Taizé Prayer

I'd heard about it for years but usually have a conflict on the night it happens. Last night I didn't, so I drove to the church in the dark and walked into a shimmering, candlelit chapel that scarcely resembled its everyday self.

There were icons on the altar and candles flickering around the sanctuary, illuminating the rough-hewn brick walls. There were two tables of thin tapers for lighting to elevate your prayer intention. There were many in attendance, but a hush filled the room. 

Taizé is an ecumenical monastic community in France with worship services of repetitive chanted prayer. Its model has become popular around the world. 

We sang in Latin, we sang in English. We were accompanied by piano, organ, violin, oboe and clarinet. The melodies were like plainsong, and in their repetition was the music of the ages.  

Silence punctuated the service: a silent entrance, a silent exit, and a stretch of silence in the middle, time for quiet contemplation — "essential to discovering the heart of prayer," the handout told me.

I left feeling renewed, inspired, quieted. 

(Photo: courtesy Arlington Catholic Herald.)

Sharing Epiphany

Today is Epiphany, celebrated as Christmas by some and as a day of wonder and awe by others. I'm one of the latter. For me, this is a day to celebrate the aha moments of life.

Which brings me to an op-ed I read in yesterday's Washington Post. In it, James Naples, a surgeon and medical residency program director, shares how he conquered the yips, an unexplained loss of skill that affects high-performing athletes, performers and, apparently, surgical residents. 

Early in his training, Naples explained, he began to struggle through even basic procedures. "My head had gotten in the way of my hands." Then he met a new senior surgeon, Dr. E., who in the three minutes it took the two of them to scrub for an operation, totally changed the younger surgeon's trajectory. The older doctor was warm and open and approachable. There was only one thing to avoid doing in the upcoming procedure, he said. "Everything else is fixable." 

The effect on Naples was profound. The younger surgeon realized it was okay to make mistakes, that it was part of the learning process. Now he's mentoring new doctors, encouraging them to share their fears and doubts. '

I'm not a surgical resident, but the lesson that "all mistakes are fixable" resonates with me, too. "What thing worth doing — in our jobs, families or communities — is not susceptible to the folly of perfectionism?" Naples asks. "With honesty and empathy, we all can help others find peace with fallibility." I'm grateful that Naples had his epiphany and shared it with the rest of us.

(A photo not of surgery but of an Epiphany surprise.)

Celebrating Epiphany

It's a day in need of rescue, so that it isn't buried at the bottom of an ornament box as we strip the tree and take it down. Or, since 2021, to separate it from the taint of the Capitol insurrection. 

In western Christianity, the Epiphany celebrates the visit of the magi to the infant Jesus. It marks the presentation of Jesus to the Gentiles, the revelation of his divine identity. It has also come to mean a sudden intuition, an aha moment. 

I've always appreciated this day, because it ends Christmas with a bang not a whimper, with a quest, a star and a sense of wonder. Despite the rich robes of the three kings, it has always reminded me that inspiration doesn't lie in the grand occasions of life but can be folded into the lowliest of enterprises: sweeping the floor, raking the leaves, feeding the birds. 

We don't know when the aha moment will strike, only that it will — if we pay attention. 

(The Adoration of the Magi, Edward Burne-Jones, courtesy Wikipedia)

 

An Obit a Day

Sometimes, the best way to start the morning is by reading an obituary. Not just any obituary, though. It needs to be one like that of Arthur Riggs, 82, who with a colleague, Keiichi Ikatura, developed synthetic insulin. Riggs died March 23. 

I learned that Riggs and Ikatura developed a genetic technique that led to the first human-designed and human-made gene that would function in any organism. This paved the way for the creation of synthetic insulin, a "lifesaving development for millions of people with diabetes," the Washington Post said.

Before this discovery, people with diabetes relied on insulin from cows, which had a high rate of allergic reactions. The synthetic insulin avoids this risk.

Dr. Riggs lived in the same house for 50 years, drove "modest cars," said the obituary ... and quietly gave away much of the money he earned from royalties on patents — $310 million — to the institution he helped to found. The name of the institution: the City of Hope. 

(Ikatura and Riggs in 1978. Photo courtesy City of Hope.)

January 6th

It was only after I had posted yesterday that I remembered the date: January 6, the Epiphany, Little Christmas, a day set aside (by me, at least) to celebrate insight, discovery, the sudden revelation.

But since last year, January 6th has taken on a different meaning, one of anger and fear and ignominy. The opposite of light and wonder. 

You could say that last year's January 6th was a revelation. It revealed a dark truth about this nation. But I'd rather keep the day free of politics, let it stay in my mind the capstone of the season, a day to reflect with hope on the year just dawning. 

Virtual Vacation

Time for a virtual vacation. Today I'm heading to Florida, where I go every summer to walk the beach, inhale the sea air, and watch dune grass swaying in the breeze.

