A LOVE AFFAIR WITH THE EARTH

Cherish sunsets, wild creatures, and wild places.

Have a love affair with the wonder and beauty of the earth.

Steward Udall (1920-2010)

We were at the beach and the sky was clear, the water bright shades of aqua, darker at the shore, lighter toward the horizon.  Sunny and 70°.  The prior day was ravenous thunder, lightning and pounding rain, steel gray water with no visible horizon.  We stayed indoors to read and watch college sports.  

Then I saw this quotation and remembered the name Stewart Udall, Secretary of the Interior under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson.  He was a Morman, a lawyer, congressman, professor, and writer of poetic bent.  His papers are held at the University of Arizona, his home state.  Udall is known as Advocate for the Planet Earth. Who wouldn't be proud to be so named? 

I love the idea of a love affair with the earth. A love affair with the force that sustains us, provides for our needs, sooths us, is a source of beauty and awe.  So, I decided to learn more about Secretary Udall. 

He says that each generation has its own rendezvous with the land, that despite our fee titles (yes, we learned about fee simple ownership in 1st year Property class), we are all only brief tenants on this planet.  That makes sense.  The trees in my wood are far older than I and God-willing will outlast my living descendants.  The rocks even older. 

At home, I have my favorite trees and boulders.  Years ago, Udall said that our choice is not between growth and stagnation, but between short-term growth and long-term disaster.  Mining, clear-cutting, trading long-grassed meadows and forests for concrete and asphalt, or even a well-maintained lawn, is a search and destroy mission.  

Right now, my meadow grasses are long and shaggy.  Just days ago, the geese were strutting about after a rain. 

Now wild daisies and purple bugle weeds bloom in proliferation. And a scattering of buttercups. A neighbor mows in May and has never had a daisy.  How many turtles and lady bugs are lost in mowing?  How many pollinators and butterflies?  Whose habitats are destroyed? 

I do think that neighborhoods with no deer and azaleas in bloom, neat pine straw beds beneath the trees and all carefully tended are beautiful.  They bring joy too.  Order is its own pleasure. If no Roundup is used, rabbits make homes beneath many a pruned hedge.  At our house I think the hawks get the rabbits, we have so few. 

Deer eat our wild blueberries too, before we get a one, and the native black raspberries go to feed the coyotes and racoons as well as the birds. A beautiful red fox has been hanging around this winter and spring.  As much as a sighting thrills me, I'm not totally at ease with its presence. 

But for our love affair with the earth, rewilding is still the most wonderful trend.  Making a place for birds and worms and butterflies.  Waiting to see what weedy thing in spring is actually a delicate wildflower.  Becoming an advocate for our little patch of the planet earth. 

THE EVERYDAY TO-DO LIST

Fort Macon, Bogue Shores, NC

• Feel gratitude for your blessings.  Today when I woke up my worsening back felt stable.  I feel immense gratitude for every day that I can focus on all the wonders ahead and not my boring back. 
• Do something that makes you happy.  I met with knitting friends this morning.  Being with friends always makes us happy.  What would you like your happy thing to be tomorrow? 
• Live one day at a time.  Of course.  "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."  Matthew 6:34. But more.  When we live in the present our days are longer.  I want that. I don't want to miss a minute of my day, do you?  I tend to ruminate sometimes.  Things that I have already survived or am surviving daily come back to steal my energy.  Noticing blessings helps with this.  Praying helps.  
• Try to be content.  Content, at peace, those calm emotions.  Awe is wonderful.  Exuberance is a delight.  But mostly content; I'll take that.  
• Stay close to God.  And the peace of God which passes all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in the love of God.
• Do all things with love.  How else would we ever want to do something?  Carelessly? Angrily? No, with love. 
• Take good care of yourself and those whose care is entrusted to you.  This includes spouses and partners, not just children. Someone who loves us deserves our attention and to feel safe in our care.
• Think of positive words to describe yourself.  Right off the bat I thought of friendly, intelligent, thoughtful, empathetic, attentive, loving, eager and creative.  What about you?  I bet a list comes quickly.  Believe it.  Accept the good about yourself.  Nothing can be achieved by someone who is down on themselves. 

THE WONDER OF APRIL

 

Did you know that April is national poetry month?  It's a good choice. 

