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  • The lessons of Noah are lessons of change

    Unexpected gifts are always a reason to smile.                                                                                                                        Ross-findon-303091-unsplash

    So you can be sure I was smiling when a co-worker stopped me in the hall a while back and told me to wait where I was while she ran to her office to get something. In a jiffy she was handing me a large box. "I know you like Noah’s Ark," she said.

    I was surprised, to say the least, and touched that she was not only giving me a gift out of the clear blue sky but that she had paid attention enough during our conversations, and in occasionally observing the "stuff" in my space, to know what I liked.

    When I returned to my office I opened the box to find a very unique cross with the vertical beam painted in shades of a fish-filled ocean. Carved on the horizontal beam was the ark, with Noah, his wife and a plethora of animals standing on the deck looking out across the water. Above them hung a rainbow.

    What a wonderful gift, I thought, especially now with the summer coming to an end and the exquisite air of fall just around the corner; a time of changes.

    What my very generous co-worker wouldn’t have known is that, over the years, I have come to see the image of Noah’s Ark as symbolic of the promises of change inherent in the seasons. There was a time when I saw change as a frightening thing, but life, with all its unexpected ups and downs, has led me to the perspective that every new season, just as with every new day, brings with it unique conditions, unique experiences and, most importantly, unique opportunities. Now, rather than being perceived as an end of things, change heralds new beginnings.

    I guess that’s why I have always found the story of Noah so captivating, and why I have a penchant for collecting images of Noah’s Ark.

    This was a man, and a family, who had a powerful experience of a new beginning. There’s no doubt that everyone around him thought he was crazy, but, in spite of that, Noah put his trust in God, his family put their trust in Noah, and an ark was built!

    Even the structure of the ark itself symbolized a total trust in God given that it had no motor, no sails, no form of directing the craft other than the will of God. It was more a refuge than it was a boat—a shelter for those who, at the prospect of an impending deluge, had placed their trust in their creator. When the storm was finally over and the waters receded, it was from this ark that Noah, his family and the created world all began a new day, a future of unlimited possibilities.

    Thomas Carlyle, British historian and essayist, once wrote: "Today is not yesterday: we ourselves change; how can our works and thoughts, if they are always to be the fittest, continue always the same? Change, indeed, is painful; yet ever needful; and if memory have its force and worth, so also has hope."

    For me, Carlyle’s words speak aptly of the person of Noah, a person of hope, whose faith and trust in God strengthened him to endure the pain of change, and who could have easily, upon stepping off the ark onto dry land, uttered the fitting words, "Today is not yesterday…"

    Jesus, also, could have said the same thing to his Apostles when he appeared before the terrified, huddled mass of men who were lost in the fearsome grip of change: "Today is not yesterday…."

    And isn’t it amazing that God, through the fluid mystery of time, has created the future to come in this way—one day at a time? There is such hope in that.

    Life has also taught me that when God, who is Hope, penetrates a soul every moment is Resurrection, every breath a moving from darkness into light, the future a promise of new beginnings to be held in prayer.

    Remember the tea kettle – it is always up to its neck in hot water, yet it still sings!  ~Author Unknown

    Copyright © 2004 Mary Regina Morrell

  • Keeping time with the angels is no easy task

    II l always fear that creation will expire before teatime.  ~Sydney Smith

    While meandering through my local bookstore, a favorite haunt on especially stressful days, I unexpectedly found a copy of my first published book. The book is now out of print so I was delighted to find it on the shelf instead of in the bargain bin!

    The title, Angels in High Top Sneakers, seems to catch the imagination of many who believe in angels—messengers of God who often appear in the most unexpected ways and with the uncanny knack of arriving just in the knick of time. After hearing a number of stories recounting this wonderful trait, I considered the sequel to my first book might be titled, Angels in Eighteen Wheelers.

    The idea came when I was driving home from Albany on the New York State Thruway. I noticed a car abandoned on the side of the road. It was pretty well mangled—obviously the result of a terrible accident. It reminded me of a similar accident several years ago involving one of my sons who fell asleep at the wheel, ran off the highway and hit an abandoned car, flipping the station wagon he was driving several times before it landed horizontally across Route 287. In addition to everything else, the engine caught fire.

