long time gone

It seems as if years have gone by since I last wrote here. A lot of things have happened, and I'm feeling old and don't know where to start. Not that it's really necessary to catch you up on my life, but I feel the need.

The first picture is a good one for me. We buried our dog Seamus there in early July, and spread wildflower seeds on his grave. As late as it was in the summer, I didn't know if it would bloom at all, but it has, and still is blooming despite the cold. That's a wonderful sign of hope for me.

Late in August I found the dog in the second picture at the Humane Society. They had her labled as a male Wheaten Terrier, about three years old. When one of my co-workers was admiring her the next day, she remarked that the dog is a female. Oops. And when we took her to the vet to be spayed, he said she was probably about a year and some kind of terrier mix. Bill calls her a "wired hair terrier," because she is very lively.

A woman in the waiting room at the vet's told me she has a terrier too, and that as much as she loves the dog, she wouldn't wish a terrier on her worst enemy. With that propitious beginning, we quickly learned that our lives would change.

"Her name is Lola, she is a dancer...." And that she is. Also a racer, a tugger, a leaper, a fetcher and a stasher. I have thrown the ball or the squeaky pork chop two dozen times before I can get both legs into my pants, and even then I need to make sure she hasn't dropped it down my seat. There's nothing like having a squeaky pork chop fall out of your pants leg as you walk through the office door!

Just as we were beginning to get used to this bombshell in our life, another one dropped, only this one was a bad one. My daughter went to the clinic during the first week of school, thinking she had a sinus infection. She had a brain tumor, a large one, and her surgery was September 11. It could not all be removed without significant damage, but it is a slow growing one and we hope for the best. She's made it through her first series of oral chemo and is planning to go back to work part time on Wednesday.

So, that's what I've been doing. One of these days I'll redesign this page. I think that's one thing that's kept me away, not liking the look of it any more and not having any good ideas for a change and the energy to do it. I do miss it though, both the writing and the reading of others' blogs. So here's a start.

the gift of today

It's been a very long time since I've been to this page, and even now I wouldn't know how to begin without the image from Christine's Poetry Party. I can't really call it poetry, but I needed an idea starter apart from the ups and downs of my life this past few months. Please visit her site and add your own reflections.

Questions Posed of a Leaf

Would I have even noticed you
if you had lain there in the drift
of leaves all red and orange and gold
just another vivid token
an ordinary miracle
trampled under foot?

How can it be that you,
separated and fallen from your source of life
can be so exquisite in your dying?

What is the measure of your worth by now?
Too old, beyond your chlorophyll bearing days
no longer exhaling oxygen and gulping CO2
or providing cooling shade,
is your only future the bonfire or the yard bag?
Will you now contribute to the carbon footprint
you reduced when you were truly ‘green’?

Maybe in the best scenario someone’s livelihood
will be to sweep you up to make you into mulch and
spread you on the garden beds. Or that a child will marvel at you,
choose and give you (gift you are!) to someone dear.

Until then, my brilliant friend, nothing is left for you to do
but to delight the eye.

silent running

I have two things on my mind tonight, neither profound, but it's been a long time since I've blogged. So I'll say something. Can't find the photo I was hunting though, of our car at sunset. This is a picture of the Palouse River that I took while we flew over it last week to point out the geography to a passenger.

I had to come home early today, an inconvenience on a day I like to make my northern circuit of over 100 miles. I'll have to go back tomorrow for the rest.

The reason for this disruption is that I bought a wii on ebay for my husband for our anniversary. I didn't know it would come by Fedex and require an in-person signature, so I wasn't home yesterday. I called Fedex when I found the door tag, and no, they couldn't deliver today without me even if I left them a signed note. I emailed the seller asking him to re-route the package to the hospice office, but he said he could not. Paypal has a rule that the package must be sent to the confirmed address. Maybe that only applies to higher priced items because I've never run into this problem before.

The seller told me to "just drop by the Fedex center after work" to pick it up, and have my picture ID etc. My Fedex center is 70 miles away. No thanks.

Today was more convenient to wait for them than tomorrow will be. Tomorrow would be their last delivery attempt, and I didn't want to miss out. So I drove half my route and came home, fortunately in time to get the package.

The irony of it is that I had bid on several wiis without success, and although I'd been checking all the stores daily by phone, happened on one at Shopko last week. Then I won the bid. So, temporarily I have two of them, one at the $259 price the store charges and the difficult one for $330, which is cheaper than many were going for on eBay. What a surprise, to have things cost more on ebay! I'll be selling one for sure. Interesting, isn't it? People have taken advantage of the market and the shortage. Gosh I'm glad they don't sell gasoline there, or do they?

The second thing is sad. There was an article in the paper last week about the danger of Priuses and other hybrid cars to blind people. They can't hear them, and if the drivers aren't carefully watching, a blind person may step off the curb directly in front of them. Bill sort of pooh-poohed it, saying drivers always have to watch out.

Tonight, after he pulled out of the driveway to go to the airport, there was a dead dove and an injured sparrow lying there. Lots of birds peck seeds from our gravel because the feeders are nearby in a shrub bed. The doves and sparrows are always the last to fly away as I pull in, but they always do it. I bed they don't hear the Prius coming either.

What do you do when you find an injured bird? I've taken a couple of hawks to a wildlife rehab person in town, but a sparrow? It fluttered away under the barberry bushes, and I'm hoping it was just a little battered. The dove is dead, and at least one other dove looks concerned about it. I guess Bill will have to learn to honk when he turns in.

on blogging: Blog On!

Blogging, to me, is a spiritual exercise, both in the writing and in the reading. Maybe not always, but when it’s at its best, it is an authentic medium for people to reveal the deepest thoughts and yearnings of their souls. When I write my blog thoughtfully, I give voice to who I am and what has influenced me. I become a little more than I was before I wrote about it. It is a medium of actualization.

Sometimes I use my writing time to discover things about myself and my world that I didn’t consciously know. You’ve all done that. You’ve typed out something and found yourself saying, “Where did that come from?” You credit your muse. I credit my unconscious, and even the collective unconscious, the spirit within. Maybe that’s the same thing? Whatever it is, it is the source of creativity, and creativity is definitely spiritual.

PHOTO By oldcactuswren Backyard Tree Peony
I read once that an important value in having a spouse is that they are witnesses to our lives, as our parents were to our childhood. They can chronicle what happened to us, and how we reacted. They know us.

Even those of us who are fortunate to have loving spouses may feel that they do not always know our innermost being. They maybe aren’t even particularly interested in the wanderings of our minds when they aren’t directly interacting with us or profiting from what we’ve been doing. E.g., Bill is happy that I made bean soup yesterday, but he has no attachment to how enchanted I am with the look of a handful of dried black beans in their shiny, ebony perfection and their little white eyes. They look like smooth river rocks, and if I were building a sand castle, I’d want black beans to line the moat.

Now that’s a silly example maybe, but it’s what I meant. Our imaginations go off in interesting ways, unknown to others who don’t read what we write. There’s a depth in all of us that doesn’t surface in our ordinary conversations about our activities of daily living. Who else, except the person with a very attentive listener, has the opportunity to reflect on her day, with its puzzles and its delights, besides a blogger? Who else takes the time to focus the lens of his mind both inward and outward? Poets, philosophers, those who meditate—sure, there are people who do take those daily journeys. But how many of them share what they find like bloggers do?

Reading the blogs of others is like seeing the world through many more sets of eyes, feeling the pulse of people throughout the world as they view their own unique circumstances that are out of our sight. By reading, we have a little better sense of what it’s like to be the mother of a soldier, a greeter at Wal-mart, a woman who was raped as a girl, a daughter with the care of her parents on her shoulders. We find we have things in common with people who are gay, or who live in Africa, or who struggle with addictions. Blogging opens up the world of others to us, and it opens our own world to us as well.

Here’s a quote from Thomas Merton that brings all this into my frame of reference: “His one Image is in us all, and we discover Him by discovering the likeness of His image in one another.”

two kinds of poverty

There are a lot of different ways to be poor. Mabel told me about one of them today.

