Tag Archives: Soul Care

Taking Leaves from Books

29 Sunday Jan 2012

Posted by in Good Reads, Soul Care

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Yesterday, with barely a pause between finishing my second of two books by Barbara Brown Taylor, I picked up my first of three Ernest Hemingway novels — and read my way through a third of its pages.

But now it’s Sunday.  And since it’s another Sunday in a string of Sundays where I’ve felt no desire to attend church — I feel an unexplainable urge to put aside words of Ernest (for today) to spend more time with Barbara’s — in part, because she was once a practicing priest — in part, because she is, at present, a professor of world religion at some small liberal arts school in Georgia, and in largest part, because the titles of her books –  Leaving Church and An Altar in the World — happen to mesh so well with the flavor of my Sundays at the moment. 

Having just finished these books one after another, it’s hard to decide what to offer up. I know I can’t write a review, per se, since the experience these books provide is not from a reading of words as much as from a reading of the reader.  These are living works — that is, while we could easily read the same words, different readers will notice different phrases as being meaningful, and the same reader might pick up on different meaningful phrases with each new reading.  What felt important to me this time, may not be for you and may not for me  — next time.  (And I hope there will be a next time.)  And yet, even if I were to jot down every word from these books that caught my eye and tugged at my heart (this time)– to do so would serve neither them nor us, as all that cutting and pasting would only chop the books to shreds.

So, after a careful re-reading of my many underlined words, I’ve decided the best I can do is leave two Sunday offerings — by taking a single leaf from each to share as a  sacred souvenir of my January wanderings with Barbara:

 ”…The good news of God in Christ is, “You have everything you need to be human.” There is nothing outside of you that you still need — no approval from the authorities, no attendance at temple, no key truth hidden in the tenth chapter of some sacred book.  In your life right now, God has given you everything that you need to be human.’”   – from Leaving Church [page 219]

“Popular religion focuses so hard on spiritual success that most of us do not know the first thing about the spiritual fruits of failure.  When we fall ill, lose our jobs, wreck our marriages, or alienate our children, most of us are left alone to pick up the pieces.  Even those of us who are ministered to by brave friends can find it hard to shake the shame of getting lost in our lives.  And yet if someone asked us to pinpoint the times in our lives that changed us for the better, a lot of those times would be wilderness times.” – from An Altar in the World [page 78]

These words spoke to me and speak to me still.  They beg certain questions, questions like — What does it mean to be human?  — And what does the wilderness teach me about being human?  Why even the way I’ve framed these questions shows I believe the offerings may not be two but one — and if not one, that at least somehow connected.  Even if only flip sides of the same coin.

Hope no one feels cheated.

Wilderness Sayings

20 Friday Jan 2012

Posted by in The Great Outdoors

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Perhaps it’s coincidence.  Or nothing but tunnel vision that causes me to filter out what is not uppermost in my mind; when I have “X” on the brain I see  “X.”  And I see ‘X” everywhere. Sometimes to the exclusion of all else.  No “Y.”  No “Z.”  No whatever else — as it flies past my line of vision.

But whether coincidence or tunnel vision, over and over I find myself thinking along a certain path — to encounter another on my blog roll further down that particular thinking trail.  The connection feels important — not hokey, as with those sometimes, seemingly ‘spot-on’ sayings rising out of broken fortune cookies, that get read aloud by tables full of wisdom seekers.

Here’s one for instance — that comes out of a blog comment I wrote several days ago:

How strange to find you baptizing today’s post with the phrase “question without an answer” — on the day I should wake up realizing that unanswered questions are one of the many things to inspire me.  Maybe it’s Rilke’s urging – “Live the questions now.” — to that young poet of old that causes me to find life most meaningful and real in the face of unanswered questions… [Questions like:]

Is my youngest daughter’s growth on her thyroid benign..?
What comes after death?  [in thinking about my mother-in-law...]
What’s for supper?

No matter their weight, the questions themselves inspire me to live. Inch by inch. Day by day. Until I catch the glimmer of an answer…

Upon writing that list, I thought it an odd mix of questions — the first two hovering at the quick of life with the last feeling a bit frivolous and flighty.  But rather than play editor, I decided to leave the questions be, keeping the list just as it came to me.

It was just as well.  By the next day, I began seeing the questions as more connected than I’d first imagined.  And it came about as all reinterpretations of the past happen — by looking at the same “X” through a different set of lens.  In this case, it was more than one pair of lenses — for I looked at that list through the lens of a new event; and then the lens of a new experience, and finally, through the lens of one other than myself.

That the last came from a flock of birds who had just dropped in for supper — lending me their proverbial bird’s-eye view — well, this did throw me off-balance — enough to confess that even now, I can’t say whether these birds were Red-breasted Black Birds or Robins.  All I know is they were ravenous and noisy and feasting on the fruit of the Cherry Laurel outside my kitchen window.  It seemed every seat in my new bird cafe was filled.  As fast as a ‘table’ came open, a new bird came to takes its place.  No need to ask, “What’s for supper?  These birds had the good fortune to find my tree, so supper became ripe black cherries.

Of course, whatever food they happened upon that day — fitting their own particular bird’s palate — could have become a fine supper:  worms, birdseed or insects, perhaps.   From the bird’s perspective, any answer would have been a good answer — a life-giving answer — as long as the birds themselves didn’t become another creature’s supper — like some bird-watching fat cat, per chance.

As I watched them eat, I saw that life for these birds, as it is for any creature living in the wilderness, is a meal-by-meal affair.  It’s not a question of bird seed or worms.  It’s birdseed.  Or worms.  Or fruit.  Whatever they find.  These live an eat or be eaten sort of existence.  Everyday.  From the birds perspective, living into the answer of ‘what’s for supper’ is not a light-weight question at all — why it very much belonged to that quick of life list of questions left in my blog comment.

