It has been too long!!

I have not blogged since August 2015, even with several friends urging me to write again. As I re-read Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande, I feel immersed in thoughts and reflections of members in the Wisdom Class book group concerning the end of our days. My father-in-law and a dear friend, both in WA State, are in those times, not going gently   Lots of memories, emotions, and fears circulate in my mind and heart.

Since my parents died in 1992 and 2002, I remember living far away and traveling to be with them in their last days. That is very important, and I want that time for my husband, too. However, he is teaching chemistry classes in a community college and awaits spring vacation in another week. Does he need to go? Will there be enough time left?

I am lucky that I have been in a group of friends who meet monthly to discuss books on death. We even call it the "Death Group." It has made us more comfortable to discuss death and dying over several years so that we are willing to discuss physical, spiritual, and emotional issues of dying. One member has ALS and wanted us to pursue this topic. She has helped the rest of us continue thinking about our final days.

Over this time, I have found various articles that help me. One of the best is by David Steindl-Rast, author of Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer. It is long, but very worthwhile:

Learning to Die by Brother David Steindl-Rast 

I hope I will blog again soon with love to all.

How I Experience God

“The power which I cannot explain or know or name I call God. God is not God’s name. God is my name for the mystery that looms within and arches beyond the limits of my being. When I pray to God, God’s answer comes to me from within, not beyond. God’s answer is yes, not to the specifics of my prayer but in response to my hunger for meaning and peace.”

~F. Forrester Church (1948-2009) Unitarian Universalist minister in NYC

While suffering from esophagal cancer before his death: “I look back without regrets, and I look forward without fear,” he told The New York Times in 2008. “I have never been more in the present.”

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.

Dark then Bright

Assuming this is the last day of my life

(which might mean it is almost the first),

I’m struck blind but my blindness is bright.

Prepare for what’s known here as death;

have no fear of that strange word forever.

Even I can see there’s nothing there

to be afraid of: having already been

to forever I’m unable to recall

anything that scared me, there, or hurt.

What frightened me, apparently, and hurt

was being born. But I got over that

with no hard feelings. Dying, I imagine,

it will be the same deal, lonesomer maybe,

but surely no more shocking or prolonged—

It’s dark as I recall, then bright, so bright.

                    ~Franz Wright

Beloved Father Kelly

Father Kelly Nemeck 1936-2014

I have known Father Kelly for twenty years, through some of his time of being the director of Lebh Shomea "House of Prayer" retreat center in Sarita, TX. He was a priest in the order of Oblates of Mary Immaculate; he is the one who guided me to go to school at the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio. He died last Thursday.

Father Kelly was a spiritual icon/mentor to me. Through his contemplative masses, I came to love the Eucharist and experience the presence of God. He taught me so many things that I cannot enumerate them, just as he touched many, many others' lives. One thing that stands out is him telling a class at OST that he believed at the moment of death, each of us comes face to face with the Divine One and who could refuse Him then??

I am copying his obituary below, mostly because I want a copy saved.

