Lectio Divina: what's up with Ruth

During this past Sunday's practice of lectio divina, we were invited to think about a particular section of the narrative retold in the book of Ruth (see below). As we moved through the multiple readings of the text, several thoughts came to mind, and I share them here as nothing but HAT's observations about a very peculiar story of, in my opinion, faith and family.

+ Wonderful mother/daughter-in-law relationship. See how Naomi calls Ruth "daughter" as if it is a close relationship. See how Naomi wants to care for Ruth's security
+ Working together as mother/daughter tag-team: what a great story of guile, cunning, perhaps also a bit of manipulation? Is this a story of entrapment?
+ Ruth was so independent, strong, free-willed. Yet the narrative here only has her respond in a very obedient way, agreeing to this plot of Naomi's without so much as a word of protest. Narrative/story tellers frustrate me. What are they leaving out?! Why is the story retold in this way? What's with the mystery twists and turns?
+ Ruth does the hard work, and Naomi is praised and blessed by the women of the village. What? Where's Ruth in this?
+ See how the women recognize/acknowledge that Ruth loves Naomi and is dearer and better than seven sons... leave it to the women to recognize such power. The narrative gives voice to the women of the village!
+ Power of naming is a privilege, an honor, an authority and in this instance, the women name the child Obed. Not Ruth, not Boaz, not Naomi.
+ Strange, but I like it -- that Boaz is not mentioned in the naming section of the narrative. Biblical stories so often lift up the men, the patriarchal society, the male-dominated communities, and Boaz is clearly a man of wealth, power, influence, honor, integrity... but this story belongs to Naomi and to Ruth, and not to Boaz. Ha!

A brief, brief guide from the practice of Lectio Divina, suggested by Jeremy Langford in Seeds of Faith (pg. 73):

• Lectio (Reading): Read the chosen text reflectively and slowly. Enter into it as deeply as you can. Reread all or part of the text several times. If it helps, read aloud. Stop when a particular word, phrase, or image strikes you.
• Meditatio (Pondering): Stay with whatever touches you. Ponder and savor it, letting it penetrate your awareness, mind, and heart.
• Oratio (Praying): As you ponder, a prayer of thanks, repentance, need, or love may emerge. Allow yourself to express your prayer. Take as long as you need. What is it you seek most in life right now? What do you most want to say to God? What do you most want to hear from God?
• Contemplatio (Resting in God): At times, your prayer moves beyond words and images. When this happens, you are "resting in God." Let yourself trust enough to yield to the moment. As the sense of resting cease, return to reading the text and let the rhythm of reading, pondering, praying, and resting in God play itself out naturally and fluidly.
• End each time of lectio divina with a prayer, such as the Lord's prayer.

Lectio:
1) As you read through the story of Ruth and Naomi the first time around, what images come to mind? Think of all the different types of imagery that might leap out from the narrative: visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile, kinesthetic, etc.
2) For the second reading, what phrases capture your attention? What words did you concentrate on?
3) For the third reading, what ideas or thoughts or questions come to mind?

Ruth 3:1-5; 4:13-17
3:1 Naomi her mother-in-law said to her, "My daughter, I need to seek some security for you, so that it may be well with you.

3:2 Now here is our kinsman Boaz, with whose young women you have been working. See, he is winnowing barley tonight at the threshing floor.

3:3 Now wash and anoint yourself, and put on your best clothes and go down to the threshing floor; but do not make yourself known to the man until he has finished eating and drinking.

3:4 When he lies down, observe the place where he lies; then, go and uncover his feet and lie down; and he will tell you what to do."

3:5 She said to her, "All that you tell me I will do."

4:13 So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. When they came together, the LORD made her conceive, and she bore a son.

4:14 Then the women said to Naomi, "Blessed be the LORD, who has not left you this day without next-of-kin; and may his name be renowned in Israel!

4:15 He shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age; for your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is more to you than seven sons, has borne him."

4:16 Then Naomi took the child and laid him in her bosom, and became his nurse.

