Lazy W Marie

Carpeing all the diems in semi-rural Oklahoma...xoxo

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our dewali experience

Last weekend my husband and I had the unique opportunity to attend a Dewali festival in Oklahoma City. It’s an Indian Hindu tradition, and it was beautiful. Our dear friends Mickey and Kellie joined us. Here are some memories, incomplete though this writing will be. It’s just impossible to capture everything from such an extraordinary evening. xoxo

We entered the building at the back, walking through double doors and into a foyer, just like in any North American Christian church. (In fact I think this building used to be a Christian church.) To our left, three Indian men were seated at a long table, all dressed in colorful floor length garments. They smiled and bowed lightly to their folded hands, welcoming us.

The hallway in front of us was adorned on the floor with colored powder, mandala-like designs, abstract lotus flowers maybe, but other symmetrical images too. Tables, windows, children and adults were all covered lavishly with silks and linens and embroidered cottons in every color, mostly jewel tones. Lots of gold. Lots of pink with red and pink with purple, every shade of green and blue, more gold, and a few striking black ensembles edged in silver. Breathtaking, inspiring color everywhere I looked.

We wandered briefly before our friend Kiran appeared. Petite and smiling, she glided down that lotus-strewn hallway and greeted my husband and our friend Mickey. Kellie and I watched as she hugged and welcomed them and they smiled warmly at her, so much curiosity about the evening piquing. I could see the feeling of belonging wash over both men. Kiran directed all of us to remove our shoes. Piles of high heels, sneakers, boots, and flip flops were stacked and arranged along the far end of the long hallway. A few teenagers giggled and walked quickly through our group. I could feel that happy holiday energy.

Our husbands were ushered to the main auditorium to sit up front with the men. Inside, a visiting guru dressed in solid orange robes was already speaking, the language unfamiliar but soothing. Lilting and energetic.

Kellie and I followed Kiran. My eyes feasted on the parade of color, and every person who made eye contact with us smiled warmly. I felt happy, welcomed and loved.

This whole time God was whispering to me again about gentleness and Love in action, not just ideas. Real True Church, in this unexpected setting.

I cannot relay the full experience of the evening’s message, because even with some abbreviated translation we only caught snippets. But what we did glean was powerful, and I was thrilled to discover so much common ground with my own faith:

  • Religion is not full spirituality; it is only a part of life. But it is important. Religion is the salt that gives life flavor.
  • In true community, it doesn’t matter who you are or what you have; it only matters what you bring to the table, what you can do to help others, and how you contribute.
  • Light dispels darkness. New life erupts from death. Good wins over evil, in the end. Love is it.
  • Life on earth is filled with many tangled, curving, meandering paths offered by demons and evil, paths that lead to destruction, but only God (yes, singular) shows the path to salvation.

Since Kellie and I spent most of the first session on the back row, we had a glorious view of the whole room. We could see the small group of men up front, the gurus in orange, and the male children who spoke on stage (irresistibly cute). We saw dozens of women of all ages glide in and out, and we oohed and ahhed together over our favorite saris and scarves. We made secret plans for what we would love to wear, given the opportunity.

Kellie and I also smiled about the many ways this “church” experience was similar to our own American-Christian “church” experiences, things that, the more I think about it, are maybe just human experiences:

  • People chatter politely even when there is a revered speaker on hand.
  • Friends and family are happy to see each other, especially on a special holiday occasion like this, and you do not need to understand the language to understand the emotion.
  • And they love to dress up in extra special outfits for special occasions. It was different, of course, but it sure brought back happy memories from all through my life (and my daughters lives) of wearing a dress to church that was purchased just for that holiday.
  • Little children wander and play freely between the aisles. They just do. Here, though, we noticed that everybody helped. Instead of insisting that one parent do all of the corralling or correcting, all the adults in the room seemed to care for all the little children, and it was so gentle and loving. It was such a communal feeling that we couldn’t really tell who belonged to whom.

After a while the entire group exited this main (unadorned) auditorium and reconvened upstairs. We crowded happily into a room where everyone sat on the floor, men up front again and the women behind a dividing rope. I felt the excitement building and could also smell food fragrances wafting up the adjacent stairwell. (A delicious community feast would follow.) We all faced one wall that bore this expansive and ornate collection of icons. Wall to wall and floor to ceiling, three dimensional artwork, stunning stuff. They were all images with which I was somewhat familiar from literature or folklore. It was a carved and painted display of gods and goddesses, and it was breathtaking. In front of the artwork were tables strewn with food offerings as colorful and abundant as everything and everybody else. Also, dozens of strings of electric lights. A feast for the senses.

