And a Hush Fell Over Us

Students with bags stuffed with books trample quietly in to the chapel, weary-eyed and slouching. They grab pillows and plop their bodies down to the ground, some more gracefully than others. We form a circular shape around the altar candles; our breath echoes back and forth between each other as we wait for the Taizé service to begin.

A single voice breaks through the silent anticipation. The voices around me gather me up, they soothe the wrinkles around my eyes, they massage my vocal chords until suddenly my voice is as pure as the one that began.

Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.

The soprano voice to my left reminds me of a blooming pale yellow daffodil. The softer voice to my left is like a soft autumn rain.

Then comes time for silence. The silence feels long today, but that is only because my body is sleep deprived and a struggle to maintain a balance between alertness and contemplative inner peace.

I think back to the many silences I endured at the ashram in Greece this past spring. Perhaps the most painful component of practicing silence in a group of meditative practitioners is you have no control over how long the silence will be. You hear the beginning bell and then you just have to wait...and wait...and wait... for a second bell to break the silence. It could last for ten minutes or it could last for four hours, but you must endure.

At first when I realized the lack of control I had, I found myself trying to fight the silence. I would try to count to ten with deep breaths, but I found I would often lose count before I got to seven. Finally I learned to release and to stop fighting the oppressive nature of the silence and instead embrace the silent energy of all of the people around me. I would breathe in and imagine everyone breathing in with me, filling my heart and igniting inside a single blue flame. As I exhaled, we would softly blow out the fire so the cycle could begin again.

The Taizé website (http://www.taize.fr/en) explains the importance of silence and meditative prayer:

Silence and love

Christ says: "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you" (John 15:12). We need silence in order to welcome these words and put them into practice. When we are agitated and restless, we have so many arguments and reasons not to forgive and not to love too easily. But when we "have calmed and quieted our soul", these reasons turn out to be quite insignificant. Maybe we sometimes avoid silence, preferring whatever noise, words or distraction, because inner peace is a risky thing: it makes us empty and poor, disintegrates bitterness and leads us to the gift of ourselves. Silent and poor, our hearts are overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit, filled with an unconditional love. Silence is a humble yet secure path to loving.

The Spiritual Joys of Womanhood

I am involved as a mentor in Young Women Leaders Program (YWLP) at UVA in which a group of female university students gather with a group of 7th grade girls at a local middle school each week and engage in discussions and activities emphazing the amazing potential of feminine spirit. At least that's how I see the program...

I am a facilitator of one of the groups this year, and I make an extreme effort to focus on the hidden spirituality of developing into a woman. Because we have only had one mentoring group meeting so far, I don't know how many of my little and big sisters have actually picked up on this tone of my leadership while in group, but in the coming weeks, I hope to make it more obvious.

Why is the development of a girl to a woman a spiritual journey?

Because it takes courage. It takes strength. And it requires a girl to come up with a new version of who she is and what she believes.

In Words On Fire: One Woman's Journey into the Sacred, Vanessa Ochs tells of one Rabbi who founded a school for women to study Talmud in Jerusalem. Rabbi Brovender reveals, "Women's education has to do with creativity, sensitivity. Woman aren't constrained by studying legalisms. If they want to be, that's fine, but they can study other things. The test is not if women can learn like men, but if men will say, 'I wish we could learn like women.'"

The journey from girl to woman is one of great struggle and incredible learning. Not only does the transformation from girl to woman suggest that self-knowledge has been acquired, but also a new perspective of the world and one's place in the world is adopted. I agree with Rabbi Brovender that women learn through creative expression that taps into their inner sensitive souls.

Nayeli, my new little sister in the YWLP program, has already shown me so much about what it means to be on the quest for womanhood. While we were painting at a table under the trees on the Downtown Mall yesterday, she confided in me about the importance for honesty and kindness in day-to-day relationships.

It hurts me when I hear rumors, she said quietly, so that's why I always try to tell the truth.

I cannot wait to learn more from her. Even though I just turned twenty-one years old on Saturday, I still feel as though I am just now learning to embrace the spiritual joys of womanhood.

Natural Trust: Leaning on the Unknown

Proverbs 3: 5-6

Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.


Today I attended Sunday Worship at Portico Church with a few friends. Today's service was the first time the people of the church came together in a new building and I could feel the energy pumping through the walls-- literally. There was a band and loud speakers and flat screens displaying multi-colored designs and lyrics to sing along to. The entire room was packed with eager young faces and as the lights dimmed and the guitar chords rang out, I felt strangely like I was at a rock concert instead of Sunday church.

At first I wondered, eyes wide, Is this really what it takes to get young people interested in GOD these days? God is not a video game, nor is he the latest entertainment fad. But then I started to look around to the people surrounding me.

In the middle of the audience there was a young, tall boy, with eyes closed, swaying to the music. His fist raised in the air, he was not watching the technicolor displays or metallic instruments on the stage. He was absorbed in something larger than himself. He was talking to someone who was listening. He was leaning on the unknown and trusting that it would support him.

What I've learned about God in my twenty years of life so far is that the divine presence does not coordinate with one's personal schedule. You can not pencil in your private date with God every Sunday morning as if you were scheduling a routine dental check-up. God will address you when you are ready. Where will you be when you give up trying to understand God and instead simply begin to know the divine spirit among all of us? It could be during a Christian Rock band performance on a Sunday morning or it could be as you crouch on the bathroom floor, leaning over the porcelain toilet on a rough Saturday night. Or it might never happen.

In every moment of my life, the deepest challenge I face is acknowledging the divine presence around me. Perhaps this is due to the fact that I do not like to be told which path to follow in life and thus by taking full control of my own life and relying solely on my own version of reality (or my own understandings of truth), I can lead a structured, secular life. I fill my life with abstractions and distractions so I am continually moving, writing, doing.

