What makes a miracle? Is it an impossible event- something that goes against common understanding? Or, can a miracle be claimed by gratitude- like the reappearance of a lost child, or the gift of beauty to a forlorn soul?
December is a month of miracles. Stories of miracles reside in the tale of Christmas, the birth of the Christ Child, and Hanukah, the eight-day flame that existed from only one day’s worth of oil. In both these stories, the miracle is not in grand fanfare and impressive stunts. It is in the hard labor of Mary giving birth to a child, found in a manger. It is in the meaning of one lone flame, surviving from oil, the blood of the earth. Instead of stretching to find miracles “out there,” these stories remind us that what is truly important, indeed miraculous, is what we have right here.
I appreciate that this month-of-miracles rests immediately before the New Year, and my new year’s resolutions. Instead of setting goals that serve to satisfy my expectations, my resolution is to be open to surprise. To the way life defies my expectations, and that from the ordinary unfolds the extraordinary.
The Sufi poet and mystic Rumi writes “Giving thanks for abundance is sweeter than the abundance itself.” How can we be the makers of miracles by our manner of receiving life? By living with a heart full of wonder and awe for this world in which we live?
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Joanna Macy and Kristin Tippet
I love "Speaking of Faith", now "onBeing"
Here is a little piece from Joanna Macy and Kristin Tippet's conversation on Sept. 16th, 2010:
Speaking about Macy’s environmental activism (particularly around radioactive contamination and nuclear arms):
"Ms. Tippett: Something that's very present for me as I'm reading about you and the passion you've had for this for a long time is you — you also were always very aware of a sense of grief as you realized …
Ms. Macy: Oh, yeah. Grief got me into it.
Ms. Tippett: Yeah. And I think that right now, say right now in this moment as we're speaking in 2010, the spectacle that's very present for people, maybe more in the forefront — certainly more in the forefront of peoples' minds than nuclear power or nuclear weapons were in the '70s — is the Gulf oil spill, right?
Ms. Macy: Oh, yes.
Ms. Tippett: Right. And there is this grief about that. And you really work with people to hold on to that, to take their grief seriously, right?
Ms. Macy: Or not to hold on to it so much as to not be afraid of it because that grief, if you are afraid of it and pave it over, clamp down, you shut down. And the kind of apathy and closed-down denial, our difficulty in looking at what we're doing to our world stems not from callous indifference or ignorance so much as it stems from fear of pain. That was a big learning for me as I was organizing around nuclear power and around at the time of Three Mile Island catastrophe and around Chernobyl.
Then as I saw it, it relates to everything. It relates to what's in our food and it relates to the clear-cuts of our forests. It relates to the contamination of our rivers and oceans. So that became actually perhaps the most pivotal point in, I don't know, the landscape of my life, that dance with despair, to see how we are called to not run from the discomfort and not run from the grief or the feelings of outrage or even fear and that, if we can be fearless, to be with our pain, it turns. It doesn't stay static. It only doesn't change if we refuse to look at it. But when we look at it, when we take it in our hands, when we can just be with it and keep breathing, then it turns. It turns to reveal its other face, and the other face of our pain for the world is our love for the world, our absolutely inseparable connectedness with all life."
Here is a little piece from Joanna Macy and Kristin Tippet's conversation on Sept. 16th, 2010:
Speaking about Macy’s environmental activism (particularly around radioactive contamination and nuclear arms):
"Ms. Tippett: Something that's very present for me as I'm reading about you and the passion you've had for this for a long time is you — you also were always very aware of a sense of grief as you realized …
Ms. Macy: Oh, yeah. Grief got me into it.
Ms. Tippett: Yeah. And I think that right now, say right now in this moment as we're speaking in 2010, the spectacle that's very present for people, maybe more in the forefront — certainly more in the forefront of peoples' minds than nuclear power or nuclear weapons were in the '70s — is the Gulf oil spill, right?
Ms. Macy: Oh, yes.
Ms. Tippett: Right. And there is this grief about that. And you really work with people to hold on to that, to take their grief seriously, right?
