In the afternoons,
in the almost empty fields,
I hum the hymns
I used to sing

in church.
They could not tame me,
so they would not keep me,
alas,

and how that feels,
the weight of it,
I will not tell
any of you,

not ever.
Still, as they promised,
God, once he is in your heart,
is everywhere—

excerpt from Mary Oliver's The Beautiful, Striped Sparrow

'Three Little Birds' is Back

and it feels like a homecoming...it feels like this...

When my nineteen-year-old son turns on the kitchen tap
and leans down over the sink and tilts his head sideways
to drink directly from the stream of cool water,
I think of my older brother, now almost ten years gone,
who used to do the same thing at that age;
and when he lifts his head back up and, satisfied,
wipes the water dripping from his cheek
with his shirtsleeve, it’s the same casual gesture
my brother used to make; and I don’t tell him
to use a glass, the way our father told my brother,
because I like remembering my brother
when he was young, decades before anything
went wrong, and I like the way my son
becomes a little more my brother for a moment
through this small habit born of a simple need,
which, natural and unprompted, ties them together
across the bounds of death, and across time …
as if the clear stream flowed between two worlds
and entered this one through the kitchen faucet,
my son and brother drinking the same water.

"A Drink of Water" by Jeffrey Harrison

It Could Be...

It could be as simple
as using a good paring knife
and singing, as you peel the apple

from top to bottom, then kissing
your grandson's nose as you drop
the unbroken peel on his head.

It could be checking the herbs
in the outdoor pots, noticing
the basil needs water.

It could be wrapping yourself
in a prayer shawl, fingering your beads,
studying the Bible -- all the better

to empty the space, prepare the ground
for the silence which offers answers
to questions which never cease.

It could be putting on your hat,
your boots and your gloves
and shoveling Mrs. Cohen's walkway

before you drive her to the doctor.
You wish she would talk less,
but you tuck your impatience

into the pocket of your coat,
and it escapes only once.
It could be as simple as blessing

the newspaper as you open it,
praying for the spoiled and lost ones
on all corners of the earth.

It could be as simple as knowing
that prayer is also love-in-action
or even hate in non-action,

that there is only one you
in the entire universe,
that your spark-raising cannot be done
by anyone else, not even by God.
~~Jennifer (Jinks) Hoffmann 

Lessons in Light

So, it's been a rough six months (you may have noticed I have been mostly absent from these pages) with losses and heartache of all kinds that could only be held, accompanied.  We have clung to one another and to God, walked, as trusting as we could, helping each other over the rough spots, and carried our hope bundled with a bit of thread...
Now it is Christmas.  My favorite feast - my season of hope.
He surprised us with lights to welcome us home, the whole place a joyful welcome sign.
A week later it was our turn.
We wanted to surprise him with the tree, lit in the window.
But when I plugged it in, only half the branches lit.
In my heart I sighed "not this, not this year" and left the room for a Christmas box thinking we'd have to leave the tree and wait for his help.
As I returned Kyla, in child wonder, exclaimed "Mom, the lights are all on!"
My first thought was to the heavens - Thank you,
When she said to me "Sometimes the Light just moves a little slow!"
Now it is Christmas.  My favorite feast - my season of hope.

Oh Come Oh Come Emmanuel

Only after I'd written this did I realize 

it is Santa Lucia - the Feast of Lights!  I remember our girls wearing a crown of candles on their head with a mix of delight and terror!  

May you all be crowned with Light.  

Jesus [Go to your inner room]

I draw prayer round me like a dark protective wall, withdraw inside it as one might into a convent cell and then step outside again, calmer and stronger and more collected again.
        Etty Hillesum An Interrupted Life

Here’s what I want you to do:  Find a quiet, secluded place so you won’t be tempted to role-play before God.  Just be there as simply and honestly as you can manage. The focus will shift from you to God, and you will begin to sense his grace.
       Matthew 6:6 The Message

Lent's Invitation

You have traveled too fast over false ground;

Now your soul has come to take you back.

Take refuge in your senses, open up

To all the small miracles you rushed through.

Become inclined to watch the way of rain

When it falls slow and free.

Imitate the habit of twilight,

Taking time to open the well of color

That fostered the brightness of day.

Draw alongside the silence of stone

Until its calmness can claim you.

John O'Donohue

Sacred Memory

The other day Kyla and I were working together to organize her room. We rediscovered a bag of stuffed animals etc. we'd put away and among the items was a baby doll she carried everywhere when she was toddling around. It was fun to share with her this happy reminder of precious days passed.

Later we moved her little shrine to her bedside table.

 





















A holy card fell out, St. Kateri Tekawitha.

It has a relic, (a bit of red cloth) and Kyla commented that it was strange to think a piece of someone's clothing was sacred. I was surprised by my emotion as I shared with her that this bit of cloth was like her doll, which is 'just a doll' but also more, simply because it was hers, and is full of meaning and memory for us. She teared up too, 'getting it'. Happy grateful tears, a really good hug and yes, a sacred moment.

Happy Valentine's Day

Roger wrote me this in 1971, true to his word and heart on his sleeve. What a joyous life we share, no matter what life has brought or may one day bring, to be in it together, my life's greatest blessing! 

 

Deep in our sub-conscious, we are told
Lie all our memories, lie all the notes
Of all the music we have ever heard
And all the phrases those we loved have spoken,
Sorrows and losses time has since consoled,
Family jokes, out-moded anecdotes
Each sentimental souvenir and token
Everything seen, experienced, each word
Addressed to us in infancy, before
Before we could even know or understand
The implications of our wonderland.
There they all are, the legendary lies
The birthday treats, the sights, the sounds, the tears
Forgotten debris of forgotten years
Waiting to be recalled, waiting to rise
Before our world dissolves before our eyes
Waiting for some small, intimate reminder,
A word, a tune, a known familiar scent
An echo from the past when, innocent
We looked upon the present with delight
And doubted not the future would be kinder
And never knew the loneliness of night.

