Prayer—reaching outward
reaching inward
reaching toward something
more real than I find myself to be—
reaching toward a light in darkness
toward a confirmation in the midst of doubt
toward fulfillment in a time of emptiness
toward something other.
Prayer moves in emptiness
moves below emptiness
to a place of silent stillness
where there are no words
no feelings
but a sense of completion
as my “I am” dissolves into the Other.
Ann Glover O’Dell
13 January 2020
In Genesis we learn that out of the womb of darkness and chaos God birthed Creation. Out of the womb of the ark, new life began after the flood. Out of the womb of the great fish Jonah was given a new opportunity for life.
So out of our inner spiritual womb God wants to bring a unique Creation that only we can experience–His own holiness, placed within us before our birth.
In one sense Mary represents a part of each of us–the Virgin Womb–our Spiritual Womb–unused, undisturbed, unfulfilled–awaiting the planting of the spiritual seed–the seed of conscious insemination–our conscious desire for something new to be born in us.
God was preparing Mary’s heart long before the angel came to ask permission to plant the seed within her. God has been doing the same with us. And the message is the same! ‘Hail, O favored one, the Lord is with you!’ Each of us is God’s favored one, his special, precious Child, to whom and in whom he wants to communicate great joy.
The physical is always a symbol for the spiritual. What we need is a spiritual frame of mind to perceive it. The physical rite of passage from virgin to initiated participant in sexual enjoyment–the fullest possible expression of human physical joy–gives us a clue to the kind of spiritual ecstasy God wants us to experience on a spiritual level.
This spiritual pregnancy is a different kind of pregnancy. Many biological children are conceived accidentally. Not so in our spiritual virgin womb. This conception can only occur intentionally–where our conscious gives permission to have the seed of new life planted. Our conscious will not only must want new life but must give permission for the incubation period to be as long or as short as needed, and for the birth to take place wherever it chooses.
This is not a nine-month pregnancy. The gestation period varies with each individual. And birth does not take place in a hospital labor room. It may take place in your own home, on a trip, or in a distant place. Your spiritual birthplace can be anywhere. Your womb will know the time and the place. You may be, in fact, already on the road to Bethlehem. I hope so.
The Magi had been informed in their study that a new king would be born in their lifetime and a special star would appear in the heavens to indicate the birthplace. They waited and watched until they saw the star.
We are kings of our own kingdom, rulers of individual realm. We are not watching for a star because we’re not interested in a new king. We don’t want any competition for our throne.
But sometimes when we’re most introspective, we realize we would like something new and wonderful happening in our lives—we’re not sure what but something that will give us a kind of joy we haven’t experienced in a long time.
We need not look for a star in the heavens. Our sign is within us, beckoning us to the manger deep in our weary spirits, lighting the way for our conscious awareness to see something new, waiting for us to arrive so the new birth can be witnessed and celebrated.
Don’t be afraid to follow your sign to the place where only you can be reborn. All you need to do is give permission for the new king, your own benevolent monarch, to be born in you—to give you peace, to make you a co-creator with God in establishing a new kingdom of justice and love.
Hurry! The world needs the new you!
Ann Glover O’Dell
January 2018
God wants to rename you. God wants your name to be Emmanuel. In your heart of hearts God wants you to be able to rename yourself. And the only way you can authentically give yourself that name Emmanuel is to experience God within you—to such an extent that you know beyond doubt that God is with you and within you.
The Jesus story is our story—the story of each of us as God’s holy child, born to testify to the love and grace of God. Jesus came to testify to who God is and who we are. Jesus’ life story showed us the love of God and the divinity as well as humanity within every human being.
Isaiah is your prophet! He is predicting all the names that will belong to you once your godchild is born in you.
Wonderful Counselor—you will be able to counsel others on how to connect with their Inner Wisdom—on how to participate in the birth of their own godchild. What a gift that will be that you will have to give others.
Prince of Peace—you will find a kind of peacefulness in your personality that will make you a new person. And the peacefulness that you experience will be evident to others who will want to know how you obtained it. You will have opportunities to help others to become peaceful people.
