A Friday Called Good

I spent three hours this afternoon -- the time between noon and three, said to be the hours Jesus hung on the cross -- at my church,  St. David of Wales.  We held a "Seven Last Words" service, in which seven different preachers -- some priests or ministers, a few lay people -- shared meditations on Jesus' seven final utterances from the cross.  The homilies were interspersed with silence, a few hymns sung by the congregation, and deeply moving music played by wonderful musicians.

After each piece of music, each meditation, I had a sense of settling back into the silence with such gratitude.  It is an amazing gift to have more than a few minutes to steep oneself in something true -- to ponder it, to wonder, even to sorrow.  Lord knows that in this busy world we greatly need space to open and hold our thoughts and our hearts.  Give yourself that gift when you can.

Lost, Lost, and Something Other

Last week I had the wrenching experience of discovering that my bird feeders were infected with salmonella; at least four pine siskins and one lesser goldfinch were clearly ill and seemed to be dying.  I took down all the feeders, cleaned and stored them away, scrubbed the patio down with a bleach & water solution -- and wept.

I have grieved ever since -- that my feeders became the source of death; that for several days birds visited empty space and fluttered away, confused; that now they no longer visit at all.  I cannot forget one last ailing bird that flew to the front window and clung to the window frame for hours that evening, gazing in, gazing, waiting.  I sat inside reading but kept looking up.  He would still be there, clinging to the edge.  Before dark fell completely, he was gone.

In obedience to the local experts, I'll wait two weeks before hanging up my clean feeders again -- on Easter Sunday.

May life and health return.

Letter to a Future Self

The man who would become my father-in-law sat down in 1957 to write a letter to himself in his new calling; that letter is still in his files and LeRoy and I were re-reading it yesterday.  Louis Goertz was about to move his young family from Tampa, Kansas to Henderson, Nebraska to serve as pastor to a Mennonite congregation.  The previous years had been one of dedicated study while holding jobs that supported his family (including teaching); at the age of 39, he had finally graduated.  In flowing script, he writes in part:

"Dear Mr. Goertz: At this happy occasion of your graduation I would like to pass on to you some thoughts of encouragement. . . . As you now see it, your place in this world is a place of service.  Humanity needs your love, sympathy, understanding and help. . . .


Let it be your goal to continue teaching: make your family experiences learning experiences; prepare your sermons with an aim to stimulate thought and expect your listeners to learn some truth from each message; endeavor to teach in street conversations, not imposing your opinion upon people, but influencing them, if at all possible, to think nobly and to learn from your dignity, honesty, and Godly reverence.  


There will be times when you will be tempted to relax your efforts and be content with smaller goals.  Remember, '. . . in due season we shall reap if we faint not.'  Go to work courageously.  It is a long time before you will be old enough to retire.


Most sincerely, Louis Goertz"


Louis Goertz "retired" May 2, 2002, having served with nobility and courage all his life.

Just This

I'm drunk with the spring smell of daphne this weekend.  May you experience such delight, too.

Busy-ness and Love

I've been "too busy" to write here, it seems.  Does that sound familiar?

So many of us are so very busy.  And much of that busy-ness arises out of what we truly care about.  We care about doing well (and doing good) in our careers, about the volunteer activities we enter into that create healing and growth in our world, and we care about the fun and relaxation we plan for ourselves and others.  "There just aren't enough hours in the day," we say -- and then we check our smartphones and rush off to the next meeting, the next call, the next task to be checked off.  And we're never done; how often do we finish the day saying, "I had five things on my "must-do" list today and I could only do X many of them" . . . so we add on to the next day's list and go to bed already feeling the burden of tomorrow.

We even rush through or cancel creative activities that we know will feed our souls.  Even our recreation suffers; we work out in a sterile gym instead of going outside, or we take a speedy walk through the park (even though if we stood still and simply listened for a few moments, we'd hear and see some of the creatures who've been hiding while we're bustling through).  And so it goes with our meditations and prayer time; our goal-directed habits resist the call to wait, to just breathe without any agenda.  One of my teachers used to chuckle that he had a minister who would say during the service, "Now let us enter into the silence...." and almost immediately the choir would start singing -- beautifully, softly, but not, you know, silent.  Silence is so alien to us, isn't it?

A dear friend warned me yesterday about getting too busy, and she's so right - but how do I change?  What's the yardstick by which I measure the tasks that can go and those that stay?

This morning I read, "If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing."

What would it mean to simply live from one moment of love to the next?  I don't know, but I'm wondering.  Maybe if we opened ourselves up to that possibility more often, we'd have time to breathe.

