Silas

I began writing something about my journey as Silas' grandmother and soon realized the story is too big for this blog site. His life, his death and even his larger family legacy before him is a story I want to tell but not here, at least not in detail. What I will share here is just this:

His great-grandmother, my mother, lost her third-born child sixty years ago to a freak accident when he was two years old. Silas, my daughter's third child was only eight months when an eerily similar freak accident took his life this summer.

Why has the family been plagued to journey through such heart-wrenching tragedies? To say "plagued" seems right at first. It suggests some on-going scourge upon the family, like Job of the Old Testament. As though God somehow singled us out to torment us. Isn't that how Job felt? It's one of the feelings I have, I know that.

But what if we are not plagued? What if we just happened to experience a "luck of the draw" life? Just happenstance that such tragedies should happen to one family? I suppose that's possible although Job's Old Testament peers didn't seem to think that was a plausible explanation for his life. They preferred to think that Job had somehow fallen out of grace. But if it truly is "luck of the draw" I want to know why I don't have luck winning contests.

I think it's actually possible that we have been privileged or "loved" with these events. I know that sounds morbid. But what if, as I have read, we reincarnate to learn the fullness of God's Love through lifetime situations that help us "get it"? I'm not talking about punishments. I believe all things work together for good... (Romans 8:28) And I don't think God is about punitive life-lessons...at all. In fact, I think the book of Job addresses that, that it is human to believe in divine punishment but that that is not Who God is.

If this is true, or even if it isn't, going through as opposed to around is what I believe, without a doubt, brings us the fullness and richness of life. It is in going through the storm that we appreciate the rainbow for what it is: a promise of God's love and grace.

No matter how many tragedies me and my family or you and yours sustain, the Love of God has never left the scene. No matter what. I do truly believe that. And in order to continue to believe that, I embrace not only the tragedy for what it is, no more, no less, neither good nor bad, but I also embrace the lessons that come with such painful times, lessons in the compassion of those around us during this time, lessons of forgiveness needed moment to moment, over and over again, and the lesson of Grace enough to cover it all.

As Corrie Ten Boom,a Nazi concentration camp survivor, said: There is no pit so deep that God's love is not deeper still. Amen.

New Dream Post

I have posted a new dream on my dream page. Check it out.

"Are You Serious?"

Here is an illustration I have finished that goes with my first children's book "Are You Serious?". It's the story of a young girl who loves to ask and ponder big questions about God and her universe. She gets help from her mother and a star named Sirius. Seriously!

Colonoscopy Meditation

Okay, I'll admit it. My ability to meditate myself out of anxiety is far from perfected. It helps but doesn't eradicate my angst and so I live with low-level worry a lot of the time, particularly this past week awaiting my second routine colonoscopy screening. The fact that my last screening five years ago showed me to be "clean as a whistle" didn't help relieve my anxiety. And the fact that my brother died of colon cancer only upped the ante. All said, I was bound and determined to remain faithfully anxious.

The prep wasn't as bad this time since they used a different method. In fact, I used the same brands of laxative my mother uses. I felt somewhat bonded to her during those twelve hours. Still, drinking 112 ounces of fluid in a ridiculously short span of time after pushing clear liquids all day long is not my cup of tea. Pun intended. I stared at my glass full of prep and offered the mantra, "you can do it..." over and over again until finally I had.

Arriving at the endoscopy center bright and early and having to wait 45 minutes in the waiting room only made my anxiety worse. Well, after all, who could blame me? The news droning on from the TV high in the corner of the room featured a story about all the medical mistakes that are made in this country but never reported. Geez Louise.

Finally it was my turn. I got checked in, donned my hospital gown, had my vitals taken, and was given a warm blanket. Then I was told I had another ten minutes or so to wait. Did I want reading material? Something in me said, "no". They turned out the light in my cubicle, pulled the curtain and left me alone. As I stared at the ugly-colored curtain (no offense), I decided to befriend my anxiety since that's all I had with me at the time.