I want to mention here that every time Kiran or her husband anyone else from the community (Kellie and I received hints from friendly neighbors here and there) addressed their gods and goddesses, it was with a gentle tone of… not ambivalence… but rather, caution. I understand that vital intricacies can get lost in translation and language barriers, and these are sacred topics. So that could be part of it. But also, the more we learn about this faith the more we see that their beliefs are much more like our own than we had previously grasped. The Hindu God is actually singular and is manifested or personified in many different ways. There are myriad stories and practices which honor so many incarnations. This feels familiar, right? Okay, this is a fascinating topic for conversation. I have lots more to learn before I feel qualified to write about it. But please know that this community, these treasured friends, took us deep into curiosity about our common ground. And we appreciate that so much.

Seated on the floor surrounded by so many women in those luscious colorful garments, Kellie and I did our best to follow along. We prayed silently while they all sang, and we thoroughly enjoyed their happy songs. Children toddled around us, the gurus in orange swayed and bowed, everyone was happy. We absorbed it all and wondered together how our husbands were feeling. At some point we saw that they were being dotted on their foreheads with red ink and received woven bracelets.

I meditated with eyes wide open while the group sang in unison. I tried to guess what they were singing about. As if she could read my mind, an older woman behind me tapped the back of my left arm and leaned in, answering, “It’s a song to worship God.” She said this with firmness. I loved the clean, dark-denim sound of her voice.

During a part of the ceremony when the fluorescent lights were low and everyone was holding a small ghee candle, I couldn’t resist glancing around and behind us. So many beautiful dark brown faces, waterfalls of shining black hair, and ebony eyes illuminated by that firelight. It really took my breath away. The women were gorgeous beyond my powers of description. Glittering, glowing, calm and energetic.

We all rotated our candles in front of our seated selves, clockwise I think, and when I fell out of sync with the group, that same solid woman behind me offered gentle redirection. Later, my husband and I shared the observation that the prayers here closed just at the exact moment that our little ghee wicks extinguished themselves. Beautiful.

This evening offered us so much. We stayed long enough to meet more people, friends old and new, and Kiran loaded me up with a platter of delicious (I mean SO DELICIOUS) Indian foods and handmade candies. We were gifted books to study and were invited to Delhi, haha! Kiran and her friends answered every question we asked.

Eventually the four of us found our shoes and walked to the parking lot, the air cold now and smelling of snow. We drove to our respective homes, chattering about the event, and I ate all the candies on our way back to the farm. (So good.)

In the coming hours and days we had lots to distill. The experience offered far more than I can write about here, and we have all been hungry for the spiritual feast. I hope this writing at least marks the memory so later we can come back to it and summon the feelings, the new thoughts, the echoes and truths rediscovered.

In addition to so much else, Dewali tradition also celebrates the power of knowledge to win over ignorance, which is especially meaningful to me. We had first walked through those double doors curious but plenty ignorant. We left better informed, despite the language barrier, and I think that Love did most of the work. This community just welcomed and loved us, and softened us with genuine hospitality. Along the way God spoke to our hearts. He translated for us. We still have oceans of knowledge to gain, but this feels really good for now, and I am so thankful.

Happy winter, friends. Happy Thanksgiving week. Happy Advent (soon) and Dewali (belated) and happy everything. May light dispel darkness in your world. May Love overpower sin and worry and evil. May knowledge fill all the ignorance gaps. 

XOXOXOXO

 

 

 

 

 

Book Review: Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas

   I have recently devoured the most fascinating book, you guys. It is the most soul nourishing, intellectually stimulating, and flat out humbling life story that I have ever read, and now I have an aching physical need to discuss it as soon and as thoroughly as possible. Won’t you please join me??

 Eric Metaxas has written the ambitious and truly illuminating Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy. 

   The very real trouble, though, is that for a couple of weeks now I’ve been trying to pin down my thoughts on this eye-opening piece of biographical art, but with limited success. It’s honestly been like trying to nail jello to a wall, my own amateurish thoughts are so scattered and varied. I’ll try to dive in and and offer you something here, but please just read this book for yourself. It’s so good, for so many reasons.

   Okay, here we go. Everybody take a deep breath.

   You are surely familiar with early twentieth century greats like Albert Einstein, C.S. Lewis, Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Mahatma Gandhi, and Pablo Picasso. Each in his own way, these brilliant minds were busy nourishing and challenging the world during one of its darkest chapters. But what do you know about Dietrich Bonhoeffer? He was a contemporary of those men, too, and a peer in many ways, a German citizen whose contributions to history during these incredible decades have gone largely unnoticed.

