THE DIFFERENCE THIS YEAR

This Christmas I noticed something special and I'm hoping others had the same experience.  Some years there's a disconnect between getting ready for Christmas and the evening or day itself.  After all, expectations run high.  

Some years the choosing, ordering or buying of gifts, the tracking and worry about the teenager's high-tops arriving on time (they didn't), the cleaning and decorating, the grocery trips, then forays for more not to mention the cost, can overshadow what we're preparing for.  We want love and peace and a modicum of calm and a candlelit night and a Jammie day.  We want carols and prayers (answered please) and good health.  We want family without drama.  We want alone time but just the right amount.  Whew, we want a lot!  No wonder we can be disappointed.  

Well, somehow this year was different.  And it happened without changing anything but myself.  When I wrapped the gifts for under the tree, I reused colorful boxes or gift bags from other years and only added tissue and ribbon.  I enjoyed the photos sent by the UPS of my packages outside a recipient's door.  We left a gift for our postal carrier Samantha, who is reliable as a clock.  I was so grateful to be preparing meals for a few friends and family.  I tried new recipes.  Two grandsons came the day after Christmas.  We're burning fires from the downed limbs in our woods and giving the kitchen a sweep when it needs it.  

But more than that.  I noticed that we gave each other small gifts on Christmas Eve:  teas and fancy tea towels, books and a new wallet, sweaters and cotton shirts or pajamas, and that each was unwrapped slowly and admired.  I noticed how appreciation shone from the faces of the small family gathered that night.   

I saw the comraderie of the brothers baking mint cookies for dessert after opening more gifts: a handknit beanie (made by me) for one and colorful socks, a sweater for each, and for their PaPa a picture album they filled with favorite photos.  No extravagance but time.

Every year the season passes too quickly, doesn't it?  That in itself is a reminder that it has to be the journey, not just the day.  But this is true of all of life, isn't it?  It's all about the journey.  About paying attention and noticing.  About savoring moments that may not seem memorable until they are gone.   Staying up late to put together a child's chair and table set is one of those moments for me.  Fixing a holiday meal with too many people underfoot, another.  I bet you have your own such recollections.  

So, I didn't feel the disconnect this Christmas.  Maybe you didn't either.  Maybe we all accepted the limitations swirling around this time of year.  Maybe our expectations were about the birth of the Christ child and the warmth of friends, family and memories and we didn't look for perfection anywhere.  And so being renourished, maybe we are now ready to go forward and help others in all the ways we can.  

Thank you, Lord.  AMEN

 

YOUR OWN CHRISTMAS CHAOS

Yesterday the winter solstice began at 4:48 Eastern Time.  We had our longest night of the year.  It was a clear night, and the stars were out.  All I had to do was turn off the outside lights to see them. After just a few hours, I tucked in with my book and warm quilt.  It felt so cozy and comforting. My husband stayed up to watch that wonderful old movie Christmas in Connecticut.  

The last few years I have been so looking forward to this time of early darkness. As a younger person I didn't mark the winter solstice. I might look out my office window or leave a deposition and darkness had fallen. But I didn't know what day it was.  I was simply looking forward to the Christmas break of a few days. On Christmas Eve, the night was silent only for the length of the hymn. I was not in tune with nature.  Surely excusable for a busy person, I like to believe.     

But now I think that I missed too many solstices, summer and winter; and have promised myself that the years of ignoring these special days are over.  One gift of retirement is noticing.  Simply that:  noticing the hours, the days, the weeks, the seasons.  I expect many of you do that already; you haven't waited to luxuriate in the fulness of life. You enjoy the long summer days and the long winter nights.  Both bring us blessings.  

Now the blessing is being rather than doing; lighting fires and candles and outdoor lights and, if you are Christian, waiting for the birth of the Christ child, alone or with family and presents and carols.  What a wonderful time of year this is.  Even if some family is absent, or some alienated, let us give thanks for all that we have.  Warmth and starry nights and hot soup and gifts in the mail or under the tree and whatever else makes up your own Christmas chaos.  