Procrastination

I'm way behind on my reading and my papers for class.  So what do I do?  Of course, I check Facebook, I check the news, I look at my friends' blogs.....  I contemplate going for a walk instead of buckling down to the work.  I remember, "Oh, I didn't write in THIS blog yesterday...." and sit down here even though there's not much to say.

Sometimes the time leading up to a task is like circling and circling.  Would that it were like walking a labyrinth, but maybe it's more like being the donkey tied to the grindstone, plodding, plodding.  And -- thank goodness for OTHERS' good writing -- this reminds me of another favorite poem which never fails to bring me joy.  (I always think this is best read aloud slowly):

God’s Grandeur

by Gerard Manley Hopkins

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

     It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

     It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil

Crushed.  Why do men then now not reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;

     And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

     And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;

     There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

And though the last lights off the black West went

     Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs –

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

     World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Warm Thoughts

Our two days of sun are gone, but I'm experiencing a different kind of warmth today.  My sweetie and I went to Willamette University in Salem today for two related events: a wonderful pow-wow and to visit the incredible display of Marie Watt's works there (if you didn't watch OPB's ArtBeat segment about Marie, learn more at her website here.)

Watt's mid-career retrospective, Lodge, was stunning.  If you get a chance to go to the Hallie Ford Museum at Willamette this month, GO!  Among many other works, there's a blanket cave, complete with stalactites and a ghostly story-teller video, and then a huge stack of blankets with story-tags attached telling about histories of the blankets.  I read one story that had me in tears. Amazing.

And if that weren't ENOUGH, Marie invited anyone who wanted to, to sit and add their stitches to another piece she's making -- right there at the pow-wow.  Of COURSE I had to join in.  I had a luminous experience -- just a few feet away from the dancers, the wonderful music all around, and a delightful almost-quilting experience that left me itching to get out my needles again at home very SOON.  Beautiful, beautiful.

Sleep and Light

I'm so grateful for the light returning as we approach spring (are you aware that Daylight Savings starts THIS WEEKEND? Wow).

And I'm wonderfully grateful for the opportunity to get enough sleep.  During my regular work life, I was  getting between five and six-and-a-half hours of sleep a night.  You youngsters probably think this is plenty, but it sure wore me down  The delicious feeling of waking up at 7:00 without a rush of adrenalized OH NO! I'm laaaaate!  is wonderful.  Sorry to brag, but there it is.

And as for light and the blessed, if temporary, absence of rain, I'm practically dancing with joy.  I went for a three-mile walk through SE Portland neighborhoods yesterday (Great technique: set yourself a trivial errand that doesn't involve carrying much, at least a mile away.  Start trompin'.  Rain gear if needed for extra credit.)  It was GREAT!  So many people have done such interesting things in their front yards, even if they still need weeding, even if things are soggy.  What a great place we live in.  Today I'm going to Mt. Tabor since it's Wednesday no-car day and walk around there in this glorious sunshine.  I think of Goethe's last words when the light comes back like this.

What is missing, the poet thought, what do I need,

what do I want to flood me

till I float out on its pure blue tide?

          Light

          At long last light, sweet silent      lavish

          light: 

                 More. Light.

Nothin'

I realized last night that three days had flashed by, full of important and wonderful activities from first to last, and my brain completely missed any prompting to follow my intent to write.  But here I am again.

What to post?  Today I wondered if I should babble on about hot flashes, but Barb beat me to it.  Then I discovered that Roxie was MOST delightfully blogging about birthdays and creativity.  And then Facebook opened its ugly maw and swallowed me for far too long.

So, in a time-honored manner, I shall acknowledge that my own Muse has wandered off somewhere, and instead share this poem written by the wondrous Henry Taylor:

IN ANOTHER'S HANDS
When I came out of the hardware store
into the eight-space parking lot beside it,
a wholesaler's semi had backed into the drive
and maybe blocked me in.  But maybe not.
I got in my truck and twisted to look out
toward the driver, who looked me over first,
then the space we had to work with.  It could be done.
Her hand, palm up, began to close and open.
I eased the clutch, trusting only the hand
to tell me where I was.  She watched the gap,
the truck rolled back, her fingers moved, then closed --
hold it! -- and I stopped and shifted to pull away,
but paused and waved, wanting to hold a moment
when something, however little, worked just right.
      {from Understanding Fiction: pOEMS 1986-1996, Lousiana State Univ. Press 1996}

St. David's Day and other stuff...

Wow!  It's St. David's Day.  St. David of Wales (NOT "Whales," puhleeze).  His symbols are the leek and the daffodil and THERE'S a bouquet for you!  Here's a link from the U.K. that notes the significance for Wales and the Welsh.  (The Welsh flag is flying over 10 Downing Street today!  Aha!!!!!).  Most famous church connected to St. David in zipcode 97214?  Hmm, let me guess.