I reasoned with it: look, last time I was fine and since then I've maintained an exemplary diet of plenty of ruffage. Anxiety didn't listen.

I pleaded with it: look, enough already! This isn't going to change the outcome, right? Anxiety would have nothing to do with me.

I even laughed at it: look, this is simply ridiculous. If I were facing brain surgery or something, then, okay, bring it on. But a routine colonoscopy screening? Anxiety didn't care.

Finally, I just sat there. I let all the extraneous noises of the clinic fade way, way in the background and I physically relaxed my muscles. It was the closest thing to meditation I had done all day. Soon the thought floated by me saying, "I'm scared of these test results." This thought was obviously not new. But it felt like there was something I wasn't seeing. Then, just behind it came thoughts loud enough that I wondered if anyone else had heard them, "Test results! That's it! I've ALWAYS been afraid of test results. School exams, drivers test, medical tests. But I've (almost) always done well. So why not now?" And with that, the anxiety began to leave me for the first time since I had scheduled this test. And guess what?

Everything came out all right in the end!

Faith

Jesus says so often, something like, "Your faith has made you well." I got to thinking about the usage of the word "faith" in the scriptures. Did Jesus mean the same thing I think of when I read that word? Did he mean your faith in God? Your faith in himself, Jesus? 'Cause that's what I have grown up thinking about when I hear, "Your faith has made you well."

But nothing I read about Jesus would suggest he wanted people to have faith in him. WE believe WE should have faith in him but I don't believe he thought that. I believe he wanted to point the finger away from himself, actually. I believe that he wanted his followers to believe in the same faith that he had - not in himself specifically but in the God he loved and the Love of that God and the Power of that God. I don't believe Jesus thought HE was doing the healing. If he had, he would have said, "Your faith in ME has made you well."

But he didn't even say, "Your faith in God has made you well." This blows my mind now that I really think about this. Your "faith". Faith the size of a mustard seed sometimes apparently from what scripture says. Faith the size so as to move mountains, it says elsewhere. But just FAITH. Not FAITH IN, but just FAITH.

This suggests to me an attitude that what I want to have happen actually will. Just that. Is that enough to be made well? To acquire your hearts desire?

Why not? The scriptures say so. Jesus says so. It must have worked for him. Why not you and me?

Impotency

My spiritual director held a very open and loving space for me today as I dumped my load of issues into the room. She said not a word...well, I didn't exactly give her space to...but when I was done, she said, "Let's just sit awhile and see what comes." A very, very wise choice.

My issue was that I came this morning feeling impotent. Powerless. On the one hand, the number of people found dead from the tsunami in Japan is rising by the thousands. Years ago, Mom would have found a way to tangibly help over there. Me? I pray. That doesn't seem like enough. I feel impotent.

On the other hand, my relationship to my mother is different now and I struggle to be enough for her. She is dying. What can I do for one whose only spark of life now is to enjoy being in the presence of those whom she loves and who love her back...what can I do when I am not able to be in her presence? I feel powerless.

I find myself close to tears this morning. I tell my spiritual director so. This brings the tears to overflowing. What is this? Is it the frustration of my impotency? No. I tell her that I can feel something very powerful trying to emerge. What is it?

She asks that we sit in holy silence.

Rising out of the "nothingness", as potent as love itself, is the word "grief". And the image of Christ hanging from his assassination posts. He is looking down at those with a future. "Forgive them...", he says. For the first time, I realized that he was in deep grief for them, for us all. Could he do anything from his fixed position? In one sense, no.

In another sense, he did all that he could. And it was enough. He loved us enough to grieve for us.

There is power in grief. Grief is not impotent. Grief is a visceral measure of the love we have invested. Love invested is anything but impotent.

And yet...