Ms. Macy: Or not to hold on to it so much as to not be afraid of it because that grief, if you are afraid of it and pave it over, clamp down, you shut down. And the kind of apathy and closed-down denial, our difficulty in looking at what we're doing to our world stems not from callous indifference or ignorance so much as it stems from fear of pain. That was a big learning for me as I was organizing around nuclear power and around at the time of Three Mile Island catastrophe and around Chernobyl.
Then as I saw it, it relates to everything. It relates to what's in our food and it relates to the clear-cuts of our forests. It relates to the contamination of our rivers and oceans. So that became actually perhaps the most pivotal point in, I don't know, the landscape of my life, that dance with despair, to see how we are called to not run from the discomfort and not run from the grief or the feelings of outrage or even fear and that, if we can be fearless, to be with our pain, it turns. It doesn't stay static. It only doesn't change if we refuse to look at it. But when we look at it, when we take it in our hands, when we can just be with it and keep breathing, then it turns. It turns to reveal its other face, and the other face of our pain for the world is our love for the world, our absolutely inseparable connectedness with all life."
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
On The Other Side
An old Buddhist Saw:
Before enlightenment: chop wood, carry water.
After enlightenment: chop wood, carry water.
Last Thursday, December 2nd, 2010, I passed the Ministerial Fellowship Committee- the evaluative board that reviews each candidate for ministry, and who's approval opens the doors for ordination, and, well, employment. Thank GOD that's over!!! It was quite the journey to get to this moment... a lot of anxiety, reading, discussing, huge waves of fear, and even some excitement mixed in the bunch. I don't think I needed to go through the depths of especially the fear, but I guess that's where I am in my life, so be it.
In fact, I knew. I knew that the couple weeks before the interview would be harder than the interview itself. It is hard to prepare for such a significant "rite of passage"/ test alone. Of course, I was part of a study group of other candidate ministers, and we "met" weekly over the phone over the last several weeks, but by alone I really mean lonely. In a new town, new job, living alone for the first time in my life. It has been a lonely last six months for me and sometimes I am not that good at giving my own self the "hospitality of spirit" that I seek to offer in my ministry. But I am getting better. I hope.
I love that Buddhist saying (a colleague of mine sent it to me). When all is said and done, I still have the same list of things to do, the same things that annoy me or elevate my anxiety. I will still have my fear. Self-doubt. Workaholism. These are all part of my "minister." But I also have what lies on the other side of these harsher qualities: I also have my power. Self-love. Passion for ministry. Perhaps one thing I learned from all of this is how to be a better friend to myself. By having more self-compassion, fear means less to me. It's still there, but I can invite it in, serve it tea and cookies, and, satisfied, it moves along its merry way.
Before the interview, I drove out to Lake Michigan. It was a really windy day- the turquoise and darker blue waters patterned one after the other on the wild shore. I had a cold, but I walked that beach anyway. I needed that power. I needed the wildness and the playfulness of the great waters. At the end of my walk, I picked up a stone and gave it my hope for the whole week: that I learn something. Perhaps I have- it may be one of those "escapes words" kinda learning.
Before enlightenment: chop wood, carry water.
After enlightenment: chop wood, carry water.
Last Thursday, December 2nd, 2010, I passed the Ministerial Fellowship Committee- the evaluative board that reviews each candidate for ministry, and who's approval opens the doors for ordination, and, well, employment. Thank GOD that's over!!! It was quite the journey to get to this moment... a lot of anxiety, reading, discussing, huge waves of fear, and even some excitement mixed in the bunch. I don't think I needed to go through the depths of especially the fear, but I guess that's where I am in my life, so be it.
In fact, I knew. I knew that the couple weeks before the interview would be harder than the interview itself. It is hard to prepare for such a significant "rite of passage"/ test alone. Of course, I was part of a study group of other candidate ministers, and we "met" weekly over the phone over the last several weeks, but by alone I really mean lonely. In a new town, new job, living alone for the first time in my life. It has been a lonely last six months for me and sometimes I am not that good at giving my own self the "hospitality of spirit" that I seek to offer in my ministry. But I am getting better. I hope.
