On a few of my walks in Ireland, I would pass by congregates of sheep, with lots of new lambs. And I did my best to try to chat. Wondering if they would understand my accent.
“So. Is it okay to confess that some days I can’t focus,” I wonder aloud. “That, some days making sense of the world doesn’t work, and I just want to take a nap?”
“Not easy to admit, eh?” Their look tells me.
“No, it’s not.”
I’ve always wished I had control over the world, or at least some superpower, with a stunning costume of course. But I do not. (Have the control, or the costume.)
Gandalf’s reminder is apropos and worth heeding. We don’t choose the times we live in, but it’s often the case that the times choose us, to live out our faith, our resistance, and our healing. It is seldom, if ever, fun. Or easy.
Here’s the deal: When we believe that we are “at the mercy of”, we pretend we don’t have a choice, or are along for the ride. Which means that we no longer have the energy to give to (or care about, or invest in) those things that really matter.
We, literally, lose our bearings.
Living as if reality is determined only by circumstance, and we forget that…
We have agency.
We have the capacity to make choices about what matters.
We get to say how the story ends.

So. I needed a good story. To do my heart good. And I remember the movie, The Rider. Once a rising star of the rodeo circuit, Brady Jandreau is warned that his competition days are over after a tragic riding accident. Now Brady finds himself wondering what he has to live for, when he can no longer do what gave him a sense of purpose: to ride, and to compete.
His life forever changed.
Brady undertakes a search for new identity and tries to redefine his idea of what it means to be a man in the heartland of America. (And fitting to the time in which we live—the strong and tough and controlling men win.)
So, Bracy wondered, “What is left after macho is gone?”
In the movie, we watch his daily routines, his attempts to fit into “normal” society, his late-night hangouts with his friends and his frustrations at having to figure out his second act. (Notice that “normal” is always code for what life “should” be.)
As Brady is transformed, we watch the power of his relationship with Lane, a rodeo friend and “big brother” who was left incapacitated after a rodeo accident. And the grounding that flourishes from Brady’s empathetic and tender and vulnerable side.
As it turns out, even “tough guys” can be healers. And peacemakers.

Of course, we assume life proceeds better when we’re in control.
And then, control or not, “life happens”. Go figure. And you get hurt (or disappointed or disillusioned). “You just don’t think you’ll get hurt like that,” Brady says.
These are moments that reset emotional and spiritual gravity. Everything we believe feels up in the air. Because many of our beliefs are about things working smoothly, or in a particular way. And we wonder, is this who I want to be? Am I at the mercy of life’s conundrums, or the way others see me?
One lesson we take with us from Brady’s story: We need these encounters.
We benefit and grow from necessary periods of catharsis, and soul searching. Okay, maybe not to the extent of great pain. However, such moments do invite us to ask questions about things that truly matter.
Giving up our “dreams”—you know, about the way we think life “should” be—is not easy. But what if our dreams are not the only way to make the world a better place.

We live in a world where it is tempting to buy into an image (or role or model or persona), that carries with it certain values—to be powerful, to be impenetrable, to be bulletproof—but once given the opportunity to say “yes” or “no” to that image, we recognize that’s not who we are. And with blessing, there’s an experience in our life—a road to Damascus moment—where we can ask, “Is this who I am, and what I choose to honor?”
Where we see—and know—that as long as success is measured only by keeping score, or by being in control, it’s easy to lose track of most everything that makes us human and therefore, glad to be alive…
…small gestures of kindness.
…acts of grace–inclusion or community to someone left out, or someone on the fringes.
…extending a hand of healing (empathy, acceptance, sanctuary) to someone who hurts.
…finding and embracing your voice; knowing that silence in order to not ruffle feathers takes a toll we do not need. (“Sending love to everyone who is trying to rediscover their voice after life made them believe that silence was safer.” Thank you, Michell C. Clark)
…saying “No” to acts of narrow-mindedness and inequality and meanness.
…resting in moments of gratitude and reveling in the gifts of the senses and being present.
…sharing laughter, a smile, camaraderie and restoration; and dancing for joy.

When one younger friend told me about life’s conundrums, I asked (the question Brady asked, the question we ask), “So what’s next?”
She replied, “I’m just waiting for God to show me what he wants from me.”
Okay. But in the meantime, you know, until you have this life and self figured out (and straightened out), I have a suggestion: Live this day, with this self, without holding back. Today; savor, doubt, embrace, question, wrestle, give, risk, love, fall down, get up, accept your incomplete and fractured self, know that anything worth doing is worth doing badly, speak the truth from your whole heart, and whenever you can, lavish excessive compassion and mercy and healing and hope and second chances and grace and restoration and kindness on anyone who crosses your path. Who knows, we may love one another into existence.
I’m sure God won’t mind.
And let us carry this prayer into our week.
“Lead me from death to life, from falsehood to truth;
lead me from despair to hope, from fear to trust;
lead me from hate to love, from war to peace.
Let peace fill our heart, our world, our universe.”
(Universal Prayer for Peace, first publicly used July 1981, by Mother Teresa in St. James Anglican Church, London)

We’re on our way from Dublin to London. For a week of Rest and Renewal in Southern England. So very grateful for our pilgrimage time in Ireland, visiting sacred sites, both of us wearing the shoes we used to walk the Camino de Santiago. Leniently, on this journey, we only walked 105 miles. But every one of them, good for the heart.

Quote for our week…
“Your Yes to God demands your No to all injustice, to all evil, to all lies, to all oppression and violation of the weak and the poor, to all godlessness and mocking of the holy.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer (German Lutheran pastor, theologian, participant in the German resistance movement against Nazism)

BULLETIN BOARD

Today’s Photo Credit: “Hi Terry, I am loving reading your daily reflections because my husband and I are right behind you in Ireland! I love seeing your picture today of the Cliffs of Moher because we will be in that area in the next few days. Two days ago, we were in Kilkenny and visited Saint Canice’s Cathedral followed by a tour of the Rock of Cashel. Both so beautiful, and spiritual in their own unique ways. It has been delightful to open my phone to your reflections to see where you have been and where you’re going next! And I appreciate the consistent reminders to stay in the present moment and to stop and loook! It is actually pretty effortless to do that here. Blessings to you as you continue on your Irish Camino! Here are a couple of photos, one capturing the wild beauty experienced in this place along with the peaceful serenity of a spring lamb. Blessings,” Susan Eschenroeder…

POEMS AND PRAYERS

A Blessing
May you awaken to the mystery of being here and enter
the quiet immensity of your own presence.
May you have joy and peace in the temple of your senses.
May you receive great encouragement
when new frontiers beckon.
May you respond to the call of your gifts and find the
courage to follow its path.
May the flame of anger free you from falsity.
May warmth of heart keep your presence aflame
and may anxiety never linger about you.
May your outer dignity mirror an inner dignity of soul.
May you take time to celebrate the quiet miracles
that seek no attention.
May you be consoled in the secret sympathy of your soul.
May you experience each day as a sacred gift woven
around the heart of wonder.​

Lord, make us instruments of your peace.
Help us to recognize the evil latent in a communication that does not build communion.
Help us to remove the venom from our judgements.
Help us to speak about others as our brothers and sisters.
You are faithful and trustworthy; may our words be seeds of goodness for the world:
where there is shouting, let us practice listening;
where there is confusion, let us inspire harmony;
where there is ambiguity, let us bring clarity;
where there is exclusion, let us offer solidarity;
where there is sensationalism, let us use sobriety;
where there is superficiality, let us raise real questions;
where there is prejudice, let us awaken trust;
where there is hostility, let us bring respect;
where there is falsehood, let us bring truth.
Amen.
Pope Francis
(Adapting St. Francis prayer, World Communications Day, January 24, 2018)

TUESDAY APRIL 28 —

Walking gives your mind time and space. To wander and mull and ponder. And evaluate, and then re-evaluate.
I’m walking (we’re doing about five miles per day), but gratefully my heart and spirit are “walking” too. That’s the gift of a pilgrimage. It invites (and allows) us to find or restore, or forgive or heal, or to forget or bury; or perhaps willingly, just to have the deck of our world shuffled.
That’s not easy to do when we are wedded to a “script”.
And I’ve had memories of my first Pilgrimage on the Camino de Santiago revisit my mind as mementos—and keepsakes.

On one of my first visits touring the awe-inspiring Porto Cathedral—“born” in the 12th century, and rebuilt and renovated numerous times throughout the centuries, now an elegant mixture of architectural styles—a woman is vacuuming, between and under the pews. The Cathedral is full of visitors (tourists). And the sound, the noise, of the vacuum fills the air. I smile big, for this is the perfect metaphor. The gift of beauty, the gift of the sacred, the gift of being present, even in a world where interruption (clamor) is real, and not to be denied.
And I eavesdropped on a couple of tourists (eavesdropping is one of my spiritual gifts). A couple walking, looking at the guidebook on their phone, him saying to her, “We should figure out how to do this tour in the right order. I don’t think we’re doing this right.”
Yes, another big smile.
And I can really relate. After all, what should we do first or second or third?
And what if we’re going about this in the wrong order?
In my travel for work, people would often ask, “Did you have a successful trip?”
“I’m certain I did,” I tell them. Although truth be told, I don’t always know.

That memory comes back to me now on our Ireland sacred-site journey. And I’m very aware that there is some kind of pegboard in our heads where we hang our worth or value. The one about “success”. And it’s too easy to get worked up about finding the right peg. And I’ll tell you what; that peg board is hard to disregard and leave behind.
Here’s what I know: Life seems to ignore the script we have in our mind.
But this is also true: when that happens, we walk. We walk toward, or we walk away. Either way, we begin a journey—a pilgrimage to find or restore or forgive or heal, or to forget or bury; or perhaps, just to have the deck of our world shuffled.
And gratefully, a Pilgrimage-Camino walk is a good reminder.
Its wisdom calls me daily to pick up my pack and march on. To trust, find beauty, and to be vulnerable. To share pain, joy, and connection. To, with practice, patience (lots of patience), faith, and grace, continue walking.
So. Sometimes we need a different way to measure what really matters.
This brings to mind my mentor, Lew Smedes’ reminder, “Gratitude dances though the open windows of our hearts. We cannot force it. We cannot create it. And we can certainly close our windows to keep it out. But we can also keep them open and be ready for the joy when it comes.”
Living one open window at a time.
I once did a workshop where I asked the participants to describe life. One woman said, “Life is so… life is so… life is so… daily.”
Yes. She’s right. And that is the secret.
The miracle is that there need not be a miracle—just a slow drip of experience. Being mindful of small things; the ordinary is the hiding place for the holy.
Places where we are able to receive. And places from which we give: wholeheartedness, joy, grief, compassion, sorrow, kindness, grace, forgiveness, gladness. And until I understand that truth (until I take it to heart), I miss the point.
Or, in the words of William Kittredge, “Moments when nothing happened. What sweet nothing.”
In other words, we don’t run from the moment (even moments that unnerve and distress).
We don’t suffocate the moment with stuff (physical and mental).
We don’t sanitize the moment with platitudes.
We sit. We listen. We look. We taste. We smell. We see.
We look for the light of God in the most ordinary, and even the most dull, of contexts.
(I know that I preordain, when I hope or try to orchestrate, rather than just experience. I also know that whether it is, experience or relationship or liturgy or prayer or meditation or Camino, if you don’t bring it with you, you’re not going to find it there.)