    Fortunately, a trucker driving in the opposite direction saw the accident and turned around just in time to put out the flames with a fire extinguisher he kept in the cab of his truck. How different things might have been if that amazing man hadn’t appeared just when he did!

    Similarly, my friend’s son was driving home alone from Pennsylvania very late one evening when he had two blowouts. Stuck on a windy mountain road, he quickly realized the precarious position of his car, and was certain he was stranded for the night. But just minutes later, bright lights pulled up behind him and a trucker jumped out of the cab of his eighteen-wheeler. I can’t imagine a more welcomed sight—surely, an angel in the eyes of this young man.

    One of the most powerful examples of angels ministering in the knick of time is found in the story of Abraham who desired to be obedient to God by sacrificing his son, Isaac. Scripture relays, "When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son." But then, not a moment too late, an angel of the Lord called to Abraham, saying, "Abraham! Abraham… Do not lay a hand on the boy…Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son."

    Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, friend and co-worker of Dr. Martin Luther King, once shared a story about a child’s reaction to that Scripture reading, saying that the child began to sob with pity for Isaac.

    "Why are you crying?" his rabbi asked. "You know that Isaac was not killed."

    The child questioned the rabbi saying, "Suppose the angel had come a second too late?" The rabbi comforted the young boy saying that an angel cannot come late.

    But years later Heschel, who may have been the child in the story, reflected that while an angel cannot be late, a flesh and blood human being can be.

    When I consider Rabbi Heschel’s commentary and look back at my life, I see there were many times when I was too late—with kindness, with charity, with listening, with forgiveness, with love. Sometimes I was late with the giving, and sometimes with the receiving. In either case, inevitably I, or someone for whom I cared, suffered needlessly—all because I couldn’t keep time with the angels.

    Lessons in lateness are inevitably painful, and always valuable, if we choose to learn from them, and the most valuable thing we can learn is to live in the "now;" to give all we can and receive all that is offered in this present moment.

    There may be no others.

    One more thing I learned from my son’s accident—when some part of our lives is in flames, it’s foolish to refuse help from the person, or angel, who brings the fire extinguisher.

    Copyright © 2004 Mary Regina Morrell

  • Embrace every moment as sacred time

    Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves – slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future.  ~Thich Nat Hahn

    It has always been my habit to stay up late at night, beyond the time when everyone else has gone to bed. It stemmed from having lots of little children in the house and very little quiet time, except when twelve little feet were tucked under the blankets.

    So it is not unusual to find me at the piano, practicing a choral piece at 3 am. What I still find amazing is that I can sit down at the piano at midnight and, in what seems like only an hour, will get up to make some tea and discover it is almost daybreak.

    Absorbed in something I love, there is often no sense of time.

    Yet, earlier in the day, when I was trying to meet a deadline at work, with a dozen other responsibilities hanging over me, time seemed to be mocking me, an ever present reminder that I may never accomplish all that needs to be done.

    Time is a funny thing. It seems to move faster as we get older. And as it pulls us along, often at a pace that seems out of control, we struggle to be masters of those precious moments, sensing that, in addition to life and faith, time is one of the greatest gifts we have.

    Time embraces life and nudges it to fullness; the flower from seed to petals; the butterfly from larvae to graceful wings; the child from embryo to adulthood. And within the womb of time rest the experiences, the formative encounters, which make us unique individuals.

    Perhaps, most profoundly, time provides the opportunity for forgiveness, for do-overs, for loving better; for surely, one of the deepest losses we face is the loss of time with a loved one. And when that loss is spurred by death, our lives are never the same.

    Still, in the face of our mortality and heavily engaged in the temporal affairs of our lives, we often find the moments of our days slipping away, unnoticed and unfulfilled because we are caught up in too many things. It seems our lives are no longer organic, integrated with the world created by our God. In a world ruled by human technology, goals and objectives, our rhythms are no longer aligned with the rhythm of the seasons. We have become foreigners in a land created for our well-being, yet we wonder how our days have gotten so out of control.

    How, then, can we reclaim time as a good?

    There is a lesson in all the religions of the world. Sacred time.

    Sacred time has the feel of those experiences of absorption, where the linear ticking of seconds disappears and our feelings of anxiety are balanced by a sense of peace.