1936 - 2014
Father Francis Kelly Nemeck, O.M.I., known as Father Kelly, was a great influence in the spiritual lives of countless men and women - married, single, vowed religious, priests, and bishops. From his young adulthood onward, he responded to a special calling to fostering attentive listening to God and others - a life of prayerful contemplation. Born in 1936 in Prescott, Arizona, he came to San Antonio as a child with his parents, May Yeary (of Kingsville, Texas) and Lt. Col. Francis Leonard "Kelly" Nemeck (of Douglas, Arizona) and his sister, Ann. After attending St. Anthony High School Seminary, he made his novitiate year in Mission, Texas, in preparation for joining the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate and professed his first vows as an Oblate in 1955. In preparation for the priesthood, he studied philosophy at DeMazenod Scholasticate (today's Oblate School of Theology) in San Antonio and theology at St. Joseph Scholasticate in Ottawa, Canada. During the course of these studies he was drawn by the thought of the Jesuit cosmologist and theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who envisioned all of creation evolving to ultimate reunion with Jesus Christ. Teilhard's thought was a lifelong influence in Fr. Nemeck's spirituality. His other model was St. John of the Cross, whom he studied very deeply and followed in his spirituality very closely. Ordained a priest at St. Mary's Church in downtown San Antonio in 1961, his first assignment was to DeMazenod Scholasticate as a professor for five years. Then, after briefly serving among the Chontals in Tehuantepec, Mexico, and at parishes in Midland and Houston, he began studies for a doctorate in spiritual theology at the Catholic Institute in Lyons, France, during which time he also taught and directed retreats in Ontario, Canada. His dissertation in 1973, under the direction of Henri de Lubac, S.J., developed the thought of Teilhard de Chardin and St. John of the Cross on the constructive value of human suffering. In late 1973, Fr. Nemeck joined the house of prayer founded earlier that year by Fr. Tom Marcoux, O.M.I., in the former main house of the vast La Parra Ranch surrounding Sarita, Texas, on the parcel of the ranch bequeathed to the Oblates by Sarita Kenedy East in gratitude for the long ministry of Oblate missionaries in South Texas. The fact that Fr. Marcoux had named the house of prayer Lebh Shomea, Hebrew for "listening heart," after King Solomon's request for a listening heart when God offered to grant the king anything that he wanted, certainly corresponded with Fr. Nemeck's own contemplative spirit. Together with Sisters Marie Theresa Coombs and Maria Meister, Father Nemeck developed Lebh Shomea during the next forty years into a nationally recognized place of silent contemplation and discernment for thousands of people from all walks of life. Fr. Nemeck and Marie Theresa Coombs coauthored several books on spiritual discernment, which have also been translated into Spanish. He also traveled to San Antonio to teach courses in spirituality and discernment at Oblate School of Theology for several years. In 1988-1991 and 1994-1999 he served on the Provincial Council (leadership group) of the Southern Province of the Missionary Oblates. When his health began to significantly deteriorate in late 2013, Fr. Nemeck moved to the Oblate Madonna Residence in San Antonio. Supporting increasing suffering with spiritual fortitude, he died there on September 11, 2014. He is survived by his sister, Ann Nemeck Henry, his nieces Elizabeth and Kathryn, and his Missionary Oblate brothers. May Father Kelly rejoice in God's abiding love.

"The Wave" by David Whyte

You arrived as a ripple of change emanating
from an original, unstoppable,
memory, a then made now,
entirely yourself, found now in the world,
now as creator of that world.
You were a signature written in sand
taken by the ocean and scattered
to another wave form, your disappearance
only made more beautiful
by the everyday arrival of a tide
where my voice can still join yours,
hungering for the fall of water,
so that walking the reflected sand,
I set myself to learn by your going,
knowing across death’s wide ocean,
the ultimate parallel to friendship.

(In Memoriam: John O’Donohue)
From Pilgrim: Poems by David Whyte
©2012 David Whyte

Remembering

Flowers from daughters AE and KA!

We Remember
from the Gates of Prayer
Reform Judaism Prayerbook

In the rising of the sun
and in its going down,
We remember them;

In the blowing of the wind
and in the chill of the winter,
We remember them;

In the opening of the buds
and in the warmth of the summer,
We remember them;

In the rustling of the leaves
and the beauty of the autumn,
We remember them;

And in the beginning of the year
and when it ends,
We remember them;

When we are weary
and in need of strength,
We remember them;

When we are lost
and sick at heart,
We remember them;

When we have joys
we long to share,
We remember them;

So long as we shall live
they too shall live,
For they are now a part of us as
We remember them.

 I am remembering my mother who died 22 years ago today.  I am appreciating friends who have birthdays today, as well as my family still with me.

More Death Poems

More death poems by Japanese haiku poets:

Joseki (died July 21, 1779, age 85)

This must be

my birthday there

in paradise. (207-208)

Shoshun (died April 24, between 1660 and 1672, less than 90)

Flowers bloomed yesterday,

today winds blow--

what but a dream. . . (302-303)

Chiyoni (died Sept. 8, 1775, age 73)

I saw the moon as well

and now, world,

“truly yours. . . “ (152)

Chiyoni, one of the best-known women haiku poets, became a Buddhist nun at the age of fifty-two. In her death poem she creates a metaphor of life as a letter. Kashiku is phrase used by women to end their letters.”

Japanese Death Poems: Written by Zen Monks and Haiku Poets on the Verge of Death. Ed. Yoil Hoffmann. Rutland, Vermont: Charles E. Tuttle, Co. 1986.

An Excellence to be Ignored or Lost?

When I was at Lebh Shomea House of Prayer last week, I consulted their card catalog frequently. At the same time, there was a young man sequestered in a small anteroom, who was using a laptop computer to list (catalog?) the books in the entire library, which spans the entire first floor of the former Sarita Kenedy mansion.

