Lynn Underwood

Art, science, and personal experiences all help us better understand who we are and how we can flourish

Category: spiritual connection

My interest in the spiritual dimension of the human person was fueled by seeing how important that aspect of life is for so many in the midst of ill health, mental distress, and towards the end of life. This exploration was part of the work I spearheaded in health research, which recognized the need to explore the many aspects of spirituality and the ways it was expressed in different religions, cultures, and in secular contexts. In the context of my research (in areas such as Aging, Disability, Pain, Addictions, Mental Health), I developed a scale to measure what I called “daily” or “ordinary” spiritual experience.

The scale is called the Daily Spiritual Experience Scale (DSES). It measures one aspect of the multidimensional construct we call spirituality/religiousness. It has been translated into over 30 languages and used in over 150 published studies and also in practice in fields such as counseling, business, psychology ministry and social work. I work with people all over the world advising on use and translations and consult on applications of the scale for evaluation and communication. Visit the DSES site.

  • listening to animals

    This little squirrel looked into my window recently. I am blessed to be surrounded by such a variety of creatures in my yard. Five deer babies from this summer who are still zooming around, and then sleeping and resting in the grass. Squirrels galore. Skunks eating grubs in the yard without spraying any smells. Deer climbing onto the porch and looking into the window at me as I work. Chipmunks digging under everything. Quiet bunnies eating my weeds. Lots of birds: pileated woodpeckers, cardinals, doves, and so many more. The beauty of creation. I do not have pets – these are my pets.

    I have some very hardy plants and flowers but am not a gardener, so I do not have to despair that the deer have nibbled the hostas to the ground. The ivy is resilient like the evergreen trees. Hibiscus flowers seem to be emerging in the middle of other bushes. And many flowers seem to be able to thrive no matter what happens.

    The animals in my yard generally seem to be at peace. I would love to touch them, but I can virtually touch them by drawing them. I really like to draw animals – the ones in my yard, other people’s pets like a daughter’s dog below, or even zoo creatures. I sense something in animals that resonates with something within me. They think and feel differently than I do, but they still carry an awareness of the world that is similar to mine. I wish I could talk with animals, but maybe this silent communication is enough. 

    Do you have animals you have a relationship with? Are they out in the wild, or pets in your home? Do they speak to you in ways beyond words? If so, what do they say to you?

  • does comparison steal your joy?

    does comparison steal your joy?

    It hits me again and again that life does not happen on a level playing field. When we compare ourselves with others, we just do not have all the information. And even if we have the information, we do not take it into account enough. Social media can make this worse.  We all come into life with biological characteristics, we find ourselves embedded in a culture. We have particular parents or caretakers, some very loving, some very abusive, and most in between.  So many life circumstances are beyond our control. Traumas, other people we are involved with, environmental disasters, economic assets.  Each individual comes into the world as unique and inhabits a place in the world that is distinct. We each have gifts that are so different. Comparison so often gets in the way of our decision-making, for example our assessment of how we should be and what is best to do.

    When we bite into a strawberry and want it to be a great orange, this gets in the way of enjoying the delicious strawberry taste. Each of us has a distinct flavor that needs to be appreciated for what it is, and each of us needs to be appreciated for who we are. Comparison can steal our joy. I am not going to let that happen to me today.

  • The beauty of creation

    One of the 16 questions in my daily spiritual experience scale is: ‘Recently, have you been spiritually touched by the beauty of creation?’ ‘When does it happen for you?’ It can reflect our feelings of awe when in the natural world – when we encounter animals and mountains, trees and flowers and how we respond to these. But it also can happen when we encounter the artistic creations of others. These beautiful creations of musicians, visual artists and poetic words. The book on the set of questions has examples of how different people have responded to this question that might provoke an awareness of this in your life.

    I love drawing animals and flowers. I never tire of the feelings of connection to the wider world and the transcendent that I have when drawing or painting these.           

    Are you ever spiritually touched by the beauty of creation? Are there ways to find circumstances that stir that in you today? The natural world, music, visual art? It can be so uplifting in the midst of other life circumstances that pull us down.

  • Stitched with compassion and wire

    art by lynn

    “Some believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. It is the small deeds of ordinary folk that keeps the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love.” – JRR Tolkien

    The little things. 

    In the midst of the many really bad things happening in our world now, it feels easy for me to just give up, toss in the towel. What good can I do?  

    The drawing above is of a nut person, given to me as a gift. It was carefully created by my friend Jane from bits and pieces of nature. It is hanging on my kitchen wall. She sends these out at Christmas as gifts. Each of us has ways of being in the world, and actions that are ones that only we can do. I do not make nut people and carefully package and send them out.  I am not called to run for political office. I can admire those who make a difference in ways that I do not. But we all, through all the small things we do in life, by standing in our own shoes and listening for what is next for us, can help to ‘hold evil in check’ as Tolkien wrote.

    I can ask a friend how she is doing. I can bake something nice for family. I can smile at the cashier at the grocery store and ask them how their day is going. I can paint a picture and share it. I can really listen. I can send a few cards via snail mail. I can mend a hole in someone’s sweater. I am trying to discover how on earth I am going to get my latest book project out into the world to reach those who would find it helpful in their lives. I am daunted by the task, but is there one step I can take towards that this week? Each one of us has something we can do today that can make a difference for good in the world.

    “In our imperfect world

    we are meant to repair

    and stitch together

    what beauty there is,

    stitch it with compassion and wire….”1

    1. From the poem ‘“Holding the Light” by Stuart Kestenbaum ↩︎

  • The peaceful beauty of snow

    art by lynn

    The snowfall here this morning is so quiet and beautiful. For those celebrating all the holidays of December and even those just not celebrating at all, I send out good wishes for peace, joy, and comfort in this season.  Around us and beyond are disasters and people behaving badly. But also, there are so many good people standing up for kindness, caring and compassion. Let’s all be beacons of hope in the midst of all of this. Shining strong and bright. Knowing that even the little acts of kindness that you and I do echo out into the world.

  • poetry and music weblinks

    Here are some web-links to poetry and music from the Spiritual Connection book that I gathered up to post. I hope some of them can help to provide fuel for you in these days.

    Here is a sampling of the first few on the webpage link:

    10   Had I Not Been Awake by Seamus Heaney

    34   Postscript by Seamus Heaney

    38   Dust by Dorianne Laux

    48   Even in the Quietest Moments Supertramp

    49   There Is Some Kiss We Want, Rumi

    134  3055 by Olafur Arnald

    ….

  • space to reconnect

    Sometimes we just need to disconnect and switch off in order to re-calibrate ourselves. Then we can fully dive back into the fray, refreshed and reoriented.

    Do you disconnect from some things, people and newsfeeds every now and again?  What do you do?

    I find drawing and painting helps me. It can be anything from doodling, to playing with colours, to sketching things around me.  When things are pulling me in too many directions, or overwhelming me, I find this gives me space to re-orient myself. Then I am more able to fully engage.

  • kangaroo

    The poet WH Auden said that the artist feels the impulse to create a work of art when the passive awe provoked is transformed into a desire to express that awe in a rite of worship. To be fit homage, he said, this rite must be beautiful. We do not always achieve our goal to create something beautiful, but our desire to do so is good in itself.

  • speaking my mind

    Art by Pawel Kuczynski – permission from the Artist to reproduce

    For nine months now I have been re-composing and recording an audiobook of my Spiritual Connection in Daily Life book. It was published back in 2013, and needed extensive revision to work in audio. I took a lot of the research and quantitative material out and put it in the appendix, so it could be focused even more on the experiences that the listener had personally.  I wanted to narrate it myself, so set microphone and iPad up in the corner of the room I use for art, with baffles and pop-filter.  The whole process has been a labor of love. Editing out sounds, sending to an audio-engineer, re-recording and re-editing.  I am now working with Applelane Press to get it out on different platforms. For now, it is here: https://payhip.com/b/c4jv

    I enjoy listening to audio-books and thought in this format people could allow the book to wash over them.  I developed a journal as a PDF included with the book so that people would have a space to write their answers and reflect on the questions throughout the book, a part of the paperback that many have appreciated.

