Softening Peace

We’re getting deeper and deeper into Autumn. Even though the temps are lolling around in September ranges, Mother Earth keeps changing and preparing for winter. The hours of daylight are lessening. Pretty soon, there’s going to be that unnatural jolt into darkness… wow, maybe the government won’t change to standard time if they’re out lolling about.

But change or not, there are still more hours of darkness… and a lot more slow dawn and twilight. And that’s the beauty of Fall.

I know. I’ve been whining a lot because I’m caught in that place in between. Everything requires two or three steps to be done before it. It’s very hard for me. I’m a charge ahead kinda woman and this is a slog through it time… outside and in… and by in let’s include both my heart and my house.

My house will be lovely. It’s unlovely now. My heart will be patched over. It’s still got draining wounds.

But this process of healing is not to be wished away. This is time too. This is what it takes to merge the stuff of generations. This is what it takes for a heart to hold love. That I can’t do what i’ve always done, think the way I’ve always thought, laugh the way I so often do, is what’s true. And in that truth is a wretched beauty.

This is the cost of having a sweet sister. This is the price of having familial history. You pay the price that the silver might shine and the wood might gleam and the glassware sparkle. All that shining, gleaming and sparkling is your past. hmmm… maybe there’s a poem in this, I should stop!

But living here, now, being present, is the only way to get to ‘way over yonder…. whether that’s ‘way, ‘way, ‘way over yonder or simply tomorrow. It’s also the only way of making memories to make our futures sweet. Peace is where we are, or it isn’t anywhere.

Catch and Release Peace

I didn’t set out to become a Midwife for Death. I can tell you that I ignored the signs a long time. And yet, it was work I did from my 20s. For some reason, I knew to be present, and wasn’t really frightened.

And there really isn’t a MfD 101 course anywhere. And guidance came in only the most sporadic ways. Someone offered a guided meditation, and talked about her early fears that she was jinx to her patients, only to understand later that her nursing supervisors sent her to work with those who were slipping away.

When I did take a course in Clinical Pastoral Education, I realized that oddly most of the clients I “caught” in the ER were dying and I sat with their families if they weren’t allowed to be there and talked with them afterwards. They trained me with their questions and their need to be heard.

And then there was AIDS and beautiful men dying gaunt and alone. Beautiful men learning how to care for one another. Oh, I learned a lot there.

What I learned is that it is as precious a moment to be there at the going out as it is at the coming in. That the labor to leave life is as extreme as the labor to come into it. That the ceremonies of “goodbye” can be as joyous and freeing as the ceremonies of “hello” or “I do.” That the invitation to be present to those passages is a privilege and not a weight. Your acceptance is an entering into prayer. This is hard work, but an unbelievable blessing.

The weight comes when there is so much death, one after another. Particularly now when I’m grieving my own loss. And yet, still the privilege of stepping up when people must be held. And perhaps there is healing in the notion that we all lose those we love. It is the payment on these astonishing lives we lead.

There is so much more I need to know. Perhaps there is a lot more for me to write since it seems so few are encouraged into walking this boundary with their loved ones, despite the fact that every loved one will cross sooner or later. More to learn about helping those who cross. More to learn about helping those who remain. I can read a lot and yet “book larnin'” isn’t necessarily the best teacher…

This is a deeply personal reflection for me, this struggle to catch the souls who are grieving and to release those who are leaving… I’m certain that many of you have parts of your life and your talents that you’re exploring… things about yourself you didn’t suspect… I wish us all Peace as we learn our trades.

Home, Peace, Sabbath

I heard Richard Blanco, the inaugural poet, read last Thursday. It was so uplifting and grounding at the same time. He was asking questions about home and where it is and where it isn’t. His words were so poignant as he examined the way we think that life should be one way and forget to enjoy the way life really is.

So today, on this Sabbath I invite you to be at home. Spend a bit of time exploring your roots and feeling their grasp on the ground beneath you. Let them sink deeper. Appreciate your foundation.

And let your branches spread wide, touching, shading, exploring.

And let the Winds run their fingers through your leaves.

This is home… make it a little bit better. and then enjoy it.

Rest easy where you are. Enjoy the Peace of Home. Enjoy the Peace of a Sabbath at rest.

More Lion Peace

Writing a blog is such a fascinating process. When you sit down, you believe you know what direction you’re headed. Usually that’s true. Revelations that come are often small and pithy. But once in a while, they’re grand and sweeping.

Yesterday’s post was such a one. I really thought the lion was a curiosity. Something to explore because it had been dear to my dad and yet commemorated a massacre of Swiss guards at the Tuilleries during the French Revolution. If I think about why Dad may have had that, it takes a while. Aunt Jennie, my Gram’s aunt, used to take women on ‘Grand Tours’ around Europe. It must have been she who visited the Lion Monument in Lucerne and brought back this memento. So it’s entirely possible that it wasn’t Daddy who cherished it, or at least cherished it first, but rather Aunt Jenny, who had magical status in her niece’s eyes and then it was bequeathed to Helen. And then Sammy. And now me.

