reflection

look! the sun came out briefly! and the river was just so pretty!

I believe I have mentioned (like every time I write?) that in my optimistic head, this was the year that the kids were going to be relatively independent and I'd be in between projects and there would be lots of time to do THINGS. My optimistic head would also like to think that there exists a "normal week" and that sometimes one gets a bunch of "normal weeks" in a row and that a "routine" is possible. 

Just, nope. Not happening. One kid or the other is home, someone is sick, someone is visiting, there's some disaster that creates extra laundry, I signed myself up for something random and now there's a deadline, on and on... This is why people take jobs with regular working hours. 

And when some time does materialize: per the last post, there are just so many THINGS. 

And at least an equal number of distracting non-things. 

Anyway.

So the big news is: on Thursday I had the two 2-hour interviews of the psychological assessment to determine whether I am suited to work in the Catholic Church in German-speaking Switzerland. The first interview went...badly. How badly is for the interviewer to decide, but on a scale of 1 to 10 I feel like I managed, at best, a 5. Well after the fact, I realized why: apart from my normal social incompetence and nerves, I'd gone in with the attitude "there's nothing you can do to prepare! just be yourself!" but in fact what was called for was job-interview-level self-marketing and in particular some prepared, well-padded anecdotes about what an awesome person I am. Which makes perfect sense. In retrospect. But there are no do-overs.

The forensic interview was at least less unpleasant, though the interviewer discerned within mere minutes that I am not good at role play and spent a good portion of the interview extolling the virtues of social skills training. "You might be autistic - but no worries, you can learn to hide it better!" Fabulous.

I will hear in the next few weeks whether they "want to continue working with me."

And if they don't? Then this wasn't meant to be my path, I'll figure it out, and all that. But also: existential panic. 

Coincidentally, I was signed up to be the sacristan at church on Friday and Saturday and Sunday, with a bonus meeting about a service I need to write on Monday. I've got the three services next weekend too, and two for Ash Wednesday. It's exposure therapy...if only I were getting more comfortable with it. But it doesn't feel like that. Though of course it wouldn't, given the nerves and the doubt and the unsettling interview experiences. Maybe just showing up and getting through it is the best I can do right now. Participation awards all around!

Let's talk about something else.

There was one more thing I wanted to capture from Hebrew Week. After the last lecture on the last day, I braved going down to the beer cellar for late-night socializing. The woman in charge of organizing the week commented that this one had been different from other recent weeks because the subject - the biblical character of Miriam, Moses's sister - was so limited. In previous years there have apparently been meatier (and surely not coincidentally, manlier) themes: Isaiah, Elijah, Esau and Jacob... So the lecturers had a lot of material to choose from, and their subjects didn't necessarily overlap. But Miriam only appears in a handful of verses, so we heard about the same ones over and over. Only never the same way twice. Should the preposition in Numbers 12:1, "Miriam, and Aaron, began to talk [?] Moses..." be translated as "against," as is traditional, or rather as "to"? or as "with"? Opinions vary, apparently, even and especially among respected scholars. The effect was of the Bible as gemstone, or kaleidoscope: its great beauty lies in how different it looks from different angles. Cool.

And yes that's true of any work of literature, except that this is the one we've settled on to pass down through the centuries and millennia, and so it's our connection our ancestors and their questions about our collective place in the universe. 

Though of course mostly our male ancestors, the female ones generally being either explicitly forbidden to write, or possibly too occupied with getting the damn laundry done to do so. Or, in the case of Miriam, leading a tribe through the desert while her brother got face time with The Eternal One. Though on the side, she too was a prophet.

time, flying

Kloster Kappel, as viewed from a morning walk on a day before things got grey and foggy.

Friday was the last day of Hebrew Week, which turned out, not surprisingly, to be an intellectually stimulating if perhaps irrelevant break from real life. Kloster Kappel is a beautifully outfitted restored-monastery-turned-retreat-location with distant views of, somehow, *all* the Swiss mountains. The group of people who want to take a week out of their lives to study Hebrew is kinda my crowd. Which is to say that I met some nice people, but also that mealtimes ranged from slightly to painfully awkward...for lunch each day one could choose meat, veggie, or fish and I suspect if "sack lunch on a quiet park bench" had also been an option, I would have been far from the only one to take advantage of it. But forced socializing aside, it was nice not to cook, and it was nice to have someone else plan my days. There was a full schedule: a 3-hour class session every morning, then an hour and a half of sit-down lunch, then an afternoon lecture, another 1.5 hours of class, another long meal, and finally an evening lecture or event. The alternating classes and lectures gave the week some variety - and particularly for those of us just starting the language, a welcome relief from the flashbacks to kindergarten.