    One of the challenges in the process has been that I have had to listen to, and re-listen to, my voice. I felt it would be better to read it myself rather than have someone else narrate it, and I am hoping that adds to its value for the listener.

    The picture here is by an artist I admire so much, Pawel Kuczynski. A picture can truly represent even more than a thousand words.  This picture encourages me to get back to doing my drawings and paintings, now that this audiobook is floating out into the world.

  • the spiritual practice of drawing portraits

    drawing by lynn

    When I draw or paint someone, I find myself exploring the heart of the person, and becoming sympathetic to their fears, their desires, their concerns.  We can never fully understand what another person is feeling or their circumstances or history, but we can stretch into that in our portraits.  We are limited by our skills. But we can still move in love toward the person, and see the fundamental value of another human being, when we draw them. For me, this is a spiritual practice.

  • acorns

    art by lynn

    Acorns are scattered all over my neighborhood. Their beautiful little rounded bodies with caps that fit so well.  It is hard to believe they can grow into oak trees. But what has to happen to that seeming perfection for it to become an oak tree? It gets covered with dirt. The cap falls off, the rounded body splits down the middle, an awkward brown substance emerges.  A green sprout pokes out and grows longer, up through the soil. Leaves unfurl, roots grow down. And in time a little tree starts to grow. And as water and sun nourish it, it can grow into a small sapling, and eventually an oak tree. A marvelous strong oak. A place for children to climb, and birds and squirrels to build nests.  When I think about my life, I am not a perfect little acorn. My cap has fallen off. My body has “cracks”, and changes over time in ways I don’t particularly like or approve of. But new growth happens, transformation comes from these changes.  I can hope that someday, given sun and rain and other nourishment, a sapling will emerge, and then, who knows?

  • joy nevertheless

    drawing by lynn

    I am fascinated by how we can experience joy even in the midst of tough times. I have seen time and time again that joy can be found in the midst of so much gunk. I have interviewed people and read research studies and other writing about resiliency and post traumatic growth, and have heard how people are thriving in the midst of trauma and disease.  I find it inspires me. I meet people whose lives seem much tougher than mine, and I find myself in awe of the joy they can find in the midst of it all, and am encouraged.

  • an advent calendar

    Click here to link to my advent calendar: https://tuerchen.com/6bf19534

    The time before Christmas is soaked through with the excitement of waiting, beautiful music, tiny lights, candles, thinking about gifts, good food, good times with other people. When I lived in Germany the Advent calendars fascinated me.  Hanging in the window, light came through from outside through the thin paper images as each little door was opened on the consecutive days leading up to Christmas. When my children were younger I bought a new one each year. I finally found one with art by Martin Erspamer OSB that I have now re-used year after year.

    With friends and family spread all over, I wanted to make an advent calendar online that people could enjoy. I wanted to make one to speak more widely beyond the Christian tradition, and I hope this will be a satisfying one for all, and bring with it the Spirit of the season. Each day in December is numbered, and cannot be opened until the day arrives. You may need to hit ‘refresh’ for each new day. Enjoy!

    Here is a link to day 1.

     

     

  • moon language

    “With That Moon Language” by Hafiz, a 14th-century poet from Iran

    drawing by lynn

    Admit something:
    Everyone you see, you say to them, “Love me.”
    Of course you do not do this out loud, otherwise someone would call the cops.
    Still, though, think about this: this great pull in us to connect.
    Why not become the one who lives with a moon in each eye,
    that is always saying,
    with that sweet moon language,
    what every other eye in this world is dying to hear?

  • tenderness

    Drawing can help us uncover distress in someone, and touch them tenderly. 

    drawing by lynn

     

  • Can drawing fuel my love?


    I had the wonderful opportunity to be in the LA area this past academic year on a research fellowship. During the many meetings and conferences, when I was not speaking myself, I tried to capture something of the essence of people by drawing them—a perfect drawing was not the goal.  Drawing people has continued to enable me to better engage with the topics.

    Even more importantly for me, drawing people has continued to be a spiritual practice, stretching beyond the surface of the person and embracing them.  Can drawing people stretch our love towards them? For me, the answer is yes.

     

  • Moving places?

    drawing by lynn

    When we move to another place, what happens? I had to move a lot as a child, and have had to move as an adult too, mostly due to circumstances beyond my control. I remember wondering as a small child if the towns and houses we moved from disappeared, when we left them. I am heading to Los Angeles in a few weeks for a fellowship at a college there for the academic year, and I am really looking forward to the opportunity. To work on a project that has been on the back burner for so long and spend time with good people will be great. But I love being at home, and leaving it will be hard. I have tried to create welcoming spaces around me for those who visit my home, and even for the wildlife.

    What relationships do we form with the things and places around us?  The internet, email, Skype, and phones lets me keep in touch with people at a distance. Maybe there are ways I can take a sense of the place with me too, expanding my sense of place to stretch wider.

  • memory and time

    The events of our lives happen in a sequence in time, but in their significance to ourselves they find their own order: the continuous thread of revelation. -Eudora Welty

    I have a collection of objects sitting on top of my bookcase – with various things inside. Reminders with meaning. One basket bought while living in Belfast, another from Kalamazoo, one a gift from a colleague once full of fresh fruit. A hatbox that has held wide-brimmed hats that I once wore to keep the drizzle off my head or to shield the sun. Peeking out of one basket, a water bottle once full, mercifully purchased for me by my hosts on a car trip from from the airport at Cluj-Napoca to Targu Mures Romania. A box of note cards of leaf photos bought in the village of Einsiedeln, Switzerland at a meeting held at a Benedictine monastery in the Alps. I so often want to get rid of various objects, downsize my belongings, but these objects continue to live as part of a “thread of revelation”. When I did this painting, all of these events came back to me more vividly. The people, the interactions, the experiences and feelings. Perhaps this painting can now take the place of the objects, calling all to mind.

  • sculpting in time

    “Art is a meta-language, with the help of which people try to communicate with one another; to impart information about themselves and assimilate the experience of others.”

    -Russian film director Andrey Tarkovsky, from the book, Sculpting in Time

    sketch by lynn

  • good conversation

    “16 questions” by lynn

    What makes for a good interview? I think Dr. Rachael Kohn has it nailed. I had the privilege of being interviewed by her on the Australian public radio ABC show The Spirit of Things, which aired on March 26. She is an exemplar of how we can help good conversations to happen in our daily lives. We can ask questions that bring out the other person, and sometimes stretch them in an accepting context. We can take time to listen to the answers, rather than thinking about what we are going to say next. We can find out about the other person, and engage with them, not use them as a vehicle to press our point of view. When in the course of research, I  interviewed people about the practices that were important for compassionate love, ‘really listening to the other person,’ was one of those practices.

    Rachael engages in conversation with a perfectly lovely voice, and that helps this too. She sets the person at ease through her respectful and honest attitude. She gently asks probing and sometimes hard questions, which enable interpersonal connection and understanding to happen. Of course, a conversation that is designed to be broadcast, and happens between continents, can never be like one over coffee or at home, and because it was an interview I didn’t get to ask her questions, but nevertheless, this same kind of asking and listening can happen in our own living rooms or when we are in a variety of social situations.

    The show, which includes a poem and quotes from the Spiritual Connection in Daily Life book, is now up on the ABC website, where it can be played or downloaded http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/spiritofthings/are-you-spiritually-connected/8376242  Her balanced approach provides a model for us all for how to make a space for truly good conversation.

  • light through the crack

    cohen2lynnunderwoodcrop
    drawing by lynn

    The birds they sang at the break of day
    Start again I heard them say
    Don’t dwell on what has passed away
    or what is yet to be….

    Ring the bells that still can ring
    Forget your perfect offering
    There is a crack in everything
    That’s how the light gets in.

    These lines are from the song, Anthem, by Leonard Cohen, a great poet who expressed his words in song deep and resonant and spiritual. The words of that song, “forget your perfect offering, there is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in” are so potent.

    In an interview on his creative process, he said: “It’s very hard to really untangle the real reasons why you do anything. But I was always interested in music and I always played guitar. I always associated song and singing with some sort of nobility of spirit…. I always thought that this was the best way to say the most important things… I don’t mean the most ponderous or pompous things. I mean the important things — like how you feel about things, how you feel about someone else — and I always thought this was the way to do it.”