   Until now.

   Dietrich Bonhoeffer was everything the book title promises… a brilliant and devoted pastor and a cultural prophet, a spy against his own government, and ultimately a martyr for his cause.

“As the couple took in the hard news that the good man who was their son was now dead, so too, many English took in the hard news that the dead man who was a German was good. Thus did the world again begin to reconcile itself to itself.”

   This month, thanks to a bold reading assignment by the lovely Ms. Misti C., our famous little Oklahoma book club is on the verge of discussing this thick, hefty biography. I am so excited. This book produced so much sparkling thought and has generated so much worthwhile conversation here at the farm, that I actually believe it could be used as a solid textbook for either a history class or a theology class or both. At least, I’d very much like to see my daughters and nieces and nephews all read this. That’s how much historical perspective and spiritual grit is offered in these 542 pages.

   The blockish paperback copy I purchased covers German and world history, religion, philosophy, culture, family dynamics, romance, politics, and more. It also has at the very back several pages of discussion points and questions for further study. Handsome and I have already spent many hours exchanging ideas on the questions raised, and I can imagine that the book club dinner at the end of this week will be one for the record books!

   Misti suggested posting multiple times on the book, and I just might use the discussion questions to do that.

********************

   This book has really affected me. I have to say that not only is Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s life story itself fascinating and motivating… moving me to deepen my religious questioning and purify my relationship with God… but the prose is just wonderful. It makes me want to be a better writer. Metaxas manages to inform the reader with thousands of historical facts and foreign names while constantly building heavy drama and spinning the intricate secret tales of World War II. It is a cleanly told story, not over-romanticized in my opinion, but still reverent and humane. The best possible way a story like this can be told.

   Metaxas starts with Bonhoeffer’s childhood, providing context of his upbringing and his value system. By learning about his parents’ contrasting but complementing personalities and views on the world, the reader can easily follow through this man’s personal evolution. It all makes so much sense when you see his adult life as the culmination of his childhood.

   And by learning more about what life and politics were like in defeated Germany at the end of the first World War, the reader gains a fresh perspective on how an evil man like Adolf Hitler was able to rise to such staggering power. Seeing that timeline from an inside, ground-level view puts everything in a different light. The complexities of being German but not Nazi, or of being patriotic but not socialist, all of it is wildly eye opening. Then add the dimension of fundamental changes in the German church during those years, and the stage is set for revolution and revival. Thrilling stuff, you guys. But it all happens with organically valuable, careful methods.

********************

   To me one of the most mesmerizing things about this life story is how Bonhoeffer’s strong personal views emerged slowly but vividly over time. How his relationship with God grew against all odds. Employing music, meditation on the scriptures, prayer, and exhaustive reading and writing, he built structure and ritual into his private spiritual walk and saw these efforts flower and fruit into all kinds of beautiful things. He evangelized with his passion as well as his intelligence.

“A truly evangelical sermon must be like offering a child a fine red apple
or offering a thirsty man a cool glass of water then saying ‘Do you want it?'”
~Dietrich Bonhoeffer

   The human subject of this biography was himself an accomplished author, penning such modern theological classics as The Cost of Discipleship and Ethics. I’d heard of them but never seriously considered reading them. It now occurs to me that by reading Bonhoeffer’s biography before reading his published sermons and books, we can gain plenty. We benefit from watching the student evolve into the teacher through earnest seeking and studying, through personal trials of faith and lots of rich life experiences. In short, reading Bonhoeffer’s methods of reasoning and his personal journey make me want to read his conclusions.

   Bonhoeffer asked hard questions of himself and the religious community a large:

  • What is the church? 
  • What are the differences between religion and spirituality? 
  • What is the church’s role in the war, and in politics, and in ministry to the oppressed? 
  • Is it possible to “sin” while in strict obedience to God? 
  • How does morality intersect with legality, and what is grace?
  • Is just not doing wrong enough, or aren’t we called to go out and do good?
  • What is the proper relationship between church and state? 

   These are themes that have been bothering me for a while, since leaving the Catholic church almost twenty years ago and recently having serious troubles with the Protestant church I’ve been calling home. My book club friend Misti cannot know how incredibly well timed her assignment was.

