GODSPELL

Ocean, Cliffside, Santa Barbara

 My friends' home in Santa Barbara, California is a wonderful calming place.  I am here alone, which is also strangely calming since I know all is well at home where my husband is.  All is well too with my scattered grandchildren.  Nothing changes life more than a period of calmness, does it?  I hope you are finding some today.  

Yesterday I hiked to a seal rookery, something I had never heard of.  Well as you can guess, or already knew, it's where a bunch of seals have hung out for centuries, this one here in Carpenteria at the bottom of a cliff--giving birth, feeding and lazing in the sun.  Maybe you live by the sea or on top of a mountain or with a back yard you have carefully designed with patio, hammock, chairs in the sun or shade and a gurgling fountain.  I don't.  My home is in the woods and right now while I'm gone there is yellow pollen everywhere.  My husband can't open the windows during this warm Carolina spring or the indoors will be as covered as out.  We leave footprints in the pollen even inside our house.  It's not a blessing.

Being here is different. 

Remember that super hit of the 70's, "Day by Day" from Godspell?   It reached #13 on the pop charts.  That song is what I've been thinking about out here in California.

Day by day,

Day by day,

Oh dear Lord, three things I pray.

To see Thee more clearly,

Love Thee more dearly, 

Follow Thee more nearly,

Day by day.  

If you are the age to have gone to an original performance in the 70's, as I am, you remember that at intermission the audience was welcomed on-stage to share bread and wine with the performers.  The musical ends with a reprise of "Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord." 

I wish there would be a revival of this musical.  It's more joyous than what we usually think of with Lent.  Or even Palm Sunday with its foreshadowing.  But it fits Easter.  In a place between the Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean, it does seem easier to see Thee more clearly.  Can you imagine living in Washington DC right now?  Even North Carolina can be hard.  But here in sunny California with lemon trees in every yard, seal sanctuaries and paper straws to lessen pollution from plastics, calm seems easier to achieve.  

Of course I am on vacation. Teachers and nurses and firefighters are bound to be stressed, I hope not beyond coping.  But I hope they too see Thee more clearly, day by day.  I am very grateful to my friends for this opportunity.  AMEN

TODAY'S RENOURISHMENT

Sometimes we just look for something beautiful to set us off right for the day. I don't have babies anymore, not for a long time, but it used to be their powdery smell and soft heads, as they tumbled into my bed that began a good day.  We lived in the country and would hear the cows, as raucous as geese, morning and evening.  

Now the days begin differently.  This month I'm staying in Santa Barbara, CA at our friends' home, where beauty abounds.  My how lucky they are to live here.  From their window I can see the Santa Ynez Mountains and the city below.  There are no mountains in the North Carolina Piedmont where we live; no Pacific Ocean either.  And yet daily we all find something beautiful to begin our day, don't we?  The dogwoods are blooming in the Piedmont. The other day, when still at home, I saw a brown fox out the breakfast room window, beautiful full tail and casual stride. I don't expect to see a fox here on my friends' patio, that would not be welcome. But anyone would love their view.  

Santa Inez Mountains 

 

I also found some writing prompts in Bella Grace magazine, that UK magazine I enjoy.  Its motto is "Life's a Beautiful Journey."  Writing is another good way to replenish ourselves.  

Especially now, we need ways to renourish.  Some of us are on empty, or near it.  It might be because of something personal, but it might also be because we are struggling with the direction of our country. We have a president who hates immigrants, trans children, educators, Federal workers, Ukrainians, Palestinians, Greenlanders, NATO, our allies, judges, the press, researchers, science . . . what else?  It's intentionally disorienting.  

But while we need to resist, we also need to take time away.   We cannot live 24l7 in fear for our democracy.  (Well, actually I do, but life needs to continue.)  

That's why we need to find or do something that nourishes us.  This post is part of my renourishment today. It is a reminder that all the things we love and enjoy and appreciate are still available to us, even in this political maelstrom.    

The first prompt I found in Bella Grace is "Write A Love Letter to Yourself,"  pay yourself the compliments you deserve.  I wrote mine in February 2023, before all this.  Mine is brief but your's may be more fulsome.  Why not try it?  Here's mine. 

"Dear Nina Naomi,  It's OK to be old and a little bit tired and not do too much.  It's OK to have bursts of energy and long quiet times.  It's Ok to sit and read or watch TV.  It's OK to relax with a glass of something good in the late afternoon and cups of tea in the early morning.  It's Ok."

