My Journal - Agatha Nolen

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Another Immersive Week at Duke is complete. I’m enrolled in the Master of Divinity program at Duke University. It is in a hybrid format, so I travel to Durham three weeks of the year to start each term and then have weekly zoom classes. I’m a senior looking forward to graduation in May 2025.

This term I’m taking a class in Old Testament in Leadership with Dr. Ellen Davis. We had a great week with lots of reading, daily journals, and group-led discussions. I participated in the group that led the discussion on Thursday that was on the Book of Proverbs but the most meaningful lesson for me was the Friday lesson on the Book of Psalms.

Our daily journal was different for Friday; we were asked to write our own Psalm. It was very different from studying the Psalms to determine the voice of the Psalmist as they both praise God and cry out for God’s ear.

But my Psalm was different. I had to put myself in the place of the Psalmist. For what was I crying out to God for? Was I still able to praise God in my time of need?

Here’s my Psalm. How would you frame words to God if you wrote your own?

Psalm

(Thanksgiving for time in waiting)

Hear my case, O Lord;

open your ears to my heart.

You will find no deceit in me;

my mouth continues to praise your name.

A path has closed, but you are with me;

You carry me on your shoulders to new lands.

I trust in your faithfulness;

like a mother bear for her newborn cub, you care for your children.

I count the minutes;

You see into eternity and the cosmos is under your tender control.

As I wait, your name is on my lips;

When I awake, I will be bathed in joy.

Blessings, my friend,

Agatha

I’ve started a new book, Why You Can’t Pay Attention and How to Think Deeply Again, by Johann Hari. I’ve been intrigued for a number of years with the concept of “multi-tasking”. Do I really get more done when I’m engaged with five simultaneous projects? Or what about the four books on my nightstand? Would I be better off reading one at a time?

Johann’s book starts out with the author taking his godson to Memphis to visit Graceland. When he was nine, the godson was obsessed with Elvis Presley and ten years later Johann finally took him to Graceland. His godson had had a rough few years, dropping out of school at fifteen, struggling to carry on a conversation without being distracted. He spent all his waking hours at home alternating blankly between screens.

Why should I pick up this book at this particular time? Curiously, a good friend from Spain was in town a few weeks ago. As a travel agent she’s been thinking about coordinating some groups to come to Tennessee for a “Music Tour” hitting the highlights of Nashville and Memphis. We spent one day in Memphis, and she wanted to go to Graceland, a place I’d never visited.

My friend and I (as well as Johann) all had the same impressions of Graceland. It was lifeless with much of the charm taken out of the estate by the interjection of technology. Instead of having tour guides in each of the rooms of the mansion, we were issued individual iPads and earphones so that we could take ourselves on a “self-guided” tour. As we moved from room to room, our iPad voice encouraged us to “swipe left” to move to the next room. No one spoke as we were all watching the rooms on our iPads and listening through our earbuds. Noone was really looking at the actual rooms we were in.

Johann’s observations: “Occasionally somebody would look away from the iPad and I felt a flicker of hope, and I would try to make eye contact with them, to shrug, to say, ‘Hey, we’re the only ones looking around, we’re the ones who traveled thousands of miles and decided to actually see the things in front of us’—but every time this happened I realized they had broken contact with the iPad only to take out their phones and snap a selfie.”

I want to start paying attention again to the real world around me and the people in it. I’d like to think deeply and engage in deep conversations about important things and not just the things that the news media thinks I need to be upset about.

I don’t know where this journey will take me, but I hope it’s back to a better world than the one we have now.

Blessings, my friend,

Agatha

This Thursday is Ascension Thursday on the church calendar which marks 40 days after Easter and the day that Christ was taken up into heaven (Luke 24:51).  Growing up Roman Catholic, this was a Holy Day of Obligation where you had to attend a mass, and in some European countries it is celebrated as a public holiday (e.g. Germany, France, Austria, Belgium, and the Netherlands). Ascension Thursday commemorates a specific event in the life of the church, but the three days preceding it (Monday-Wednesday) also have a special place in the life of the church. They are known as minor Rogation Days.