    He struggled with depression all his life, and he commented on the effect on him of the poetry of Frederico Garcia Lorca, “the loneliness was dissolved, and you felt that you were this aching creature in the midst of an aching cosmos, and the ache was OK. Not only was it OK, but it was the way you embraced the sun and the moon.”

    Here is a link to a performance by Cohen in Ireland of the song Anthem : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4U4lXgvorU

  • the human eye

    The human eye is not the camera eye. Vision takes place in the depths of the mind, with the assistance of emotion, knowledge, and belief.” – Flannery O’Connor

    drawing by lynn
    drawing by lynn

  • to everything there is a season

    finalsquashesLynnUnderwood
    drawing by lynn

    Autumn has arrived here in the middle of the US. I am a lover of sun and warmth, but somehow this year, I am finding myself loving this season. As leaves leave the trees, they burst into such glorious colors. And this is also the time of apples and squashes and onions – such marvelous fruits of the earth. This morning it is rainy and cold, but I look outside and see the colors, and smell baked squash and apples, and I think, there is something wonderful happening in this time and place.

  • what’s it worth?

    sketch by lynn
    sketch by lynn

    Someone has said that the lives of most persons are like jewelry stores where some trickster has mixed up the price tags. The diamonds are priced at next to nothing and some worthless baubles at thousands of dollars. Unless we stop business as usual and take stock, we are likely to end up in bankruptcy. So long as the store is crowded with people, there is no chance of taking inventory and putting things to rights. We must close the doors and take the time alone. Then we can check with the stock list, our list of priorities, and give the right value to the right object.

    -Morton Kelsey, The Other Side of Silence

  • reverence

    “To draw a tree, to pay such close attention to every aspect of a tree, is an act of reverence not only toward the tree, but also to our human connection to it. It gives us almost visionary moments of connectedness.” Alan Lee

    sketch of dove by lynn
    sketch of dove by lynn

    For me, spiritual connection with God (or the divine or holy as expressed in other words), is part of why making art gives me such joy. I keep doing art for a variety of reasons, but one of them is definitely, for me personally, this spiritual connection that I see more clearly in the process – to the world, to God, and to the holy immanent in the world itself.

    My friend loves looking at disintegrating buildings, and in paying close attention to those, something resonates deep within him. It is not just the obviously beautiful that can bring this sense of connection to us, but often things that do not look so great on the surface. When we look at other people with reverence and respect a sense of spiritual connection can be especially present. All of us are a mixed bag of the obviously lovely, and things that do not look that great. How miraculous that we can have reverence for one another nevertheless.

     

  • milagros

    I found myself trying to find words and image to convey something of this tiny arm and hand full of promise.

    Milagrosdrawing by lynnb

     

    Loose

    in the breeze of the holy

    spirit

    draw near

    flow through

    unclench –

    no need.  New

    power now.

    Will of good pleasure

    through my body

    my arms

    my hands.

     

     

  • seeing better

    Ubi amor ibi oculus

    A new dimension of seeing is opened up by love alone. And this means contemplation is visual perception prompted by loving acceptance.

    –Josef Pieper, Three Talks in a Sculptor’s Studio

    art by lynn
    art by lynn

  • valentine days

    photo of my daughter by lynn 2015
    photo by lynn 2015

    I received an email from a counselor/researcher in Kenya last week. He was researching what makes for flourishing marriages. And it reminded me of a study in the Science of Compassionate Love book that reported predictors of good marriages many years on. When people began their relationships with both a global adoration of the other, and an accurate picture of their flaws, they had a better chance of the relationship still being strong and good years later. Being loved by someone who knows our flaws, our weaknesses, and still thinks we are wonderful, ‘the bee’s knees,’  is so great. I think it has a divine source, a source that is ‘more than’. Some of us do not experience this kind of love in romantic relationships, but taste it in other human relationships and/or our relationship with God. To receive this kind of love requires vulnerability on our part.

    In my Perspectives: Art, Science, and Spirituality class, one assignment is to select a piece of art — film, poetry, visual art, fiction — that represents compassionate love. One young man brought this one in. When he read it to the class, this poem gave most of us a taste of a kind of love that is truly nourishing. It transcends the romantic, helping us to inhabit eternal love.

    Gate C22 by Ellen Bass

    https://www.missourireview.com/ellen-bass-gate-c-22/

     

     

  • the beautiful unknown

    drawing by lynn
                                          

     

    There will be something,

    anguish or elation,

    that is peculiar to this day alone.

    I rise from sleep and say:

    Hail to the morning!

    Come down to me, my beautiful unknown.

     

    Hail to the Morning, by Jessica Powers, from The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers, ICS Publications,1999.

  • Animated film: ‘Mother’

    from "Mother" animation https://vimeo.com/126077901
    from “Mother” https://vimeo.com/126077901

    I have been a fan of animated films all my life. This recent student film is a gem. It articulates themes of the flow of love, compassionate love, in ways that words so often fail to do. It is not too sweet, and is nested in the complexity of life.

    Here is a link to it on vimeo.

  • play and wisdom

    art by lynn
    art by lynn

    One thing I especially enjoy during my yearly retreat at the monastery, is the celebration of the divine office at 3:15 AM. In the dark, in the middle of the night, half awake, I gather in the huge quiet space with the monks to celebrate the beginning of the new day. Once there was a reading from Thomas Aquinas, “The Contemplation of Wisdom.” As the new year begins, I find myself returning to this piece. And I always find it lovely that Wisdom is described as female.

    “ ‘Run ahead into your house and gather yourself there and play there and pursue your thoughts.’ (Ecclus. 32.15-16)

    “The advantage which the study of wisdom has is that it is to a greater degree self-sufficient in pursuing its business with us. When we are engaged in outward activities we need many things to help us, but in the contemplation of wisdom we work all the more effectively, the more we dwell alone with ourselves. So, the words cited above call us back to ourselves: ‘Run ahead into your own house,’ that is, be anxious to return from external things to your own mind, before anything else gets hold of it and any other anxiety distracts it. That is why it says in Wisdom 8.16, ‘I will enter my house and rest with her’, with wisdom, that is.

    “The first requirement, then for the contemplation of wisdom is that we should take complete possession of our minds before anything else does, so that we can fill the whole house with the contemplation of wisdom. But it is also necessary that we ourselves should be fully present there, concentrating in such a way that our aim is not diverted to other matters. Accordingly the text goes on, ‘And gather yourself there,’ that is, draw together your whole intention. And when our interior house is entirely emptied like this and we are fully present there in our intention, the text tells us what we should do; ‘And play there.’

    “There are two features of play which make it appropriate to compare the contemplation of wisdom to playing. First, we enjoy playing, and there is the greatest enjoyment of all to be had in the contemplation of wisdom. As Wisdom says in Ecclus. 24.27, ‘My spirit is sweeter than honey.’

    “Secondly, playing has no purpose beyond itself; what we do in play is done for its own sake. And the same applies to the pleasure of wisdom. If we are enjoying thinking about the things we long for or the things we are proposing to do, this kind of enjoyment looks beyond itself to something else which we are eager to attain. If we fail to attain it or if there is a delay in attaining it, our pleasure is mingled with a proportionate distress. As it says in Proverbs 14.13, ‘Laughter will be mixed with grief.’ But the contemplation of wisdom contains within itself the cause of its own enjoyment, and so it is not exposed to the kind of anxiety that goes with waiting for something which we lack. This is why it says in Wisdom 8.16, ‘Her company is without bitterness”(the company of wisdom, that is) ‘and there is no boredom in living with her.’

    “It is for this reason that divine Wisdom compares her enjoyment to playing, in Proverbs 8.30, ‘I enjoyed myself every single day, playing…’ each single day meaning the consideration of some different truth. So our text goes on, ‘Pursue your thoughts,’ the thoughts, that is, by means of which we obtain knowledge of the truth.”

    There are many good suggestions in this piece, such as the need to “take complete possession of our minds before anything else does.” He describes the spirit as sweeter than honey… not something heavy to lift. And I am personally finding the centrality of play as he describes it, a helpful one in my own life right now. We often think we have to be serious, and somber, in order to pursue things that are worthwhile. But in this passage, Thomas urges a playful attitude. I am finding that this kind of attitude is necessary in my life just now. A new year of play and hopefully some wisdom – sounds good to me.