And yet, without any conscious help from me, things have happened that I could not have planned or contrived but which I might have worked very hard to do had I known they were coming. Such as the flight/bus schedule dovetailing despite delay due to weather. And the fact that I "happened" to be close by when Mom had a heart episode last night. And the people I "happened" to see at the grocery store...people I am so grateful to have seen but whom I would not have tried to work in to my already anxiety-driven schedule.

It isn't like this is the first time I have seen God handle things without my help....you'd think I'd get it by now.

Trying Too Hard

Am I trying too hard? I have been trying to stay, at a very minimum, two steps ahead of myself, getting everything exactly right. I have needled people with questions designed to keep me in "the know". I have a back-up plan for my back-up plans. What drives me? Fear, of course. Fear of being out of control. Fear that I will be run over by life. Fear that I will be caught unaware.

Unaware. Interesting. I have made some amazing strides in becoming more and more aware and living more and more consciously these days, and yet here it is, larger and more consuming than ever it seems, this fear of being unaware. So am I really unaware or am I just aware of being unaware?

At home I have been living differently, facing the dark shadows within me, the places of my deepest unawarenesses. I turn toward my hunger, my anxiety, my blatant fear. In turning toward, rather than running from, I have been learning to befriend these long-carried shadows of mine.
Yet, here I am, in Maine, doing things foreign to my usual schedule and I have fallen back into old habits. I am overrun with anxiety which turns on the need to take back exorbitant control tactics, trying so hard not to drown.

But in trying so hard, I have tripped myself up. I passed out the night meds this morning. While this may not be the end of the world...I certainly hope it isn't the end of her world!...it does awaken me to what I am doing to myself.

Breathe. Meditate. Sigh loudly. For all is well. All manner of thing is well.

Completion

Until this moment, I can say that I have never really been this consciously aware of the energy of a person who is no longer interested in living.


She struggled just to pee on the pot. Struggled with her pants, struggled to sit, to wipe, to decide if she really was done, to stand, to sit again, to stand and sit one more time and finally to get herself "hitched" back up, as she would say. As I stood there, trying to be helpful, I said, "It's a lot of hard work to live, isn't it?" "Oh, you BET it is," she said, matter-of-factly, salted with a bit of ruefulness. "If I could, I'd just..well, I don't want to say die, like suicide, but...." "You just wish you could be done living?" "Yes. How old am I, after all?" "90," I answered, "but I don't think it's as much about age as completion." "Yes, that's a good way to think about that."

"Well," I said, as I continued to watch her laboriously deliberate movements, "I don't want you to die, but I also don't want to see you suffer." "Oh, you won't miss me." "You don't think so?" I returned, mind racing about her statement and what it really meant. "Well, you won't feel sorry for me, I hope. I'll be better off," she stated, not looking at me, but attending to her bathroom tasking. "Well, no, I won't feel sorry for you, but I will still have to adjust to being without my mother, you know." "Oh, well, yes, that makes sense."

She was finished...both with her bathroom needs and her conversation. She shuffled into bed and was asleep almost instantly.

I watched her, realizing that in every way, she is not about living any more. She no longer hungers over her paper, no longer looks forward to checking her email, no longer even seems to connect with the infinite tidbits of "normal" information coming to her. She seems to have one task...to get through the day doing only the things she absolutely must do.

What good are commercials to one who is no longer interested in living? What good are the many amazing videos depicting wonderful things people are doing, places to see in the world, amusing anecdotes, poignant life moments when these things are strictly for the one who needs this information to live a better, fuller, more meaningful life? What if you feel your life is complete as is? What if you really, truly, have no more living to accomplish?

This is where my mother is.

Hungry for Healthy Co-Existence

Who among us doesn't scratch an itch automatically? Who among us, in civilized Western culture, doesn't reach for an analgesic when in pain, a person with whom to share our sadness or fears or something to eat when hungry? It is natural to seek a homeostatic, peaceful, happy, pain free existence. In this country we not only have the means, generally speaking, to be pain free but we consider it our right.

