I often dance with mortality and mystery as an interfaith spiritual director and companion to the dying at Zen Hospice Project, which trains volunteers to practice these Five Precepts of Hospice Care developed by its founder:

1) Bring your whole self to the bedside.

2) Welcome everything, push away nothing.

3) Find a place of rest in the middle of things.

4) Cultivate "don't know mind."

5) Don't wait.

Years ago, as a new hospice volunteer and spiritual director overflowing with compassion, openness, and newly acquired skills, I was excited to practice all that I had learned—especially the five precepts.

Everything changed as soon as I met “John.”

Sitting in his wheelchair, I noticed a swastika tattooed on his forearm. Suddenly my body tightened and with it, my open heart.

I’m Jewish and Judaism teaches tolerance. Yet I could not look past the swastika and what it represented to me.  

I immediately ended the visit.

I did visit John a few weeks later; this time he was lying in his bed, dead.

When I entered his room, he was still warm, swastika in full view. This time I took a deep breath, began practicing metta, and gently caressed his arms, especially the swastika.

Though painful at the time, my response to John is an exquisite reminder of universal messiness, fallibility, and vulnerability.

I've come to understand the five precepts with fresh eyes.

Bring your whole self to the bedside. I owe it to myself and those I serve to show up more honestly. If a spiritual directee shares something that I resonate with, I might tell them a bit of my own story, which often allows for a more intimate connection.

Welcome everything, push away nothing. We can’t choose how we are going to feel, and we can’t serve everyone. Welcoming everything tenderizes me to my own and others' suffering. And joy. By welcoming everything, I am striving to live more wholeheartedly, even when the challenges feel daunting.

Find a place of rest in the middle of things. I can offer compassion, but as much as I want to, I cannot fix another’s circumstances. My ability to serve depends upon holding that distinction.

Cultivate "don't know mind." One can never know what's going on inside another's head, heart, and body, nor do we know what our future holds or when we will say final goodbyes. We can stay present, respond to what arises, and act from the most genuine place.

Don't wait. If we do our best in each moment—fully, passionately, courageously—that is what truly matters.

As I have evolved as a spiritual director, no longer are the Five Precepts simply intellectual guideposts but rather a dynamic life force within me. I make a choice, moment by moment, to be fully present. When I have the urge to move away from difficult feelings or self-judgment arises, I sit down, close my eyes, ground my feet firmly on the floor, take slow, deep breaths, and softly whisper, "Yes!”

Rachel Katz, MA, MEd, is a member of SDI and has worked in the medical field and the arts for over twelve years. She currently provides practical, emotional, and spiritual support to dying patients at the Zen Hospice Project in San Francisco, California, USA.

“There’s a new world coming,” Dr. Barbara Holmes told us during the community event in St. Paul, Minnesota, USA. Hundreds of people gathered to learn from her how mystical ways are passed on in black family traditions. When Holmes played Bernice Johnson Reagon’s music, “There’s a New World Coming,” the song’s rhythm sank into my ears and my bones. Throughout the conference, the refrain, “There’s a new world coming. Where will you be standing when it comes?” stayed with me.

Holmes personalized her story about spiritual direction in the mystical legacies of black women by letting us know that the following morning she would be burying her mother. The ballroom quieted as we held Holmes in her grief. Many of us met Holmes’s mother during the Tributaries of Compassion gathering last October. Her mother gazed with pride and gentle strength when Dr. B—as students at United Theological Seminary call their new president—shared her passionate response to a Langston Hughes poem.

The bond of love and deep respect between mother and daughter filled the room with a sense of purpose back in October. Dr. B.’s compassionate mother was witnessing her daughter live into her dream of becoming a leader in her new city and in her innovative role as seminary president. On stage in April, Dr. B offered kindness and gratitude to her beloved mother—for passing along her faith and compassion that she so freely shares with others. There’s a new world coming.

Another mother, daughter—and grandmother—touched my heart during the conference: Christine Luna Munger, the chair of the local host committee. Because her baby is only five months old, Christine invited her mother to look after daughter, Elisa, between nursing and napping. Elisa is pictured here soaking up lots of attention from volunteers who helped Christine make the conference a very meaningful event. I don’t remember an SDI conference with so many generations all in one place. There’s a new world coming.

There is one more mother to acknowledge, even though her novices are not biological kin: Kathleen McAlpin, RSM, who celebrated her golden jubilee during the conference. For fifty years, Kathleen has been tending her relationship with God as a sister of Mercy. She had just returned from the Philippines caring for the spiritual formation of young novices in one of the poorest regions of the Philippines. We had a good time listening to Kathleen’s nurturing stories while indulging in cake.

