Stephanie Rutt

In my book, Doorway to the Sacred: Transform Your Life with Mantra Prayer, I talk of the essence of spiritual practice occurring to us in the silence that follows our mantra chanting. The mantra, having honed our minds to a deeper state of equanimity, can now lead us to a kind of portal, in that silence that follows, through which we may experience ourSelves at deeper levels. This same sacred silence, of course, occurs as a result of practices across faith traditions. In Christianity, the contemplative practice is called Centering Prayer. Here, much like with mantra practice, we engage what is called a sacred word but the whole of the practice is done in silence. Moreover, the intention is not so much to transcend the finite nature of the mind to merge with the infinite nature of the soul as it is to become spacious enough to experience the presence of God within. This allows for what Father Thomas Keating called the false self to emerge for transformation so that the true self may be experienced – one’s personal union with God. Two distinctly beautiful paths leading to the One Beloved.

Over the past year, I have been spending more time in Centering Prayer and I have noticed, quite unexpected, a kind of settling within me. I call it a deeper capacity to wait and it reminds me of Tagore’s saying, Everything comes to us that belongs to us if we have the capacity to receive it. As I recently shared on my Author Facebook page, this is why we practice – to cultivate the capacity to receive what already belongs to us and why our ability to wait is so integral and sacred to our journey.

Recently I wrote a poem about this…I hope, in some way, it will bless your journey. It’s called Waiting…

You have paused me.
And I wait now with only the sweet scent of some unknowing, holding me,
as I flutter aloft like one of those hummingbirds outside my window.
Suspended, now, I can only wait in wonder.

And wait I do for Your direction even as I steadily march forward.
I can feel Your hand carving away what I am ready to surrender.
I resist imagining what may be emerging.
It seems best not to know.
For in not knowing I remain more anchored in Your Grace.

Your presence now is my only path; Your fragrance my only compass.
I have no destination. You are my Home.
Paused now, I rest, gladly, at Your feet.
Content to wait for Your command, now, my only wish.

I have always known Your steadfast, Grace filled, love for me.
What I didn’t know till now,
until Your piercing gaze ever-so-tenderly blossomed my heart
and claimed all of me, suddenly, decisively, as Your own…
was just how much I could find myself
loving You

As the snow melts, I am smiling thinking of my granddaughter and one of her favorite things to do in the summer sun. “Come on Grandma!” I hear, and then before I know it, she’s off – off to run, run, run, round her house, over and over again. Scrambling to keep up, I’m always just slightly behind her. “Run Grandma! You can do it!” she coaches giggling back at me. Then, I’m giggling in spite of myself and my furled brow! But, I always notice that while I’m racing, huffing and puffing, she’s just having a grand old time, swaying side to side, even as she’s moving quite purposefully forward. Clearly, she seems a woman on a mission – right there in her two-year old body – no doubt about that.

But, it’s that run. How I love that run. Decisive, focused yet so carefree and utterly playful. Just the memory of it leaves me pondering. Hummmmmm. How many untold words have been written by spiritual teachers, expounded upon by the sharpest minds, about how to best cultivate such a state of consciousness carefully balanced in the equanimity of single-pointed expansion, motion and rest, structure and freedom, discipline and play? Yet, there it is, in its purest form, playing out right before my eyes.

Was I like that? Where did mine go? I think I best go on a mission to find my inner two year old! After all, I need lots of help cultivating such advanced states of consciousness.

“Come on Grandma! Run!”

Ooops, gotta go. Lucky for me I have a great teacher and the best playground ever to train in this most serious and disciplined of practices…

Another run around the house.

Hello Everyone,

In response to my earlier post The Beloved’s Doodling, it was requested that I show some of my tangles. Here are a few samples below. Enjoy!

I have felt it in the stillness of a zikr turn. I have felt it in the spacious silence following mantra meditation. I have felt its guidance on a journey to the Shaman’s drum. But, never, before today, have I felt it doodling.

Ahhhhh, to be fair, this was no ordinary doodling. As part of my The Word Made Fresh January class, we were invited to tangle (also known as Zen tangling), or doodle, the Hebrew script. Having practiced Psalm 23 in Hebrew, I already knew the power of the language so I was intrigued to investigate further.

My process began with reading about each letter in one of our texts, The Book of Letters, by Lawrence Kushner. As I read about each one, a word emerged that seemed to me a kind of portal into that letter’s infinite wisdom. Then soon, short prayers started to emerge. Then, I felt ready to start tangling – but not before my mind got in some good commentary. You’re not as artist! How can you possibly make those letters beautiful?

But, Just start, I heard. And, so I did. Hummmmm, this is not so bad…kinda cool really. Ooooop!!!! Mistake!!!! I wonder what would happen if I just followed that line? Where does it want to go? What is this corner space wanting? This curve? This angle? What shape? What figure? What IS that? Boy, THAT was amazing. That long curved line just rolled into something I didn’t even see coming!

