| This newsletter is a publication of the Mystical Order of the White Rose, a multi-faith devotional and spiritual support organization. We support and share information about mystical, monastic, contemplative and creative ways of living. We encourage prayer, the reading of sacred scripture(s), lectio divina, meditation, journaling, solitude, fasting, silence, kindness, hospitality, worship, active involvement in spiritual and religious communities, simplicity, creativity and loving service to others. You can view past issues here and you can subscribe to it here .
Table of Contents
-- Update: "By the Grace of God and the Scruff of My Neck" by Cynthia K. Lee
-- Prayers by Medieval Mystic Aelred of Rievaulx (1110-1167)
-- Reflections On Love: Multifaith & Multi-media Devotionals
-- Links of Interest
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By the Grace of God and the Scruff of My Neck
by Cynthia K. Lee
It has been a few months since I published a Mystical Order of the White Rose Newsletter and I feel that I owe the gentle readers and radiant souls who subscribe to the newsletter an account of the reasons for this lengthy lapse.
I used to consider Hildegard von Bingen's image of "a feather on the breath of God" an apt description of my life and spiritual aspirations. However, during these last few months, since October of 2008 especially, the image that seems to fit best is being snatched up by the scruff of my neck by a ferocious powerful creature and violently shaken from side to side until my clothes were ripped to shreds, all the things in my pockets fell out, and I became dizzy. Another image that comes to mind is being uprooted-- ripped from the soil of my usual life.
These "lifestyle changes" have been caused by my husband Johnny's health problems and experiences. We live in a small town in Northwest Arkansas, but have, to a great extent, taken up residence in St. John's Hospital in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which offers the big city quality of care that my husband wants and needs.
We spent Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's eve and day in St. John's Hospital and many of the weeks in between. Most of the time I stayed in the private hospital room with Johnny, sleeping on what I dubbed a "sleeping slab." Since restful sleep is not available in hospitals, this took a toll on my physical and mental health, but a meditation practice and the regular consumption of high potency nutritional supplements kept me going.
In early January I returned to work at my day job and began to commute to Tulsa on weekends. I now routinely stay in the hospital guest rooms because Johnny has been transferred to a continuous care facility within the hospital and has a roommate. Since the room is very small, there is no space for sleeping slabs or supportive spouses. I spend three nights a week in Tulsa and the rest of the week back home.
Johnny was home for only three days in December before developing a ring of pus around his left lung and having to be taken to the local emergency room and then sent back (by helicopter) to St. John's. He's been there more than six weeks now but may be able to come home in a few days, not because he is well, but because his infections are manageable enough to be dealt with at home.
He had pre-emptive, preventive surgery on his pancreas late last October to remove a small endocrine tumor that was not cancerous. The doctor thought it would be best to remove it rather than wait for it to become cancerous. Johnny developed what appears to be an antibiotic-resistant staph infection and related abcess. Right now this minute he has two staph infections in his gut/pancreas area that we know about and has developed pancreatitis.
A sharp surge in Johnny's health problems began last April; I call that the first "meltdown." The October surgery precipitated a second and far more severe meltdown and deterioration in his health. The many hours of hideous pain and the unending and rapid deterioration of his health have led my husband--and me--to a strong awareness that he may not be in incarnation for a whole lot longer. He has lost almost 100 pounds in less than a year and his overall level of functioning continues to decline rather than improve despite the best efforts of a high-tech big city hospital.
By the grace of God, we have been upheld during this turbulent time by our love for each other, the love, prayers and support of family, friends and many other caring people, including hospital staff. God's grace sends angels of love and healing to assist us at all hours of the night and day and provides towering, high-tech temples of medicine that have on several occasions saved Johnny's life. I am confident that God's grace will continue to accompany, overlight and interpenetrate us, forever and ever, in this world and the next.
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Prayers By Medieval Mystic Aelred of Rievaulx
Pour into our hearts, O God, the Holy Spirit's gift of love, that we, clasping each the other's hand, may share the joy of friendship, human and divine, and with your servant Aelred draw many to your community of love; through Jesus Christ the Righteous, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Prayer attributed to Aelred of Rievaulx , (1110-1167) published on this website Rielvaux - A Brief History and Virtual Tour
Let your voice sound in my ears, good Jesus, so that my heart may learn how to love you, my mind how to love you, the inmost being of my soul how to love you. Let the inmost core of my heart embrace you, my one and only true good, my dear and delightful joy.
But, my God, what is love? Unless I am mistaken, love is a wonderful delight of the spirit; all the more attractive because more chaste, all the more gentle because more guileless and all the more enjoyable because more ample. It is the heart's palate which tastes that you are sweet, the heart's eye which sees that you are good. The heart is the place capable of receiving you, great as you are. Someone who loves you grasps you. The more one loves the more one grasps because you yourself are love, you are charity. This is the abundance of your house, by which your beloved ones will become so inebriated that, quitting themselves, they will pass into you. And how else, O Lord, but by loving you and this with all their being.
- Aelred of Rievaulx (1110-1167), Mirror of Charity I:I, p. 49-50, A School of Love--The Cistercian Way to Holiness by Basil Pennington
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Reflections On Love
February Multifaith & Multi-Media Devotionals
Each day we should expose ourselves to the inspiration of others. Thousands of saints and wise men and women have left us messages of hope and encouragement. Read what is honest. Read the scriptures and the commentaries. Read great literature and poetry. Read the psalms. Read that which expresses the anguish and the exhilaration of experience, and teaches us that we are not alone.
- John McQuiston II, p. 88, Always We Begin Again--The Benedictine Way of Living
Due to continuing time and energy constraints the devotionals in this issue are not daily and do not include astrological and multi-faith holy days as in past issues. They are multifaith and multi-media, however, and lend themselves well to reflective reading.
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Video of the song "The Rose" - written by Amanda McBroom, performed by Bette Midler. The lyrics are below.
Amanda McBroom's own account of the history of "The Rose" song.
Amanda McBroom's Home Page
The Rose
by Amanda McBroom
Some say love, it is a river that drowns the tender reed.
Some say love, it is a razor that leaves your soul to bleed.
Some say love, it is a hunger, an endless aching need.
I say love, it is a flower, and you it's only seed.
It's the heart, afraid of breaking, that never learns to dance.
It's the dream, afraid of waking, that never takes a chance.
It's the one who won't be taken, who cannot seem to give.
And the soul, afraid of dyin', that never learns to live.
When the night has been too lonely, and the road has been too long,
And you think that love is only for the lucky and the strong,
Just remember in the winter far benaeth the bitter snows,
Lies the seed, that with the sun's love, in the spring becomes The Rose.
Lyrics courtesy of Risa Song Lyrics Archive
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Why does love matter? I think it's really all that does. Everything else that matters, matters because of love. If a a fire burns, it matters because someone or something we love might be hurt, even destroyed. If a birthday is celebrated, the celebration matters only if we are surrounded by those we love. If a life is mourned, it is not mourned for what was accomplished nearly so much as for the love that will be missed.
- Delilah, America's #1 Nighttime Radio Host, from her book Love Matters--Remarkable Stories That Touch the Heart and Nourish the Soul
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