Holding On and Ringing True

      A lot of people are having a rough time right about now, and the recent US Presidential election is just a part of the trouble.  Divisiveness is rampant, no matter where you look.  There is a notable lack of trust, a dis-ease with those who are different from oneself.  Social problems we thought had been dealt with long ago continue to rear their heads, taunting us and reminding us that we have not really dug deep enough.  We have not gotten to the root of the problems that we face as a society.   Racism, sexism, and economic disparity divide us from one another and encourage us to see only our differences.  But we need to focus more intently on what unifies us.  We need to see our interconnectedness as the essence of who we are - who all of us are.
      In September I attended a retreat with Joanna Macy where she taught a large group of us a variety of skills for dealing with despair over the current state of environmental concern in the world.  Many of those who attended are folks involved in what used to be called the work of “Despair and Empowerment” (note the "and" there.  It is not about moving from one to the other, but rather, of holding both at the same time and living within this difficult balancing act.) The work is now better known as “The Great Turning”, coined by Joanna herself as a way of acknowledging where we are in the present moment.
        It is the belief and deep hope of many spiritual climate activists that the world is turning away from its unfortunate and deeply flawed anthropocentrism, toward a more mindful way of being.  But this can't really happen without the current structures falling apart to some extent, and that part of the process in particular, is painful.  Acknowledging this Joanna shared a portion of a powerful poem by Rilke: 

Quiet friend who has come so far,
feel how your breathing makes more space around you.
Let this darkness be a bell tower
and you the bell. As you ring,

what batters you becomes your strength. 
Move back and forth into the change. 
What is it like, such intensity of pain?
If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.

In this uncontainable night,
be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,
the meaning discovered there.

And if the world has ceased to hear you, 
say to the silent Earth: I flow.

(Part Two, Sonnet XXIX by Rilke , transl. Joanna Macy) 

        The Great Turning is not a time for the weak. Change does not happen without some challenges, without some backlash, and when you are caught in the midst of helping to bring change about, you may get beaten up a bit in the process.
        The key is to stay connected to the things that give you strength and hope.
        The key is to remember what it is that sustains you on an ordinary day, and then tap into it ever deeper on the challenging days. Draw the sustenance you need from the way you live your life. For me this means spending time in the woods near a small stream, walking on the dirt road near my home, making music and making good food, and talking with friends.
        The key is to remember who you are and to hold onto believing in the purpose for which you have come. You are needed and valued, and this is especially true in difficult times.

Joanna Macy is a well known Buddhist Earth Activist who has collaborated with John Seed and many others, doing the “Great Work” throughout the world. See more about her here: http://www.joannamacy.net/ 

Fierce Mother-Love

Too late to ask someone to cover for me, I realized that this is a difficult year for me to be preaching on Mother’s Day.  Since Mom's unexpected death, this has been and continues to be a period of reflection on what she means to me, what I learned from her, how she shaped me.  It is a time of sorting through challenging interactions and lighthearted ones, wanting to understand her better by looking at things more closely than I did when we were in the midst of them. I find myself wrestling as much meaning and understanding as I can from every memory.  

My sister and I have spent a lot of time talking about these memories, about our thoughts and feelings related to Mom and to who we are in light of this most basic relationship we have.  We are trying to help each other through, trying to make sense of the way our lives have unfolded so far, and what we want our futures to look like.  In so many ways, my mom’s legacy in my life is something I am only just beginning to unpack.  Even after all of these years, I don’t have the full picture yet – in my head or my heart.  What I do know is that I was well loved by her, and still am.

I think of the time when Mom came to help out at a community event where the church I serve sold baked goods, fresh lemonade & a refreshing Vermont drink called "shrub".  It was soon after my former husband had left, so I was feeling pretty overwhelmed by life - continuing my ministry, caring for a home and garden all on my own, parenting my twin daughters through their own emotions and responses to the divorce and maintaining my commitment to homeschooling them.  In those days, Mom made a point of coming up to Vermont at just the right time to help out with church yard sales or other big events.  

