Blue Parakeet

“Mountain View, Early Morning” Phone Photo DS

McKnight, Scot. The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible. Grand Rapids, 

MI: Zondervan, 2018.

500 words

“When I prayed something powerful happened, and I went to breakfast that day a new person.” (9)

“Whatever they were claiming was not in ‘fact’ what they were doing. (Nor was I).” (11)

“I must confess, I loved the thrill of these debates.” (17)

”A pressing question of our day . . . “ (19)

“We are asked why we think the instruction from nature in Romans I about homosexuality is permanent and applicable to day, but the one in I Corinthians 11 is evidently disposable.” (21)

“Which way do I read the Bible . . . “ (22)

“What kind of blue bird is this? Could it be a stray mountain bluebird . . . Then the blue bird moved a bit . . . I was disappointed. It was someone’s pet blue parakeet. It had escaped its cage and was now a free bird.” (23)

“They let the blue parakeet be a blue parakeet . . . Chance encounters sometimes lead us deeper into thought . . .  a woman in the church foot washing  . . . is this passage for today or not? (24)

“If we sit down and think about it, it is impossible to live a first-century life in a twenty-first century world.” (26)

“The danger in ‘retrieving the essence’ is that there can be too little adoption or not enough faithfulness and consistency with all the Bible itself. “ (27)

“God is on the move . . . return and retrieve . . . we need to go back to the Bible with our eyes on the Great Tradition so we can move forward through the church and speak God’s Word in our day in our way.” (34)

“My desire to master the Bible and put it all together into my own system, drained the Bible of its raw, edgy, and strange elixirs. I was caging and taming the Bibles blue parakeets.” (36)

“Jesus changed everything . . .  God asks us to read the Bible as the unfolding story of his ways to his people. Stephen was killed for telling that story.” (59)

“The Bible contains an ongoing series of midrashim, or interpretive retellings of the one story God wants us to know and hear . . . each of these authors tells his version of the Story . . . they tell . . . wiki-stories of the story; they give midrashimon the previous stories . . . the ongoing reworking of the biblical Story by new authors so they can speak the old story in new ways for their day.” (64)

“Many New Testament specialists will tell you that nearly every page of the New Testament is a wiki-story on an Old Testament wiki-story.” (65)

“If we learn to read the Bible with tradition –– it’s a bit like sitting down at a table with three or four generations in our family . . . we can enter into a conversation in which we can learn from the wisdom of the past.” (100)

The Gleanings Project: Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies

“Piper at ECUAD” Collage by DS

McEntyre, Marilyn Chandler. Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies. Grand Rapids, MI: 

William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2009.

385 words

“Foster the kind of community that comes from shared stories . . . “ (Mc Entyre, xi)

“There is, in all of us, a hunger for words that satisfy, not just words that do the job of conveying requests or instructions or information, but words that give a pleasure akin to the pleasures of music. “ (27)

“Mere lists of nouns can be poetry.” (38)

“Tell all the truth but tell it slant. . .” (Dickenson, Emily, in McEntyre, 41)

“Opinions are the stock-in-trade of thoughtful people to be earned and held strongly until further evidence requires their modification.” (41)

“The practice of precision not only requires attentiveness and effort; it may also require the courage to afflict the comfortable and, consequently, tolerate their resentment.” (44)

“Healing involves naming the insults and offenses.” (59)

“We inhabit narratives . . . every story provides a space in which author and reader meet . . . some readers . . . become the guides or docents in those spaces.” (78)

“Once we have dwelt in a particular house of fiction, we hold within us the memory of the landscapes and intimate spaces it affords. And that memory furnishes and redesigns our interior spaces where thought is born and nurtured.” (79)

“Our lives are lived in relationship to words, written and spoke, sacred and mundane. They are manna for the journey.” (86)

“Conversation is a form of activism . . .” (89)

“Curiosity is a form of compassion . . . ‘What is it like for you?’” (98)

“When silences are allowed, conversation can rise to the level of sacred encounter.” (107)

“Understand how richness of experience, even the most searing, blesses us in the struggle.” (115)

“Stories are pathways.” (121)

“High intelligence involved in word play offers not only entertainment but encouragement.” (188)

“The story is told of Mother Teresa that when an interviewer asked her, ‘What do you say when you pray?’ She answered, ‘I listen.’ The reporter paused a moment then asked, “The what does God say?’ She replied, ‘He listens.’ It is hard to imagine a more succinct way to get at the intimacy of contemplative prayer.”  (211)

“When the mystics speak of prayer, they are talking about that which will create in us a new structure of consciousness.” (O’Connor, Elizabeth, in McEntyre, 220)

The Gleanings Project: Contemplative Vision

Photo Collage of Paintings and Shells
Deborah Torley Stephan

Benner, Juliette. Contemplative Vision: A Guide to Christian Art and Prayer. Downers 

Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2011.