PLUS March is national Women's History Month.  Have you kissed a women today?  (Tapping foot) We're waiting!


And -- because I don't forget who brung me to the dance OR who gave me my well-loved former job:  Next week is Patient Safety Awareness Week!!!!!  National info is here and here's the cool newsletter from the Oregon Patient Safety Commission.

Embers

When I was a little girl long, long ago (In the 50's. Gosh I'm old), we used to have wall calendars supplied by the local drugstore.  They were just chock-full of little tid-bits: lots of ads for St. Joseph baby aspirin, if I recall correctly, and little pictures of pharmacists in white jackets looking wise and fatherly.  And almost every day's square had something interesting.  If they couldn't find SOME sort of holiday, there would be a reminder of something you might want to put on your shopping list, but there were WAAAY more holidays than in the calendars I use now.

And several times a year, there would be a notation: Ember Day.  That sounded so interesting and mysterious; I often wondered what it meant.  I don't know if I asked my parents or just kept wondering.  No Google back then, of course, and it wasn't in the dictionary, so I just stayed ignorant.  I may have thought that the ones in the fall had something to do with burning leaves, but the other ones made no sense.  Somewhere along the way someone must have indicated it had some sort of religious overtone to it, but it remained hidden in mystery -- until today!

One of my friends kindly shared a link (which I am now sharing here) and now I know!!

Forsythia

I walked by a forsythia bush beginning to bloom this afternoon.  It was already raining and the wind was SO cold and then I walked by those little sketches of yellow against a fence and I thought, OK, we're finally beginning spring.  Do you have those personal signposts for the seasons?  A friend of mine says she believes it's spring when she hears (or sees) the first tree swallows.  For me, it's the forsythia -- though the daffodils I saw just a block away were pretty convincing, too!  (It's one thing to see a bunch of daffodils for sale at Safeway -- and yes I DID buy them -- but another when they're actually emerging from the dirt in my own neighborhood!)

I remembered playing Sarah in the play J.B. a kajillion years ago, and after all that "curse God and die" business I got to come back at the end of the play and show Job that the forsythia is blooming again -- a little redemption.  And I also thought about e.e. cummings' wonderful poem "O sweet spontaneous / earth" (found here).  Even in the midst of the drear and rain and cold, it's such a relief to see spring emerging once again.

Whether you wake up to rain or snow or stillness, may you experience spring tomorrow.

Right and Wrong

A friend sent me a link to a video of Kathryn Schulz talking about being wrong -- and I do recommend you watch it (yes, 17 minutes; if I can stretch my tiny attention span, so can you!).

She makes some wonderful points -- like, when you are being wrong, you still FEEL like you're right, since we all live in our self-referential heads.  To me this also connects with a recent AP article on the tricky nature of presidential/national apologies.  We are just SO BAD in our society about admitting we might be wrong, have been wrong, have even hurt others through our words and deeds.  Why else have we never even apologized for slavery?  Why, in that tiny moment after seeing any mistake, does our mind race with it's-not-my-fault-I-didn't-do-it-It-must-have-been-somebody-ANYbody-else?

Are our egos so fragile that we must trumpet our alleged "rightness" till everyone else rolls over belly-up?  (Am I doing the same right now so you'll think I'm wise?)  I don't know, but I think I'll keep chewing on the questions. . . .

Da Boids

Yes, I'm a bird nerd.  Not a particularly savvy one, not someone who can ID a sparrow at 100 yards, but a lover of critters.  I admit, I don't quite understand it when I mention birding and I see someone's eyes start to glaze over.  But then I realize that, years ago, I didn't even NOTICE them myself.

What knocks me out about birding -- or spotting other critters of the natural world -- is that most of the time we walk around lost in our heads and in our very human-focused universe.  He-said, she-said, what task comes next, look at how that fool drives, etc. -- but there's a whole world of activity around us almost everywhere and we are missing it -- and it's a busy, fascinating world.

Yesterday I was taking advantage of a sunny moment to pull a few of the "easy" weeds in the yard, walking around with a weed bucket and scanning the ground for that one kind of awful weed that, if I let it go a few more weeks, will mature enough to start spitting its seeds everywhere.  I had my head down as I walked next to our Persian ironwood tree when -- PRRRRRT!!! -- a burst of wingbuzz right next to my ear told me that I'd gotten too close to where a goldfinch was perching.  Yowzah!  I practically collided with the bird and I hadn't even been aware of its presence.

