ECHO Collective connects and empowers refugee and immigrant women providing opportunities for personal growth and cross-cultural relationships. With a grant from the Lincoln Arts Council, ECHO is offering a weaving class to women and children using SoulCollage® as a springboard for a tapestry design. In the first session, we explored the power of their unique stories, reflected with images to create a SoulCollage card, and discussed how weaving their stories together can bring healing. Mothers, teens, and young children participated, including my youngest ever–a two-year-old sweet girl particularly attracted to images of white bunnies. For several weeks, participants will learn weaving techniques to create their own and a community tapestry.
“The promise of peace comes through story. When we are willing to bear witness to one another, to take other’s and joy seriously, to listen deeply, with full attention, to tell other’s stories over–we reweave the bonds of civil society.“- Rabbi Dr. Ariel Burger
St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church hosted a women’s retreat titled “SoulFully You: Many Ways to Pray” that focused on finding God in music, movement, nature, words, and creativity. Richard Rohr writes, “We are already in the presence of God. What is absent is our awareness.” Twenty participants practiced Lectio Divina with the poem I Happened to Be Standing by Mary Oliver and learned how to create mandalas. Group discussions, journaling, and prayerful activities highlighted the wisdom of Simone Weil, that “pure attention is prayer.”
If you begin to live life looking for the God that is all around you every moment becomes a prayer.” -Frank Bianco
For more information about SoulFully You retreats, see upcoming retreats held at St. Benedict Center and possible retreat themes here. If you are interested in having a retreat or workshop created for your organization, church, or special interest group, contact me here.
I am one who is playful, spirited, and connected in good company with wise women. The “pink motel” is a place of pixie dust and playfulness, joy, humor, carefree delights, childhood innocence, and magical moments.
One of the sweet surprises of SoulCollage® is when images come together to capture the essence of a memory, message, feeling, or archetype so effortlessly. This card reminds me of a recent playful, weekend gathering of friends. The women standing on the hayrack spoke to me of comradery, comfort, and community. It was later that I noticed the small child beside his mother. From a child’s vantage point, the energy in a room can easily shift from adult-ing to playfulness. Tinkerbell, the spirited fairy, spreads pixie dust and playfulness over adults and children alike—one can be both grown-up, wise, sober, AND playful, friendly, and funny. We can live more fully by embracing the playful child within.
My intention for 2024 is to live FULLY— “To be SoulFully You is to live prayerfully, joyfully, playfully, gratefully, mindfully, soulfully.” (2024 Word of the Year)
The spirit of Tinkerbell was alive and well on our farm weekend. Soom playful memories:
Choosing a word to focus on each year has become a nourishing, soulful ritual. I savor the word, that more so chooses me, throughout the year—it brings great joy when in perfect synchronicity, it appears over and again in what I read, hear, and see. I trust that the word, as it settles in my heart, will be a guiding light for months to come—challenging, inspiring, and transforming me.
My 2024 word of the year, FULLY, is a throwback to ten years ago when I birthed and named my first website and creative venture, SoulFully You. I participated in training to become a certified SoulCollage® facilitator, to lead retreats on creativity and spirituality. As a Marketing teacher, creating a brand name felt like the best first step. With my daughter Jessica and her friend Claire (both students of my high school classes) we brainstormed a variety of words, phrases, and combinations, and then it clicked, that “aha moment” of knowing I have come to trust—SoulFully You. I loved what it meant, and still do. The image at the top of this page, a SoulCollage® card to represent SoulFully You, came later.
Being SoulFully You is living with purpose, on purpose; being attentive to the present moment; practicing gratitude; making good choices and having no regrets; living with death daily before your eyes, as St. Benedict writes; and leaving something beautiful from a life well-lived. It is living life to the fullest, using the gifts and talents you have while being open and responsive to opportunities and surprises that come your way.
A tree gives glory to God by being a tree.
Thomas Merton
Being SoulFully You is discovering and becoming all that God has created you to be. Thomas Merton writes, “For me to be a saint means to be myself.” The call to be holy is the call to be more fully myself, just as a tree gives glory to God by being a tree.
Michael Casey, a monk of Tarrawarra Abbey, writes in The Road to Eternal Life that following the teachings of Christ “asks no more and no less of us than that we become what God intends us to be, that we cease acting a role and allow ourselves to become fully ourselves …the purpose of St. Benedict’s Rule (is) to show us how to move closer to its realization in the course of a lifetime: not only to be good, but to become ourselves.”