After a week I can reliably recognize maybe half of the Hebrew alphabet, and with some luck and a cheat sheet I can slowly sound out words. Oh, and print the Hebrew version of my first name - Shoshana - which makes me happy. It may well be entirely coincidental that I ended up with a very Jewish name (Bloch, in Switzerland, is famously and almost exclusively Jewish), but I like the idea that there might be some connection there.

And now that I'm home? If I do nothing I'll have lost even this very modest progress by next week - next month at the very latest. Maybe that's okay. I'll pick it up again if and when I study theology. But at least in theory I'd like to continue learning...just a few minutes a day?

Ha. If I had a list of all the things I'd like to do for a few minutes a day. Oh wait, I do, 'cause I made myself a checklist. Meditate. Practice French with Christopher. Read. Take my vitamins. Exercise. Get my steps in. To which we could add: Cook dinner. Lift weights. Write. Practice singing. Work on deep cleaning. Commune with nature. What happened to the budget project, again? And now, Hebrew. Why not also Latin and Greek? 

Back at home, the micro-habits feel like they are getting out of hand. 

hall of mirrors

Self portrait at the the Yayoi Kusama exhibit at the Fondation Beyeler in Basel (see "art!", below)

So yes, my most favored and only sibling was here for a rare visit and we did cool Swiss things (yodeling! churches! thermal baths! art! more yodeling!) and it was fabulous and also a bit exhausting, as these things tend to be, and his visit was far too short and I am sad that he's gone.

But also I'm away this week (all of [checks Google Maps] 15 miles from home, but still, away) at Hebrew Study Week, the result of certain deluded visions I had of having so much free time this year that I would be able to get a head start on the languages required for my as-yet-theoretical theology studies. The free time hasn't materialized. But I'd signed up, so here I am. Hebrew aside, I'm hoping that the German immersion will help with my psychological assessment next week. 

On which topic...once upon a time, long long ago, Daniel and I were jumping through the required marriage preparation hoops at church. We'd been asked to separately fill out questionnaires about common causes of domestic disputes: money, politics, having children and so on. And we were sitting with an older couple from the parish in Davis whose job it was to analyze our responses and conduct a premarital counseling session accordingly. Presumably the idea was to make sure that couples didn't rush into marriage without taking a breath and considering whether their values were aligned, which makes a lot of sense, but that wasn't a problem we had. In fact, in several areas our values were aligned just fine with each other's, but not with this couple's. So the session was awkward. We'd both said that we wanted to keep separate bank accounts, and were dutifully informed that having a joint account was critical to a healthy marriage. We'd both said that infidelity wasn't automatically the end of a marriage, and that was the right answer, but we had to listen to a lecture about marital repair anyway. And then we got to religion. "Susannah, you seem to be quite religious, and say that faith is a part of your life." Yes... "But Daniel, you...don't." Uh huh... "Is this a point of conflict in your relationship?" No... They seemed taken aback. "But Daniel, what is it about the church that you don't agree with?"

Put on the spot, my dear now-husband-of-20+-years couldn't quickly come up with a coherent answer.

"I don't believe in...um...uh...Jesus."

Stunned silence. For a brief moment I was afraid one or both of these kindly souls were going to keel over right there on the spot. Or that I might explode from the urge to inappropriately giggle at the absurdity of it all. But we all recovered. They very sincerely shared the joy of their own faith with Daniel. Would he maybe consider coming to church with me sometime? We left on good terms, the premarital counselors presumably leaving my godless fiancé's soul in God's (and my?) capable hands. All in a day's work...

This is all to say that 23 years later, as I spiritually exercise daily and imagine I want to start studying theology for reals next year, I'm not sure I believe in Jesus either. 