    Being mindful of the sacredness of time encourages us to be mindful of God, and nurtures awareness. Engaging in the rituals of our faith, surrounded by sacred symbols drawn from our ordinary lives – bread, wine, water, oil, flame – reassures us that all of life is sacred. The rhythm of the liturgical year reminds us that life must have a meaningful rhythm, as well.

    We may turn also, to the wisdom of the saints, like Benedict, whose Rule included a construct of time that allowed for a necessary balance of prayer, work and leisure. For St. Benedict, the ordinary was so charged with the sacred that he wrote, "Regard all utensils as if they were the sacred vessels of the altar." Benedict wove within the lives of his monks, times of prayer throughout the day. When hearts and minds are so often turned toward God, an awareness of God at all times and in all places grows.

    Or St. Teresa of Avila, whose wisdom shown through a poem both simple and profound in its grasp of time: Let nothing upset you, let nothing startle you. All things pass; God never changes.

    St. Teresa was also the saint who was comfortable enough with God to complain after a carriage accident, "If this is how you treat your friends, it's no wonder you have so few!"

    I'd like to invite her to tea!

    Copyright©2009 by Mary Regina Morrell

  • I’ll put the water on …

    ThumbnailCAKEEXYH Hanging on my kitchen wall is a little plaque given to me by one of my dearest friends, John. He found it in a quaint Irish shop in Smithville, New Jersey, and bought one for me and one for his wife, Rose. 

    It reads, "Sharing a cup of tea with a friend is happiness tasted and time well spent." Many cups of tea have been shared when Rose and I get together, and I've never wished I was doing anything else with my time. I hope your time here will be as pleasant! 

    Blessings, Mary

  • Rituals are woven into the fabric of our lives

    Find yourself a cup of tea; the teapot is behind you. Now tell me about hundreds of things.  ~Saki

     

    When I was growing up, tea was the accepted accompaniment to every meal, conversation and crisis. There wasn't any situation that couldn't be soothed by tea, especially those times when we had no clue as to what to do next.

     

    I remember the time when my cousin Lynn and I, still in our rebellious and foolish teen stage, decided to have a go at the Ouija board. We invited a new friend to share in the experience, a friend we really didn't know much about. We lit our candles and began asking our questions. Lynn and I were fascinated by the game, but had no clue that our friend was on the verge of freaking out.

     

    Unexpectedly, she bolted from the living room screaming as she ran out the front door. We followed her into the street trying to calm her. She pulled a little pocket knife from out of the blue and soon we looked like a poorly cast version of West Side Story, the three of us dancing around each other trying to figure out what the heck to do.

     

    Suddenly, I had a brilliant insight.

     

    "I'll go make us some tea." I announced, running back to the house. After all, my mother made tea whenever there was a "situation," though I can't imagine she was ever in a situation like this one.

     

    A few moments later, as I was pouring freshly boiled water into three cups, very proud of myself for this most excellent idea, the front door burst open and my disheveled cousin was standing there looking at me in disbelief.

     

    "Tea? You're making tea? That's why you left me outside with a knife-wielding lunatic?"

     

    My momentary pride dissipated as quickly as the steam rising from white Corelleware. Sheepish would have best described my feelings, as the seriousness of the situation began to sink in. So I did what every self-respecting young Syrian/Irish woman would do. I added milk and sugar to my cup and sat down at the table.

    Traditions die hard, if at all.

     

    I really miss those tea moments with my mom. There was a ritual to tea-making and drinking that offered comfort and security. Filling the pot, lining up the cups which sat like silent sentinels as the steam began to whisper, then whistle, from the spout. Pouring boiling water over the tea bag and watching the clear liquid turn a warm shade of amber. Of course, the handling of soaked tea bags was different from person to person; to squeeze or not to squeeze, that was the question, unless, of course, you were from the "old country" like my aunt, who preferred fine tea leaves brewed loosely in a pot. But no matter how it was done, it was all good.

     

    Rituals and traditions have a way of integrating themselves into who we are. It is the same with the rituals of our faith. Once woven into the fabric of our lives they are hard to unravel. Just yesterday, one of my sons long gone from the Church called to tell my husband they had to reschedule their tee time because he was going to Mass with his girlfriend.

     

    You can be sure I put on the pot, got out my favorite cup and prepared for a lovely chat with God.

    Copyright © 2009 by Mary Regina Morrell