Wait Quiet Like This

Psalm 131

You know that my heart is not haughty
Nor my eyes lofty
Neither have I reached for things
Too great and too wonderful for me

But I have calmed and settled my heart
And it is contented

Like a child surfeited on a mother's breast
Like a suckling child is my heart

Let those who question and struggle
Wait quiet like this for you
From this day forth
And always

Fischer, Norman. Opening to You: Zen-Inspired Translations of the Psalms. NY: Penguin Group, 2002. 160.

Silence

Silence, as all writers know, allows the word to be heard.

 At a given moment, the silence is so strong that the words express nothing but it alone.

Does this silence, capable of making language tilt over, possess its own language to which one can attribute neither origin nor name?

Inaudible language of the secret?

Those who have been reduced to silence, once, know it best, but know also that they can hear it.

~Edmund Jabès (French poet (1912-1991)

Silly Introvert

Friday Five: Spring!

From Sandra Boynton's FB page

Today's Friday Five of RevGalBlogPals:

I always think that daffodils are harbingers of spring, which arrives today. Although they do not grow here in south Texas,  I was able to see them blooming this past weekend in Washington State.

For today’s Friday Five, write about five signs of spring that you look for each year and most especially this year.

While in Seattle this past week, I took pics of spring bloomings that I do not see in TX:

1. Daffodils

 2. Tulips

3. Flowering trees

downtown Seattle near Seneca and First Ave.

4. First greening of mesquite trees (in TX)--hasn't quite happened yet.

Our mesquite tree last March 28, 2014

5. Wildflowers in TX, especially after a rainy winter and spring, like this year.

Facing One's Mortality

 Our last day in Bellingham, Washington, I wanted to look at the spots where my parents' ashes were placed after their deaths in 1992 and 2002. I also remembered that Green Acres is a place that has beautiful flowers, so I was hoping to see daffodils, which I did.

Last year Chuck and I decided to buy a plot near them.

We were surprised to see that our marker is already there! It made us pause in silence as we gazed at our names, indicating "the end."

 Since both my parents and maternal grandparents are here, this seemed like more of a central location than anywhere else that we know of.

My mother's parents, whom I knew as Grandpa and Nana. They were George and Anne.

My parents. Their families knew them as Rudy and Faith (their middle names), but friends called them Dave and Margaret.

For daughter AE's birthday last week, I posted this picture on Facebook. I haven't looked at it for a long time, and it amazed me to see how young and thin Chuck and I were 33 years ago!

DC, Chuck, AE, and Jan 1982

Prays Well With Others

I post this on Facebook a few days ago. When I encountered a friend I rarely see, the father of one of my oldest child's friends, he called me a "heretic" for posting this. He walked away when another friend I said God is bigger than the names we give Him.

Say not, "I have found the one true path of the Spirit!"

Say rather, "I have wonderfully met the Spirit walking on my path."

For the spirit walks upon all paths.

~Kahlil Gibran

(Richard Rohr adapted this from Kahil Gibran, The Prophet (New York: Alfred a Knopf, 1923), p. 55 in Rohr's book Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi.)

Flowers in Seattle

On walks with my friend Terry, I saw lovely flowers in yards. I miss seeing daffodils popping up in TX.










That was when it wasn't raining yesterday afternoon. Today there is heavy rain. Still it is beautiful!

Returning to Friday (Five) the 13th in MARCH!!

Almost three months since I last blogged, I am going to participate in today's RevGalBlogPals' Friday Five before going on a short (6 days) trip to Washington State. So here it is:

Woo hoo!  It’s not only Random Friday Five time, but it is also Friday the 13th.  And also Lent.  And, in my neighborhood, the snow is starting to melt and I can see a patch of grass in my front yard.  Oh my,  what could be more wonderful?  (Okay, a lot of things, I know.  At least little things make me happy.)
So, without further ado, I present you F13RFF!

1.  What have you got going on today?
In two hours, Chuck and I are driving to San Antonio to go on a direct flight on Alaska Airlines to Seattle. We'll get there tonight, thankfully met by our daughter AE. We planned this quick trip during Chuck's spring break from teaching chemistry at the local community college, so we could visit his younger brother Tom and wife Chris, who is under hospice care for rampant breast cancer.

2.  What about a prayer request, how can we pray for you today?
Please prayer for Chris and Tom, but now I also add Dennis and Terry. Terry texted me yesterday about her husband Dennis going back into the hospital with a severe infection, probably due to sores on his feet which brought sepsis to his artificial knee. This is what he went through last year, too. Today he will have surgery where they might even replace his knee replacement. I am glad we'll arrive tonight.
 
3.  What makes you curious?
Right now I am very curious about the changes in U.S. culture in all aspects as related by Robert D. Putnam, author of Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, which is a book I continue to cite in classes and to friends. His latest book was just published and addresses what is affecting our children in Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis and I am reading it now. It connects in places with the new book for the Wisdom Class: The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander, even though the authors are focusing on different viewpoints
of U.S. society.

4.  If you got stuck in an elevator for three hours, (if that is too scary, locked in a room or stuck in a traffic jam), and could magically have any book or activity appear in a pouf to you to while away the time, what would it be?
 I guess I would like my smart phone or Ipad to magically appear, because I could contact people, see the news, and access a book! Otherwise, I would probably pray--a "good" chance to do contemplative prayer.

5.  Use these words in a sentence.   Thirteen, lampshade, [a historical person, like Cotton Mather or Judy Garland} basket, hedgehog, and daffodils.
Saint Francis watched a hedgehog sniff the basket of thirteen daffodils, while the lampshade was non-existent.

 As always, have fun, be fabulous, and let us know you played in the comments, and take care!