But when I looked up the inscription about loyalty and bravery and began to write about that, it was Deb’s courage and faithfulness that came to mind. She fretted after mom died that I would be ok. Was glad that Steve had come into my life, certainly for my sake, but also for hers. I think she knew she’d die before me, and felt better knowing I’d have love.

And there’s so much Love. I never worry about not being Loved. There is Love, more Love, everywhere you look. But of course when one love disappears, the heart breaks. And while the dead are always with us, where and how are questions that need to be sorted out over time. time when we want everything to happen right now, darnit.

If the Lion has taught his lesson, then what do I do with it? I’m the fourth generation lion holder. Is there another generation who wants it? What home does stuff seek when it has served? Who will have to clean this out when I’m dead? Too much stuff. All of it precious. Go figure. but luckily I’ll wait a while. I have loving to do on my husband! And we all need to be cherishing our partners. I heard from a college buddy, one I’d lived with when I went to seminary, one whose wedding ceremony I’d performed. Her husband died suddenly.

This is what happens in life. Stay present. Listen to the Lions. Make a lot of memories. and Love outrageously. This is all part of the bumpy road to Peace.

Leonine Peace

Maybe I missed the point in this poem (she says now), maybe the point is that life and the living of it require incredible loyalty and bravery.

Maybe Leo popped out of my box, now as I begin to think about how to honor Deb, to talk about how brave she was in continuing to live when so much was lost to her. In continuing to fight the cancer against impossible odds.

I do know that, with my heart set always on Peace, I can overlook the importance of warriors and even Peace Keepers/Defenders. That was where I headed with this poem. Perhaps tomorrow, I’ll have to head another way.

Thanks, Leo. You brought a lot to my life when you sprang out of your box to lie atop your pedestal in my china cabinet. I’ll keep trying to discern what, exactly, I might learn from you.

Trying to Solidify Peace

As I was writing yesterday, this is what occurred to me… maybe the handling of stuff, precious, inherited stuff is an occupation in which we engage in order to begin to knit together the frayed edges of our souls. This is what it feels like, for me at least… as if our souls are open at the edges where our beloved departed?

and yet, box by box, pack things down and then open them out again, choose what stays and then choose where the rest will go and the held back will be displayed, perhaps this is how we come to terms with the leaving… only as we settle in. only as handle each of the pieces our beloveds have handled.

I’m touching a lot of my past in this move… my sister was the keeper of much of the family heirlooms. And I also unpacked a box that had been tucked away for 7 years that I’d brought home from my father’s place when he died. So much history. Pretty soon, the table my brother made in 9th grade shop will have some of the same mementos that it held when it graced my parent’s living room, oh a decade ago…

and in the touching, there is remembering. and in the remembering there is a re-membering a pulling back together of life, different but still containing them… replacing, oh-so-slowly, the great gaping emptiness.

And although this is a lot of noble philosophy, I’m still overwhelmed by the amount of stuff that must be done. balance. Let’s keep looking for balance. In the meantime, I’ll keep working at staying present, making the memories stick, and giving thanks that I was as lucky as I was. And I’ll keep unpacking, shall I?

Wisps of Peace

Driving across the bridge yesterday, I was ambushed by the beauty. Sweet wisps of fog dancing on the river’s surface as the sun rose.

One of the challenges of mourning is making space for beauty. To some extent you live in a fog. One foot in front of the other, doing what needs to be done. Staring into space, occasionally curling into a ball.

I have gotten by with a great deal of help from my friends. One of the odd things about grief is that you’re very muzzy-headed, so to have to make loads of decisions is hard. But the ending of a life brings nothing but decisions. and stuff. it brings lots of stuff. and I am so easily overwhelmed by stuff and details in the best of times. so you can imagine how it is now.

There have been angels. People who swoop into my life and in an hour or two, make it different. People who offer. People who write or call. people who prop you up. People who surround you because your boundaries are about as fuzzy as your brain. I’ve recently taken to describing this brain as acid etched. Whole pieces are missing.

I’ve partnered with grief enough to know that your brain eventually rebuilds, the holes reconnect — but in the meantime. sheesh. It’s the silly things, you know. A book in the series of a favorite author came out and I fell on it joyfully. Distraction. But I found myself really annoyed that she was referring to a period in this character’s life as if I should know it. Why would I know this? I was almost finished with the book when I realized, oh, I should know this because the last book was about this. But I’d completely forgotten. When I finally fished the book out of my shelves, I remembered, but it was gone.

