Category Archives: Sabbath

Not dawdling

Posted on June 1, 2014 by ivonprefontaine

Sabbath activities are crossroads where we bump into wonder when we are awake, aware, and attentive. We can walk with clarity and keep a sharp eye. It is in the attentiveness we gain insight, let go, and become enlightened. The wonder is two-fold. It uplifts ordinary acts/events we pass over often and they become extraordinary. As well, we take time and check those things that are different. It is not in sameness we find freedom. It is in opening up and accepting difference that we free ourselves from impenetrable prejudice, prejudgment.

James Broughton used wonderful metaphors and imagery. In letting go, we become intrepid, bold, and fearless explorers. We cut though strings binding us to the familiar and step towards lucent surprises which are always there, but paradoxically block our vision and hide from us.

A paraphrase of St. Benedict suggests we listen with the ear and see with the eye of our heart. In this we elevate the invisible and unheard in Sabbath moments.

Not dawdling
not doubting
intrepid all the way
walk toward clarity
with sharp eye
With sharpened sword
clear cut the path
to the lucent surprise
of enlightenment
At every crossroad
be prepared to bump into wonder

18 Comments

Posted in Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Sabbath and tagged creativity, James Broughton, Just Dawdling, Mindful Practice, poetry, St. Benedict, teacher as transformer. Bookmark the permalink.

Variation on a Theme by Rilke

Posted on May 24, 2014 by ivonprefontaine

Denise Levertov wrote mystical poetry which applied to daily her life. Her poetry contains qualities similar to Rilke who explored life through the spaces provided in poetry. In a sense, poetry acts as a form of Sabbath.

We read poetry’s words and the silence. In the latter, the former come to life asking questions of our whole self. There is no answer in the strictest sense. What emerges in the silence are new questions and as Rilke said, “We live into the questions.”

The silent spaces are important as they enrich the active moments of life. In those silent spaces, we become present in life which confronts us as a sword striking shoulder sending us honorably forward fulfilling life’s tasks and believing we can.

A certain day became a presence to me;
there it was, confronting me–a sky, air, light:
a being. And before it started to descend
from the height of noon, it leaned over
and struck my shoulder as if with
the flat of a sword, granting me
honor and a task. The day’s blow
rang out, metallic–or it was I, a bell awakened,
and what I heard was my whole self
saying and singing what it knew: I can.

4 Comments

Posted in Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Sabbath and tagged creativity, Denise Levertov, eloquent questions, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, poetry, Rainer Maria Rilke, spirituality, teacher as transformer, Variation on a Theme by Rilke. Bookmark the permalink.

The Wisdom of Peace

Posted on May 17, 2014 by ivonprefontaine

Lao Tzu wrote this poem as part of his work many centuries ago. The hard work of transforming life begins internally and closest to home. Sabbath practice and the mindfulness that comes with it are essential ingredients to living life in a fuller, honest, and moment-to-moment way.

We only bring peace to the world when there is peace in our hearts. From there, we gradually move outwards and the ripple effects are felt gradually first in our home, then our communities, cities, in our nations, and finally in the world. It is not the work of one person and one life time, but the work of many and many life times.

In this rippling, leading is not leading others as much as it is leading my self in the world and touching others with new-found peace.

If there is to be peace in the world,
There must be peace in the nations.
If there is to be peace in the nations,
There must be peace in the cities.
If there is to be peace in the cities,
There must be peace between neighbors.
If there is to be peace between neighbors,
There must be peace in the home.
If there is to be peace in the home,
There must be peace in the heart.

21 Comments

Posted in Community, Leadership, Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Sabbath and tagged community, creativity, Lao Tzu, leadership, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, peace, poetry, spirituality, teacher as transformer, The Wisdom of Peace. Bookmark the permalink.

Psalm

Posted on May 11, 2014 by ivonprefontaine

While I was in Spokane, I created a prayer as part of Sabbath practice. It was not so much a new prayer, but an amalgam of existing prayers including lines from the 23rd Psalm, which I recall imperfectly. The prayer served as a great way to stop, slow down, and catch my breath.

