Look Up and See

• Lute and Vocal Concert on May 5th at 3pm. All are Welcome and your donations will support Suicide Prevention.
• Annual Meeting is May 19th after Church Services. Please plan to attend: your presence and your voice is important and matters (you do not have to be a formal member to attend and be heard).

Watch this week’s recorded Reflection HERE

I’m personally, very curious about the centurion.  He gets this one little line: The centurion, seeing what had happened, praised God and said, “Surely this was a righteous man.”…

…so, what’s his story?  He’s not Jewish.  He’s a Roman Centurion.  This is what he does.   He witnesses death and dying.  He oversees tortures and killings.  What’s his story?  What has changed for him and in him?  What exactly was the moment that his heart was softened?  And….what happens next?  PAUSE.  I love the small little sneaky passages we can quickly gloss over for the bigger story and the bigger picture…but we could come up with an entire novel around the centurion!!  Who is this guy?  What’s his story?  …And what happens next?  

That’s just a nugget I’m going to throw out there to chew on this week.  To ponder.  To think about.

What we are going to bring our attention to is the big thing this past week.  

One could argue that Awe is a Holy Moment and we had a collective moment of Awe this past week.  It was delightful to see our differences (mostly) give way to “looking up” for a collective moment of pause and wonder.  

Sure, our differences came out.  Some of us made adventurous plans to brave the traffic and the crowds to see the sun and moon in its fullest expression–and some of those grand adventures included the usual frustrations and irritations to overcome that usually come with grand adventures (perhaps, with chances to practice personal grace?). Others planned for cozy getaways to see the full expression…but in ways that avoided the worst of the chaos and avoid those too-grand adventures.  Others planned to “just watch” from local fields and mountains.  Some stayed home. Some had parties.  People shared their resources: eclipse glasses.  

One of my favorite intentions for the eclipse was from a Forest Guide (Micah Mortali) who said (paraphrasing): I won’t be looking up, but at the horizon and around me.  I will be listening and deeply present to what is happening in the the world around me.  To what is happening in nature right before me.  I will honor the energy of all of us (many of us) turning our time, attention, and energy to the same thing at the same time in this world. 

It was a moment to step out of our discord and busy to be together and acknowledging the same thing.  It was a time that the news turned from the horrible world to something amazing in the sky.  This thing that was big enough to turn our attention from our daily ordinary norms and call us to Look Up and See. And be Wowed.  

We shared our moments.  We shared our photos.  We shared our Awe.  We shared our stories.  We were excited and enchanted.  It feels big.  Like a gift.  An attention grabber.  A love note from God.  A holy moment. 

We were excited for and with one another and that is a tremendous thing.  We watched where people were going (sometimes sending them well wishes for safe travels and easeful adventures).  We looked for their pictures.  There was a collective energy toward being enchanted in an often disenchanted world.  There was a collective openness to being Awed in an often cynical world.  

We let something unfurl and elapse that we could not control.  There was nothing we could fix, change, set right, or make better…we just had a moment to just be.  There seemed a moment of less gloom and more happy making the world an excited and cheerier place for and with one another.  Even when things went “not as planned”, there was an unusual tendency toward a shrug of the shoulders and an “I guess the Universe wants me to pay attention” instead of a “Why me? This always happens to me!”

There was collective love, hope, and joy.  A moment of Peace, rest, and pause.  We chose to make time in our busy lived to notice.  We stepped away form work to ponder something bigger than ourselves and the greater mystery of being alive in this world.  

It was a moment of grace.  A moment to remember the Preciousness of life and how little control we really have and how small we really are.  PAUSE.  This is not to minimize us, but to inspire and awe us.  

This is not to minimize us, but to encourage us to think about that which is bigger than ourselves and to reflect on what is asked of us by this greater thing?  To be together and to work together.  To love one another.  To find peace with one another.  To seek beauty in this life we are gifted.  This is not to minimize us, but to encourage us to turn our hearts and minds to God and possibility and Mystery.  

When the world goes dark, we Pause.  Even if we weren’t out and in it, our beings felt this energy shift of the eclipse.  We were aware that the world went dark.  

It is believed by many that the time period of Jesus’s dying and death that threw the world into darkness for three hours was an eclipse.  PAUSE.  This might help explain that centurion, perhaps.  He saw there was something big happening.  He saw that this death was highlighted by something big and uncontrollable and scary and Mysterious.  Instead of beating his chest to challenge fear, his heart was softened to Love and God.  

Religions all over the world have their different relationships and beliefs about eclipses.  There is both fear and awe.  Dangers, portents.  Auspiciousness, inauspicious.  A focus on the light, a focus on the dark.  Something to fear, something to celebrate.  

The overarching question is: What do we do with the things we cannot control?  What do we do in the darkness?  What do we do with fear?  

The answer for our faith and our friends in faith is pretty much the same.  It is to pause to surrender…and pray.  

When we experience an eclipse, even now with all our sciences, we feel, in our own core, the universal idea that there are things out of our control and the darkness and  the shadows will come and cross over our lives and there’s nothing we can do about it.  And yet…we are reminded that the light is still there and the light always returns.  It is an awesome experience.  

When the world goes dark, it is an opportunity to pause.  A time for us to remember that even in the deepest pain and despair, the light always returns.  A little at first and then it grows.  

When the world goes dark, we may have no control, but we can breathe, pray, and have faith (and a little bit of patience). The sun always rises.  The light always returns.  Life always resurrects and renews.  Within our own shadows there is always a bit of light.  

In a moment of darkness, we remember that we are all in this together.  In the darkness, we don’t have to walk alone.  There’s a sweetness to the Path of Jesus/Love.  We have been guided to learn to walk the dark.  To find the light in shadows.  To seek hope in despair and joy in the fear.  We have been taught to walk both the path of darkness and the path of light.  We have been taught how all these paths can lead toward love and grace, hope and joy.  

We may look at an eclipse and life differently.  Maybe we wee and walk with fear or wonder, armors up or our hearts wide open, with a bit of cynicism or with a sense of joy.  Perhaps we walk with a blend of it all.  

Regardless, we walk together.  When the lights go out, we really walk together. When the lights return, we can still walk together.  Our choice.  

Together, we can continue to look up and see.  Together, we can continue to listen to the hush.  Together, we choose to turn toward one another.  Together, may we pause and pray and turn our hearts to God.