The word rogation comes from the Latin verb rogare, meaning "to ask", which reflects the beseeching of God for a special blessing. Traditionally, the congregation of a local church will walk the boundaries of its land and ask God for seasonable conditions that will permit the growing of crops. We are asking God to bestow us with the conditions that we need for flourishing.

Most churches don’t plant crops anymore but at St. George’s Episcopal Church here in Nashville we have our Farmers Market. We invite local farmers and those who are using local products to come every Thursday, May-August from 3:30-6:30pm to set up their tables and tents and sell items that their land has produced. This year we have 20+ vendors each week and expanded hours for us to shop and honor the harvests of our neighbors.

On Wednesday, the last day of the minor Rogation Days, I’ll be walking the boundaries of our campus at St. George’s Episcopal Church. I’ll walk the perimeter to put up signs for the market and I’ll be praying as I go at the corners that all our vendors will have bountiful crops this year (and sales), and that our vendors, volunteers, and shoppers will all feel nourished and blessed with fresh produce, flowers, and ready-to-eat products all from our created earth.

Please join us on Ascension Thursday when we commemorate Jesus’s rising up to heaven. We live in this in-between time: Jesus has gone to heaven but has sent the Holy Spirit to be with us. We rejoice as we await the joy of Pentecost Sunday in a few weeks, when the Holy Spirit empowers us to act in Jesus’s name. And we pray for a bountiful harvest this year for all our farmers.

Blessings my friend,

Agatha

I’ve had a disordered relationship with food for all of my adulthood. It began after my brother died when I was seven and I developed stomach aches every morning at school. My teacher would take me down to the school nurse each morning for cinnamon toast until I felt better. (I came from a small town, and everyone knew everyone; my teachers were all friends with my mother). Although the morning feeding was helpful and after six weeks, I was able to stay in class all day, I associated food with the solution to my emotions. Whether it is grief, sadness, anxiety, happiness, or despair, my mind signals that I need to eat. Not based upon hunger, but exclusively based in response to an emotion I am feeling.

There have been times when I’ve dealt with this dysfunction better and sometimes worse. During some times I’ve stopped eating hardly anything, and during other times I eat nonstop. I know this yo-yo eating can’t be good for me, so I’ve tried to moderate my eating, not necessarily as a hunger response, but at least trying to eat in moderation.

How does this fit in with simplicity? I have come to realize that I think about what I am going to eat virtually all the time. It is very time-consuming to dwell on one activity in a never-ending loop. In praying in preparation for Lent this year, I decided to try the spiritual discipline of fasting. I’ve tried it in the past and always failed, but I wanted to try it again thinking that if I wasn’t constantly thinking about food, I’d have more time to think about God.

For the first two weeks of Lent, I’ve chosen one day each week where I only drink liquids. It has amazed me how much freedom that day gives me when I’m not worried about what I’m going to cook (or order) and when I’m going to eat. It wasn’t nearly as hard as I thought, and it makes that day much simpler.

I don’t know if I’ll be successful through all six weeks of Lent, but it has brought me a new perspective on my destructive eating habits and how they can be changed.

I hope that you’ve found a spiritual discipline this Lent that is giving you a simpler life, too.

Blessings, my friend,

Agatha

Incorporating simplicity into my life isn’t a one-time “cleaning out.” I want it to be a lifestyle change that makes a difference for years to come.

This week I am tackling my pantry. It isn’t huge, but it’s stuffed with assorted non-perishables that I’ve acquired over the years since the pandemic. In some cases, it was easy to buy “giant-sized” purchases from Amazon and Costco during the pandemic, but I also realized that there are remnants of unrealized dreams in my pantry, too.