Awhile ago, while I sat meditating and enjoying a peaceful place in my mind, I experienced an itch. I scratched it and two simultaneous things happened: I was both physically relieved and yet emotionally disappointed that in scratching my itch, I lost the meditative bubble I was in. Right then and there I decided that the next time I felt an itch or pain or cramp I would not seek to relieve it but instead seek to befriend it. And the next time it happened, I did just that. I acted counterintuitively and experienced myself in a whole new, very conscious way.

It was sort of like staring down a friend, this befriending my itch. I "stared" at it, smiled at it, thought about how it felt, thanked it and eventually it went away, satisfied and maybe bored with me. A week ago, I took the opportunity to similarly befriend hunger. When my pants felt tight to me the night before, I wrestled with depression at gaining back some of pounds that eight years ago I had lost and kept off. My initial thought was to "go on a diet", a common knee-jerk reaction to unwanted weight. My next thought was, "But how? I am already on the diet that has kept me from gaining back the entire 60 pounds I'd lost." The answer that came to me wasn't entirely new: it wasn't so much about what I was eating as how much and when. Creeping into my day were snacks that I would grab at the slightest hint of hunger and often times when no hunger at all was present. I just wanted food.

I have known that I am in a relationship with food that serves as a friend when I am sad, a comfort when I am depressed, a comrad when I am angry. But something seemed different this time. The word "hunger" kept coming to the forefront of my mind. And I wondered, "What is my relationship to hunger?"

I had to admit to myself that I see hunger as the grim reaper of daily existence. I am in dread of the feeling of hunger. I will avoid it at all cost, including using diabetes as an excuse to "have to eat". I have labeled hunger as a very bad thing, a thing I have the right never to feel. In fact, hunger has been so forbidden to me, that I have rarely felt it at all in the past few years...maybe rarely throughout my entire life. And for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. With hunger labeled as "bad", food then was labeled as "good", the white stallion, the knight in shining armor coming to rescue me from the clutches of evil.

But I asked myself, "What if hunger is neither good nor bad, but just a neutral indication of the body's need for sustenance? And what if food is neither good nor bad but just the neutral substance that chemically sustains a chemically-based human body?" This thought changed everything for me. Suddenly I wasn't the middle guy between two warring factions. I realized that I could stare down hunger in much the same way as I stared down the itch. The difference, of course, is that I will not let hunger just go away as the itch does, since it serves the purpose of keeping me alive. But certainly I can have a different relationship with it, one in which hunger is not the dictator of my eating, just a messenger. The relationship I want to have with hunger is a reciprocal one, a co-creative one, a balanced one, a respectful one. I want to cease being co-dependent to hunger as I have been to so many other things in my life where I have been unconsciously living, unaware of my actions and the reasons for them.

This new relationship to hunger is only one week old. Patterns 57-years-familiar to me will be hard to break. These things take time. But if hunger is no longer something to fear, that is the beginning to a much healthier co-existence with eating. I am excited and now realize I can work similarly with sadness, grief, anger and fear.

Fulfilled Life

Fulfilled life is possible in spite of unfulfilled wishes.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Really? The majority of people I witness surely don't assume this truth, at least not in the moment when wishes and dreams are in the process of being dashed and the feeling of fulfillment is far from reality. The natural response to unfulfilled dreams is kicking, screaming, pouting, denying, justifying, settling for less...but certainly not, "So, what I want isn't going to happen. That's okay, though, because fulfillment is just around the corner."

When her car was side swiped yesterday, pushing her into the path of another car, her plans to go wedding dress shopping with the bride went automatically unfulfilled. How is she to shift gears and feel fulfillment rather than intense anger and severe disappointment?