Yes. There’s a new world coming, and I am blessed to be standing among some of the best mothers on the planet.

Reflection:
As you celebrate May Day and Mother’s Day, what are you noticing about a new world coming? Where will you be standing when it comes?

“I am the fiery life of the essence of God; I am the flame above the beauty in the fields; I shine in the waters; I burn in the sun, the moon, and the stars. And with the airy wind, I quicken all things vitally by an unseen, all-sustaining life. For the air is alive in the verdure and the flowers; the waters flow as if they lived; the sun too lives in its light; and when the moon wanes it is rekindled by the light of the sun, as if it lived anew: Even the stars glisten in their light as if alive.”

 —Hildegard of Bingen

I fell in love with Hildegard of Bingen over fifteen years ago while studying her in graduate school. She quickly became an inspiring and wise companion, as well as a mentor across time in the contemplative and creative life. Hildegard’s principle of viriditas, or the greening power of God, became an essential life principle for me in discernment, as I listen to where my life feels verdant and fertile, and where I feel dry and barren.

Last fall I was able to make a personal pilgrimage for the first time to the area in Germany which nourished her visions and work. Standing in her shimmering landscape, viriditas came alive to me in an even deeper way. I imagined her looking over the lush forests and rivers and her own moment of first recognition that this outer vision reflected an inner reality as well. For Hildegard, the greenness of creation, which is an outward sign of God’s vitality at work in the world, is also a call to cultivate our inner greening. The life that suffuses the world flows forth freely from the life-creating and sustaining power of God, who is the primordial source of greenness, connecting all living things to one another.

The “greening” of the area where she lived is powerful. She was a landscape mystic, meaning that the geography of her world was a means of ongoing revelation into the nature of God. Gazing out over the shimmering autumn gold of the vineyards beyond Saint Hildegard’s monastery in Rudesheim, Germany, I felt this sense of deep surrender where that porous line between myself and the earth seemed to fade. I let that green energy of the earth rise up and embrace me in ways I hadn’t previously experienced. I imagined Hildegard breathing this vision in and out. I felt the pulsing of God’s creative power through me in new ways. The sacred is the quickening force animating and enlivening the whole world, include our own beings. The flourishing of the world around Hildegard was the impetus for her to embrace her inner flourishing.

We can study her words, sing her music, gaze on her illuminated visions, and enter into her world through many portals. But to immerse ourselves in the physical landscape which shaped this creative outpouring is to take seriously the foundational impact the earth had on how she experienced life and the divine Source of all that sustains us.

Christine Valters Paintner, PhD, is the online abbess of Abbey of the Arts, a virtual monastery offering resources for integrating contemplative practice and creative expression. She is the author of seven books on art and monastic spirituality including her latest, Eyes of the Heart: Photography as a Christian Contemplative Practice. Paintner lives out her call as a Benedictine oblate and monk in the world in Galway, Ireland. Along with Betsey Beckman, she is a pilgrim guide for the SDI Interfaith Pilgrimage to Germany: In the Footsteps of Hildegard of Bingen, 9–18 September 2013.

Teenage feet. Female feet. Muslim feet. Atheist feet. Dark feet. Light feet. The tattooed feet of a prisoner. These are the feet the newly elected Pope Francis chose to wash on Maundy Thursday.

It takes courage and humility to ignore liturgical laws and break with tradition to wash and kiss the feet of twelve juvenile offenders in a detention center instead of washing the feet of twelve priests in the basilica. It’s the kind of courage grounded in love that Jesus modeled throughout his ministry. By turning upside down our staid assumptions about how the world works, we are freed to imagine new ways of being in relationship.

Washing someone’s feet is a tender act. Kissing a stranger’s feet is an intimate act. Seeing photos of Pope Francis compassionately tending to the young prisoners’ feet brought tears for me. Rather than preaching in a basilica about scripture, the poor, and the marginalized, Francis demonstrated with his actions the love and hope that Jesus exhibited.

Francis explained to the young people at the detention center on Maundy Thursday, "This is a symbol, it is a sign; washing your feet means I am at your service. Help one another. This is what Jesus teaches us. This is what I do. And I do it with my heart. I do this with my heart because it is my duty, as a priest and bishop I must be at your service."

Can you imagine being in the shoes of one of those teenagers? Here comes a seventy-something, gray-haired guy—a religious leader which doesn’t mean much to you as an atheist—who offers to wash your feet. You’ve agreed to participate because it might help your probation. The old man kneels on the stone floor in a vulnerable position beneath you. You are comfortably seated on a bench overlooking him.