Stuart Kestenbaum memorized the 23rd Psalm, but suggests recalling its exact order was challenging. He captured its essential message, one of goodness and mercy wherever we are in a particular day and life. Sabbath happens when we need it. It is that moment, regardless of beliefs, when we pause and catch our breath. It allows us to catch up to the our self, so to speak, even in simple tasks like opening doors.

The only psalm I had memorized was the 23rd
and now I find myself searching for the order
of the phrases knowing it ends with surely
goodness and mercy will follow me
all the days of my life and I will dwell
in the house of the Lord forever only I remember
seeing a new translation from the original Hebrew
and forever wasn’t forever but a long time
which is different from forever although
even a long time today would be
good enough for me even a minute entering
the House would be good enough for me,
even a hand on the door or dropping today’s
newspaper on the stoop or looking in the windows
that are reflecting this morning’s clouds in first light.

14 Comments

Posted in Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Sabbath and tagged creativity, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, poetry, Psalm, Stuart Kestenbaum, teacher as transformer. Bookmark the permalink.

When Someone Deeply Listens To You

Posted on May 3, 2014 by ivonprefontaine

When we listen to our self closely and deeply, we open our self up to listening to others and the world deeply. In turn, the world and others are able to listen to us deeply as we create vulnerable spaces exposing ourselves and holding that dented cup out with certainty that others will respond.

John Fox wrote this poem about others listening to us. The process begins within us and moves out. When we are unable to listen to our self, we should not expect others can listen to the person we are unable to listen to, our self. Spending time in meditation, taking Sabbath breaks makes this possible.

When someone deeply listens to you
it is like holding out a dented cup
you’ve had since childhood
and watching it fill up with
cold, fresh water.
When it balances on top of the brim,
you are understood.
When it overflows and touches your skin,
you are loved.

When someone deeply listens to you
the room where you stay
starts a new life
and the place where you wrote
your first poem
begins to glow in your mind’s eye.
It is as if gold has been discovered!

When someone deeply listens to you
your barefeet are on the earth
and a beloved land that seemed distant
is now at home within you.

40 Comments

Posted in Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Sabbath and tagged community, creativity, John Fox, leadership, Mindful Practice, mindfulness, poetry, teacher as transformer, When Someone Deeply Listens To You. Bookmark the permalink.

Lie Down

Posted on April 19, 2014 by ivonprefontaine

Nancy Paddock wrote this wonderful poem about letting go and just being in the world and not separate from it. I loved her imagery created in getting me down to ground level where we can live differently.

When I am at ground level, I am in the world and not outside and over it. I spend time in sabbatical wandering uncharted territory. This theme is emerging in my dissertation where I compare teaching to a hermeneutic exploration of the classroom, it participants, and living topics like a rich, textured landscape we navigate relationally. At ground level, teachers encounter, interpret, and understand a particular world that is their teaching and no one else’s teaching.

Parker Palmer has a quote about teachers using technique until the real teacher shows up. It takes time and patience; togetherness and solitude to bring this about. As I write and read, I think about what that meant and means to me as a particular teacher who is still coming to be in new ways particular to me.

Lie down with your belly to the ground,
like an old dog in the sun. Smell
the greenness of the cloverleaf, feel the damp
earth through your clothes, let an ant
wander the uncharted territory
of your skin. Lie down
with your belly to the ground. Melt into
the earth’s contours like a harmless snake.
All else is mere bravado.
Let your mind resolve itself
in a tangle of grass.
Lie down with your belly
to the ground, flat out, on ground level.
Prostrate yourself before the soil
you will someday enter.
Stop doing.
Stop judging, fearing, trying.
This is not dying, but the way to live
in a world of change and gravity.
Let go. Let your burdens drop.
Let your grief-charge bleed off
into the ground.
Lie down with your belly to the ground
and then rise up
with the earth still in you.

27 Comments

Posted in Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Sabbath, Writing and tagged community, education, hermeneutics, Lie Down, Mindful Practice, Nancy Paddock, Parker Palmer, poetry, sabbath, servant-leadership, teacher as transformer, teaching. Bookmark the permalink.

Tewksbury Road

Posted on April 6, 2014 by ivonprefontaine

There is something about walking in nature that stimulates all the senses. I come alive in those walks and feel energized. We walked the North Saskatchewan River Valley two years ago during Autumn. The leaves turned colour. Over time, I smelled rich decay as Nature continued in her life-cycle.