Mabel has had a stroke and can talk, but doesn't talk much. Maybe she never has talked much-- that's possible. She has a quiet voice and a way of smiling with her head down, looking over the corner of her glasses at you that makes me think she's a little shy. She does like to be visited though, and is content to watch her shows on the TV along with her visitors.

The program she was watching today, until her favorite quiz show came on, was America's Top Models. We talked about the clothes they wore and which dresses we liked best, and she said she'd love to wear the filmy yellow one if she had it.

I asked her if she remembered any favorite dress she'd ever had, and she thought a minute. "I remember one my aunt sent me from California. I think it was yellow too." She didn't look like she had a clear picture of it, and she went on to say, "My aunt had a girl who was older than I was and she sent me all her clothes. Otherwise I just wore striped overalls."

"You probably didn't have a lot of places to wear fancy dresses," I said, knowing she grew up in the country. "And you probably had plenty of work to do around the farm," I said.

"It wasn't exactly a farm," she said. "We didn't grow anything. And I didn't have any chores to do or any thing like that." She looked very sad. "There were just us kids, and our mama, and she had to work. " Suddenly I pictured an old house with a dirt yard and no parents around, and I felt sad too.

Then she remembered, "There was a blue dress I had, that Mama bought me herself." She didn't have anything else to say about it, but she was proud.

The house she lives in now belongs to her granddaughter. It is in a run-down part of town, but her family has done a wonderful job of remodeling. It has a big, airy kitchen with pots and pans on hooks and a big butcher block in the center. The walls between bedrooms no longer go all the way to the high ceilings, and there are ceiling fans to increase the air flow. Mabel has her TV in her bedroom, and a comfortable chair next to the window. She watched a magpie pick on a neighborhood cat and enjoyed their little drama in her driveway.

Another woman, Stella, in another town is dying, inch by inch, and will probably still be giving orders with her last breath. Her house is authentically old and far from tidy. They heat with a wood stove, and the living room where she holds court from her hospital bed is always cozily warm and smells of wood smoke. When I knock on her door, I am always greeted by no fewer than three small, noisy dogs who do what they can to protect Stella. As does everyone. Family members and neighbors are constantly in and out, and the respite between peals of barking is short. The most ferocious of the dogs, a Chihuahua, retreats to Stella's bed, walking all over her bony frame beneath the blankets.

The bed has been moved recently to make room for a slot machine with bells and flashing lights. Stella likes to watch people play. She has a glass candy dish next to her bed that someone gave her, and it's filled with what looks like sayings from fortune cookies. They are scripture citations, and she asks each person who comes in to "pull" one, look it up in the Bible and read it out loud. The social worker and I do the reading, because few of her family members are able to, for various reasons including illiteracy. The Bible was a gift also, along with the scriptures, and is a book that Stella is not very familiar with but loves.

On the wall are framed photos of family members from several generations, and Stella has a wealth of stories to tell about them. She was married to one husband twice, and shouldn't have married him the second time because he beat her; but she did so to keep him from leaving the state with their young son. The son is in his forties now, and looks as if he's had a serious head injury at some time; but he remains positive and works hard in a local restaurant, hopes to run one of his own some day. Stella's significant other has been taking care of her for years now, and he is devoted. He is kind and generous of spirit, and works hard to understand how to deliver her medicines and treatments. He is a dandy.

If poverty meant just a lack of money, this family is one of the poorest I've ever met, but their lives are rich with love.

festooned for Pentecost

The nave of St. Paul's is adorned in flaming colors for Pentecost. Assistant Rector Paula Whitmore, whose forte is liturgical art, had a team working hard last night and early this morning, due to a wedding on Saturday that prevented them from putting the decorations in place earlier.

We had two celebrations today: the birthday of the church, and the announcement that a new rector has been called, the Rev. Birch Rambo. He and his wife Kate and their two children are not expected until this summer when school is out and their responsibilities at their own diocesan camp are finished. We will certainly be looking forward to their arrival.

On an entirely different theme, Sunrise Sister tagged me to play the six word memoir game. I commented on her post with new patients, books, gardening, anticipation, contentment.

Then I read the link she left to the person who tagged her, and I discovered the six words are supposed to be the title to my memoir. So, after some revisions, this hospice chaplain, with many new patients coming and going quickly, would title her memoir, "Living, Loving, Dying-- with Good Humor." That may sound a little shallow, but it's important to me to keep some balance in my life.

Continually watching people you've come to like die can get heavy. What keeps me going is discovering the beauty in people's lives, celebrating the love I see in families, and laughing as often as possible.

Now I'm supposed to tag four other people, list their names, and link their websites. That part will take me a while, and maybe this will happen tomorrow. Peace.

life force

I called a new patient yesterday to make an appointment to come see him for the first time. His son answered the phone and, when I'd identified myself as a chaplain, he said they weren't religious. I assured him that was all right, that I would be coming to offer support. I've learned to avoid saying "spiritual support" when someone sounds that opposed. It tends to mean the same thing to most people, whether they're for it or ag'in it. I also try not to say, "That's not important," even though I mean it isn't important to me that he be religious for me to come visit. I don't want to go around saying religion isn't important, because that would be very offensive to many people, plus I don't believe that's true.

Anyway, after that short discussion he warned me that I needed to know the rules, that there were certain words they didn't use in their house. Well dumb me-- I didn't ask what they were! I thought he meant religious words, considering the rest of the conversation. I was pretty sure he didn't mean swear words, because it didn't seem likely that he'd think he'd have to warn me about those.

When I got there today it became apparent quickly, fortunately for me, that the patient is hoping to get better and that his son is fostering that hope by not using the words death, dying or the like.

I suspect the patient is not entirely fooled by this. When he told me how uncomfortable he'd been, how difficult it was to breathe (although he wanted to talk regardless,) I asked him if was good to be out of the hospital and at home. He was positive about that, but said he wasn't getting better. His son disagreed, said he was much better than last week, and at the same time made a gesture, hidden from his father, of a downward spiral.

I had noticed an restored old VW bug in the carport, and asked him if he did it himself. He began talking about it, and several others he and his son had done, and about other hobbies and jobs he'd had, which were many and varied. Several probably contributed to the asbestiosis that he's dying from.

The house they live in is small but immaculate, and very tastefully decorated with an up-to-date color scheme. The pots by the front window held, among other things, avocado and nectarine plants that they'd started from seed. The whole feel of the place, and the father-son relationship, was one of tender, loving care.

Later today I went to the office to preview a video about the need for caregivers to take care of themselves and some of the ways they can do it. The chaplains and social workers get together every Wednesday at noon to check out a video and discuss it.

We are a diverse group: two Adventists who have been there longest; me, an Episcopalian; a Methodist; and, the newest staff member, a Buddhist.

The film today was a good one and one we will purchase. Arlene, the social worker has been here longest, said she really liked it until the topics of Yoga and Qi Gong came up. She was sure many people would be offended by that, but thought there were several other valuable points concerning self care that came afterwards. She was afraid people would quit listening and miss them. I suppose she puts Yoga, Qi Gong, and "mindfulness" all in the fearsome category of New Age religion, and finds them, for herself, subjects to be avoided.

That she was actually offended by the Qi Gong, as she has been by several things the Buddhist has said, took me a little by surprise. It was the first time she has sounded defensive about her literal beliefs. She is probably offended by things I say too, now that I think about it. I did expect her, as a professional, to be open to other points of view, but I'm sorry if I've offended her.

The practicer of Qi Gong in the film talked about people getting in touch with their life force as she did the lovely, slow movements. She went on to talk about the importance of people becoming mindful of what they are doing rather than multi-tasking.

I asked Arlene if she couldn't visualize the Qi Gong as a kind of prayer, because, to a Christian, what else could it mean to get in touch with the life force? She seemed surprised by that, but thoughtful, and evidently accepted the possibility. She suggested we start a group for caregivers; but if we showed that film, she said I'd have to explain that part to make it palatable.

I think those two men I saw earlier were in touch with the life force, whether they know it or not.

shaped by our heritage

How do we become who we are? I remember a small group question that asked what our families told us about their hopes for us before we were born. A co-worker, who is now a hospital chaplain, said that his mother dreamed that he would be a man who would lead people to God.

