Our Grandgirls met us at the theater to watch this movie with our friends the Cookseys. Wow it was great. Music was terrific. Technology had me amazed. There were so many times the animals looked real and alive! So not much writing this week as we enjoy company! But enjoy the trailer!
In the credits I saw Elton John and someone else wrote the music and I think it said music producer was Pharrell Williams.
From Flagstaff we were on our way to Albuquerque, more specifically Corrales, home of our best friends, Dan and Betty. Going to their house is like coming home to us. Have never found another couple that we can visit with and travel with so effortlessly! All four of us get along great! We had already traveled 4,000 miles when we arrived there. We were more than ready for a rest and restore session!
Their home faces Sandia Crest, 10,678 feet, in the Sandia mountains, popularly known as Watermelon Mountain because of the red glow at sunset.
And of course love from Betty and Jessie!
Walking Jessie is a delight. Dan has her so well trained! The courtyard is often populated with Gambel’s Quail.
One day Bob and Dan drove up to Sandia Crest and and went shopping at the Henderson General Store and a rock shop in Cerrillos. The next day there was a terrible wind storm that practically obliterated the view of the mountain.
Departing for the remainder of the trip on Day 20 was sweet, but also difficult. It is never easy to leave the Cooksey’s!
You may remember I last wrote about the wildflowers on the Arizona border. From there we made our way to Flagstaff for a couple of nights. The plan was to see Sedona without paying Sedona lodging fees! One sighting amusing to me was a tractor trailer company that moved mobile homes. Both appropriate and amusing that it was called “La Casa!” They were based in Las Cruces but worked in much of New Mexico and Arizona. There are many mobile homes in the Southwest. I prayed they all had air conditioning and good heat with the huge temperature ranges out there.
It was a nice drive to Sedona, though I am uncertain if we ever found the road we were actually looking for! We did find the Chapel of the Holy Cross, April 6, 2019.
Built in 1956 it was inspired in 1932 by Marguerite Brunswick Staude decades before the perfect location was finally found. Final design by architects Anshen & Allen, completed 1957.
So to enter you climb a steep walkway up the to the precipice where the chapel is built. It is a lovely chapel. On the inside it is small, and the Catholic diocese eventually moved to another site to accommodate their congregational size. The crucifix in the chapel is not the original one which was said to be too strange. I found this one unusal and also a bit strange.
First off, I believe Christ has risen from the dead so the entire idea of showing his body still on the cross disturbs me. I like the cross with a living Christ the best. The image of the cross is actually an apple tree! If you look closely you can see the apples still upon it. (Think Adam and Eve in the garden?) I thought that quite creative as Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15:45 (NRSV) Thus it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
So perhaps in the keeping of a life-giving spirit or because it was just weird Sedona, this “corpus” has his eyes open!
On the curved walk back down to the parking area there was a slow going crowd. Another lady and myself noticed this little pine tree.
It did not seem to be planted there purposely like the flowers on the way up. It inspired us with the hope of “never give up!” Even little trees can take root in mighty red rocks and flourish.
One of my favorite birds is the Wood Thrush. Not much to look at and easily confused at a glance with other brown birds, but boy oh boy can this one sing!! Here is a tiny clip. There are times I think it sounds like corillion bells.
Recently after the torrential spring rains, we saw one rolling on the sidewalk a bit aways from our front porch. My husband asked, “What in the world is that bird doing?” I looked and said, “Likely he is rolling in dust to clean his feathers. With all the rain it is probably hard to find dust in the woods!” Thrush must have sensed us watching him because he soon took off for the woods. In fact, we rarely see this fellow. Secretive, but a lovely minstrel!
Whenever a man hears it he is young, and Nature is in her spring; wherever he hears it, it is a new world and a free country and the gates of Heaven are not shut against him.
American Naturalist Henry David Thoreau writing about the Wood Thrush
Often in the brutal heat of this summer weather on my way to the garbage can or getting out of the car I will hear this bird and then I SO agree with Thoreau. It has been way too hot and too many allergy triggers out there to have the windows open. Maybe it will cool off soon so I can hear it from inside, too!
Discussing meditation and contemplative prayer and all these other terms can sometimes distract us from actually doing the practice. Mark Buchanan is a wonderful author who often expresses things in a way I had not previously thought about. His book The Holy Wild mentions this:
“Our creativity, at least in part, comes from resting in His creativity until it seeps in. It springs from prayer. Not the busy chatty prayer we often do, but the other kind: prayer as emptiness, prayer as silence, prayer as stillness. Prayer as the absence of wanting and asking. Not the clamoring man waking his neighbor, desperate for bread (LK 11:5), but the suckled child curled up, satisfied in the mother’s arms (PS 131:2).
“Sometimes I just sit there. I don’t speak or ask or think. I watch, devoid of analysis. I just sit and look.
“I let things be, and I simply dwell in their presence. Where there is music or poetry or artistry in these things, I receive it without comment or lament, without the impulse to possess it or explain it. There is nothing mystical about this. This is not a slipping toward pantheism, where every rock bluff or grass tuft brims with divinity. This is simply an act of reverence for the God who makes things, and respect for all that He makes.
