I’ve had a lovely July, full of renewal and rejuvenation, and I’m grateful for our four guest preachers for the month, Ann Clough, Rev. Elizabeth Harding, Rev. Charley Earp, and Rev. Gianni Fogliano, for providing meaningful worship while I was taking Sundays off. I enjoyed a week up north on Rainy Lake, swimming, canoeing, and even a little fishing (didn’t catch anything this time). My daughter, Ellis, has been home for the last few weeks and we’ve been enjoying the many things to do around Chicagoland and visiting with friends and family. Yesterday we did what used to be an annual outing to the Field Museum and then a walk up the lakefront to Navy Pier for a ride on the Ferris wheel and fireworks.
Earlier this week, I was on a short retreat with the Chicago Commons Project, the last of four two-day retreats over this year, funded by the Lilly Endowment and facilitated by the University of Chicago Divinity School. Through this experience, I was able to meet and learn from other Chicagoland clergy from a variety of traditions, all in the early to mid-points of their careers. Over the year we have talked with Chicagoland leaders, artists, and thinkers including a scientist at the Planetarium, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, and Chicago historian Dr. Ann Keating. On Monday, we participated in a 3-hour workshop with facilitators of the Civic Actors Studio, using theatre to explore our many roles and ways of showing up generatively in our settings.
One of the things I valued most about this deeply enriching experience was the spiritual grounding and deepening offered by clergy alumni, including Rev. Erik Christensen, Rev. David Watkins, and Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann. Rabbi Lizzi led us several times through the morning spiritual practice of Minyan – prayerful singing and reflection on the Torah and Jewish wisdom – which really moved and filled my spirit.
I long to deepen my spiritual practice, to commit to making more time to sit, reflect, read, write, pray, sing, dance and move in a spiritually grounded and renewing way. But even though I know this is something I want and need more of in my life, I struggle to develop the commitment to, more than the habit of, doing these things. A habit can be performative and rote, antithetical to the essence of spiritual practice. A genuine posture of attentiveness to the moment, one in which I am not simply thinking, “how can I use this in a sermon?” is the kind of spiritual practice I want and yet struggle to cultivate.
But this month did afford me some time to practice turning off that “doing” part of my brain, and to experience just being. A lot of that happened amidst the beauty of the earth – on Rainy Lake, kayaking on the Skokie Lagoons, walking my dogs to the summer sound of cicadas, and playing silly games with my family.
When I can practice turning off that productivity mode of my brain (for an hour, a day, or a week) that part that keeps the running, never-ending list of things I need to do, I am able to be renewed and refreshed in the moment through connections with other people, through the beauty around me, through the sense of what is most important. It helps me maintain a sense of what is possible and imagine the world as it should be and as I long to co-create it.
In what ways are you able to create moments of simply being rather than doing? What fills your spirit with a sense of calm and strength, even if fleeting? Is it the ritual of making and drinking your morning coffee? Can it happen while riding the bus or train or walking the dog? Maybe it’s those brief moments before your feet touch the floor, to simply be grateful for your breath, for this new day, to wonder how you might serve it with more love, courage and wisdom.
The world is changing so rapidly. We don’t know what waits around every corner. It is an essential spiritual practice to return to the moment, to be present, even sitting beside the anxieties we hold about all that could go wrong. If we can breathe through those, stay open to what this moment asks of us, what the person closest to us needs from us, and what the still, small voice inside us in longing to say, we can better serve the world as it is now and as it is still becoming.
I am so excited to return to Sunday services in August, to have our staff and board retreats, to take part in the All-Congregation Potluck and Program on August 23rd (look for more details in the rest of the newsletter) when we will begin to vision and dream, asking one another what we most cherish and hope for in this Beloved Community.
Thank you for sharing the journey and encouraging me in my spiritual deepening. I remain ever grateful to be called to serve and companion you along the way.
With love and appreciation,
Rev. Eileen
Practicing Beloved Community at UCE 