The first stage of faith development, according to several theories, is learning who we are. Are we safe? Are we loved? Are we a Smith, or a Jackson, or a Robison? What does it mean to be a member of that family? Does our family have hopes and dreams for us?

Three stories have run through my mind today. One is that of a blogger friend who told about the stories she grew up with about a dad who was her hero, until she found out at seventeen that they were lies he'd told to make himself look good. He had been in trouble with the law, rather than the bold, adventurous, entrapreneurial spirit she'd learned to love. Her own life had taken on those same positive traits.

The second story is about a man who was in a group I mentored. He had previously belonged to a fundamental sect and believed the Bible to be factually true and the inerrant word of God. As we studied Hebrew Scripture, the Old Testament, he was appalled to read that seminaries teach that Adam and Eve were not two particular, real people, and that Moses didn't really write the first five books of the OT. He said that he felt like an orphan, that all the old Bible characters had been like family to him and he'd just found out he was adopted. It was truly a painful experience for him, but one that was necessary in order to grow spiritually.

The third story is about a baby who was born in Seattle a few years ago. She had a congenital condition of the brain that meant she would not survive, would not ever progress beyond infancy; in fact she was had not been expected to even be born alive, but she lived for six months.

The family had previously been a part of a fundamentalist church, but they had moved and had not made any connection locally. The other children in the family made friends, and the parents of those friends heard about the situation. They offered help, compassion, emotional and spiritual support, and the family joined their church, a different sect entirely. When the baby died, the family had found a sense of meaning in this tragedy: the baby's mission, from God, was to convert this family to this religion.

Here's the question: are any of these people worse off for believing something that was not, or may not be, true?

the play's the thing

Daffodil’s Debut

the snow is almost gone
and, though I’ve had no time to practice,
today is my day to shine

“Stand up straight.”
“Be brave, little daffodil,
you’ll do us proud.”

here I am,
watching the grass grow,
waiting nervously for my cue

"Spring."

I heard it! I’m on! Ta Da!
I am here to fill your heart with joy!


Tonight is the dress rehearsal of HMS Pinafore, in which my husband is starring in a leading role. So, naturally, a dramatic image came to mind when I saw this beautiful prompt from Abbey of the Arts at Christine's Invitation to Poetry

Have you had your playing time today?

a lovely day for a drive...

Spring has arrived on the east side of the Cascades, and it was a beautiful day to have a job that doesn't keep me inside!

introducing Mavis and Margot...

Mavis and Margot are two of several characters I’ve written in my writing.com site blog. Sometimes I’ve used them to make comments on things I don’t want to say myself, or even things I have said. Sometimes they’re just for my own entertainment.

Margot was headed for her driveway when she spotted Mavis, sitting on the front porch, enjoying the first warm day of spring and reading a book. Changing directions, she slid her new car in beside Mavis’s Prius, turned off the ignition and strode across the lawn.

“How do you like it?” Margot called. “Isn’t it super!”

“It’s terrific, and it certainly suits you, but I thought you said you’d gone green. It isn’t a hybrid, is it?” Mavis asked.

“Well, it’s British racing green. That’s good enough for me.” Margot made a face, and Mavis laughed. “Want to go for a ride?”

“No, not right now, I don’t think. I was just finishing this page, and then I need to get the potatoes peeled for supper. Maybe tomorrow though, if you’re up for it. I’d love an excuse to go up to the lake if the weather is as nice as it is today.”

“I think I could manage that, if I finish up with my client by lunchtime. So, what are you reading? Anything I might want to borrow?”

Mavis replied, “Oh, I don’t think it’s anything you’d be interested in.”

“Too intellectual for me?” Margot chided. “Try me.”

“It’s Thomas Merton,” Mavis said. “Here, I’ll read you this bit. I think it’s rather wonderful.”

My Lord, You have heard the cry of my heart because it was You Who cried out within my heart.
Forgive me for having tried to evoke Your presence in my own silence: it is You Who must create me within Your own silence!

“Is that about enough?” Mavis asked.

“No, go on. It’s a bit over my head, but I want to hear the rest. There isn’t much more, is there?”

Mavis laughed. “All right. Let’s see….
You are not found in the Temple merely by the expulsion of the money changers.
You are not found on the mountain every time there is a cloud. The earth swallowed those who offered incense without having been found, and called, and known by You.
If I find Him with great ease, perhaps He is not my God.
If I cannot hope to find Him at all, is He my God?
If I find Him wherever I wish, have I found Him?
If He can find me whenever He wishes, and tells me Who He is and who I am, and if I then know that He Whom I could not find has found me: then I know He is the Lord, my God: He has touched me with the finger that made me out of nothing.

“There, what do you make of it?”

“I’ll give it a go. He’s saying that God doesn’t come to us on our own terms, and we can’t find him wherever and whenever we might want to. God is bigger than all that. Am I close?”

“I’m impressed.”

“You won’t be when I go on.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think God is like a cat, and we want him to be like a dog, waiting for us and wagging his tail. Instead, he comes if and when he chooses. Like my cat Chloe, who occasionally graces me with her presence. Rascal wants my attention full time, to keep throwing the ball for him. I don’t think God’s like that, do you?”

Mavis stared at her a minute. “Hmm…” she said, “Not exactly.” Then, noticing her friend’s expression, she continued, “That’s very clever of you. I’ll have to think about it. Maybe I’ll bring the book along tomorrow on our ride.”

“Oh please don’t. That’s enough philosophizing to last me for the year. But it was fun. Thanks for not laughing at me,” Margot said.

“I hope I would never laugh at you when you were being serious. I won’t bring the book tomorrow, but I might tell you why that passage is important to me.”

“Well, maybe. But I might rather get away from thinking and just go have fun. I’ll call you tomorrow,” she said, as she turned toward the car.

light through the window of grief

I mentioned last week a video the hospice staff watched of Naomi Tutu. In it she talked about ritual, particularly the ritual of South Africa. When a person dies, the bed is taken apart, and the mattress is placed on the floor. All the matriarchs of the family come and sit on the mattress, and they stay there until the body is buried. As callers come to pay their respects, the women tell the story of the person's life and death, over and over, over and over.

We are a culture short on ritual; and, due to a growing lack of religious interest, the rituals we have are fading too. Fewer people have funerals or memorial services. Fewer still have wakes. Even the family gatherings, the bringing in of casserole dishes to the home, and the calls and cards are less frequent than twenty years ago.

The adult grief group began last week, with a poor showing of five people. One dropped out, thank goodness, and one will be absent this week, so I'm praying for a few late starters to show up this week. (Thank goodness because she wasn't ready to be in a group yet, had too many issues to work out for the group to handle, and would monopolize the time at best and might scare other group members from talking.)

One of the things they'll be doing is journaling, and they have a book designed just for that. Beyond the exercises in the book, I've been thinking about other ways to journal that would be helpful to people who are grieving a loss. Here's what I've come up with, sort of off the top of my head:

1. Go through old pictures, and, choosing one or two per journal entry, write about the situation the pictures were taken in. What was happening? Who took the pictures and why? What did you want to remember from that time, whether or not it showed up in the picture? Is the picture a good representation of how the loved one looked, or one of his/her* better moments? Did he like that picture of himself? How does it make you feel to see it now? (*From now on I'll refer to the loved one as a 'he' for simplicity's sake.)

2. Using the same pictures, or memories without pictures, revisit the places where the pictures were taken: the beach, the back yard swing, the dining room table, wherever. Maybe take another picture. Write about what you're feeling in that same place now.

3. Journal about something that has happened to you this week, and what would have been different if your loved one were still alive.

4. Make a record of the times of day you find yourself missing him most, the scenes and scents that tug at your heart, maybe giving you a grief attack. Imagine him there, and write about what you feel.

5. Think of things the two of you didn't agree on, but you went along with anyway. Maybe you watched football because he liked it, or bought Crest because it's the kind of toothpaste he wanted, or ate Captain Crunch because it was easier than buying a box you liked instead. Maybe you liked to take walks but didn't very often because he wouldn't go with you. Make a list of things you like. You may find this easier than you expect.

