My Sunday cardinal

As if on cue
Sir Redfeather arrives
                  to perch on leafless limb
                              and sing of spring.
Two Sundays now
             I gaze out to garden's frozen foliage
                            and dead debris.
"Cheer, cheer, look here!"
Sweet song swells from breast of patient love
                as soft-hued mate flies in,
                          settles close in melodious duet.


Kathleen A Houchens copyright 2012

Sunny Sunday!

(copyright 2012 Kathie Houchens)

Chirping bush and singing trees,
soon will come the buzz of bees.
Morning frost gives way to sun.
Nature smiles.  A walk is fun.
Bulbs are bold to wave their green;
blossoms' promise can be seen.
My senses all alert, aware, 
awake to new life everywhere.

Bright February Surprise!

(copyright 2012 Kathleen A Houchens 2-5-12)

Ruby cardinal,
      gem set amid
               glittering diamond ice-drop-studded cherry tree branches,
awaits admirers of jeweler-God's artistry,
      chirps a pre-spring "Cheer, cheer, cheer,"
             begins a ballet with bouncy chicadees,
                     then flashing brilliant red wings flies off.

Wisdom from Richard Rohr

Thought for the day from Richard Rohr:

In classical spiritual biographies and autobiographies, the seeker usually moves through several stages, today referred to as levels of consciousness. The seeker travels from simple consciousness (“the child”), to complex consciousness (most of the middle of life), and, hopefully, to enlightened consciousness, which looks surprisingly simple again! Is that the real meaning of “second childhood”? Such enlightenment is, of course, the goal.

The first simplicity and the second simplicity are, however, completely different. The first simplicity is naïve, dualistic, and far too sure of itself. This is what Paul regrets about his early zeal and righteousness, which led him to kill Christians. In our early years, we largely “split” for the sake of quick and false success—we split the natural from the spiritual, the light from the shadow, the weeds from the wheat, the friend from the enemy. But when we come to enlightened consciousness, which is the second simplicity, we have learned to include, accept, and forgive the negatives, the problems, and the contradictions that were revealed in the middle of life to be much more complex than we first imagined.

As Paul says above, we learn to stop “crucifying”—ourselves and others, which is precisely “resurrection”!

Adapted from On the Threshold of Transformation:
Daily Meditations for Men, p. 32

Life is a salmon ladder

 1/17/12   Life is a salmon ladder

By Kathie Houchens (copyright 2012)

Compelled to swim upstream,

something inside

forces me onward, upward

like the salmon

doomed

in the end to die,

but

out of that death new life

is a promise,

a reason for being.

My salmon-ladder life story chart

marks

the points where

effort and energy,

determination and grit,

and just showing up

moved me

into a place of readiness

for the next challenge.

The losses,

looking back, loom large

on the landscape of my life.

 but

there is a balance, too.

Joys jump out

when

my vision clears and I

look

once again with expectant eyes,

with open heart.

I see the love into which I

was born

threaded like spun gold

through all the days and nights,

the sleeping, the waking,

the babies, the puppies,

the travel and the adventure,

but most of all the companionship.

Throughout my whole life

I have hurdled myself up

the fish ladder

in good company.

I am not alone

and that is good.

Ronald Rolheiser says it best:

OUR GENERATION’S PARTICULAR TASK

What is being asked of us today is that we find a new way to live out our faith within the affluence and sophistication of our culture.

Jesus tells us that we enter the kingdom of God more easily when we are poor, childlike, innocent, and helpless. We had those qualities in abundance before we became affluent, educated, and sophisticated, but we had them by conscription, not by choice. They came with our place in society. Moreover we had them prior to having affluence, education, wide experience, and acceptance within the mainstream. Our innocence was a first-innocence, our poverty a first-poverty, and our reliance on God was often dictated simply by our helplessness. Faith and faith communities work well when there's poverty, naiveté, innocence, and helplessness. They don't work nearly as well within affluence, sophistication, and self-reliance.

The task for us then, however difficult, is to become post-affluent, post-sophisticated, post-critical, and post-self-reliant. We need to become "inner immigrants", freely living out  those qualities of poverty, innocence, and powerlessness that our economic, social, and educational status once forced on us.

Our generation's task is to learn what those things mean, en-flesh them, and then pattern them for our children and for others to follow

http://www.ronrolheiser.com/columnarchive/?id=214

The above excerpt from a column by Ron Rolheiser addresses the title of my blog. To ponder then: how do we follow the directive to "Come as a child?"  What would it look like for you?  How would that feel?

A poem:

Stepping out of time (to paint)  © 

7-9-11 by Kathie Houchens (written after spending an afternoon of plein air painting)

Sunny and breezy,

the afternoon called my name.

Come to the table of delight!

Welcome, creative spirit!

Spread paint and palette,

open eyes and heart,

see the color,

sense the beauty,

relax into the moment.

Whatever may result

on paper or canvas,

it is the breath-filled process,

the alert energy,

the release from schedule and duty

that gifts

a purifying loveliness

to all of life

as I step out of chronos into kairos. 

The universe and I are one.