I'm thinking about how sultry it is there, and how I always intend to do more writing than I actually do — but how it works out anyway. Because the trip is always an inspiration and a restorative, much longed for, much appreciated.

It's still months away but already I can feel a warm breeze on my face and the fine white sand between my toes. One of the best things about a virtual vacation is that it can happen whenever you want it to! And for me, it's happening ... right ... now.

Bounding into the Future

Copper and I reached the gate at the top of our deck stairs this morning at exactly the same moment that a four-point buck landed in our yard. He had jumped over the fence, trotted down the slight slope and paused in his foraging, as if listening to a faraway call.

I've become quite inured to the deer around here. They eat the day lilies and even the impatiens, if there's nothing else. They cause auto accidents and are responsible for several dents in our cars through the years.

But seeing the buck this morning, so young and strong, stopped me in my tracks. I stared at him, mesmerized, and he stared back. He was beautiful, a messenger from a wild world. And indeed, in some cultures deer are sacred, a symbol of death and rebirth on account of their antlers, which they shed and regrow.

How perfect to see the deer on this day, which is itself a passageway to another world, another decade. I took the fellow as a good omen. And he — since he disappeared with a flash of his white tail — is not around to correct me on this.

(The stag I saw wasn't white, but he was noble. Photo: Wikipedia)

Revelations

In classical Greek it meant the manifestation of a deity to a worshipper. But now the word epiphany can mean other revelations, as well. Just as our society has become more secular, so too have our revelations. We can have epiphanies about our work, our families, our politics.

But to me, all epiphanies have a bit of the divine in them. And it is in part because of epiphanies, the aha moments that come from nowhere, that I believe in the divine.

Because one moment the world is pitiless plain—and the next it is lush mountains and valleys. What can explain the difference? No atoms or molecules, no assemblage of 1s and 0s.

It is wonder, plain and simple. It is waking inside the rainbow. It is the star, a light in the sky that leads us to the divine.

Pep Walk

I love the pep talk, whether getting or giving. Those first minutes and hours afterward, lifted on a thin layer of inspiration that I know won't last but feels permanent at the time, a high born of words and gestures, of understandings suddenly grasped.

But when there's no one around for a pep talk, a pep walk will do.

A pep walk begins in desolation. The article you're writing has no focus, the words are cliches. The work load is too heavy, no one can juggle this many projects. The child you raised is having troubles; she's an adult now but when she hurts, you do too.

The reasons are legion, but the remedy is the same. Lace up the shoes, grab the earbuds, step outside. It's a whole new world out there. Other people and their problems. Maybe the problems get all jumbled together and cancel each other out. Or maybe it's just the act of walking, one foot then the other. Forward motion, with all that that implies.

All I know is, the pep walk works. It bolsters spirits, reveals solutions. It inspires.

Tender-Hearted

On Wednesday, lured by the record-breaking warmth outside (it was 80 on March 1!),  I walked to Gravelly Point at lunchtime.

Gravelly Point is where you go to see the jets swoop low before landing at National Airport, and by the time I got there wind gusts were so strong that I realized this was probably a dumb place to be.

Was it just my imagination, or did the planes seem to tremble as they banked into their final turns? Could a sudden gust throw them off course?

I kept my eye on each craft, and was surprised by how those big birds made me feel. Watching them land, the brave tilt of their wings, their plucky landing gear, gave me the same tender-hearted feeling I had on 9-11. It's a rare and anomalous emotion, one I've been trying to understand since that day.

It is pity, in part, but also also pride and patriotism and compassion. It's a sudden awareness of fragility — both human and technological — and of how hard we work to stay aloft.

Around the Corner

Last year's Epiphany I came across a bevy of colorful scarves draped on trees and banisters and railings. It was a "scarf bombing," part of an organized effort to help those who have no way to come in from the cold.

It was, I thought, the perfect expression of the day, a moment of revelation in wool and worsted.

Today, nothing so epiphanous. Today, a typical work-at-home day, the views and contours familiar and unsurprising.

By definition, though, sudden revelations can happen at any time. So while I may not be cleansed by clarity now, I may be later today or tomorrow or sometime next week.

In other words, I'm trying to live as if inspiration is just around the corner.

Epiphany!

I was all set to write about Epiphany, one of my favorite holidays. Day of discovery and adoration. The magi at the stable. And also of epiphany, one of my favorite feelings, the sudden revelation, the aha moment, the emergence of the forest from the trees.

I was helped along by a real surprise, a tree of scarves. Farther along, scarves draped over banisters and railings. On each scarf a blue tag: If you're cold take this scarf. Chase the Chill D.C.

Looked it up, found the page and the mission, saw the skeins of yarn from which some scarves were made. Learned that the "scarf bombing" was long planned for this day, that many fingers flew to bring it about.

A sometime crocheter, I could feel the needles in my grasp, imagine the warm hearts and hands of the knitters. A sudden revelation, an aha moment. All of that and more.