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.
Monday, March 26, 2012
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Just This
I'm drunk with the spring smell of daphne this weekend. May you experience such delight, too.
Friday, March 23, 2012
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.
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.
Monday, March 12, 2012
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):
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.
Saturday, March 10, 2012
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.
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.
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
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.
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.
Monday, March 5, 2012
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}
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}
Thursday, March 1, 2012
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.
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.
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