How the Compost Pile of our Humanity Transforms US

I had a good retreat this year but the end of it was filled with my humanness in all of its glory – jealousy, clinging, not staying in the present moment because of the grief of having to leave my favorite place on earth yet another time.  When I returned home I sent my retreat director an email telling her I had learned a lot about myself in those last few days and apologizing for my bad behavior.  Her reply touched me deeply, she said:  “Isn’t it wonderful that the compost of your self was turned, allowing the breaking-down-into-nutrients process to carry on.”  I have been pondering that statement ever since. 

Believe me I’m not all that familiar with compost piles but I surely caught the idea clearly.  Composting is a process of regeneration, renewal, and resurrection.  We take the organic scraps from our table like apple cores, banana peels, coffee grounds, egg shells, etc. and we add to them the organic scraps of the earth like grass trimmings, dead flowers, and leaves that fall from the trees and then we just let them sit.  With time microorganisms break things down and worms transform what remains.  The seasons turn, alternately warming and cooling, wetting and drying and then miraculously we have a pile of moist, nutrient rich soil to spread on our newly planted vegetables which will grow with the aid of the sun and water, minerals from the earth, the pollination of bees and the soil loosening of earthworms and  Voila -- the cycle begins all over again -- Life begets life!  How amazing this regenerating life that God has given us! 

What happens with the earth can also happen within me.  In composting, it’s the scraps we throw away, the stuff that has rotted, the stuff with bad spots, we give it air and time and end up with amazing soil.  Within us there are also those areas that we are ashamed of, those areas where our anger flares or our bruised ego cries in unbecoming ways.  If I’m willing to look at the scraps within me of jealousy or insecurity or impatience or downright meanness in a compassionate way then, with time, something amazing can also happen – a regeneration, a renewal, a resurrection.  

All of those mysterious times when we seem stuck or lost (pain, remorse, regret, guilt), we’re meant to just gently turn the pile over.  Into this smelly pile of our brokenness, we work in a bit of self-compassion and forgiveness and lots of God’s grace.  Next, with a little loving attention, we carefully pick out the stones and debris of our life that no longer serve us well and say goodbye to them.  And then we simply wait each day in the stillness of our prayer for the miracle of God’s grace. 

When we are emotionally, creatively, or spiritually stuck, we need not ask more of ourselves then nature asks herself.  Often we expect way too much of ourselves.  Sometime we see only the negative within us.  We spend all of our time looking at the compost pile rather than the fragrant flower or luscious fruit that is waiting to grow within us.  But nothing grows when our days are spent guarding the compost pile, defending it, covering it up to make our lives look larger than life itself.  I learned once that our greatest weakness is also our greatest strength.  Maybe this is the paradox that we live.  Without the nutrients of our humanity, the soil of our lives, of our personalities, will remain arid.  Gardening is full of grunting, sweat, dirt and sometimes holding your nose.  Composting demonstrates to us the powers of birth, death and regeneration at an earthly level.  We have to choose to believe that it can do the same with the weakest elements of our personality. It’s a slow process this finding the garbage of our lives and seeing the value in “composting” it.—breaking-down-into nutrients” but alas it is what births new life within us.

Can we become the music? Is it mysticism? Ask our Jubilarians?

Thomas Merton defines mysticism as an experience with God beyond words.   Many have been touched deeply by God when we listen to some piece of classical music or perhaps had a spiritual experience when listening to the melody of a good song.    Perhaps there are times when each of us experience music without ever hearing a sound and we are touched deeply.  It often comes from another’s life or some profound moment in our own, a moment when God reveals Godself.  It is when we are deeply immersed in the music of life that we become the music.  God and I make music all the time.  How about you?

Merton tells us “…the deepest level of communication is not communication, but communion.  It is wordless!  It is beyond words, and it is beyond speech, and it is beyond concept.” (“Thomas Merton’s View of Monasticism,” a talk delivered at Calcutta, October 1978,)  Many have had such an experience when we spend a quiet afternoon with a friend saying virtually nothing but being so at peace and  at one with one another that we know “communion. ”   The same often happens on a quiet day alone with God perhaps enjoying nature together.

When I was on sabbatical (at Cedars of Peace in Nerinx, KY) my hermitage was called “Namaste” and there was a sign in my hermitage explaining the term Namaste.  It read:

I honor that place in you, where the entire universe resides. I honor that place in you, of love, of light, of truth, of peace. I honor that place with you where, when you are in that place in you, and I am in that place in me, there is only one of us.