I love that Buddhist saying (a colleague of mine sent it to me). When all is said and done, I still have the same list of things to do, the same things that annoy me or elevate my anxiety. I will still have my fear. Self-doubt. Workaholism. These are all part of my "minister." But I also have what lies on the other side of these harsher qualities: I also have my power. Self-love. Passion for ministry. Perhaps one thing I learned from all of this is how to be a better friend to myself. By having more self-compassion, fear means less to me. It's still there, but I can invite it in, serve it tea and cookies, and, satisfied, it moves along its merry way.
Before the interview, I drove out to Lake Michigan. It was a really windy day- the turquoise and darker blue waters patterned one after the other on the wild shore. I had a cold, but I walked that beach anyway. I needed that power. I needed the wildness and the playfulness of the great waters. At the end of my walk, I picked up a stone and gave it my hope for the whole week: that I learn something. Perhaps I have- it may be one of those "escapes words" kinda learning.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Claiming God
Rainer Maria Rilke’s words come to me these days as I find more truth behind this broken relationship that as long made it’s stay on my heart this year.
Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is the live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.
I feel like I am finally starting to live my way into an answer. An answer for why I could not stay with Fady. I have spent the last six months still bearing the painful “why,” unable to really understand. The break-up was on his terms and his terms only. But it is finally becoming my terms and that feels so good and the heaviness lightens significantly.
“God,” he, an atheist, said. “It is about God.” As a Unitarian Universalist and as someone who believes in the reason-defying qualities of love, I believed with all of my heart that we would work through this- Our love was stronger than this label- related divide.
And now, I realize, he was right. Ok, so God did divide us. But it’s not a God held by clouds holding a wand and interacting from afar. It’s not even a God such as that I believe in- a higher power that moves in and among all sentient beings, opening us up, calling us closer to life. It’s the God that is community. God as our pull out of our isolated existence towards a greater cause of societal transformation. God is not a cerebral choice to “maybe” participate in community… mmm… tomorrow? It is a deep human need for community. For in order to know ourselves, we must seek the Other. It is a deep feeling that we need each other in order to grow. This is the center of the God I believe in.
It doesn’t concern me whether one finds their power in something beyond or within humanity. Theist or humanist can worship together when there is mutual desire to grow and deepen as spiritual and response-able beings in this hurting world. It concerns me that one opens oneself to change, to transformation, through relationship and commitment.
By opening ourselves to change, we create change. There is no other way. At last, this loss is on my terms. And with it, I find a renewed sense of self, calling, and devotion to the transformational power of God/community.
Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is the live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.
I feel like I am finally starting to live my way into an answer. An answer for why I could not stay with Fady. I have spent the last six months still bearing the painful “why,” unable to really understand. The break-up was on his terms and his terms only. But it is finally becoming my terms and that feels so good and the heaviness lightens significantly.
“God,” he, an atheist, said. “It is about God.” As a Unitarian Universalist and as someone who believes in the reason-defying qualities of love, I believed with all of my heart that we would work through this- Our love was stronger than this label- related divide.
And now, I realize, he was right. Ok, so God did divide us. But it’s not a God held by clouds holding a wand and interacting from afar. It’s not even a God such as that I believe in- a higher power that moves in and among all sentient beings, opening us up, calling us closer to life. It’s the God that is community. God as our pull out of our isolated existence towards a greater cause of societal transformation. God is not a cerebral choice to “maybe” participate in community… mmm… tomorrow? It is a deep human need for community. For in order to know ourselves, we must seek the Other. It is a deep feeling that we need each other in order to grow. This is the center of the God I believe in.
It doesn’t concern me whether one finds their power in something beyond or within humanity. Theist or humanist can worship together when there is mutual desire to grow and deepen as spiritual and response-able beings in this hurting world. It concerns me that one opens oneself to change, to transformation, through relationship and commitment.
By opening ourselves to change, we create change. There is no other way. At last, this loss is on my terms. And with it, I find a renewed sense of self, calling, and devotion to the transformational power of God/community.