I truly believe in Bonhoeffer's statement. And I want to live my life that way. I want to be able to make my plans, execute my plans AND accept the detours and abortions along the way. I expect to feel anger and disappointment because it comes with the territory of being human. But I also expect that after I have given voice to my humanness, something far more wise and all-seeing will let me embrace a bigger understanding: that Fulfillment is something more than wishes granted and Unfulfillment is not about dashed dreams. Wishes and dreams are merely the itinerary of moving from point A to point B in getting through our hours, days and years of life. They are a way to execute living. Wishes and dreams are not Life. Life and Fulfillment is about the meaning behind the itinerary. The big, Big picture. The journey of the soul. The journey to Love and Wholeness. Beside Wholeness, our day to day wishes and desires can look petty.

Yet those daily plans are the highways on which we travel through life. Without them, we go nowhere. So, I honor the wishes and desires at the same time keeping my heart open to the Bigger Picture so that I gain not only a perspective of the now but also a perspective of the All.

It can be done. Fulfilled life IS possible in spite of unfulfilled wishes.

The Enemy

"The genuine warrior becomes truly gentle because there is no enemy at all." -

Smile at Fear by Chogyam Trungpa

Who or what is "the enemy"? Someone or something outside of ourselves? This typical definition is reflected in The Oxford dictionary: "Person or group actively hostile to another." Layering this definition over the saying, "I am my own worst enemy" makes me the person who is actively hostile to myself.

Trungpa's statement talks of a "warrior" and The Oxford dictionary uses the word "hostile". There is typically so much negative energy around the word "enemy". Trungpa suggests that there is such a thing as a gentle warrior, one who fights a different sort of battle in a completely different way. This warrior carries no weapons because there is no enemy. How can this be? And why call such a person a warrior when there is no war?

If all that is is neither "good" nor "bad" there is no fight. Not with someone or something outside of ourselves nor even with ourselves. There is only an enemy when one picks up the other end of the rope allowing for a tug of war.

Let go! Let go of the ropes and cords that bind you to your enemy. Here is where you may call yourself a warrior as you wear the armor God calls us to wear as Christians. Ephesians 6 says: Therefore put on the belt of truth , the breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit. It is hard work, particularly in the beginning and it will take all of this to let go of your enemy, either the neighbor you call an ememy or the enemy you call yourself. Jesus did it. You and I can, too.

Guilted Christianity

Isn't it strange how a 20 dollar bill seems like such a large amount when you donate it to church, but such a small amount when you go shopping?

Isn't it strange how 2 hours seem so long when you're at church, and how short they seem when you're watching a good movie?

Isn't it strange that you can't find a word to say when you're praying but you have no trouble thinking what to talk about with a friend?

Isn't it strange how difficult and boring it is to read one chapter of the Bible but how easy it is to read 100 pages of a popular novel?

Isn't it strange how everyone wants front-row-tickets to concerts or games but they do whatever is possible to sit at the last row in Church?

Isn't it strange how difficult it is to learn a fact about God to share it with others but how easy it is to learn, understand, extend and repeat gossip?

Isn't it strange how we send jokes in e-mails and they are forwarded right away but when we are going to send messages about God, we think about it twice before we share it with others?

I have received this email forward a number of times. There was a time in my life when this guilt trip (let's face it, that's what it really is) would have tripped my guilt meter but good. But I read this again and thought, "Yeah. Why is it that these things are all true, because they are!" Two hours at a movie or time behind my favorite novel is way more fun than the same time spent at church or in the Bible. And it isn't that I'm not a spiritual person. I spend an inordinate amount of time digesting just about anything about spirituality. But church is boring. And reading the Bible cover to cover is as well.

What the heck is going on here that an email forward like this is universal enough to be sent around? After all, isn't it for the Faithful that this email circulates to begin with? It is saying that the Faithful are more apt to want to be at the movies, read a good novel, and spend money on their favorite vice than be in relationship to God and the church. And it is saying that's not okay.

I say, there's a REASON movies, novels, gossip, jokes and non-front-row seats are appealing. They are real. They are what life is. I believe Christ himself would have found them appealing as well. And I'm not convinced he would have been a regular in church either. Else he would have followed the rules of the religion to which he belonged and been in temple regularly instead of healing on the Sabbath and tending to the heathens.