All spiritual traditions point us in the direction of becoming more Soulfully You. In Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation, Parker Palmer writes, “Biblical faith calls it the image of God in which we are all created. Thomas Merton calls it true self. Quakers call it the inner light, or “that of God” in every person. The humanist tradition calls it identity and integrity. No matter what you call it, it is a pearl of great price.”
To be SoulFully You, one must learn, in the lyrics of Red Molly, how to “hold it all”—to embrace the peaks and valleys of life. Yes, I want to hold it all, to be fully in this life. But then, to let it go—to not cling too tightly. To hold and let go is to embrace the paradox of what it means to live soulfully, to live the dance of life with grace, to honor both the beauty and the heartbreak, the beginnings and endings, knowing that to be SoulFully You is to always begin again.
If we are to live our lives fully and well, we must learn to embrace the opposites, to live in a creative tension between our limits and our potentials…we must trust and use our gifts in ways that fulfill the potentials God gave us.
Parker Palmer, Let Your Life Speak
“There’s a ‘time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance’ (Eccles. 3:4). But what I want to tell you is that these times are connected. Mourning and dancing are part of the same movement of grace. Somehow, in the midst of your tears, a gift of life is given. Somehow, in the midst of your mourning, the first steps of the dance take place. The cries that well up from your losses belong to the song of praise. Those who cannot grieve cannot be joyful. Those who have not been sad cannot be glad. Quite often, right in the midst of your crying, your smile comes through your tears. And while you are in mourning, you already are working on the choreography of your dance.” -Henri Nouwen
To be SoulFully You is to live prayerfully, joyfully, playfully, gratefully, mindfully, and soulfully. I want to hold it all fully—the bittersweet moments and the sweet surprises. This year I stand at a threshold, a turning from one chapter of life to another, from working as a high school teacher to having more time to work on SoulFully You projects—planning and leading retreats, writing more, pursuing creative ventures, and sharing the joy of living fully.
The fullness of joy is to behold God in everything. –Julian of Norwich
So it seems there’s no escape | We are part beauty and part heartbreak|But I want to hold it all |To hold it all | Help me hold it all | God I don’t know what you want from this life | But I’m tryin’
I am one who sees the fullness of darkness and light. I see golden. I see through the eyes of a child, as well as the wise and wondering woman. I see myself reflected in beauty and patterns, knowing there is a big and a small picture.
I am one who is looking forward while also considering the past. Both/and. The wise woman and the apprehensive child. I am one who sees there is more than meets the eye, and that things aren’t always as they seem.
I am one who reflects what is. When I change my stance, what I see in myself may be different. The sculpture embodies stability. It stands firm, but the images that result can be changed. It captures the essence of being Benedictine—there is stability and movement.
I am one who is responsive, seeing beyond what is.
Consider using images and collage to learn more about who you are. What does A Golden Threshold mean to you? Meditate on the image and see what intuitively comes to you about darkness and light, about embracing both as a golden moment.
I have been enchanted by the poem The Grandeur of God, by Gerard Manley Hopkins, for years. I practiced Lectio Divina, a sacred reading practice, with this poem and wrote about it in God’s Grandeur: Praying with Poetry.
I cannot confess to understanding every word of this Victorian-era sonnet, published nearly 30 years after Hopkins’ death in 1889, but I feel the same passion for the beauty and sacredness of creation “that gathers to a greatnesslike the ooze of oil / Crushed” with which he writes. Hopkins writes with celebratory confidence,
“And for all this, nature is never spent; There lives the dearest freshness deep down things”
But we know as global temperatures rise, more droughts, storms, rising sea levels, melting glaciers and warming oceans are impacting both human and animal life. Nature has been used and abused in so many ways. Is it true that “nature is never spent?” Can this earth withstand the heavy burden of “man’s smudge…and smell?” Indeed, we seek comfort in the notion that the sun will always rise as “the brown brink eastward, springs” and always sets as “last lights off the black West went.”
We hope for the future of our planet, but we must be caretakers, not just takers. We must be co-creators with the Divine to ensure the “grandeur of God,” our planet, is full of wonder and awe for future generations.
“Glance at the sun. See the moon and the stars. Gaze at the beauty of earth’s greenings. Now, think. What delight God gives to humankind with all these things. All nature is at the disposal of humankind. We are to work with it. For without we cannot survive.”
