Tag: practice

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In sha’ Allah

Mary Elyn Bahlert

“In sha’allah,” I like to say. “God willing,” or “if God wills it.”

These simple words have come into my consciousness – and my vocabulary – in later years. Before our cultural lens widened to include the people and the practice of Islam as their faith, I had not heard this expression.

But I like to say it now – often. Sometimes I say the words quietly, to myself, and sometimes, I say the words so that someone hears them. Either way, the beautiful words serve as a reminder: so much in life is, very simply, out of our control.

There’s a simple beauty in the Arabic words, “In sha’ allah,” and simple truth, as well. And there’s a simple truth about life, about life’s uncertainty. From day to day, we are in control of so little – the weather, the actions of others, the politics of our time, how other people act – or don’t act, what my spouse chooses to do – or not do, and even the outcome of my own actions.

To me, surrender forms the center of a life. We can act – we must act – and then we surrender to what happens, to what is, and to what will be. “In sha’ allah.”

“In sha’ Allah“, photo of window at Bethany United Methodist Church,
San Francisco, CA, photo by Mary Elyn Bahlert, 11/17/2024

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“You learn something new every day.”

Mary Elyn Bahlert

In my memory, the words of wisdom: “You learn something new every day,” were spoken by my mother. Many times. Just recently I asked my sister, Suzie, in an email, if she remembered these words of wisdom. Yes, she answered: she remembered Dad saying them. Many times.

So much for memories. At any rate, the mantra, “you learn something new every day” has not left my memory, regardless of the source. As I’ve gotten older, and since my twenties, as I fashioned my own life in the world, my memory is accompanied by my own judgement. “…Yes, I do learn something every day, something about me, about how I manage to live my life in the world, something about my inner life, something about how life in this world works” – an important companion to me in my own journey.

I expect that my mother was thinking that we learn some new fact, some interesting detail, every day. I am grateful for the way she was interested in life, in other people, in new events, in changes. Always interested in Milwaukee, her – and my – hometown, she would send me clippings about new happenings in the city, even when I had moved across the country to the Bay Area of California. I could count on her hand-written notes to reach me, along with several newspaper clippings from the Milwaukee Journal. I read every single one she sent.

In my thirties, and as my inner life grew, I turned to therapy and body-work to grow in understanding – “consciousness” of myself, of how I ticked. Most of my companions, beginning with my days in seminary and later, among my colleagues, used the same tools to grow, to “learn something new every day.”

Along the way, I’ve come to be grateful for my mother’s – or my father’s – words. They’ve given me a mind that is interested in life, in the world, in other people. And those words, lived out in my experience, have opened doors to understandings that I had never imagined.

This morning, I worshipped in a small church a distance from our home in Oakland as I accompanied Jeff, who was filling the pulpit. He surprised me when he told a story about me as an illustration. I’ve recounted before that holy moment: when the idea occurred to me that I might be a pastor – at a time in my life when I had not ever seen – or even heard of – such a woman as pastor. “By faith, Abraham started his journey, not knowing where he was going…”

I learned something new today, and about my own journey. Thank you, Mom (or Dad…).

Surely even the trees learn something new as they grow… photo by Mary Elyn Bahlert

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Every day, a melody

Mary Elyn Bahlert

I’m grateful that I love all kinds of music. And I love to sing – to myself, when I’m in worship, when I listen to the radio in the car. I love the melodies. I love the words. I love to pretend that I’m onstage, singing to an audience. When I’m in the house, I love to move my body to the rhythm of the song that I’m singing to myself. A little joy, a little gift that is part of my life.

My husband still teases me when he sees “Mar” coming out – the me in my imagination who stood in front of the bedroom mirror as a teenager and belted out the latest Beatles’ song.

youtube is a gift to someone like me. I can spend hours scrolling through youtube, watching videos of rock and roll stars, of country western concerts, of duets and bands from the 60’s, when I was in high school, until now. I’ve watched the Vienna Orchestra and the Rolling Stones in the same day – maybe even the same sitting.

Dancing is good, too. I’ve always loved to dance. I dance through the house to the tunes in my head, moving from one room to the next. “The body likes to move,” a wise person once told me. (Dancing is good exercise, too!)

A melody a day counts as a good day, to me. Hum it to yourself…

The trees love to dance, too… photo my Mary Elyn Bahlert, 10/2014

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Magic

Mary Elyn Bahlert

Magic seems to permeate this season of the year, the time when the darkness descends upon us – literally – and we are full into the darkness. In my life and spiritual practice, it is certain that when I descend into the darkest place, the light, the new emerges. The promise of those who have gone before is that there will be light, there will be another day. And another day arrives, new – Magic.

When I was a child, my sense of wonder provided a kind of Magic. On Christmas Eve, my non-churched family attended a church to be present for the children’s program. I was among the children who stood to recite the Christmas story, verse by verse, for the gathered adults, the sanctuary filled with lights, the light of candles, the smells and sounds of a place with a cold winter: cold hands and faces, warm wool outerwear. What I remember about those Christmas Eve times is the sense of Magic I held as a child – that Magic itself something holy, something that would pass away, away from me as I entered puberty and young adulthood. Nothing can replace the Magic of that time and place, still clear in my memory.