Emmanuel—God with us. That will be your most important spiritual name. It means God is with you and you are able to be with others in new and loving ways. You will be God’s representative to those with whom you come in contact. You will be able to rejoice with those who are rejoicing without envy over whatever has happened to them to cause them to be joyful. You will be able to grieve with those who are in sorrow without losing your balance. You will be able to be compassionate to those who need comfort, encouragement, and guidance without trying to control them. You finally will be able to be your genuine, original self, full of grace and love, God’s child.
Ann Glover O’Dell
December 2018
What a beautiful word. Godchild is primarily a term given to an individual, a young child, whose spiritual life we agree to take responsibility for (and sometimes to become legal guardian of in case of parents’ death). The term suggests a reminder that this individual is God’s child whose spiritual as well as physical being is unique and special.
What about our own inner godchild? That’s the part of us that God wants us to find and watch over.
God imprinted us at our beginning with his image—indelibly. Frederick Buechner reminds us that we have “the mark of God’s thumb” on us. The world has covered it with debris of all sorts. But the imprint never dissolves or disappears. Just as all mammal infants experience the imprimatur of bonding, our souls are permanently bonded with God.
Our task is to let God destroy the debris, the detritus of our lives, so that what is in our holy place can come forward—so our godchild can emerge and become the motivating force of our new lives, become the all-pervasive essential characteristic in our personality.
What a perfect time Christmas is to ponder our own holiness.
Ann Glover O’Dell
June 2018
Wisdom is seeing within/beyond the facts of visible reality. Children are wise because they live within the truth that will be hidden once they become part of the duality of the world.
We adults become wise as we rediscover where we were, who we were, what we knew.
Our task is to bring the duality of our world into unity—head and heart, thinking and feeling, will and imagination. We have an Inner Wisdom ready to assist us in that task. We just need to be open to it.
Ann Glover O’Dell
12 August 2007
The story of Jacob and the angel he wrestled with during the night is an intriguing one. In an ancient Jewish version of the story the angel asks Jacob for a blessing, not the other way around. Perhaps this indicates that they blessed each other.
Jacob is between what we know of ourselves and the other Self we don’t know. Each has a blessing for the other. Each is a blessing for the other. Wrestling each with each, determined not to release until the blessing wrested and fully given, reveals the name of one (I Am) and changes the name of the other.
Perhaps the wrestling matches in our lives hold potential for blessing both ways. Just as the struggle provides a blessing for our personality, our participating in the struggle may provide a blessing that reaches out into the world.
Ann Glover O’Dell
8 August 2007
Many Christians today are not interested in what others describe as a second birth. But Jesus gives a graphic picture to Nicodemus about the spiritual birth that needs to happen before one can enjoy full relationship with God.
Nicodemus kept thinking in terms of something physical and Jesus kept talking about being born of the Spirit. Birth is the essential word because as our anger and guilt and shame are washed away, our new original Self is born in us. We are not the same as we were before.
Both kinds of birthing include labor—and pain. Our spiritual birth includes the tears and anguish of remorse of all that we have committed and omitted in our attempts to make ourselves into what we thought we ought to be. There has to be some rearranging of our personality—which has a similar trauma to the pain of parturition.
But just as a mother will declare, as she dotes on the infant she has born, that all the labor pains are worth the result, so one who has experienced spiritual rebirth will declare those labor pains produced something invaluable.
Your second birth awaits your cooperation.
Ann Glover O’Dell
5 August 2018
We know what to do with our domestic garbage: set it on the curb at the appointed time and sanitation workers will take it away. What about our internal garbage—the kind that seems to increase no matter our attempts at removal?
Perhaps we think we haven’t yet exhausted all our ideas for removing the debilitating mess of resentment and unresolved grief inside us. Perhaps we think our angry tapes will simply self-destruct if we have enough patience. Perhaps we’re practicing detachment from our guilt and shame and hoping that will work.
The truth is we cannot by our own power rid ourselves of what has come between us and the Kingdom of God. We cannot set out on our spiritual curb a container of what separates us from the peace of God. Our spiritual garbage is none other than what scripture refers to as sin.
The psalmist declares that once God washes us, we become whiter than snow. The psalmist does not declare, however, that we are able to wash ourselves. If we were able to cleanse ourselves of our spiritual garbage, we might decide we had no need of God. God wants us to need him to effect the miracle of cleansing and transformation. And God wants us to participate in that miracle.