Chaucer (c 1340-1400) begins The Canterbury Tales in April.  "Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote / The droght of March hath perced to the roote . . . " Many of us read those lines in high school.  I taught my seniors how to pronounce the Middle English vowels.  "When April with his showers sweet with fruit / The drought of March has pierced unto the root / And bathed each vein with liquor that has power / To generate therein and sire the flower . . . ,"  is when Christians make a pilgrimage to Canterbury, where Saint Thomas Beckett (1119-1170) was martyred for his faith.  That's Chaucer's story.

T. S. Eliot (1888-1965), on the other hand, subverts Chaucer.  He writes in The Wasteland, "April is the cruelest month, breeding / lilacs out of the dead land, mixing / memory and desire, stirring / dull roots with spring rain."  Chaucer sees only the beauty of April. Writing after World War I, Eliot reveals the cruelty of the hope for springtime renewal in a world shattered by war.  

We can identify with that.  We see Gaza in rubble and Ukraine under siege.  And more. Daily, drones and bombs destroy all that lives.  Home is under strife as well.  There are places the spring rain won't touch.  Winter is not so cruel, Eliot writes.  "Winter kept us warm, covering / Earth in forgetful snow. . . " Snow obscures detritus.  It is easier to forget than to remember sometimes.  Easier to ignore than to notice.  

And yet, this April we have our own back yards, roadsides and parks fragrant with lavender wisteria and wildflowers blooming from the very cracks in the brick.  Or maybe you live where the prickly pear flower.  Or you may be feeling like Count Basie's 1956 jazz version of "April in Paris" with chestnuts in blossom.  

Ada Limón (b.1976) is our nation's poet laureate.  For poetry month she has tackled an ambitious project, reading poetry in National Parks.  Here are lines from one of her prose poems: 

The way I remember the name forsythia is that when my stepmother, Cynthia, was dying, that last week, she said lucidly, but mysteriously, MORE YELLOW.  And I thought yes, more yellow and nodded because I agreed.  Of course, more yellow.  And so now in my head, when I see that yellow tangle, I say 'For Cynthia, for Cynthia, forsythia, forsythia, more yellow.'  It is night now.  And the owl never comes, only more of night and what repeats in the night.  ©2022, Ada Limón

Such a conversational poem.  "More yellow," sounds like just the thing to say when dying.  "Of course, more yellow," the poet repeats.  Living or dying, who wouldn't want more yellow?  As my mother rested in a dark room, she suddenly said with great feeling, "All the lights are on."  "Where are you mom?" I wondered aloud.  "In heaven," she replied, not missing a beat.  The perfect setting for the sweeping branches of sunny spring forsythia.  "Light! More light!" was the last entreaty of the poet Goethe (1749-1832) as he lay on his deathbed.  Yes, yes, more yellow.  

We could study poetry all April.  Then May, then June. Matching our breathing to the rhythm of the lines.  Making connections.  Being enthralled at no cost at all but for time.  Covering ourselves with words that, like a blanket of snow, blot out the ugliness of aggression and starvation. killing and over-killing, narcissism and vulgarity, felony counts and delays.  

The wonder of April.  The wonder of poetry.  The wonder of color and light and renewal and the Resurrection of the body which happened just a few Sundays ago.  The wonder of words and the Word made flesh.  The wonder of night and what repeats in the night.  Oh, the wonder . . . 

With love, Nina Naomi

CLOSURE--WHAT IS IT?

Psalm 34:18
The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.

The simplest meaning of closure seems to be getting over something painful and moving on.  But what exactly does "getting over" mean and what is "moving on?"  Certainly, we've all ruminated over the past, sometimes wondering what happened and why, sometimes trying to figure out how to live with hurt.  Deaths, betrayals, broken hearts, losses of every degree and dimension, grief and sadness are no strangers.  So, yes, closure might be almost an everyday need.  

Some psychologists use closure to mean cognitively understanding why and how an event occurred, processing it, and finding meaning in it.  With a natural death, at a late-enough time in life, that may happen sooner rather than later.  We don't feel cheated, we're not traumatized.  Some people have brought us so much good over the years, that what they gave leaves us with meaning.  Good deaths, you might say.  Sudden or prolonged, we remember them daily and with gratitude.  We accept the absence and have a sense of peace about it. 

For me, with my mother, there was no unfinished business.  "We have no issues," I told her.  For my father, by the time his aged body let go, we also had no issues.  "Why have issues?" I thought.  With my son, young and with cancer, I knew from the moment of his diagnosis that the joy of having had him would outweigh even the devastation of losing him.  His loss was greater than mine--unbearable (except that we all bore it) until that moment when he walked with God, as he does today.  