I mean, Jesus the historical person, sure. Jesus the seed of the Christian religion, also yes - although I'm more into Christianity being a collective movement rather than the creation of a male God and his only Son and his son's male posse. But I digress. Jesus/Christ as the archetype of Salvation or Love or...I haven't quite figured this one out yet but here also, yes. The Jesus I struggle with is the mystical companion Madeleine Delbrêl and those marriage counselors and believed in so fervently. The one without whom you are Not Saved.

At midday prayer here they sing the Christmas song Weil Gott in tiefster Nacht erschienen (Because God appeared in the deepest night), of which two of the verses are:

Bist du der eignen Rätsel müd? Es kommt, der alles kennt und sieht!
Are you tired of your own riddles? The one who knows and sees everything is coming!

Er sieht dein Leben unverhüllt, zeigt dir zugleich dein neues Bild.
He sees your life - nothing is hidden from him - and shows you your new image.

I am indeed so, so tired of my own riddles. But is my eternal salvation dependent on my experience of a perfect imaginary friend with a specific magic name? I hope not, 'cause I just can't get there. And I don't think anyone could accuse me of not trying.

Of course, "trying" won't work in this case. Faith is a gift. 

I just wish people who have been given this gift could be a little gentler with those of us who haven't?

And if I haven't, what business do I have even thinking I might become a minister?

Though on the other hand, maybe I'd be a gentler one?

status

I was doing so well with the spiritual exercising! But...

...on the day after the aforementioned Baptism of Our Lord service, my brother arrived for his first visit to Switzerland since 2017, and he's staying just eight days, so all non-essential routines [including meditation and writing; laundry is somehow still on, hmph] have been canceled. Will I just skip a week? Try to catch up somehow? All questions for another day. 

On January 13 - Old New Year's Eve - we made a pilgrimage to Urnäsch in Appenzell to see Silvesterclausen (video), and while we were there we went to the Museum of Appenzeller Traditions to pay homage to our namesake, the Bloch.

immersion

I love this picture. Check out the Holy Spirit blowing in! 

I started the week and this post with high hopes of catching up with myself and not waiting a whole week before writing about the meditations from the last one. But it didn't happen, and my excuse this time is the dreaded annual Baptism of Our Lord children's service at Heilig Kreuz, which I was in charge of for the sixth (and I very much hope last) time. The last time I blogged about this, it turns out, was the very first time I did it. And this year was coincidentally a reprise of that service, without the child labor because it's hard to get my kids to darken the door of a church these days. But we again made the river Jordan out of blue baby blankets, acted out John baptising Jesus in it, then picked up the blankets and play-pretend they were "water." And then my script says that the blankets represent water but water, in baptism, represents something even bigger: something that, like water, helps wash us clean and and is important for life and can be tiny like a raindrop or enormous like the ocean. What could it be? 

At this point I got a sea of blank looks from the congregation. I *always* get blank looks from the congregation because audience participation is not a thing at church, even at kids' services, and ok also I am not the most charismatic of humans. But this part has always seemed to confuse my teammates, too, so...maybe my analogy here is not as brilliant as I'd like to think.

As I scanned the lifeless crowd and internally vowed never to do THIS again, one tiny kid raised her hand. And when I came over with the microphone she offered, in a little sweet voice, "Love."

Success! Woohooo!!!!!

At the end of the service the priest was supposed to invite everyone to pray the Lord's Prayer. Because a bunch of families from our Albanian sister community had registered to come, I had made a point of both printing the prayer in German on the song sheet and writing into the script that people could pray in their mother tongue if they wanted to. Still, I expected him to start in the usual way, "Vater Unser..." But no! He took off in his own mother tongue (Polish) and then everyone followed suit, in what languages I couldn't even say because it was such a mix but it was SO COOL. 

Afterwards we ate lunch and then decorated the blankets with fabric paint and that was a mess and chaotic craft projects are really truly not at all my strong point but I have survived to tell the tale.

And what does all this have to do with the spiritual exercises? Nothing and everything. More on that, I hope, next time.