As you take off your sneakers, it dawns on you that your feet don’t smell very good. No matter. You are perhaps a tough, street-smart, hard-hearted dude. Yet when the old man touches your feet ever so gently and pours warm water over your calloused heals, you notice that it feels good to be cared for. After drying your toes tenderly with a soft clean towel, he bends to kiss your feet. Then searchingly, he looks you in the eye, saying, "Don't lose hope. Understand? With hope you can always go on." He hands you an Easter egg as a gift.

What a beautiful inspiration for April, for Passover, and for Easter season. Every day, opportunities arise for us to be courageously hopeful. As spiritual directors, we are called to be of service in our world, to stand with and for our loving and compassionate God. May we cultivate compassion by companioning seekers with the courage to say, “Don’t lose hope. With hope you can always go on.”

Reflection: What staid assumptions can you turn upside down to discover new ways of being in relationship with others? What stories inspire your hope? Share your response below.

Who is that coming up from the wilderness,

leaning upon her beloved? (SO 8:5a)

Where I live in rural Sonoma County, California, USA, the sights, sounds, and smells of spring are emerging. Farmers and home gardeners are planting new seeds, while the large sow in the barn next door just gave birth to ten piglets. The pungent smell of fresh organic compost lingers in the air, as these cottony things float dreamily off a tree by my window like spring snowflakes. At a recent visit to a local apple and Asian pear grower’s farm, the lovely new pink and white blossoms, poking out their heads, hinted at a turning. As the farmer and I spoke, a mini “tornado” descended on us in a whirl of leaves and dust (which the farmer remarked he had never seen there before), bringing surprise and laughter and a pause to our more serious reflections about the struggles of farming, community partnerships, and getting more healthy local, organic produce to school children.

Wonder and laughter... amidst life’s flurry of tasks, responsibilities, the challenges of working together in human community, the losses and waiting, the struggle to make a difference in our world. And then, the glimpses. In this season of Easter, as I accompany beings (the trees, the pigs, the farmers, and myself), I am moved by these glimmers of joy, of presence, and of new life—of momentarily seeing things as they really are... a world aligned, a new creation. In glimpses in Nature all around, and astonishingly even in us all, I see and sense a Lover’s return—turning the bitter waters into the sweetness of dew. Alongside my fears and busyness, I find that my heart calls to the One for whom all creation longs. I realize that it is I who am ever returning to the Beloved, who is in all things.

Who is that coming up from the wilderness,

   leaning upon her beloved?

 

Under the apple tree I awakened you.

There your mother was in labor with you;

   there she who bore you was in labor.

 

Set me as a seal upon your heart,

   as a seal upon your arm;

for love is strong as death,

   passion fierce as the grave.

Its flashes are flashes of fire,

   a raging flame.

Many waters cannot quench love,

   neither can floods drown it.

If one offered for love

   all the wealth of one’s house,

   it would be utterly scorned.

(SO 8:5b-7)

Reflection: Where do you sense glimpses of the Beloved in, with, and around you, today, and in those you may be accompanying?

Dr. Helen Kwon was a 2012 SDI New Contemplative and is the facilitator of the 2013 New Contemplative Initiative. She is deeply grateful to be learning from Nature, small surprises, and the beloved SDI community.

The opus of the soul consists of three parts: Insight. Action. Endurance.

—Carl Jung

Hurriedly we leave. The bread

does not have time to rise.

The journey to freedom compels.

At the beginning, we know.

A cloud by day, a pillar of fire

by night. The shackles of bondage

float to the heavens with our gratitude.

Bondage is strange though.

There is comfort in the known.

The desert is harsh, unforgiving.

The joy of freedom evaporates

under the hot sun. Our feet

yearn to turn backwards towards

the familiar. The land of milk and honey

is not visible, still but a yearning.

Our wise leader is resolute.

He moves ahead despite his fatigue.

Grumbling, dissatisfied, we follow.

The exultation of freedom is but a memory.

We do not know if the cloud by day

or the fire by night are merely

of our longing. We trudge

under a relentless sky. We long

for a miracle. The journey towards

a new home seems interminable.

Yet, day by day, night by night,

we walk. Perhaps this is faith?

There is no certainty. Perhaps the reins

of bondage are broken by the journey?

Perhaps freedom from slavery is more

than leaving the old? Perhaps love

and friendship grow in the desert? As we

tend one another, in our weariness

in our hunger, in our thirst, perhaps

this is where the seeds of one of our primary

beliefs is sown? Love-in-community. Love-in-action.