My Sacred Sad
My heart is full. Full of sorrow and anger and longing and even peace. I long to connect with my longing. And lately it is sorrow that has brought me closer to the earth, closer to my heart. It is sorrow that most resonates with me and I kneel down with my hands on my face, tears washing away these barriers I have made. Barriers to feeling. To life. To love. My sorrow is not a barrier to love. It is a way to love. Many times I judge my seamlessly endless grief over a lost relationship. “Still?” I ask. “Your still not over him?”
Yet, what does this judgmental question do that is good? Nothing! It only makes me more foreign to myself. Something not right, unacceptable, wrong. Broken hearts take their own sweet time to heal. As a friend recently told me, “You never stop loving someone.”
No matter how badly they might have hurt you, and no matter how resentful in the day, when the night comes, it is that unmet love that lingers.
I thank God for my sadness. Tears pull me closer to the earth, the home of my soul, the Ground of all Being. And I find peace.
Yet, what does this judgmental question do that is good? Nothing! It only makes me more foreign to myself. Something not right, unacceptable, wrong. Broken hearts take their own sweet time to heal. As a friend recently told me, “You never stop loving someone.”
No matter how badly they might have hurt you, and no matter how resentful in the day, when the night comes, it is that unmet love that lingers.
I thank God for my sadness. Tears pull me closer to the earth, the home of my soul, the Ground of all Being. And I find peace.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Deep Peace
Last night I felt a tiny change. Something like thorough joy nestled inside my body. Not the temporary level of fleeting emotions- the surge of happiness or the crush of inadequacy. But this feeling was more thorough, like grainy mud instead of feathers. What happened? Well, breath. There is a wonderful little yoga studio really close to my house run by one woman. It is very community-oriented, much like I experienced at the aikido dojo in Oakland. If you attend regularly, you begin to get to know other regularly attending folks and conversation in the front room lingers up to a half hour or longer after class ends. Last night I was able to breathe deeply with three other women, for a couple hours! It filled me with life, a reminder of who I am, in relationship with all beings. This morning it was like I woke up with someone else by my side. Of course, it was just my cat, who is always there. But there was an extra company, one that I brought, in my room. In my bed. In my daily tasks and pages upon pages of reading. It is good to have a friend... I am cherishing these days of returning to who I am/ to God.
Ntosake Shange's words from "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf" come to mind:
"I found God in myself and i loved her, i loved her fiercely."
Ntosake Shange's words from "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf" come to mind:
"I found God in myself and i loved her, i loved her fiercely."
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Recognition
“It’s Cassie!” This joyful noise sounded across the parking lot to my bewildered ears. A vendor at the small farmers market I was entering had remembered me from our conversation the previous week.
Having lived most of my life in places where I either had a given community (college and grad school) or had simply grown up there, I am beginning to realize the significance of being recognized. Hearing our name is a way of knowing we are alive, that we are part of a larger whole, that we belong.
The significance of naming can be seen in the Hebrew Bible, where there is at least one whole chapter to naming the descendants of Noah, and names are intentionally written throughout the Bible.
Last week there were four known suicides by young men who identified as gay. One way to think about various forms of oppression is an unwillingness by society to fully recognize different groups of people as part of the human community. I remember a lesbian member of a congregation I was part of describing her appreciation for the community. That she felt known by the community, giving her a sense of freedom to be recognized for who she was- not just her lesbian identity, but for her whole self, of which that was apart. Recognition is essential if we are to feel at home in our bodies and in a larger community. It is a deep and holy human need.
The woman who called my name may never know how much hearing “Cassie” meant to me. Small gestures of recognition go a long way. By looking another in the eye, asking their name or sharing our own, we are telling another that they matter- that who they are is worthy of attention, deserving of care.
Having lived most of my life in places where I either had a given community (college and grad school) or had simply grown up there, I am beginning to realize the significance of being recognized. Hearing our name is a way of knowing we are alive, that we are part of a larger whole, that we belong.
The significance of naming can be seen in the Hebrew Bible, where there is at least one whole chapter to naming the descendants of Noah, and names are intentionally written throughout the Bible.
Last week there were four known suicides by young men who identified as gay. One way to think about various forms of oppression is an unwillingness by society to fully recognize different groups of people as part of the human community. I remember a lesbian member of a congregation I was part of describing her appreciation for the community. That she felt known by the community, giving her a sense of freedom to be recognized for who she was- not just her lesbian identity, but for her whole self, of which that was apart. Recognition is essential if we are to feel at home in our bodies and in a larger community. It is a deep and holy human need.