It's a sign [to get a cookie].

another year

Y'know, in the last post I said I didn't see myself downloading divine instructions. And yet, there are things in life that feel awfully like...exactly that. One of the verses this week was Matthew 2:13 - 

Als die Sterndeuter wieder gegangen waren, siehe, da erschien dem Josef im Traum ein Engel des Herrn und sagte: Steh auf, nimm das Kind und seine Mutter und flieh nach Ägypten; dort bleibe, bis ich dir etwas anderes auftrage... (Einheitsübersetzung 2016)

When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. ‘Get up,’ he said, ‘take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you...’ (NIV)

I didn't go exploring other translations here, but at least in these two, the English "...until I tell you" doesn't go quite as far the German "...until I tell you to do something else." And boy can I relate to that. For all the trials and tribulations of living in Switzerland, and as clear as it has become that leaving the US wasn't the brightest idea in any practical sense...I've never wished we hadn't moved. Would I say "God told me to do this"? No, but something told me to do this. And now... Here I am, God, hanging out in a foreign land. Awaiting further instructions. Which will come...when again? Surely Joseph and Mary must have wondered too, as they raised their kid away from home and the years stretched on.

I don't even know whether further instructions are coming; this might be permanent. I've lived here far longer than I've lived anywhere else, ever. The kids barely know anything different, and also they won't be kids for much longer, but in any case I can't imagine moving thousands of miles away from them. Also did I mention the retirement budgeting? But on the other hand, little things have been triggering me lately.

• A Christmas post from a high school classmate from California - a fellow nerd: she had the best grades in our class, I came in second - who is now living in the Seattle area, working as a technical writer for an ultrasound company, with one kid each in high school and college. Wait, wait! Wasn't that where *I* was heading??
• On Christmas morning we turned on the livestream of the Christmas Eve service at my brother's church and...I know the words to all those Christmas hymns! But I haven't sung them in...years now.
• A friend from here who is temporarily there posted a nighttime picture of 4th and Marion in Seattle today and it brought tears to my eyes. Chill, Susannah, it's an intersection.

People often ask me if I get homesick and I usually say no - to move "back" would be starting all over again, again, to find neighbors and friends and work and community and and and... But did I leave part of my heart in Seattle? Clearly, yes. 

This week, as I was praying as I always do for love and grace, I decided that love feels like being at home in the world (I belong here! I have something to contribute!) and grace feels like being at home in myself. And yes I know religious grace is supposed to have the sense of "gifts from God," but what I pray for is in fact grace in the ballet-dancer sense of the-opposite-of-awkwardness, because I have so desperately little of that.

On New Year's Eve our neighborhood and particularly the park next door turned in to a war zone of fireworks, as usual, only it felt worse than usual (maybe people had leftovers because 1. August was wet this year?) and I was a nervous wreck and so relieved when the church bells finally stopped their half-hour (!) of ringing and things started to calm down. And then on the morning of January 1 there was the tragic news of the club fire in Crans-Montana... So this doesn't feel like your cheery-toast kind of celebratory occasion. More of a...may we all keep it together this coming year. And if we fall apart, may we hold each other's pieces gently.

Speaking of fragility...Daniel and I took a mini-vacation to St. Gallen, and on a whim we took the funicular up the hill and suddenly found ourselves in a magical land of frost. Like a fairy tale. Without a doubt, part of my heart belongs to Switzerland too. 

floating

Merry Christmas! We’re having a quiet holiday but it's tough to write when everybody is home, so I’m giving myself another hour with this and then I’m going to give up and post. Apologies for any incoherences caused.

The biblical texts for the exercises these last two weeks have been about Joseph, whose primary role in the Bible is to do whatever crazy thing the angels in his dreams tell him to do (marry a pregnant girl, pack up the family and go to Egypt, etc.). The idea seems to be that if I get this spiritual stuff right (like Joseph, like Madeleine Delbrêl), then I too will be able to discern God's plan, and from there it's a question of obedience. Not that following God's directions is guaranteed to be easy or comfortable, but in submission to a higher power there is at least some relief from uncertainty, from indecisiveness, from those constant nagging questions of conscience. God, like a loving father, will always set me on the right path...if only I'd let him.

Sigh. I dunno... Lately I think God is: the incomprehensible infinity of all-that-is. And God's plan is: this one timeline we find ourselves in, with all its complexity and contradictions. And the future is: an infinity of possible others, over which we have only the tiniest amount of control. Short of a mystical experience, I just don't see myself becoming convinced that I’m capable of downloading and executing specific divine instructions. 

On the other hand, I could sorely use a hefty dose of Joseph’s drive to get up in the morning and get right to work. 