"Nothing is Lost" by Noel Coward

"What the Heart Cannot Forget"

Everything remembers something. The rock, its fiery bed,
cooling and fissuring into cracked pieces, the rub
of watery fingers along its edge.

The cloud remembers being elephant, camel, giraffe,
remembers being a veil over the face of the sun,
gathering itself together for the fall.

The turtle remembers the sea, sliding over and under
its belly, remembers legs like wings, escaping down
the sand under the beaks of savage birds.

The tree remembers the story of each ring, the years
of drought, the floods, the way things came
walking slowly towards it long ago.

And the skin remembers its scars, and the bone aches
where it was broken. The feet remember the dance,
and the arms remember lifting up the child.

The heart remembers everything it loved and gave away,
everything it lost and found again, and everyone
it loved, the heart cannot forget.

~ by Joyce Sutphen, Coming Back to the Body

Uncle Tony

My Uncle Tony, Lord rest him, has gone to God. 

He was a gem of a man - the patriarch of the family (big brother to a dozen siblings, including my mom!) when his own father died. A man of good humor, constancy and a great appreciation for life! He is threaded through my childhood memories.
He taught me to value curiosity:
He worked in the steel mills and his garage/workshop was scattered with magnets - magic for any child.  We could search out magnetic bits in the dirt like treasure hunters!  He knew how to play, explore, wonder.  Introducing us to magnets was to make of us appreciative explorers of the mysteries before us.

He taught me how to pluck a chicken:
A sight and experience I recall, but not pleasantly, so I will spare you the details...
He taught me to while away an afternoon in a backyard hammock:
I must have complained of 'nothing to do' because he led me to the backyard with great sobriety, to a hammock on a stand in the shade, and he lay down with me beside him.  Will you look at those branches.  We chatted awhile, and he told me this was a good thing to do when I didn't know what to do, just to lie here and look, to think about anything or nothing at all.  Then he went back into the house.  But he took the time to teach me a valuable lesson firsthand.  And he got me out of his hair!
He taught me to hang out in the kitchen for the latest scoop:
He was always there.  Sitting at the kitchen table, or standing with a dishtowel in hand.  He'd quietly laugh at the things he heard, a good listener.  Unobtrusive, he got all the juicy details.  He'd watch me, watching him, chin on the table, let me stay until the conversation took some turn and he'd shoosh me out.  I always wondered what it was the grownups talked about that I couldn't hear.  But it didn't bother me.  I just headed out to the hammock...

A girl and her papa

FAITH

This photo of our grandson always prompts gratitude and a smile...
to remember how securely love holds us...
and to savor the many blessings of life with wild abandon and confident joy

For Easter Monday

Self-knowledge is not clarity or transparency or knowing how everything works, self-knowledge is a fiercely attentive form of humility and thankfulness...David Whyte

Moments and Memory

We were heading out in the car, stopped at the red light, when she looked over and said the man in the car next to us was a hippie.  I glanced right, and saw an older man, looking like he was heading to work, no signs of hippie to my eyes.  "Why do you say that" I ask, and exasperated, she says, slowly and surely so I can 'get it', "because he drives like he is hip!" And she puts her arm out on an imaginary steering wheel, wrist on top, hand hanging down..."a hippie"!!!

And I instantly see in my minds eye my own dad, much younger (I am a child beside him) driving with his wrist on the wheel - a cool customer.  Flash to years later and he stops by to visit his daughter, living with her hippie friends, for a morning cup of coffee (I made him a smoothie).  I walked him out to his car after.  He put his arm on the wheel, sat there smiling at me, lingered with his hand dangling, and then slowly turned, looking over his shoulder, backed out the drive. 

Thanks Dad.  This memory makes me smile.

We should try unceasingly to allow each one of our actions to become a moment of communion with God: not a studied act, but just as it comes from purity and simplicity of heart.

~Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God

My Little Brother

Today is my brother's birthday.  Even now, (at our advanced age - I know, I'm older) I can still see his wide open smile from boyhood that shines fresh and engaged in whatever is happening in any moment...the only thing wider than that smile are the arms he opens wide to all, huge hearted and welcoming.  I'd love to ride our bikes together again in that wide dirt circle, speeding through the carport again and again, plop against that old barn in the back and talk about nothing which was everything, read together, oh,oh,oh, and him insisting no, no, no.  He is our kids favorite!  They have felt all this and more from him!  I love that in our adulthood we can still run to the bridge and wish on the moon, hold hands and pray in the Father's love, relish all that is good while holding in open hands all that breaks our heart.  I love the tenderness of his heart.  I love his laugh, his serious side, the way he zooms in close, forehead to forehead, connecting with people, while the world holds it's breath, waits (watching love in action does that to the world)  I love you little brother, and I miss you every day.  Time to book a flight!

Minute to Win it!

Feasting before the fast, we play a quick game of gratitude...in one minute write all you are grateful for, then share with one another.  It's a fun and simple way to honor God's Blessings before the fast.  Just as Jesus entered the desert "full of the Spirit" it is good to recall the fullness of God's love experienced in our lives as we enter a season of simplicity, seeking to deepen that life in us.  I love her list! 
Your turn...what are you grateful for...in one minute?  Go ahead, write it here!



Love this

Recordar: To remember; from the Latin records, "to pass back through the heart”

Scientists say that we are made of atoms, but to me a little bird told me that we are made of stories.