4:17 The women of the neighborhood gave him a name, saying, "A son has been born to Naomi." They named him Obed; he became the father of Jesse, the father of David.

a Prayer for the People

This past Sunday, as an 11th-hour substitute, I was asked to offer a prayer for the people during our worship service. Those of you familiar with the contemplative Thomas Merton will recognize large portions of his litany of intercession. His prayer touched my heart and though a large portion of the words were penned by him, I offered it up as a petition from my own heart. Let us, again, center ourselves with a deep breath, and open our hearts to pray together for the global community, and for the church universal...

Almighty and merciful God,
Father and Mother of us all,
Creator and Ruler of the Universe,

Your designs are inscrutable
Your glory is without blemish
Your compassion is unending.

In you, O Lord, is our peace

Teach us to wait and trust as we juggle our day to day responsibilities
Teach us to rejoice in each act of self-giving on behalf of others
Teach us to uphold human dignity and community
Teach us to see your face in every person we meet, to stay in love with you
Teach us to recognize the diverse signs of your kingdom, hard as they are to recognize at times,
in every expression of love, justice, and reconciliation
Heal and console those who have been wounded by the shootings in Ft. Hood, Texas
Bless and console those who have been touched by death and illness in this past week
Grant wisdom and clarity to those seeking employment, to those juggling with displacement
Teach us to be joyful in the abundance of your gifts
Teach us how to share those gifts in witness of your love and Mercy
Grant light, strenth, and patience to all who work for liberty and lasting peace on this earth

All this we pray in the Name of our Servant Lord, Jesus the Christ.

Amen.

Lucky Stiff

What would you do for six million dollars? Kill your lover? Vacation with a dead body? Save some dogs? Scuba dive with a corpse?

Yesterday, I was lucky enough to go see "Lucky Stiff" at the Contra Costa Civic Theater in El Cerrito.

If you are into musicals, comedies, and murder mysteries that end happily, then you're in for a fantastic treat! Visit CCCT and get swept away with a wonderful story.

All Saints' Day Prayer

This Saturday evening is All Hallows Eve, and Sunday is All Saints' Day. For me, it marks a time of reflection when I remember all the "saints" who have crossed my paths in life, all the people who have made an impact (transformative if not positive) sometime during the 30 years I've been on this earth.

For a beautiful prayer for All Saints's Day/All Hallows Eve, visit the GBOD website.

As part of the prayer, we are invited to call out the names of the saints from our families and communities.

On this Day of the Saints,* let us give honor to those who built our families, who sacrificed for our well-being, who built up our church, who founded institutions of learning, who braved the storm, who fought the good fight and who may still be fighting on. We stand on their shoulders!

Are there saints who have transformed your life in the service of God? Are there saints who are warriors of peace, justice, liberation? Are there saints whom you should name and lift up for having transformed your faith?

"Face First in the Tackle Box": A Night with Garrison Keillor

Garrison Keillor in real life is just as funny, deadpan, and "appropriate" as on radio. This past evening, I went to see Keillor's 90-min spiel about nothing and everything at Z-Hall. Fantastic evening.

Shooting the Breeze with the audience:
+ Experiencing a stroke around Labor Day
+ There was mention of heirloom tomatoes
+ Majoring in English Literature
+ Being in choir and singing like Pavarotti to Margaret, the tall beauty who read Albert Camus
+ Reciting "O Captain, My Captain" in a high school class
+ Having the stroke in a coop market, and driving to the emergency room, very carefully at 42.5 miles an hour
+ We imagined together what his 11 y.o. daughter would be like in her adolescence, after having broken free from the restraint of mid-western life: hidden away in her room with music blaring, and eyes, lips and nose pierced/punctured by glittering steel and metal like she had fallen "face first into the tackle box"
+ Wanting to write for the New Yorker about mid-west life
+ Being lucky that the stroke went into the "silent part of the brain" so that his stories, jokes, songs, and language are still intact
+ Being described by the attending at the emergency room as "awake, alert, appropriate, flat affect"