  • our bodies, ourselves

    Mr. Duffy lived a short distance from his body.” —James Joyce, Dubliners

    We so often forget our bodies, ignore them, and even treat them badly. Bodies are literally wonderful, even when they are not behaving in ways that we like. Even in sickness, or when causing us grief. One of the reasons I love the Christmas season so much, is its reminder to me that the spiritual and physical aspects of our lives are linked. The Christmas story of the divine entering into the messiness of the human condition reminds me that the divine is also involved in my messy condition. The story does not describe some pristine scene, with everyone in their best clothes, pretending that challenging feelings are not there. It is a story where a pregnant woman arrives in a strange place, there is no room in the inn, and she ends up in a stable with dirt and animals and has her baby there. Having a baby is very physical – not clean and tidy. And the first visitors are the local shepherds, probably with some sheep. The whole scene connects with physical bodies and situations and messy emotions. There was lots of worry and pain and puzzlement, as well as joy and amazement.

    During the Christmas season I sing with my body, eat good things with my body, hug and am hugged with my body, worship with my body. I suffer when things are not going so well – with people or physically. I find myself suffering on behalf of others less fortunate than I am. I feel the pain of this in my body. And the Christmas story keeps bringing me back to the reality of the divine in my physical being. Reminding me that if I leave my body out of the equation, I am not truly living life.

    You will be entering this holiday season in your body—there is not much chance of doing without it! Can you think of how your whole being engages with the various aspects of the holiday season? In relationships, with food, with consuming, in giving, with music. Pay attention to signals that your body sends: of grief, distress, need – but also of joy, affection and delight. Don’t let your body just go on autopilot, but welcome it into the mix. Enter into the complexity of the holiday season with your whole being and see where that takes you.

    drawing by Rembrandt
    drawing by Rembrandt

  • peace

    drawing by lynn
    drawing by lynn

    Deer often sleep in our front yard. They are not disturbed by me heading out the driveway, or the dog barking from inside. They are vigilant, however and can burst up and out on a dime if necessary. One of the Daily Spiritual Experience questions (DSES) that I developed is “How often do you feel deep inner peace or harmony?” (many times a day, every day, most days, some days, once in a while, never). A recent study looked at various factors that predicted survival for those with congestive heart failure, and more frequent experiences of deep inner peace as measured by the DSES question was one of the things most predictive of living longer. (Park CL, Aldwin CM, Choun S, George L, Suresh DP, and Bliss D, 2015. “Spiritual Peace Predicts 5-Year Mortality in Congestive Heart Failure Patients.” Health Psychology, doi:10.1037/hea0000271.)

    To have these experiences in our lives is not dependent on whether we are feeling happy or depressed or anxious. Although it may be easier to feel this in certain circumstances, this sense of deep inner peace or harmony depends more on our attitude or orientation in the midst of things. When I described themes in the Spiritual Connection book, the sense of deep inner peace or harmony was linked to “Saying Yes”, being at ease in our own skins, knowing that somehow good is present even though it may be invisible in the midst of tough times. This sense of deep inner peace and harmony can keep us feeling more balanced and calm. This can affect our physical being and our relationships with others. I am blessed by the peaceful presence of the deer in our yard, munching on the plants. They contribute somehow to feelings of peacefulness in me.

  • welcoming

    rentcolor3LynnUnderwood
    from Scaffolding: Selected Poems, by Jane Cooper, Tilbury House, 1993

    Our relationships with others challenge our sense of ourselves, and our perception of the spaces we live in. How do we listen? How do we make space for each other? How do we envision the places we live in together?

  • art and love

    …To see in contemplation, is not limited only to the tangible surface of reality; it certainly perceives more than mere appearances. Art flowing from contemplation does not so much attempt to copy reality as rather to capture the archetypes of all that is. Such art does not want to depict what everybody already sees but to make visible what not everybody sees….

    To this end we have to consider a certain aspect of the term “contemplation”…. The ancient expression of the mystics applies here: ubi amor, ibi oculus — the eyes see better when guided by love; a new dimension of ‘seeing’ is opened up by love alone! And this means contemplation is visual perception prompted by loving acceptance…affectionate affirmation.”

    -Josef Pieper, Only the Lover Sings: Art and Contemplation, Ignatius Press 1990. pg 74

    painting by lynn
    painting by lynn

  • art and receptivity

    Trying to externalize experiences by painting, writing, etc. helps us to understand them and to be more receptive. Being receptive and willing to change and grow makes one most alive I think – more vulnerable to both pain and joy. – John Busby (Drawing Birds, Christopher Helm Publishers, 2004)

    drawing by lynn
    drawing by lynn

     

  • Ode to Things

    The objects in our lives are made up of particles of the universe, and they can also unite the past and present for us.  The most ordinary things can speak of life to us. How can we tune in to feel, taste, or see the ‘more than’ in the mundane objects around us? Teilhard de Chardin, paleontologist, geologist and priest, said that his first ‘feeling of God’ was when he held a piece of metal.

    drawing by lynn
    drawing by lynn

    I love things with a wild passion,

    extravagantly…

    not only the grand,

    but also the infinite

    -ly

    small.

    from Ode to Things, by Pablo Neruda, from Neruda’s Garden: An Anthology of Odes, selected and translated by Maria Jackett, Latin America Literary Review Press, Pittsburgh Penn,1995.

  • miracle

    Miracle

    Not the one who takes up his bed and walks
    But the ones who have known him all along
    And carry him in –

    Their shoulders numb, the ache and stoop deeplocked
    in their backs, the stretcher handles
    slippery with sweat. And no let-up

    Until he’s strapped on tight, made tiltable
    and raised to the tiled roof, then lowered for healing.
    Be mindful of them as they stand and wait

    for the burn of the paid-out ropes to cool,
    their slight lightheadedness and incredulity
    to pass, those ones who had known him all along.

    By Seamus Heaney from Human Chain (Faber and Faber, London 2010)

  • birthday

    art by lynn
    art by lynn

  • too many

    art by lynn
    art by lynn

    “To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything is itself to succumb to the violence of our times.” – Thomas Merton

  • songs

    A song is unfixed in time and place (as distinct from the bodies it takes over). A song narrates a past experience.

    When it is being sung, it fills the present. Stories do the same, but songs have another dimension which is uniquely theirs. A song, whilst filling the present, hopes to reach a listening ear, in some future somewhere. It leans forward, further and further. Songs lean forward. Without the persistence of this hope, songs, I believe, would not exist.

    The tempo, the beat, the repetitions, construct a shelter from the flow of linear time. A shelter in which future, present and past can console, provoke, ironize and inspire one another.  Most songs being listened to across the world at this moment are recordings, not live performances.  And this means that the physical experience of sharing and coming together is less intense, but it is still there, it is present in the heart of the exchange and communication taking place.”

    This is a quote from a BBC Radio 3 Documentary program essay by John Berger (I have an old book on my shelves by him: On Seeing.His writing has been described as “a listening voice”).  Other art forms do what he is describing here, but music has special qualities.  It can surrounds us in a way that can be like an embrace, or touch us directly like the most intimate words of a friend.

  • ‘God’?

    For many people the word ‘God’ is the perfect word, and others are put off by the word and head towards the hills.  I came across this provocative passage by Wendy Beckett that seems to grasp some of the issues so well.

    …I am wary of using the word ‘God’. Essentially, this is a meaningless word. No thoughts can encompass God. There is no box into which you can put Him. He, or for that matter, She, completely transcends any human concepts. When we say ‘God’, we are doing no more than pointing a finger. It is a directional word. Forced to give a definition, all I could say is that God is Reality so absolute that all other realities are relative.”