At the end of this particular community day, we packed up everything (which included loading the girls' bikes on the back of the car) and finally got into my old Nissan stanza wagon.  As I maneuvered to get out of the parking lot, I had to back up a bit and ended up slowly backing the bikes into a tree which pushed one of the bike handles through the rear window.  When I heard the sound and felt the crunch, I got out of the car and went to see what had happened.  

Mom followed me, and grabbed me into the strongest, fiercest hug I had ever felt from her.  She held me like that as I just lost it.  I cried way more than a broken window warranted, and I am pretty sure she knew that.  She knew I was grieving everything I had lost, everything that had fallen apart and I didn't know how to put back together.  It was in those moments that I knew Mom was really there for me, even if she was usually more reserved about expressing her love.  I knew she was capable of a fierce hug when I needed it, of fierce, protective mother-love when it counted the most.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom.  I love you!

(The sunset view from Mom & Dad's balcony in Florida.)

Easter Dawns

I wrote this poetic piece as a reflection on how I have been feeling in dealing with my mom's death and wrestling with what Easter means in light of this personal time of grief.  It seemed to me that Easter ought to have something to say about a personal grief, if it reflects some deeper truth about our lives with Spirit.  At heart, Easter is about how life shows up despite death's best efforts.  And no matter what else it is, life is certainly good.

Easter Dawns

This Easter

all of the metaphors

about Spring and new life

crowd into my mind. 

One after another,

they try to explain how it works,

how life can rise out of the frozen

muddy earth.

But none of the explanations

get it quite right…

Until I realize that words and metaphors,

symbols reaching out toward hope

need to be grounded in this reality

here and now

in this moment:

“Life has hold of us

even in the midst of death,

and life is good."

Lent 2016

            I came home today after a long visit in Florida.  The ride from Albany was wet as the rains poured down continuously.  By the time we arrived home, sleet was beginning to fall, and tonight snowy ice coats the ground.  It is so strange to think that my Dad played golf after dropping us off at the airport.  Sunshine and relative warmth kept him company for most of the day. 

            The circumstances of our lives can be so very different depending on where we find ourselves.  Some of these circumstances are somewhat under our control.  We may not be able to guarantee sunshine, but a trip to Florida usually means warmer weather than we are apt to experience in Vermont this time of the year.  But other aspects of life are not so easily controlled.  What was meant to be a vacation became the beginning of a time of mourning when my Mom passed away a week before my family planned to visit.  I hurried down immediately to be with my sister and Dad, who were both there, thankfully together, for such a difficult passage.

            This was not the trip I expected, nor was it the one I would have chosen, but there were elements of it that were surprisingly positive, and healing in ways that I did not expect.  Primarily, it was good to be with family, to simply be together as we grieved and began to process our deep loss.  We actually laughed a lot as we shared stories about Mom and poured over family pictures.  The laughter was not at all what I expected, but somehow it broke through our sadness and helped us get in touch with our hearts.  At the very center of our emotions was gratitude for sharing our lives, and for being a family whose love holds strong through what is a very difficult time.  It surprised me that the central emotion that swirled around us was joy and not grief, despite the depth of our loss. 

            Being family, loving Mom, is a shared joy that gives us the strength to come face to face with the powerful sense of grief that we feel.  Essentially, over the past few weeks, joy often won out over grief as we laughed and shared together.  I imagine it will continue to do so in the weeks and years ahead.  The joys of a life shared win out over the grief of death that parts us from those whom we love, and this is the heart of the Easter message that I often start gearing up to preach at this time of year.

            For Christians, the Lenten journey is just about over.  The pattern of this seasonal rhythm is familiar to us, and yet there is always room for God to surprise us.  New life is promised, and we never really know what that might mean for us in any given year.  It becomes especially poignant when we walk through dark and difficult times.  Like the laughter my family shared as we mourned, the light and love of God continues to break through into our lives in the most surprising and beautiful ways, lifting our hearts and reminding us that life not only continues, but it gets better as we learn how to love one another through the challenges, how to be there for one another in the midst of sorrow, how to live into this new life together.