These little lives are being lived in our midst with great intensity.  And spring is a terrific time to start opening our eyes.  The male Anna's hummingbird that dominates our yard is making his courtship dives -- flies way up high, swoops down in a sort of "J" shape, and at the bottom of the loop his tail feathers do something that makes this loud squeak/chirp that's absolutely distinctive.  Look at me, ladies!  NOW!  A male lesser goldfinch, black-cap all fresh in new plumage, shares some food with a female, beak to beak.  At least two of the bushtits (adorable featherballs that love to surround the suet feeder until it's a bristly bouquet of tweets and tails) have separated from the flock and are grooving around together.  It's yummy.

Thursday, on the Springwater trail near Oaks Bottom, I stopped to listen to the gRawwky "pumpkin-EEEAT-er" calls of a whole bunch of red-winged blackbirds {a friend swears he once asked another friend, "so what's the name of those black birds with red wings?"}.  I never did see any of the blackbirds, but I glimpsed a movement in the trees -- and when I'd focused on it, I saw a pileated woodpecker, knocking around in the moss and bark!  Even shaded by the limbs around him, his scarlet comb gleamed a rich velvety color.  Wow, what a gift!

(The picture below is not mine; I rarely bring a camera on my bird walks, preferring to watch in the moment.  It's provided courtesy of the Interwebs in case you don't know what a pileated woodpecker looks like.  Amazing, huh?)

Laughing

If you know me at all -- heck, if you're in the same restaurant as me, or even anywhere in the VERY LARGE auditorium where a comedy is being presented -- you know I'm a laugher.  I enjoy myself mightily, but over the years, it's been a bit problematic.

My dear mother -- may she rest in peace with only angelic voices around her -- suffered agonies in every public place where my Dad and I would find something amusing.  She had a good sense of humor all her own, but faced with the potential of staring strangers, she'd whisper, "Paul! Linda! For goodness' sake..."  We, of course, were un-thoughtfully incorrigible and blithely reinforced our own delicious appreciation of life's silliness.  It would have been good if we could have stuck with discreet snickers, but I get my actor's voice from Dad, and when the punchlines came, we just let loose and guffawed; we roared, we slapped the table, we hee-hawed like any rube in the big city for the first time.

In church, too -- Oh, if I had a nickel for every time someone said to me (smiling, lovingly, to be sure) "I heard you in church today, Linda."  I used to worry that I was too loud, too un-genteel, too disruptive of someone's worship.  But after a few decades in the pews, I figure it's the least I can do.  Most preachers have worked hard to inject something light into their sermons, whether it's a quirky reflection or a canned Joke for Liturgical Occasion.  Why shouldn't I reward them for their efforts?  How will they know they've been successful if we all sit there stifling our delight?  Naah; I couldn't do it anyway, so why try?  Abraham laughed, Sarah laughed -- sheesh, David danced before the Lord!  They should just be grateful I never studied ballet.

Dreams

Some day soon I hope to get up and write immediately after awakening, because I'd love to have more than a vague wash of feeling-color remaining from my dream time.  Not that I want to practice Dream Psychology on myself for the readers' dubious entertainment, but that there are such rich images that my sweet brain comes up with when I'm not busy censoring and controlling.

I'm seeing a theme emerge in my life, which is the the awareness of my seemingly endless urge to control: control myself, my long-suffering spouse, other people's behavior, my interior life.  It doesn't want to stop.  I know perfectly well that such efforts are completely hopeless, and frequently the source of suffering for myself and others, but the grasping goes on.

Just as retirement is bringing me the option of a bit more sleep (and a few more dreams), I sense a faint relaxation -- or at least the prelude to it -- of my grip on the steering wheel of daily life.

My dream for myself is that I learn to open and accept a new way of receiving the grace that is all around, so full of un-forced goodness.

Let's Begin

Today I'll receive ashes on my forehead and hear that one day I'll return to dust.  Some folks find that depressing, but which of us can say it's not true?  Perhaps more important than that destination is -- what am I made of (and making) now?

My intention is to get back into the daily writing habit during Lent so that I can redevelop my writing muscles, sharing and listening along with you.  I may dustily fail this resolve at times, but you'll get to watch that too and perhaps notice our kinship in stumbling.  At any rate, this seems like it makes more sense than avoiding chocolate!

This week, as I walked the aisles of my local Fred Meyer store, I found myself observing how often my desires were activated by things -- primarily things I had no need of and had formed no intention of buying.  I had what I needed in my basket, but still I wandered.  The satisfaction, the delicious luxury of spending on things seemed to be calling to me at every turn.  Strange.  Strange to be observing it instead of just succumbing.  Not resisting, just observing.  But then it WAS a lovely walk home with only four items instead of ten.....