   Now I am fueled to take responsibility for my own journey of faith and stop blaming the “church,” whatever I thought that was. I am excited to see how much can be accomplished in a short length of years, seeing that Bonhoeffer was killed at 39, the age I will reach in a few weeks. I am amazed but not surprised by how much joy can be had in the midst of grief. This happens in my life almost constantly, but I love to see it happen to other people.

********************

   I suppose the religious angles of this book struck me most deeply, but that’s just the state of my own being right now. This book offers the reader just as much in every other sphere that it covers, so if you are a World War II history buff or a native German or perhaps a student of sociology or politics, you’ll find plenty to keep you interested. And I guarantee you will walk away better informed than you were before, probably with a deeper appreciation for what the German people endured during Hitler’s Nazi reign.

   You will learn about the unseen and complicated, gradient resistance against Hitler. You will glimpse the suffering of the many groups he brutalized. You will sense the physical and cultural beauty of that part of the globe then feel the change in its emotional climate as the second World War heats up.

   Metaxas serves so much in this book I have trouble simply telling you about it. It’s the story of an exceptional man living in an incredible time, and it is told with great poetry.

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   I could talk and talk and talk and write and write and write about this book for hours, but I have many things to do and I know you do as well. Maybe we’ll revisit this material again, and I hope you find time to read this book if you haven’t already. Before closing please let me share a parting thought… One of Bonhoeffer’s friends and colleagues, Martin Niemoller, is credited with writing this poem while imprisoned by Hitler. I think it’s telling in so many ways:

First they came for the Socialists,
   and I did not speak out- because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists,
   and I did not speak out- because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
   and I did not speak out- because I was not a Jew.
And then they came for me-
   and there was no one left to speak for me.”

   Also, recalling my personal mantra to be thankful for everything and “Redeem the Time,” consider this quote from one of Bonhoeffer’s morning devotions:

“Make the most of your time! Time belongs to death, or, still more so, to the devil. We must buy it from him and return it to God, to whom it must really belong. If we inquire the will of God, free from all doubt and all mistrust, we shall discover it. Always give thanks for all things  Everything we cannot thank God for, we reproach him for.”

   Wow. I will say once more, find this book and make time for it. And please join the conversations here! Your participation means a lot to me.

“There is meaning in every journey
that is unknown to the traveler.”
~Dietrich Bonhoeffer
xoxoxo

December is Beautiful, Be Sweet

   Happy December you awesome people! Did you have a good weekend? Are you even more in the thick of Christmas preparations than last time I asked you? Things at the Lazy W are just as simultaneously hectic and restful as ever. I am hitting a daily stride around here that is deeply satisfying, so much so that maybe one day I should try to write it. It’s a thrilling awareness.

   Anyway. 
   As our seasonal decorations evolve from autumnal to sparkly, and as we accumulate special gifts for loved ones and indulgent desserts and appetizers for all of the holiday parties headed our way, I am happy to have a moment of pause. This year I am thinking of the Christian reasons to celebrate, of course, but also of the pagan traditions that have carried over into modern culture. Maybe it’s Oklahoma’s changing weather patterns that have me feeling all contemplative… Or maybe it’s the fact that this year I have more friends than ever who don’t particularly subscribe to a rigid Christian label. Or maybe it’s that in two days I will trepidatiously get my first spray tan thanks to a bottom-dollar coupon on Living Social I bought a thousand years ago. Whatever the cause, I am simmering in thoughtfulness about why we do the wintry-Christmassy things we do.
   I don’t have too giant of a message with this you guys, only a little reminder and encouragement to go ahead and celebrate things your way, according to your own heart. Pull out all the stops! But don’t waste precious time and energy criticizing how others celebrate. Or how they don’t. The things we do are supposed to be joyful and loving, life-affirming acts, not critical and obligatory and demeaning to others. Or to yourself. And certainly, traditions are at their best when they are upheld deliberately and lovingly. Don’t you agree?
“We have just enough religion to make us hate,
but not enough to make us love one another.”
~Johnathon Swift
   So if you have a friend or neighbor who decorates a tree but doesn’t use an Advent wreath or nativity scene, relax. There is still enough Christmas cheer for everyone. And if you are one of those sweet souls who  cringes at this time of year because of the inevitable religious guilt trips, despair not. True Love isn’t about that. Go ahead and keep your personal winter traditions, whatever they are. Let them bind you to your past and comfort you for your present. And everyone come to the lazy W for some hot chocolate by the fire! If this winds ever dies down we will be open for bonfiring business. And Christmas caroling. Because these are some of my traditions.
Live lovingly and 
Wish Me Luck with my Spray Tan!
xoxoxoxo