Living Well, Dying Well

Today, a mid-February day in Vermont, it is in the 50's and rain keeps moving over the meadow in waves.  Maybe it is the weather and longing to get outside into the garden again, or maybe it is seeing signs of green shoots of plant life beginning too early, making me question the relativity of the whole life-death continuum, but for whatever reason it brought to mind this piece that I wrote in April a few years ago.  I'd like to share it with you, so here it is:

I took a walk with our 21-year-old cat, Olive, today.  She is not eating much anymore, and seems to live on direct sunlight, as plants do.  I know she cannot photosynthesize the sunlight, but it seems like a good thing for her, and so when she meowed to go outside, I took her out, set her on the grass and we walked down to the garden together.  My intent had been to grade papers this afternoon, but when Olive contentedly settled into a soft place in the garden, nestled in the shadow of a tuft of grass and mustard, I decided instead to do some weeding so that she could enjoy a little time outside.

When life is nearing the end, choices become so much simpler.  Being in the moment, in the garden, was the only thing to be done, the only place to be, when it was what Olive wanted and needed.

Death and making the transition from this life to whatever comes next, has been on my mind recently.  It’s not exactly a subject we carry in the forefront of our thoughts, and yet something that we all do need to face at some point.  My father-in-law passed away a few weeks ago, and all who gathered around his bed at the end agreed that it was “a good death.”  Even the hospice staff, commented on how well he was accompanied in this final transition of his life.  His children read from some of his favorite books, played music and sang for him, spoke of deep things, of their dreams and hopes, of the many accomplishments of his life, and simply sat with him, holding a hand, communicating with eyes and touch once words ceased to be useful.

John O’Donohue, the Irish priest and poet speaks of death walking beside us throughout our lives, not in a way that is meant to threaten or frighten us, but rather as a reminder that this opportunity to live our one amazing life should not be taken lightly.  He closes his blessing “On Death” saying,

“And decide carefully / how you now can live / the life you would love / to look back on from your deathbed.”  

Living well gives us pleasure in the present, as my hour in the garden with Olive gave me today, but it also allows us to eventually leave this life with a deep contentment, knowing we have done what we could.  We can die in peace, knowing we have answered and lived into the calling of our spirit and of our destiny.

This springtime, as so much comes to life around us, maybe we can feel ourselves participating in the fullness of the circle of life, and be grateful for the gifts… so many gifts that surround us and make our lives good.

Blessings,

Shirley

(Originally published April 2012 on https://wildwoodumc.wordpress.com/ )

"Grace" as a New Year's Resolution

 January 2016

Dear Friends,

            This is the season when many of us think to ourselves, “now, what are my intentions for this new year?”  We make resolutions, usually having to do with diet or exercise, and carry them out with varying degrees of success.  The people who study these things claim that it takes 66 days for a practice to become a reliably adopted habit.  So, if we can just get through the first three months, then we are well on our way!

            Some old-fashioned religious terms have been working on me as I think about what my intentions will be for 2016.  The words are “mercy” and “grace”.  Life these days tends to be so contentious, that many of us have built up thick protective walls to our hearts.  We are on the defensive, on high alert, looking for any transgressions that might cause us harm or pain. 

            Mercy and grace stand in stark contrast to a closed-off and carefully protected heart.  They coax and invite us to consider a different way of being in relationship with others.  They ask us to embrace and embody a softer and gentler way of being in the world.  In a recent lecture, Richard Rohr, a Franciscan monk and founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation, spoke about the freedom we give to ourselves when we let go of the need to always be right, to always do exactly and only the right thing.  He invited his listeners to consider that being loving was a higher value than being right.

            This sounds to me like a worthy New Year’s resolution, to choose to be loving rather than focusing my energies on always attempting to be right.  I like the freedom inherent in letting go of the need to judge every situation.  I look forward to seeking out ways to express my love and appreciation without the need to assess the rightness or wrongness of a person or of their choices.  I appreciate the challenge of breathing new life into seemingly old-fashioned concepts like mercy and grace, so that they can gain credibility in a world that has become way too contentious.

            I don’t think my resolution is going to be easy to keep.  In fact, a diet or exercise program might be a whole lot simpler, but I feel the need to stand in opposition to the violence that permeates so much of our lives today, and this seems like a powerful way to do it.  Even if it doesn’t make a dent “out there” in the world, I have a suspicion it will make a big difference “in here” in my heart and in my life.

May grace and mercy be with you in this New Year.

Shirley