The email forward finishes with this whammy:

If you choose not to share His message you may deprive yourself from being blessed as well as depriving others who may need God in their life.

True enough. But exactly what IS his message? Let's be clear here. I believe his message is to do what it takes to Love with reckless abandon. If church is firing people up to be giving of time and money with no concern for self, forgiving of (and breaking bread with) even the one who has murdered our sons and daughters or committed adultery against us, and makes us courageous enough to speak about it with anyone, then by golly, that's a place to be. But so are a lot of other places that do the same. The proof is in the puddin'. I know when a person loves me well and I care not how they got there. Love is Love, whether it came from sitting in church or a movie or the forest glen. Love is Love, whether it came from a Christian or a Buddhist. Love is Love because God is Love and God is not exclusively anything.

I happen to be a Christian, born and raised. It is the language to God that I am most familiar with. I am done being guilted into being a Christian. I come freely by way of everything I do/say/think. And I believe this was Christ's Teaching.

New dream post today!

Defining Moments

Defining moments in life. Moments that define or make clear what path to take, or not to take, how you really feel, what you really think. Moments to take stock and wake up to what you have that has been taken for granted, or what you don't have that you realize you don't want to live without any longer.

Some defining moments are very difficult, like divorce and death of a loved one. Some defining moments are truly amazing like the birth of a child or a graduation or a long-coveted job just granted.

Some are more subtle, less startling perhaps in the moment but no less poignant and no less defining. The truth of such a moment hits home when it happens but sinks in more deeply over time.

Two car accidents, two cars totalled, just over two days apart. Two family members, both physically unharmed, both emotionally taking stock.... as am I.

PS....just learned, believe it or not, of a third family accident that just happened today as well. Broken foot this time is "all". Okay, enough already.

Okay, comments CAN be added to the other pages now....

Walk it if you're going to Talk it!

I just read this offering from Fr. Richard Rohr's daily e-mail meditations:

We operate with the assumption that giving people new ideas changes people. It doesn’t. Believing ideas is, in fact, a way of not having to change in any significant way, especially if you can argue about them. Ideas become defenses.

If you have the right words, you are considered an orthodox and law-abiding Christian. We burned people at the stake for not having the right words, but never to my knowledge for failing to love or forgive, or to care for the poor. Religion has had a love affair with words and correct ideas, whereas Jesus loved people, who are always imperfect.

You do not have to substantially change to think some new ideas. You always have to change to love and forgive ordinary people. We love any religion that asks us to change other people. We avoid any religion that keeps telling us to change.

Adapted from How Men Change: A Thin Time

I can't say "YES!" loudly enough. I am generally leery of people who spit out dogmas, no matter who they are. The louder your battle cry, the more obvious you will have to be to convince me you ARE your words. Better be prepared to do so. I will feel your hypocrisy before I actually put two and two together.

The most living-their-love people I have known were also the least likely to try to convince me with their words.

Thank you, Richard Rohr, for your brave words. Few are willing to put it on the line like that.

I posted a new dream on my dream page yesterday. You can comment here if you wish...since you can't do it on the dream page itself I see!

The Pebble is SO Heavy Sometimes

Reverence the highest, have patience with the lowest. Let this day's performance of the meanest duty be thy religion. Are the stars too distant, pick up the pebble that lies at thy feet, and from it learn the all.

- Margaret Fuller -

Darn! I just read this and it made me think of yesterday and I don't think I was "patient with the lowest". I didn't "pick up the pebble" that lay at my feet. Or maybe just now, I have.

Rarely...very rarely...do I "take myself on a date", take a day off from the rigors of setting my own schedule to get a host of things done, just blow off the task master in my head. But Monday I decided to take myself to the movies. I even decided to spring for a first-run movie at a nice theater for a change instead of the $3 supersaver where there's only one seat per theater that actually works like a chair instead of a sliding board to the floor.

I never saw the movie. The theater was experiencing a rare power outage that day. Weird.

