Month: August 2015

Have You Heard? Pass the Word.

Posted on by rita kowats

WW Ride the Waves with Us

 

 

Do you live in the Seattle area, USA?  Do you know someone who does?  Come to the next gathering of the worship community at Welcoming Waters, October 18, and pass the word.  We are growing in number and our intention is clear:  healing and spiritual nourishment in a loving and inclusive environment.

Welcoming Waters is a gathering of people who seek to hear the message the spirit is speaking through one another. Many of us were asked to leave religious institutions because we revealed our authentic selves. Some of us told our worshiping community that we were members of the GLBT community, others of us expressed our doubts, and some of us expressed an understanding of faith that was outside the borders of the church we were attending. When we were all ushered to the door, formally, or subtlety of those communities, we found that the Spirit of love, the Spirit of God, the insights of our faiths did not stop working in our lives or teaching us profound truths. We simply lost a place to talk about them.

We are so blessed to be able to gather at the beautiful Lake Ballinger Community Center five miles north of Seattle on the third Sunday of the month at 10:30 and like the great blue heron who finds herself on the shores of Lake Ballinger, we wait and wade in the waters of the Spirit together.

If you sense the spirit has something to say but you have not found a safe place to express those words, or if you are seeking a faith gathering that will accept all of you, we invite you to come to our gathering.

We will gather again on October 18 at Lake Ballinger Community Center 1030am.
All are welcome.

 

WW step into the healing waters with us

 

If you would like to talk to someone before attending please email
Pastor Linda Roddis linda.heronspirit@gmail.com
or
Rita kowats, MA Theology soulseeing@gmail.com

www.welcomingwaters.org

https://www.facebook.com/PastorLindaRoddis

Mountlake Community Center
23000 Lakeview Drive
Mountlake Terrace WA 98043

Photo Credit:

: <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/40883175@N06/19803298938“>Surfer</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com“>photopin</a> <a href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/“>(license)</a>

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The Spirituality of Matter

Posted on by rita kowats

fire32

Matter matters as much as spirit, contrary to some thought in early Christianity.  Matter was considered by some to be evil, while spirit was good.  Contemporary Christian theology urges us to recognize and celebrate the reality that everything that exists is interrelated.  What I do in my relationship with creation affects your ability to be nourished by and enjoy your environment.  My friend Polly grew up in Eastern Washington in the farming town of Colton.  She has lived most of her life somewhere east of the Cascades mountain range.  Today the magnitude and urgency of fires that rage there came home to her.  I share her letter as an invitation to all of us to take creation-centered spirituality seriously.

Dear Rita

This morning I heard that Tonasket was evacuated because of fire danger–the whole town of Tonasket–a town where I spent a week while I taught vacation summer school in Oroville, living in the convent of the Dominican hospital in Tonasket.  This town is evacuated because of the wildfires in the Okanogan.  These places are not just names on a map, They are places I know.  A Colville tribes person asked for prayers saying their reservation is burning.  Also, the whole Spokane Indian Reservation is under a warning to be ready to move because of fire danger.  This is getting closer to home and to the homes of people I know.

 Meanwhile our air is smokey, our sun gives an eerie orangish glow, I go to my car and find particles of ash on my windshield.  And since I’ve started writing this even the valley below my ridge has filled in with smoke.

 But the coal trains keep on rumbling by with their multiple cars shipping coal to the west and likely into Canada on its way to China. And the black tanker cars carry their highly volatile oil to the west coast to refineries where it will become gasoline and other dangerous global warming producing products.

 The drought and fires wouldn’t have to be.  We in our state wouldn’t have to have had the hottest July on record since 1890 when records first started being kept, and our whole planet wouldn’t have to have had the hottest July on record.  But we keep on drilling for oil and natural gas and keep on burning coal.  I sob with heart-break for all this destruction that wouldn’t have to be.

Polly

Photo Credit:  http://q13fox.com/2014/07/17/heart-wrenching-photos-fires-burn-houses-memories-in-twisp/

Skin on Skin

Posted on by rita kowats

nude in the desert framed

Lest you be led astray, this poem is not about “Hot August Nights” or “The Fire Down Below.”  My apologies. Regrets also to millennials onward for antiquated references.  What can I say.  I’m antiquated.

 

I settled down in bed for the duration
Of the hot sticky summer night.
The long-haired Ragdoll cat
Whom I usually love
Took this as a cue to melt
Into my body, becoming one with my hot, bare skin.
My discomfort awakened the skin-close emotion
That had surprised me earlier
And I rolled away to a more comfortable place

Until morning.
Now I remember yesterday,
When the telling of the story transported me
To the raw experience of utter aloneness
Where the skin of the emotion touched the skin of my soul
Awakening memories embedded in healed scar tissue.

At last the re-living wears itself out
And I leave the story behind,
Grateful for a faithful soul-sister 
Who vigiled with me in the hot sticky
Dark night of my soul.

c. rita h kowats
August 14, 2015

 

Harrowing the Harvest

Posted on by rita kowats

Harrowing the Harvest 2 small

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This morning I saw autumn
Catch a ride on a cool moist current
Arriving just in time to rescue the harvest.

Humans need self-saving
When doubt and fear
Beat us down.

We seek spirit-currents
To bring friends
Who call us by our true names
And throw out the challenge:

                      Stand tall
Harrow your Harvest.

 

© rita h kowats August 2015