SoulCollage® Facilitator, Benedictine Oblate of Christ the King Priory,
Retreat Leader at St. Benedict Center, Blogger at Being Benedictine and SoulFully You,
Teacher, Mother, Wife, Friend, Lover of learning, reading, creativity and spirituality.
“To be human is to live by sunlight and moonlight, with anxiety and delight, admitting limits and transcending them, falling down and rising up. To want a life with only half of these things in it is to want half a life, shutting the other half away where it will not interfere with one’s bright fantasies of the way things ought to be.” -Barbara Brown Taylor, Learning to Walk in the Dark
Light and dark are the colors of life. No life is ever all of one or all of the other.
This is evident for many of us this 4th of July, the day we celebrate the independence of the United States of America. As daylight fades and darkness falls upon us, we gather in city parks and neighborhood driveways to witness crackling explosions, brilliant bursts of light, and glittering sparks as they cascade through the skies.
Fireworks can evoke a variety of feelings—from excitement, pride, and awe to anxiety, fear, and disbelief. I enjoy the displays but abhor the loud sounds. I think of shuddering dogs hiding under beds and the trauma that veterans may experience. I consider how much money is spent on fireworks that could be used in so many ways to help others. Still, with conflicted feelings, I watch and wonder.
To live in this country, to live in my body, is to face the realities of light and darkness. I have ideas of what democracy looks like, what the ideal is (see The Pledge of Allegiance of My Heart here). But I acknowledge that America is a work in progress, just as I am. Holding the tension between what is reality and what is our hope is a challenge. How do we stay present to the suffering in our souls and the world without losing the light inside?
This, my dear, is the greatest challenge to being alive: to witness the injustice of this world, and not allow it to consume our light.’ – Thich Nhat Hanh
The soulful ritual of asking for a word of the year never fails to bring new ways of seeing. What I learn from pondering one word could fill a library of books; synchronicity is my teacher. Last year I wrote, “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.”
This ancient spiritual practice invites attentive listening. Around the beginning of December, my word-of-the-year radar activates as I await a word that shimmers with possibility. I had considered peace or hope, as I long for both. While on retreat, images came together into a SoulCollage® card I titled Hope: Rest in the Light.
Perhaps LIGHT I wondered, but I was skeptical it could be the “guiding light” I wrote of, as cliché and overused it is. Light at the end of the tunnel. Light of my life. Out like a light. Come to the light. Go to the light. In light of. See the light. Shed a little light. Taken lightly. Shine your light. Light a fire under your… and so on.
I reflect on the card, listening for the wisdom it holds. It is our journey to carry the light. We are embodied with Christ-light. Rest in the light. Patiently wait. Holding the light is sharing the light. Words and phrases that resonate come together in the following poem.
Wisdom I received from the card: It is our journey to carry the light. We are embodied with Christ light. Rest in the light. Patiently wait. Holding the light is sharing the light.
Hope: Rest in the Light The Divine dwells within Safeguard the light Wait expectantly, keep watch Shimmer like silver and gold.
Safeguard the light Angel wings whisper hope Shimmer like silver and gold Light-bearer.
We long for the acceptance of home, a place of peace where we can be truly ourselves–seen and heard, loved and believed, held and yet free. Our longing is the existential homesickness that THIS isn’t all there is and that when we get a taste of unconditional acceptance and love, we want more. Our longings are good and holy—it is our Divine inheritance to experience all that it means to feel at home.
Inspired by the lyrics of Homesick, a song by friend Jana West, my annual Advent retreat was titled Homecoming: A SoulFully You Retreat. We explored how the Divine accompanies us, making a home within, and what it means to feel homesick or “at home” with ourselves and others. I offer some of our reflections so you, too, can take part:
“Love is home. Home is both an external dwelling and an internal abode. Home is the place where we belong, our place of acceptance and welcome. There, in this shame and judgment-free embryonic cocoon of love, we practice unconditional acceptance; we learn to relate to ourselves and the world around us.
And home is a soft place for the body to land, a safe place for the soul to fully disrobe. Home is the place where our failures don’t kill, our sins can’t crush, and even when we are at our worst, we’re safe. Home is a place where we are free to take our deepest, fullest, least encumbered breath.
What words or phrases resonate with you? Indeed, our personal experiences of home canbring a spectrum of feelings, from warm and fuzzy to sadness or terror, when we consider what being “at home” means. The ideal is what we seek and long for, both within ourselves and with others.
The end of summer typically means it’s back-to-school time, but this SoulFully You summer recap is just the beginning! This is what I do now–I am officially open for business! I have crossed the threshold from being a full-time teacher to a full-time creative–planning and leading retreats, writing more, pursuing creative ventures, and sharing the joy of living fully! I have dreamed of this since becoming a SoulCollage® facilitator in 2012. I was honored to be a part of the following SoulFully You activities this summer:
Echo Collective–The Power of Story
The ECHO Collective project (I wrote about it in April) celebrated its conclusion, with participants putting the final touches on their weaved tapestries. After creating a SoulCollage® card expressing an aspect of their personal story, a pattern was sketched to create their tapestry design. Then the weaving began! It was a sense of accomplishment for participants to go through this reflective and creative process.
Sisters of Mercy—Self and Spirit: The Power of Images
I spent a special Saturday morning in June with retired Sisters of Mercy in Omaha leading a SoulCollage retreat called Self and Spirit: The Power of Images. Several years ago, I met Cheryl Poulin, Pastoral Care Coordinator with the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas, when her cousin Macrina Wiederkehr (one of my favorite Benedictine authors and sheroes) introduced us at St. Benedict Center. Each month, Poulin plans creative activities for the sisters, who have had long careers in teaching and nursing. I was touched to witness their joy when they connected with special images and when their collages came together so beautifully.
Exploring Your Wild Woman: A Full Moon SoulFully You Retreat
In July, several whimsical, wonderful, and wise women attended Exploring Your Wild Woman: A Full Moon SoulFully You Retreat at St. Benedict Center Schuyler, NE. Inspiring songs, poetry, soul talk, plus SoulCollage and an awesome full moon was a good reminder that wild woman is one who listens deeply and who “carries the medicine for all things. She carries stories and dreams and words and songs and signs and symbols.”
Abbey of the Arts, Monk in the World Guest Post
Finally, I am delighted to share that my Monk in the World reflection was shared as an Abbey of the Arts guest post.
“Choosing a word to focus on each year has become a nourishing, soulful ritual. I love participating in an ancient practice of contemplation recommended by Christine Valters Painter: “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…A word was meant to be wrestled with and slowly grown into.
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.” Read more here.
For more information about SoulFully You retreats, see upcoming retreats held at St. Benedict Center. If you are interested in having a retreat or workshop created for your organization, church, or special interest group, contact me here. Possible retreat themes listed here.
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. Is there a threshold moment in your life that could use this way of seeing?
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!
SoulFully You 