493 words

“What images and inner associations form for you when you think of contemplative prayer . . .  nuns sitting in prayerful stillness . . . monks in a monastery walking in silence in a cloister . . . Can you see yourself in the picture that forms for you?” (Benner,11)

“Contemplative prayer is for all Christians. It is our response to God’s invitation to relational intimacy . . . a receptive form of prayer . . . “ ( “ )

“Teresa of Avila has described it as the gaze of faith that is fixed on Jesus –– sharing time alone with a good friend . . . Regular practice of this type of prayer is not merely a discipline but is a way of moving prayer from the closet to the rest of your life.” (12)

“My training as a visual artist first oriented me to the priority of careful noticing . . . docent in an art gallery . . . teaching people how to really see what they were looking at. This translated well into my subsequent work as a spiritual director . . . physical seeing a doorway to spiritual seeing . . .  Judeo-Christian art . . . as an aid to contemplative prayer.” (13)

“These great works of art . . . were central to the way churches proclaimed the Word.” (15)

“It opens us to the mystery of that which cannot be reduced to thoughts or beliefs. It helps us love God with all of our heart, all of our mind, all of our soul and all of our strength.” (16)

“As we carefully gaze on the painting, we enter the world it depicts –– into its time and place. When we do this, all time becomes present time, and we are led into the eternal presence –– into the One who is ever present to us. Such openness allows us to be filled more completely with the Spirit and drawn into a deeper relationship with God.” (19)

“Becoming attuned to the Spirit of God through the practice of contemplative prayer, we find that we also more attuned to others.” (20)

“We will examine how transformed vision will shape the way we live in and relate to the world.” (21)

“The questions are intended to provide you with an opportunity for deeper engagement with both the paintings and the biblical texts they are based on. Use them as a way of noticing and responding to the gifts and invitations that you may have received from the Spirit of God.” (23)

“We are so used to being busy that we treat it as an essential characteristic of the good life.” (27)

“Rather than thinking of prayer as communicating with God, think of it as an openness to God. Unceasing prayer is, then, unceasing openness to God. ” (55)

“Jesus created a close-knit community of followers bound strongly together in love.” (121)

“Journal about your experience . . . “ (173)

The Gleanings Project: Introduction and The Gift of Being Yourself

“Art for the Sake of the Soul” in Collage Book, DS

Introduction

In my youth I avidly read each book required by courses. I joined into class discussion, my hand always in the air. Debates fascinated. Once upon a time, in a flurry of defences, I argued against free will. When I listened, I became convinced of the other side, for a lifetime. Mrs. Krueger was the freedom fighter. I wonder now at her background. Were her arguments from experience?

I was more to be found on the dance floor than at the library door. I married young and had my children. It was then, in the hours after bedtime, and during naps, that I read as if my life depended on it. The first tome was Gone With the Wind. I began university and was interrupted by life many times. This became my pattern. 

The Gleanings Project, to begin in the New Year, will be part of one of those interruptions. I will glean books for glimpses of knowledge and wisdom, fun and study, using fewer than 500 words. Later, I will get down to serious work again. Thank you for being companions on the way. Your likes and comments are awesome.

. . .

Benner, David G. The Gift of Being Yourself: The Sacred Call to Self-Discovery. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2004.

500 words

“Jesus’ paradoxical teaching . . . it is in losing ourself that we truly find it . . . I have done neither [here]. . . journey of finding our authentic self in Christ and rooting our identity in this reality is dramatically different from the agenda of self-fulfillment promoted by pop psychology. ” (13)

“The goal of the spiritual journey is the transformation of the self.” (14)

“Beneath the roles and masks lies a possibility of a self that is as unique as a snowflake.” (15)

“A humble self-knowledge is a surer way to God than a search after deep learning.” (a Kempis in Benner, 20)

“Personal knowledge is never simply a matter of the head. Because it is rooted in experience , it is grounded in deep laces of our being. The things we know from experience we know beyond belief. Such knowing is not incompatible with such belief, but is not dependent on it.” (25)

“Paradoxically, we come to know God best not by looking at God exclusively, but by looking at God, then looking at ourselves –– then looking at God, and then looking at ourselves . . . mostly fully known in relationship to each other.” (26)

“God’s call to a deep personal encounter . . . is an invitation to step out of the security of the boat and meet Jesus in the vulnerability and chaos of our inner storms.” (31)