I looked up the sub-category "Death" and found many resources in books and periodicals. It was impressive to find specific articles in both books and magazines pertaining to this subject, especially theologically. In old issues of Parabola,  which are bound by years 1976-2006, I found decades-old articles about death by both David Steindl-Rast and Cynthia Bourgeault, favorite authors of mine.

I realize "actual" card catalogs in libraries are disappearing for the ease of computer access. However, through using the card catalog at Lebh Shomea, I realized the scholarship and thoroughness of Father Kelly, who maintained the library for the past 40 years. The third floor of the mansion has shelves of bound periodicals, all of which have had their individual articles cataloged. This is amazing!

Of course, what will happen to bound periodicals (AND libraries in general)? For years one of the core members of Lebh Shomea, Sister Maria Meister, bound books and periodicals with a special machine. As indicated by the years of bound Parabola magazines, she bound items at least from 1976-2006. Since she succumbed to Alzheimers, no more items have been bound and the machine stands ignored in a storeroom.

Will all this be ignored and discarded?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Perhaps this goes along with a book (surprisingly, still in print) that I was directed to while there:

Japanese Death Poems: Written by Zen Monks and Haiku Poets on the Verge of Death. Ed. Yoil Hoffmann. Rutland, Vermont: Charles E. Tuttle, Co. 1986.

It was an old tradition for Japanese Zen monks and haiku poets to write poems on their deathbeds. 

“In Japan, as elsewhere in the world, it has become customary to write a will in preparation for one’s death. But Japanese culture is probably the only one in the world in which, in addition to leaving a will, a tradition of writing a ‘farewell poem to life’ (jisei) took root and became widespread.” (27)

They are unique and interesting. Here are a few I particularly liked and copied down at Lebh Shomea:

Dairin Soto (died Jan. 27, 1568, age 89)

My whole life long I’ve sharpened my sword

And now, face to face with death

I unsheath it, and lo--

The blade is broken--Alas! (94)

Kozan Ichikyo (died Feb. 12, 1360, age 77)

Empty-handed I entered the world

Barefoot I leave it.

My coming, my going--

Two simple happenings

That got entangled. (108)

Death and the Mundane

I remember special days for departed loved ones. Today would have been my father's 91st birthday. However, he died 11 years ago a few months shy of his 80th. That brought home the truth that we should celebrate each day and not just "landmark" events, such as decades. I had always thought we would have a family celebration for his 80th birthday, but he had a stroke four months earlier and died two weeks after that.

Here is a poem that points to that:

Notice

This evening, the sturdy Levi's
I wore every day for over a year
& which seemed to the end
in perfect condition,
suddenly tore.
How or why I don't know,
but there it was: a big rip at the crotch.
A month ago my friend Nick
walked off a racquetball court,
showered,
got into his street clothes,
& halfway home collapsed & died.
Take heed, you who read this,
& drop to your knees now & again
like the poet Christopher Smart,
& kiss the earth & be joyful,
& make much of your time,
& be kindly to everyone,
even to those who do not deserve it.
For although you may not believe
it will happen,
you too will one day be gone,
I, whose Levi's ripped at the crotch
for no reason,
assure you that such is the case.
Pass it on.

~ Steve Kowit ~

And on to my very ordinary life:

•  I am trying to walk at our local shopping mall each morning, as it is too hot outside here in south Texas. (We are having a long stretch of breaking high temperature records of the high 90s F.) 
• The last time I regularly walked there was when MJ was a baby 22 years go, and I walked around the mall with her in a sling. She and I enjoyed her being in the sling, from the time she was a new baby into toddlerhood.
• Thanks to the conference last week, I am meditating every day, even though it is not always for 20 minutes. I am grateful to our former rector Sandy who taught that even a few minutes is enough in prayer as God will grow the prayer. It is God's prayer, after all.
• For a little over a week I have had a fuzziness in my left eye. Fortunately, my right eye overrules and I can see pretty clearly. However, this makes it more of a chore to read, which is something I usually enjoy doing at any time. This has spurred me on to make an appointment for an eye exam in two weeks, which is ten years overdue.
• I made corn cheese muffins tonight to take to a meeting, since it's always held during dinner time. Chuck complimented me by saying that we need grandchildren around, as he's missed the aroma of freshly baked breads. I used to bake muffins and bread frequently when I had young children at home, and one or another of them would help me. I hope I'll get the opportunity to do that with Avery someday.
• We are reading The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg in the Wisdom Class at my church, which meets every Tuesday morning (though we'll take the month of August off). It is a very interesting book with excellent research about such events as Rosa Parks becoming the civil rights icon as compared to others who resisted black oppression on buses. Why do we remember her?
• Chuck likes to play Spider Solitaire on my computer, so sometimes he is here and I am not.