And as I continued to tangle, it was as if I had stepped over some threshold right into the portal of each letter. Alef…is this what you were wanting? How can I see your Oneness everywhere? Bait? Gimmel? All twenty-two of you are so beautiful! I can hardly believe it. Now I can see how you helped to create heaven and earth. Thank you, each of you, for being my Teacher. Thank you for showing the way…one stroke at a time.

Oh my…who IS doodling here, anyway?

And then, after many hours of what seemed like no time, my book of prayers was complete and I could only marvel with tender, quiet, gratitude at what had been created…

One Blessed doodle at a time.

As the New Year dawns we begin to think of letting go of the past and ringing in the new. It can feel both joyous and well as challenging. It always reminds me that death and birth are inextricably linked – one always opening to the other. This past semester in school, I was blessed to dive deeply into St. Teresa of Avila’s Interior Castle and titled my final paper An Ecstatic Death. Then, over the holidays, I was gifted with Andrea Bocelli’s The Lord’s Prayer accompanied by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Somehow, from the merging alchemy of both, the poem below emerged.

May Love transform us…so we may die to self and be reborn in glory…

An Ecstatic Death

I hear you now my Love…hallowed…singing my barely audible pulse.

I feel you now my Love…mercifully…catching my awe-filled breath.

I see you now my Love…everywhere…lighting my blinded sight.

 ———————–

You have silenced my surest knowing.

You have unarmed my best guess.

You have emptied my will.

You have pierced my heart and left me bleeding …only love…for You.

 ———————–

I am silent now…sensing only the moist touch of You on my lips.

 ———————–

I am dying now…in sweet ecstasy…

Feeling only the kiss of your Love birthing me…lifting me…onto your Grace…

 ———————–

To soar…glorious and free…

Home to you my Beloved…

Home to you.

Happy Blessed New Year to All!

As I held in loving memory the 148 slain, mostly children, by the Taliban on Tuesday, it struck me that this was also the day that, at sundown, Jews all around the world would begin to celebrate Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights. And, this reminded me of a story told by Elie Wiesel in his book Night of a young boy who was hanged in Auschwitz for a minor infraction of the camp rules. As the boy dangled from the rope, Wiesel was asked by someone, “Where is God now?” And, a voice deep within him replied, “Here He is – He is hanging here on the gallows.”

Mother Teresa said, ”We look but we don’t see.” When the unspeakable happens, when we nakedly witness our inhumanity to one another, we cringe in horror. And, perhaps, from some seething anger aching to explode, we may cry out in vengeful rage, “Where is God? Where are you?” But, perhaps, if we can adjust our vision just enough, we too might be able to see God right before us and to quietly hear the answer: “I am right here – holding you in your rage, grief and despair. I am here among the shattered glass, the small crumpled jacket, the broken eyeglasses, the tiny shoe, the pools of blood. Yes, I am here. I am here when you feel there is nothing left. I am here – the song that will not be silenced from your most wounded heart, clinging like a wingless bird to a withered branch. I am here – an eternal flicker of Light in this unspeakable darkness. Adjust your vision. Look. I am here.”

Is this not our charge as a community of faith? Is it not both our great challenge as well as blessing to learn to adjust our vision to see God just where we may not have thought to look? Let us rise up dear community and join our collective vision to march in solidarity affirming the Truth that will make ‘all’ of us free, that only that which is born of goodness is lasting. I invite us to join in spirit with our Jewish brothers and sisters to light a candle in our hearts everyday in remembrance of this truth for in the great words of Eleanor Roosevelt, “It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.” Let us not be defeated nor be left disheartened by untruth. As Krishna tells Arjuna on the great battlefield of life when he is wavering in his duty, Stand up scorcher of foes!! Let us do the same – to fight for the victory of compassion and connection among all peoples and against hatred and evil.

Let us pause, adjust our vision, and see. And then, let us light a candle in our hearts so bright that all may see our good works…so, just perhaps, those in great despair may be able to hear the voice of God, ever so softly, whispering through us… Here I am. I am here.

Just outside my kitchen window is a small red-filled tree. It seems to be in no hurry to let go of its leaves. I’ve wondered why. Now I know. It was waiting for me to stop and pay attention, to listen. I’m smiling now as I remember this is just how God is with us. In our plain sight, if we have eyes to see. Waiting patiently for us to stop and listen. And, so I did and this is what I heard…

I pray your steps will slow when you walk past me.  Maybe you will even pause for a quiet moment to gaze at my brilliance frolicking within every leaf. Perhaps if you allow me to catch you off guard, so that the simple wonder of me leaves you, just for a moment, breathless, and perhaps then you will remember how much alike we are.