A few observations:
+ He talked non-stop; when he didn't talk, he sang; when he wasn't talking or singing, he was sipping water
+ He stood the entire time
+ The stage was set very starkly but artistically with one high-backed wooden chair, one mic on a mic stand, one small square table with a lilac-ish tablecloth topped by 1 single bottle of water and 1 small clear glass tumbler

HAT's self-conscious observations:
+ I was probably 1 out of 25 people under 35 sitting in the audience
+ I was the only person within 20 rows who attended alone
+ I laughed probably the loudest in my row
+ There was a bit of jealousy -- he can write, talk, sing, and capture an audience
+ I LOVED it. Why do I have to like it so much?!

Reverse Trick-or-Treating

I'm a glutton for chocolate, and I want to do something good to offset my gluttony for the choco-liciousness of cho-co-latte!

Did you know that for Halloween, you can buy Fair Trade Certified chocolate?! It's not just about finding that exotic chocolate combination (dark chocolate & chili, semi-sweet and bacon!). When I buy chocolate, I want to know that:

+ the company prohibits the use of abusive child labor in cocoa industry
+ the company adopts safer, chemical-free farming methods
+ the company uses renewable energy sources
+ the Fair Trade price I paid for chocolate raises farmers' incomes
+ the Fair Trade price I paid supports a more environmentally sustainable small-scale farming model

All this is something I learned while reading about Reverse Trick-or-Treating. Check it out!

Go ahead. Snap that chocolate bar in half to hear that crisp break. Indulge in your wildest chocolate fantasies, but do it Fair Trade!

Regina Carter: Reverse Thread

If you have not heard Regina Carter perform, you are missing out on a heart-stirring experience. A few Saturdays ago, Regina Carter performed her last show at Yoshi's in Jack London Square. The experience? Absolutely breathtaking.

Violins, bass, ancora (spelling?), accordian, drums. African folk melodies in contemporary re-interpretations. We heard songs from the African diaspora, including songs from Uganda and West Africa. First, the field recordings of the folk songs would be played, then Carter's group would play for us the new, contemporary re-interps of the melodies and rhythms. Delicious rhythms and beat. Melodies that seemed to drift in and out of some strange land that is here, physically present, and now, but also distant and of the past and of the future.

All the songs performed were from her upcoming album, Reverse Thread (release date January 2010: "a collection of infectious African folk melodies in a beautiful, contemporary interpretation").

You must, must, must get the CD when it comes out. I will.

Lost in the Corn "Maize"

We are Falling in love with Fall! This past Sunday, a small group of us took some of the youth from church to the G&M Farms Cornfield Maze in Livermore.

For those of you who don't know, the maze is basically a huge labyrinth built of corn that grows at least a foot over our heads. This year's maze is constructed in honor of and dedicated to Norman Marciel (a big, big agriculture guru who loved the pumpkin patch). The maze is the shape of his head and shoulders, wearing a baseball cap, with his name above and his dates (1940-2008) below. It was an amazingly fun experience walking through. When I got to the 2nd half of the maze, I actually followed the map and could tell exactly when we were walking the "M" or the "E" in his name. At one point, I heard myself say "We're walking on his ear". Strange.

Besides the maze, there is also a pumpkin patch ($7 each pumpkin, regardless of size), a cow train, a hay bale maze (for little children!), farm animals (I didn't look carefully but saw 4 sheeps, several cows, a few lambs, I think, but no goats), and pedal karts. Oh, and there was a GIGANTIC corn box. Picture a massive sandbox but instead of sand, fill it with corn kernels. The kids had a MAHVELOUS time. And adults, too. Needless to say, we all had to stick our feet inside -- stockinged feet or no. Very ticklish to stomp our way through the corn kernels. There were quite a few little bebes around, and I gagged a little when I saw some of the babies put the corn kernels in their mouths... Thankfully enough adults were around to prevent serious consumption of said kernels. Yuck.

