2 posts tagged “church”

Writing about today's meditation made me remember a meditation from the first service Rae and I attended at Eliot Chapel this spring.  It was the poem "Connections Are Made Slowly" by Marge Piercy (also called "The Seven of Pentacles").  On a day when I was wide open to possibilities, wondering if somehow the religious might help me reconnect to the spiritual, it clearly was a sign of sorts.  It was the meditation - the sanctuary was quiet except for Reverend Daniel's voice, so quiet that all of the little noises of the congregants were amplified and yet not intrusive, somehow a part of the reading.  It had been ages since I could recall sitting quietly and just listening; and the words were pouring through me, not in one ear and out the other, not without force, not without leaving their mark; they were pouring through me and finding and filing spaces I had all but forgotten about.  It was exactly what I needed to hear at exactly that moment.  In the long silence that followed the meditation, my mind kept grabbing at words, and feelings evoked, at the strands of my inner being I had all but forgotten about.  It was the first step towards making (remaking) connections - and it felt good.

The meditation today at church was "The Peace of Autumn" by Rabindranath Tagore, a Bengali poet.  It really resonated with me, capturing what was a beautiful autumn day - sunny, crisp this morning, warmer throughout the day such that in the sun I didn't need a jacket; I could hear people working in their yards, kids playing, smell dried leaves burning in the afternoon and smell wood fires at night; with night air cool and heavy, holding in the sound of the distant train whistle such that it sounds like it's just down the road.