We might think of closure as change, rather than an end.  A change into our new selves and in some cases a change to something good.  The untimely death of a spouse might, in some cases, lead to a new love just as special in its way.  Not a replacement, but a different person to share the overflowing love we are blessed with.  Divorce the same. 

Some events we'll never understand.  They seem to come from an evil confluence of the stars.  Surely addiction and mental illness qualify.  Abuse qualifies.  Betrayals of any sort are hard to fathom.  Sometimes we forgive without understanding; we reconcile--if there's repentance--without understanding; we continue to love without understanding; we do what's best without understanding; we continue to have wonderful lives without understanding.  Rather than closure, people of faith might call this the grace of God or the peace that passes all understanding. 

But even without a rational explanation for something painful, we can still address our emotions, what the literature calls processing.  Again, psychologists say that closure is a self-compassionate process.  Given how much is beyond our control, it needs to be focused on us.  What do we need to do to make this better?  Accept that it happened.  Accept our feelings about it, feelings of sadness or confusion or anger.  Take self-protective action.  Be brave.  Let some time pass.  And then, with the help of God if you are a believer, give yourself the gift of a self-compassionate conclusion to your suffering.  In that way, what feels at times as the sole defining event of our life to the exclusion of all else, becomes a part of a longer narrative, a life full of love and meaning and care.  

Isaiah 43:2
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.

 

 

 

BELLA GRACE FIELD GUIDE

You can buy these just about everywhere.  Lovely little Bella Grace journals with beautiful pictures and writing prompts.  Just my type thing and maybe yours too.  Here are some of the quotes and prompts, if you're in the mood to respond.  We can think our responses, we don't have to write them.  

Not every day will be perfect, but every day will have a perfect moment.  This was an easy one today.  I napped outdoors in the sun.  Oh yes, a perfect 60 minutes.  My husband brought my tea in this morning as well, the sign of a day starting out just right.  

During dark or rainy days how can we add some brightness?  I'm thinking bad-mood days as well.  Even days when we've been hit by a trigger.  I have a yellow cashmere sweater with short, puffed sleeves that I always feel good in.  Also a turquoise bead necklace bought for me on a vacation.  But you might add brightness by baking or creating something.  Or a prayer of thanksgiving for the rain, or for having survived some bad time of life.  What do you think?

What makes receiving a hand-written letter special for you?  I don't get (or send) these often anymore. Cards, yes, but not letters.  But the ones I've saved are precious--the letter my husband sent my parents when our first child was born far from home in the UK.  Our love letters from pre-email college, full of longing.  Sweet notes from a high school boy friend.  A letter to my father from his mother; one from my other grandma to me; one from my father to my mother when he was stationed at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri.  Are you thinking about what's in your stash?  

Forgive yourself the way God forgives:  late at night and all day long."  This is a quote by writer Sherihan Gamal.  Isn't it the best idea?  Forgive others this way too.  Who do I (we) need to forgive besides myself (ourselves)?  Here are a few more of her quotes that I like: 
        It's hard dealing with a heart that knows what it deserves."   This is a take-care-of-yourself quote.  And third, 

        There's a special place in heaven for the tired ones, those who lived and loved and worked and got hurt a little bit more than others.”   Isn't it nice how so-called inspirational quotes actually are inspirational?  How you can pop onto Pinterest and find positive emotions?  Not the eternal truths, maybe, but after any day's news cycle a simple aspirational statement cleanses the mind, points it in a new direction. Not everything has to be intense.  

What are the things you did when you were younger that made you forget time? "There lies the myth to live by."  So says Joseph Campbell (1904-1987), teacher of comparative mythology.  One of my escapes/teachers/simple pleasures that made me forget time ("time for dinner," "time for bed," "time to leave . . .") was reading.  I read Gone with the Wind the summer before 6th grade, Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead the summer before 8th.  Also playing outdoors, of course makes children forget time.  So, my myth of a good life might be reading and being in nature.  What about you?  

What are your favorite ways to instantly make your day better that cost nothing? Oh, my goodness, there are so many of these.  Mine are simple:  go outside, go to a bookstore, post on this blog or work on my collage journal, write a devotion for church, wash my hair or take a bath, get dressed nicely, talk to or text a grandchild, talk to my daughter-in-law, watch a movie with my husband, tend to my plants, iron some clothes that need it . . . .   And, of course, what if we're at the beach?  This afternoon I went out after a storm and gathered shells.  Free and exhilarating. Then made shrimp and grits for supper.  I'd love to see your list!   