-Hildegard of Bingen
I appreciate how the perfect images came together in a special SoulCollage® card after reflecting on The Grandeur of God on a recent retreat. Journaling with the prompt “I am one who…” and the following questions (What do you have to give me? What do you want from me?) brought deeper insight into my card:
I am one who wants to be protected, to trust that there is protection. I am one who is a beautiful part of creation, a member of the divine community, who wants creation and all that is vulnerable to be protected for the future.
God is Protector. I am one who is made in the image of God and I must cooperate in protecting what and who is vulnerable. I am one who is beautiful, divine, innocent, and vulnerable—worthy of being cared for. My feathers are of the Great Protector’s feathers. I am one and many. I am part of the whole.
Name of card: The Grandeur of God
Core essence: Care for Creation and the Vulnerable
I am comforted by a Divine Protector, “Because the Holy Ghost over the bent / World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.” The metaphor of Christ as the mother hen who uses its body to protect her chicks reminds me that I am in a relationship with my Creator. I am a critical part of the relationship between the Creator, the earth, people, animals, plants, and all living things that make this planet “the grandeur of God.”
“How often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings.” Matthew 23:37
Consider praying with the poem The Grandeur of God by Gerard Manley Hopkins and/or creating a collage expressing your insights. Please share in the comments!
After canceling everything on my calendar this weekend (between a teacher work week and our first week with students….yes, eye twitching and back-to-school dreams are real), I revisited a poem and a SoulCollage® card I created on The Grandeur of God: Living Life with Wonder and Awe retreat. I gave myself permission to hunker down, pull back from social activities, and center myself in silence and solitude for my 27th year of teaching.
I love this poem from a book called Out of Wonder: Poems Celebrating Poets.
“Majestic” (Celebrating Maya Angelou)
Rise
into the wonder
of daybreak.
Be a rainbow in the cloud.
Be a free bird on the back of the night wind.
Shine on, honey!
Walk with joy in your golden feet
over crystal seas
and purpled mountains.
Know your beauty
is a thunder
your precious heart unsalable.
Be brave,
Like a new seed bursting
with extraordinary promise.
Shine on, honey!
Know you
are phenomenal.
--Kwame Alexander
I am one who is surrounded by beauty and love.
I am one who finds beauty in nature and all that glitters.
I am on a journey of peace, serenity, and wholeness.
On this journey, I can offer what is special about me to others; but when needed, I can hold my gifts close and tight.
I am one who must never forget to take time to pause; I can take moments for peace, serenity, and beauty that ultimately, is the guide to the Christ-center, the sole/soul purpose of my life.
It is only after taking time to pause, that I am able to celebrate “the wonder of daybreak.”
Barbie is a big deal. The smash-hit movie “Barbie” has reached the coveted billion-dollar mark at the global box office and its director, Greta Gerwig, had the highest-grossing opening weekend ever for a film directed by a woman. Millions of women—from 20-something to 70-something—have donned pink attire with their besties or their daughters—and headed to the theatres for pre-movie selfies and a trip down memory lane.
Barbie is a big deal. And, yes, even some guys have gone to the movie and enjoyed it! Every major newspaper, magazine, and news organization has weighed in on a variety of Barbie themes from feminism, patriarchy, and consumerism to mother-daughter relationships, authenticity, and existentialism. Since I saw Barbie with one of my besties, Katie, a few weeks ago, I have read dozens of commentaries on the film. One’s reaction to the movie, or, for that matter, any cultural, social, or political phenomenon, cannot be separated from our own interests, values, biases, and experiences.
My experience includes fond memories of playing with my Barbie dolls–selecting special clothes my parents told me Mrs. Clause had personally tailored, organizing my wardrobe suitcase, and setting up camp with a Barbie drive-camper. My daughter celebrated a Barbie-themed birthday, loved her Pepto-Bismol pink bedroom with Barbie comforter and curtains, and had all the Barbie things, even a lunchbox. Barbie captured the imaginations of little girls, and when they became mothers, their little girls enjoyed them as well.
“We mothers stand still so our daughters can look back to see how far they have come,” the spirit of Handler, the inventor of Barbie, said to Barbie, played by Margot Robbie, in the film.
I absolutely loved the movie--from the set and costume design (I mean, a life-sized Barbie house!), the special effects, the song selections and dancing, the clever comedy/satire, the Birkenstocks and the many feminist themes that elevated the movie to one for serious discussion. Katie, and I shared laughs and tears, many de-briefing conversations, and a commitment to see the movie again. My one wish–that I can also see it with my daughter someday.