Water metaphors kept coming up in my meditations about this. The serenity of floating on a deep pool: relaxing, breathing, feeling held at the surface. The joy of being carried by a river: not clinging to the bank or trying to swim upstream but going with the flow, watching the world go by. Also that scene in Spirited Away where a giant stinky blob is revealed, after being given a very thorough hot bath, to be a river spirit clogged with layers and layers of mud and debris. (This, not coincidentally, after we had a meeting with a guy at the bank about retirement planning. Ick.)

And as frustrated as I get with the biblical stories sometimes, I keep being struck by how much we need them, and others like them. Not because they are true in a scientific or even in a historical sense, but because they are true in the mythical sense of “something that has never happened, but is happening all the time” (a definition of myth attributed to Joseph Campbell). Could it be true that even today, under the radar, beneath the news of money and power and manipulated facts and violence justified by religion there is, somewhere, a baby who will become a prophet whose teachings will become a movement of nonviolence that will save us from ourselves? Keeping this story alive in no way guarantees its success. But it is an act of hope, a spark of light against all the darkness.

My favorite nativity scene from this year's exhibit at the Swiss National Museum is a diorama set under glass in the wreckage of a gothic church. The scenes this year are grouped by setting, and this group’s description explains that "...the birth of Christ represents a time when a fresh start is possible, when something new can rise from the ruins of the past." I love the image of a ruined church sheltering the Holy Family…the circularity of it, the failed dream as a necessary ingredient for the newest hope. May it be so.

grayscale

The Communauté de Grandchamp prays in a converted barn.

I had an appointment this morning, which meant I wasn't home for my 10:00 prayer time, so I decided to try it in situ, first outside waiting for the Landesmuseum to open and then - when a full class of third graders streamed out of the museum and invaded my meditation spot a.k.a. park bench to have their morning snack - sitting at my favorite workplace at the museum library. I was watching some little birds hop up and down the bare branches of the tree outside and musing... so cool and how privileged am I? and could it possibly be that this is what I'm *supposed* to be doing???

The appointment was my second and final consultation at the Laufbahnzentrum, a kind of guidance counseling center for the city, which exists mostly for the kids trying to make their way through the complicated flowchart that is the Swiss education / career system, but they also have a program for elderly people like me who are trying to figure out what to do with what remains of their working lives. I was lucky to get paired with a coach who, in addition to dispensing the required practical advice, also managed to be complimentary and encouraging in a way that didn't feel forced or condescending (as it so often does, to me, which I do realize could well be me and not "them"). She kept referring to my "backpack" - I guess in English we'd say "toolkit" - which contains all my life experiences and abilities, and at this point in my life does indeed have some stuff in it. And said that just because my life might go new direction doesn't mean I need to toss the whole thing out and start collecting from zero. This hit a nerve; she's right of course, and I think this was something I was subconsciously anxious about. The practical result of our two meetings is that I'm supposed to be looking into doing an apprenticeship as a cook, a plan B in case the whole church thing doesn't work out, which on the one hand seems crazy and on the other...definitely has some arguments to recommend it. So, maybe?

In other news, I spent the weekend at a retreat with some GCL folks, offered in lieu of the group's traditional day-long Advent meeting. It took place at the Communauté de Grandchamp, the female and Swiss counterpart to the male and French community of Taizé. It was a silent retreat (should I have known this? I didn't.) with silent meals with the community, silent listening to the nuns singing their liturgies four times a day, silent meditation sessions with our group, and silent walks along the river toward Lake Neuchâtel. 

This could have been relaxing. But. I read a tip last week that if you set your phone to black-and-white mode, it will be more boring to your brain and you'll spend less time looking at it. Worth a try, I thought. And somewhere between not being able to see the colors on my photos and, the aggressively gray weather we've been having, and all that time in my own head (one is supposed to encounter Jesus in there; this has yet to work for me) I got to feeling like the color was draining out of my life completely. Heavy, and not in a good way.

But I'm not at at all sad I went. How crazy is it to even get opportunities like this? The thing I'm taking home from the retreat is something our retreat director, Sr. Marie-Elizabeth, said at the end. This is not in fact verbatim, and of course it was in French and/or German, but for the purposes of this discussion let's say it's a direct quote.