The second prompt is titled "Growing Older with Grace"  and asks, "What have you come to know to be true as you've grown older?"  Well, I realize that I answered that prompt in the post titled "Life Lessons, Just a Few."  But what I wrote in February 2023 was, "What I know to be true is that I can trust my intuition." 

In my life, nothing has been more reliable than my intuition but I didn't realize it, or give voice to it, until a time of serious decision making.  My intuition opened my eyes to facts I was avoiding and made me brave.  A different prompt might be, "When have you been brave?"  

Another thing I've learned to be true is that magic, or what seems like magic, can be another name for God's grace.   All those things we can't explain, seeds growing, the feeling you have when a dragonfly chooses you, the miracle of a baby reaching for your face, are God's grace.  You can name dozens more.  

I've also learned that people and relationships can be redeemed.  Words come first, then actions.  "I am sorry.  I repent my actions, thoughts and deeds.  They not only harmed you, whom I love, but were wrong."  Then the action of change, whatever that may be.  Relationships that have been threatened or broken can be revived, reloved and restored.  People too.  

And finally, I've learned that the last great healing may be death.  Sometimes only God can care for us, no one else.  I read a story about a woman whose granddaughter said, "Grandma, don't ever die."  Her reply, however she said it, was essentially, "Don't bind me to this earth."  That flowed from her heart like a song.  Heaven is the most magical of all, the ultimate manifestation of God's grace. 

As I read this over before pushing Publish, I realize that thoughts can renourish, maybe better than anything.  I hope your day has been filled with things that renourish, good things that fill you with a joy in living.  And if not, I hope tomorrow.               With love, Nina Naomi  

  

LIFE LESSONS, JUST A FEW

 

The older you are the fuller life is.  No shallow waters, only deep.  It doesn't matter that fewer years lie ahead.  All is of a piece, like a quilt that keeps expanding, more colors, more threads.  

As life lengthens, some doors you close on purpose, nothing lost.  The desire for more things fades, you prune what you have.  You don't rush through the present.  You take care of what matters, recognize what's toxic and get rid of it . 

You stop fearing the worst.  For many of us, our worsts have happened and we've survived them. 

You rely on your intuition.   A first alert, it's always on your side.  

You lose unrealistic expectations, don't succumb to pressures to succeed.  

With age, the less you can control and the less you need to.  You know the future holds unwanted surprises, but will also be filled with good things.  

You don't worry about being "too old."  Whatever takes youth, you have already done.  You know life isn't too hard because here we are, still hoping, still believing, knowing we can be content without being happy but that happy still peeks around the corner and finds us. 

You no longer believe that you are not ready, for anything. You are ready. 

You don't notice your age and don't care whether others do. 

You don't avoid the truth or offend easily and have learned that people can change.  You're curious, interested, love your home, hobbies, the seasons, waking up, going to bed, helping others, caring for yourself.  

Changing directions is not giving up; you don't give up.  

There's time enough, everything gets done.

 

SO MUCH TO PRAY FOR IN AMERICA

Under the Shelter of a Cedar Tree

 Diary of a Mindful Nature Lover :  What I want to do most is love God, spend my days in nature, care for my family and friends and care for myself.  Be mindful of all.  The basics, right?  We have such a beautiful country, parks and mountains and rivers.  Late afternoon I see circling hawks; at dusk deer tussling; evening, geese noisily passing overhead. We want to be there for those we love; to be tender with ourselves and others.    

What I have been doing instead is thinking about sin-- how can this be helpful in these times of crisis, I'm not sure. But that is where my mind is leading.  Sin is so much present.  The times are suffused with it. 

Pride is the original and worst of the Seven Deadly Sins.  C. S. Lewis writes in Mere Christianity that pride is the "anti-God" state, the position in which the ego and the self are directly opposed to God.  He says it was through pride that Lucifer became wicked.  Pride blinds.  Through pride, or hubris, leaders with power become more and more irrationally self-confident.  They too become wicked. We've seen this in history and from afar. Now we see it up close.  

We began praying for the Ukrainians being shelled and dying on 24 February 2022 when Putin invaded.   We also, I do, pray for the young Russian soldiers sent to their slaughter, 1,108 per day since the beginning of the invasion, or about 103 deaths for each square kilometer of Ukrainian homeland taken. Then we began praying for the Israeli hostages taken on Oct 7, 2023, about 250 men, women and children.  Those prayers continue, but were soon joined by prayers for Palestinians in Gaza whose homeland continues to be destroyed by Israeli forces.  Over 46,000 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).  