On this pilgrimage, I am carrying Mary Oliver’s invitation with me, “Pay attention, be astonished, tell about it.” This is what grows in the soil of gratitude.
The permission to unpack. To let go of the messages that cling, or that scroll through, unquestioned. Such as keeping pace, “Am I falling behind?” “Am I getting there on time?”
On this journey, I’m grateful for the moments every day, when I pause, and say, “Looook.”

I write this today in the Burren. Known as ‘An Boireann’ in Irish, which means ‘The rocky place’. Literally, another region of wonder, on the Wild Atlantic Way with endless vistas of ancient limestone—a landscape of beauty, mysticism, heritage, nature, healing energy and peace. Today, on our way to The Cliffs of Moher.
Thank you for being a part of Sabbath Moment. And I am grateful that we continue to walk one another home. 

WEDNESDAY APRIL 29 —

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Prayer (poem) for our week…
A Camino prayer
May I walk this day
in the realm of grace,
walking with You
my feet firmly on your earth-path,
my heart loving all as kindred,
my words and deeds alive with justice.
May I walk as blessing,
meeting blessing at every turn
in every challenge, blessing,
in all opposition, blessing,
in harm’s way, blessing.
May I walk each step in this moment of grace,
alert to hear You
and awake enough to say
a simple Yes.
Robert Corin Morris

​​​​​​​Photo… “Terry, My husband Steve just sent me this. He is off on a personal retreat and this was the sunrise this morning at Newark airport with NYC in the background. Wow there is beauty everywhere if we open our eyes! Sounds like you are having a great time in Ireland. My grandson’s name is Cashel. Need to take him to the Rock of Cashel some day. Was inspired by your blog. Thank you. Take Good Care” Beth Hayward… Thank you Beth… 

Walking the Camino de Santiago, I learned that the sooner you let go of your “script”, the better. And gratefully, you make space to be a pilgrim—learning, adapting, and welcoming the gifts of gratitude and pausing, and wonder and healing.
I write this on the Ring of Kerry—western coast of Ireland—an area steeped in history, with evidence of human settlement dating back to prehistoric times.
On our Ireland journey, the true magic lies not just in the sights, but in the stories that breathe life into the land. The legends are a bridge between past and present, and an invitation to the power of pause: slow down, listen, and connect. To the gift of wonder. And to those around you—knowing we are on this pilgrimage together.
In a conversation with a couple before driving the Ring of Kerry, he advised, “You’ll want to drive it slowly. Because you’ll need to get ready to point, a lot, and say, ‘Loook’.”
And I smiled big, remembering one of my favorite stories.

A woman stands at the window and stares. We are on the morning commuter ferry, from Vashon Island to Seattle. A snow-covered Mount Rainier dominates the panorama. It stands prominent, imperial in the dawn light (14,400 feet above sea level). (And it is true. Here in the Northwest, the first time you see Mount Rainier, you do a double take. Some Divine-sleight-of-hand. Where’d that mountain come from?)
The woman is wide-eyed, as if she is surprised by the mountain. As if she is seeing it for the first time. All of the other early morning commuters (and there are many) go about their business. Reading the newspaper. Drinking coffee. Paying bills. Talking with friends. Napping on benches.
“Looook,” she announces loudly, “we can see the mountain. Everybody looook!”
She has the demeanor of a person “not all there.” You know what I mean. She is clearly one of those people who “embarrass” us. (Or realistically, one of those people we choose to ignore.) As other commuters walk by, they (we) knowingly smile at one another and roll our eyes. She’s not normal, we tell one another in code.
“Looook,” she says again, pointing this time, almost reverential, “the mountain.”
I’ve seen the mountain a thousand times, but I figure, “What the heck.” So, I put down my book, and look. The rising sun has just crested the Cascade Mountain ridgeline. It looks as if it is sitting in a saddle between two peaks. The shaft of light from the sun glistens on the snow face of the Cascades, the color of a good English beer. It hits the Puget Sound, and dances across the water, now a golden pathway from the ferry to the sky. Mount Rainier, backlit and venerable in this morning light, appears etched, as if a great artist rendered it in charcoal or pen and ink. The water of the Puget Sound is gun-metal-grey, and calm.
To the south is Tacoma harbor, where a crescent moon hangs in what I can only describe as a melancholy blue sky.
I do not pick up my book again. I look. A morning vista as sacrament—a dose of grace; a brew, fortifying and settling.
“Looook,” the woman is talking again. “The mountain. Everyone looook, the mountain.”
To exit the ferry, we walk by the woman (still standing, still pointing, still talking), wondering, I suppose, what went wrong in her life, what finally snapped, and what made her leave her senses. How sad for her. We walk hurriedly, you know, in order to take care of those more important obligations awaiting us in our day. However. On this morning, the “crazy woman” is my sage. My seer, my rabbi, my priest, my pastor. She is my reminder. For whatever reason, she sees the day without the extra layers of defense. (Or if you’ll permit an impenitent play on words, she seizes the day, carpe diem.)
I tell this story whenever I can. And if you’ve heard me speak, chances are you’ve heard this story. And I never get tired of telling it, because it reminds me that I am grounded and refueled in the sacrament of the present moment.
And, whenever I tell it, I get gooseflesh. And that makes me smile real big. (Meaning the stuff I carry that weighs me down, is no longer quite so heavy.)
It’s not just that she looked. It’s that she lived the moment wholehearted. There is for her a very visceral engagement. She is, literally, all in.
This is what I would love to bottle and sell…
She didn’t need permission.
She didn’t need approval.
She didn’t need skepticism.
She didn’t need a motivation to impress.
She didn’t need evaluation or justification.
She needed simply this… “Looook how beautiful,” she says, “the mountain.”
She wasn’t speaking as a “tourist”, but as a “pilgrim”, absorbed in, and empowered by, the sacrament of the present moment.

These days, I’m grounded with Sister Joan Chittister’s wisdom. “We do not pray in order to escape the world around us. We pray with one eye on the world so that we can come to understand what is really being asked of us here and now, at times like this, as co-creators of the universe.”
One of the gifts on this Ireland pilgrimage is the stories about men and women throughout history, who did just that. The came to understand what was begin asked of them, in the present—often during a time of serious turmoil and unrest and chaos.

Heartened by our time walking Lough Leane in Killarney, County Kerry (in Irish it is Loch Léin, which means Lake of Learning, a nod to the 7th-century monastery founded on one of its islands, where Brian Boru himself was educated.) We found our way to Muckross Abbey—an Old Irish Monastery dating back to the beginnings of Christianity in Ireland. The first monastery reputed to have been built here by Saint Fionan sometime in the 6th century.
In all the abbeys we’ve visited, I’ve been heartened by the monks—who often lived in great isolation—their devotion and resilience a testament to the human spirit, inspiring respect and awe. Over 1000 years later, through stories and folklore, you can almost feel the monks’ presence, a reminder of faith and endurance.
And then driving the Ring toward the Kerry Cliffs. My Oh My. The cliffs stand over 1000 feet above the wild Atlantic and were formed in a desert environment 400 million years ago. (Out to the west stand the amazing Skellig Rocks one of only three UNESCO world heritage sites in Ireland.) And yes, I did point and say, “Loook!”
And if you’re in a bit of a hurry, the Ring of Kerry is not the place to drive. The Wild Atlantic Way leads over the Coomanaspig Pass. Both the ascent to the pass and the descent can be white knuckle adventurous—no matter from which side you approach.

One thing that did my heart good as I travelled around County Kerry was the number of signposts marked “Kerry Camino” or “Pilgrim Path”. The mystery was solved when I discovered the Church of St James in Dingle. This is said to be the place where medieval pilgrims would assemble before boarding boats to Coruna in Spain, from where they would walk to the shrine of Santiago de Compostela.
Buen Camino indeed.

BULLETIN BOARD

Today’s Photo Credit: My first view from the Kerry cliffs of Ireland. And yes, we walked and absorbed for quite some time… And thank you to all, I love your photos… please, keep sending them… send to tdh@terryhershey.com 

Yes, your gift makes a difference… Donation = Love…
Help make Sabbath Moment possible. I write SM because I want to live with a soft heart; to create a place for sanctuary, empathy, inclusion, compassion and kindness… a space where we are refueled to make a difference. SM remains free.

POEMS AND PRAYERS

Oh, Great Spirit,
Whose voice I hear in the winds
and whose breath gives life to all the world.
Hear me! I need your strength and wisdom.
Let me walk in beauty, and make my eyes
ever hold the red and purple sunset.
Make my hands respect the things you have made
and my ears sharp to hear your voice.
Make me wise so that I may understand
the things you have taught my people.
Let me learn the lessons you have hidden
in every leaf and rock.
Help me remain calm and strong in the
face of all that comes towards me.
Help me find compassion without being overwhelmed.
I seek strength, not to be greater than my brother or my sister,
but to fight my greatest enemy: myself.
Make me always ready to come to you
with clean hands and straight eyes.
So when life fades, as the fading sunset,
my spirit may come to you without shame.
Translated by Lakota Sioux Chief Yellow Lark in 1887​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​
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Music for the Soul…
New–
Sanctuary – Carrie Newcomer

TUESDAY APRIL 21 — There are two places we need to go often.
A place that heals you.
And a place that inspires you.
Both places embrace the permission (the invitation) to show up. To this life. To this day. To be here now. Because we know that we bring the gift of enough. To spill light where we can, in a world where darkness is real.
“My mantra this year has been the Hebrew words, Lev Basar, which means ‘a heart of flesh,’ from the biblical verse, ‘I will take from you a heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.’” Thank you, Rabbi Dr. Ariel Burger.
Sometimes we wonder if we want that heart of flesh. It can be easily wounded. Or broken. And when that happens, we assume it implies limitation and weakness. And we wonder if we are “enough”.
It is then we need to hear Bryan Stevenson’s affirmation, “Our brokenness is also the source of our common humanity, the basis for our shared search for comfort, meaning, and healing. Our shared vulnerability and imperfection nurtures and sustains our capacity for compassion. We have a choice. We can embrace our humanness, which means embracing our broken natures and the compassion that remains our best hope for healing.”