“God’s creativity is, in one sense, the most obvious thing about Him. He saves His most intricate work for the insides and undersides of things. (Molly’s favorite part of the ocean is the underside of waves!)
Richard Rohr has also at times taken as his guide in prayer a simple phrase: “Don’t think. Just look.” He wrote in Near Occasions of Grace “Father McNamara’s definition of contemplation became transformative: “A loving look at the real.” The world, my own issues and hurts, all goals and desires gradually dissolved into proper perspective. God became obvious and everywhere.”
He says “To Practice This Today: Take a loving look at the real. Use the phrase “Don’t think. Just look.” as a reminder throughout the day.”
Often I think of the view out the window nearest to my prayer chair as a cathedral. Not one built of stone and wood, but the most important place of worship. The biggest sanctuary in the area! I dare you to try these methods of prayer, if not for an entire day, then start with 15 minutes. “Don’t think. Just look.” Just sit and look, especially if you can be out of doors. “Rest in God’s creativity. Prayer as emptiness, silence, stillness.” You will never know the benefits until you try this repeatedly. Devote 15 minutes to this practice for one week. And be blessed by a renewed awareness of God’s Presence, within and without.
About jumped out of my skin just now.
While I am typing I have my phone timer set on the silly duck sound, Kay’s favorite on her phone. I keep setting the timer for changing the outdoor hose. My plants are suffering from our near drought conditions. Writing the blog I was deep into trying to explain the practice above and the benefits of meditation and contemplative prayer. I am home alone. That phone quacked and I nearly jumped out of my skin! My Prayer Core-Group friends are never far from my mind! TURN UP YOUR VOLUME TO EMULATE MY EXPERIENCE!
So, just a reminder, to try this practice but also stay aware of the things around you so you might not be as startled as I was just now!
I have been working to read and then copy out selections from Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning.” That book had a huge impact upon me years ago when I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. For those who have followed this and my other blog I mentioned the book a while ago. Since I continue to age (better than the alternative) and the future is uncertain regarding this shoulder, which means our summer, and then our trip to Cape Cod in the autumn, and on and on it goes in uncertainty – seemed like the right time to take up the project. I had ordered a used copy of the book but it was SO old that pages were crumbling as I read. So I got a newer copy and have completed the part entitled Experiences in a Concentration Camp. Now this might seem totally depressing to some, but Frankl is worth reading. He writes from the viewpoint of a psychiatrist and a prisoner about what happens to humans when choices are removed. This chapter is about 145 pages in a smaller paperback, so not too difficult to accomplish. He actually writes from experience. Bob’s Dad was part of the Liberation Army in WWII and set some of the camps free. I have wondered if he was one of the soldiers who freed Doctor Viktor Frankl?
Frankl focuses repeatedly on the fact that the last of human freedoms is the ability to choose one’s attitude in a given set of circumstance. Hopefully, my synthesis of his insights will come forth in future blogging.
The attitude choice has come home to me again personally as I wait for diagnosis of the problem in my shoulder after the fall in the living room. I get to choose my attitude. I am NOT always sweet and kind and uncomplaining. When I get weary from pain and frustration I often want to just go crawl under a rock where I will not hurt anyone with my misunderstood tone of voice or sour attitude. Today I will focus on what Scripture says about waiting.
Because of the LORD’s faithful love we do not perish, for His mercies never end. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness! I say: The LORD is my portion, therefore I will put my hope in Him. The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, to the person who seeks Him. It is good to wait quietly for deliverance from the LORD.
Lamentations 3:22-26 (HCSB)
His mercies never end – even when we are irritable. His mercies are new every morning – He knows so well I will need a daily dose! His faithfulness far exceeds mine.
The Lord is my portion, therefore I put my hope in Him. Well, what else can I say? I trust the doctors and MRI, but He is my highest and best hope, my most thorough Physician. The Lord is good to those who wait for Him. I wonder HOW many times we are admonished to wait for Him in Scripture? Those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. In returning and rest I am saved; in quietness and trust will be my strength. Be still, and KNOW that He is God.
Jeremiah ends with “It is good to wait QUIETLY for deliverance from the Lord.” I know a woman who is waiting for healing from a second back-to-back Shingles infection. I know a man waiting to find out if the purchase of the home he wants will go through. I know others waiting to heal after surgery, waiting for back pain to let up and be healed, waiting for a church dedication and celebration after hours and hours of hard outdoor work, waiting to plant their crops after history-making flooding. Some are waiting for asylum in America fleeing violence in their homeland, another waiting to finalize a divorce after a miserable marriage.
As humans we do not generally wait well or quietly. Perhaps remembering His mercies are new daily and His steadfast love for us never changes can help carry us over the bumps and crashes of our dreams in life.
When your particular house of cards comes down, remember that no one EVER said “I want to be ill this summer”, or “I want to be waiting weeks on end for an answer .” Ever. So along with me, rest, wait, hope and watch for a manifestation of His love in our presence.
Treasures in Plain Sight, A Christian Blog 