Ann Glover O’Dell
6 august 2018
Easter traditions abound all over the world, and they vary from culture to culture. Often people who observe them do not know their origins, but something in the individual and collective psyche of the people embraces and celebrates the traditions each year. Usually people don’t think much about them until some visitor asks.
In the West some of our Easter customs are even rather contradictory. Rabbits don’t lay eggs, yet every Easter the Easter Bunny brings them to fill children’s baskets on Easter Eve.
Germans immigrating to US brought the idea of the rabbit as the spring symbol of reproductivity. And they are also believed to be the ones who brought the idea of colored eggs. An ancient Teutonic legend states that the rabbit was originally a bird and was transformed by Oestre (Ostara, Eastre), the goddess of spring, into its present form. In gratitude for his transformation, the rabbit laid beautiful eggs each spring in honor of her festival. Our word Easter comes from her name.
Rabbit and egg give a double symbol of new life–and thus are exactly right for us. Some of us seem to need to be told twice–and in unusual metaphors. Trouble is, we seem to have lost our desire to investigate the metaphor. It sometimes takes internationals coming to this country to inquire as to why we engage in such a strange ritual, and even then some of us are content just to admit we simply don’t know.
Rabbit is an ancient symbol not only for fertility–since it reproduces so quickly–but also for the divine. This idea comes from ancient Persia to Africa and was brought to us by the slaves–in the stories of Br’er Fox, Br’er Bear, and Br’er Rabbit. Br’er Fox and Br’er Bear have great schemes for capturing Br’er Rabbit, and often do, but Br’er Rabbit’s wit always serves to save his life.
The rabbit is one of few animals that has no natural defense system and is easy prey for larger carnivores. But in some cultures it’s the very vulnerability of the rabbit that appeals as a symbol for the divine–the idea that God doesn’t come as king of the beasts but as a defenseless creature. The rabbit is a timid, harmless, peaceable creature, who will not retaliate, no matter the provocation. It has teeth similar to rodents but will never bite, not even in self-defense.
The egg has been used throughout history as a symbol of new life. And today in Eastern Europe Orthodox Christians exchange red eggs at Easter as a symbol of their faith, new life, and joy, red symbolizing the blood of life. In a number of countries the decorating of eggs has evolved into a painstaking and beautiful art form. Pysanky is a time-honored folk tradition, established in the Ukraine, handed-down from one generation to another, whereby intricate and beautiful designs in color and wax are painted on the shells of raw eggs. The wax seals the porous quality of the shell and eventually the egg dries up.
We need dig only a little into the soft soil of symbolism to discover that the Easter Bunny is much like St. Nicholas–a metaphor for the God who has good gifts for us–and the egg–representing new life–is one of the special ones. A passage from Luke has Jesus comparing the kinds of good gifts we give our children to the gifts God has for us. The lesson is that even though we can identify what are gifts good enough for our children, we cannot imagine all the good gifts God has in store for us.
In addition to everything else the Jesus narrative tells is the GOOD NEWS that we are EASTER EGGS–each one of us unique and precious, a gift from God. And each of us has a new creature–God’s holy creature, our original being, inside, wanting, trying to hatch out.
Some of us are a lot like the Orthodox Christians who paint over the shells of their Easter eggs. We are porous, vulnerable creatures, and we’ve tried to make our shells impervious to cracks, nicks, anything that might penetrate and further damage the already wounded self we know ourselves to be.
But there are individuals who have had egg-cracking, hatching out experiences. They identify with Humpty Dumpty but recognize they don’t need to be put back together because something wonderful has emerged.
The Ukrainian Pysanky eggs dry up eventually. If one of those eggs is kept safe from cracks, the yolk and white eventually dry up and the egg has almost no weight. We may get to a point where we feel life drying up within us. But God has a better idea for us than that. The Resurrection narrative tells us the shell must be destroyed so that new life can emerge.
Jesus was trying to patch up the brokenness of the world’s shell–by preaching, teaching, touching, healing, performing miracles. But that was not enough. God’s design was to show the world the human Easter Egg–whose body/shell, cracked and broken, opened the way for new life to emerge.
Whether we believe in the Easter Bunny is not the issue.