I’m grateful to have been recently introduced to the book, “Theo of Golden”.
“Theo, I appreciate that you’re such a sensitive man. You have a tender heart.”
“Not tender, Asher. Broken. My expertise in sadness is hard-earned. But I realize more and more that it is a gift. Living with sadness, accepting it, is easier than trying to pretend it isn’t there. It is another of life’s great mysteries that sadness and joy can coexist so compatibly with one another. In fact, I wonder if, on this side of heaven, either one can be complete without the other.”
“You don’t strike me as a sad man, Theo. If you are, you’re good at disguising it.”
As if to prove the truth of Asher’s observation, Theo grinned. The resident sparkle in his eyes for to the surface. Gleamed.
“Thank you. I hope it’s true. There is no virtue in advertising one’s sadness. But there is no wisdom in denying it either. And there is the beautiful possibility that great love can grow out of sadness if it is well-tended. Sadness can make us bitter or wise. We get to choose.”
I embrace two truths here. One is the gift of seeing and embracing the beauty inside, even in our brokenness.
And two, the affirmation to see that beauty in one another, with the affirmation that we are indeed connected, and on this journey—yes pilgrimage—together.
I loved reading this, from Crazy Horse (renowned Oglala Lakota leader), “I salute the light within your eyes where the whole universe dwells. For when you are at that center within you and I am in that place within me, we shall be one.”
On the pilgrimage each one of us walks, we are fueled by our inherent value. Those places of beauty, creativity, resilience, imagination, courage and humor. And kindness. Those places of healing. And places of inspiration.

Today, a life-giving day (for healing and inspiration) around Glendalough, Ireland, absorbing the history and gifts from the life and inspiration—and pilgrimage—of St. Kevin, at the remains of Glendalough Monestary. “The monastery at Glendalough was founded by St. Kevin in the 6th century. Kevin (or Chaoimhin – the fair-begotten) was born in 498 into a noble family living in what is now West Wicklow. He studied for the priesthood in Cill na Manach (Kilnamanagh) and after being ordained set out to find his calling.
Kevin came to Glendalough to follow his dream which was to find God in solitude and prayer. He chose to live by the shore of the upper lake, taking for his hermitage an artificial cave on the south side of the lake about 30 feet above the water which was originally a Bronze Age tomb. Kevin lived the life of a hermit in his cave for seven years. The legends and stories handed down to us highlight his significant personal qualities. Primary among these was his love of nature and deep respect for all created things. It seems he had an extraordinary closeness to nature and found his companions in the animals and birds around him. Legend also tells us he lived a very simple life, wearing only animal skins, sleeping on stones and eating very sparingly. Kevin soon became known as a holy man and others came to Glendalough to seek his advice, to be healed and to follow his way of life. Gradually, small monastic communities were established, including a walled settlement near the lakeshore now called Reefert Church. Kevin’s fame as a teacher and holy man spread far and wide. Over time, the monastic settlement at Glendalough grew to become one of the great spiritual centres of Christianity in Ireland, flourishing for a thousand years after St. Kevin’s death. Kevin’s story is often referred to as a journey from solitude to community.” (Thank you, Glendalough Hermitage Center)

WEDNESDAY APRIL 22 —

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Prayer (poem) for our week…
For A New Beginning
In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.
For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.
It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.
Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.
Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life’s desire.
Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.
John O’Donohue
(“To Bless the Space Between Us”)

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Photo… Some of the remains of Glendalough Monastery, featuring the tower. The monastery at Glendalough, Ireland was founded by St. Kevin in the 6th century. The tower had many uses such as beacons to guide pilgrims from afar, storehouses, lookouts and places of refuge in times of attack. They were also used as bell towers. Their Irish name is Cloig-theach meaning bell-tower… 

A young woman with a very serious case of hives went to a specialist for relief. She had suffered for some time, living in continual pain because the hives covered much of her body. She needed healing, and hoped that the doctor could prescribe a cure. But his diagnosis surprised her.
“There is no medicine I can give you,” he told her. “You see, your skin is crying because you cannot.”
We all experience pain—personal, relational, or exhaustion from the weight of the affairs of the world. And it appears on the doorstep of our heart in a variety of ways. This I know: when our life (and yes, our world) takes a left turn—or we find ourselves emotionally overdrawn (literally heart-weary)—we, for whatever reason, continue to feel small.
From this tug of war, our “hives” can be a metaphor for any number of things that afflict us. But in the end—sadly to our detriment—we try to run away, or we shut down, because we see our pain, and our brokenness, as blemishes. In other words, something we must hide, because it triggers shame.
But this I know to be true: Whether it is conflict or sorrow or grief or anxiety or self-pity, I cannot bury pain without mortgaging something else to keep it hidden. In the end, I live life “shunting back and forth between my pain and my defenses.” (Merle Shain)
Or, as Richard Rohr reminds us, “If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it.”
Yes, “You see, your skin is crying because you cannot.” (And it doesn’t help if we see pain—brokenness and vulnerability—only as an enemy, or source of shame.)

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he tells the boy. “It is a relentless fight that takes a toll, and it is between two wolves. One wolf is evil – he is rage, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.”
He continues, “The other wolf is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. And this same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.”
The grandson thinks about what his grandfather tells him for a minute, and then asks, “Which wolf will win?”
The old Cherokee replies, “The one you feed the most.”

Today, I choose to feed the good (life-giving) wolf.
I liked this, from Rabbi Dr. Ariel Burger, “My mantra this year has been the Hebrew words, Lev Basar, which means ‘a heart of flesh,’ from the biblical verse, ‘I will take from you a heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.’
Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, ‘There’s nothing as whole as a broken heart.’ In these traditions, you cultivate a broken heart which is very different from depression or sadness. It’s the kind of vulnerability, openness, and acute sensitivity to your own suffering and the suffering of others that becomes an opportunity for connection.”
Yes, and Amen. Please let us see the power in this gift.
So. Today, I choose to invite this self, this vulnerable broken Terry, to the table to speak. The sacrament of the present, becomes a place for honesty and confession and learning, and empathy and healing. And yes, transformation.
My friends, we are not on this journey alone.

And I can tell you that this past week, I’ve watched the ways we all carry pain, in a week where the news—the blasphemy of our President posting an image of himself as Jesus Christ, and then going after Pope Leo—can leave us feeling helpless, fearful, appalled, or enraged. Or, just dizzy.
Speaking of what we feed, it really did my heart good to watch Pope Leo’s charitable and courageous response to the comments. “Charitable because he has not responded in any way other than with charity and respect. He speaks about our obligations to one another. He has called us to follow the Gospel, which has always been radical, and never more so than right now. It’s radical because it asks us to love not just our friends, our family, and our tribe, but the stranger.” (Thank you Maria Shriver)
Let us focus there.

I know the fight to be impervious (our heart in a fortress, and picture-perfect). But I know what it means to be chagrinned by my pain and by my tears. I have gratefully learned that as I worked so hard at unruffled theology, and emotional solutions for hiding that pain, I unwittingly transmitted it.
And here’s the deal: I missed the beauty. I did not see the power of the gift of a “heart of flesh”.
This isn’t easy, to embrace pain, or all that is vulnerable and broken within us. Can I hear the invitation to embrace “this Terry”?
Because that, Bryan Stevenson reminds us, is when healing begins. “I guess I’d always known but never fully considered that being broken is what makes us human. We all have our reasons. Sometimes we’re fractured by the choices we make; sometimes we’re shattered by things we would never have chosen. But our brokenness is also the source of our common humanity, the basis for our shared search for comfort, meaning, and healing. Our shared vulnerability and imperfection nurtures and sustains our capacity for compassion. We have a choice. We can embrace our humanness, which means embracing our broken natures and the compassion that remains our best hope for healing. Or we can deny our brokenness, forswear compassion, and, as a result, deny our own humanity… But simply punishing the broken—walking away from them or hiding them from sight—only ensures that they remain broken and we do, too. There is no wholeness outside of our reciprocal humanity… Embracing our brokenness creates a need for mercy.”
So. Back to our current news; mercy, and kindness, and humanity matter.

I am writing this in Glendalough, Ireland. Tomorrow, we will be walking the valley trails near Glendalough’s Monastery (founded by St. Kevin in the 6th century). I was drawn to Ireland to connect with, and to be replenished by sacred sites.
For the past two days, we’ve walked 12 miles in Dublin savoring (being fed and fueled by) places of haven—both emotional and spiritual.
Time at Trinity College, in awe of The Book of Kells. This is an illustrated and dazzlingly decorated manuscript and Celtic Gospel book (in Latin), containing the four Gospels. It is believed to have been created around 800 AD, on the Island of Iona, Scotland.
The decoration combines traditional Christian iconography with the ornate swirling motifs typical of Insular art. Figures of humans, animals, and mythical beasts, together with Celtic knots and interlacing patterns in vibrant colors, literally make the pages come to life.
And time in Hodges Figgis, Ireland’s oldest bookstore, established in 1768.
And time for reflection in St. Patrick’s Cathedral (the national cathedral of the church of Ireland). In 1192, John Comyn, first Anglo-Norman archbishop of Dublin, elevated one of the four Dublin Celtic parish churches, this one dedicated to Saint Patrick, beside a holy well, built on the site where Saint Patrick is said to have baptized early Christian converts 1500 years ago.
The day ends in Brazen Head, the oldest pub in Ireland established in 1198 (in its present building since 1754).

Quote for your week…
“I salute the light within your eyes where the whole universe dwells. For when you are at that center within you and I am in that place within me, we shall be one.”
Attributed to Crazy Horse, renowned Oglala Lakota leader

Note: Bryan Stevenson is a lawyer, social justice activist, and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, and author of Just Mercy

BULLETIN BOARD

Today’s Photo Credit: “Good morning! Safe travels to Ireland! Looook at these bleeding hearts. Aren’t they ‘awe’some and ‘wonder’ful? Spring is full of moments that allow you to enjoy, savor and relish the world that surrounds us.” Ina Strickland… Thank you Ina…

POEMS AND PRAYERS

I lay my head to rest,
and in doing so,
lay at your feet
the faces I have seen,
the voices I have heard,
the words I have spoken,
the hands I have shaken,
the service I have given,
the joys I have shared,
the sorrows revealed,
I lay them at your feet,
and in doing so
lay my head to rest.

Through the dark hours of this night
protect and surround us,
Father, Son and Spirit, Three.
Forgive the ill that we have done.
Forgive the pride that we have shown.
Forgive the words that have caused harm
that we might sleep peaceably,
and rise refreshed to do your will.
Through the dark hours of this night
protect and surround us,
Father, Son and Spirit, Three

Celtic Prayers. Thank you to John Birch.

Music for the Soul…
New–
Lord, I’m Not Okay, But I’m Still Here — Josh Groban

TUESDAY APRIL 14 — These days, I am often asked about “suggestions” for sanity and healing and reparation. My answer “Today, let goosebumps astonish us”.
Goosebumps—making space for the softening in our chest whenever we see beauty or kindness or humanity.
This week, let us invite and welcome the healing power of goosebumps. And let us savor moments of palette cleansing awe.