Nature celebrates her Sabbath. It is a time of renewal emerging from what was alive. She never wastes.

John Masefield described a pastoral scene I imagined in a multi-sensory way. There is a universality in these scenes that touches the spirit.

It is good to be out on the road, and going one knows not where,

Going through meadow and village, one knows not whither or why;

Through the grey light drift of the dust, in the keen cool rush of the air,

Under the flying white clouds, and the broad blue lift of the sky.

And to halt at the chattering brook, in a tall green fern at the brink

Where the harebell grows, and the gorse, and the foxgloves purple and white;

Where the shifty-eyed delicate deer troop down to the brook to drink

When the stars are mellow and large at the coming on of the night.

O, to feel the beat of the rain, and the homely smell of the earth,

Is a tune for the blood to jig to, and joy past power of words;

And the blessed green comely meadows are all a-ripple with mirth

At the noise of the lambs at play and the dear wild cry of the birds.

4 Comments

Posted in Mindful Life, Nature in All Its Glory, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Sabbath and tagged creativity, John Masefield, Mindful Practice, nature, poetry, spirituality, stewardship, teacher as transformer, Tewsksbury Road. Bookmark the permalink.

Fire

Posted on March 29, 2014 by ivonprefontaine

Judy Brown wrote this poem and it is a gentle reminder of spaces in our lives that softly breath passion back into living. In these spaces, we lightly lay com-passion, integrating it in life and rekindling passion.

Sabbath is an ongoing event. It is the daily pauses taken to be thankful and momentarily rest. It is meditation and prayer, listening not for certainty and answers, but more likely questions serving as life’s fuel. It is being in Nature and seeing ourselves as a small part of the larger whole.

What makes a fire burn
is space between the logs,
a breathing space.
Too much of a good thing,
too many logs
packed in too tight
can douse the flames
almost as surely
as a pail of water would.

So building fires
requires attention
to the spaces in between,
as much as to the wood.

When we are able to build
open spaces
in the same way
we have learned
to pile on the logs,
then we can come to see how
it is fuel, and absence of the fuel
together, that make fire possible.

We only need to lay a log
lightly from time to time.

A fire
grows
simply because the space is there,
with openings
in which the flame
that knows just how it wants to burn
can find its way.

3 Comments

Posted in Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Sabbath and tagged creativity, Fire, Judy Brown, Mindful Practice, nature, poetry, sabbath, spirituality, teacher as transformer. Bookmark the permalink.

For Courage

Posted on March 23, 2014 by ivonprefontaine

John O’Donohue wrote this lovely poem about the need for quiet spaces where we rekindle the love and joy we find in living life. I attended and presented at a small leadership symposium today. Although it was an invigorating two days, my brain is a bit like mush.

I think I will close my eyes, gather a little kindling around my heart, and seek to create a new spark to light my way.

Close your eyes.
Gather all the kindling
About your heart.
To create one spark.
That is all you need
To nourish the flame
That will cleanse the dark.
Of its weight of festered fear.

A new confidence will come alive
To urge you toward higher ground
Where your imagination
Will learn to engage difficulty
As its most rewarding threshold!

11 Comments

Posted in Mindful Life, Poetry, Reflective Moments, Sabbath and tagged creativity, For Courage, John O'Donohue, Mindful Practice, poetry, sabbath, spirituality, teacher as transformer. Bookmark the permalink.

Awareness Knowing Itself

Posted on March 15, 2014 by ivonprefontaine

I just met Danna Faulds poetry. I used this poem as it has a sabbath quality to it. The words suggest stillness and non-reaching that mesh together. The real me is living inside stillness and non-reaching. Letting go affords opportunities to locate myself in the effortless that emerges.

Settle in the here and now.
Reach down into the center
where the world is not spinning
and drink this holy peace.

Feel relief flood into every
cell. Nothing to do. Nothing
to be but what you are already.
Nothing to receive but what
flows effortlessly from the
mystery into form.

Nothing to run from or run
toward. Just this breath,
awareness knowing itself as
embodiment. Just this breath,
awareness waking up to truth.