Whether we believe in John 3:16 is not the issue (For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believed in him should not die but have eternal life). The issue for us is the Easter Egg and the question it presents:
Do we want new life–in this flesh–in this body–enough to cooperate with the new creature within us that is trying to hatch out? to cooperate in stop trying to glue the cracks in our shell? to stop trying to paint over the vulnerable parts and protect ourselves from further wounds?
The spiritual pain and psychological agony in our lives is telling/begging us to quit gluing and patching and let the birth–the hatching out take place. This new creature within is like a little chick who has developed inside the egg shell. The chick must grow until it has a beak strong enough to penetrate the shell–from the inside out.
See how God likes to do the opposite of what we imagine.
Think about eggs this Easter season. Think about yourself as an egg–-with a beautiful new creature inside ready to hatch out. Think about yourself , already a beautifully decorated egg, having something even more beautiful inside that wants to emerge. Think about the real you pecking against the shell–from the inside. Think about letting your egg shell crack open and the new creature hatch out.
Ann Glover O’Dell
March 2002
Sometimes babies are born in the most unusual places: a subway station, the back seat of a taxi, the corner of a crowded restaurant. We never know where a baby might choose to make his appearance into the world.
The pregnant mother makes all possible preparations, packs a little suitcase for her trip to the hospital, or lays out all that will be needed when the midwife arrives. A little nursery is made ready, a place for the infant to lie safe and warm. If there are available funds, colorful decorations are hung to attract the infant once his eyes are able to focus.
But all the time no one knows exactly when the baby will decide to be born—or how much in a hurry he will be to get here. Sometimes the mother has no time to travel to the clinic or wait for the midwife. She is not able to make the baby postpone his appearance but rather must cooperate with this child who is eager to become a citizen of this earthly kingdom. Babies generally have their own time-table and will not be thwarted in their determination.
The godchild within us is indeed one of those with a birthing mind of its own. We absolutely cannot predict when God will bring our transformed spirit into our conscious awareness. It is God’s secret, meant to reinforce his design and determination to have his way, to act on his own time schedule. And it matters not whether we have made any preparations at all. In fact, our ability to make any preparations is highly unlikely. This birth is God’s surprise for us, the best Christmas gift ever, whether it comes on December 25 or any of the other 364 days available.
Ann Glover O’Dell
18 December 2017
The prophesy and the Nativity story both give significant clues as to God’s intention and activity. The prophets talk of something new emerging from something old, of a culture where all animals live peaceably together with no danger to humans; of the appearance of one who manifests characteristics of Almighty God himself. The foretelling emphasizes the determination of God to make this happen and the energy He will use to bring this about.
Furthermore, God’s design, energy, and essence are to be known throughout the earth by all. The birth narrative confirms prophesy and impresses on reader/hearer alike that the new being is conceived and nurtured by none other than the indomitable will of God.
Are we ready to see that both prophesy and Nativity story are what we want to claim for our own? Not simply a belief system but rather transformative agents in our individual lives? If we want that it can be ours.
Do we feel old in our spirits and want a new beginning? Are we weary of all the conflict in our lives? Do we yearn for a peace that passes understanding? Are we ready to encounter the prophetic voice deep within us, to dialog with it to learn if it has a special annunciation message for us? If so, become the scribe of your own wise messenger. Ask a question and write the reply. Allow your Inner Wisdom to give you the information you need so that you may, as did Mary, agree to cooperate with the process.
Ann Glover O’Dell
18 December 2017
When God’s voice said, “Be!”
and all the guilt and anger in me vanished
I began to know as I am known—
to understand in deepest heart
that what our mind has told us we must do
can never be divine directives
because our mind attempts to be God,
not listening for his holy will.
When God said, “Be!”
He gave me new relationship
where tasting, feeling, sensing
takes precedence to thinking and deciding.
When God told me to be
I became a born again as Jesus once described
those apprehending life’s abundance.
Ann Glover O’Dell
20 November 2017
John Noonan says religion is for people who are trying to keep from going to hell and spirituality if for people who have been there and who don’t want to go back.
In order for us to be in intimate relationship with God, something that is not of God must die within us. As we witness that death, we experience our own personal hell. There is no way around it if we would truly know God.