In peace, Nina Naomi

TO SING, TO TWIRL, TO BREATHE, TO LIGHT UP THE SKY

my meadow on a snowy day

I want to write a poem today

About cold days and warm blankets,

About the places I've been,

England, Iceland, Africa . . . 

Scotland, Italy, Germany . . .

Norway, France and home.

And those where I still hope to go,

Portugal, Peru, Denmark, Heaven.

I want my poem to sing, to twirl, to breathe, to light up the sky.

I want it to share peace with the firmament,

Trust with my soul.

My poem could help me forget or help me remember.

It could soothe my body my heart, my mind.

It could do all those things that make us happy and catch our breath.

My poem could be the only magic I ever make and that would be enough.  

 

THE NIGHT GROWS DARK

What can I say as the night grows dark,

And the days grow weak and dim?

What can I say when my time is short,

And my words are small and slim?

What can I say when my thoughts compound,

And my heart beats fast,

And my memories fall away? 

Some just right but some too far,  

And some won't let me go. 

I can say that, Christ, how I love each hour, 

How I live each day,

And I breath each flower,

And I strive to find the way.

I can ask God please, please to make me sure

When my heart beats slow,

And my memories fall away.  

nina naomi

OPENING TO LIFE

                                                                 

         Enough (excerpt)

David Whyte (b.1955)

These few words are enough.

If not these words, this breath.

If not this breath, this sitting here.

This opening to the life

We have refused again and again

Until now.

OUR PLACE IN ETERNITY

This winter evening, I am strangely alone by the sea.  One thing I notice is that when the ocean is loud, the rhythmicality of the sound is akin to silence.  When you can hear nothing but waves in an unchanging pattern, it can seem like being in the midst of quietness.  This is especially true in that unique darkness that lives at the sea.  I stayed outdoors in my down jacket as long as I could.  Then the chill took over.  Do you feel that we never run out of good places to be?  

Yet even as I write, I am brought up short by the thought of the Ukrainians and others cold or hungry or frightened while I am enjoying the early night, warm in my coat and aware that supper is mine for the making. We know about the "andness" of life.  While some of us are happy, others of us are sad.  We have each been on both sides of that "and" I suspect, although most are not living in the daily presence of war.  

Still, Hanukkah and Christmas are on their way.  They come for those of us in the momentary glow of a peaceful starry night and they come for all who suffer. Perhaps for them most of all.  And of course, what we hope is that even in extremis we can take a moment to look at the stars at night or hear birdsong at daybreak or find a flower in a crack or let the waves give us a place in eternity, and in those ways find hope or consolation.  

Tonight I am thankful and do not want to let that pass.  Good wishes to all.  Nina Naomi    

HEALTHY ATTITUDES: CHRISTMAS GIVING

Duke University Divinity School

This morning I came across the website of an artist-in-residence at Duke University Divinity School.  His name is Malcom Guite, an Anglican priest and academic with degrees from Cambridge University. I ran across his name by accident.  He is local this semester and a class he is teaching sounds interesting to this English major. But what caught my attention is his personal fund-raising page, highlighted in bold on an orange background, which says:  ⛾ BUY ME A COFFEE 

A Brit, he wants people to send him £5 a pop, or multiples of £5, in the pretext of buying him a cup of coffee.  No reason is given.  He is not poor.  

This poet/priest/songwriter has a paid position at Cambridge University in England and a paid position at Duke University here in Durham.  He writes and sells books. He is prolific. He is available for speaking and other gigs, as he says. He is educated, talented and employed.  (As a seasonal aside, he looks like Santa Clause.)

So why does he have his hand out like a person in need?  Why is he panhandling online for money?  Not money for a cause, mind you, but for himself. Readers send him two coffees, six coffees and more.  No doubt many of the contributors have less income than he. 