A few days ago, as the light of the day was ending, Jeff finished his work on the strip of land we call, “the Panhandle,” where he has lately installed a neighborhood library – a beautiful wooden box complete with a glass door that a friend crafted to suit the vision Jeff and I had. As soon as the library was installed, a few books appeared. One day, I watched as a woman I did not know stopped her car and delivered several books to the library. Our vision has come to life! Our vision is useful! Our vision is beautiful!

That day, as the sun set over San Francisco Bay, barely visible from our windows on View Place, Jeff stepped into the kitchen and looked out to the West as the sun was setting. He had cut the branches of a tree in our yard that had hid the site we were seeing. Jeff called me over to stand with him at the window. And there – there! – as if the moment was for us alone – our own screen on the sun setting over the Bay – the outline of downtown San Francisco, coated in grey fog and lit by the lights of the City – shone before us. Magic! I named our view, “The City of God,” and we stood for a few moments as the vision faded, as the sun sank lower into the Pacific beyond the City. Then – gone.

The simple gifts of light, of a tree with golden leaves about to fall, of my cat who comes to sit close to me on the couch to receive a good petting, of an old recipe for borscht that gives us a week of meals. These simple gifts are Magic to me.

“The City of God,” photo by Mary Elyn Bahlert, Oakland, 12/2022

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Make of your life a practice –

Mary Elyn Bahlert

IMG_0792  Practice seeing, seeing the first blossoms of spring

How can I live my life as a practice, a practice of whole-ness, a practice of connecting with the infinite, the Holy, the Universe?

There is only this: practice, practice, practice…

The sages of all traditions knew this.  the Mother knows this, the monks in their cells in the hidden corners of the earth know this.  It may be that the person in the next cubicle knows this.  And you know it, too.  There is only practice, from one moment to the next, from one day to the next.

What is your practice, today?  In my life, my practice has often changed.  For a time, I spent hours every day in my car, driving from small town to small town in rural Wisconsin.  Then, I began this practice, this practice that has become my life.  I talked to God.  I talked out loud to God, crying sometimes, laughing, sometimes, and sometimes shaking my fist at God.  And I began to observe my life in its unfolding, as if I was looking at my life from another perspective.

Sure, I have had to make the choices we all make.  I have had to decide whether or not to go on to school, where to live, what to do on Friday night, whether or not this person was my friend – or not.  All of the external choices have been the same.  On another level, though, I have discovered that life is a constant of only this:  practice.

Practice is only my own way of connecting the Divine, to the Holy that is in me and is in you.  I have not been limited by my practice; rather, my practice has broadened my life, my experience, and even my mind.  Through my practice, I have learned to question everything I have been taught is true or real.  There are no limits to my practice.  Like the sea, which rolls onto the beach and roils into the deepest depths, my limits are limit-less.  Through my practice, I have questioned my deepest beliefs, and I have discarded some, and still question others, continuing to wonder what is true, what holds to be true not only for me, but for all of humanity, and all of creation.

I have learned that the Holy can hold all this, all my faltering practices, all my failures, all my ignorance, all my less-than-loving self.

I have prayed, an ever-changing, evolving prayer.  I have meditated, and I still do, two times a day, most days.  I have walked my prayers.  I have talked to the grass and the trees, and to my cat.  I have cried.  I have laughed.   I have nodded into a sky that does not answer, and yet is shouting  to me.  I have sniffed the sweet, wet earth, and smelled the sweet fragrance of lilacs and rosemary and lavendar, riches.  I have visited holy places.  I have worshiped in unfamiliar places, and I have honored those whose practice I have been privileged to encounter, although theirs might not be my own.  I nod to their Holy One, who may seem different than my own, but is not.  I honor that Holy One, by whatever name.  I have visited dark places, and I have arrived into another morning, giving thanks for nothing in particular, but for it all.

I have not only “tried” many ways to stay connected to All; I have practiced many ways to stay connected.  Some of the ways I carry with me now, like a bag filled with spiritual practices instead of groceries.  I reach into the bag and take out the one I need, now.  In any day, I use my practices to stay connected to Something More, Something Whole, Something Holy – something that is in me, that is me, and that is greater than I am.

Through my practice I have learned this:  I do not have to be good.  I do not have to do things perfectly.  I do not have to work to be worthy.  I do not have to know what is right or correct in any or all situations.  I do not have to understand to accept.  I am complete, here and now, just as I am.  This is what I have learned, what I am learning.

When I remember, I can still feel my little girl’s body on the seat of my first two-wheeled bicycle.  I can feel the strength of my Dad behind me, holding onto the seat, pushing me along the sidewalk, pushing me, holding on, and then, in some moment, letting go, until I felt the freedom of that ride, that long ride that has taken me to this time, to this moment, to this day.  Then, I was practicing.  Then, I had the safety of Dad’s strength and love and joy until I took off on my own.

As we get older, what we face is different than what we faced when we were younger.  What I have faced in my life – the choices, the decisions, the moments, the sadness, the losses, the small and great griefs – is changing.  It has always been changing, although now I am more poignantly aware that my choices are changing.  And I can honestly say that the only thing that has gotten me through, the ever-changing practices I have gathered and practiced and discarded, and even those I continue today, are the cornerstone, and the one constant.

Make of your life a practice.