The woman who called my name may never know how much hearing “Cassie” meant to me. Small gestures of recognition go a long way. By looking another in the eye, asking their name or sharing our own, we are telling another that they matter- that who they are is worthy of attention, deserving of care.
My Sorrow Lies in the Moon
My sorrow lies in the moon
I wake to a tender heart
seeking connection
and there lies my Sorrow,
Full and Patient
smiling down on me with a gentle face
Love's compassion,
I release and breath arrives
I fall more deeply in communion with the Soul.
I wake to a tender heart
seeking connection
and there lies my Sorrow,
Full and Patient
smiling down on me with a gentle face
Love's compassion,
I release and breath arrives
I fall more deeply in communion with the Soul.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
One the last day of summer...
and the eve of a full moon! There's nothing like a farmers market, fresh tomatoes and a good beer to relax a person into their new home. It is so nice to breathe deeply here, and feel this place becoming more like home every day. Last night I went to an interfaith justice organization, ISAAC (who knows what it stands for!), and was overwhelmed/ inspired by all the amazing people working for change in this city- housing funding for the homeless, early childhood education stuff, and more... After I left the church where me met, I hopped on my bike and soon was racing the incoming storm. Leaves were flying at my face and wind pushed me from all directions. Lightning and thunder were nearing in... only a few more blocks to go...,but the sky opened and the rain poured and I arrived home grateful from dry clothes to put on.
There is nothing like a good storm to make you feel alive! "The time is now!" kinda feeling.
This ministry thing is quite overwhelming and also very exciting for the same reasons. The reasons are that everything is completely new. From facilitating the staff relations (there are three of us), to trying to figure out the answering machine to the church office to re-record the greeting, to how to get to know the congregation (do I invite people into my home, or maintain a more private approach?) There is also the public figure aspect. Again, totally exciting and totally scary all at the same time. After the meeting with area ministers last night, and watching these powerful community organizers speak so eloquently and inspirationally, the executive director and the community organizer came up to me right after the meeting to welcome me in and see if I wanted to have coffee!??! Me?? I'm just... you know... I don't know what I'm doing yet!!!
So, I am still (perhaps you can tell) getting used to the idea of being a public representative of society's morals.
Aside from ministry, I have discovered that Kalamazoo is really a "country-city." I call it that because, to my sadness, everything shuts down on Sunday. That's just when I'm ready to let loose and party! There's also an intact ecosystem in my backyard. Zele (my cat) has communed with the raccoons, and has caught two mice. I went for a bike ride on Monday and after twenty minutes I was biking besides farms with cows. Moooo. People are really friendly here- some charming young women selling veggies at the farmer's market tonight invited me to their bi-monthly potluck at their house after only a few moments of conversation. I can walk around my neighborhood listening to the crickets at night and feel completely safe.
Ah.... So, life is overwhelming and good right now. Good night!
There is nothing like a good storm to make you feel alive! "The time is now!" kinda feeling.
This ministry thing is quite overwhelming and also very exciting for the same reasons. The reasons are that everything is completely new. From facilitating the staff relations (there are three of us), to trying to figure out the answering machine to the church office to re-record the greeting, to how to get to know the congregation (do I invite people into my home, or maintain a more private approach?) There is also the public figure aspect. Again, totally exciting and totally scary all at the same time. After the meeting with area ministers last night, and watching these powerful community organizers speak so eloquently and inspirationally, the executive director and the community organizer came up to me right after the meeting to welcome me in and see if I wanted to have coffee!??! Me?? I'm just... you know... I don't know what I'm doing yet!!!
So, I am still (perhaps you can tell) getting used to the idea of being a public representative of society's morals.