I really enjoyed the movie Never Cry Wolf. It is the story (based on the non-fiction memoir) of Canadian Farley Mowat, who was sent to the northern tundra in order to study the impact of wolves on the diminishing Caribou herd. This inexperienced non-native humors the locals, as they are certain he will meet his bleak death by cold, or wolves, or both.
And yet. His curiosity wins. And Farley survives. And the land, the people and animals that live there—especially the two wolves that he names George and Angeline, who have pups, and seem as curious of him as he is of them—shape his life.
The cinematography is dramatic. There are vistas of grandeur, peaks majestic and landscapes frozen, bleak and austere. While the movie is about “wolves,” it is also about Farley’s new “eyes,” as he is being “reintroduced to wonder.” And yes, to goosebumps.
I can tell you this: along for the ride, I cherished seeing through “new eyes”.
This would make a great paradigm change question when we meet others. Instead of asking, “What do you do?” or “What did you do (accomplish)?” let us ask, “This week, when did you find (enjoy, savor, relish) moments of wonder?”

But Terry, the world feels (and is) catawampus. So, it is no surprise when we assume that wonder (or awe or joy) is not easily or readily accessible.
I don’t disagree. But gratefully, the opposite is true.
“We do not pray in order to escape the world around us,” Sister Joan Chittister reminds us. “We pray with one eye on the world so that we can come to understand what is really being asked of us here and now, at times like this, as co-creators of the universe.”

And I was grateful for this confirmation and invitation from Maria Shriver. “The volatility of this seemingly endless war has so many of us shaken, scared, and frankly, outraged. Living in that constant state of ‘fight or flight’ doesn’t just steal our peace. It’s an expensive tax on the very time we claim to value so much.
where you put your attention is where your time actually goes. You can protect your calendar and still spend your hours in distress, in dread, in toxic loops of news and noise and comparison. Or you can choose, imperfectly and stubbornly each day, to put your attention on what fills you. On joy. On awe (just look at the pictures of Earth sent by the Artemis crew). On the people right in front of you. On a walk outside, when the light is doing something extraordinary, and you almost miss it.”

As I was writing this Sabbath Moment, the doorbell rang. I went to take the delivery. Off to the side of our entry walkway are two great Camellia shrubs, now full of blooms. One shrub with a creamy white flowers, and one with a shade of blooms between carmine and ruby. The Camellia is sometimes called the Queen of flowers because of its gentle elegance.
A hummingbird calmly and steadily hovers at one of the open blooms. Wings fluttering—at a rate and speed already wondrous—the hummer savors his late lunch. And I savored the moment. In awe—and so grateful—for the wonder.

WEDNESDAY APRIL 15 — ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​This week I received a letter that restored my heart. A balm to my soul. Well, truth be told, the letter was written and sent in 1513. Let’s just say it took a while to get to me.
You see, when I give in to the cacophony—the din and dissonance—in our daily news recently, it’s as if I “lose my way”. Well, that’s what I tell myself. And I confess that every now and again, waves of melancholy are high (depleting hopefulness and courage), and I say, “No more”.
Thankfully, I received this letter to a friend.
In 1513, Fra Giovanni Giocondo wrote to Countess Allagia Aldobrandeschi, “I salute you. I am your friend, and my love for you goes deep.  There is nothing I can give you which you have not. But there is much, very much, that, while I cannot give it, you can take.
No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in it today. Take heaven! No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present little instant.
Take peace! The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach, is joy. There is radiance and glory in darkness, could we but see.  And to see, we have only to look. I beseech you to look!
Life is so generous a giver. But we, judging its gifts by their covering, cast them away as ugly or heavy or hard. Remove the covering, and you will find beneath it a living splendor, woven of love by wisdom, with power. Welcome it, grasp it, and you touch the angel’s hand that brings it to you.
Everything we call a trial, a sorrow or a duty, believe me, that angel’s hand is there. The gift is there and the wonder of an overshadowing presence. Your joys, too, be not content with them as joys. They, too, conceal diviner gifts.
Life is so full of meaning and purpose, so full of beauty beneath its covering, that you will find earth but cloaks your heaven. Courage then to claim it; that is all!  But courage you have, and the knowledge that we are pilgrims together, wending through unknown country home.”
(Fra Giovanni Giocondo—1435–1515—was a Franciscan friar, a Renaissance pioneer, architect, engineer, antiquary, archaeologist, and classical scholar.)

So. Here’s the deal: I believe this letter is addressed to every single one of us. Because this is a Sankofa Letter. In Sabbath Moment, I’ve talked about Sankofa (from the Akan language of Ghana), associated with the proverb, “Se wo were fi na wosankofa a yenkyi,” which translates “It is not wrong to go back for that which you have forgotten.” Yes. More than ever, we need emotional and spiritual nourishment. Places of sanity and restoration… including reminders to invite and welcome the healing power of goosebumps. Letting us savor moments of palette cleansing awe. Yes, “Welcome it, grasp it, and you touch the angel’s hand that brings it to you.”

The power of Giocondo’s letter is this simple reminder; these gifts (the “diviner gifts”) live within us. Today.
And yet, for various reasons, we do not see them.
And this I know, when we do not see, a part of us shuts down.
I loved the quirky movie (with the sophisticated title) Joe versus the Volcano, about a young man who has resigned himself to slogging through life. He puts in his time at a job he detests. He is hampered by persisting attacks from a “brain cloud,” a supposedly fatal ailment. (I laugh out-loud when his friend asks incredulous, “You mean you were diagnosed with something called a brain cloud and didn’t ask for a second opinion?”)
Through a bizarre twist, Joe is presented the chance to sail to an obscure island where he is to be offered as a sacrifice to the volcano gods. Believing that he will die anyway he takes the offer. The trip, of course, awakens him from his soul-sick stupor.
And for the first time, he notices.
He sees.
He is enchanted.
He feels gooseflesh.
And he learns the lesson that it is not just where you look, but how.
“My father says that almost the whole world is asleep. Everybody you know. Everybody you see. Everybody you talk to. He says that only a few people are awake and they live in a state of constant total amazement.” (From Joe versus the Volcano)

THURSDAY APRIL 16 — In a world where disarray too easily dominates our information and media feed, Sabbath Moment is an invitation to hit the pause button. To see in the power of pause, the restorative gift of paying attention. To see. To welcome goosebumps and joy. To embrace the Sacrament of the Present.
I am writing this on my flight to Dublin, Ireland, where tomorrow I will be savoring the moments in a scenic city with a remarkable history, strolling the grounds at Trinity College, founded in 1592 and steeped with moments of wonder.
And yes, I will embrace the permission to pause.
To pay attention.

But here’s the forewarning: To pay attention, we must slow down.
​​​​​​​I can give you the part line that slowing down is a tonic for the heart and pretty much a necessity for our blood pressure. It is restorative for our emotional well-being and nourishment for our soul you pick the word: tonic, sustenance, nutriment, curative, balsamic, sanative. I have no doubt that they all ring true. People who know a lot more than I do tell me so. While we’re sorting it out though, let’s wander through the back garden and I’ll tell you what I do know for certain.
I can tell you that there is a direct correlation between slowing down and joy. You know, that felling which expands your chest and slows the world’s carousel, so that everything and everyone around you is in crystal-clear focus, and your mind has no need for approval or scheming or regret. You are content merely to be. Just to be. As if the very emotion resides in that realm of time where the heartbeat slows.
I can tell you that when I slow down, I pay attention, and I give up my need for control.
I can tell you that Quaker theologian Thomas Kelly got it right when he wrote, “listening to the eternal involves a silence within us.”
And I can tell you that when I slow down, I begin to live more openly and relaxed.

And the garden is—and has been for the last 35 years of my life—my curative and renewing teacher, inviting me to slow down.
​​​​​​​“I can also tell you that it is a cool and blustery late October day,” I wrote in my book Sacred Necessities, “the kind of weather that sends up an unequivocal flare to let us know that summer has migrated south. Rian will be our companion for some time now. The shrubs and perennials do their best to stand tall against the southerly gusts. There are stubborn blooms on the antique roses Souvenir de la Malmaison and Comte de Chambord. They give the upper beds a certain dignity, an old-world charm. Asters, verbena, and chrysanthemum all flower cheerfully though terribly sprawled, flopped, and askew. Nuthatches continue their resolute forays to the black-oiled sunflower-seed feeder, up and down the old fir tree as furtive and urgent bandits. Wispy clouds ride a river torrent through the sky like a backdrop which has missed its cue and is hastily escorted across the stage. The air is touched with the smoke of wood stoves. And except for the nuthatches and an occasional stirring of the leaves, there is silence.”

FRIDAY APRIL 17 — In a world that feels upside down, let us not forget that joy and hope are alive and well. And in places—ordinary moments—we are “reintroduced to wonder.” And yes, to goosebumps.
So, it’s story time. By most measures, he was nondescript: a youngish white man in blue jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt and a Washington Nationals baseball cap. From a small case, he removed a violin. Placing the open case at his feet, he shrewdly threw in a few dollars and pocket change as seed money, swiveled it to face pedestrian traffic, and began to play.
On an ordinary Friday morning in January 2007, at the L’Enfant Metro station (Washington DC), a violinist performed six classical pieces. By count, 1,097 people passed by in the gray rush of modernity. In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped. About 20 gave him money, but the others continued to walk their normal pace. The violinist collected $32.
The violinist began with Bach’s partita No 2 in D minor (haunting and heart-rending), on a Stradivarius violin (crafted in 1713) worth 3.5 million dollars.

Who was this unrecognized mendicant?
Joshua Bell, one of the preeminent (and most famous, not to mention good-looking) musicians in the entire world. (Joshua’s performance was arranged by The Washington Post as an experiment to see if people would actually stop and notice beauty in unexpected places.)
Would a crowd gather?
Would people willingly miss their trains or turn off their cell phones?
Would people slow down, be late for work inexplicably drawn in to the music?
The answer is no.
Or, to make it personal, would I ignore the clamor and din around me, and allow for (and be fed by) sanctuary in the presence of beauty?
We see what we expect to see.
We hear what we want to hear.
And we experience what we anticipate we will experience.
And we do it with all the instinctiveness of breathing.
We do not expect to see a world-class musician on the side of the road, so we don’t see him, even if he is there.
I needed to watch Joshua Bell…
I needed respite from the noise of the world…
Even so, there is a cynical part of me that wants to chide the Post for such an experiment. Of course, busy commuters will fail to stop and notice.