    And she goes on to say later in a section entitled ‘Admirable Atheists’: “Sometimes I blush for those who think themselves Christian, and yet the God they worship is cruel, suspicious, punitive and watchful. Who could love such a God? If that is your idea of God, you are obliged by all the rules of morality and common sense to become an atheist.   I have the greatest admiration for atheists, because by definition they have rejected a false ‘God’. The true God, if you have the privilege of knowing, you cannot reject. Anybody who truly understands what God is cannot but believe and love.  There are no lapsed Catholics, no lapsed Christians, but there are very many, far too many, who thought they were Catholics, or Christians, but did not have the good fortune to be taught the truth about God. They looked at this hideous image and said that if it was true, they refused to believe. Too few move on to the next stage and wonder if, in fact, their image of God is not true, or to the stage beyond when they realize that, in actuality, it is not true. If they could accept that the picture they have is wrong from the start, it would bring them to search for the truth.” (Sister Wendy on Prayer, W. Beckett, Harmony Books, 2007, NY. pp 77, 83)

    Religions, religious teachings, have much to be held accountable for, in the way ideas are presented.  But each of us also have responsibilities. We have taken easy shorthands or caricatures to represent reality. They may have worked at one time, but do not hold over the long haul.  And then we are disappointed when they do not work, and get fed up with the whole thing. We need to be willing to throw out the dirty bathwater, but save the baby.

  • spice of life

    art by lynn
    art by lynn

    “When the artist is alive in any person… he becomes an inventive, searching, daring, self-expressing creature…. He disturbs, upsets, enlightens, and he opens ways for better understanding.” – Robert Henri

    I am currently doing an ‘every day in May’ drawing challenge together with others. They suggest ordinary objects and challenge you to draw on one a day. Doing art seems to always slip to the bottom of the pile, even though I know it is vital to me.  I started the challenge late, so I was catching up by combining the blossoming cherry tree out my window and two spices – one a jar I made up of cinnamon sugar – yum… and the other a bottle of spiced salt from time in Madrid that I have saved from a grocery store expedition years ago.  As I drew and painted, I found that bits of my life and the wider world opened up and came together in the midst of my adventure with watercolor and ink.

     

  • good friends

    Good friends have been such a blessing in my life. The notion of friendship mines the deep content of mutuality that stretches beyond tit-for-tat and natural affections, and duties. I have been reading a book by Aelred of Rievaulx, a Cistercian monk of 12th century Britain. He puts this so well:

    “…[F]riendship among the just is born of a similarity in life, morals, and pursuits, that is, it is a mutual conformity in matters human and divine united with benevolence and charity.”

    And later he goes on in more detail: “…[F]riendship bears fruit in this life and the next. It manifests all the virtues by its own charms; it assails vices by its own virtue; it tempers adversity and moderates prosperity.”  And he describes how important it is to have someone “to rejoice with him in adversity…to unburden his mind if any annoyance crosses his path, or with whom to share some unusually sublime or illuminating inspiration.”

    He continues: “What happiness, what security, what joy, to have someone to whom you dare to speak on terms of equality as to another self; one to whom you need to have no fear to confess your failings; one to whom you can unblushingly make known what progress you have made in the spiritual life; one to whom you can entrust all the secrets of your heart and before whom you can place all your plans! What therefore is more pleasant than so to unite to oneself the spirit of another and the two to form one, that no boasting is thereafter to be feared, no suspicion to be dreaded, no correction of one by the other to cause pain, no praise on the part of the one to bring a charge of adulation from the other.  ‘A friend,’ says the Wise Man, ‘is the medicine of life.’ For medicine is not more powerful or more efficacious for our wounds in all our temporal needs than the possession of a friend who meets every misfortune joyfully…. who carries his own injuries even more lightly than that of his friend….’[F]riends,’ says Tullius, ‘though absent are present, though poor are rich, though weak are strong, and – what seems stranger still- though dead are alive.’

    from Spiritual Friendship, by Aelred of Rievaulx (translated by Mary Eugenia Laker) Cistercian Publications, Kalamazoo, MI 1974, pp. 61,73-75.

  • My questioning was my attentive spirit

    My questioning was my attentive spirit, and their reply, their beauty.

    seashells, drawing by lynn
    seashells, drawing by lynn

    -St Augustine, Confessions X.6,9

  • Art that changes

    How do we view visual art, and what happens to us when we view certain works in a contemplative way? Sometimes art with religious themes can transport even those who do not agree with the faith tradition of the artist. Pelagia Horgan wrote about the art of Fra Angelico and others.  She refers to a photograph in the article, a photo of the inside of a monastic cell in Florence. Fra Angelico did frescos on the walls of this monastery, and the photo is of the inside of one of the monastic cells, of its walls, its window, and the fresco. Horgan in her article grapples with the apparent incongruity of being touched by religious art when she does not hold a set of cognitive beliefs that are the same as the beliefs of that particular religion. She writes:

    Samaritaan by VanGogh
    Samaritaan by Vincent Van Gogh

    “It struck me that this is what faith is – not a set of propositions you hold to be true, or a set of rules you follow, but an atmosphere you live in, that changes your experience of the world, your sense of what and how things are.” http://aeon.co/magazine/culture/how-should-secular-people-approach-sacred-art/

    This is an enriching view, it seems to me. Not that beliefs have no value, but I spend a lot of time in the borderlands of those who assert set beliefs and those who disagree with them.  Certain art can step beyond those boundaries if we let it, changing our experience of the world, our sense of what and how things are…

     

  • The House at Rest

    How do we create the space for silence in the midst of the busy-ness of our thoughts, our activities, our feelings – a space of deep rest within, where we can draw strength for our actions and our effective presence in the world? So often our days consist of constant reaction to various things without a sense of a center from which we act. How do we hush the busy house of our minds and bodies so that our actions flow out from that inspired core in good and effective ways? This poem by Jessica Powers, from The Selected Poems of Jessica Powers (ICS Publications, Washington DC, 1989) captures this imaginatively.

    The House at Rest

    On a dark night

    Kindled in love with yearnings

    Oh, happy chance!—

    I went forth unobserved,

    My house being now at rest.     

    – Juan de la Cruz

    How does one hush one’s house,

    each proud possessive wall, each sighing rafter,

    the rooms made restless with

    remembered laughter

    or wounding echoes, the permissive doors,

    the stairs that vacillate from up to down,

    windows that bring in color and event

    from countryside or town,

    oppressive ceilings and complaining floors?

     

    The house must first of all accept the night.

    Let it erase the walls and their display,

    impoverish the rooms till they are filled

    with humble silences; let clocks be stilled

    and all the selfish urgencies of day.

     

    Midnight is not the time to greet a guest.

    Caution the doors against both foes and friends,

    and try to make the windows understand

    their unimportance when the daylight ends.

    Persuade the stairs to patience, and deny

    the passages their aimless to and fro.

    Virtue it is that puts a house at rest.

    How well repaid that tenant is, how blest

    who, when the call is heard,

    is free to take his kindled heart and go.

     

     

  • compassionate love

    drawing by lynn
    drawing by lynn

    St Kevin and the Blackbird, by Seamus Heaney is part of Chapter 6, “The Flow of Love”, in my Spiritual Connection in Daily Life book.  I wrote:

     I think about love for my daughters and how it feels. I wonder about how it influences their obvious care for others. Where did it come from? What keeps it going?

    An Irish legend about St. Kevin forms the basis of a poem by Seamus Heaney. The poem describes St. Kevin kneeling in his monastic cell, praying with arms outstretched, one out the window through the bars of the cell. A bird settles in his outstretched hand and makes a nest there. Because of his compassionate love, Kevin just stays in that position until the eggs hatch. It must have been very hard, and he would have become very tired and wanted to stop. Not even reflecting on the logistics, where did he find the energy to continue holding the nest while the eggs hatched? Heaney in his poem touches on the eternal and rooted wellspring of love in the midst of difficulties, and how care for the bird allows that wellspring to flow through Kevin.

    Are you holding any birds that have begun to nest? Do you ever find yourself stuck in the midst of commitment and care, in distress yet still desiring to love? Do you find yourself overextended in some way or another? And then what do you do? How do you sustain this love and care? How does that feel? ….”

    This drawing of mine was inspired by the wonderful poem. Here is a link to Heaney reading it with his soft Northern Irish accent. http://www.poetryarchive.org/poem/st-kevin-and-blackbird

  • marvel

    What is a spiritual experience after all?  Sometimes we can have a sense of what it ought to be and that can get in the way. I find that the poem, Veni Creator, by Czeslaw Milosz, a Lithuanian-Polish poet, from the book, Collected Poems, 1931-1987, speaks to me.