There's so much to pray about, we could do nothing else.  I am praying now for the 100,000 United States Federal workers to date who have been fired or forced to resign.  One of them is our daughter-in-law, who had trained long for a job she loves.  She does not know what comes next.  What else?  We can pray for those with Alzheimers or cancer and the doctors who look for cures, and for the Courts who are charged with determining whether cancelling medical research grants is legal.   

We can pray for children like the transdaughter of a friend, that they not be denied medical care; we can pray for our schools that free school breakfasts and lunches continue for the hungry; we can pray for our churches that we can continue to be sanctuaries for refugees; we can pray for everyone poor or disabled or female or gender non-conforming or a person of color, that they be treated as well as those who are rich or male or white non-Hispanic.  Oh my.  

When our son was little he had Tourette's Syndrome and we prayed about that.  In our family, like yours, people have gotten sick and died.  But never have I prayed so much for our country and our democracy.  As a lawyer, I took the oath to support our constitution. I pray also for its survival.  Has there always been this much to pray about?  I don't know.  But it seems like facing sin head on leads one to prayer,  and that cannot be bad.  Prayer is always a good start.  It leads to hope and that leads to action.  Prayer, hope and action are what American needs right now.

Help us, Lord, to pray for, support, and do what's right.  Help us to take action in accordance with Your will.  Help us to work for and support freedom and justice for all. Help us to love our neighbor, on our street or on our border, as ourselves, and support those who do the same.  In so praying, we remember that might does not make right and that evil is as real as good.  AMEN

 

LOVING YOUR AGE

The first time I thought I would die we were on our honeymoon. I was twenty-one. We were in a rented Renault in the Swiss Alps, trying to cross over the Gotthard Pass into Italy.  Before there was Rick Stevens there was Arthur Frommer, our reliable budget travel guide. He told us that although the Pass is closed for most of the year, it would have just opened in early June, the same week as our wedding.  

We might have guessed a blizzard in June would not be unheard of.  We might have figured that rain on the ground meant snow in the mountains.  We might have but we didn't. No one in our families had traveled abroad before.  Looking over the side of the unguarded winding road to my right in blinding snow and my young husband driving, I was sure we would plunge to our deaths, leaving no record. My first thought beyond that, was that it was a shame to die so soon when we were so in love. 

I don't know that I ever thought of my own death again.

Now that I'm older, aging and dying have become a kind of theme.  Four close friends died this winter.  None of them died young.  

I've written before that we tend to think we're old at every decade. "Wow, I'm thirty."  "How can I be forty?"  "Am I really fifty?"  Women compliment each other, partly I think, in solidarity against aging. 

At the same time, I don't actually mind aging and not just because of the alternative.  I like being my age. Do you feel like that too? Many of us do.

First, I like no longer working.  Those were wonderful productive years.  But we didn't work hard so that we could never stop.  I had a law partner who told me, "Just because you're good at something, doesn't mean you have to do it forever." Not working, God willing, is part of aging.  

Having more time is part of aging too.  I retired in my 60s and my days lengthened.  No more work fifty weeks, vacation two. I didn't want time to go so quickly.  Now, thank goodness, it's slowed.  I might wake and not know the day.  "Oh wait, it's Monday.  I have my class with four friends."  "It's Thursday, I visit my ministry care-receiver."  "I have a doctor's appointment," or "lunch with a friend." Time for friends and family is part of aging.  Keeping house, which I love, is part.  Care for my plants and the outdoors. Keeping the family history if you want, or volunteering.  Traveling, whether down the road or further.  

We go to the beach, recently with our oldest grandchild and his girlfriend.  Nothing is better despite the rain and chill of March.  We miss our friends who died before us.  We know one of us in this long marriage of ours will have to learn to live bereft of the other.  But strangely, life is good.  I don't forget about the chaos in our government, unprecedented and dangerous, but we resist and move forward. 

I want to love my age, don't you?  There is nothing stopping us.   

  

 

   

   

A STRANGE TIME IN AMERICA

Advice for the Ages

This blog is in memory of my mother, Nina Naomi.  She was a teacher of American History.  We were raised to love our country. 