Aside from ministry, I have discovered that Kalamazoo is really a "country-city." I call it that because, to my sadness, everything shuts down on Sunday. That's just when I'm ready to let loose and party! There's also an intact ecosystem in my backyard. Zele (my cat) has communed with the raccoons, and has caught two mice. I went for a bike ride on Monday and after twenty minutes I was biking besides farms with cows. Moooo. People are really friendly here- some charming young women selling veggies at the farmer's market tonight invited me to their bi-monthly potluck at their house after only a few moments of conversation. I can walk around my neighborhood listening to the crickets at night and feel completely safe.
Ah.... So, life is overwhelming and good right now. Good night!
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
The Child
Last weekend I went home to Seattle for a combo wedding/ camping extravaganza. I think of the bible verse, I was thirsty, and you gave me drink... and that is what this weekend was like for me. I was hungry for wonder, and the earth filled me till I was overflowing. I still am on a high from all the beauty.
Shooting stars- 7 in one night! why sleep in a tent when you have magic happening above you!
In fact, why sleep at all? I love that about stars! I think faith can be pictured as a person waiting up for the stars. Something so far away, so unknown, and yet so important. There is something about witnessing the mysterious "out there" that pulls on the deep "in here". The unknown-yet-so-core-to-our-being parts of ourselves that connect so strongly to the beauty we experience.
And then there was the sun- WARM (I won't say "hot" now that I've lived in Cincinnati for the summer- over 100 "heat emergency days," baby!) and perfect! And the gentle sea breeze to cool if you chance at being slightly over-heated.
Dancing, swimming in the Sound (and later a glorious mountain lake with snow still lingering on the edges!!!)
As I hiked up the mountain, I felt I was hiking back in years. I felt like a kid again, overtaken by wonder. Oh my GOSH!!! That FLOWER IS SOOOOO BEAUTIFUL!! (perhaps you get the idea :)
Or just letting the heat of the sun and the beauty of the mountains fill me up and make me pause and say "thank you."
sometimes my thank you is quiet, floating on the breath. And sometimes it is a loud squeel as I shout from the mountain top or jump into a cold mountain lake.
I have wanted to strip myself of my youth. There are times when I wished I was older, more experienced, more "weighty"- holding my ground, knowing my boundaries, certain about everything...
and I have turned against this excitement, this openness, this love that is my child.
To be a minister is not to kill your child, cassie. No. It is to know it and let it give you life. Openness is the seed to your growth. Take this unashamed love of life and enter your work fully as you enter and receive the beauty of the earth.
Shooting stars- 7 in one night! why sleep in a tent when you have magic happening above you!
In fact, why sleep at all? I love that about stars! I think faith can be pictured as a person waiting up for the stars. Something so far away, so unknown, and yet so important. There is something about witnessing the mysterious "out there" that pulls on the deep "in here". The unknown-yet-so-core-to-our-being parts of ourselves that connect so strongly to the beauty we experience.
And then there was the sun- WARM (I won't say "hot" now that I've lived in Cincinnati for the summer- over 100 "heat emergency days," baby!) and perfect! And the gentle sea breeze to cool if you chance at being slightly over-heated.
Dancing, swimming in the Sound (and later a glorious mountain lake with snow still lingering on the edges!!!)
As I hiked up the mountain, I felt I was hiking back in years. I felt like a kid again, overtaken by wonder. Oh my GOSH!!! That FLOWER IS SOOOOO BEAUTIFUL!! (perhaps you get the idea :)
Or just letting the heat of the sun and the beauty of the mountains fill me up and make me pause and say "thank you."
sometimes my thank you is quiet, floating on the breath. And sometimes it is a loud squeel as I shout from the mountain top or jump into a cold mountain lake.
I have wanted to strip myself of my youth. There are times when I wished I was older, more experienced, more "weighty"- holding my ground, knowing my boundaries, certain about everything...
and I have turned against this excitement, this openness, this love that is my child.
To be a minister is not to kill your child, cassie. No. It is to know it and let it give you life. Openness is the seed to your growth. Take this unashamed love of life and enter your work fully as you enter and receive the beauty of the earth.
Monday, August 2, 2010
Letter to myself
Let go of your need for confidence. Put an arm around your fragile, uncertain, hurting self. And do not let go. There is no such thing as too many tears. You are more important than your job, your passions, and even your calling to ministry. What's most important is that you are able to love yourself even when you don't want to.
