REsources for Living
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If you were going to look for God, where would you look? Would you go up on top of a mountain? Would you look in the crashing ocean waves? Would you be more likely to find God in a giant sequoia redwood tree, or in a tiny plant growing in the pinch of soil between mountain rocks? Would you look up towards the stars or down toward the earth that supports us?
Touching our Strength
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We touch this strength, our power, who we are in the world, when we are most fully in touch with one another and with the world. Read more →
Waiting and Fulfillment
This year has helped me appreciate the value of waiting. As I spent each day and night worrying about my wife and her safety, I eagerly anticipated the day that we would be reunited. It was as if, in my mind, from that moment forward all would be right with the world. To be honest, I didn’t plan much past that day. I couldn’t think that far into the future.
In the midst of all the waiting of this year, I have found the importance of the present.
We are so set on what is coming next, and how to prepare for it, that we don’t take a moment to stop and look around. For me, that is what waiting is about: staying present.
So I took things week by week; day by day; moment by moment. There was really not another option. If I looked at the whole picture, it was too overwhelming, and far too long until she would be safe again. In my waiting for the future, I learned to stay in the present moment. It was in those moments that I found solace and peace, and the ability to keep my hope.
And the day came, when we were reunited! She is safely home from her deployment, and we couldn’t be more thrilled. But the reality is that there is still more to wait for. We wait to see what will happen next with her career and with mine. We wait to see how we will continue to adjust to being back together again, how she will adjust back to work, and how work will adjust back to her. We wait for her fellow service members to return home.
Cesare Pavese once said, “we do not remember days, we remember moments.” This quote was on a magnet I sent to my wife while she was deployed. And I have found this sentiment to be true. What do I think of in the 200 days we were apart? I remember laughing with her on Skype as we each ate a stale fortune cookie from our rehearsal dinner, to celebrate our first wedding anniversary. I remember her describing what it felt like to feel rain on her skin for the first time in months. I remember the moments when I would awake to a message from her in the middle of the night, and I knew that she was safe after worrying about attacks.
And now that she is home, there are still moments like those. But now I wake up to her sleeping soundly, or walk with our dogs in the snow. I have grown to live for those moments, and to find such richness in them. In this season of Advent, and of waiting and anticipation, I find comfort in moments like these. My hope for us all, is that we will stop and savor the present moment, and to see the beauty in it.
Blessed be.
Prayer for the Warrior’s Return
I wrote this prayer sitting in a military chapel in Afghanistan. The prayer was inspired by my encounter with a service-member I met. She was on her way home after a difficult tour as the lead officer on a joint theater trauma team. Among the experiences she shared with me was the memory of five Afghan children who were burned and blinded by an improvised explosive device. After I wrote this prayer I sent it to her. My hope is that these words may help her and others progress along the journey home.
Oh Gracious God,
Spirit of Life,
Source of Love
What has become of me — I am broken!
Deliver me from the dread of memory,
hatred, cruelty, and revenge,
meaningless loss,
and betrayal of trust.
Lift me from distressing dreams,
regrets, doubts, speculations,
the violence that fills my eyes and scars my soul,
and questions that have no answer.
Grant me courage
to feel my pain and grieve my loss,
and serenity to accept that the past is done;
I will never return to my old self.
Still, let gladness, faith, and hope return to me,
and let me remember the love for me that endures
even when I cannot love myself,
and even when I cannot love you.
Help me to lay my burdens
into your compassionate and forgiving hands,
and open my heart to see goodness and feel joy,
wherever it is to be found.
Guide me from isolation to beloved community,
where my anguish can be heard and felt,
where trust and wholeness can be restored,
where I may carry this new identity — this sacred wound — with honor.
Strengthen me in the ways of the Warrior,
the ways of justice, kindness and humility,
so that, knowing death, I may more fully live,
with gratitude for each moment, and reverence for life.
Amen
Disclaimer: All entries to CLF/Quest Military Ministries page reflect the personal views of the contributor. The views expressed here are in no way to be construed as an individual or individuals speaking in their official capacities for the agencies, departments, or service branches they serve in. This is not an official publication of the Department of Defense, the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Air Force, any government agency, or any other organization.
Soul Care
The Army Chaplain Corps has a motto: “nurture the living, care for the wounded, honor the dead.” Army chaplains hold the sacred trust of the people of the United States to provide soul care for America’s sons and daughters. This is an awesome task which I am only able to undertake with the utmost humility and full support of my family, my faith community, my colleagues in ministry, and my God. I write this for all of the above.
My unit has been mobilized to deploy to Afghanistan. Since our mobilization orders began several weeks ago, I have searched for innovative ways to tend to the souls of my soldiers. Alas, many seem too busy to attend to this vital dimension of the self; many seem reluctant to take time for the soul, perhaps out of fear for what they may find, perhaps for no other reason than they really believe they have more important tasks to complete than be still and look inward.
Yet the high rates of suicide and sexual assault in the military are painful indicators that the greatest threat we may face in deployment is ourselves. I am convinced that soul-care is the most effective means to not only decrease suicide and sexual assault but help manage the stress of combat so that soldiers grow and not wither in the wake of trauma. And soul-care begins with cultivating self-awareness.
The Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu understood the importance of knowing oneself in battle. “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of one hundred battles. If you know yourself but not your enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” (From The Art of War).
A more recent military leader from this side of the pond, General George Marshall, also understood the importance of caring for the soul. He put it something like this: “The soldier’s heart, the soldier’s spirit, the soldier’s soul are everything. Unless the soldier’s soul sustains them, they cannot be relied on and will fail themselves and their country in the end.”