But this kind of experiment is not new. Lawrence Kushner writes that a similar test was tried a few thousand years ago. Kushner suggests that the “burning bush” was not a miracle. It was a test. God wanted to find out whether or not Moses could pay attention to something for more than a few minutes. When Moses did pay attention, God spoke.
The trick is to pay attention to what is going on around you long enough, to behold the miracle.
But then, Moses wasn’t hindered by an iPhone.
I’m sure I would have stopped, I tell myself. But, that could be wishful thinking. Here’s what I do know: I have the choice every day. It may not be a Stradivarius, but it is the music of God nonetheless.
I watched the YouTube video of Joshua’s “performance.”
Here’s the curious part: the most attention comes from a 3-year-old boy. His mother is hurried, dragging the boy along. Even so, the kid stops, to look at the violinist. Finally, you see the mother push, and the child continues to walk, all the while turning his head to listen to the music.
Throughout the video, it is the children who stop.
And all the parents, without exception, force them to move on.
The poet Billy Collins once noted that all babies are born with knowledge of poetry, because the lub-dub of the mother’s heart is in iambic meter. Then, life slowly starts to choke the poetry out of us.
It may be true with music too.
I would like to think that there is enough of a three-year-old in me that I would have stopped.
And listened.
And savored.
Even if only for a moment.
Just enough to be fed by music and beauty.
To take that gift with me into the day.

Today, spending time lingering and dawdling in parks in Dublin, Ireland. Doing our best to find our way into a new time zone. And savoring the gift of green, and the chorus of birds.

Prayer (poem) for our week…
Praying
It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch
a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway
into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.
Mary Oliver

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Photo… “Terry, You have been posting flowers… looking in the ‘face’ of a tulip and seeing the intricacy of it’s beauty, does cause stillness and awe! My husband and I went to the tulip fields (Skagit Valley, WA) a few days ago,” Barbara Smith (PS – Enjoy Ireland)… Thank you Barbara… And thank you for your photos, please send them to tdh@terryhershey.com

​​​​​​​Donation = Love… Your gifts make Sabbath Moment possible.
I am so very grateful.

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Did you see any of the photos from the epic—around the moon—mission?
With some images never before seen by human eyes.
I have just one word: Awe. Oh, and goosebumps. Okay… two words.
And I loved this headline in today’s newspaper: “The Mission to the Moon Inspires a Sense of Reverence.”
And I can hear Mr. Roger’s voice, “Our world hangs like a magnificent jewel in the vastness of space. Every one of us is a part of that jewel, a facet of that jewel. And in the perspective of infinity, our differences are infinitesimal. We are intimately related. May we never even pretend that we are not.”
(Dartmouth commencement address 2002)

Psychologist Dacher Keltner of UC Berkeley defines awe as “the feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends your understanding of the world.”
(“How Awe and Everyday Wonder Can Shape Our World”)
It’s the moment our sense of “self” softens in the face of something greater, whether that’s nature, art, spirituality, or human connection. Keltner talks about how this softening—this emotion—“really gets us to be other-oriented, kinder, more focused on caring.”
These days, I am often asked about “suggestions” for sanity and healing and reparation. My answer “Today, let goosebumps astonish us”.
Goosebumps—making space for the softening in our chest whenever we see humanity or kindness.
So. Today, I invite and welcome the healing power of goosebumps. And yes, palette cleansing awe.
“We do not pray in order to escape the world around us,” Sister Joan Chittister reminds us. “We pray with one eye on the world so that we can come to understand what is really being asked of us here and now, at times like this, as co-creators of the universe.”
Meaning that awe can make us feel more connected—to other people and humanity as a whole. Awe has an amazing capacity to bring people together.

Even so, I can hear a voice in the back of my mind, “Awe? Really? That’s your recommendation?”
(I know many of us would rather have a “checklist”.)
And speaking of bringing people together because “we are intimately related. May we never even pretend that we are not,” Mr. Rogers continued his commencement address with a story. “Have you heard my favorite story that came from the Seattle Special Olympics?
Well, for the hundred-yard dash, there were nine contestants. All of them so-called physically or mentally disabled. All nine of them assembled at the starting line and at the sound of the gun, they took off. But not long afterward, one little boy stumbled and fell and hurt his knee and began to cry. The other eight children heard him crying, they slowed down, turned around and ran back to him.
Every one of them ran back to him. One little girl with down syndrome, bent down and kissed the boy and said, ‘This’ll make it better’. And the little boy got up and he, and the rest of the runners linked their arms together and joyfully walked to the finish line. They all finished the race at the same time. And when they did, everyone in that stood up and clapped and whistled and cheered for a long, long time. People who were there are still telling the story with great delight. And you know why? Because deep down we know that what matters in this life is more than winning for ourselves.
What really matters is helping others win too. Even if it means slowing down and changing our course now and then. Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius, what a name, was the last of the great Roman philosophers and the first of the scholastics of the middle ages. 1500 years ago, Boethius wrote this sentence, ‘Oh happy race of mortals, if your hearts are ruled as is the universe by love.’”

After that story, I’m smiling big. Even so, if we are honest, we know that “modern life has left little room for wonder. Our calendars are full, our feeds are endless, and our minds rarely get a moment of stillness. Even vacations can become performance projects, curated and documented for others.
(Wonder) forces a pause, creating a physiological and psychological ‘reset.’ In those moments, we remember what it feels like to simply be.” (Thank you Dr. Manmeet Rattu)
I do know that when I give way to cynicism or anxiety or panic, I assume hopelessness is real. And Numb is a preferred mindset. Meaning that I am now no longer present… to make choices for healing, for kindness, for connection.
Let this take root; a world with awe is bigger than our anxiety, and our narcissistic narrowing of our focus.
Threes things I take with me into my week.
One, Thank you for the gifts of goosebumps and awe.
Two, I am grateful to be engaged, and to be a caretaker—for the earth, and for those who live here.
Three, Because beauty cannot be eradicated, there is hope.

Many years ago, I spend some time in a village in Holland, near the border of Germany. As friends, we sat around the river and swapped stories and laughed from the gut. One evening around sunset I jumped on my bike and rode through the village. I stopped near a wall and watched a villager in her garden. She was bent at the waist, had a small garden tool in her hand and was scratching the soil around her lilac shrubs. She was doing it lovingly, coddling, caressing. It seemed like she had nowhere to go and was in no hurry to get there. An old stone wall surrounded her garden lot, and a stone path surrounded by emerald green grass led from the gate, flanked by autumn blooming flowers; monkshood, asters, hollyhocks. Tears welled in my eyes, and I was filled with some longing for something that was yet unnamed. I knew this for certain: around me it was blessed.
I wanted to jump the fence and give her a hug for the gift she’d just given me, understanding that rediscovering wonder is about seeing with new eyes.
Yes, and Amen. The gifts of goosebumps and awe.

A few years ago, I was scheduled to be the chaplain on a pilgrimage tour of Sacred Sites of Ireland. Sadly, because of the pandemic, the trip was cancelled. I’ve been looking forward to a having that trip come to life. This Wednesday, (along with my wife, Nancy) we are on our way to visit Ireland sacred sites. This time, not with a group. We’ll be moseying, and traipsing, and savoring, and reflecting, and embracing the moments of stillness, filled with reverence and awe. And I’ll be writing Sabbath Moment along the way.
And yes, I’m a golf addict, and enjoyed the Masters. Congrats to Rory.
And tomorrow, April 13, I gratefully celebrate the 47th anniversary of my ordination. And tip my hat to my father, who shares a birthday on that day. It would have been his 92nd. Cheers Dad.

Quote for our week… The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.  Marcel Proust

BULLETIN BOARD

Today’s Photo Credit: “Terry, I thought that in the midst of all that is happening in this world that to gaze at these flowers for a bit might give us a calming which would allow us to give thanks to our Creator!” John Obringer.

POEMS AND PRAYERS

How We Momentarily Become the Moon
In the dark house
we watch the moon
rise through the window,
watch as its fullness
climbs into the sky.
For everything we see,
so much we miss.
But in this moment,
your hand in mine,
we give the moon
all our attention until
every part of us,
even our wounds, are
shining.
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer,

When the world feels hopeless and heartless,
take a moment to look around.
There are beautiful humans everywhere,
often hiding in plain sight in cabs,
on buses, in cafes, on trains, in libraries,
on park benches, in laundromats, on subways.
They may not be rich or well-educated.
They may be broken and hurting themselves.
They may not have much to offer
in terms of worldly goods.
But they are the comforters, encouragers, sharers,
teachers, servers, healers, mentors, connecters,
helpers, and counselors who keep
the random hurting humans,
the weary and the lost,
the invisible sufferers who walk among us every day,
going just long enough
to find their hope and strength again.
It doesn’t take a degree or wealth
or a grand gesture to make a
difference in this world.
It just takes a human who cares.
L.R. Knost​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​
​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Music for the Soul…
New–
What A Wonderful World — Louis Armstrong
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TUESDAY APRIL 7 — Rich is not about what we possess. Or own.
In our culture, we’ve turned wealth into a way to objectify stuff and people and relationships, predicated on having, possessing and preening.
So. Here’s our paradigm shift: Rich is about the connections—with one another—that honor dignity, and promote the value of love, empathy, inclusion, compassion, and kind-heartedness.
As we learned in our story yesterday, “How do we know they are rich?”
“They serve one another.”

Let’s think of this as a new wealth account, allowing us to see the world with new eyes. We are not weighted down by consumption and comparison. We can be present. In this moment.
Meaning that we can be present (we can see, making space and room) for those around us. In times of gladness, and in times where pain and suffering are real.
Speaking of the permission to be present in order to see and make space (yes, to literally honor), I love this story.
Sarah is an ordinary woman with a peculiar habit. You see, every Saturday, when the Jehovah’s Witnesses make their neighborhood rounds, she invites them in. And begins by saying, “I’m glad to see you. I’m not going to covert you, but you all are welcome to stay for tea.” And every Saturday, the missionaries do just that.
Another time, a salesman dropped in—just an old-fashioned door-to-door salesman, selling vacuum cleaners.
“Come on in,” she tells him. “I need to tell you that I’m not going to buy, and my baby is asleep, so no loud demo, but you look like you’ve had a long day, would you like a cup of coffee?”
“Why?” the salesman asked.
“Well, this may sound strange, but I actually believe that God may be found in any person, so I’m offering you coffee because you might be Jesus.”
I’m certain that for the salesman, it was easily his strangest house call ever; but even so, he sat for a spell, and enjoyed the coffee.
There was a time where I would have overlooked this story (adapted from Lauren Winner’s, “Still”). Or more likely, would have dismissed it. It falls under the category of too-good-to-be-true.
But here’s the deal: more than ever, we need it.
In a world where it’s too common to hear, “I feel like I can’t even relate to them (family and friends) anymore.”
In a world where, because of fear and apprehension, we mistrust just about everyone, and everything. And yes, even kindness. Especially kindness.
I read that in some countries it is the ruse of would-be pickpockets. They pose as persons needing direction, and when kind strangers stop to help, those who help are fleeced. Is it the exception? Yes. But even so, fear carries the narrative of our time, and our relations, and our conversations.