I have respect for those who stand in the cold on street corners.  It is not an enviable way to survive.  Some may be deserving, some not, but my instinct is to give all the benefit of the doubt.  Some are veterans.  Some have mental health problems.  There but for the grace of God go many of us.  We need social safety nets.  We need to take care of each other.   

I think I know why this solicitation bothers me. It's because there are so many in need, so many good causes and we are all stretched thin in giving.  Food banks, Toys for Tots, gift bags for our deployed, you name it.  This is the month when our generosity peaks. 

And I run across this busy academic shamelessly asking for pocket money.  I may read his poetry this season, but I won't be clicking him a fancy coffee or two.  

Now, note to self:  let this go.  Move on. There's so much more important.  (And maybe after a week or so delete this post.)     

THE IMPERFECT CHRISTMAS

Duke Chapel, 2nd Sunday in Advent

Christmas makes me happy.  

I love to decorate the house.  We put up a live tree and bring down boxes of ornaments.  I hang the Santa Clause two young cousins gave our equally young son.  Our granddaughter puts the pink velvet reindeer from Selfridges in London in a prominent place. My husband hangs a globe with a faded picture of his father and our two babies.  We have six silver drums from the year our son was high school drum major.  The toy ornaments were sent by my mom our first year away; little mice in fancy clothes, a mole in a top hat.  Our daughter's china doll gets a special place. My collection of tea kettles weighs down the branches.  I gather greenery from the yard and fill every container with holly berries and pine.  The candles I've been collecting at discount all year are finally lit.  

Shopping is a breeze with online sources and detailed lists.  I keep carols playing and a fire going.  Nothing has to be mailed and we don't have to travel.  

I love the progress of Advent, one more candle each week, mid-week services, O Come O Come Emmanuel; the windows and music and poinsettias at Duke Chapel; the church family at our Lutheran place of worship.

I begin using my Spode Christmas china as early as I can and invite a few friends for casual get-togethers.  Usually, we have beloved family on Christmas Eve before or after the service and some more a day or so later. The grandchildren are fine and healthy and loving. 

Nothing is more welcome than Silent Night by candlelight.  God always finds me at Christmas time and for that I am grateful.  

Christmas makes me sad. 

There are no little ones around the house.  No toys to buy, no Santa Claus.  No one spends the night for an early Christmas morning.  Many ornaments bring bittersweet memories.  My mom and dad are gone, our only son too.  Someone I love deeply has problems I cannot touch.  

I do not cook for extended family anymore and after a divorce some of them are elsewhere.  My wonderful grandsons navigate stepparents and new obligations.  

So, what do we have?  Can you say something similar?  Are there two sides to your Christmas?  Perhaps the two sides have to do with family, or faith, or life and death, or health, or insecurity, or isolation, or ruminations, or all the myriads of life and aging.  

Still, the angels will sing.  They are practicing now.  All they need is an open heart to receive them and I am willing to give that.  So, my two sides aren't quite even. Whether Christmas makes me happy or sad, I love it.  I need it.  I need the birth of Christ so that Easter and the Resurrection can come too.  If someday I am alone somewhere, as many are on Christmas day, I will still be glad for the birth of the Christ child who lets me know that there is resurrection of the dead and life everlasting.  I do so much pray that we all find and keep our Christmas joy. In Christ, Nina Naomi

THE IMMORTALITY OF BLESSINGS

Books make us think.  If you've read My Grandfather's Blessings by Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D., or her earlier book Kitchen Table Wisdom, you know that this is a wonderful Christmas, Hanukkah, holiday or anytime book.  My copy is full of notes.  It is almost like a diary.  

The book is dedicated to those who have been given more than they have received.  This is confusing until you think how often we have left a blessing unclaimed and unappreciated.  I know that I have.  We catch ourselves ignoring a beautiful day; or not saying "Thank you" to someone whose heart we can rely on; or not finding time for a friend.  Or even just not looking up when someone enters the room.  Or worst of all, taking our very lives for granted.   It's like we don't have time to be blessed.  