A Gift from my Dad

Although my father died in 1992, I received a gift from him via my friend Jennifer. I stayed with her last week in Seattle. She told me how she remembered my dad attending her mother's funeral. He came up to her afterwards and told her that he was there for me; that I could not be there and he'd come in my place.

In all these years, Jennifer had never told me that little story before, plus my father never said anything more to me than he had gone to her mother's funeral.

Since I have no siblings with whom to share memories of my parents, I value my friends' memories. Jennifer was one of my high school friends and so knew my parents. And she gave me a sweet gift of remembrance, for which I am deeply grateful.

July 14

Notice

This evening, the sturdy Levi's
I wore every day for over a year
& which seemed to the end
in perfect condition,
suddenly tore.
How or why I don't know,
but there it was: a big rip at the crotch.
A month ago my friend Nick
walked off a racquetball court,
showered,
got into his street clothes,
& halfway home collapsed & died.
Take heed, you who read this,
& drop to your knees now & again
like the poet Christopher Smart,
& kiss the earth & be joyful,
& make much of your time,
& be kindly to everyone,
even to those who do not deserve it.
For although you may not believe
it will happen,
you too will one day be gone,
I, whose Levi's ripped at the crotch
for no reason,
assure you that such is the case.
Pass it on.

~ Steve Kowit ~

The Dumbbell Nebula

At Green Acres in Bellingham, WA

 

 

20 years ago today my mother died from pancreatic cancer. She was only 72. I still wish she was around to see how well her grandchildren have grown and to meet her great-granddaughter Avery. 

July 14 is a special day for me. Since her death, I've tried to collect people who have birthdays on this date. So far, I have three friends who do. I like remembering them as  I recall my mother. It has become a sweet day.

Remembering

Until he died in 2002, my dad called me every year on Flag Day to remind me that it was his mother's birthday. I always knew that. When he used to call, I would find it irritating.

Now, in retrospect, I miss him calling to remind me. His irritating habits seem much sweeter to me now as I remember him.

In ten days, it will be my father's birthday. He would have been 89 years old on June 24. Sadly, I don't know how old my grandmother would be today, except that it would be a greater age than one would expect for living.

It is odd how birth dates stay in our memory banks. I always remember my parents' and this one grandparent's birthdays.

After me, who will remember them?

Perhaps they will be thought of at times, but not on these dates. Photos will help jog memories and stories will, too. Maybe I can grow into a better story-teller for my children and future grandchildren.

Death, Despair, and Love

My cousin Karen died last month, evidently from ALS. She had been in a nursing home in WA State for the past year, with this diagnosis only coming lately. Closer to me is a dear friend, who has steadily grown weaker due to ALS in the past decade. She shares God, laughter, and friendship with me. 

ALS kills, sometimes quickly and other times, more slowly. Someone spoke these words before dying from ALS:

The coin that pays for ecstasy is always stamped despair. One cannot love empathically until one wanders there.

Jane Krainin
Dictated right before she died of ALS

To receive such quotations every day, subscribe to Word for the Day at Gratefulness.org. 

Garden of Liminal Space

Father Ron Rolheiser, president of Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, TX and member of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate writes a column. Today's is the first of six in his Lenten series:

"There's never a good time to die, to bid final good-byes, to lose health, to have a heart attack, to be diagnosed with terminal cancer, to lose friends, to be betrayed, to be misunderstood, to lose everything, to be humiliated, to have to face death and its indescribable loneliness. That's why there's a powerful resistance inside us towards these things.

"We can take consolation in knowing that this was the case too for Jesus. He didn't face these things either without fear, trembling, and the desire to escape. In the Garden of Gethsemane "he sweated blood" as he tried to make peace with his own loss of earthly life.

"The Garden of Gethsemane is, among other things, "liminal space". What is this? Anthropologists use that expression to refer to special times in our lives when our normal situation is so uprooted so that it is possible precisely to plant new roots and take up life in a whole new way. That's usually brought about by a major crisis, one that shakes us in the very roots of our being. Gethsemane was that for Jesus.

"It's significant that Jesus didn't go straight from the last supper room to his crucifixion. He first spent some time readying himself. What's incredible in his story is that he had only one hour within which to do this inner work.

