The Flowing Grace of Now: Encountering Wisdom through the Weeks of the Year

30:20–21

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Wake Up, Your Teacher Has Arrived

Fifty-Two Teachers

Conclusion: Ever Flowing

Acknowledgments

I am deeply grateful to all who have companioned me in shaping this book. There are too many of you to name. You know who you are. I bow to you and honor your insights and suggestions.

I joyfully acknowledge my monastic community as the heart of my life and inspiration. Their support has sustained me through the years.

Above all, it is a place called Bethany, one of my favorite hideaways, that I single out as my number-one source of inspiration. Bethany was a getaway house that our community once owned. Most of these reflections were originally written there in that wooded area. It was there that my teachers lived: the hawks, owls, crows, and birds of every kind; the deer and small wild animals; the pond with its resident heron; the mornings and evenings with their exuberant display of colors; and finally the starry, starry night.

Thanks to my editor, Amber Elder, for her insightful recommendations and vigilant guidance throughout this process. I am also grateful to publisher Tom Grady. It is a joy to once again work with the very fine team at Ave Maria Press.

Introduction

Wake Up, Your Teacher Has Arrived

No longer will your Teacher hide.

There is an old proverb that says, When the student is ready the teacher will arrive. I think I have been ready for a long time, yet perhaps I have spent too much time looking for the perfect teacher rather than seeing the teachers that arrive in unexpected ways. Looking and seeing are not the same. To see requires a deeply contemplative spirit and an open heart. To see requires learning to live awake. When we realize this hallowed way of being in the world, our teacher will no longer hide. When we begin to live awake, we will see teachers everywhere. Somewhere in his vast array of writings, Thomas Merton has suggested that the most dangerous person in the world is the one who is guided by no one. Merton’s wise observation has invited questions into my life: Am I open to guidance? How open? How willing am I to be taught? Do I have a heart eager for learning? Life is a wisdom school. Have I enrolled in its classes?

The ways to grow in wisdom and knowledge are endless. At this time in my life, one of my favorite ways to learn is to sit at the feet of the flowing grace of now. There was a time when I was apprehensive about now. It seemed too fleeting to learn from. It was gone before I could touch it. Countless teachers have encouraged me to make my home in the present moment. I am finally beginning to understand that to live in the moment is to live in the flowing grace of now. Now is not motionless and fixed; it is gracefully flowing into the next moment, the next now.

That’s the way I learn. I lean into the moment. I lean into life. I sit at the feet of experience. I sit at the feet of life. I sit at the feet of my sins and virtues. I sit at the feet of sufferings and joys. I sit at the feet of poets, saints, and friends. I sit at the feet of beauty and brokenness—of doubt and hope. I sit at the feet of Mother Earth. I sit at the feet of the Word of God. And I listen. And I wait. And I learn.

Some of my teachers are writers and prophets whom I have never met, yet I am spiritually fed because of the insights I have gleaned from their wisdom. Thomas Merton has taught me that it is possible to be deeply immersed in the contemplative way and yet be able to speak out boldly about our need to work for peace and justice. Etty Hillesum, who died in Auschwitz in 1943, reveals by her life that it is possible to embrace love rather than bitterness. The poet William Stafford teaches me to see afresh through his ability to cause the mundane to blossom into something exquisite. Poet Jessica Powers mesmerizes me in her ability to find just the right words to describe my ongoing relationship with God. My own spiritual guide continues to ground me in humility as I watch him embrace the challenge of spiritual growth even in the midst of the fragility of aging.

It is difficult for me to fathom my days without the guidance of these ordinary yet extraordinary people in my life. They minister to my desire for authenticity and wisdom. They have been mentors for me, nurturing and inspiring me through the years.

Yet even in the company of these superb teachers, a kind of existential ache for God lingers in my soul. In some of my more pensive moments, I recall sitting in angst, longing for a sage or shaman to visit me from some sacred cave or aboriginal forest and feed my inquisitive mind. Such a wisdom figure, I thought, would offer answers to my eternal questions, end my unfocused living, and stir up my lethargic spirit by giving me an immeasurable supply of wisdom. That shaman or guru has never arrived in the form I was expecting, yet one morning while praying with scripture I had an overpowering realization that teachers are everywhere. This insight was as consoling as the shaman arriving on my doorstep. The scripture I was using for my prayer that day was the Mary and Martha story from the Gospel of Luke (10:38–42). I found the stirring image of Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus therapeutic. As I visualized this uplifting image, I wondered if Jesus was also sitting at her feet—a reciprocal exchange. Were they listening to one another? Why not? That’s what mature friends do.

Mary’s listening annoys Martha, who is busy serving. Yet if the full truth be known, Martha was also sitting at the feet of a teacher. She was sitting at the feet of service. Later, after dinner was served, with Jesus gone and Mary retired for the evening, I envision Martha finally sitting down by herself and listening to the experience of the evening. As she reviewed the evening and her lament in the midst of her service, perhaps she began to realize that all of this was part of the wisdom offered by the school of life. We learn by contemplating our daily struggles.

Both Mary and Martha have become teachers for me. In their own way each was choosing the better part (see Luke 10:41). Martha inserted a bit of murmuring into her service. Her murmuring I can understand because I, too, have had to sit at the feet of my own murmuring at times. What I have learned is that when I give my authentic presence to those moments of complaining, in the form of deep listening, all becomes prayer. Life’s experiences become remarkable teachers when we spend time contemplating them.

Creation is a superb teacher. Consider how parched wasteland can become a blossoming meadow after a good rain. Anticipate how you might be a rain of grace in someone’s life even though there are perplexities and ambiguities in your own. You can learn from nature by listening to and reading from the pages of her landscape.

If we are attentive to the natural world around us, we may notice what an excellent teacher we have in each of the four seasons. The challenge, of course, is to live mindfully so that we do not miss the lessons hidden in the seasons. Hold each season up against your life, and look into its pages as you would look into a mirror. How can you see your face in the pages offered to you by nature’s grace? Consider the little flowers growing up through deadwood. The deadwood is a source of life for them. It is their mulch. What can this teach you about the apparent deadwood of your own life? What is your mulch? What helps you grow? What can the seasons teach you?

As each new season arrives, fragments of the other seasons linger in the folds of its robes. Winter, spring, summer, and fall are mulch for each other. The seasons of our lives are like that also. We learn from the layers of life. Our joys, sorrows, regrets, hopes, miseries, and enthusiasms are mulch for each other. They nourish the future seasons of our lives. Every piece of life, every stage of growth enjoys the flowing grace of now—the moment when it needs to be nothing but the way it is, even as it flows into a new now.

The people with whom I live and work often serve as teachers for me. I have learned so much from watching people live. The ways they cope with their sorrows, limitations, and fears assist me as I struggle with my own weakness and flaws. I have watched people rejoice and give of themselves even in times of great drought of spirit, and I say to myself, That’s the way I want to live. I want to learn from my pain, from my questions and unrest, from my foibles and blunders. I want to sit at the feet of those who know how to live awake. I want all of life to be a teacher.

As a Christian I claim Jesus, the Christ, as my great teacher. The scriptures offer me many insights, many teachers. When I am attentive to the Word of God speaking to me from the pages of scripture, teachers rise up and anoint me. They lead me to the hidden God within my own being. That which has been written in the prophets has proven true for me: They shall all be taught by God (Jn 6:45).

Suggestions for Praying with The Flowing Grace of Now

This book is designed to be used following the fifty-two weeks of the year: one teacher a week. Each week you are to open the pages of scripture and pray with the text chosen for you. A teacher