Admission is $8 for adults on weekdays, but $10 on weekends. From 6-11 y.o., only $7 on weekdays, and $9 on weekends.

For more information, go here: www.gmfarms.com, or call 925-447-FARM.

Place of Hope

A few days ago, I had the pleasure of meeting Ms. Bea for the very first time. At 20 days old, she was gorgeous. Blue, blue, blue eyes framed by lightly sculpted brows. The cutest upturned nose that delicately said "pert". Long, elegant fingers and limbs that probably means she might become a dancer, or maybe a pianist. Perhaps a guitar player in her later years. Holding her, my maternal instincts kicked in, and I thought of my god-daughter or god-son to-be.

I may not have the luxury or the blessing of holding her/him in my arms 20 days after s/he will be born, but I have already committed to being a good, positive presence in her/his life.

Oh, to have that much hope about, placed in, a human being... it's so scary.

Rambling HAT

So there has been surprisingly little poetry on nothing but HAT's and that's because I've been out of practice. Every day, there is a joke dropped here or there at the office about how I should pen this article or that letter in iambic pentameter. Today, something cute and funny was said about my writing a cinquain for an eNews article. I laugh, and then I cry, silently, inside. Just a little. The truth is, lately, I've been writing very little. Ok, you caught me. I've been writing close to nil.

The most recent bit of writing I've done was today's children's storybook (12 panels) about HAT getting lost. My dear writing buddy remarks, "what a wonderful spiritual journey." Really? Thank you, dear J, because if you hadn't said that, it would have looked woefully like a pitiful little scrap of writing, squeezed onto the page out of desperation.

So, that was the whining part. Here, now, begins the part where I pretend there was some meaning to what I was writing:

The children's story that I wrote is a mix of "Where the Wild Things Are", "Peter Rabbit", and the biblical narrative of the five loaves and two fish. The story elements: a character who is lost, a family unit, a search/journey, signs/symbols, and a happy love-feast. Perhaps you're thinking I intentionally plagiarized parts of these three narratives and spliced them into my own story. You give me too much credit. If I were smarter, I might have thought of that. Truth is, I was only thinking of the simplest story to write and of the kinds of pictures I could draw to fill up the 12 panels of the storybook.

Although I've been mulling over this storyline for several weeks now (for as long as I've been carrying the booklet around in my purse), I only finished it today at our writing session. Mostly b/c I have fiendishly, delightfully, talented writing partners who inspire me to write, write, and write. ("No rough drafts!" said J.)

I also did not think of any significance to the story that I wrote. Until now. For the past week, thanks to our Bible study group, I've been pondering the practice of feeding my deepest hunger. That presumes I know and recognize my deepest hunger in all its manifestations. (No, no, it's not chocolate or ice cream.)

The questions we pondered in last week's session: What are your deepest hungers? Beneath your immediate goals and obligations, what do you really hunger for? What do you seek most ardently?

The story that I penned might very well be a poorly crafted (and badly illustrated) children's story, but the elements within the story are symbolic of the things I am searching for. I think.

Perhaps my subconscious was thinking of all these things and I was not naming them proper until I wrote the story. I look back on these storybook panels and I see what I am missing. It is easier and sounds better if I were to say my deepest hunger is to transform the world with my presence, or, to embody God-spirit in the world. But those are beautiful words and concepts. Very difficult to actualize.

My hungers are more visceral, perhaps? More concrete? My self-centered? My search takes me to the space of grieving -- that place where the rich, young ruler (from Mark 10) is surely familiar with. Sadly, it is a space focused (too much, only) on the self.

Perhaps that is why the whole story begins with a search. I need to start a journey. Having lived 1/3 of my life, I realize I'm still that little girl-character totally lost "on the day the sun and moon stood still."

Do any of your hungers surprise you? Are there any hungers that God may have planted in you to help you awaken and focus your energy in a more life-giving direction? Do you believe that God seeks us as we seek God? Is it possible that God is trying to get your attention? - Jeremy Langford, Seeds of Faith