"Imagine this scene: You're relatively young, healthy, and active. You've just enjoyed a festive dinner with close friends, complete with a couple of glasses of wine. You step out of the dining room late at night and you now have one hour to ready yourself to die, one hour to say your final good-byes, to let go, to make peace with death. Sweating blood might be a mild term to describe your inner turmoil. This would surely be an intense hour.

"And so it was for Jesus. That's why his liminal time is often called his "agony in the garden" (an apt term to describe real "liminal space".) What's interesting too is what scripture highlights in his suffering in Gethsemane. As we know, it never emphasizes his physical sufferings (which must have been pretty horrific). Instead it emphasizes his emotional crucifixion, the fact that he is betrayed, misunderstood, alone, morally lonely, the greatest lover in the world, with God alone as his soul mate.

"And what's burning up his heart and soul in Gethsemane? Jesus, himself, expresses it in these words: "If it is possible, let this cup pass from me!" His resistance was to the necessity of it. Why death and humiliation? Couldn't there be some other way? Couldn't new life somehow occur without, first, dying?

"In the Garden, Jesus comes to realize and accept that there isn't any other way, that there's a necessary connection between a certain kind of suffering, a certain letting go, a certain humiliation, and the very possibility of coming to new life.

"Why that necessity? What do we ultimately sweat blood over? Perhaps Job put it best: "Naked I came into this world and naked I leave it again." We are born alone, without possessing anything: clothing, a language, the capacity to take care of ourselves, achievements, trophies, degrees, security, a family, a spouse, a friend, a reputation, a job, a house, a soul mate. When we exit the planet, we will be like that again, alone and naked. But it's precisely that nakedness, helplessness, and vulnerability that makes for liminal space, space within which God can give us something new, beyond what we already have.

"There are times when we sense this, sense its necessity, and sense too that one day, perhaps soon, we will, like Jesus in the Garden, have to make peace with the fact that we are soon to exit this life, alone, but for our hope in God. That's Gethsemane, the place and the experience.

"Our own prayer there, I suspect, will be less about necessity than about timing: "Lord, let this cup be delayed! Not yet! I know it's inevitable, but just give me more time, more years, more experience, more life first!"

"To feel that way is understandable and, if we're young, even a sign of health. Nobody should want to die or want to give up the good things of this life. But Gethsemane awaits us all. Most of us, however, will not enter this garden of liminal space voluntarily, as did Jesus ("Nobody takes my life, I give it up freely!"). Most of us will enter it by conscription, but just as really, on that day when a doctor tells us we have terminal cancer or we suffer a heart attack or something else irretrievably and forever alters our lives.

"When that does happen, and it will happen one way or the other to all of us, it's helpful to know that we're in liminal space, inside a new womb, undergoing a new gestation, waiting for new birth - and that it's okay to sweat a little blood, ask God some questions, and feel resistance in every cell of our being."

Back in Bellingham

We spent four days in Seattle, visiting our daughters AE and KA and friends Terry and Dennis. AE took our picture this day when we ate lunch inside a greenhouse at Swanson's Nursery, near her home in Ballard.

Unfortunately, when we got to Seattle on Saturday, I thought I was having a huge allergy attack which ended up being a cold. (I was relieved that I wasn't allergic to Washington State, though having a cold to share was not that appealing.) So far both daughters AE and KA have caught this cold and possibly husband CB.

The weather is beautiful, with sunny days and high temperatures in the 70s F, both in Seattle and now back in Bellingham. Tonight we will walk around Boulevard Park, which was a traditional activity to do around sunset ever since the children were little and my mother was still with us.

As we drove to Seattle on Saturday, I heard the news that a dear friend, Susan Chaubal, died in her sleep. It was a great shock and is sad. I have many regrets, because I had not made time for her this past year, mostly because of my preoccupation with my health. Even so Susan encouraged me greatly to get a better diagnosis when it was not determined yet that I had RA.

Please pray for her husband Milind and daughter Anjulie.

Resurrection According to Nouwen

"The resurrection does not solve our problems about dying and death. It is not the happy ending to our life's struggle, nor is it the big surprise that God has kept in store for us. No, the resurrection is the expression of God's faithfulness to Jesus and to all God's children. Through the resurrection, God has said to Jesus, "You are indeed my beloved Son, and my love is everlasting," and to us God has said, "You indeed are my beloved children, and my love is everlasting." The resurrection is God's way of revealing to us that nothing that belongs to God will ever go to waste. What belongs to God will never get lost."

