Tag: Kathleen Norris

What I Didn’t Know

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photo by Josh Scholten
photo by Josh Scholten

For grace to be grace, it must give us things we didn’t know we needed and take us places where we didn’t know we didn’t want to go.
~Kathleen Norris

His grace and mercy has salvaged me when I didn’t know I needed saving, given me what I didn’t think I needed so have never asked for, and taken me where I never planned to be because I was so comfortable where I was.

Grace is not about giving me what I want; it is never a reward for good behavior.  It is giving me what I need when I deserve nothing whatsoever.

It is the prickly vine I must cling to, grateful to be spared from falling.  It is the flow that carries me to safety through the desolate landscape.

I am grateful, so very grateful, for what I didn’t know.

photo by Josh Scholten
photo by Josh Scholten

Infinite Weight and Lightness–Epiphany

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A Hopeless Dawn by Frank Bramley
A Hopeless Dawn by Frank Bramley

…to bear in her womb
Infinite weight and lightness; to carry
in hidden, finite inwardness,
nine months of Eternity; to contain
in slender vase of being,
the sum of power –
in narrow flesh,
the sum of light.

Then bring to birth,
push out into air, a Man-child
needing, like any other,
milk and love –

but who was God.
~Denise Levertov, from “Annunciation”

Today, the day celebrated in the church as Epiphany (His Glory revealed and made manifest in all lives), bookends the day Mary accepted her role as an earthly vessel to become the Mother of God.

Epiphany is our turn for this glory to be revealed in our lives; with infinite heaviness and lightness we accept our new role as weak and crumbling vessels, yet even so God is made manifest within us. It is not the easy path to accept the ultimate freedom that requires true sacrifice, just as it was not easy for Mary whose heart was pierced. She could not know what this announcement meant for her life, but yet she said yes to God.

And so, we shall say yes as well.

“Like Mary, we have no way of knowing… We can ask for courage, however, and trust that God has not led us into this new land only to abandon us there.”
~Kathleen Norris from God With Us

Inner Renewal

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dragonfly wings photo by Josh Scholten

…God’s attention is indeed fixed on the little things. But this is not because God is a great cosmic cop, eager to catch us in minor transgressions, but simply because God loves us–loves us so much that the divine presence is revealed even in the meaningless workings of daily life. It is in the ordinary, the here-and-now, that God asks us to recognize that the creation is indeed refreshed like dew-laden grass that is “renewed in the morning” or to put it in more personal and also theological terms, “our inner nature is being renewed everyday”.
~Kathleen Norris

It is easy to be ground to a pulp by the little things: waiting in line too long, an insistent alarm clock, a mouse (or more) in the house, a third head cold in less than a year.  The small things tend to add up to irritable annoyance and total inability to feel gratitude.

God is in the details, from the dew drop to tear drop and even to nose snot.  It is tempting instead to look past His ubiquitous presence in all things, to seek only the elegant grandeur of creation.   It isn’t all elegance from our limited perspective, but still, it is worthy of His divine attention.

The time has come to be refreshed and renewed in our inner being.
His care is revealed in the tiniest ways.
He has my attention.

photo by Josh Scholten

Where to Search

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photo by Josh Scholten

“A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.”
Kathleen Norris

I remember well the feeling of restlessness, having an itch that couldn’t be reached, feeling too rooted and uneasy staying in one place for long, especially if that place was my hometown.  I knew I must be destined for greater things, grander plans and extraordinary destinations.  There exists in most human beings an inborn compulsion to wander far beyond one’s own threshold, venturing out into unfamiliar and sometimes hostile surroundings simply because one can.   It is the prerogative of the young to explore, loosen anchor and pull up stakes and simply go.  Most cannot articulate why but simply feel something akin to a siren call.

And so at twenty I heard and I went, considerably aging my parents in the process and not much caring that I did.  To their credit, they never told me no, never questioned my judgement, and never inflicted guilt when I returned home after the adventure went sour.

I had gone on a personal quest to the other side of the world and had come home empty.  But home itself was not empty nor had it ever been and has not been since.

There is a Dorothy-esque feeling in returning home from a land of wonders and horrors, to realize there is no place like home.    There was no way to know until I went away,  searching, then coming home empty-handed, to understand home was right inside my heart the whole time.  There was no leaving after all, not really.

So I’m here to stay–there is no greater, grander or more extraordinary than right here.  Even when I board a plane for a far off place, I know I’ll be back as this is where the search ends and the lost found.