But, this is what I have been considering: What are the spiritual lessons we can learn from Barbie?Is Barbie being Benedictine? Yes! I see a few themes in the Barbie movie that provide a glimpse of what it means to be Benedictine.
Barbie considers her death.
Early in the movie, Barbie asks her friends, “Do you guys ever think about dying?” This existential question is the impetus for Barbie’s (s)hero’s journey, one of curiosity, self-discovery, and transformation, depicted in religious literature, myths, and poetry since the beginning of storytelling. When Barbie’s perfect plastic curves are met with the disappointment of flat feet, cellulite, and clumsy accidents, she attempts to restore the status quo. She experiences a “dark night of the soul,” desperate only for life to go back to the way it was (as she lies face down, in humility, pining for untroubled times.)
When faced with our own mortality, we come face-to-face with the certain uncertainty of our lives. When Barbie adventures into the Real World, where events are not contrived, she is faced with the purpose and meaning of her life, eyes opened to embracing both joy and suffering, aging and death.
St. Benedict advises in his Rule, to “Keep death daily before your eyes.” These thoughts of death make Barbie more human, real, and authentic—once she realizes her own mortality, she cannot unsee it. Her old life has gone, and a new way must be birthed. Barbie is becoming.
Barbie listens.
In one of the most poignant scenes in the film, Barbie is overwhelmed by the stimuli of the Real World. She pauses to sit down on a bench to consider her next steps. This act of pausing to contemplate is the epitome of being Benedictine.
I love the practice of asking for a word, allowing a word or phrase to bubble up to ponder for the new year. Words that have chosen me in the last few years include Mercy (2017), Cushion (2018), You Are Free (I needed more words that year) (2019), Carry On (2020), Truth (2021), and Consent (2022).
This tradition (for desert mothers and fathers) of asking for a word was a way of seeking something on which to ponder for many days, weeks, months, sometimes a whole lifetime. The “word” was often a short phrase to nourish and challenge the receiver. A word was meant to be wrestled with and slowly grown into.
Christine Valters Painter
WONDER opens our eyes to synchronicity.
The images in a recent SoulCollage card brought forth the word WONDER, and it settled comfortably in my soul. The title of my card, Sit A Spell, is an encouragement to be open and receptive to the wonders of the universe revealing themselves right where we are—comfortable on our perch, walking through the seasons of life, or, even, in our thoughts and imagination.
It is only with eyes open to wonder, holy surprises, and synchronicity that we experience the humbling and awesome fall to our knees. There we are uplifted by invisible forces and surrounded by angels seen and unseen. (Synchronicity and Holy Surprise)
A card I created using images gathered on retreat and from a greeting card that screamed synchronicity!
WONDER makes us fall to our knees.
After the word WONDER rested in my awareness, it was providential how many words of wisdom, poems, and quotes I came across in my reading. The wisdom begins in wonder decoration (pictured above) hangs around an olive oil bottle in my kitchen. I pass by it many times every day, but I realize I wasn’t really SEEING it. Waking up to meaningful coincidences, C.J. Jung said, “could shift our thinking so we recognize a greater wholeness in all of creation…It could precipitate a spiritual awakening.”
“Concepts create idols; only wonder comprehends anything. People kill one another over idols. Wonder makes us fall to our knees.”
“Lord our God, hear my prayer, the prayer of my heart. Bless the largeness inside me, no matter how I fear it. Bless my reed pens and my inks. Bless the words I write. May they be beautiful in your sight. May they be visible to eyes not yet born. When I am dust, sing these words over my bones: she was a voice.”
Ana, The Book of Longings
In The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd, Ana writes this prayer of longing on the incantation bowl her aunt Yaltha has gifted her. “Do you know what an incantation bowl is?” Yaltha asked. “In Alexandria we women pray with them. We write our most secret prayer inside them…Every day we sign the prayer. As we do, we turn the bowl in slow circles and the words wriggle to life and spin off toward heaven.”
It’s not just a cliche. Images are powerful. They conjure up feelings, memories, ideas. They tell stories. They stand for something.
A brandmark or logo expresses the identity of a business that is easily recognized without using words. Businesses spend a ton of money developing their brand identity, not that we need the business world’s affirmation of the power of images. We already know it. We know it in our soul.
SoulFully You 