-- Henri Nouwen (1932-1996)

It was interesting to see the two different and unexpected reactions to this quotation today. When I used it for an initial meditation time in the Wisdom Class, everyone's reaction was quite positive, especially for one member whose wife died a year ago. (The Wisdom Class is a weekly book study--currently reading A Case for God by Karen Armstrong.)

When my EFM class was presented with it, it aroused criticism and discussion about "resurrection," which could have gone on and on. One member objected to the word "everlasting," saying she preferred "eternal." Another disliked the word "children" and concentration on Jesus. Someone else did not like the infantile ending where Nouwen writes that nothing will be lost in God. The discussion was very interesting and revealed a lot about each one of us, especially since this was the second to the last EFM class for this year (and more specifically, for seven members of the class who will "graduate").

I realize that I resist analyzing it, because I find the short quotation very comforting. When I think of my deceased parents, I like hearing that they are loved and not lost. As I grow more cognizant of my age and future demise, I take comfort from these words for myself. Plus, I liked that heaven is not viewed as a "reward."

This was another gem posted by Ellie at The Anchorhold. Please let me know if you know where Henri Nouwen wrote this, whether in a book or an article.

Belief is like a Pair of Sunglasses

After posting a political cartoon on both Facebook and this blog today, I am realizing belatedly that I did not see it as it was probably intended. This was not just an oversight, but a way of seeing that is intrinsically mine. Although I am not always able to feel this, I believe that alive or "dead" in our physical bodies means LIFE in God. Death is return to God and is welcome, just as life in the present world is. All day I kept thinking "neither death nor life separates us from God," and now here is that phrase in its Biblical context:

Romans 8:38 And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. 39 No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Since I deleted the cartoon on both those sites, I will put it back here to explain my mistake in its interpretation:
I originally posted it because I thought it showed that whether alive or dead, we live in God. Although I personally would not have had an abortion, I feel like they should be available; I have wondered before why people who believe in eternal life demonstrated by the risen Christ could not understand that aborted beings return to God. So, mistakenly, I thought this cartoon illustrated that.

From numerous FB comments, most especially from my two daughters in Seattle, I was forced to see that I did not understand the intent of the cartoonist. Not until one of those daughters told me that the woman was "smug" and the baby was "sad," did I even notice that!

This is showing me how we (I) interpret events (anything and everything) through lenses of belief. I did not realize until now how easy that is to do, without regard for the other viewpoint. I never even considered that that cartoon might be construed as criticism of Planned Parenthood (which I heartily endorse) or abortion. And now I feel stupid!

Serendipitously, the Wisdom Class meditation for yesterday describes what happened:

"What we believe about ourselves can hold us hostage. Over the years I have come to respect the power of people's beliefs. The thing that has amazed me is that a belief is more than just an idea--it seems to shift the way in which we actually experience ourselves and our lives. According to Talmudic teaching, "We do not see things as they are. We see them as we are." A belief is like a pair of sunglasses. When we wear a belief and look at life through it, it is difficult to convince ourselves that what we see is not real. . . . Sometimes because of our beliefs we may have never seen ourselves or life whole before. No matter. We can recognize life anyway. Our life force may not require us to strengthen it. We often just need to free it where it has gotten trapped in beliefs, attitudes, judgment, and shame."

-- Rachel Naomi Remen

I am grateful for new awarenesses revealed so that I may learn.

The Hope in Dormancy

Do you remember how my children gave me a live oak tree for Christmas? I have been worrying about it because its leaves all went brown. Could it have died? I only told oldest son DC, because it made me too sad. He's the one that said to scrape some bark off one of the branches to see if it was still green underneath.

That seemed to work, but still I doubted there was life, as the brown leaves hung there. Then yesterday husband CB told me that there were some little green buds popping out on one of the branches! I tried to take a picture, but couldn't get those tiny living leaves into focus with my camera. But that is proof that there is hope in dormancy (or death?).

And fortuitously, last night I received this cartoon from Kristin Noelle:

TRUST IS

By Kristin Noelle
(#23 of 30 on Trust)

"Knowing dormancy is part of the cycle" is a good thought as I head into the season of Lent. Also death is part of the cycle and still there is hope!

The truth of grief

Trust is
Cynthia at Reverend Mom directed me to Kristin Noelle, who creates cartoons that touch my heart. You can sign up for 30 days of sketches based on the theme of trust here. If you want to see a sample of what you'll be getting, click here and here. It's like the New Yorker cartoons, but with kindness and grace.

Thanks to Cynthia, I signed up for the 30 days of cartoons. The one above was the ninth of 30.