Jennifer (Jinks) Hoffmann             March 20, 2013

“I turn my eyes to the mountains; from where will my help come?”  

—Psalm 121

My home sits at the rocky edge of the sea in Marblehead, Massachusetts, USA, yet my heart called me to the desert, home of my Israelite ancestors, in preparation for Passover 2013. Over three thousand years ago, Moses led the Jewish people out of Egyptian slavery, over treacherous slopes and burning sands until they reached the Promised Land. Today, Jews the world over, celebrate Passover, retell the freedom story at seders, and look inward to recognize and release our inner, personal bondage.

During the February SDI Pilgrimage to the American Southwest, I stepped out of my life and into my soul. The desert landscape drew me to explore the dryness within: places that need tending, binds to loosen, people and situations I’m ready to forgive. It beckoned me to prune so that my spirit may grow.

Spiny, stalwart cactus swords, soaring eagles, hovering humming birds, craggy peaks, deep silence whispered of the Eternal Now. Past, present, future became one.

On a steep, uneven, rocky mountain trail, I prayed to Spirit to guide each footfall of this uninitiated seaside dweller. I implored, “Please lead the way!” On that mountain veils lifted, and I understood. I was not alone; I was never alone. 

I returned from the desert renewed, refreshed, replenished, and ready to step into the fullness of my life. A seed is preparing to spout this spring, and it is my choice to water, to nurture, to weed, to listen well to what this green shoot has to tell.  It remembers Source’s intentions for my path, my purpose. When yes is the answer to my undeniable stirrings, my heart opens to the One Heart. Yes is the sign, the seal, the step that leads me along my path to God.  In the Southwest desert I passed over from the narrow, constricted place into the land of my soul. 

Reflection: In this season of Passover, what arises when you look inward to recognize and release your inner, personal bondage? Where is the yes in your story?

All my life I have been a mountain goat in disguise. The minute I encounter a sandstone outcropping, a grassy hillside, or a mountain pass, I convert into my animal self and cannot resist the urge to scramble up the slope and sprint back down. So when I had the opportunity to climb Boboquivari Mountain with my fellow travelers on the SDI pilgrimage last month, it was only with the utmost discipline that I managed to take up my appointed position at the rear to assist less experienced hikers ascend.

And yet, as always seems to happen when we slow down and allow ourselves to become fully present to the moment, great gifts began to reveal themselves. In between reaching out to hoist a courageous climber from behind or lift her from above, I took in the panorama and breathed in the complex fragrance of the Sonoran Desert. As I encouraged those who had never hiked through the wild places of the earth before, our essential interdependence with all of creation seeped into every cell of my body.

Baboquivari Peak is the most sacred place to the Tohono O’odham people. It is the center of their cosmology, the place where their creator, I’itoi was born, and where he still dwells in a cave at the base of the mountain. It was this sacred cave to which we were headed, and I was yearning to climb inside and listen to the songs its walls might sing.

By the time my ever-diminishing group reached the peak, it was long past our agreed upon turn-around time, so all we had a chance to do was squeeze through the narrow opening and tumble into the womb of the earth. There we sat in stunned silence as our eyes began to adjust to the darkness and the chamber took shape around us. The perimeter of the cave was lined with offerings, gifts to the Creator: hand-woven baskets and low-fired clay pots, plastic flowers and Christmas tinsel, beaded Saguaro sticks decorated with feathers, folded prayers, and photographs of ancestors.

We began to chant: “Thank you for this day, Lord, this healing day…. Teach us how to pray, Lord, your healing way.” I thought of loved ones who are ill and suffering, aware that my prayers were magnified many times by the power of this secret place. And then it was time to leave. We pressed our bodies back up and out through what felt like an even smaller opening than the one through which we entered.

“I don’t ever want to leave,” I said to our Tohono O’odham guide, who had appeared very suddenly like a trickster coyote and was perched on a rock as we emerged.

“You can come back again,” he said. “And again and again. Your spirit knows the way now.”

And so, as I write this reflection in my little studio in a different desert a thousand miles away, my mountain-goat spirit climbs Baboquivari and takes refuge in her luminous belly.

Mirabai Starr served as a pilgrim guide during the recent SDI Interfaith Pilgrimage to the American Southwest: Exploring the Spirit of the Desert. To see more images of Baboquivari Mountain and the SDI pilgrimage, view the slideshow on YouTube.