You have to have priorities. And people assume that here I'm going to say "the highest priority is being present with the Lord!" No. First priority, get enough sleep. Second priority, take care of your body. Meditation, in our community, comes in third - critically important, for sure, but terribly difficult without sound mental and physical health. Then fourth: at least once a day you should spend time with another person in an entirely non-transactional way. And fifth, work. And whatever you're doing, try to stay receptive: hear, see, smell, taste, feel, sense what the people and the world around you are offering, aside from and beyond the purposes you've already assigned to them.

Sound advice. And I think not a thousand miles away from what Jung was getting at in my last post. And if I were in charge I'd make a parallel list for my church community. People assume that our highest priority should be our service to the world: liturgy, religious education, access to salvation. But imho, the most important person in the church is the not the priest, it's the custodian. Our first (at least financial) priority should be the care of our physical space, with respect for those we inherited it from and hospitality towards those who are using it now and will use it in the future. Second comes building relationships with and caring for each other, not as potential task-doers but as whole people. Perpetuating our religious traditions, however important, comes third. And whatever we're up to, we must also endeavor as a community to stay receptive: on the lookout for God's kingdom, not as we assume it will appear but however and wherever it breaks into this gray and weary world.

Thank you for coming to my Advent sermon.

acceptance

day breaks in Altdorf

Yes, late again. Chris was sick this week, and also I abandoned the family temporarily to spend the night in Altdorf so I could go to the 6:15 am Rorate service on Tuesday morning, which felt terribly indulgent but was such a magical interruption to daily life. And the résumé writing took longer than anticipated. But with some very helpful help from a friend, I got it done, and I sent it off this morning, along with the four other documents they requested. One more small step in that process, check. The phrase that keeps coming up is, "well they won't reject you for *this*!" So we all assume that eventually they will reject me for something, but let's see how long we can hold on to this bull ride, ha.

In spiritually exercising news, this writing project may not exactly be going to plan but the actual prayer/meditation time has been...fruitful. Being lovingly present to my own thoughts and feelings and formative experiences seems to be doing me some good. Go figure. 

The intention for the week was "I ask for access to my longing for God," and the prompts felt very...specific. Monday: write down your name and speak it out loud. How does that make you feel? [Uncomfortable.] Tuesday: and what about the name "Jesus"? [Ambivalent.] The Bible passage for the week was John 1:35-39, 

The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, “What are you looking for?” They said to him, “Rabbi” (which translated means Teacher), “where are you staying?” He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. 

Friday: "You get to have your own experience with Jesus. How is that for you?" So I tried to imagine myself in this odd scene and go with Jesus to where he is staying. Where would Jesus stay? In a Motel 6, I decided, or some kind of a commune that in my imagination suspiciously resembled North Dorm (iykyk). When we walk in nobody seems to care particularly about hailing Jesus as Lord and Savior, they sort of just move over so he can have a seat on the couch. Someone asks me if I'll help cut up the vegetables for dinner. 

I think my longing for God, if indeed I got some access to it, is like that. It's longing for a sense of security, of being in good company, of feeling useful, of feeling understood. Of feeling appreciated - but appreciated for something that I really am or want to be, not something someone else thinks I am or needs me to be...

I finished Unlikely Companions this week, and it's coloring my experience here, in a way that I probably can't communicate well yet, but here's an attempt. Becker's discussion of Jung's discussion of Ignatius's spiritual exercises ends with Jung's interpretation of Christian salvation:

If I can say that I am alive simply to join the flow of transforming life from its origin to its goal, then the universe is there for me in a new and far deeper, freer and more fruitful way. The Contemplation is a vision of wholeness - of the self, we could say, in its cosmic dimensions. All things are related to the source from which I came, all flow in the same energy that empowers me and moves me to grow in my conscious and responsible individuality. It is no longer 'my' creation I see, full of my projections, but the creation of which I am a part, as I live with all other things in relation to the whole, to the source and to the goal.
...
As long as I see my own projections, myself, in my world, I can only love myself, and even that is not a true, life-giving love. I can only seek my own security and meaning through my ego-personality and power, which leaves me caught in the vicious circle of my own unconscious patterns that block my ability to see myself. I have to see the other as other - my projections must be gone - in order to love. And if I do succeed in emptying myself and my universe of my unconsciousness in this way, I will be conscious and free enough and disposed to love.