Like me, you too began as just a seed in the womb of life. Like me, you were nurtured as you grew within the great Mother. Now, like me, you have grown tall throughout the many seasons of storms, sunlight, violent winds, soft rains, and through the many nights of deep darkness and the many days of mornings’ sweet glow.  And, just like there is no other tree quite like me, you too are unique among creation. Imagine that! And, it was all there in that tiny seed, in me and in you, right from the beginning.

Will you come play with me in the wind as just the sheer delightful of it all dances us across the breathless sky? When the storms come, will you surrender with me into the shelter of what will be? And, in quiet times, will you allow your limbs to rest like mine so we may feel, in our stillness, the marrow of our veins pulsing that silent longing? And, when our seed is spent and withered, can you, lay down with me, smiling, onto the soft hand of God, to be tenderly carried home?

I pray so…said the little red tree…

Me too…I said…me too.

As the gorgeous, blessed leaves, make their way onto the ground to (joyfully) become compost for new life, I find myself slowing, turning inward, for the silent nourishment I so love in the holy darkness of this time of year – the darkness that envelops me in my morning prayers and meditations. It reminds me that all is well for all eternity is right there sitting with me. I need nothing more.

And I am reminded of a beautiful story from the Tao…

A traveler through the mountains came upon an elderly gentleman who was busy planting a tiny almond tree. Knowing that almond trees take many years to mature, he commented to the man, “It seems odd that a man of your advanced age would plant such a slow-growing tree!” The old man replied, “I like to live my life based on two principles: One is that I will live forever. The other is that this is my last day.”

In the holy darkness, I am happy knowing I will live forever – in each one of those sweet present moments – for I am finite and infinite, human and divine. The tiny almond tree reminds me that my only job is to relax and be so that God may do. It reminds me that I need not effort for the hand of God is busy sculpting me in blessed ways I know not. It reminds me to breathe, more slowly, so I may remember that I am breathed, tendered and lovingly held by the holy One, right there, in the sweet darkness.

May we each become more like the tiny almond tree…and live forever…today.

For my first assignment in theology, we were asked to write a ONE page (no more allowed) paper about an event that had changed us in a meaningful way. ONE event? ONE page? My brain racked! For days I struggled with which one and how could I say that in ONE page? Finally, I gave up. Always a good sign! And then quietly, my heart landed not on one of the many events that have carved into my heart leaving me on bare knees nor did it land on one of those times that have left me overflowing with Grace. No, my heart landed on the one that has reminded me most how (I pray) to live. Here is what I shared…

In 2007, I stepped out to check the mail in front of my school, the Tree of Life. There I found a letter addressed to me from an inmate I will call John Smith in the Security Housing Unit of Pelican Bay State Prison. Thinking it must be a mistake, I almost put it back to be returned to sender. Then, cautiously, I decided to open it. I found four handwritten pages that still leave my heart still and silent. My first book, An Ordinary Life Transformed: Lessons for Everyone from the Bhagavad Gita had just come out about six months before and, through a series of what can only be described as divinely orchestrated events, John had gotten a copy. Below are excerpts from his letter…

“I am a 39 year old inmate who, since 1992, has been serving a life without the possibility of parole prison sentence…It may appear strange to you, but I am isolated from all human contact. When I leave my cell it is always under escort while being handcuffed, and I am allowed only ninety minutes a day outside alone in a tiny cage…Rev. Stephanie Rutt I have read your book quite a few times and I am writing to say thank you for being a light in my journey. For if it was not for your book I would not be where I am beginning at now…I have a long way to go…but I feel freer than I’ve ever been in my life, that I can truly remember. I lived in the real world as a prisoner and most of my prison sentence as one also , but I am slowly freeing myself, and beginning to spread my wings…As I close this letter allow me to let you know that I appreciate and thank you for assisting me on this journey. I am sure you never would have thought that you could reach through concrete and steel and touch someone’s life. But better yet I believe this is exactly why you wrote this book and presented it as a gift to the world. So that one day all of us could feel the true meaning of ‘Welcome Home.’”

What John could not have known is that I had often used his very words to describe my book – my gift to God and to the world. “Welcome Home” is a phrase I use often in all my writing. I did write back to him, thanking him for his letter, but never heard from him again.

Every time I read his letter, I remember (again) that it is simply my job to do what I can where I am. To play my part. To contribute my small offering to the great tapestry of life. I am not to concern myself with where my Beloved may lead me. I am not to question or even to imagine what effect my humble offering might bring. No, this is not my charge or responsibility. I am to show up, offer what I am able in faith and love and trust that God will do the rest. How freeing.

Such is the mystery of knowing not.

Such is the mystery of the One Heart where we all move, breathe and have our being and are graced to say to one another, Welcome…

Welcome John…

Welcome Home.