“If we have no peace,” Mother Teresa reminded us, “it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.”
That’s why I love this story about Sarah. And I do have a hankering for kindness.
But, this is not a Sabbath Moment about kindness. Per se. Because our temptation is to bottle up whatever Sarah had, or find a way to teach it or market it online.
Lord knows, we find multiple ways to complicate life.
It is not enough, apparently, just to offer a smile, a kind word and a cup of coffee.
Sarah’s story is about letting life in. Every bit of life.
Sarah’s story is about making space. About the healing power that flourishes when we root ourselves in love and hospitality, and warmth and generosity.
“They serve one another.”

Let us pause this week, and take the time to reach out and to say “thank you” to those who have made space and shelter for us.

WEDNESDAY APRIL 8 — ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​I love hiking in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. My favorite, an old Cherokee Indian trail, where you make your way up to Hemphill Bald, the highest point in the Cataloochee Divide.
On the ascent, we will pass an old misshapen white-oak tree. While stately, it’s easy to walk on by, and save for noticing that the bent trunk is in the shape of a lightning bolt, giving the tree little thought.
Until I learned the story of the tree.
The 70-foot-tall oak—somewhere between two and three hundred years old—is not merely a freak of nature. As a sapling, the tree was “trained” (intentionally bent) by Cherokee Indians. The purpose? To communicate with every trail-walker.
The tree is literally, a signpost, or a message for generations of Cherokee travelers to let them know that they could stop here, and from the shape of the tree, find their bearings.
Those who know the park, simply call it the Cherokee Tree.

And yes. When life unravels (detonates), we can, and we do, lose our bearings. I resonated with this today from Psychologist Michael Valdovinos, who said, “Anytime people repeatedly participate in or witness actions that violate their moral framework and they feel unable to change it, you create the conditions for moral injury.” He goes on to say that the wild political situation in the US now is leaving more citizens in moral distress than ever before. However (and I loved this), the key to feeling better (to finding our bearings, and our resilience), also lies in other people. We are on this journey together.

So, yes, with Frodo (“I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had ever happened in my time.”), we wish none of this incivility had ever happened in our time, which means that we do need the invitation of the Cherokee Tree.
Like the little boy in our Sabbath Moment story about a very wealthy man who took his son on a world-hopping trip visiting “underprivileged” countries, with the firm purpose of showing his son how “poor people” live. What I value (and need to embrace) is the boy’s recognition, and appreciation about real wealth. “They serve one another. They have friends to protect them,” he told his father.
Yes. That is a Cherokee tree.
That is where we find our bearings for resilience.
That regardless of fear, we can choose hope.
That regardless of uncertainty, we can choose to trust other people.
That regardless of ugliness, we can choose to give and receive grace.
That regardless of discord, we can choose to seek harmony.
That regardless of animosity, we can choose kindness.
That regardless of intolerance, we can choose inclusion.
Or John Pavlovitz’s reminder today for the child in every one of us. “And I’ll remind them that even when bad people are rewarded, doing the right thing is still the thing most worth doing.
I’ll teach them that when hatred seems the most treasured currency, love is still worth more than gold.”

Rev. Cameron Trimble’s reflections were good for my heart today. “Howard Thurman wrote about the ‘growing edge’ of a society, the place where new life is possible because people refuse to accept what diminishes human dignity. That edge is not held by those in power alone. It is held by communities, by individuals, by those who choose to remain grounded when the systems around them begin to lose their balance.
We cannot control the interior life of those who hold high office. We can decide how we will live in response.
We can refuse to mirror instability with instability. We can resist the pull toward fear-driven thinking. We can stay rooted in relationships that hold us accountable and keep us connected to reality.
This is the work of disciplined, mature leadership. It is the work of remaining human in a moment when power itself seems to forget what that means.
The biblical witness does not promise that such moments resolve quickly. It does insist that they do not have the final word, because power that loses its mind eventually collapses under its own weight.
What remains, and what rebuilds, are the communities that learned how to live with clarity, courage, and care in the midst of it.”

As I write this, a shoutout to the crew in Artemis II for their photos from the other side of the moon. And to the support from all the men and women at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston. What a gift, to go where no man or woman has ever gone before.
And yes, in case you are wondering, I am very proudly wearing my Michigan Blue today. Congrats to the University of Michigan basketball team.

THURSDAY APRIL 9 — “If we have no peace,” Mother Teresa reminded us, “it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.”
Our stories this week have been about the healing power that flourishes when we root ourselves in love and hospitality, and warmth and generosity.
Affirming the little boy’s recognition, and appreciation about “real wealth”. In the villages he visited with his father, he watched the people, and after the trip told his father what he learned about what it meant to “be rich”.
“They serve one another. They have friends to protect them.”

It my “business”, it is easy to talk about what we believe. Yes, much easier to talk about it. Practice is another thing altogether.
Because we can simply recite a creed. And this I have learned over the years: beliefs are valid as a verbal affirmation, but they only come to life, (they only have bearing and impact), when there is skin—with faces, and names, and skin—attached.
Which takes me to my very favorite story to tell an audience, and to habitually retell myself.
A little boy was having nightmares. The kind that requires a momma’s reassurance. (Dads, at least from my own experience, are typically not wired for nightmare duty.) So, to his momma’s room the boy went, “Momma, momma, I’m having nightmares.”
“It’s okay honey,” she told him, “Here’s what I want you to do. Go back to your room, kneel down by your bed, pray to Jesus, and he’ll fix it.”
Back to his room, the boy knelt by his bed, prayed to Jesus, hopped back in bed, and… more nightmares. All mommas know this story. Back and forth to momma’s room, throughout the night.
On the sixth visit, “Momma, I know, I know the drill. I’m going to go back to my room. I’m going to kneel down by my bed, and pray to Jesus, and he’ll fix it. But before I do that, can I just lay in bed with you, and have you hold me?”
“Sure honey, why?”
“Because sometimes I need Jesus with skin on it.”
Yes. And today, more than ever, we can be—and we need to be—Jesus with skin on it. Voices of mercy. And Compassion. And Welcoming. And Healing.

Speaking of names and faces and Jesus with skin, I just read this today in Religion News Service. A story about reporter Aleja Hertzler-McCain’s travel to El Paso, Texas, in March, to shadow two Catholic sisters as they accompanied detained migrants and their families in immigration court.
Part of the Scalabrinian religious community, which focuses on serving migrants, Sisters Leticia Gutiérrez Valderrama and Elisete Signor have built a comprehensive ministry and network of volunteers that has accompanied more than 1,000 people in immigration court since last June — and has continued to work with hundreds more in detention centers, as well as their families.
“I go because he is a human being. He is a migrant who is, at this moment, possibly lonely, depressed, scared,” Signor told Hertzler-McCain in March as they waited to visit a detained Sudanese migrant.
When Signor emerged from the visit, she came back with a task: “He likes crosswords, and I’m going to buy him one tomorrow.”
You can read Hertzler-McCain’s full profile of the two sisters and their work to mobilize care for immigrants in their diocese.
This ministry “doesn’t only transform the experience of the people we accompany, but we ourselves are transformed,” Gutiérrez Valderrama said at the volunteer information session.
“We are going to encounter sacred people. What they are going to tell us is sacred,” Gutiérrez Valderrama told potential volunteers. “Because who we’re going to encounter is the Lord Jesus there,” she explained, drawing on Christian theology of Christ’s presence with vulnerable people.
Yes, names and faces. Jesus with skin on it.
So, yes and Amen. “They serve one another. They have friends to protect them.”

FRIDAY APRIL 10 — “They serve one another. They have friends to protect them,” the little boy told his father after visiting villages, relating what he learned about what it means to “be rich”.
Yes. Let’s call it a new wealth account, allowing us to see the world with new eyes. Not weighted down by consumption and comparison. We can be present. In this moment. And, we can be present for (we can see, making space and room) those around us. In moment of gladness, and in moments of pain and suffering. Connection matters.
I resonated with this, from Maria Shriver, “I read an article about what kids need and how certain teachers are best able to help them when they’re having a meltdown. The article said to ask a child, ‘Do you want to be helped, heard, or hugged?’ The writer then went on to say those are actually great questions to ask anybody at this time. I love that. As leaders—be it in our families, our workplaces, or our communities—we will never be able to totally have everyone’s back all the time. That said, we can minister in the gap with our hearts and with compassion. We can minister by listening, by sharing practices, by showing tenderness, and by sharing our own experiences that helped us when we felt alone, afraid, and disconnected. We can minister by apologizing as well when it’s needed. My friends, see yourself on this day and this week as a minister with a pulpit or platform, because you actually have one. Believe that you have a message worth sharing because you do. Believe that you have a presence that can make another person feel protected in this moment because you do.”
“They serve one another.”
Let us welcome what the young boy recognized; that serving and protecting came natural to the people. In other words, it spilled from what had been (and was being) cultivated inside.

Which brings to mind Etty Hillesum’s empowering words, “Ultimately, we have just one moral duty. To reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it towards others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will also be in our troubled world.”
Thank you Etty. Your words bolster and sustain me.
And let us remember, Etty did not write that sentence from a dispassionate distance. Speaking of a world tilting, Etty was a young Jewish woman who lived in Amsterdam during the Nazi occupation and who died in Auschwitz, one of the millions of victims of the Holocaust. We didn’t know about her meticulous diary until decades after her death. From the day when Dutch Jews were ordered to wear a yellow star, up to the day she boarded a cattle car bound for Poland, Etty consecrated herself to the wholehearted task of bearing witness to the inviolable power of love. To honor the sacred present with sensitivity to human suffering and gratitude for beauty in the everyday.

And we look forward to welcoming the Artemis II crew back to planet earth. I don’t know if you saw some of the photos they took from the other side of the moon. And photos of earth from that distance. My Oh My. 

Prayer (poem) for our week…
Making Peace
A voice from the dark called out,
‘The poets must give us
imagination of peace, to oust the intense, familiar
imagination of disaster. Peace, not only
the absence of war.’
But peace, like a poem,
is not there ahead of itself,
can’t be imagined before it is made,
can’t be known except
in the words of its making,
grammar of justice,
syntax of mutual aid.
A feeling towards it,
dimly sensing a rhythm, is all we have
until we begin to utter its metaphors,
learning them as we speak.
A line of peace might appear
if we restructured the sentence our lives are making,
revoked its reaffirmation of profit and power,
questioned our needs, allowed
long pauses . . .
A cadence of peace might balance its weight
on that different fulcrum; peace, a presence,
an energy field more intense than war,
might pulse then,
stanza by stanza into the world,
each act of living
one of its words, each word
a vibration of light—facets
of the forming crystal.
Denise Levertov
​​​​​​​
​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Photo… “Good morning! I lived in Lakewood, WA, for three years and never heard about the cherry trees! Did see the daffodils in Puyallup and the tulips at La Conner? And, I was visiting my daughter in the county area of Anderson, IN, and participated in a protest. Just like you, trying to exercise my right to dissent and protest. Lastly, if you use my photo, this is a sunset from my daughter’s property–the sun is hiding in between the trees. Have a blessed Holy Week.” Ina Stickland… Thank you Ina… And thank you for your photos, please send them to tdh@terryhershey.com

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Today, Pope Leo XIV used his first Easter address to deliver a resounding call for peace in times of renewed war, declaring, “Let those who have weapons lay them down.”
“Let those who have the power to unleash wars, choose peace.”
And in a sermon for the Easter vigil on Saturday night, Pope Leo urged people not to feel numbed by the scope of the conflicts raging across the world, but to work for peace.
And I say, “Amen. And sign me up.”