Here we have three dudes conversing across the centuries about a patriarchal religion, and doing an elegant job of it! But what I'm thinking is...beyond the privileged dynamics of projections and power there are also the flip sides - internalized expectations and disempowerment - which also get in the way of our free disposition to love. Do the contemplations that help us detach from the former also address the latter? I don't know. Deep thoughts, to be continued. Now it's time to: make pizza. Which is its own form of salvation.

Life, everywhere

Ever year my choir sings at the adorable Christmas market in Albisrieden. I took this picture in 2023, when we had snow for the occasion. 

It's the second week of the spiritual exercises and I'm already behind on the blog posts...hmph...but I truly did have a busy weekend of choir concerts and...well, not writing. 

This week I have another writing assignment, too: composing an ausführlicher Lebenslauf for my am-I-sane-enough-to-work-in-the-Church psychological assessment in Feburary (due December 12, because ?). A lebenslauf is a résumé / CV, and I had assumed that ausführlich meant something like "detailed" - as in, don't try to limit it to one page or anything, we want all the info...but *apparently* in this specific context it means "in prose," as in I have to describe my personal and professional life using complete sentences and coherent paragraphs. Please wish me luck! 

But first - and maybe not not because I'm procrastinating on that project - last week's deep thoughts:

Each day of these spiritual exercises starts with an intention, and the intention stays the same for a whole week. Week 1's was:

Ich bitte Gott um Zugang zu meinem tiefsten Kern. Ich bin geliebtes Kind.
I ask God for access to my deepest self. I am a beloved child.

I wondered why I had to ask God for access to something that is already, like by definition, mine? And why I have to be a child in this picture? And can I address God and not mean something essentially male? With some, um, let's call it "contemplative editing," my intention became:

Liebes Universum, ich bitte dich um Beistand und Begleitung beim Zugang zu meinem tiefsten Kern. Ich bin mit allem verbunden.
Dear universe, please support and accompany me as I journey towards my deepest self. I am connected to everything.

Week 2's was:

Ich bitte Gott, dass ich seine Gegenwart in der Natur oder durch Menschen erahne und erfahre.
I ask God that I may perceive and experience His presence in nature or in the people around me.

That "or" is strange. But that didn't bug me. What did was this: This one time in college, I tried taking a karate class. The workout room was on the second floor of a shiny new athletics complex. The instructor told us to "root our feet deep into the earth" and I cynically thought huh, my feet are at this moment nowhere near any earthy roots... Similarly, as I was trying to pray about finding God in nature I looked up and saw...my couch, and our bookshelves, and out the window the buildings across the way, and the construction site beyond those. My long-suffering houseplant is going to have to do a lot of work if he's the only thing around here that counts as "nature"... And yes I can go take a walk in the woods, and undoubtedly I should, but the carefully managed city forest is hardly untouched wilderness. I think if I'm going to get anywhere with this spirituality thing I'm going to have to perceive God even in the holy mess (sin?) of this very-much-human-built environment. So my prayer became simply:

Möge ich das Leben in allen Dingen finden.
May I find Life in all things.

So the Christmas market in Albisrieden is tiny - maybe 20 stalls - but has everything you could want, from handmade gifts to sweet treats to the obligatory bratwurst stand, and a surprising variety of glühwein options (the second concert is - at least for the choir - always better than the first). And it takes place under the watchful eye of the old reformed church, which is white with "ALLES WAS ODEM HAT LOBE DEN HERRN" (Psalm 150:6: Everything with the breath of life, praise the Lord!) in all-caps above the door. 

I love this. And: "praise the Lord!" evokes images of exactly what we do inside that church, which is sing cheesy Jesus songs, but if everything with the breath of life can do it, it must mean more than that, right?

Which brings me to something that keeps coming up, a quotation from Albert Schweizer that I first encountered as set to music by Helge Burggrabe.

Ich bin Leben, das leben will, inmitten von Leben, das leben will.
I am life that wants to live, in the midst of life that wants to live.

Here's what I think: God is the universe, alive to its core, and to praise this aliveness is simply to live - as fully we can, which for me means without so much damn anxiety.

These meditations have indeed left me feeling a bit more enlightened and calm and hopeful and less anxious than usual. Though also, at random intervals, brittle and terrified. Like on Saturday night after the market when Daniel said he wasn't feeling well and wanted to go to bed early, and he did, which never happens, and I was convinced he was going to die. Good news: he didn't. Praise God?!