I initiated several programs at our mobilization site in order to cultivate self-awareness and keep soldiers mindful of the soul dimension. Some of these initiatives include: morning “Soul Call,” a play on “sick call,” which is basically open chapel time each morning when soldiers can drop-in to pray, meditate, study or meet with me; evening Zen Meditation; “Pocket Stones,” which are small polished rocks engraved with words like faith, hope, courage, strength and happiness- I distribute them at no cost to soldiers to help them be mindful of these important qualities of soul; Spiritual Fitness Retreats – I have two scheduled at a local Catholic retreat center; Chaplain’s Tea – where I serve soldiers tea in a traditional Japanese Tea Ceremony; I also perform worship service on Sunday evenings; and have a presence in the daily Commanders Update Brief.
Being self-aware means paying attention to the ways we shield ourselves from painful truths, deny the real horror of warfare, and morally disengage from the consequences of our actions. Yet in order to prepare our souls and care for our souls we need to pay attention to the human cost of war.
Two days ago I recommended to the commander that we include a slide to honor the dead in the daily update brief. Now we have a slide with the photographs of those most recently killed in Afghanistan. I do this to help prepare our souls for the real losses that lie ahead. When we do that, when we embrace tragedy rather than deny or avoid it, we do as my mentor Ed Tick has taught me: we keep our hearts alive. If we allow ourselves to morally disengage, if we try to insulate ourselves from pain, then we risk becoming “people of the lie,” a term I attribute to M. Scott Peck who wrote a book by that name about presence of human evil in our daily lives.
Disclaimer: All entries to CLF/Quest Military Ministries page reflect the personal views of the contributor. The views expressed here are in no way to be construed as an individual or individuals speaking in their official capacities for the agencies, departments, or service branches they serve in. This is not an official publication of the Department of Defense, the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Air Force, any government agency, or any other organization.
A Transcendent Bit of Yarn
A member of my congregation was due to become a mother for the first time, and the women gathered for a Blessing Way. This ancient tradition is used to offer love and blessings to the soon-to-be mother and prepare her for the beautiful and wonderful experiences of childbirth and mothering. Having never participated in a Blessing Way before, I was excited to learn more about the tradition. We shared words of love and encouragement, and pampered the mother with a corn meal foot washing. There were many moments of laughter and of tears, and many stories shared of joy, loss, and transformation.
The ceremony ended with a ritual in which red yarn was wrapped continuously around the ankles of each of the women in attendance, one after another. This yarn made its way around the group, encircling each of our legs until we were intertwined by a cord of interconnectedness and love. Each section was snipped and tied off around each of our ankles. We were asked to wear the yarn until we learned that the mother was in labor. At that point we would cut our yarn to release the energies and encourage the baby to enter this world.
I wore that tattered piece of red yarn around my ankle for weeks in anticipation and love for the woman who would birth her first child. The red yarn was an accessory during worship services, to classes and dinners, and while spending time with family and friends. The red yarn served as a reminder of the ceremony, the soon-to-be parents, and the anticipation of new life.
One Sunday morning we learned that the mother had gone into labor, and each of the women who had been in attendance at the Blessing Way prepared to “cut their cord,” right there in the service. But I was not wearing mine because it fell off prior to my coming to worship that morning!
Now, some might consider this story superstitious or odd. Others might think I was reading into the meaning of that cord and the power it held. They might chock this experience up to coincidence or chance.
Now, I’m not sure whether my yarn coming untied and this woman’s labor are connected, but I am sure that it caused me to take pause. It is in moments like these that I am most in awe at this Universe. It is at moments like these that I wonder most about that which I cannot see, or touch, or hear, but that I can feel in the deepest cavern of my soul. I know that that yarn didn’t hold any special powers, that it was merely an object of remembrance and solidarity designed to send positive energies and thoughts to the mother-to-be. But I also know that the yarn was a representation of all that is beyond us, and within us, at the same time. That yarn was a prayer. It was an attempt to channel the positive and loving intentions and wishes of the women in that room, of the Spirit of Life, and of the Divine into a life-giving and sustaining force. The red yarn was a conduit for wonder and awe.
Maybe the yarn had nothing to do with the labor, and maybe it had everything to do with it. In the end, a healthy baby was born in the wee hours of the following morning.
We will never understand the mysterious workings and ways of this Universe; we simply aren’t meant to. Instead, it is our role to seek meaning in the wonder, and to hold onto that meaning in our connection to all that has ever been and ever will be. It is to honor the connection to that which is beyond us all, and the mystery of it.
The Transcendent Within
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In a small but intriguing book called Religious Integrity for Everyone, my colleague Fred Campbell noted how “transcendence” implies “larger than.” He explained that “Communities are larger than individuals [and] God is a word used to point to some inclusive reality much larger [still].” With such a helpful frame, one can understand the meaningful arc of a life path, using whatever language resonates within.
The God Beyond
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I want to start out with two stories.
The first—ancient—is about Abraham, the father of faith for Christians, Muslims and Jews. In biblical accounts it’s difficult to discern what Abraham actually believed. He doesn’t possess a certainty of faith. He is regularly confused and asks many questions, often without receiving very satisfying answers. But this patriarch of the three great western traditions did indeed possess at least one marvelous religious experience.
Transcending Boundaries
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When I was a child, I would stand and gaze at the starry firmament and contemplate infinity. As I stood there, the boundary that is time dissolved; I expanded my Spirit to fill the boundary that is space. My being stilled and all fear, anxiety, and anguish disappeared. Forgotten were the chores, the homework, the ordinary around me.