I shook off my disbelief, redesigned my day to include the host of obligatory things I "should" have done in the first place and decided to try a day off...or a MAE day, as Stan calls it...on Wednesday.

The theater was up and running yesterday and I got there early enough to be the second to pick a seat...the "best" seat in the house, in my opinion. I settled in, reading a book I brought to pass the time. By the time the previews started, the place was pretty full. Fifteen minutes later, when the movie was several minutes in progress, two women with a tray full of food parked just behind me. Whispering continuously and unwrapping their burgers and whatnot, crinkling as they merrily enjoyed their movie time, I couldn't hear the movie well. More significantly, I was distracted by the disturbance behind me, and even more importantly, I was extremely aware that this was bothering me intensely. I was irate that these people would have the nerve to whisper and crinkle in my space. I paid for this movie, too, not only with money but with my second day of time out. I deserved a quiet, peaceful experience, did I not? Who were they to command my space like that?

Simultaneously, I felt I had a right to turn around and glare at them, (something I would not let myself do, by the way) and yet I also was very aware that this was really a minor infraction in the grand scope of life and I wondered why I couldn't get beyond it.

Why couldn't I have "patience with the lowest"? (The "lowest" being NOT the two women, but my situation and my response to it.) Why couldn't I have embraced these ladies' obvious joy at being together at the movies eating a lap full of comfort food? Why was my own experience so important as to demand my own perfect viewing? Why was there not room for us both? Why couldn't I politely turn around and ask for more quiet? Why didn't I just get up and move? Why do I respond as I do in any given moment?

I do not ask you these questions. I ask myself.

A whole lifetime of lived experience brings me to my decisive actions. I am left to contemplate my response to the world. I am left to wonder how best to "pick up the pebble...and...learn the all".

The real irony is that I was watching the movie "The King's Speech". Guess you'd have to see it to understand why this is ironic to me.

Coincidence?

Other places at other times I have written about coincidence not really being coincidence. It isn't a new thought to me. But I was reminded how deeply I think coincidence just isn't. First, I was rewriting a chapter in one of the memoirs I have written and I was reminded about a time nearly eight years ago when my youngest graduated from high school. I was living in Maine at the time and flew to Ohio with my mother and Evan's sister to celebrate.

Was it a coincidence that the dog Evan grew up with chose to die that same weekend, a visceral show of solidarity with him? He was transitioning. She could, too.

Was it a coincidence that at our connecting city on our way back to Maine, we "happened" to see my brother and his family as they raced in an electric tram to get to their gate on time? We didn't know they were connecting through that same city. We didn't know that their first flight was two hours delayed and they should have been long gone. We had five precious minutes to see them before they left for Oslo, Norway. We wouldn't see them again for a year.

Thinking about my dog dying made me think of Stan's dog who "chose" to die just as I moved in after we were married. Again, is it a coincidence that this dog, too, seemed to know that his job was done?

I guess what really got me thinking about this issue, though, was when I saw a recent Oprah Winfrey show in which she revealed that she has a half sister she hadn't known about. The "coincidences" that had to occur in order for these two to finally meet after 47 years were beyond amazing.

I was left thinking that when we are meant to receive something, a blessing, a lesson, a healing, even a gift in the form of the death of a loved one whose time to go is so timely, it just can't NOT happen to/for us. What does happen I believe, is that we miss the coincidence, or we downplay it, or we deny it altogether.

Me? I just don't believe in coincidences. As a result, I expect them. I see them all the time.

My Lifestyle

Sometimes things will happen in the course of a day that help me see myself more clearly than usual. Today's offerings made me realize that my current lifestyle is really not "normal". I lived a "typical" American day once upon a time, putting in many long hours. For years I couldn't imagine life without a break from being with people. First, after growing up in a household of 6 or 7 depending on who was there, I raised three kids and even homeschooled them for 7 years. On the very, very rare occasion that I was away from the kids, I was always with someone else and besides, I never had enough time away to not feel the footprint the kids left on me. I remember wondering if I would ever get enough sleep again.