6. Make a list of his annoying habits, and forgive yourself for being annoyed with him.

7. Describe him in your journal, in as great a detail as possible, using all your senses to imagine him. Linger with that sense of his presence after you've written, before you go on to do something else. Write about that experience.

Oops, I've exceeded the obligatory (arbitrary) list of 5. Well, maybe it's like a baker's dozen, one extra suggestion in case one of the first 5 wasn't any good. No excuse for number seven though. :( :)

I've just begun this train of thought, so please feel free to add to it.

burst into song!

angel of narcissus

The Angel of Narcissus

I strike a pose,
so high above you all,
so wise and stern,
and all who see me crane and yearn
to view the words I write.
“Is my name on your list?”
you wonder, your uneasiness
creating flurries in the air
around my stony soul.

The stone mason’s chisel
does my fair proportions justice,
but he carefully omits
what flows from my pen:
buy milk, suntan lotion,
start the laundry,
mail the rent check,
put out cat,
pick up Jean at 3.

This statue of an angel, in the cemetery in Framingham, Massachusetts where Christine's mother is buried, is the prompt for the Invitation to Poetry from Abbey of the Arts.

questions and coincidences

Last week a post from Mind Sieve quoted a line of a poem by Oriah Mountaindreamer. The name didn’t ring any bells, and the quote only nudged me slightly to respond. I shrugged it off, but I've been thinking about it ever since. I won't be writing about it tonight though, still thinking, but here's the quote:

"The question is not
'Why am I so infrequently the person I really want to be?'
but 'Why do I so infrequently want to be the person I really am?'"

Thursday morning we had a video at work of a speaker from last summer’s National Hospice convention, Naomi Tutu. I saw her and enjoyed her presentation last summer in New Mexico, but hadn’t remembered how she began it. She quoted a long poem from, coincidentally, Oriah Mountaindreamer, who Naomi said she thought at first was a native American, not a blond Canadian. Several people commented on the power of the poem, and I was happy I had the name and the link right at hand to give them. Her poem, The Invitation, is printed on her homepage at oriahmountaindreamer.com.

Isn’t it strange how we can hear something new and then immediately have it crop up again somewhere else? Sure, maybe it’s because we are awake to the sound of the name and recognize it again, but not always.

When I went to her site, http://www.oriahmountaindreamer.com/creative.html, I found a section called Creative Writing Exercises. The page begins with the title What We Ache For, the name of one of her books..

The book I began reading last night, Henri Nouwen’s Life of the Beloved, begins with the story of how he happened to write it. A young man, Fred, was interviewing him and was obviously uninterested in the job. As they talked, Henri asked him what he really wanted to do, which was write a novel. Anything you really want to do, you can, Henri told him, or words to that effect. You clear off from your calendar the things that are in the way, and you get started. Henri even made it possible for the young man to quit his job and come to be an artist in residence so he could write.

Fred never did finish the novel, but other things came from the choice that were invaluable. Henri began to hear of the longing that Fred, a Jew, and other friends of his had, a yearning for meaning and spirituality in their lives. Fred asked him to write a book for them, not for religious people but for secular people. And he did so.

Oriah asks: “How would you complete the phrase: I never feel I should be doing anything else when I am…?”

How would you complete that phrase?

finding some, if not all, things new

In a recent entry to Mind Sieve (and I'm sorry I don't know how to make that a link right this minute,)Sunrise Sister challenged us to try new things. Her most wonderful example was taking surfboarding lessons at the Royal Academy in Hawaii.

I like the idea, even though I am doing it on a much smaller scale. Today, for instance, I took a new road between housecalls, hunting for an unimpaired view of the new snow on the Blue Mountains. I also tried a new 2 calorie drink called Cascadia, very delicious. And played a new CD that our medical director made of "happy" music. It included The Elephant Walk, Day-O, and Brown Eyed Girl, among many other singable tune. The interesting thing about it was that it was not only happy, it was energizing too.

What new things might add some joy to your day?

What music makes you happy?

P.S. Almost forgot: the very best first thing ever I did today was call and get a repairman to fix my refrigerator without any waiting. He came right over and did it while I was at work. All I did was leave the door unlocked. Wow!

time, where does it go?

If you had to make a list of what you had done with the past twenty-four hours, would you be happy with it? I know I wouldn't. I can't believe how much time it takes me to get out of the house in the morning, or clean up the kitchen at night. And I really truly don't know how neat people stay neat all the time, and keep their houses neat!

Although I think comparisons are seldom helpful and certainly not comfortable, I'm tempted. Surely I spend more time buying fresh produce and cooking meals from scratch than some people do, but since that's the norm for me, it doesn't feel like it's worth much. I know I don't spend much time chatting with friends, more's the pity; and I log zero hours at the beauty shop getting manicures, and only a haircut every couple of months. I hardly ever watch tv or go to the movies, so where the heck does my time go? Okay, I get a massage maybe once every other month, or less. Can't remember one this year yet.

Of course there's a fast answer, that I spend too much time on the computer, but I'm not going there. I fasted from blogging for most of December, didn't I? What did it get me? Time to get packages mailed, but no Christmas cards sent.

Is there a word like 'klutz' that means clumsy with time? Probably one in Yiddish, and if not, there should be.

Today I took my car to the garage for its ABS (brakes) recall, and then had to cancel my eye appointment. Could have gotten a ride, I found out later, but the appointment time had already been filled. Darn. I was scheduled for a mammogram tomorrow but had a training at work postponed from last week interfere, so had to reschedule for Friday. Don't you ever wonder what's the point of scheduling ahead? Things come up, and you have to change everything. It's darned inconvenient.

The refrigerator wasn't very cold this morning, and Bill said the freezer hadn't been quite closed. Tonight he said he thought maybe it wasn't quite closed, and the refrigerator seems to have maintained on cool but not cold enough. The freezer still is making ice, but Bill says he can't hear the condenser come on, and no cool air is flowing upwards into the frig. Great. Now I'll have to cancel something else to stay home and wait for another appliance repairman! Well, if I can get to the paint store tomorrow, maybe I can at least start painting the living room while I wait for the repairman.

Where does your time go? Can you believe that everyone has 24 hours a day, just like you? Some people sure do a lot more with their hours than I do. But do they enjoy it?

touched by the Holy

Have you ever had experiences that were different, set apart from your ordinary days, that you didn’t know how to describe?

One of the priests, in commenting about the Easter Vigil Saturday night, said that he had been in a very thin place. I’ve said that myself before, and for me this was not the same. It was sacred space, a place of knowing without having to make sense of it, a participation in the Mystery that was a being and a doing, rather than a feeling.

It would be very like me to try to inspect the experience, dissect it and investigate it, but why? To validate it, or replicate it? I don’t think I’ll try; or, to put a more positive slant on it, I choose not to.

Yes, it would be good to go over the week’s many services with the other clergy, as that same priest suggested, to talk about what went well and what might have been better if we’d done something differently.

But I don’t want to be writing down a recipe: 3 parts prayer, 1 part preaching, 4 parts music, mix well together and heat till the Holy Spirit takes notice and the batter begins to rise.

The thing is, you can’t make Resurrection happen. The dry bones, as much as they might like to, don’t just get up and dance. The earnest hearts that fast and pray and do all the right Lenten things sometimes find that, as much as they regret it, nothing new happens. They have gone through the same motions, the same devotions that have worked before to draw them closer to their Lord, and yet...and yet….

And yet, sometimes something new does happen, something unaccountable and uncontrollable, sometimes even to the person who just stumbled into Lent at the eleventh hour.

In the sermon today, the preacher told an anecdote about an incident at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. The bishop was to begin the service by knocking on the closed doors with his crozier, Inside, the church would be in darkness following the Great Vigil, and when the doors were opened, the bishop would shout out:, “Alleluia. Christ is risen.” The congregation was to respond in kind, “The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia.”

Unfortunately, the bishop had turned on his microphone too early, and what came before those traditional words was unexpected. The congregation of 600 worshippers heard mumbling and grumbling, followed by, “This is damn awkward, damn awkward!”