Yet, after a few days of living in auto-mode, I tend to break out and search for the sacred. I often gravitate towards the lush green of the outdoors and the fresh air of the woods. The one place that I do feel at peace to just be is in a quiet place outdoors, preferably by a natural body of water. There are many questions I would like to ask nature's spirits, but the only answer I need is the one holding me in place.

Immersed in nature, I trust in the divine, the unknown, and the impossible.

Catching Up Over Tarot Cards

“If something inside you is real, we will probably find it interesting, and it will probably be universal. So you must risk placing real emotion at the center of your work. Write straight into the emotional center of things. Write toward vulnerability. Don’t worry about appearing sentimental. Worry about being unavailable; worry about being absent or fraudulent. Risk being unliked. Tell the truth as you understand it. If you’re a writer, you have a moral obligation to do this. And it is a revolutionary act—truth is always subversive.”

From Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

Downtown Charlottesville on the last Friday afternoon of August appears... occupied. There are people everywhere: sitting on the wrought iron chairs of outdoor cafes, gathering around the purple Indian pashminas for sale at the street merchant's stalls, going in and coming out of diners whose insides smell like french fries and Mozzarella cheese.

This is my first time strolling down the brick-laden streets of the downtown mall during daylight hourse since last January, before I embarked on a semester of travel overseas. The street seems wider and the oak trees lining the mall seem taller. Do I belong in this town again? Do I know where I am?

I run into acquaintances, first a bohemian pair with inquiring eyes, and next a quirky girl who lived in my suite from first year. We stumble through our lines, trying to summarize what has made our lives real in the past few months, in the past year. I find myself suggesting a reunion, a coffee date, a time to really catch up. Of course we are too busy at this particular moment to delve into anything of substance, but that might all change with the presence of two steaming cappucinos. With skim milk of course.

I walk down to the end of mall, near the white peaks of the Pavillion. I stare at the pastel colored scribblings covering the Freedom of Speech Wall and think back to the time I spent all afternoon creating a chalky mural of paradise on my black driveway only to have it washed away by an evening thunderstorm.

Vote Obama. Monsters are invisible and sometimes suck a lot too. Jackie & Bryan forever. Let's go HOOS! Goodbye, Lover.

I wish I could be the person to sponge down the surface of the wall every day, once a day. Before I would wipe away each message, I might whisper it, barely audible, more air between my lips than sound. I wonder what it feels like to have the power to destroy expression, only to enable a fresh, new batch of creativity.

On my return stroll through the mall, I see the Tarot Card Reader and smile, because he has hardly changed since I first watched him three years ago. His mustache is still white and wiry, standing out bright against the dusty leather color of his face. He wears the pale denim button-up shirt which I recognize, even with a small bleach stain on his collar. No one is with him and so he waits, sitting cross-legged on the brick and staring down at the arrangement of cards in front of him. He need not invite people with his pupils, the ones whose souls are worth reading will be drawn to him anyway.

I feel myself being pulled slowly in his direction. I imagine myself walking over slowly and deliberately and squatting down. Might you read the cards for me?

The man transforms from stranger to friend in the time it takes him to lift his head and smooth his mustache. He concentrates as he turns and flips and counts the cards; I watch. He sighs, then smiles, then looks up at me.

We've got a lot of catching up to do.

Encounters With the Sacred

As part of my fall semester independent study project with Professor Vanessa Ochs entitled Encounters With the Sacred, I will be writing a few times each week in the LOTUS travelogue. Although my entries will be focused on internal journeys, rather than the cross-cultural travels of Southeast Asia previously detailed in this blog, I hope my words may be of some interest to others striving to look beyond the ordinary in their everyday lives.

Below is my personal mission statement for my Independent Study, which will serve as background for the future entries. Comments and critique is always welcome. Thank you for reading!

I believe leading a balanced life full of holistic experiences enables one to encounter the sacred. By learning to observe one’s environment and reflect upon the subtleties of one’s surroundings, one may learn to experience the sacred in ordinary situations. My goal in embarking on this independent study during my final year at the university is to investigate encounters with the sacred that occur during:
(1) spiritual pilgrimages or travel
(2) the pursuit for self knowledge
(3) altruistic endeavors

Spiritual Pilgrimages or Travel

While the mission of a spiritual pilgrimage is directly linked to encountering the sacred, travel itself can also result in some spiritual revelations and divine run-ins. In the past year I have traveled to three different continents and five different countries. The aim of my travels was not spiritual solitude, but rather transcending my comfort zone, meeting and helping a diverse group of people, and learning about other cultures. I plan to review and edit my travel journals and prepare a cohesive travelogue of my experiences, both the spiritual and the mundane. Upon reflection of these experiences, I hope to relive some of the encounters with the sacred that I had during my travels.

The Pursuit for Self Knowledge

Self-knowledge can be acquired through a multitude of activities, both personal and social. I will be focusing on self-knowledge through the form of introspection, as encouraged by psychologist Carl Jung. I will also be investigating whether one must “know thyself” before one can help others. Does a better understanding of the self alone lead to encounters with the sacred or is it the activities that are involved in the pursuit of self knowledge that lead to the sacred?

Altruistic Endeavors

Volunteering as part of a travel program or helping others informally out of the kindness of one’s heart is a way of encountering the sacred by forgetting about your own needs and desires and searching for the universal good. I will be reflecting on the type of people who are by nature altruistic and why I have always felt a desire to be involved positively in the community I am living in.


"We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out." --Ray Bradbury