Jesus told his God to work out his will. Jesus gave permission to whatever would follow. Jesus cooperated with God’s will.
If a death was necessary for God’s plan to materialize in the life of a man like Jesus, how much more is a death necessary in us.
Ann Glover O’Dell
22 November 2016
I’ve been trying to find a way to help children (and adults!) access their creative center in order that they might find what will inspire their spirits and give them passion for living. I’ve been thinking of creative folks who have found their passion and who might inspire young people to search for their own.
But I’ve had it all wrong! Creative people as would-be role models might do little more than increase the apathy, rage, and depression already dominating in many youth who may have already despaired of ever finding anything to bring them lasting joy.
The secret is to allow the creative center to express itself in us. And centering is the means by which we request and cooperate with our creative self which seeks to express itself benevolently and uniquely in every human being.
The quiet time of centering can be called calming time or peace-seeking—a time to detach from thoughts and feelings and relax all consciousness while sitting in a comfortable position.
Choosing a special word that expresses one’s intention is important and should be carefully undertaken. Invoking that word when the mind begins to wander down the stream-of-conscious will help to keep one focused. The word can be silently repeated as often as necessary.
Regular daily quiet time is necessary to achieve desired results. Gradually amazing changes will be noticed in one’s personality. Exciting ideas will begin to come forth. Little by little transformation takes place and joyful creativity emerges. A journal would be a good companion so one can begin to chronicle results.
Could it be possible that we, as transmitters of the energy of the universe, can enable that energy to multiply as it travels through us?
I like to think so.
First of all, we need to embrace the idea that this energy is a benevolent one, that it seeks our good and the good of all.
Recalling surprising coincidences can begin to show us how that energy can work to make our lives more enjoyable—and give us the desire for more of its miracles. We may not be able to specifically direct the action of this universal energy, but we can tell it what we want: to be open to its activity within us and its guidance of our choices.
Second, we need to find ways of opening ourselves to its coursing in and through us, ways of inviting it to work its goodness using us as its vehicles.
May there be each day
in all our lives
some moment when we are called,
nay, brought to the doorway
of our soul’s sanctorum,
where the physical, sloughed off
to reveal the spiritual,
fades for a time in the fog of memory
and our heart’s eyes see
as they have never seen before—
a thin space where truth
waits to be revealed
to the curious and the hungry,
and our heart’s ears hear
the message that only love can bear,
the message that we are beloved.
Ann Glover O’Dell
18 September 2017
At the seashore we ingest a sense of eternity—
the primeval rhythms of the sea against the shore,
the sea as the chaos from which all life came,
the depths of the sea as the mystery of whatever cannot be grasped or
comprehended,
the sea as the mystical power of God.
The sea-shore activates our senses and reminds us afresh of our humanity.
We marvel at the sight of the sea, which has looked the same
to countless generations who have witnessed it before us.
We hear the unrelenting pounding of the waves against the shore, booming
yet calming.
We touch the water, the seaweed, the driftwood, and the shells the sea brings
to shore.
We smell the sea, its breeze unlike any other.
We taste its saltiness, full of flavor, full of life, of living creatures.
As our senses sharpen we become aware of the action of the sea:
a constant movement in the ebb and flow of the waves,
a surface that belies an undertow,
the movement of shells and creatures,
the movement that forces the shells to wear down and break,
the movement that causes friction, shell against shell,
the movement that smooths and polishes,
the movement that makes beautiful
even the fragments.
We, too, are worn down by the sands of time and the waves of adversity.
We have been broken by the action of circumstance.
We have become fragmented by the sea of life.
As we finger shell fragments, let us be reminded that we are precious to our Creator,
who wants to smooth and polish our rough edges, our painful places,
not to erase our scars but to heal us in a way that gives our scars a
special beauty
and our lives a kind of loveliness that makes others want the healing
we’ve received.
Let us submit ourselves to the caress of the sea,
the powerful sea of the Spirit of God,
allowing it to wash away what needs to be washed away,
allowing it to make us fresh and new,
allowing it to smooth and polish and broken fragments of our
lives and make us beautiful again.