The preacher went on to say how very fitting and theological she thought those words were. Resurrecting hearts and minds from the dead doesn’t fit the regular pattern of life. Christ shook up his world in his own time, by his life, death and rising. Christ still shakes up the world, in this very day and time. We cannot will it to happen. The Spirit blows where it will. That too, is damn awkward.

P.S. One thing about these Easter services that made them different from any I've ever been to before is that people were asked to bring bells. If they didn't have any, ushers passed out bells at the door, and we rang them all during the hymns. Imagine how "Christ the Lord is Risen Today" sounds with two hundred bells ringing! Wow!

Maundy Thursday

The Maundy Thursday service is one of the most impressive in the church’s liturgical book. We began in the parish hall with an explanation of Passover and the Sedar dinner, while we are already seated at tables for our own meal. Following that, we processed into the church singing a short, melodic but eternally repetitious song (which works fine for a time when people have to remember the words.) It was unaccompanied, lent itself to simple harmony, and had a solemn, prayerful sound.

After the reading of the lessons came the foot washing. Of the 50 or so people present, probably twenty came forward to have their feet washed by one of the priests. The water in the basins was pleasantly warm, and was changed frequently.

It is evidently difficult for people to allow themselves to participate. With no apparent self-awareness, they mimic Peter in the gospel lesson, who said to Jesus, “You will never wash my feet.” Once you have overcome whatever barrier holds you back, it isn’t difficult to accept the loving ministrations from someone you respect. The foot washing is a symbol of servanthood, and Jesus made two points very clear. We cannot have a relationship with him if we are not willing to accept what he offers, and we are to offer the same service to others.

My petty little whine is that I have bad circulation in my legs due to an old blood clot that would not resolve. Consequently I wear prescription compression stockings, waist to toe, and cannot take them off to have my feet washed. Out of kindness some years ago, the priest decided it would be too difficult for me to help do the washing either, so I sit it out. Try as I may to be grateful for not spending that extra time on my knees on the hard floor, I almost feel like crying. I am frequently an onlooker at life by inclination, but I hate to not be able to participate in something so rich and meaningful.

I offered a suggestion, which this year was finally accepted, that I could stand at the door of the parish hall with a large bowl of sudsy water and wash people’s hands as they came in to dinner. This was a custom from my former parish that was always well received , and it was last night too, although with a little uncertainty at first. People who chose not to have their feet washed later at least got a taste of some servant ministry.

(Actually I have a second part of my whine, and that was about the bulletin. I evidently got a draft rather than the real thing, and although mine looked just like everybody else’s on the outside, it was missing some liturgical responses before the foot washing. I couldn’t figure out what everybody else was reading, and they couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t reading too. Fortunately it wasn't a part I was supposed to lead! You can imagine, though, that this mistake set me up for feeling left out in the rite to follow.)

Anyway, the service went off without any real hitches. The altar guild and clergy stripped the sanctuary of all the hangings, vessels, books, and even emptied the tabernacle of the reserve sacrament. This was done with the lights low, following the eucharist, and ended with the tabernacle door open wide to show its emptiness, and the lights turned out. It is invariably moving.

Give yourself a laugh

I've been having fun making lolcats ever since I saw one in somebody's blog. Give yourself a good break from seriousness and try it out sometime!

night and day, and the Passion

Our search committee at church has found three likely candidates to be our new rector. The first came to visit this weekend. Several groups, some were particular people invited for lunch and there were some open-to-anyone receptions held to meet him and his wife. The clergy met him last night over dinner.

It was 10 p.m. when we got up from the dinner table, and I still felt as if I hadn't even met the man inside that face. He had few, if any, questions for us, and, as my husband put it, appeared to wish he were somewhere else. Although we gave him lots of information (or, maybe because we gave him lots of information) about the city, the church, the diocese, and the people, he had no questions. I felt as if we'd invited an interesting couple to dinner, but they didn't show up.

Today was Palm Sunday, with all its pagentry. Our assistant rector carried on the show in grand form, complete with the changing of the Lenten purple vestments and hangings to the Passion week red, a change made after we processed all around the neighborhood with the choir, brass players and congregation singing, "All Glory Laud and Honor, to Thee Redeemer King."

In place of the gospel lesson, we had a reading of the passion, this year from the gospel of Matthew, done in parts, that is, with different people playing different roles. I was the narrator, and, at the early service, did some of the parts too.

It is a powerful thing to do, especially when the whole congregation yells, "Crucify him! Crucify him!"

The sermon centered around Peter's denial of Christ, three times before the cock crowed, as Jesus had predicted. Peter continued to say," I do not know the man!" The preacher said that Peter spoke truly, that he did not know Jesus, really, and we frequently don't either. It was a well written, well spoken homily; in fact, the whole liturgy was excellent. If we'd been trying to impress the candidate, we surely should have done so.

Fortunately, that wasn't our goal. It was to worship, and to involve everyone in the drama that the passion of Christ is, and to see ourselves in the ongoing drama of our lives in Christ.

In case I don't get back here till Easter, have a blessed Holy Week.

Heroine

Today, on our way out to see a patient who lives 18 miles from town, the social worker and I were discussing the difficult tasks one family member has taken on in order to insure a good end of life for her mother.

The daughter in question, whom I’ll call Arly, is here from Connecticut to visit her dying mother. She has made the trip several times a year, and has been paying on a funeral plan for a long, long time. Her mother, I should mention, is not a wealthy woman who will be leaving an estate, not even a small one.

The dedicated care, in itself, is not rare, but it is also not commonplace. The thing that makes this particular mission unusual is the relationship between these two women. Arly was sexually abused by her father from the time she was an infant. When she caught him doing the same thing to a much younger sister, she turned him in to the police, and he was sent to prison. She had to be removed from the home because her mother was so angry with her and treated her so badly for reporting him.

Arly’s mother has never said she was sorry that it happened, or even indicated that she might be. Forty years after the fact, Arly is here to tell her mother she forgives her for not trying to stop the abuse. She wants her mother to be able to die in peace. She knows her mother will probably not reciprocate, but she wants to give her the opportunity. Even if mom doesn’t say a word, Arly will know she did what she could.

a little seasonal humor

I followed the truck in yesterday's entry at a safe distance, not wanting to risk dodging logs. I think I'd just as soon be a ways behind anyone with a car full of snakes as well!

We had a four hour training on HIV, with more than we really wanted to know, and my drippy nose and I haven't been able to get far from the Kleenex box today. So I was ready for this cartoon when my husband sent it to me.

are you on overload?

When you look at your datebook for the week, do you feel like this?

This truck was seriously overloaded. The picture isn't as sharp as it might have been, had I fit a car wash into my schedule. I snapped it through the front window as I sat at a stop sign.

Seriously, it doesn't take much to overload me. I feel overwhelmed by too much structure, too many notations of places to be at certain times, while I try to fit my patient visits into their schedules, and the schedules of nurses and CNA's.

Today was a wonderful exception. I slalomed through the scheduled visits posted on my computer at work, making it to my first patient in Dayton shortly before the CNA arrived to give her a bath. Made it to my second patient just as her CNA left, and reached my third front door fifteen miles farther up the road, at the end of her CNA's shift.

Great visits, a beautiful day for driving, all in all a big Woohoo!

Part Two about Cork's Place

I’ll continue to describe the rooms of Cork’s Place, a grief center for children. For the first part of the article, see below.

The next room is geared to an older level, with foosball and air hockey, shelves of games and books, the piano and other instruments. Teens sometimes sit and talk on the couch or floor pillows, with or without the diversion of activities.

The third room we toured has a wall filled with craft materials of all kinds for all age levels. There’s a rectangular table built like a sandbox but filled with rice instead. Many little toys and figures, including tiny caskets, are there for the children to play with.

The next room was the paint room. Only three children are allowed in there at a time, and there are many smocks and shirts hanging on pegs on one wall. There’s a table of big jars of washable paint, and a canvas drop cloth to protect the floors. The walls are fair game, and they are covered with handprints, splashes, hearts, stick figures, anything the child wants to do.