“Revelation is not simply something that happened at some distant point in the past. If it were, all we could ever hope for is information from this historic event.” (34)

Because God is love, God can only be known through love . . . This is transformational knowing . . . also requires surrender . . . Genuine knowing also demands a response . . . To surrender to Divine love is to find our soul’s home.” (35)

“Relationships develop when people spend time together . . . the essence of prayer . . .Spirit-guided meditation on the Gospels. ” (37)

“The meditation I am recommending is not the same as Bible study. It is more an exercise of the imagination than it is of the intellect. It involves allowing the Spirit of God to help you imaginatively enter an event in the life of Christ as presented in the Gospels.” 

“My journey, however, has not been easy. I have trouble visualizing things . . . But . . . allowing myself to daydream on it –– is sharing Jesus’ experience with Him . . . slowly moving to a new level of personal knowing of Jesus.” (39)

“Coming to know and trust God’s love is a lifelong process . . . allowing our identity to be re-formed . . . core of the spiritual transformation. “ (51)

“In human community . . .” (52)

“Spiritual transformation, not self-knowledge is the goal of Christian spirituality. “ (72)

“Every moment of every day or our life God wanders in our inner garden, seeking our companionship.” (88)

. . .

Meandering Through the Writings of Others as a Lament Practice: Saint Maybe

“Gardens at Ceperley House” phone photo DS

Here are today’s explorations:

Tyler, Anne. Saint Maybe. 1991.

870 words

*** Even so there were moments when he believed that someday, somehow, he was going to end up famous. *** That was the spring that Ian’s brother fell in love. ***  culture *** Step across the street and borrow the pinking shears. *** dialogue, plot development ***  I was mainly odds and ends to my ex-husband and I wanted to be shed of them as soon as possible, Lucy said. *** Characterization *** But airmail! I admired that! I asked if she would like to have dinner. *** There was this about the Bedlows, they believed that every part of their lives was absolutely wonderful . . . When bad things happened . . .  Bee treated them with eye-rolling good humor as if it were the stuff of situation comedy. *** Both sides of the family as far back as anyone could remember had been teachers. *** None of Danny’s previous girls could hope to compare with this one. *** no working wife for Danny *** social culture *** That husband of hers must not have been much, considering how far he’s fallen behind on the child support. *** I felt a rush of sorrow. *** Ian had almost reached the point where he could take her for granted. *** The cat threw up on the oyster behind the couch. *** But what she didn’t seem to realize that a person his age had to have a social life and a social life took money. *** Can I ask what you think of this dress? *** I guess after this I won’t be free anymore? *** list of specialized kitchen utensils *** You have way, way overstepped, Mom. *** This Lucy, calling up the minute Danny’s back is turned . . . *** It is seamless to betray; so easy. *** When Ian passed through the hall, he sent his father a commiserating look. *** metaphor about spring *** show not tell, a ladder of chalk squares *** I’m following this recipe that says simmer covered, stirring constantly. *** Women who looked like that never needed to consider other people. *** Agatha, you and Thomas will have to stay here and babysit. *** He wondered how people endured children on a long-term basis – the monotony and irritation and confinement of them . . . *** He already knew that nothing in life would ever be the same. *** It must be a two-pill nap, or even three-pill. *** then they all got divorced. *** (You could almost think sometimes that their mother wasn’t there behind the face anymore.) *** Sometimes, lately, there were holes in the way she did things, places she just fell apart. *** Their mother never drank at all. She said drinking made her say things. *** You’re not the boss of me! *** BECAUSE of what I told him . . . *** He wished it was something he could go to prison for. *** Did she think, if only Dot’s car hadn’t broken down? *** Without high heels she seemed downtrodden . . . *** So what if he’d known? *** How long will I have to pay for a few tossed off words? *** I always say, get up and scrub the floor if you can’t sleep. *** insight, foreshadowing *** Our family’s never held with sleeping pills. *** Scraps of songs sailed past, Monday, Monday, and Winchester Cathedral and . . . *** This is what we’ve come to now that people phone instead of writing . . . *** She isn’t even kin. *** weaving in pop psychology, patriarchal culture *** The effort of reading and rocking him made him slightly motion-sick . . . *** I caught her shoplifting. *** She wasn’t meeting some man, she was shoplifting. *** Ten days after he dies, I let them go finally. *** The scent of detergent and fresh linens gradually filled the house. It wasn’t such a bad Christmas Eve after all. *** Forgot to put his parachute on . . . *** Pray for me to be forgiven. *** He rested all his weight on God . . . *** If only you could climb into photographs. *** A wall could serve as a phone directory. *** One door was white and one fender turquoise. *** Wasn’t Ian the hero though? *** Daphne was playing hopscotch with the Carter girl. *** Ian comes too. He’s the one who keeps us all together. *** Lucy went out and got herself pregnant. *** He left her. *** She hired herself a big-shot city lawyer and sued for child support. *** years of desperation *** Surely private detectives were sworn to secrecy . . . *** The burden is that you must forgive. *** Was he blind or what? *** It was said that his wife left him for a younger man. *** His fingers felt weak as if he had come through an ordeal. *** I think I’m more the one-night-stand type, if you want the honest truth. *** Tomorrow afternoon we clean house. *** Ian started building a cradle from Virginia cherry . . . *** Wasn’t it Christian of you to take this time away from your duties, she said. *** 