October 1995
Ann Glover O’Dell
Time and again Jesus instructs his disciples and others in his audience to listen. “He who has ears to hear, let him hear,” Jesus repeats. We have come to understand that for Scripture to have the greatest impact on our lives, we must ask ourselves, ‘what does it mean to me?’ Where is it touching me most deeply? Where am I most affected, and perhaps made uncomfortable, by the Scripture passage?
As we ask these questions, we are better able to see how God might be a part of the situation in the text—and my situation as well. We are invited to have a personal encounter with the verses we choose to read in the Bible, a prelude to the kind of encounter that God wants to have with each of us.
Look again at the parable of the sower and the soils. Many interpretations have been given of the various kinds of soil, and even the sower and the grain that finally emerges from the good soil. But this time you are invited to make your own personal interpretation.
Scripture: Matthew 13:3-8
A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they had not much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, but when the sun rose they were scorched; and since they had no root they withered away. Other seeds fell upon thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and brought forth grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.
Residents of Haven House, a residential treatment center for addition, were asked to listen carefully as the story was read several times and then share whatever they would of the responses they had and the insights that came to them as they pondered at a deeper level what the story might be saying to them. All of them related the story to their own stories.
One man noticed that the sower lost a lot of seed but gained a great deal in the end.
Another suggested that we need to plant ourselves around a church family so we don’t wither.
Still another suggested that the thorns in the story represent the wrong people we associate with.
One said it seemed to him that to do good, one has to give up something to gain something else.
Another said we must prepare our heart in a way that we have to prepare soil to receive the good seed.
And finally one said we don’t know how our crop will turn out but we want to be good soil so we can produce a good crop.
What varied and insightful responses! And all from individuals who chose to listen to Scripture with new ears, and with a heart ready to receive and embrace.
What about you? I invite you to choose a favorite Bible story and sit with it long enough to let it say new things to you. I believe you will be enriched by what happens to you.
March 2017
(Note: A number of additional meditations are available on this website under Meditations.)
Ann Glover O’Dell
To see the Jesus narrative as our story does not diminish the life and death of Jesus. On the contrary, to see ourselves as God’s beloved child, with the capability of engaging in a unique relationship with God, just as Jesus was, can’t help but enrich his story. To see in the story not only the human/divine nature of Jesus but also the human/divine nature of all human beings is to complete the picture.
Our interest in all classic stories is enhanced by seeing something of ourselves in one or more of the characters. Both fiction and non-fiction give us opportunities to identify with real or imagined characters, to better understand ourselves, to see new paths opening up for us, to gain new tolerance and sensitivity to others’ situations, and to find comfort in sorrow.
The Bible doubles as Christian mythology where larger-than-life characters capture our imagination. We identify with Abram as he is called to leave familiar surroundings, with Joseph as he is scorned by his siblings, with Jonah as he resents the change of heart that occurs with the Ninevites. Classic literature and mythology always develop characters who embody some of our own traits. Otherwise, we could never identify with the tragic heroes as we do.
The soul we credit with belonging to every human being is nothing less than the essence of our divinity, the piece of God planted in each of us, not to give us bragging rights but to give us the abundant life Jesus spoke of, the ability to be the person God begat us to be.
A story presents so many more possibilities if interpreted on multiple levels. Can we not imagine that God wants us to glean the most possible from the stories told in Scripture? That God wants us to learn from the stories and characters to understand more about who we are and how He loves us? Oh, let us imagine greatly!
We are seasonally out of sorts.
Winter did not come
and spring has usurped summer
o’erleaping gradual emergence
making handsprings of blossom
cancelling whatever June
might have had in mind.
Praise God for liturgically
wedding us to predictable chronology
where Easter follows Lent
regardless of the weather.
And after Resurrection plus five o
praise God again
for giving feast of fire and air
grounding us afresh on Mother Earth.
Our wings are lifted up
Our spirits fanned to flame
Our breath the breath of God
We see ourselves as burning bush
And repeat our own “I Am.”
Ann Glover O’Dell
20 February 2017
Transformation
that large leaped word
that bounds o’er time and space
and new makes the all of me.
An instant only needed
the Spirit took to do its work
within my still frail frame.
The memory repeats its pulsing
through the channels it devised
keeping me aware always
of once upon a time
the moment I became made new.
Ann Glover O’Dell
17 March 2009
Ann Glover O'Dell 