DO NOT TRIVIALIZE WHAT YOU ARE LIVING FOR:
Swimming
Supervision meetings with Ruth
Therapy with Leslie
Hope for home
Zele (my cat)
Reading the New York Times
DO NOT TRIVIALIZE WHAT YOU ARE LIVING FOR:
Swimming
Supervision meetings with Ruth
Therapy with Leslie
Hope for home
Zele (my cat)
Reading the New York Times
Healing
little moments of perspective grace my days more often... a smile pokes fun at my heavy seriousness... gratitude for a push of the wind or driving in the car with my cousin's voice singing songs of love and struggle. healing is a returning to the self- a self that absorbs all that I have been through. not purging it out but reconciling it within, and still being able to remember was it is to laugh from the bottom of your being, to delight at the sound of music, to find peace in unexpected moments. it takes time to fully accept who i am. not there yet, but piece by broken piece i come to know, and love, myself.
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Prayer for a Kitten
Driving South on 75 today I swore I saw a kitten on the highway. Smack dab in the middle. At first, I thought it was a plastic bag, but it didn't fly up with the air of passing cars as plastic bags do. I don't know how it had survived up until then, and who knows how long it lived. I saw its fear, as cars going seventy missed it by inches. It turned it's head into it's fluffy chest, praying, perhaps, for some miracle. Helpless, I continued to drive, only able to call the police and hope for its life. What terror. What smallness, and preciousness of life in the middle of a highway.
Coming Home
I just got home after housesitting for two weeks and interviewing for a job five hours away. As I unpack my car and enter a house I have called home, Zele, my cat, meows and makes her presence known. In her affection, she asks, "Where have you been?" Even though she was fed loyally by my housemate, she looks so tiny, rumpled, unloved...So does the house.
Perhaps it's me.
How much am I what I see?
I crave this house- the dusty brick walls, the natural light and the humid air flowing through the open windows. I crave physical home. Carve space for heart and hearth.
On my drive back from Kalamzoo, I sang with Chris Purenka-a song writer/ singer. She has great songs for being angry, and at 7 am, it was wonderful to be angry in my car, with the windows down. Singing my anger brings me back to my body- to the fact that broken relationship is broken body. To my touch with Fady- to the touch that was soooooo beautiful and it was ours.
How he loved me doesn't just evaporate, it is ripped out of me. Time is irrelevant. It still hurts- having my insides ripped out- and I curl up in soft tears and hot words.
It feels good to be still. Perhaps that's all I know right now- stillness. I sit on the front porch with Zele lounging on a chair next to me. Bags to unpack, essays to write, emails to attend... all await me. But here I am, in the time before all this returning begins. In the time just for me, and my cat, and the lazy afternoon humidity.
It is hard to just sit. I am not good at it! I find similar renewal in running and swimming, but it is not the same as pausing. I lean back and rest my head on the rough brick wall.
Perhaps it's me.
How much am I what I see?
I crave this house- the dusty brick walls, the natural light and the humid air flowing through the open windows. I crave physical home. Carve space for heart and hearth.
On my drive back from Kalamzoo, I sang with Chris Purenka-a song writer/ singer. She has great songs for being angry, and at 7 am, it was wonderful to be angry in my car, with the windows down. Singing my anger brings me back to my body- to the fact that broken relationship is broken body. To my touch with Fady- to the touch that was soooooo beautiful and it was ours.
How he loved me doesn't just evaporate, it is ripped out of me. Time is irrelevant. It still hurts- having my insides ripped out- and I curl up in soft tears and hot words.
It feels good to be still. Perhaps that's all I know right now- stillness. I sit on the front porch with Zele lounging on a chair next to me. Bags to unpack, essays to write, emails to attend... all await me. But here I am, in the time before all this returning begins. In the time just for me, and my cat, and the lazy afternoon humidity.
It is hard to just sit. I am not good at it! I find similar renewal in running and swimming, but it is not the same as pausing. I lean back and rest my head on the rough brick wall.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Room of Tears
Oh, room. You are my tear room.
Walls, carpet, bed, windows
Dark, warm breeze flowing through
All made of these salty tears of my heart.