The “volcano room” was the final spot we visited inside the house. It too can only take three children at a time, plus an adult, and its floor is covered with a thick foam mat. Shoes stay outside the door. A huge mound of large pillows takes up one end of the room, and above them is a “heavy” bag, a long punching bag that is suspended, hanging securely from the ceiling. Little children like to try to climb up on it, we were told, or bury themselves in the pillows. Older ones put on boxing gloves and whap away at it.

Outside the house, in a fenced back yard, there are more activities. A wonderful playhouse has been decorated with a fireplace and rugs and chairs, all painted on. A replica of an old panel truck like the one Cork’s Pharmacy used to deliver medicines 70 years ago is a favorite of the kids. The adults almost always have to ride in the back, the social worker said. Cement has been poured for a basketball hoop, and there’s a great sand area with a large scoop shovel.

All the painting and the toys and equipment used to furnish this house were donations. It is a community project, and one to be proud of. Our own town will be looking for ways we can offer something similar in the near future, maybe in collaboration with the children’s museum and hospice.

Yea! A field trip!

Yesterday we went on a field trip, two social workers, the other chaplain and me. We visited Tri-Cities Chaplaincy, which has a hospice program with an outpatient count of about 90, plus a 10-person in-patient house. They are a large agency with many programs, and we wanted particularly to hear about their grief groups.

The part of the tour that was entirely new to me (having been on the chaplaincy board and in several of their programs in a previous life—twenty years ago) was Cork’s Place. It is modeled on a house in Portland called the Dougy Center, a place that works with grieving children.

Cork’s Place is an average 1980 vintage rancher with a daylight basement. Adults who bring children to the grief group, which runs all during the school year, have a group of their own upstairs. Since the loss is often a parent, sometimes a grandparent or sibling, the person who brings the child usually has their own grief to cope with, in addition to that of the child’s.

The Dougy Center began in 1982 as a tribute to Dougy Turno, a 13 year old boy who died of an inoperable brain tumor. Its founder, Beverly Chappell, was a registered nurse who worked in the area of death and dying. She saw that most people were uncomfortable with the subject, and that hospitals, churches, and schools had very little to offer children in their grief. She began to educate herself on grieving by attending seminars and lectures given by Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, who wrote much about the until-then neglected subject.

Dougy wrote a letter to Dr. Kubler-Ross, asking why no one would talk to him about dying, even though he was facing his own death. Dr. Kubler-Ross corresponded with Dougy, and encouraged Beverly Chappell to meet him and his family when they came to the university hospital for treatment. Watching him, Beverly saw how compassionate he was with other children in the unit, and how they helped each other. She grew to have faith in children’s ability to process their own grief in the way they need to, as long as they have the freedom and safety to do so.

Children in the grief program at Cork’s Place begin each session by meeting in a downstairs room that is rimmed with stacks of pillows. On one side a huge stuffed gorilla sits, inviting a child to sit in its lap and wrap its arms around him. The group begins by going in a circle, each child stating their name, age, the name and relationship of the person they lost, and how they died. Then they go over the rules, of which there are just a few. After that, the children go to whatever room they want, or outside, to play and maybe talk.

The children range in age from three (I think that’s right) to eighteen, and they are divided into four age groups which meet on different nights. Well trained volunteers plus two staff people are there for the children at a one-to-two ratio of adults to the younger kids, a lower ratio for the older groups. The adults are specifically trained not to teach. That isn’t what they’re there for. They aren’t allowed to direct or guide, to criticize, or even to praise or affirm the children. The point is that the children don’t need anyone’s approval, and they don’t learn how to do what they need when they’re trying to please adults. The adults become more of a resource than anything, someone to listen, to help if asked, to play with if invited.

The social worker in charge of the program gave this example: if the child wants to bang on the piano, the adult might bang on it too, or might simply reflect, “You’re playing the piano.”

One room has all kinds of playthings, doll houses, dress-up clothes, toy kitchens, and, startlingly, a casket that the funeral home would use for a real infant. I asked about that, and the social worker told me that the youngest children like to climb into it and lie down. One ordered her and another adult to pick it up and carry it, and they had a mock funeral procession. Other children will put dolls or stuffed animals in it, and, of course, they often talk while they’re doing this.

Mourning, as Dr. Alan Wolfelt refers to it, is the work you do relating to your grief, the talking or writing about it, the visiting of places and memories, the paintings and sculpture, maybe even mud pies, that help you express what you’ve lost and what you’re feeling about it.

This is becoming too long, so I'll finish it tomorrow night. I hope it's interesting to you. It certainly was to me.

Reaching Out

Searching Faces

Visiting the old folks
I strain forward in my seat,
trying to coax from them
stories of who they are,
where they’ve lived,
what they’re proud of.
Sadly, and too often,
pictures on the night stand
tell the only tale I’ll hear:
him in his uniform,
her in her wedding gown.
Sometimes, the best that I can do
is whisper in an ear,
“You’re beautiful,”
or pat a shoulder saying,
“I’m so proud to know you.”
Later, in the paper, I may read
of an extraordinary life
I never got to know.

Loss of memory, loss of self,
are barriers greater than time.

This bi-weekly prompt for Christine's poetry party is a graceful picture from her family album. Maybe I'll try again sometime to make a poem from it, but what comes to me today is the difficulty of reaching out to connect with others, not only across time. What I've written is more prose than poetry, but you can try your hand at it at
Invitation to Poetry

a better day

I am still dragging a little, and the idea of investing myself into new relationships with four new patients and families sounded taxing. The new patient I met yesterday had not been able to communicate; but his family was there visiting, and they were delightful.

Today's first visit was with a man who had been dying last week, but is now making a speedy recovery, a fact that he seems cognizant of without any show of emotion. Since he has no family around, I can't tell if his frequent answer, "I don't have it," means he can't hear me or can't recall the information. Too bad, since it included his name. "That might be it," he said, but without any sign of recognition. He did agree to prayer, and said "Amen" at the end. I left puzzled, wondering if there's anything I can do that will feel supportive to him. Sometimes I worry that my questions and their loss for answers may cause distress. I asked him, though, if it bothered him to not remember things, and he said no.

My second new patient was asleep in his recliner and wakened only when I was standing in front of him. He looked neither startled nor welcoming, but indicated that I should sit on the bed, at least that's what I thought. He was very difficult to understand. When I made out that he wanted his hearing aid, I found it for him and then tried sitting in a chair on the other side. That time he was clearer that I should sit on the bed, evidently near his better ear. He told me there wasn't much use getting to know him because he won't live much longer-- he'll be 99 on his next birthday. He was one of eleven children, seven boys, none of whom ever married! He worked as a maintainer in a TB hospital, and he built a greenhouse for them because he enjoyed plants. He also likes animals, and his young kitten kept attacking me playfully.

I might have put off the fourth new patient until Monday, since she lives far out in the country on a farm and it was getting late; but I'd heard she might not survive long. She is a beautiful woman in her early 50's with breast cancer. The noise and activity of her family were bothering her, and she was restless. They had obligingly moved their piles of photographs to label and organize several rooms away. The kitchen counters were covered with cupcakes fresh from the oven, and the smell of bread baking was inviting. The daughters-in-law had been busy.

Her husband took me back to the family room where she was reclining. He said she'd told him weeks ago that she didn't want any people coming in. He'd told her, he said in his quiet voice, that her friends needed to see her and talk to her, and he let them in anyway. They were always glad they'd come and had done what they could, and she was always glad afterwards that she'd seen them.

He wanted the three of us to pray together, and we did. On the way out, he showed me a marvelous scrapbook which people at her work had put together for her. It included all the cards she'd received, and messages reprinted from emails, all beautifully laid out and decorated with some children's pictures and scripture verses interspersed. It was a work of art. He said he couldn't look at it closely or he would cry.

This house, and this family, was filled with and surrounded by love.

It was a good day.

Whenever you connect with people, it's a good day.

the apres vacation blahs

Yes, we had a wonderful time. Sorry I can't get more excited about it at the moment. My jaded nature has the upper hand tonight. I'm tired, and we both caught some bug that new daddy John had and brought it home with us. Ick!