Not many women born in 1922 went on to earn a PhD, but she did, studying Native American history, the World Wars and everything in-between.  She and my father visited every presidential library and birthplace.  As for politics, she called herself an Independent.  As far as I know, she voted for FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Carter, Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton.  I don't know about Johnson, Nixon or Ford.  Nothing was knee-jerk with her.  While my father was a yellow-dog Democrat, she was too knowledgeable to fall into that trap.  She had strong feelings about us dropping the atomic bomb on Nagasaki and Hiroshima and some regrets about Truman.  He was a Missourian, however, as were we.  She knew his library in Independence, Missouri well and admired him for establishing NATO. 

Oh how I wish I could talk to her now.  She was never a civil rights activist, but lived long enough to understand the movement.  A ground-breaker in almost everything, she would mourn the loss of Federal protection for girls and women who need to terminate their pregnancies.  She and I both lived during the time when abortions were illegal in Missouri and knew women whose lives were ruined by the hack jobs available in our state.  

One of my mother's history professors was the ex-patriated Chancellor of Austria, Kurt von Schuschnigg, who fled after his country's 1938 Annexation by Nazi Germany.  I can just imagine what she would think of Donald Trump's idea of forcibly removing all the Gazans from their devastated homeland and making Gaza a Mediterranean resort. Or what she would think of weakening our military by firing generals.  Or Trump's cosiness with Russia.  I really can't list all the goings on that would alarm and distress her, knowing history as she did.  

But particularly I can imagine her grief at the dismantling of the Department of Education and the siphoning of taxpayer money from the public schools, which she championed.  Our local schools ranged between middle and lower-middle class to underprivileged.  We all of us, needed every advantage, and the schools were wonderful.  They provided.  

Well, this post isn't about mindfulness, or nature, or living simply.  But since this blog is in memory of Nina Naomi I feel that I have to address the profound grief (and anger) she would be feeling at this strange time in America.  Whether she could find hope in history, I don't know.  

For myself, I look for hope everywhere, and while not finding it abundantly, never stop looking.  One place I find hope is reading Joyce Vance's Civil Discourse on Substack and going from there.  Another place is writing, as here.  Being with like-minded people, reading, finding consolation in nature and making any small contribution I can. You have ways too, I know.   Please share.  As so many of us say now, "We're in this together."   

In peace, Nina Naomi's Daughter

  

     

OH TREES. "I WOULD ALMOST SAY THEY SAVE ME, AND DAILY" Mary Oliver

OH TREES.  "I WOULD ALMOST SAY THEY SAVE ME, AND DAILY" Mary Oliver

 "A time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance."  Ecclesiastes 3"4

Winter Trees

We learn in Mindfulness that all emotions are valid.  How we feel counts.  Many of us feel sad about America.  Sad about our future and sad about the two men at the top, Musk and Trump.  Sad too about the lovelies they have appointed to our most sensitive posts: health, education, budget, defense, state and national security.

Sad that park rangers are being let go.  Sad that Federal workers must resign or be fired.  Sad that grants for cancer research are blocked in universities in every state, from Mississippi to Maine.  Sad that funds from USAID are no longer feeding victims of famine, war and genocide.  Sad that children are being punished for their gender, over which, God help us, they have no control. Sad that Trump, in trademark projection, called Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky a dictator. 

We need to resist.  On President's Day--what protesters from every state called No Kings Day--I saw a sign that read "They're eating the CHECKS, they're eating the BALANCES."  Another, "FIRE ELON."  And a third, closer to home, "Fake Christians, REAL EVIL." 

But we also need antidotes to sadness.  My antidote is to go outside.  Poet Mary Oliver says about trees, "I would almost say they save me, and daily." 

On 'No Kings Day' the trees saved me.  I went into the woods to move wild Hellebores from where I can't see them to right by my door.  Often called the Christmas or Lenten rose, they bloom near Holy Days to remind us of birth and resurrection.

Hellebores

That afternoon it was 60 degrees and muddy.  I fell to my knees and dug up as many as I could from deep in our woods where they flourish without fear of hungry deer, since root, stem and flower are all poisonous.  Even the squirrels leave them alone.  

What does this mean?  If they survive the deer and squirrels, maybe their beauty is meant for us, we with minds and hearts to look for consolation in the beauty of creation that lies at our door.

Maybe while we do whatever we must to protect our democracy, we can go outdoors and be sheltered by the trees.  We can gain strength from the roses presaging Easter and the beautiful white snow surprising us today.  All of us need comfort.  All of us need faith that while it is a time to mourn, sometime it will be time to dance. 

For such a time, let us pray to the Lord.  Until then, Lord have mercy.

In peace, Nina Naomi.