There was the phase where I was transitioning to “more natural” eating. Not bad in itself, but some of the items I acquired turned out to not be very tasty. I tried them in a few recipes back in 2020 and the rest of the bag has stayed on the shelf. I think it’s time to admit that I just don’t like organic Goji berries.

In the past few weeks as I’ve been methodically going through my possessions, I realize that a lot of my purchases have been for attributes which I wish I had. I by potting soil and mulch, not because I need it, but somehow it represents taking care of the earth. I would like to think I am a good steward, and my possessions reflect that.

I have many “organic” items in my pantry. I don’t know if they are really better for me than “non-organic”, but I can see in them my desire to be healthier. I think just by buying them, I should be healthier!

I’m going to stop and think when making purchases. Am I buying this because it brings the real me joy, or am I buying it for the person I wish I was? In the past my buying habits may have reflected who I wanted to become rather than who I am.  I’m only going to buy things that are useful to the “real me” in the present moment.

With Ash Wednesday this coming Wednesday, I’m going to try to think more thoughtfully about what I buy to eat, what I eat and why. I’m going to try intermittent fasting at least a couple of days a week. I think practicing a better relationship with food (and my pantry) will be a good spiritual discipline for my Lenten season.

Blessings, my friend

Agatha

This coming week I’m going to be focusing on Simplicity in Possessions. I know that this isn’t easy and will actually be a commitment to a lifestyle change, but I need to start somewhere!

I realized that I have areas of my house where I have stored away things purchased during the pandemic. Some of them are “case quantities” of everyday items that were only available from Amazon or Costco in large quantities, and others are things that I thought I needed to prepare for a new lifestyle under the pandemic. I have a “pandemic junk drawer”, a place in my master closet where a few things have been carefully stacked for 4 years and a hall closet that I converted to an additional pantry.

Just this weekend I’ve identified a few items and new philosophies that will bring me some more space and a bit of simplicity into my life:

1.     I have a case of tea bags from the pandemic. This is in addition to the normal stock that I have in my food pantry in the kitchen. I’ve started drinking a cup of tea each evening, and I have an estimated 200 tea bags on hand. I plan to go through them to see if any have expired and for the remainder, I will share them with friends. (This is in addition to the hot chocolate mix, hot fruit tea mix, etc. also from the pandemic).

2.     When no one was coming to the house, I thought I was going to become a superb gardener. I bought soil, mulch, pine chips and a fertilizer spreader (that is still in the box). This week, I’m going to use what I can, but I’m not fooling anyone. I have a lawn guy that mows, mulches, aerates, overseeds, and fertilizes. Surely someone I know can use a small fertilizer spreader.

3.     I have a drawer full of masks, hand sanitizer, and assorted other pandemic-related fashion statements (mostly alumni masks). Oh, and expired COVID tests. So, I’m going through those also, throwing out the expired tests and keeping a few masks for future use. The government has extended some of the expiration dates on COVID tests so I’ll check those first, but if they are really expired, out they go. (You can check COVID test expriation dates here: https://bit.ly/4927fPp).

4.     I still have 100+ plastic bags from all the groceries I ordered on-line. We help serve food at the Church of the Holy Trinity, one of our downtown Episcopal Churches, once a month and the guests always ask for a plastic bag. A nice way to put them to good use.

I know that simplicity of possessions is not easy, but I hope to start changing my lifestyle to bring fewer things into my life and start moving more things out. I think a negative “net” (more moving out than coming in) will be the secret to long-term success for me.

In what ways are you using possessions to bring simplicity into your life?

Blessings, my friend,

Agatha

image from wayhomestudio on Freepik

I’m in the M.Div. program at Duke Divinity and this term I’ve chosen by personal focus to be on Simplicity as a spiritual discipline. Last week I looked at “Simplicity of Time”, wanting to return my relationship with time to a place of holiness. In reviewing Guenther’s chapter on simplicity, I kept coming back to her comment, “do I really need to know what the weather is going to be like in Berlin, today?”