  • anniversary

    drawing by lynn
    drawing by lynn

    Wedding by Alice Oswald

    From time to time our love is like a sail
    and when the sail begins to alternate
    from tack to tack, it’s like a swallowtail
    and when the swallow flies it’s like a coat;
    and if the coat is yours, it has a tear
    like a wide mouth and when the mouth begins
    to draw the wind, it’s like a trumpeter
    and when the trumpet blows, it blows like millions . . .
    and this, my love, when millions come and go
    beyond the need of us, is like a trick;
    and when the trick begins, it’s like a toe
    tip-toeing on a rope, which is like luck;
    and when the luck begins, it’s like a wedding,
    which is like love, which is like everything.

    This poem, Wedding, by Alice Oswald, is from The Thing in the Gap-stone Style (Oxford University Press)

  • Star

    Joseph Brodsky, Nobel laureate, wrote a poem for Christmas each year for 18 years. When asked if he was a religious person, Brodsky, a Russian Jew, responded: “I don’t know. Sometimes yes, sometimes no.” He once referred to himself as a “Christian by correspondence.” As the poet Michael Collier wrote, “Brodsky’s religious uncertainty keeps his Nativity efforts clean of tinsel and commercialized sentiments.” These poems can bring us closer to what it means, no matter what our actual beliefs, that God took on human form and really knows how it feels to be like us. Here is one of them.

    Star of the Nativity by Joseph Brodsky from Nativity Poems (Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2001)

     

    In the cold season, in a locality accustomed to heat more than to cold,

    to horizontality more than to a mountain,

    a child was born in a cave in order to save the world;

    it blew as only in deserts in winter it blows, athwart.

    To Him, all things seemed enormous: His mother’s breast,

    the steam out of the ox’s nostrils,

    Caspar, Balthazar, Melchior—the team of Magi, their presents heaped by the door, ajar.

    He was but a dot, and a dot was the star.

    Keenly, without blinking, through pallid, stray clouds, upon the child in the manger,

    from far away—from the depth of the universe, from its opposite end—the star

    was looking into the cave. And that was the Father’s stare.

     

  • melted joy

    art by lynn
    art by lynn

    Last week I went into the attic to find the decorations for the season. This candle was a gift that has been a household fixture since the children were little. But this time it has brought more joy than ever as we continue to laugh at it, as it sits there on the table.  Is it dancing, or is it totally exhausted? It was definitely melted from the heat of the attic and shaped by its cramped position.  Like we all are at times.

    Jolly and “fine” are not ideal goals, and they are subject to melting in the heat.  I look at the world around me, and there is so much suffering – so many are facing heavy challenges. Me too, in my own way.  Joy cannot be plastered on. Joy is challenged by relationships that are not going smoothly, by health problems, by grief and mental distress. But the kind of joy that feeds us draws on a deeper well. That joy helps us to laugh in the face of difficulties and keeps us going.

    art by lynn

  • asleep?

     

    Every so often, I awaken and find

    lynnunderwood.spirconnect-flame2dThe world both vivid and lit, each element

    –far as I can tell—lit from within. And yes,

    like you, I may have assumed this radiance

    to be a trick of morning sun upon the sea,

    or the fortunate effect of ambient or

    of manufactured light, of dumb or less

    dumb luck….

    I may have been jogging, or

    yammering on before a yawning class,

    writing something or other on the blackboard.

    I may have appeared more or less awake

    right along, but suddenly, with little warning, I become

    for the moment more fully awake, and I see

    that there—along the path, among the bracken

    or the pine, or just there, only now opening

    within each forlorn face before me—a glistening,

    a quality, a presence of light so profound

    I can’t but close my eyes to see.

     

    Excerpt from the poem Somnambulant, by Scott Cairns, from Idiot Psalms: New Poems (Paraclete Press, 2014)

  • Tools for life

    drawing by lynn
    drawing by lynn

    If you ask yourself how often you have felt deep inner peace or harmony recently, it can call to mind those places, people and situations that promote that sense in you, and that can help you to seek them more.

    When I developed the set of 16 questions in the DSES it was originally for the purpose of research and evaluation. More frequent Daily Spiritual Experiences have been shown to be connected to many good things in life in over 200 research studies. But asking the questions has also become a practical tool for people – helping to notice the presence of the transcendent in daily life. When I ask myself if I have found strength in my religion or spirituality, that reminds me that strength can be found there, and reminds me to look for it and draw on it.

    I am presenting at a meeting at Harvard School of Public Health in a couple of weeks on how one might research the role of spirituality in large scale studies of health in diverse populations, seeing if and how it might influence gene expression. (Not all 16 questions speak to everyone, but the average of the set addresses the variety of ways we experience the spiritual, the transcendent, in our lives and provides a number score.  They provide a wide variety of questions that address the depth and diversity of our spiritual experiences.)  At Harvard I have been asked to present on my 16 questions, the DSES, as ones that might help in studying the relationship between spirituality and gene expression and health in diverse populations.  One of the reasons the DSES questions are good for research is that they show statistical correlations with good things like relationships and well-being; and it is also then reasonably easy to enhance this aspect of spirituality, giving us a tool for enriching our lives in significant ways.

  • the effect of our being

     “But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts, and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.” – the final sentence of Middlemarch, by George Eliot

    drawing by lynn
    drawing by lynn

    I just returned from a few days consulting and speaking with those who work for and lead a social services organization. The people they serve, many of them young people, are in such difficult situations in life. Those that work in these settings give ‘water from their well’ again and again, and I hoped to provide them with some ways to fill the well and find ways of caring for themselves and communicating about things they value.  I found myself feeling so respectful of the work they do, and so thankful that they are doing this work, and being who they are.

     

  • delusion of total self-sufficiency

    drawing by lynn
    drawing by lynn

    It is delusional to think that we are fully self-sufficient. Last Saturday I led an all-day retreat on “Flourishing in Difficult Circumstances.” One thing we  talked about was how the sense of total self-sufficiency is a delusion, one that is prevalent in our western culture. One of my Power Point slides was this drawing I did long ago….I found it folded up in my files, and I recently hung it up in my study. Of course the importance of personal responsibility cannot be undervalued, but difficult circumstances can vividly remind us of how we all do need help.

  • value

    judgeseyesphtolynnunderwood
    art by lynn

    I had the privilege last week of presenting/facilitating a day-long workshop for professional caregivers on the Daily Spiritual Experience Scale and the ideas in the Spiritual Connection book in Michigan. It provided a space for them to reflect and share, and nourish their own lives.  These many men and women are working in areas such as hospice, addiction services, ministry, counseling, nursing, prisons, hospital administration, hospital chaplaincy, and long-term care. I came away so appreciative of these individuals, and thinking how glad I am that they do this much needed work. The value of what they do far exceeds the remuneration they receive. I thought of the poem, Higdon Cove, from the book Gourd Song by Coleman Barks, about a man who helps the author get his car out of a ditch with his tractor, and quietly refuses any praise or payment, especially the final few lines…

    There is a huge holly tree next to where I glided to a stop,

    A solid thigh-trunk white-splotched

    And stretching deep under the ditchwater.

    Beauty, but not such as this man is,

    beyond any tree.”

    If any of the many who were there happen to read this blog. Thank you for what you do, but even more, for who you are.

  • listening to the evening

    I went to a concert by some local musicians outdoors with a friend. The music was not the kind I might seek out on my own. But as I found myself looking for things to appreciate, I found them all around. Creative piano improv, enjoying how the double bass sounded and looked, some great trumpet riffs – moments of beautiful gutsy female voice.  And then the summer clouds were this glorious pink on the walk home. The atmosphere in the convenience store filled with so many different kinds of people. The feel of the soft ice cream on my tongue. Hearing the details of my friend’s life and enjoying the congeniality of being together. Divine messages.

  • happiness and contemplation

    “Contemplation does not rest until it has found the object that dazzles it.” – Konrad Weiss

    photo by lynn

    I am currently reading a book by the philosopher Josef Pieper. In the middle he writes that it is in perceiving reality fully, in contemplation, that happiness is found. I was recently at the shores of Lake Michigan. The evening was glorious. This photo I took only begins to capture what was there, the fullness of reality.