The word Namaste  is often used as a greeting in the Hindu or Buddhist tradition.  When spoken to another person, it is commonly accompanied by a slight bow made with hands folded in prayer. This gesture is often made wordlessly and carries the same meaning.  Namaste is a form of music living within us,  music in which a reverent dance honoring another flows freely.  When we use it, we are recognizing in the sacredness of one another, that place where the divine dwells within each of us.  The gesture alone is like sweet centering music without any sound.  In it we become the music.  I had a Namaste experience this weekend.

The music of Namaste was everywhere this weekend.  Our congregation’s Jubilarians spent the weekend in the Spiritual Center amid a great deal of celebrating and sharing.   It was a time of pure joy in every possible way, celebrating those among us who for seventy-five, seventy or fifty years of professed religious life have lived the music of their lives and sung it beautifully to each of us and to all who they have served and all who have touched their lives.   They offered many surprises to us as well.  On Saturday they spent a significant amount of time with our retired sisters at Assisi House thanking them for being their role models and mentors and friends who brought them to this day.  At a magnificent liturgy on Sunday morning amid the most joyful music imaginable the jubilarians entered with dance and celebrated with praise to our God who is always loving us extravagantly.  They thanked the congregation for all that they have been for them and asked pardon for any way in which they were not fully present to anyone of us. 

It was a powerful way to begin their renewal of vows.  And in a tradition that is still alive in our congregation they sang the Benedicam Domine thanking our all good God for such extravagant love.  Throughout the liturgy the joy was in no way restrained.  It was contagious and on the way out of chapel they surprised us as each one pulled out a silver streamer and began their movement down the aisle or one might say their dance down the aisle.   Trust me THEY WERE THE MUSIC – if no instruments were playing or no voices singing – their lives and their joy would have been enough.

Those of you who have been around the Spiritual Center for some time may know one of our Jubilarians quite well.  Sr. Marie Angela Presenza, our program coordinator,  celebrated 50 years as a professed Sister of St. Francis.  Here is a picture to just give you an inkling of the joy in her heart.   Sr. Bernadette McKinniry, RSM, a former Board Member of the Franciscan Spiritual Center joined her for the celebration as did many of her cherished friends in community:

The weekend was filled with song, dance, and a deep level of sharing God's love.  It was clear that here in the joy of the moment we were each the music we heard in the sound of one another's joy and in the memory of each jubilarian's journey.  Namaste!

Learning to be at home....

Wendell Berry, in The Unforeseen Wilderness, tells us the world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles, no matter how long, but only by a spiritual journey, a journey of one inch, very arduous and humbling and joyful by which we arrive at the ground of our feet, and learn to be at home.  

As I stumble through the spiritual journey of life inch by inch I have begun to ask myself if home is a place or a feeling.  As a feeling, home could include being safe, comfortable, joyful, peaceful  and accepted as we are.   These feelings are not something you find outside of yourself,  they are something you bring with you wherever you go, so perhaps home is an attitude we have within ourselves.    Home is wherever we are, or as Berry says "at the ground of our feet", the place where we learn to be comfortable with ourselves.  It takes a long time for us to get there and notice that we are at home. 

Home is a place inside of ourselves where we’re brave enough to  bring our insecurities, our quirks, our fears, and our strengths and feel comfortable with them.  Sometime we walk past home because we’re going too fast and don’t take the time to notice where we are.  Other times, we take the time to notice that we are home and that alone transforms our day.   I was on retreat last week and I noticed that I was AT HOME but as the time came to an end there was a deep sadness about having to leave home.    Although I believe home is in my heart there are the people who help us feel most accepting of ourselves.  They enhance our awareness of being AT HOME, leaving them sometime feels like leaving home.

We often think of home as where we come from, or the place we know best, or the people we love most, where we stay each night or perhaps where we long to be.  Home may be all of this or none of this.  But we all know home is important and we recognize it when we feel it.  There is a longing in our hearts to be AT HOME.   Home can be a mixed bag for many of us and for some , where there is domestic violence, home is a dangerous and unsettling place.  Yet, even in those situations, the human spirit finds a way to create a safe haven within our hearts, a place that becomes like home.  Our dreams and fantasies of home may give us direction and calm our anxieties as we continually look for ways of satisfying our longing for home.

If we are blessed enough, home is also a place where those we love and those who love us wait for us and, as we come home to them, we are nourished and our life becomes fuller and warmer and more tender then we could ask or imagine.   

Our greatest gift and our greatest challenge is to be at home within ourselves but also to make for others a dwelling place where they are comfortable and “at home”. 

Welcome yourself home!  But also let your spirit look at others and whisper in their ear – Welcome home my friend, welcome home!

Visit our website:  www.fscaston.org  and checking out our blog and our online spirituality sections.