Nina Naomi     

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A LITTLE MARY OLIVER WITH OUR EASTER

 

Common Bluets on a Rocky Hillside

"The Veil"

There are moments when the veil seems 

almost to lift, and we understand what 

the earth is meant to mean to us -- the 

trees in their docility, the hills in

their patience, the flowers and the 

vines in their wild, sweet vitality.  

Then the Word is within us, and the 

Book is put away.

Mary Oliver is a mystic poet, open and attentive to the presence of God in the world.  She calls the earth "God's body."   To wit, "It is not hard to understand / where God's body is. / It is everywhere and everything."  "The Veil" is a poem that helps us find God.  When I am in the woods or Duke Gardens or where the ground is soft with pine needles underfoot or leaf litter, or when I spy those tiny bluets that are waving on their fragile stems amongst the spongy moss right now, I can feel the Word within us.  God becomes accessible in our daily rounds.    

Oliver lives by curiosity and her image of death is breath-taking.  "When death comes / like an iceberg between the shoulder blades, / I want to step through the door full of curiosity . . . ." Using biblical language, in the same poem she writes:

When it's over, I want to say all my life

I was a bride married to amazement.

I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms. 

from "When Death Comes"

"I believe everything has a soul," she says.  Not a human soul, I expect she means, but its own soul.  The soul of something alive and precious to its Creator.  When we love the world, we please God and give God glory.  In the world's beauty we see the beauty of God.  If we all treated the earth as our sacred home, how healing that would be.  If we did that, we couldn't bomb our home into rubble or fail to respond to its needs. 

One more:

"In Blackwater Woods"

To live in this world

you must be able

to do three things:

to love what is mortal;

to hold it 

against your bones knowing 

your own life depends on it;

and, when the time comes to let it go,

to let it go.

Well, no words are truer than these.  We love what is mortal, ourselves and our dear ones, with our minds, hearts and souls.  Nothing is more precious than the body of someone we love.  We stay alive not only for our own sakes, but so as not to cause pain to those for whom we are the gift of life itself.  

But Christ also taught us to let go.  He was able to say, "It is finished" and relinquish himself to God.  Our faith helps us do the same.  Because what we have learned every Easter is that we move from our fragile mortality to our eternal immortality.  In the interim, I am grateful for Mary Oliver and her vision. 

Now, for all of life, let us give thanks.  

                                                                        HAPPY EASTER from Nina Naomi

 

EASTER

I'm so glad it's almost Easter.  The world is Easter-ready.  Today we saw two purple finches courtship-feeding. The male, a rosier shade, delicately passing seed to the female. She, assessing him as a mate for one sitting on the nest and needing a bite now and then.  He was proving his worth, I thought.  He wasn't letting her out of his sight.  He would be a good helpmeet.  

The dwarf red maple is leafed out.  The snap dragons wintered over and are radiant.  Forsythia are just shedding their yellow flowers for vibrant leaves.  Red bud are lining country roads. 

Sundays are marching to Holy Week and ultimately Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter.  I haven't been as attuned to Lent as I wished to be. I didn't go to mid-week Lenten services.  I have been following politics and nursing my getting-worse back. I didn't go to Friday afternoon Stations of the Cross. I worry about Gazans and Ukranians and Israeli refugees held by Hamas.  I worry about our country.  When that's too much, I do Wordle and follow college basketball.  Preoccupations and distractions.  

With all the suffering in the world you would think it would be easy to focus on Christ's suffering and death, but that's not necessarily true.  However, that's what our faith requires of us.  From Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday, we move in step with Christ's triumphant entry into Jerusalem to the Last Supper, the crucifixion and the Resurrection.  

This is what we do.  We will be ready as we are every year.  We will recognize that the suffering Christ understands our own suffering.  We will know that we are not alone.  We will wait at the tomb and see it empty.  We will share an Easter breakfast with our church friends and hide eggs for the children.  We will pray for peace on earth.  We will align our own renewal with the renewal of the earth.  We will face all that threatens our world with the peace that passes all understanding.  That is what we will do. 

In peace let us pray to the Lord.  Lord have mercy.  AMEN