    Pieper writes in Happiness and Contemplation:

    The ancients conceived the whole energy of human nature as a hunger. Hunger for what? For being, for undiminished actuality, for complete realization—which is not attainable in the subject’s isolated existence, for it can be secured only by taking into the self the universal reality. Hunger is directed toward the real universe, and the universe in its literal sense, toward the whole of being, toward everything that exists…. The word “hunger” should be understood in its most drastic and literal sense. In so far as he exists spiritually, man desires satiation by reality, he wants to “have” reality; he hungers for “the whole,” longs to be filled to repletion….

    “Knowing is the highest mode of having because in the world there is no other form so thoroughgoing.  Knowing is not only appropriation which results in “property” and “proprietorship.” It is assimilation in the quite exact sense that the objective world, in so far as it is known, is incorporated into the very being of the knower….One’s existence as a spiritual being involves being and remaining oneself and at the same time admitting and transforming into oneself the reality of the world.”

  • It must be somewhere

    Study-of-Clouds-largeMUSIC
    By Juhan Liiv

    It must be somewhere, the original harmony,
    somewhere in great nature, hidden.
    Is it in the furious infinite,
    in distant stars’ orbits,
    is it in the sun’s scorn,
    in a tiny flower, in treegossip,
    in heartmusic’s mothersong
    or in tears?
    It must be somewhere, immortality,
    somewhere the original harmony must be found:
    how else could it infuse
    the human soul,
    that music?

    Translated from the Estonian by H. L. Hix and Jüri Talvet  Source: Poetry (June 2011) http://bit.ly/kxfS8D

  • dorothy sayers wrote:

    In the image of [the artists’] experience, we can ‘recognize’ the image of some experience of our own…. When we read the poem or see the play or picture or hear the music, it is as though a light were turned on inside us. We say: ’Ah! I recognize that! That was something which I obscurely felt to be going on in and about me, but I didn’t know what it was, and couldn’t express it. But now…I can possess and take hold of it and make it my own and turn it into a source of knowledge and strength.’

    photo by Ron Ables
    photo by Ron Abeles

    This is really true for me. Listening deeply to certain poems, or viewing visual art, or listening to certain music can provide nourishment in my morning time of silence and contemplative prayer. It continues with me into the day. In a recent public talk, I was amazed at the deep hush that came over the room while I was reading the poems (by Heaney, Levertov, and Collins) . When I wrote the Spiritual Connection book I found myself constantly reaching for poems by good poets to illustrate ideas and experiences of the ‘more than’. And recently when doing a day of retreat for professional caregivers, reflection on the poems opened up conversations, and provoked us in new ways. Visual art, music, drama, fiction and dance all have the capacity to do what Sayers describes.

  • art and seeing

    As I get ready to attend a workshop in Santa Fe, New Mexico, to revive my life-drawing skills, I was reminded of the following excerpt from the book Only the Lover Sings: Art and Contemplation by the German philosopher Josef Pieper:

    “How can man preserve and safeguard the foundation of his spiritual dimension and an uncorrupted relationship to reality?  The capacity to perceive the visible world ‘with our own eyes’ is indeed an essential constituent of human nature. We are talking here about man’s essential inner richness…. To see things is the first step toward that primordial and basic mental grasping of reality, which constitutes the essence of man as a spiritual being.”

    One of the things Pieper suggests is that we become active in artistic creation. ”Before you can express anything in tangible form, you first need eyes to see. The mere attempt, therefore, to create an artistic form compels the artist to take a fresh look at the visible reality; it requires authentic and personal observation. Long before a creation is completed, the artist has gained for himself another and more intimate achievement: a deeper and more receptive vision, a more intense awareness, a sharper and more discerning understanding, a more patient openness for all things quiet and inconspicuous, an eye for things previously overlooked. In short: the artist will be able to perceive with new eyes the abundant wealth of all visible reality, and thus challenged, additionally acquires the inner capacity to absorb into his mind such an exceedingly rich harvest. The capacity to see increases.”

    In one of the classes I teach we end each semester with an art project – they have a chance to express something that reflected the spiritual and/or compassionate love, through a piece of art they would make (music, poetry, fiction, film, photography – one person even chose to create a meal for us). They are graded on effort and conception rather than skill. I wish I could share them all here, as most of them were so inspiring. Although many of the students initially resisted doing the project, most of them really enjoyed it in the end, and especially sharing their creation with others in the class.

    We all have the capacity to create art – maybe some of it is pretty primitive- but the process of doing so can greatly enrich our capacity to see, and this can help us clearly perceive the world as it is in all its depth, spiritually infused, and that can enrich our lives.

    Is there some kind of creative activity that you can begin to develop, or one that you have already developed but can continue to do more of? When we loosen the constraints of excessive critique, joy is there for us, and in the process we can become more in touch with reality.

  • resting places

    drawing by lynn
    drawing by lynn

    We find rest in those we love,

    and we provide a resting place in ourselves

    for those who love us.

    -Bernard of Clairvaux

  • music, time and spirituality

    In my Art Science and Spirituality course I share an interview with the South American composer Oswaldo Golijov. He describes the effects of certain kinds of music on spiritual experience in his life, and describes his response to Monteverdi’s Vespers. One of the concepts I address in that class is how both the arts and the sciences inform our understanding of time. How we envision time has a practical effect on us. Do we leave space for a more nuanced and eternal view of time?  This interview is only seven minutes long and is well worth listening to, and it contains excerpts of the music. http://www.studio360.org/story/106875-osvaldo-golijov/

    He also describes inhabiting music like a cathedral, and how the way music and words are combined can enable the words to penetrate more deeply.

  • Splendor

    out my back window
    out my back window

    Let us come alive to the splendor that is all around us, and see the beauty in ordinary things.

    -Thomas Merton

  • Silence and light

    AWindGeth2012
    photo by lynn

    Simone Weil, a French philosopher and activist from the mid-twentieth century commented that one major, if not the major failure, is “our inability to feed on the light.”  I have just returned from my yearly weeklong silent retreat, something that has been a mainstay of my life for 15 years. I really needed it. I am much better able to feed on the light now, than before I left. And so many subtle and not so subtle changes have happened inside me. I know that for me the time in solitude and silence in the context of a monastic setting, routine, spiritual readings, nature and rich liturgy, not only revives and renews me, it re-sets my compass. Swaths of time in silent prayer/contemplation and hikes in the hills, are important parts of my retreat too. The effect continues to amaze me. Aaaah.

  • The Smile of the Soul

    patience_ lynn underwood 2010In the Yes theme chapter (8) in the Spiritual Connection book, one of the things I reflect on is how we need to receptively allow life to unfold. In many ways, I think of myself as a patient person, but when I carefully look at my attitudes, I see impatience with myself in abundance. I did this piece of calligraphy a while back, a saying by Philippe Obrecht – “Patience is the soul’s smile…”  We can say yes to life as it is, ourselves as we are, as we wait in preparation for what is to come in its own time.  I am getting a strong message of patience right now – loud and clear.  I hope I can listen.

  • People on a parallel way

    young man_lynn_underwood_cropcondensed
    art by lynn

    “There are people on a parallel way. We do not see them often, or even think of them often, but it is precious to us that they are sharing the world. Something about how they have accepted their lives, or how the sunlight happens to them, helps us to hold the strange, enigmatic days in line for our own living.”—William Stafford

    One of the things I have found over the years in interviewing people about their ordinary experience of spirituality in daily life, is how different and varied each person’s experience is, even though there are definitely common threads.  Yet just being aware that others are feeling and experiencing the same light in different ways than I can, somehow illuminates my days.

  • Eternal moments

    flowersgertrudecompressed_lynnunderwood
    art by lynn

     
    This Much I Do Remember
    by Billy Collins
     
    It was after dinner.
    You were talking to me across the table
    about something or other,
    a greyhound you had seen that day
    or a song you liked,
     
    and I was looking past you
    over your bare shoulder
    at the three oranges lying
    on the kitchen counter
    next to the small electric bean grinder,
    which was also orange,
    and the orange and white cruets for vinegar and oil.
     