These tears that have made me
these last few weeks.
My form has vanished
to the waterfall of sharp hot tears.
Sometimes they are cooler and fall softly
Shades of green, tender shoots.
This room knows it all.
My tears, my laughter make this place.
These walls. This rug. This bed. The windows, open to the sky ever-changing.
Dear room, please continue to hold me and all my tears.
Walls, carpet, bed, windows
Dark, warm breeze flowing through
All made of these salty tears of my heart.
These tears that have made me
these last few weeks.
My form has vanished
to the waterfall of sharp hot tears.
Sometimes they are cooler and fall softly
Shades of green, tender shoots.
This room knows it all.
My tears, my laughter make this place.
These walls. This rug. This bed. The windows, open to the sky ever-changing.
Dear room, please continue to hold me and all my tears.
Reclaiming Self/ Spring Cleaning
As I sit alone in my room full of sunshine,
I love the world as myself.
I love this love- it is new
A choice to love myself for all that I am:
shy, honest, timid, deep, loud, trusting, sensitive, oblivious, daring, trusting, serious, slow...
I choose me. Other's perceptions matter a fraction to what I can carry in love and compassion, knowledge and quest.
It is good to be alone and I breathe a deep sigh of relief to feel this way again.
I love the world as myself.
I love this love- it is new
A choice to love myself for all that I am:
shy, honest, timid, deep, loud, trusting, sensitive, oblivious, daring, trusting, serious, slow...
I choose me. Other's perceptions matter a fraction to what I can carry in love and compassion, knowledge and quest.
It is good to be alone and I breathe a deep sigh of relief to feel this way again.
The Burden of a Heart
The burden of a heart
is love breaking and love making
is to open even when opening has betrayed you
is to care for things larger than yourself for no rational reason
is to learn the hard hard lesson over and over again of letting go
Prayer
Oh, God! Where has my calm gone?
I fall on my knees shouting
WHO AM I???
Who am I, my God??
Am I touch? Kiss? An ear?
Am I a pulpit? A letter? A word?
Am I a heart, broken and whole?
God, I lose my form sometimes and don't know who I am.
I feel lost with nothing to hold onto.
Who am I, my God? Who am I?
I fall on my knees shouting
WHO AM I???
Who am I, my God??
Am I touch? Kiss? An ear?
Am I a pulpit? A letter? A word?
Am I a heart, broken and whole?
God, I lose my form sometimes and don't know who I am.
I feel lost with nothing to hold onto.
Who am I, my God? Who am I?
Friday, May 14, 2010
The door
The door shut.
tightly.
and I cried.
Falling to the ground,
I moved my fingers along the floor,
desperately wanting, seeking
any light, any sign
of space
between the edges of door and earth
none.
no air
no opening
just dark, solid wood.
I lean up against it,
touch it's smooth surface.
pound.
why???
"why are you shut so tightly?" I cry
A part of me was behind that door.
My love, my eyes, my lips and tongue and words and peace.
My body, touch, attention.
How can it suddenly be shut when it was open so wide
so much love.
that felt mutual.
And yet, this door is not mine.
it is his and I must touch it. face it. wear it and then lay it down.
He could not, no. He would not know me completely.
And I knew it, even as I felt he knew my deepest pieces.
hot
cool
blue
green
bright red
tears adorn the edges of this door shut so tightly.
tightly.
and I cried.
Falling to the ground,
I moved my fingers along the floor,
desperately wanting, seeking
any light, any sign
of space
between the edges of door and earth
none.
no air
no opening
just dark, solid wood.
I lean up against it,
touch it's smooth surface.
pound.
why???
"why are you shut so tightly?" I cry
A part of me was behind that door.
My love, my eyes, my lips and tongue and words and peace.
My body, touch, attention.
How can it suddenly be shut when it was open so wide
so much love.
that felt mutual.
And yet, this door is not mine.
it is his and I must touch it. face it. wear it and then lay it down.
He could not, no. He would not know me completely.
And I knew it, even as I felt he knew my deepest pieces.
hot
cool
blue
green
bright red
tears adorn the edges of this door shut so tightly.
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