Yes, the baby was an amazing little soul, so different from my babies and their babies. He has such black hair, and even the backs of his ears are hairy. He looks very solemn most of the time, and then a grin will raise one lip and give him a drunken leer.

Now I don't want to offend anyone, but, as a species, three-week old babies aren't all that much fun. They nurse, and they sleep. Some of them cry. Mine did. This one doesn't get much chance to. His parents don't know a lot about babies, and "the book says" they should eat every two hours or so, play a little and then sleep. The parents are distressed that it doesn't work quite that way. They're used to a life they have control over. Well, ha!

Ordinarily, the sight of palm trees thrills me, and the tall oak trees with the Spanish moss. I guess they still affected me that way, but I was inside most of the time. We didn't even get to the beach! Every day went about the same way. I petted the dogs, who are feeling left out; and I did some laundry, and some grocery shopping, and read a couple of books. Bill played games with his son John on the Play Station 3, and helped with some plumbing and wiring and other manly chores. I baked Elizabeth a birthday cake, and we went shopping and out to eat many times.

It was lovely to be with them, and I wish we could see them more often, but Florida is clear across the country from us. We got up at 3:30 a.m. to get to the plane, and arrived in Jacksonville three airports later in time for bed. Coming home, we opened our front door at 10 p.m., which is 1 a.m. Florida time; even though I got a good 9 hours of sleep, I'm pooped. I'm tired of traveling, tired of shopping, tired of eating out, tired of spending money. Just plain (plane?) tired. Tired of being in somebody else's world.

If I could have done anything I wanted today, I don't know what it would have been. I didn't have time to really dig into anything and see it completed. The suitcases were emptied and back downstairs, most of the laundry done and put away, but I felt no satisfaction in it.

After reading a good poem in the blog of Sunshine Sister, I tried to think of some words to describe the foggy day and how I felt as I drove toward town to go to work.

the day was stuffed with fog and mush,
and I, undone by things undone,
was captive in a paper bag of gloom.

I didn't get any farther with it than that, but by then I was having a good time. My creative tinder had caught her spark. I began to look with a poet's eye, and it makes all the difference.

In the thick fog, I noticed one of the plant nurseries along the highway, looking drab in its midwinter, not-in-season way, all boards and pipes and muddy ruts. And then I saw the palettes of primroses, cheerfully alive; and I remembered, from somewhere, that God is in the Now.

Owyhee Crack

The picture above is one I took from our little plane on the way back from Oxnard, California, last summer. I was looking through my photos, hunting for a winding road, when I found this one. It amazes me how much twisting and turning a riverbed takes, even when it's at the bottom of a steep canyon, as is this one from the south of Oregon.

Today was the first Sunday in Lent, with its lengthy litany that brings to our minds all the ways we've fallen short and asks for the Lord's deliverance. The Great Litany was the first part of the Roman Catholic liturgy to be translated, by the Archbishop of Canterbury, into English; and people were worried that it might attract the Lord's vengeance. It did not, and England's defeat of the Spanish Armada gave them reason for relief.

My prayer for all of you during this season of Lent is that you'll take the time to be introspective. Look over your life, where you've been and where you're headed. Do what you can to make amends for things done wrong or left undone. Make peace with your family and your friends. Make peace with yourself. Open yourself to peace from God.

Not timeless poetry, but poetry in time

I have written several poems to prompts from Christine's Poetry Invitation, but never before in time to enter them in her bi-monthly contests. Thanks to Sunrise Sister, I now can post the actual picture above my poem. Thanks, Sister!

To take up her invitation to poetry, which happens every other Monday, check the link below. You'll enjoy her wonderful site any day of the week. http://abbeyofthearts.com/blog/category/poetry-invitation/.


Opportunity

Only when the flouncy sea has hiked her
skirts up high and left to meet her lover
in the daily deeps,
only then can we see, on the beach,
what’s left behind.

Only when our buzzing lives are sidetracked
by the weather, death, some accident
of time that leaves us stranded, makes the
pass impassable—
only then can we hear, in the pause,
what’s possible inside.

I think I'll write another verse sometime, but not tonight. :)

U R A P? I R A P 2! o-o

Many of you will be familiar with the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, a test designed to predict a person's personality preferences, as first suggested by Carl Jung in his descriptions of typology. One pair of possibilities is the 'J' or the 'P' type. P stands for Perceiving, J for Judging.

J's and P's are often the bane of each other's existence. J types are decision makers. They work well with structure, time limits and specific goals. P types are more open-ended. They prefer the process to the outcome, are often unaware of time and space, and the details necessary to reach a particular goal.

I am a 'P'. It is definitely my preference to take whatever time is necessary to gather information or finish a task. How can you stop, just because the clock hands are straight up, when you're getting such good data, such interesting responses?

The other chaplain I work with is a 'J'. She is always on the move, quickly, getting from here to there, finishing this and that. Quantity seems to attract her more than quality, but that may not be fair. When we work together, I try to do my part to organize, be timely, plan ahead, so that I won't drive her crazy. When we led a grief group together, it worked out all right. When we do another, I will take a little more latitude to do what I do well. We'll have better snacks, more thoughtful questions, a little more leeway in our agenda.

I'm doing a grief group for children now, with a social worker who is new to our agency but has lots of experience with children. Now that we have done four weeks of groups, I can see that he is a 'P'. He leaves all the snacks, set-up and planning to me, not by agreement but by default. The curriculum-- I don't know who chose it, but it isn't very age appropriate. I suppose we didn't know who would show up for the group when it was first set up.

It's a strange feeling to be a 'P' and be responsible for getting things begun and ended on time, set up effectively, etc. I had an EFM group for four years that had many 'J' members, yet I was the one who had to round them up to get them started on time and herd them along to finish the evening by 9. I am more sympathetic when it's another 'P' I'm working with, but still, it's a surprise to find myself needing to fill that role.

half way to something new

Here are some pictures I took yesterday that you might enjoy.

After the game was over Sunday, Bill was grumpy because he had wanted me to be watching the Super Bowl with him, and I had been trying to get some pictures into my blog.

(I have heard this particular whine before. "I want you to be doing things with me" means "I want you to be doing what I'm doing.") I told him if he wanted to share, next time he should try sharing what I'm doing for a change! So last night I invited him to help me put my pictures up on www.weatherunderground.com

You can guess how that went. He throughly enjoyed himself, but they're all under his name because he was the one logged in! (BeechSportBill) He didn't help. He did it himself while I watched. Rolleyes Sigh. Anyway, it was fun, and I'll do it myself next time.

The picture of him, by the way, is, thankfully, a few days old. He was growing the hair for his part in H.M.S. Pinafore, but if that's going to happen it won't be till April; so I convinced him to shave it off. Funny picture though.

http://www.weatherunderground.com/wximage/myphotos.html

I'm really a hedgehog

You probably noticed. That was really a hedgehog picture, but it was the best that I could do. What's fun about her that I just discovered is that if you click her, she jumps. If you click several times, she rolls into a ball-- hedgehog fashion!

Trying new things--hmmm...

I don't know how to make my little map wide enough to include other continents, which it did in the sample. I haven't figured out how make my "ground"hog full width either-- his full width, that is, not the column's-- or how to drag him to the right side. He's determined to be at the top, or at the very bottom of the page beneath all entries.

Can anyone point me in the right direction to fix, or even read about, this difficulty?

P.S. Never mind-- this time any way. I changed the template, and it made room for the whole map, although I tried unsuccessfully to change the dots to red. I reduced the size of the hedgehog, and she fits now. Isn't she cute?

miscellaneous February thoughts

I've had a variety of odd topics go through my head today but no time to elaborate on any of them yet. I did get them jotted down though.

When I was grocery shopping for green onions and black beans to make some more couscous salad to take to a nurse friend whose father just died, I noticed something odd in the bakery. In fact, I asked the baker behind the counter about it. There were lots of Valentine choices for sale already: cookies, cakes, heart shaped doughnuts. But not a single Ground Hog Day cookie to be had! She stared, and finally laughed, but I'm not sure she realized I was making a joke.