    All of which converged
    into a random still life,
    so fastened together by the hasp of color,
    and so fixed behind the animated
    foreground of your
    talking and smiling,
    gesturing and pouring wine,
    and the camber of you shoulders
     
    that I could feel it being painted within me,
    brushed on the wall of my skull,
    while the tone of your voice
    lifted and fell in its flight,
    and the three oranges
    remained fixed on the counter
    the way that stars are said
    to be fixed in the universe.
     
    Then all of the moments of the past
    began to line up behind that moment
    and all of the moments to come
    assembled in front of it in a long row,
    giving me reason to believe
    that this was a moment I had rescued
    from millions that rush out of sight
    into a darkness behind the eyes.
     
    Even after I have forgotten what year it is,
    my middle name,
    and the meaning of money,
    I will still carry in my pocket
    the small coin of that moment,
    minted in the kingdom
    that we pace through every day.

    From Billy Collins, Picnic, Lightning. University of Pittsburg Press, 1998. (This book is full of gems like this.)

  • Holidays, holy-days, wholeness

    christswaglynnunderwood09compressed
    art by lynn

    The word ‘holidays’ comes from holy-days.  That’s hard to believe, as so much of the seasonal pressure and frippery seems the opposite of holy. Holy and whole in English are derived from the same root word.

    The bustle of the holidays can be fragmenting, pulling us apart rather then enabling us to exist in an integrated whole.  What do you do during daily tasks and demands to “pull yourself together”?

    I find that music helps.  Unfortunately the repetitive and commercial use of music at this time of year has weakened its ability to draw us towards unseen yet vital aspects of life.  But we can reclaim the music, find pieces that inspire us to see the holy, and feel whole in the holidays.

    For many, the religious aspects of the holidays are not relevant, and the language of many of the songs does not speak to everyone in a literal sense, and can provoke reactions of alienation. But can you nevertheless find, sniff out, pointers to a wider mystery in some of the music? Many of the writers and performers are coming from a deep place within, beyond theological and religious and cultural constructs.  Notes of peace, joy, love, generosity, in the midst of ordinary life. Can you allow the music to wash over you and stir where it will?

    I play music of the season on the piano from books that are dissolving with wear. My book of international carols especially connects me to the past and other parts of the world at this time of year. Participating in making music and singing stirs my heart.

    Does some music of this season help you to find transcendent wonder buried in your days? Reminding you of wholeness, reminding you of the holy, here, now.

  • Joy

    glassberrieslynnunderwoodcomp
    art by lynn

    I am easily able to see problems and flaws.  This can be a strength, and it has saved me from falling into some big holes.  But for some of us, problems seem to speak louder than beauty. Our attention is so often drawn to the one thing that is out of whack. It can take extra effort to notice the beauty shining in the midst of our days.  After an ice storm, this little branch was lying on the ground and I brought it home with me. This is a much needed reminder to me.

    There are so many things during the holiday season that can seem not quite perfect:  family, travel, finances, not enough time for this or that.  I know that I need to give extra attention to the light on the snow, how cosy my warm sweater feels, the best of the music, good memories, the smell of good food, the people who are here now with me.  Question 14 in the Spiritual Connection book asks how often you experience joy that lifts you out of your daily concerns.  There is enough of our day dedicated to the flaws and problems – doesn’t joy deserve some of our time?

  • Stained Glass

    art by lynn

    We,
    people
    are living stained glass windows
    Beautiful in ourselves.
    Meant
    too
    for
    light;
    for color-bathing others.

    Marlene Halpin OP

  • Healing Balm

    In the midst of famine in Sudan in the 1980’s, everything was dry – grasses and foliage. To keep from focusing on hunger and distress, the women began to weave baskets from the dry grasses, beautiful baskets.  This weekend I heard, live, a beautiful piece of music. The Famine Song, by Vida, arranged by Mathew Culloton, that describes this. I find listening to this song deeply soothing somehow. It touches within me places of injury and distress and provides a healing balm.

    Here is a link to a group singing this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKZN3JeyCPc

    1979.20.112_a

    Some of the beginning words of the song are :

    Ease my spirit
    Ease my soul
    Please free my hands from this barren soil

    Ease my mother
    Ease my child
    Earth and sky be reconciled

     

    And at the end :

    Weave my mother

    Weave my child
    Weave your baskets of rushes wild
    Rain, rain, rain, rain, rain, rain

  • What are blessings anyway?

    art by lynn
    art by lynn

    One of the questions in my Spiritual Connections book asks how often you find yourself being thankful for your blessings. When something horrible that I might have expected doesn’t happen, I find myself especially thankful. For example, when I have a close shave in traffic, and I come out unscathed. Or I find myself thankful when something that seems particularly nice happens to me. But I see people who are in such difficult circumstances still being thankful – circumstances of poverty or disease that I don’t think I could bear.  I am amazed at their continual appreciation of small things in life, and it is important for me to have that reminder.

    Just think of the close shaves we all have each day that we are unaware of – the escapes from trouble that we don’t even see.  And even buried within the tough times are blessings we may never completely comprehend. What looks like disaster can somehow pave the way for future good for ourselves or others.

    And we are alive: we taste food, we feel the softness as we touch a cat’s fur, we hear music that touches us.  All the lovely little things of each day.  Being alive, even when life is tough, has lovely moments – more of them than we can keep track of. They often go by unnoticed, like unwrapped presents. I am going to unwrap a few more today.

  • Conflict Resolution and Spiritual Connection Podcast

    georgemasonlynnunderwoodThis summer I was invited to give a presentation on the Daily Spiritual Experience Scale at the School of Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University.  One of the uses of the 16 Daily Spiritual Experience Questions is in opening conversations to bridge differences in beliefs, and help in community building.  After the presentation and the lively discussion, Jacqueline Greiff, the Executive Director of their Center for Peacemaking Practice, invited me to be interviewed. You can listen to a podcast of this by scrolling to the bottom of the page at http://scar.gmu.edu/cpp/podcast

    It excites me to see how useful the 16 DSES questions are for those from so many religions, as well as those who are not comfortable with religion.  The specific experiences that people have can bridge differences in belief and culture, often creating connections at a deep level between people. The resulting conversations do not reduce spiritual experience to mush, but create space for the marvelous variety and depth of experiences that sustain and enrich so many different people’s lives.

  • the dses and inter-religious and religious-secular dialogue

    Presentation at the George Mason School for Conflict Resolution and Analysis

    April 2, 2013

    The Daily Spiritual Experience Scale: Uses for Inter-religious and Religious-secular Dialogue

    http://scar.gmu.edu/event/center-peacemaking-practice-lunch-lynn-underwood

    Abstract:

    The kinds of things that help to give life meaning, purpose, and satisfaction are often grounded in concepts we term religious or spiritual, a sense of the “more than” in daily life. This can be the case for those who find roots in religion as well as those not comfortable with religious language. Spiritual and religious attitudes and values help to shape: how people view the world, what they consider important, what they do, how they act, how they feel, identity and affinity, and also why they may mistrust or hate other people.

    The Daily Spiritual Experience Scale (DSES) is a set of 16 multiple-choice questions, psychometrically validated, which can be also be used in an open-ended way. It measures ordinary experiences of relationship with, and awareness of, the divine or transcendent. It measures experiences rather than beliefs, and the ordinary rather than the extraordinary. It has been used in over 150 published studies, linking it to many good outcomes for many kinds of people. Tens of thousands of people have taken the test, and it has been translated into over 30 languages. It has proven useful for most religions and in secular settings for those not comfortable with religion. The DSES is proving to be helpful for assessment, personal exploration, and communication in interpersonal, therapeutic, organizational settings.

    This presentation and the subsequent extended discussion with faculty, students, and fellows, explored ways that the questions might be useful for communication between people of different beliefs, allowing them to share about things that are important in their daily lives. Exploring answers to the questions can allow people to connect with others about things that have value and meaning to them without coming up against the walls that discussion of beliefs can lead to. Common ground can be found in the depths of the discussion, even when beliefs differ. This can be helpful in the resolution of conflict, and building bridges in peacemaking process. DSES scores have also been linked to less burnout in practitioners of various kinds.

  • invited speaker united methodist association national conference

    Presented “Spiritual Connection: A Resource for Professional Caregiving” as an invited plenary speaker at the 73rd National Conference of the United Methodist Association in Orlando, FL on March 5, 2013.