Meandering Through the Writings of Others as Lament Practice: Matthew 25-26

“Collage of Paintings and Shells’ DS

Here are the explorations for today:

First Century Second Covenant Scriptures

Matthew 25-26

The Kingdom of Heaven can be

Illustrated by the story of ten

Bridesmaids

Five were wise enough

To fill their lamps with oil

Stay awake and be prepared

Another story told

The man who received the $1,000

Dug a hole in the ground

And buried it

Throw the useless servant into

Outer darkness

When I the Messiah shall

Come in my glory I

Will separate the people as

A shepherd separates 

The sheep from the goats

I was hungry and you fed me

I was thirsty and youMessiah

Gave me water

I was a stranger and you

Invited me into your house

Naked and you clothed me

Sick and in prison

And you visited me

Jesus now proceeded

To Bethany a woman

Came in with a very

Expensive bottle of perfume

And poured it over his head

She has done a good thing

For me

Sorrow chilled their hearts

Take it and eat it

For this is my body

This is my blood sealing

The New Covenant

Poured out to forgive the 

Sins of multitudes

Keep alert and pray

The time has come

My friend go ahead and do

What you came here to do

I could ask my Father for

A thousand angels 

To protect us but how

Would Scripture be

Fulfilled

Looked for witnesses who

Would lie about Jesus

But Jesus remained silent

I am

Struck him

Peter denied it loudly

Immediately the cock crowed

Chief priests and elders decide

To put Jesus to death.

Meandering Through the Writings of Others as a Practice of Lament: Matthew 19-24

“Boy Piper Drinking Tea at Emily Carr University” Collage Book, DS

Here is the exploration today:

Matthew 19-24

No man may divorce what

God has joined together

Hard and evil hearts but

Not what God originally

Intended

Not everyone can accept this

Statement only whose whom

God helps

Little children were brought

To Jesus to lay his hands on

And pray for such is

The Kingdom of Heaven

You must pray

Until the answer comes

He put his hand on their

Heads and blessed them

Before he left

Don’t kill

Don’t commit adultery

Don’t steal

Don’t lie

Respect your father

And your mother

Give all to the poor

But he was very rich

Disciples confounded

Who can ever be saved

Humanly speaking no one

But with God everything

Is possible

The last shall be first and

The first last

As Jesus was on his way

To Jerusalem he took the

Twelve disciples aside

To explain

I will be betrayed

On the third day

I will rise to life again

The mother of James and

Zebedee asked a favor

Will you let my two sons

Sit on two thrones next to

Yours

Those places are reserved

For those my Father selects

I the Messiah came to serve

And give my life as a ransom

For many

What do you want me to 

Do for you

Sir we want to see

He touched their eyes and

Instantly they could see

And followed him

Jesus rides into Jerusalem

On a donkey 

Who is this

It’s Jesus the prophet

From Galilee

He will soften adult hearts

To become like little children

Jesus went into the Temple

And turned over the 

Money-changers’ tables

Scriptures say my Temple

Is a house of prayer

Not a den of thieves

Even the little children

Shouted God bless the 

Son of David

Fig tree withered

Jesus told them several

Stories about the Kingdom

Of God

His reply baffled them

And they went away

Love the Lord your God

With all your heart

Soul

And mind and

Love our neighbour as 

Much as you love yourself

Everything they do is for

Show

Hypocrites

Extortion and greed like

Beautiful mausoleums

Decayed inside

I send prophets and wise men

Writers you kill them

Many will come who claim

To be the Messiah

Dark days persecution

Then last signal

Of my coming

Deep mourning and angels

Trumpet blast

The chosen gathered

Two work in a field and

One will be taken

Two women doing household

Tasks one will be taken

The other left

So be prepared.