And then I went back to work and put in twice as many hours as I was paid for mostly because I loved being a youth and young adult director that much. But again, I was rarely alone and indeed when all of this came to an end and I moved out of state, I began to live a lifestyle totally foreign to me. I have been living this way now for 8-1/2 years and what was once foreign is now so familiar I had to be jogged into realizing today that I live a life that most might find enviable, at least at first, but then perhaps depressing or even frightening. Most days I spend in relative silence. And I spend it alone.

That is not to say I am idle. I read, pray, meditate, write, draw, and journal almost every day all day. Occasionally I am gifted sitting with a spiritual directee, privileged to hear how another's lifestory is unfolding. It is much like being on retreat all the time. As on retreat I have learned to discipline my day to contain the structures of eating and doing basic household necessities. I rarely watch TV or listen to music, preferring the quiet. For awhile, in the beginning, I was tempted to consider this lifestyle frivolous and worth next to nothing. But more recently, I realize that there is great growth in a disciplined life of contemplation which is essentially what I am doing as I read books from authors like Rohr, Tolle, Myss, and Nouwen. I contemplate life as I reflect in writing such as what I am doing now or when I am creating artwork for a children's book or when I meditate to listen for the voice of God, Reason, All That IS and the Wisdom that comes because I am profoundly loved.
I am blessed to be able to do this. I am grateful beyond measure. I may not always be able to enjoy this lifestyle. Indeed, I feel the winds of change. For now, it is good.

Dreams

Frequently I have very vivid dreams that come as my teachers. These are the dreams that remain with me after I wake. Sometimes these dreams are very cinema-like, sometimes very symbolic. Sometimes they are very happy dreams, sometimes frightening, sometimes just intense. All seem to want my attention. All, I believe, even the difficult ones, come to me for my own health and wholeness.

From time to time I will post my dreams. They will be described in present tense and for the most part will be told exactly as I remember dreaming them. If I need on occasion to add a note it will be put in parentheses to distinquish it as not a part of the actual dream. I will expound perhaps or perhaps not after telling the dream. But I will post each one separately.

I welcome comments, suggestions, thoughts, images, etc. I only ask that you please begin your comment with "If it were my dream...." I believe that only the dreamer can know, when all comments are in, which ideas ring true.

Both-And

I'm made aware suddenly how long it's been since I have posted at this site. My younger son has posted a link for it on his blog site! Guess it's time to catch up.

A year is a long time and not a long time. Both-And. Isn't everything a both-and, really? Is anything really ALL bad? Is there anything that doesn't come with a silver lining in one case or a downside in the other? I am embracing the fact that it seems like yesterday that I last posted and yet all that has happened can't happen in a "yesterday". Both seem equally real to me.

It took a year for Evan's CD to mature to it's launch date on 1-11-11. It took a year for Melissa's relationship with Rob to bloom to engagement. It took a year to complete preparations for two family weddings, now behind us. It took the better part of a year for little Silas to finish cooking in his mamma's tummy and join us in the living-breathing world. It took a year for little Peyton to learn to walk, then run, then start potty-training and for Isaac and Noah to both be old enough to ride the bus to school. These things are easy to track and measure.

Somethings are less visible to me. A year of highs and lows, successes and less-than-successes bring me a year's worth of growth that I can't measure very well. But I am a better listener this year than last (I hope), I am a little more patient with myself and others, a bit better at taking responsibility only for what is mine. I am better at bringing myself into balance. I am better at seeing the yin-yang, the two sides of one coin, the blessings within the heartache...the both-and of all of life. Nothing is ever pure except maybe Love itself. And of that, I'm not sure I would know pure Love if it knocked me down! What is pure is the ability to embrace all of life at all times which means that in doing so, I am embracing All That Is, or, in my personal definition, God.

Maybe I need to rename God "Both-And".