A Meditative Walk at the Franciscan Monastery in Kennebunkport

I stroll to an outdoor shrine

in honor of Our Lady’s visit to Lourdes.

Two elderly women occupy

space on the sun-bleached benches, lips

moving, eyes closed.

I ease down in the front row

and gaze upward at Mary’s white marbled

likeness. The serenity here penetrates

instantly. I begin

to relax as tears of release spring

from my eyes.

On a woodland path I pass

an Erma Bombeck look-alike in pink;

big sparkly cross dangles

below her breasts. She emits

a shy hello, her heady perfume

trails along like a bride’s train.

Mushrooms – honey and golden, sculpted

like stacks of pancakes — rest

atop nature’s platter, made punky

by last week’s rains.

To the coastal trail

I go where mosquitoes

cannot fly in the quickening salt breeze.

In the sun

now on a grassy point, absorbing

the heat from a green wooden Adirondack chair

I watch a blonde in her canary yellow kayak struggle

against these stiff winds. I am facing

west

my most auspicious direction says the ancient

Chinese Bagua. I conclude

a friar must come to this sacred

spot each evening, to watch

the sun slip below the trees

(at least that’s what I would do).

If I close my right eye

and squint my weak left, the inlet

looks like a razzle dazzle Christmas light show

that never

never

ends.

Kylie’s Chance motors by chock full of sightseers

listening to the helmsman’s steady cadence

of interesting tid bits about The Port.

Grebes paddle this way and that

sucking the grasses near the rocks. A pair

moves near me as if to visit; and then

away again.

Hinckley’s, Zodiacs, Boston Whalers and the double-masted schooner Eleanor,

cruise by with colorfully dressed

families, happy

against a deep blue sky. A waft

of fried clams drifts over from Arundel Wharf.

Ummm. My stomach responds.

But

I make no move

to leave. I feel

deliciously pinned to this spot,

to this

stillness.

My body and spirit have been

waiting for this

moment for an eternity.

On the way out I stop at the statue

of Kateri Tekakwitha, ‘Lily of the Mohawks’.

Beneath a granite rock on her alter

I place a note, a declaration

of my state

of mind: “I am drenched

in Your grace and it slows

my pace.

I know

I know

I know.”

Suggested Practice: Meditation Walk

Carve out some time to meander in a favorite place.

Have no destination in mind.

Simply allow whatever catches your attention to guide your pace.

Move when you become aware that it is time to move.

Pause when an inner *something* asks that you pause.

There is nothing that needs to be accomplished.

Notice what happens to your breath; your mind; your body; your spirit.

Inspiration for this walk: Sabbath ~ Finding Rest, Renewal, and Delight in Our Busy Lives, by Wayne Muller, ©1999, Bantam Books.

©2008, Jennifer Comeau. All rights reserved.

Last week I got 1,800,000 links when I googled “Chinese opening ceremony girl singer”.

It has been all over the news, with Chinese and international voices crying foul over the “lip syncing incident” at the beautiful opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games in China.

Yes, it certainly seems “unfair” and “disingenuous” to show a “perfect” (the Chinese have used that word a lot) Lin Miaoke singing “Hymn to the Motherland”, rather than the real singer, Yang Peiyi.

The Chinese have a saying: ‘Gold and jade on the outside, but just cotton on the inside’. Hmmm. Is that applicable here? Perhaps. What strikes me is how quickly the world jumped to criticism and what appears to me to be hypocritical judgment about this incident. This happens everywhere. Obese people are continually discriminated against. A study published in the June 2004 Journal of Applied Psychology demonstrates that tall people make more money. (“The results suggest that tall individuals have advantages in several important aspects of their careers and organizational lives.”) The plain fact is that in spite of pithy sayings like, “It’s what’s on the inside that counts”, the world’s current definition of success seems to give merit to physical qualities more often than what lies beneath.

David Cooperider, founder of Appreciative Inquiry states: “We grow in the direction of the questions we ask”. With that in mind I ask the question: What is possible if each of us were only to see the beauty inside?

Are your avant guard friends coming to dinner and you’re looking for something different and meaningful? Does the weekend call for a rainy day? I’d like to share with you a fun activity that may also give you an opportunity for dialogue and discovery about what has meaning in your life.

I created this activity as part of a Human Resources Conference workshop I gave in May. The workshop centered on the theme of individual contribution within the broader organizational – and global – whole.

The premise is that in these past two decades of stress, where decision making is speeding up, work hours are lengthening, and there has been a breakdown of commitment between employer and employee – we are losing sight of the perspective of the whole. We’ve tended to hunker down in an attempt to slow things down, and yet, there is a deeper, persistent intra-planetary drumbeat that cannot be ignored.

You may be thinking: Why should I care about global issues? I can barely manage my own work hassles and family life? For some, the best coping mechanism is to disengage with the larger world. Although our industrial era culture may have taught us differently, we are all a part of the delicate web of interrelationships called the planet earth. While perhaps not always seen or even recognized, the global landscape is having and will continue to have an impact on each of us. It remains only a matter of when this reality becomes figural for us.

Have you disengaged from the larger conversation around you? What is the box you have built around yourself? To create an opportunity to see differently, try the following activity.

Steps:

1) Download and print (2-sided) the Global Landscape Cards. (Don’t look at the back side if you can help it. That has the “answers”.) Note: you will notice several blank cards. Add some of your own data to the deck.

global_landscape_cards_front

global_landscape_cards_back

2) You won’t want to play this alone. It’s not as fun. Find family members or friends, or work colleagues to “play”. This won’t take more than 30 minutes. (Caution! It could catalyze long, pleasant or unnerving conversations.)

3) Divide your group into teams. Each team gets a deck of Global Landscape Cards.

4) Play “true/false” with each of the statements on the Landscape Cards. Keep score of which ones and how many you or your group get correct.

5) Set up some competition – hey, that’s the Western culture way. Perhaps the first team who finishes with the most correct answers wins. Offer fabulous prizes to the winner. Or not.

Note: In spite of the rational, linear set of steps I’ve outlined above, I would suggest that you and those involved abandon all expectations of what should happen in the space you create together. There is no right or wrong way to use these cards. Be present to your individual and joint sense of what wants to happen in the moment.

Post activity thought starters:

What card was a surprise to you?

What did you notice about the cards?

What did you notice about your reaction to the activity?

What part was most difficult or easy?

Now reflect upon the following:

Who am I uniquely in relation to this global conversation?

What role will I choose to play in creating a higher vision of human purpose in the 21^st century?

I’m curious to know how the activity works for you. Keep me posted.