Morning Song

I love this poem.   Yes, trouble is always messing about, looking for a place to take up residence.   I will also say that the photograph makes me smile.  I see it and hear Elton John's "Tiny Dancer."  My apology if that song gets stuck in your head.  Sing something else really loudly; that should do the trick.  Maybe even dance around the living room and be the envy of the neighborhood.   

Air out your glorious soul today.  We need the light.     

    

Any Morning

 

Just lying on the couch and being happy.
Only humming a little, the quiet sound in the head.
Trouble is busy elsewhere at the moment, it has
so much to do in the world.

 

People who might judge are mostly asleep; they can't
monitor you all the time, and sometimes they forget.
When dawn flows over the hedge you can
get up and act busy.

 

Little corners like this, pieces of Heaven
left lying around, can be picked up and saved.
People wont even see that you have them,
they are so light and easy to hide.

 

Later in the day you can act like the others.
You can shake your head. You can frown.

 

~ William Stafford ~

 

 

(The Way It Is) 

Panhala    

     

Pre-Lenten Pondering

Earlier this week, I received the following quote from Plough.  The hyacinths, with their glorious scent, remind me that being planted in dirt is just the thing spring and all of us need.  

"Nowadays, unfortunately, many things are done with the idea that the more spiritual and otherworldly we are, the better. But it is just the other way around. The more we learn to seek truth and to act on it as far as possible in the situation in which God has placed us, even if that be in the dirt, the better it is. For the Savior does not want to come as an idea but as a reality, wherever people live and struggle." 

    

Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt

   

The Starting Point

Because we come from love, we cannot serve without loving.  We must love those we serve.  That is what God does, what God teaches, what God is.  

   

Practice Love.    

"The Divine One says, 

'I am. 

I am the One: 

I am the One who is highest, 

I am the One you love. 

I am all that you enjoy, 

I am what you serve, 

I am that which you long for most, 

I am all that you desire, 

I am who lives in your thoughts, 

I am everything."  

    

Hazelnuts from Julian of Norwich Meditations on Divine Love   

Ellyn Sanna      

  

photograph:  San Leandro, CA February 2019

Strength in One

Margie has lived in a memory care community for several years. In the past she has always been a lively participant in worship, often concluding the Lord's Prayer with a hearty "Yea, Babe!"  However, in the past few months she has been more reserved, and she is a little thinner. Yet, her bright blue eyes still shine and her new turquoise turtleneck showed them off beautifully this morning.  I have never met any of her family, but I am fairly certain she has some. New turtlenecks and spiffy tennis shoes show up with some regularity. It also seems she has a boyfriend.  In the past couple of worship services, she has been sitting next to him, either holding his hand or patting his knee and sometimes whispering to him.  Like most of us, she looks happier when sitting next to someone she cares about.  

Yet, I have have never seen this man awake.   After I served Communion to Margie this morning, she pointed to her boyfriend and said, "What about him? Can he take Communion?"  I replied that I did not think he was really interested.  She looked at me with concern and then asked, "Should I keep him?"  I smiled and answered that yes, she certainly should.  She smiled again and patted his knee.  As usual, he did not respond.   

 

Don's wife was watching us.  She, too, knows what it is to care for someone who is seldom awake.  His advanced Alzheimer's is taking a toll on her, and while she does join us for Communion, her sorrow is seldom lifted for long.      

  

On my way to the community, I began listening to the first of three CD's entiled, "Mary: A Jungian Contemplation" compiled by Brother Don Bisson.  In this first CD he tells of some Black Madonnas that were created during the time of the Black Death. He saw these on a trip to Europe, and reports that these Madonas are rustic, and quite robust with strong hands and arms. In those arms are emaciated bodies of Christ, giving the viewer the sense that no matter what the suffering Christ must go through, there is  refuge.  I walked into the community thinking about how I often witness this stubborn love - the holding, day by day, of those who are ill and spent. These lonely vigils require fortitude. Without such strength, Mary could not have made her own journey to the cross.    

     

Now there is only one recourse: to have someone nearby who will sit with us and share our sorrow. Mary, Our Lady of Sorrows, is not a sullen or despairing figure. She is the One who helps us move beyond loss to acceptance, from failure to resignation, from deep pain to a new consciousness that doing right is always better than doing well.    

 Sister Joan Chittister, OSB     

    

Under One Small Star

This poem came to me yesterday via Panhala.  I sense it as one long bow, and came to me at a perfect moment when I was feeling that words were becoming more and more elusive.  A beautiful reminder that, no matter what, each of us is  called to live our own life.  Im the grand scheme, that seems insignificant.  Yet, also so encompassing. 

Szymborska  (1923–2012) lived her whole life in Krakow.  No doubt she saw, and felt much, both large and small.   

Under One Small Star

My apologies to chance for calling it necessity.
My apologies to necessity if I'm mistaken, after all.
Please, don't be angry, happiness, that I take you as my due.
May my head be patient with the way my memories fade.
My apologies to time for all the world I overlook each second.
My apologies to past loves for thinking that the latest is the first.
Forgive me, distant wars, for bringing flowers home.
Forgive me, open wounds, for pricking my finger.
I apologize for my record of minuets to those who cry from the depths.
I apologize to those who wait in railway stations for being asleep today at five a.m.
Pardon me, hounded hope, for laughing from time to time.
Pardon me, deserts, that I don't rush to you bearing a spoonful of water.
And you, falcon, unchanging year after year, always in the same cage,
your gaze always fixed on the same point in space,
forgive me, even if it turns out you were stuffed.
My apologies to the felled tree for the table's four legs.
My apologies to great questions for small answers.
Truth, please don't pay me much attention.
Dignity, please be magnanimous.

Bear with me, O mystery of existence, as I pluck the occasional thread from your train.
Soul, don't take offense that I've only got you now and then.
My apologies to everything that I can't be everywhere at once.
My apologies to everyone that I can't be each woman and each man.
I know I won't be justified as long as I live,
since I myself stand in my own way.
Don't bear me ill will, speech, that I borrow weighty words,
then labor heavily so that they may seem light.


~ Wislawa Szymborska ~
 

(Poems New and Collected)  

         

photograph:  San Leandro, Feb. 4, 2019.  I walked around the corner, and there it was. Oh, goodness, the scent.