And yet, it has been another week where the news makes us wonder if there are any answers or remedies… all of it accompanied by feeling powerless—deeply emotional, horrified by photos, angry, and scared.
I can hear Bob Dylan’s voice, “Lay down your weary tune, lay down.”
I am grateful for your emails. One asked, “You talk about spiritual hydration. But how can we give time to personal and community renewal, in a world that feels on fire with hate and pain?”
My answer. We can’t afford not to.
And another, “I’m just one person. What difference can I make?”
Okay. Let me tell you a story.
One day a very wealthy man took his son on a world-hopping trip visiting “underprivileged” countries, with the firm purpose of showing his son how “poor people” live. On their return from the trip, the father asked, “How was the trip?”
“It was great, Dad.”
“Did you see how poor people live?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“So, tell me, what do you learn?”
The son answered, “I saw that we have one dog, and they have four. We have a pool that reaches to the middle of our garden, and they have a river with no end in sight. We have imported lanterns in our garden, and they have the stars at night. Our patio reaches to the front yard, and they have the whole horizon. We have a small piece of land to live on, and they have fields that go beyond our sight. We have servants who serve us, but they serve one another. We buy our food, but they grow theirs. We have walls around our property to protect us, they have friends to protect them.”
The boy’s father stood speechless, listening to his son.
“Thank you, Dad, for showing me how poor we really are,” the boy said.
I love this story.
And I love the boy’s recognition and appreciation about real wealth, “They serve one another. They have friends to protect them.”
I need to sit with these words.
“They serve one another.”

My friends, we do live in a world where it can be easy to be befuddled. Or is it duped? After all, we live in a world with inverted price tags. And because of that, we give way to identities that diminish us—blocking empathy, humility, glad heartedness, contentment and yes, connection.
This story is a life-giving reset button.
So. Here’s our paradigm shift: Rich is not about what we possess. Or own. In our culture, we’ve turned wealth into a way to objectify stuff and relationships, predicated on having, possessing and preening.
Let us embrace this: Rich is about the connections—with one another—that honor dignity, and promote the value of love, empathy, inclusion, and compassion. Connections that encourage us to struggle against what is artificial, mechanical and cold.
Rich is about the real connections that expand our life, and give us value.
And, rich is about personal renewal, nurturing a curriculum of a truly spiritual life; grounded in love, mercy, tenderness, compassion, forgiveness, hope, trust, simplicity, silence, peace, and joy; slowly transfiguring us. (Thank you Richard Rohr.)
“They serve one another.”

To be poor, on the other hand, is to live constricted.
Literally impoverished by an absence of freedom—when we too easily give way to a craving to be right, fueled by fear and self-righteousness.
To be poor, we are wired with a craving to project an image that says, “invincible or invulnerable”.
To be poor, we resort to an impulse to hurt or to wound. Because of the woundedness at our core. And we hurt even those close to us.
This happens when we live as if connection doesn’t matter.
“They serve one another,” and “Let those who have weapons lay them down.”

I do know this: We live in a world where, more than ever, it is easy to feel derailed, disenfranchised, exasperated. Yes, to lose our way. Or, just plain lost.
Bottom line, we are not “at home”. And on those days, I wish I was made of stronger stuff. I don’t want to admit it, as it feels like a defect to be concealed.
Okay, I’ll personalize this; when I let the cacophony or noise win, I am not at home.
When either fear, or shame, win, I am not at home.
“They serve one another.”
And yes, there we are empowered with the power to care and to give and to heal. (And with irony, the power of service, is the opposite of domination.)
My friends: Let us welcome what the young boy recognized—that serving and protecting came natural to the people. In other words, it spilled from what had been (and was being) cultivated inside. Yes. Meaning, that when I care and give and serve from my heart, I am deeply and gratefully at home.
“They serve one another.”
This week, I carry with me these words from Maria Shriver, “At its heart, Easter is a story of renewal. A reminder that even after darkness, doubt, and suffering, something new can emerge. I love that.
I want to rise in my work to make it matter and count. And I want to rise for my country. I want to stay present and vocal when I see things I cannot accept in silence. I want to rise in opposition to injustice, both in this country and in this world. I want to rise in love, in compassion, and in understanding. Like so many of you, I want to be a light in the darkness.
In that sense, life itself is a constant invitation. A constant beckoning. A quiet call to rise.
Easter reminds us that rising is not just something that happened once long ago. It is something we are called to do again and again in our own lives.”

Here in the PNW, we have bright sunny skies, and “open all the doors in the house” weather. And yes, it feels good.
And outside on the pond, Irv and Dottie (our favorite geese friends) are in the countdown for nesting season.
And yes, I’ve been following college basketball. And yes, I am a Michigan boy.

Quote for our week… “On this day of celebration, let us abandon every desire for conflict, domination, and power, and implore the Lord to grant his peace to a world ravaged by wars… Not a peace imposed by force, but through dialogue! Not with the desire to dominate others, but to encounter them. We are growing accustomed to violence, resigning ourselves to it, and becoming indifferent. Indifferent to the deaths of thousands of people.” Pope Leo XIV

BULLETIN BOARD

Today’s Photo Credit: On my walk earlier this week, the cherry tree filled with blossoms waiting to open, still coated with the morning rain… And thank you to all, I love your photos… please, keep sending them… send to tdh@terryhershey.com 

Yes, your gift makes a difference… Donation = Love…
Help make Sabbath Moment possible. I write SM because I want to live with a soft heart; to create a place for sanctuary, empathy, inclusion, compassion and kindness… a space where we are refueled to make a difference. SM remains free.
(Address by check: PO Box 65336, Port Ludlow, WA 98365)

POEMS AND PRAYERS

Christ is risen
Christ is risen!
          This makes no sense. Only joy.
Christ is risen!
         There is no explanation. Only wonder.
Christ is risen!
         Don’t try to understand.
         Only be grateful.
Christ is risen!
         Some say it’s just a story.
         Let it be your story.
Steve Garnaas-Holmes

Happy Easter.
Christ is risen.
And that changes everything.
Let the empty tomb reorient your life.
Let us laugh at fear.
Let us defy death.
Let us live as Easter people.
Let us stand on the side of life… not death.
Let us love people back to life.
Let us make ugly things beautiful.
Let us beat weapons into garden tools.
Let us practice resurrection…
every single day.
Death does not get the final word.
Love does.
Shane Claiborne​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Music for the Soul…
New–
Imagine — UNICEF: World Version

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TUESDAY MARCH 31 — The Sunday-school teacher asked her 10-year-old students if they would be willing to give $1,000,000 to missionary work for children and families in need.
“Yes,” they all screamed in unison.
“Very good. Would you give $1000?”
“Yes!”
“Good.  Would you give $1?”
The class responded, “Yes,” except for one young boy, who sat silent.
“Why didn’t you say yes?” the teacher asked.
“Because,” he stammered, “I have a dollar in my pocket.”
Okay, that’s honest.
Napoleon reminded us, “Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to choose.” And because of that, freedom always works better in speeches, than it does in practice. Because if I choose—to commit, to invest, to give—I offer my heart freely. I’m all in.
I offer this little light of mine.
However, I can sure relate to the little guy. I’m good with answers and debate prep about what I would do with the million. But when you’ve got “a dollar in your pocket,” there’s a parting of the ways in what we “believe” and how we live. Of course, I am still “free” to contribute, give, care for, risk, go out on a limb, let go, to live unshackled. But with my hand over the dollar in my pocket, I am stuck. And we all know the litany here (any of the reasons we find it difficult to remove our hand, any of the reasons that keep us stuck—fear and worry about what “they” think, fear of failure, shame from feeling not enough, need for perfection, the tyranny of “should,” need for certainty. (And by the way, did it ever occur to you that we’ve never actually met “them,” but they still control our lives? Go figure.)

If I’m honest, it boils down to this: For whatever reason, I too easily live afraid.
If I open my heart to care, I risk vulnerability.
If I speak out for compassion and justice for the least of these, it is considered too “political”.
To give without regard for reward, is to risk misunderstanding.
To expose feelings (openness and vulnerability), is to risk exposing your true self.
To love, is to risk not being loved in return.
To hope, is to risk despair.
I’ll cut to the chase. When I am afraid, I react (allow the narrative of my life and world to be owned by the shouting and anger, where labels rule), or I shut down (Lord knows I don’t need the drama and headache).
Reporters were fussing over a woman celebrating her 104th birthday. “And what do you think is the best thing about being 104?” one reporter asked.
She simply replied, “No peer pressure.”
Now we’re talking…
My mind goes to the image of Michelangelo’s statues. He started many more stone statues than he finished. I believe that he completed fourteen. And what of the others (also creations of extraordinary genius)? As far as I know, they remain locked inside of the blocks of marble. I needed the story of the young boy, to invite me to live unstuck. But how?
I am certain that there are programs, with, no doubt, apps for your iPhone: Basic Unstuck and Unstuck Pro.
But freedom (“unstuckness”) is not about adding one more thing to our life.
Freedom is about embracing the gift of grace—in the words of Seamus Henry, “like well water far down”—that already abounds. Inside of us.

This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine.
And here’s the good news; every single one of us have been endowed and equipped to be a light in a dark world.
The light is alive and well, for every single one of use. No exclusions. Yes, including the poor, the powerless, the desperate, the outsiders, the forsaken, and the forgotten.
Too good to be true? I can relate.
And I settle for less. Because, “That can’t be me,” I tell myself. I confess that I don’t always see the light in myself.
So. Where do I begin? The advice of a mentor, “Do what’s in your heart.”