Still, the strange thing about yesterday, one I still need to think about, is this:  As I watched that bird-laden tree being picked over clean, I remember thinking how I’d never seen that tree look so alive before.  It shook.  And pulsed.  As birds came and went.  And while ravished by the wilderness, the tree lived on. Empty of fruit, the tree lives to bear again.  The tree lives and the birds live.  And I like how both the giver and the takers have happy endings.

And though I can’t say how — somehow, when I looked at that tree eaten yet not consumed, I imagined the tree being me.  And that instead of birds feasting on my fruit, it became unanswered questions which pecked away my fruitfulness.  Yes, it’s crazy, crazy, these thoughts of mine.  But then, I’ve always had a wild imagination. Perhaps these loose connections I’m making are nothing but tunnel vision at play. Yes.  Let’s just say that me being that tree — and my flock of questions being those birds — is nothing more than one of those odd life coincidences.

To One Turning One

08 Sunday Jan 2012

Posted by in Life at Home, Soul Care

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Dear Reese,

There’s much I wish to tell you today, though you’re not old enough to hear it, or better to say, not old enough to remember it.  I wish you could remember the big party your parents are throwing that celebrates your great love of dogs — what you call DA — I wish you could remember the hot dogs and corn dogs and the ‘PUP-peroni’ pizza and what I know will be the sweetest little doggie cupcakes anyone could bake.  I wish you could remember the forty or so people who have paused their own lives to show up today in yours.  And not to forget the gifts they’ll tote with them – the toys and the books and the clothes — most of which you’ll outgrow, too quick to remember.

But as much as I wish you could remember every delicious detail about today, there are other things I wish you to remember more — things about your first year of life that no one knows because they concern just you and me.  They grew out of that special six weeks we spent together last April and May when your mother returned to work after her maternity leave was over.  Knowing that I won’t always be here to help you remember these — I’m taking time today, to write them down just for you.  Because I wish you to know, in grown-up words, how special you are to me — and most of all — how special you’ve made me feel this year.

Let me begin by backing up, to the summer before you were born, when your mother asked if I’d be willing to babysit so she could return to her kindergarten class to finish the school year.  While I was quick to say ‘yes,’ you should know that the thought of caring for you really scared me.  Not because I thought I’d drop you or anything.  It was more complicated than that, though less substantial too, since my fear rested on a false self-image of myself.  You see, I’ve never regarded myself as particularly maternal — I’ve never considered myself a good mother or, for that matter, a good grandmother either — I use to often joke how no one would ever think of nominating me for a ‘mother of the year’ award.  Maybe it was those standard sixty-hour weeks I worked for years that had me writing this bit of fiction.  But writing this now makes me wonder whether they even have these kinds of awards anymore — and for that matter, what a ‘good’ mother looks like?  Today I’d say that I couldn’t have been too bad to have ended up with four great children — one of which is your lovely mother.

But how it happened, that all those long-held fears and insecurities evaporated in days, I can’t really say.  As I look back on that time, it’s funny that I began our six weeks together believing I was doing your mother a big favor but ended the six weeks realizing how it was you and she that had favored me.  And it wasn’t long after I began watching you before I forgot all my shortcomings and even forgot myself.  As proof, I share with you a note I wrote to a friend last April 19th:

My saving grace these days is time spent with new granddaughter Reese. Already two weeks into my six-week stint, time is chipping away at my front-row seat which allows me to observe Reese awaken to the marvelous world around her; Reaching clumsy hands towards rattles, cooing along with Baby Einstein’s version of Mozart, and studying her own wiggling fingers with intensity and wonder, I am reminded all over again how I too often sleep-walk through life.

I won’t ever forget those days when I cradled you in my lap as we’d sit in your mother’s rocker — how the rest of the busy world would retreat as I read stories to you or sang songs to you and feed you your bottle.  Even now, I can recall how you’d always look up to my face and study it intently — enough so that I sensed that unwavering gaze deep within my soul.  And somehow, you doing this simple thing — this natural thing, really — made me feel both worthy and loved.  By May 9th, I wrote these words to the same friend:

I find myself letting a few fat tear drops fall down my face fairly often these days as my daily time with Reese is drawing to a close. We’ve only eight school days left, and then my daughter Kara will be officially on leave. I tell myself it will the good to resume my own life again, to have more time to paint, to maybe get a head start to garden puttering — but somehow, my heart’s not buying what my mind is rationalizing away.

Of course, even after our six weeks was over, your Mom invited me to babysit or drop in for a visit.  You were sick when I watched you one afternoon, the week before Christmas — it may have been a combination of teething and allergies and maybe even a virus — but that didn’t stop you from playing with your many toys.  I watched you crawl from one to other — and whenever you encountered something soft — what your Mom calls one of your ‘loveys’ — you would pick it up with one hand to cuddle it close to your face while sticking the thumb of your other hand in your mouth for a little suck.   I watched you do this over and over that day, with first your stuffed animals and then your soft animal-shaped reading chairs and even most of your mother’s A-Z teaching puppets.  More than once you cuddled into me and began sucking your thumb — though it took me a few times to notice that your other hand held tight to part of my shirt — your way of letting me know that I was one of your inner circle of “loveys” too.  That you did this to me almost undid me — but then, true love always does undo us — and redeem us — and remake us — when we give it a free hand in our lives.

On this day for making wishes, I wish you to know you’re my lovey too. But without need of these grown-up words, I know you know.  Because you’ve read it in my eyes.

Your NaNaNa