We can draw closer to the divine spark within each of us as we pursue right action. Mussar practice is an ethical approach to daily life and a self-directed path for spiritual growth rooted in ancient Jewish texts.

Once only available to Orthodox communities, it has been made accessible to Jews of all persuasions, including Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox, by Alan Morinis, author of Climbing Jacob’s Ladder and Everday Holiness. By studying a broad range of character traits known as middot, which we all possess in different measure, it is possible to refine how we relate and interact with others and to consciously promote these positive qualities in the world. Thus, traits such as generosity, humility, patience, and honesty can be studied, observed, and transformed within each person. A basic principal in Mussar practice is that as one does so one becomes, the mind actually leads the heart. The goal is not self-help, but self-improvement for the benefit of the world God has gifted us.

The contemplative practice is built upon three legs: individual reflection and goal setting (Heshbon Hanefesh), partnering with another for study and practice (Chevrutah), and communal reflection and sharing (Va’ad). For the past four years Congregation M’kor Hayim in Tucson, Arizona, USA, has been home to two Mussar groups. We are men and women from mid-forties to seventies—all of us drawn to repair our world (Tikun Olam). Our process of personal discernment includes journaling, meditation, prayer, chanting, and day to day observation of specific traits in our actions. We assign ourselves exercises, kabbalot, to spur change and growth. For example: if I tend towards impatience, I might deliberately choose the longest line at the supermarket for a few weeks to cultivate patience. If I am working on the middah of careful speech, I will avoid all forms of gossip. The more one feels challenged by these exercises, the more work there is to do.

This individual effort is supported by having a Mussar partner to study Jewish texts that relate to a given trait and to bare witness to each other’s personal encounters with these traits. At a typical Mussar Circle or Va’ad, we begin in silence, each taking time to center and let go of thoughts that tether us to the day, the week. As the facilitator sounds the bell, we open our eyes, our ears, and our hearts to one another as we share.

In all three levels of Mussar practice, including the listening and responding to one another, we abide by the principles of spiritual direction: to stay present, non judgmental, and open to the expression of spirit within each of us. If we listen deeply and bare witness for each other, it is possible to discover our path to Shleimut, spiritual wholeness.

Reflection: As Jewish and Christian faith communities prepare for Passover and Holy Week, how might the contemplative practice of Mussar help you “draw closer to the divine spark within?” 

Did you know that the saguaro cactus only grows in the Sonoran Desert of Mexico and the United States? Pilgrims in the recent SDI Interfaith Pilgrimage: Exploring the Spirit of the Desert learned that the arms of the saguaro do not emerge until the cactus has lived about sixty-five years, and some saguaros live to be two hundred years old.

“Imagine if we saw our lives as beginning at age sixty-five with many more limbs to grow and heights to climb,” one pilgrim remarked. It was a freeing invitation to consider how the saguaro offers a new perspective on living.

Stripped of everyday distractions, pilgrims looked more closely at their surroundings and listened deeply to God’s guidance in the desert wilderness. A pilgrim who considers herself a “coastal ocean person” noticed she was genuinely attracted to the odd shape and beautiful presence of the saguaro. Simply standing next to the saguaro gave her a sense of deep peace and connection with the cactus and all of God’s creation.

Another pilgrim had never experienced being in the desert and was a bit wary of the dangers: rattlesnakes and scorpions kept her aware of where she stepped, even when coming across them was unlikely during hibernation. She mentioned how the heightened attentiveness helped her notice the desert’s teeming life—chatty cactus wrens, ancient petroglyphs carved into rocks by Native people, and dozens of strangely alluring cactus. She risked entering the unknown to discover beauty amidst the hazards.

When we pray with Jesus wandering in the desert for forty days and Moses leading his people in the desert for forty years, we mostly contemplate the loneliness, the barrenness, the temptations, and the hardship that was endured. We connect with a universal fear of abandonment that the desert evokes.

Being in the desert, however, provided opportunities for us to feel the mystery of God’s ever-present love, especially as a contemplative community entering Lent and in preparation for Passover, Easter, and the equinox. Even in the desert—or perhaps most especially in the metaphorical deserts of our lives—intimacy with our loving creator beckons. God cannot help God’s self from drawing us deeper into a loving presence that abides everywhere and always. Our God longs to set all beings free from bondage and be present to our fears of abandonment. In this sacred season, may we companion people as they encounter Mystery and respond with loving kindness for all.

Reflection:

How have you encountered Mystery in the deserts of your life? In what ways do Passover, Easter, and the tilt of the earth’s axis at the equinox encourage you to move closer to trusting your encounters with Mystery?