WEDNESDAY APRIL 1 — ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​One of my favorite scenes from Lord of the Rings. “I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had ever happened in my time,” Frodo says to himself.
Gandalf responds, “So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

And my mind goes to “A long way gone; memoirs of a boy solider”, Ishmael Beah’s heartbreaking account of his time as a 13-year-old, conscripted to fight in Sierra Leone’s Civil War. At the age of twelve, Ishmael eluded attacking rebels in his native war-torn Sierra Leone. The rebels had killed his family and most from his village. At thirteen, he’d been “recruited” by the government army, a gentle hearted boy, now prompted to do terrible acts. He writes honestly about how easy it was to surrender to what would be abhorrent.
“My face, my hands, my shirt and gun were covered with blood. I raised my gun and pulled the trigger, and I killed a man. Suddenly, as if someone was shooting them inside my brain, all the massacres I had seen since the day I was touched by war began flashing in my head.”
“I was killing just another rebel responsible for the death of my family,” Ishmael told himself.
Mercifully, at sixteen, he was removed from fighting by UNICEF, and through the help of the staff at his rehabilitation center, Ishmael learned how to forgive himself, to regain his humanity, and finally, to heal.

I’ve never been in a real war. (Although I was drafted, and almost was sent to Vietnam.)
Reading accounts of war shake me. Everything we count on feels upside down.
And what happens when our own world is out of control? I can tell you from my experience that when I feel at the mercy of, I allow exhaustion or frustration or emotions on “tilt” to be the final word in my perception of reality.
Of course, I’m not equating the world we live now, with the war in Sierra Leone.
But this is for real: when we perceive the world as dark, and yes, in places savage, we will believe (or take to heart) that selfishness and callousness and ruthlessness are required to survive in it.
And when that happens, we never see the good. Or the hope. We never see the “power of the ring”.
People stop trusting each other, and every stranger (or immigrant) becomes an enemy. Even people who know you become extremely careful about how they relate or speak.
Just look at half my Facebook feed. There is someone linking to a video with the headline: Watch X demolish Y. Or destroy. Or humiliate. Does that sound like civility to you?

So. Where do we find the reset button?
There is a heartrending scene early on (in the memoirs of the boy soldier), when Ishmael and his friends are on the run from the rebels.
“We had traveled for more than six days when we came in contact with a very old man who could barely walk. He sat on the verandah of a house in the middle of the village. His face was too wrinkled to still be alive, yet his dark skin was shiny, and he spoke slowly, gobbling the words in his jaws before he let them out. As he spoke, the veins on the forehead became visible through his skin.
‘Everyone ran when they heard of the seven boys on their way here. I could not run at all. So, they left me behind. No one was willing to carry me, and I didn’t want to be a burden,’ he said.
We explained to him where we were from and where we wanted to go. He asked us to stay for a while and keep him company.
‘You young fellows must be hungry. There are some yams in the hut over there. Can you boys cook some for me and yourselves,’ he politely asked. When we were almost finished eating the yams, he said slowly, ‘My children, this country has lost its good heart. People don’t trust each other anymore. Years ago, you would have been heartily welcomed in this village. I hope that you boys can find safety before this untrustworthiness and fear causes someone to harm you.’
He drew a map on the ground with his walking stick. ‘This is how you get to Yele,’ he said.
‘What is your name,’ Kanei asked the old man.
He smiled as if he knew that one of us would ask this question. ‘There is no need to know my name. Just refer to me as the old man who got left behind when you get to the next village.’
He looked at all of our faces and spoke softly, with no sadness in his voice. ‘I will not be alive to see the end of this war. So, to save a place in your memories for other things, I won’t tell you my name. If you survive this war, just remember me as the old man you met. You boys should be on your way.’
He pointed his staff toward the path that lay ahead of us. As we walked away, he erased the map with his foot and waved us off with a raised right hand and a nod. Before the village disappeared from our sight, I turned around to take one last look at the old man. His head was down, and he had both hands on his staff. It was clear to me that he knew his days would soon be over, and he didn’t bother to be afraid for himself. But he was for us.”
God bless that old man.
And amen to places (and persons) of sanctuary and dignity and compassion and healing in a world that feels dark.
Let us be those places for one another my friends.
This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine.

THURSDAY APRIL 2 — “I had a choice: I could either let the darkness of the world swallow me, or I could do what I could to help make the world a little bit brighter.” (Thank you, Haruki Murakami)
I love (and highly recommend) “High on the Hog”, a Netflix series about how African American cuisine transformed America. About how inviting someone in, to the table, makes space for presence, and connection. How inviting someone in, makes space for healing. And resilience.
Yes, we shine our light by making space.
And here’s the deal: you never know who may need that space. But you still make the invitation, “Come on in. There’s a place at the table for you.”
In the series, a member of a local community was described this way, “He wouldn’t say it, but his life is really heavy right now.” (Raise your hand if you’ve been there.)
And this did my heart good: the healing power that comes from knowing there is a place at the table.

But too often, we wonder if we have what it takes to offer that space to others.
What if our light isn’t bright enough? What if we don’t have what it takes?
Dr. Irvin Yalom writes about a patient, “(She) described the horrible days of her cancer’s recurrence… She cried when she told me about calling her surgeon, a friend of twenty years, only to be informed by his nurse that there were to be no further appointments because the doctor had nothing more to offer.
‘What is wrong with doctors? Why don’t they understand the importance of sheer presence?’ she asked. ‘Why can’t they realize that the very moment they have nothing else to offer is the moment they are most needed?’” (Momma and the Meaning of Life)

My friends, let us make space to see and to be seen.
Let us make space to welcome, to offer comfort, and reprieve, and hope.
Let us make space that says “NO” to cruelty and discrimination, and intolerance and hatred.
Let us make space to open our heart to care—to risk and embrace vulnerability.
Let us make space to speak out for compassion and justice for the marginalized, for the least of these.
Let us make space to be Sabbath (sanctuary), in a world of disquiet, disruption and unease.

I write this on the first day of Passover, the time when we celebrate and commemorate the Exodus of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, a story about how God picked us up and brought us from despair to joy, from darkness to light, from chaos to meaning.
I was grateful for these reflections from Debbie Gutfreund, reminding us that Passover encourages, “Responsibility for each other. We invite all who are hungry to come and eat because we are responsible for one another. Some people are hungry for food, while others are hungry for wisdom. Whatever we have we should share as much as we can.
The meaning of freedom. Some people think freedom means being able to do what we want whenever we want to. But the Jewish definition of freedom is the ability to create a meaningful life with authentic values and to create a close connection with our Creator. Freedom is living a life of constant growth and striving to live up to our potential.”
And a friend sent to me this reflection from an unnamed source. “Tonight we remember that we were strangers in the land of Egypt—and that too many are still not free. As we tell the story of liberation, we hold in our hearts migrants and refugees crossing borders and seas, searching for safety and those who are held in bondage. We remember workers whose bodies and time are exploited to sustain an unjust economy. We remember Black, brown, Indigenous, Jewish, Muslim, and other marginalized communities targeted by racism, antisemitism, and hatred. We remember those living under occupation and in the shadow of war, whose homes and hopes are shattered. The plagues of our time are climate catastrophe, state and economic violence, and the hardening of hearts to one another’s suffering. Let this night be a promise that we will not look away. As our ancestors walked together out of Mitzrayim, the narrow place, so we commit to walking together toward a world where all can live in safety, dignity, and self-determination. None of us is free until all of us are free.”
Amen. And Happy Passover, my friends.

FRIDAY APRIL 3 — I am writing this on Maundy Thursday (Holy Thursday), a Christian holy day that commemorates the Last Supper. This is the night, the meal, when Jesus endowed Holy Communion, and washed his disciples’ feet to symbolize humble service.
It commemorates a “new commandment” (mandatum) from Jesus. “A new commandment I give you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” (Gospel of John)
This mandatum is mirrored and employed by foot-washing and Holy Communion.

This we know, and can take to heart. We are on this journey together.
Let me repeat that: We are on this journey together.
Bottom line: Our connection matters.
And in a world where distrust and intolerance are real, we need to make space to remember and honor our shared connection.
I do know this: Jesus took it pretty seriously. As in, the table is open. All are welcome.

In the Gospels, Jesus loved a full table—meaning yes, he loved a party.
And he partied with some very eccentric and outlandish people. And he wasn’t too concerned about public opinion, or impressing the right crowd.
Remember the party with the woman who wasn’t invited, the conspicuous outsider?
When Simon sees the woman “crash” the dinner party, his thoughts are condemnatory, “If this man (Jesus) were truly a prophet he would know who is touching him and what kind of a woman she is—that she is a sinner” (Luke 7:39). Tradition says that this woman was a prostitute, and as she came to the dinner, she wept tears on the feet of Jesus and then she dried his feet with her hair, lastly anointing the feet of Jesus with perfume.
Notice this: Jesus never talked to an outcast or untouchable, because Jesus didn’t “see” an untouchable. Jesus saw only a child of God, that he was madly in love with.
My Oh My. No wonder freedom is not easy.
It scares us half-to-death to be seen, to be invited, and to be loved in this way, and then to share that gift.
Think about the power that this party represents. Everybody is invited. Everybody.
Have you ever felt (or been) on the “outside”?
I know that I have—and most of it induced and fueled by my own sense of shame. I didn’t believe that I deserved or merited that kind of acceptance or love or grace.

So. Here is my invitation to us all this Easter week. Let us create (and make) space for these “meals” of fellowship, support, empathy, communion, inclusion, community. If I were being theological here, I would say that also sounds like the invitation and grounding for Sabbath. And I smile big reading Rabbi Harold Kushner’s reflection about Sabbath meals and the power of community. “And the laughing. The sharing. And the singing. One melody is scarcely spent when another comes forward. We don’t even notice the racket of the children. There is a great holiness in this room. It grows with the sharing. I take a large ceramic Kiddush cup, fill it with wine, offer it to my wife and then to the man next to me, who hands it to his wife with the solemn instruction, ‘Here, keep it going.’ And we do. From hand to hand. Drunk from and refilled. Time and time again.”

A blessed Easter to all. And to my Jewish brothers and sisters, a Happy Passover.
“I had a choice: I could either let the darkness of the world swallow me, or I could do what I could to help make the world a little bit brighter.” (Thank you, Haruki Murakami)
“This little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine.”

Prayer (poem) for our week…
My body, my blood
On the eve of a boldly political action,
an act of nonviolent resistance,
in a boldly political religious ceremony,
the Passover celebration of liberation,
a family meal and a public act
that defy power structures,
intensely political—
Jesus does something profoundly personal:
he offers himself.
He doesn’t say “This is my rallying cry!”
or “This is my belief.”
He says, “This is my body and my blood.”
In the place of honor, dipping bread together,
he welcomes the one who will betray him.
Because only something this personal
will overcome the world.
Only love, and nothing outside the human heart,
will defeat evil.
Our political actions require personal presence.
Our personal acts have political power.
Our salvation is not ransom paid
but presence offered.
Steve Garnaas-Holmes

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Photo… Saturday afternoon, my son Zach and I visited the Quad on the campus of the University of Washington, where we took immense delight in the blossoming signature Yoshino cherry trees. The trees are about 90 years old, and were originally set in a grove at the Washington Park Arboretum. I loved this little blossom… And thank you for your photos, please send them to tdh@terryhershey.com

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