I realized how much time I spend each day checking my phone for information that may be important, but not to me. I check the weather multiple times a day, even when it is clear, and I always want to see what my friends are up to on Facebook and Instagram. I’ve tried a few things last week to check my phone usage and I estimate I’ve saved at least one hour per day! That hour has been a time of rest/relaxation that I haven’t had in a long time. I’m planning to keep at it again this week to see if I can make it permanent. I realized also that I pick up my phone when I’m bored, or when I’m faced with some difficult homework assignment that I’m trying to avoid. Asking myself why I keep picking up my phone is important also in breaking those bad habits I’ve acquired.

This is what I will be focusing on this week.

1. I subscribe to a number of notifications of retail vendors that I frequent because I like to know when they have sales. But instead of clicking on the REI email each time just to “see if there is anything I need”, I’m first going to ask, “Is there anything I need from REI?” If the answer is “No,” I’m going to delete the email without going to their website to look at the sale items. 

2. I’m going to unsubscribe from all notifications for vendors that I didn’t subscribe to (I’m sure someone sold my information as I didn’t sign up for all these notices). Although it takes time to unsubscribe, I think it will save time in the long run.

3. I’m only going to check the weather once each morning, unless there is a significant storm predicted for the area. Throughout the day, I can look out the window as I contemplate creation and figure out the weather.

4. I’m only going to check Facebook and Instagram each evening. (This should save me a lot of time). Why do I feel like I need to know everything about my friends the minute that it happens? 

5. I’m going to eliminate multi-tasking as much as feasible. When I’m listening to music, I’m going to listen to music. When I’m writing a homework paper, I’m going to write. When I’m watching a movie, I’m going to watch the movie. When I eat dinner, I’m going to eat dinner. My life for a number of years has been structured around constantly trying to “get caught up”. I am much more productive and efficient when I can concentrate on one task and not let my mind wonder.

I’ll be back next week to share with you how it goes. I had great feedback last week as one of my readers suggested that we should make time each day for some “Sabbath”. I’m incorporating that into this week’s plan, too!

Blessings, my friend

Agatha

The Holiness of Time, SSJE.org

Margaret Guenther in her book, The Practice of Prayer, says that simplicity calls for a “radical trust that does not come easily.” I’m glad to hear that it’s not second nature; I’ve been trying to lead a more simple life for decades. I either fail miserably or seem to have success for awhile and then slip back into bad habits.

Maybe I’m looking at simplicity from the wrong point of view. Guenther talks about attempts to return to nature by growing her own food and pumping water from her yard. I agree that it may be simple, but for me it is also impractical. There are things that I’m good at but relying on the earth totally for my subsistence is not one of them.

My focus this term in my Formation for Ministry class at Duke Divinity is Simplicity. It seems like it should be easy, but instead it is really hard. Perhaps if I take it slower over the next 8 weeks, I’ll have a better chance of figuring out what Simplicity really is and how it can provide me with freedom in my life.

One area that Guenther discusses is simplicity in time. She concedes that our lives and the lives of our families have become tightly scheduled to a degree unthinkable even a generation ago. But I still have 24 hours each day, just like everyone else. Guenther recommends returning to the intentionality of Sabbath even if we can’t manage a full 24-hours at one time. She talks about how we waste considerable time joylessly leaving the television on after our favorite program is over or reading the news for more than we need. She asks, “does it really matter to me what the weather is like in Berlin, today?”

I am guilty as charged.

This week, I plan to make a few changes toward an intentional Sabbath:

1.     I’ll go to bed and arise at approximately the same time each day.

2.     I’ll keep a time diary and log my “Sabbath time”, even if it is only in 1 hour increments. Tracking my Sabbath time may help me see where I can be more intentional.