Can you believe there's a holiday we haven't commercialized yet? I see great possibilities here, although Hallmark is probably already in the market. But cookies, cakes, tiny lights on strings, groundhog costumes, special issue celebratory champagne for the days he doesn't see his shadow....

Several groceries were enticing super bowl shoppers with specials on Coca-Cola and Pepsi. If you bought three 12-can packages of Coke for $12, you could have two more for free. Or, if you bought just two packs of Pepsi for the same price, you could have three more packs free! Confused What a deal! I think they're both trying to convince us that a 12 pack is no longer regularly under the old $3 top price.

It's bad enough to have gas go up, but please, not my Diet Coke!

On my way home, there was a pickup truck ahead of me chock full of unsplit wood, of which there is an ample supply after our big windstorm. A flurry of traffic went by as we sat at the stop sign, long enough for me to estimate the fore-mentioned tree was about thirty-five years old. Think of all the shade it's given, the birds it's been home for, and all the good warm heat someone will have. That's one more thing we forget to give thanks for: trees.

Have a good weekend, and I hope you don't see your shadow.

Looking Back at Our Life's Journey

A new friend-- who did not know I love, and write, poetry-- lent me a book by Maren C. Tirabassi called The Depth of Wells. She knew I work for hospice, and she thought I'd find some something of worth in these poems.

I am amazed at how many of these poems are so very like my own experiences. One is of a woman who relates having been accidentally shot by her husband, with no lingering damage. “I promised I would never tell,” she says. I've heard similar confessions. Another is of a man dying in a hospital bed in his own living room, surrounded by loved ones on Thanksgiving who were watching the football game. I've urged families to keep their dying in their midst.

The poem that particularly struck me is of an old woman at a senior center, putting jigsaw puzzles together. Onlookers theorize she's enjoying the beautiful scenes and wishing she were there. Instead, she is trying to make sense of her own life. “Finally she remembers to start with the borders.”

Ever since I read that, I’ve been trying to understand what the borders of my life might be. Here are some of the things that came to mind. (Apologies to Kay, who is through with being introspective.)

What are my boundaries, places I would not go outside of, inner rules I would not overstep? Do I always stay within my comfort zone? Or do I push at the growing edge of me, both frightened and attracted by that which I feel most passionate about?

Something I learned from a high school photography class, so many years and so much technology ago, was how to vignette a picture. You could either cut a hole in a piece of cardboard with, say, pinking shears, and shoot the picture through it; or you could actually apply Vaseline to the edges of the lens to soften and blur the parts of the picture that weren’t necessary. Those ideas have always been for me metaphors for how I sometimes look at life, choosing to see only what I want.

How do we focus in on our lives, in reflection; or does it matter if our view is ten degrees off center? Don’t we frame and reframe ourselves, as co-creators of our lives?

The mood I’ve been in too much lately, the worm-eating, poor-me mode, feels like a retreat from my growing edge, much like the brain atrophies within the skull. Now that’s a terrible picture, isn’t it? This is a better one: sometimes when we are in pain, we double up into as small a ball as possible, holding ourselves and literally rocking. When we are comforted enough, we can return to our full stature, resume our activities, prepare again to grow when the time is right.

I do believe that we have to grow, in wisdom or in spirit or love, or we retreat. We can’t hold still for long.

The question is, do we have the courage stretch out toward that growing edge again? Growth is painful. But failure to grow is death.

When I work with the dying, I hope to help them think about their lives: to validate themselves, to teach their families what they've learned, maybe to try to make amends. There isn't much they can do to change the course of their lives, but sometimes they can change the ending, the meaning they leave for others.

We, in the mainstream of our lives, can do even more by pulling back and taking a look at where we're headed. We still have time, maybe, to change, to alter our course.

This is a Lenten theme, and Lent begins next week! Blessings to all of you, and thanks for putting up with my solemn side tonight.

children's chaotic lives

I thought I had just enough time to take Seamus for a walk before sunset, and he was very pleased with the idea.

Heading out the door leash in hand, I had to pull him to a halt so I could come back in and answer the phone. It was the leader of the writing group I go to sometimes, letting me know that, due to the snow, we wouldn’t be meeting tomorrow. I told her I’d be busy for the next eight weeks with the children’s grief group on Tuesdays, so I wouldn’t be able to be there for some time.

She asked if it was a group for children who have experienced a loss due to death, and I said yes. “Children need something like that for other kinds of losses as well,” she said. Divorce was the first thing to occur to me, but she said more than that. “Children lead such chaotic lives now, they can’t even verbalize what the loss is. It’s stability, trust, being cared for. Too many children don’t have any of that. They may have plenty else, but not those basics, and they act out. Then people say to them,’Why are you acting like that?’ and they don’t know.”

It turns out that she’s a retired professor of childhood development. She went on to talk about men who are out of control. “Ever since Mt. St. Helens exploded in 1980,” she said, “the amount of violent behavior from men has gone way up. It’s because they feel helpless to protect their families, and that’s their job. Like drunks, as my mother used to say, they either get angry or they cry like babies. They’ve lost their manhood when they can’t take care of their families.”

I said something about personhood, trying to take the gender issue out of it, because I believe we all do react to powerlessness, although maybe not in the same ways. What I was really reacting to, I realized as she brought the conversation to a close, is the idea that men are supposed to take care of their families, men and not women. Then I remembered that she lives in a little town that has a church sponsored university, and most of the inhabitants of the town belong to that church. It has a very patriarchal view of family: the man must be the head.

Even though Bill is from a younger generation and a very different religious tradition, he expressed the same feelings the other day, that it was his main duty to protect and take care of his family. I like being taken care of and protected, but I also rail at the idea that it’s a man’s job and God intended it that way. I don’t agree with that; but, weren’t families stronger when more people believed that? What do you think?

waiting for an ephiphany? do something!

I don't know why, but I feel a whine coming on. However, I'm going to try to reframe it, because I don't like myself when I feel like a victim. If I'm in any way a victim, it's a victim of my own making, helplessness that I ought to be able to fight my way out of like a paper bag.

The phrase, "See how you are?" has popped into my head several times this week. I need a new vision of how I am, how I could be. An epiphany would be just fine, and it's the right season for it.

I keep thinking that when the repair man comes and I have a workable laundry again, things will be better. But will they? Last week I thought that when I'd given my talk on hospice, I'd feel better and be able to tackle some other things. Then the windstorm came up and left me some very other things to tackle, but still I didn't feel good about it.

Today I helped lead a grief group for children, the first we've tried. I like the co-leader, the leader, really. He has lots of experience with children's groups, and my experience, other than with teens or family, goes back to Cub Scouts and Brownies-- a very long time ago.

I haven't been dreading it, not anything like that, so it's not quite like the hurdles I often find in my weeks. Like, oh, when I can finally get appointments to see the folks in the town sixty miles away, I can breathe easier. Or the woman who wants to tube feed her husband and tells me, for no reason as far as I know, that I ought to buy a copy of the Catholic catechism and listen to Catholic radio if I want to help her. I don't know how she'll let me help her then, and suspect she won't ever, but it's another mental bump in my road.

Sometimes those bumps in the road have a salvific effect, that is, I find the dreaded task to be a source of joy and accomplishment when I've gotten into it. Not this time. It went okay, was sort of fun, sort of frustrating.

What I need is something to feel good about. Not just passable, but good. Enthusiastic. Spirited. Challenged. And appreciated for it would be good too.

A counselor came to hospice yesterday to talk to the group about compassion fatigue. I didn't think I had it, because I don't feel very compassionate, at least not that hooked kind of teary identification with people going through their difficulties. I don't get very attached. Then, as I thought about it, I thought about how that may be a symptom in itself. I have a couple of patients now that I will miss and will feel real grief about, but, in a way, I haven't gotten close to them emotionally. Self-protection, or a symptom of burn-out, or both?

One of the things that came out in our discussion was expectations. I have very low expectations of myself at this time, and that isn't good. It isn't good to have them too high to reach either, but so low they won't trip you up isn't high enough to feel like you've accomplished anything.

I'm just babbling. Now, to work on some goals, that's what I need to be doing. I'll give it a try. Wish me well.