If grief had not been a frequent companion in my past, I might have panicked. As it was, I thought, “Ann, pay attention, because you’re not working with a full brain. Keep your expectations low… and be safe.”

So to have beauty pierce the fog of mourning is delightful. And what was lovely was that it wasn’t only my fog that beauty was piercing. It was also piercing the fog of the morning, no “u.” And while all the heavy fog had fled, there remained small columns of vapors drifting together across the water. It was exquisite. Last week I drove through the Poconos and the colors were changing. Every once in a while a tree would scream color and beauty and dare me to ignore the bounty. I was about to talk how Autumn is particularly beautiful, but perhaps what I need to say is that each season has a particular beauty that opens us, and helps us remember that this will end.

Wisps of Peace. All I can appreciate; all I can withstand at the moment. But still, Beauty is. Hope is. Peace is. Even in the fog of mourning.

Peace of the Moment

Living in the moment. ack. According to most traditions, being present is what is asked of us. We are to delight in the moment. Pay attention heretics… it’s not all about the next life. Why would we have this life if we weren’t to enjoy it?

There are those glorious moments when it’s easy. Look. Life is grand!

But most of life is? Not that.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about ‘way over yonder recently. Not so much the ‘way over yonder of death, but the ‘way over yonder of “if I can only finish this, life will exist on the other side.”

Hello! Lying to myself. Life is in the mess. In the packed dishes, mine and my sister’s mingling, in the paper on the floor, in the box spring that doesn’t go up the stairs.

It’s not about snapping and whining that life is too hard. It’s about opening and going through. Because, in fact, I have a box spring that doesn’t go up the stairs in my cozy little home. I have stuff. I had the most remarkable sister. I had a great family whose mementos surround me. I have great family who love and laugh and bicker. I have friends who pack my stuff, who move my stuff, who hold my hand, listen to me moan, weep with me. Life is right here.

If I fail to be grateful, I miss the point. I miss the Peace. … dammit. Once again, here we are, lookin’ for love in all the wrong places. It’s not about sitting on the mountain top, it’s about living in the muck. In the summer, I need to remember I love the feel of mud squishing between my toes. In the winter? I’ve got great boots. forward ho!

Present and accounted for. Until, of course, it gets hard. And then I can learn this lesson again.

The Peace Sabbath of In-Between

In between is where the magic and the mystery happens. I believe that. Things happen on the way to somewhere else. But no one ever tells you how long it takes to get through. If they did, would we believe them? If we believed them, would we go?

I’m a woman of chaos. Lots boiling around in my brain. Lots of people and events and stuff boiling around in my life. Because of that, I keep things pared down. I can eat the same foods. Sit in the same chair. I can even read the same book, over and over and over again. Small delightful snippets to remind me. Small delightful snippets to distract me. Very little noise it distracts me. (She married a drummer????????? ah, right they live separately.)

But closing down Deb’s house, deciding what will be kept and what will go away. Making space at my house. Deciding what will be kept and what will go away. Bringing what will be kept to my place. Trying to clean it up, figure it out, fit it all in. Trying to make life simple.

Trying to do this with half a brain… people with broken hearts don’t have lots of consistent brain power to rely on. (although, rejoice, i read part of a real book! a NEW book, no small delightful snippet. something I had to chew on.)

So, even though Sundays are work days for me, my work is the work of presence. and that’s the work of the sabbath… That’s why i stayed up last night moving things about so that I could spend time today just being present to poetry, to song, to community, to people’s adventures, to friends and family, to the empty spaces. Sabbath. even in the wilderness. Hoping that the wandering helps me find my way home to Peace and a peace-filled, memory-rich home. Other people wait for me to make my way back home, but memories are what I have of my sister… so I must celebrate them.

Expectant Peace

Do I expect too much of you? I’ve been told that that’s in my bag o’ tricks. But is it too much when I know how wonderful you are? I still don’t know the answer to that question. It’s hard expecting nothing… and I’ve always felt we live into others’ expectations of us…

Do I expect too much of myself. Hmmm. I’d probably have to give a fairly equivocal answer here. Sometimes I think my expectations are ‘way high… right now. I’m not sure that I can keep moving along on the time frame I’ve set myself… gotta get it done, gotta get it done… I’m always sure the expectations are external… and yet, and yet… i want things to be wonderful… and so you work and work and work…

Other times, I duck out…

But life is short. and sometimes it feels that the need is desperate. How can I not look to you. Why don’t we grab hands and go along this Peace Path? Why would we live any other ways… because we want, I believe this, we want the same things from life… and we deserve them… and only we can give them to one another. So yes. i guess i do wait for great things from you. I hope you’ll wait for them from me as well. Peace, my dears.

Sacred Village

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