My head now rests easy on the pillow.

Just Another Day

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photo by Josh Scholten

“This is another day, O Lord…
If I am to stand up, help me to stand bravely.
If I am to sit still, help me to sit quietly.
If I am to lie low, help me to do it patiently.
And if I am to do nothing, let me do it gallantly.”
— Kathleen Norris citing the Book of Common Prayer

This day is the wrap-up of my twenty-third academic year working as a college health physician,  my most challenging so far.  Despite diminishing budget, shrinking staffing, higher severity of illness in our patient population, three suicides and more failed attempts,  our staff did an incredible job this year serving students and their families with the resources we have.   Reaching this day today is poignant: we will miss the graduating students we have gotten to know so well over four or five years,  we watch others leave temporarily for the summer, some to far places around the world, and we weep for those three families whose students will not return home again.

In my work I strive to do what is needed when it is needed no matter what time of the day or night.  There are times when I tend to fall short–too vehement when I need to be quiet, too urgent and pressured when I need to be patient,  too anxious to do something, anything when it is best to courageously do nothing.  It is very difficult for a doctor to do nothing but I vowed over thirty years ago in my own graduation ceremony to “First do no harm.”  Never do I want to cause someone harm.

In a sense I graduate as well on this last day of the school year–just not with cap and gown and diploma in hand.  Each year I learn enough from my patients to fill volumes, as they speak volumes with their struggles, their pain, their stories and sometimes their forever silence.

Bless our students and their families on this day, with blessings from us who work toward the goal of sending them healthy into the rest of their lives.

It is not just another day.

photo by Josh Scholten

Hope is Stirring at the Edges

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Skagit Flats Snow Geese

“Spring seems far off, impossible, but it is coming. Already there is dusk instead of darkness at five in the afternoon; already hope is stirring at the edges of the day.”
Kathleen Norris in Dakota: A Spiritual Biography

For the last several days, whenever I am outside in the barnyard wheelbarrowing loads of manure, or carrying buckets of water, I’ll hear the approaching honking crescendo of snow geese coming from the north. I stop whatever I am doing to watch the sky. The geese fly in precise V formation as they head from northeast of here, the Frasier River Valley in British Columbia, southwest to the Skagit Valley flats some forty miles away where thousands of them will glean leftovers from harvested farm fields for the next few weeks. They are in constant vocal and visual contact with one another as they fly over, perhaps pointing out a point of interest here, or sharing a juicy bit of gossip there. Maybe they simply navigate by following the sound of the goose whose tail is right in front of their own honking feathery face. It is like an a capella male chorus of a dozen voices warming up using only one note–E flat.

There is such expectancy in each noisy group that passes over, each oblivious to me enviously watching them from below. They have clear mission and purpose without needing a vision statement or strategic planning retreats. They know where they have been, where they are headed and that there will be full bellies by nightfall. They work as a team to get there with minimal energy expenditure and high efficiency. They never appear ambivalent or confused. I even suspect they like each other quite a lot.

I wish I had such clarity. I stumble about wondering which direction I need to turn next, what task has highest priority, who needs to go with me or who I should follow behind, how I can be more fruitful rather than futile.

I need the hope of the snow geese. Winter won’t last forever.

Psalm 147:16-18
16 He spreads the snow like wool
and scatters the frost like ashes.
17 He hurls down his hail like pebbles.
Who can withstand his icy blast?
18 He sends his word and melts them;
at the breath of his mouth, the waters flow.

Seattle Times photo by Mark Harrison

Called to Advent–Expecting

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The Visitation by Mariotto Albertinelli

In the morning, LORD, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait expectantly.
Psalm 5:3

Waiting patiently in expectation is the foundation of spiritual life.
Simone Weil

During Advent we are pregnant with anticipated possibility, expectant like Mary and Elizabeth, the new life growing inside us about to change us forever. And like Mary and Elizabeth, we are not in this alone, but are expectant side by side, in a community of support. Together we celebrate the coming dawn of love and life that will overshadow the ever-present darkness of hatred, suffering and death.

Be a womb. Be a dwelling for God. Be surprised.
Loretta Ross-Gotta

I treasure (Mary’s) story because it forces me to ask: When the mystery of God’s love breaks through into my consciousness, do I run from it? Or am I virgin enough to respond from my deepest, truest self, and say a “yes” that will change me forever?
Kathleen Norris