3.     I’ll schedule regular in-office hours for my part-time job at church.

4.     At least once per day, I’ll schedule 15 minutes of Sabbath time in my calendar.

I’ll let you know how it goes as I make progress toward simplifying my time and returning time to a place of holiness in my life. I’m interested in your comments, too. How have you been able to simplify your life in the area of time?

Blessings, my friend,

Agatha

 On December 27th each year, we celebrate the Feast Day of St. John the Evangelist, writer of the Gospel and letters, and who many believe also wrote Revelation.

St. John’s Gospel is my favorite as I find it to be a constant encouragement and reminder that I am loved by God; I don’t have to earn my way into heaven.

The readings for the day include the story from John’s Gospel (21:9-24) when Jesus appeared to the disciples on the beach after the Resurrection and invites them to breakfast. He asks Peter three times if Peter loves him and of course Peter answers, “Lord, you know I love you.” Jesus responds, “feed my lambs,” “tend my sheep,” and “feed my sheep.”

I’ve been thinking a lot about pastoral care and how we are all called as followers of Jesus to care for others. Not just to say that we care, but to perform outward signs that show that we are caring for Jesus’s sheep.

My church, St. George’s Episcopal Church in Nashville, has participated in the Room in the Inn Winter Shelter program since 1986. We house 12 male guests twice a month, sharing a hot dinner with them and providing lodging for the night. We get them up early for breakfast and send them with a lunch to-go. This happens from November to March each year when the Nashville weather can turn cold.

It was 32 degrees the morning of December 22nd when our group of ladies from Room in the Inn boarded the bus to be returned to Room in the Inn campus in Downtown Nashville. I was glad they hadn’t slept outside the night before. It was the first time we’ve hosted women, and it was a delightful evening. A family came to make the cots and set the dinner tables. Another family and other volunteers brought food and served the dinner meal as we followed Jesus’s command to “feed His sheep and lambs”.  We had an opportunity to eat with them and hear some of their stories. I served as an innkeeper with another lady as we spent the night, and lady bus drivers had an opportunity to “tend Jesus’s sheep” as they returned them to the Room in the Inn downtown campus.

We’ve scheduled more dates to host both Men and Women in 2024 in the Room in the Inn Winter Shelter Program. Jesus needn’t ask, “Do you love me?” When we love Jesus, we show Him by taking care of our neighbors.

Blessings, my friend,

Agatha

I’ve just returned from my second hike of the Camino de Santiago in Spain. I had such fond memories of my first trip in 2019, I wanted to go back since the day I returned. On the first trip I had gone not knowing anyone on the trip who then became my friends. This time I wanted to return to show friends the beauty and romance of the Spanish landscape and its people.

One thing I missed on my first trip had become a quest. Over twenty years ago, I began reading books and poems by St. John of the Cross. St. John of the Cross was born in 1542 in a Spanish town close to Ávila. In 1567 he was ordained a priest and worked with Teresa of Ávila to reform the Carmelite order to bring it back to its primitive roots.

His most familiar poem, Dark Night, describes how God purifies the soul passively and brings the theological life to perfection. There are two fundamental conditions in the spiritual process. There is the painful passage through the dark night and then the unspeakable joy of encountering God. I experienced that “dark night” on my first Camino in 2019 when I was walking the longest day of 18 miles. It wasn’t so much the physicality of the walking that became the dark night, but it was my inability to keep my mind occupied. It was only when I concentrated on Christ that I was able to overcome the darkness.

St. John was noted for his writings and teachings, but he also produced a small drawing of The Crucifixion around 1575 when he had a vision at the Monastery of the Incarnation in Ávila. We were unable to go to the Monastery on my trip in 2019 but it became an obsession of mine to see this small drawing.

My quest was realized this year. This sketch was revolutionary that anyone could claim to be so united with God that he would view the crucifixion from God’s perspective. This tiny drawing spurred a painting by Salvador Dali in 1951 that is in the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow.

My quest is fulfilled. The drawing is breath-taking.

Blessings, my friend,

Agatha