Dr. Remen talks about celebrating life rather than trying to fix it, about healing rather than curing.  For Christians, that's why we pray for the "peace that passes all understanding."  When you get right down to it, that's the prayer that makes the most sense.  It's the only gift transcendent.  

One early chapter is about loss.  The author says that every great loss demands that we choose life again.  Have you not found this to be true?  The greater the loss the more we might wish to wither.  To escape the pain of the loss.  I remember one time wishing that I couldn't function, the toll that it took was so hard.  But, I learned, God made me functional; I had no choice but to choose life again.  And what a blessing that choice is every time.  

Remen says, "Grieving is not about forgetting.  Grieving allows us to heal, to remember with love rather than pain."  I can see from my marginalia that I wrote, "This book is a blessing."  She had removed her mask in writing and I in reading.  

In another chapter, she writes about someone "who brought beauty to everything she touched."  Don't you just picture a person full of love and creativity?  And a cancer patient who said, "I always knew what mattered.  I just never felt entitled to live by it before."  This reminds me of the Catholic writer Walker Percy, one of whose characters ruminates about how illness clarifies.  This is true, too, isn't it?  How when we are pushed to extremes, with narrow paths or none, the refinement of life becomes almost blinding.      

This book reminds us of the everydayness of our own blessings.  She says that most of us lead far more meaningful lives than we know.  I can see that in others, that they don't comprehend their own value, or goodness, or worth.  Then mayn't it also be true for ourselves? 

She also says, "Blessing life offers us a certain immortality.  Our love outlives us and strengthens others. Even after we ourselves are gone."  Yes, we know not just from the Bible that "Love is stronger than Death" (Song of Solomon 8:6), but from our own experiences of longing and loving far beyond the grave; as well as from our being sheltered and buoyed by those whose feet no longer touch earth. 

Holidays have always been a time of both joy and sadness.  We may miss those who made our childhoods full.  Our gift-giving may put us in debt.  The traveling, buying, cooking and cleaning may be exhausting.  Our family may not be close.  For some social isolation is a problem.  Some may drink too much. There are help lines specifically for holiday depression.  

But this book--and much else in this Advent world of ours--is a reminder to find and focus on the good and to be better ourselves.  Hoping we all recognize our blessings this holiday.    

                              In peace, Nina Naomi  

                                                                   

 

 

SO MUCH TO LOVE

Oh, how I love to be home.  At my computer.  On my couch.  Organizing my stuff.  In my kitchen.  In the family room.  In the bedroom.  Outside.  Pulling weeds.  Watering the garden.  By the fire pit. On my patio . . . 

Oh, how I love to be at the beach. In the waves.  On the sand.  In the sun.  In the shade.  In an outdoor shower.  On a deck.  On a bike.  On a boat ride. Eating clams . . . 

Oh, how I love to be on a trip.  In the car.  On a train. In the mountains. By a waterfall.  By a glacier.  In the wild.  In a city.  In a museum.  At a play.  In a cathedral.  On a square.  Seeing new sights.  Doing new things.  Eating new foods.  Meeting new people.  Visiting ruins.  Soaking up culture.  Learning history . . . 

Oh, how I love to be alone.  Cooking.  Shopping.  Sorting.  Driving.  Thinking.  Reading.  Writing.  Praying.  Dreaming.  Stretching.  Swimming.  Biking.  Napping . . .

Oh, how I love to be with others.  At a restaurant.  At church.  At book club.  In a class.  For a lunch.  On special occasions.  On no occasion.  At my house.  At their house.  Indoors.  Outdoors.  For a night out.  For cookouts.  On my birthday.  On their birthday.  Meeting new friends. Cherishing old friends . . .   

 County Courthouse

Oh, how I love[d] to be working.  Earning a living.  Using my brain.  Sharpening my skills.  Solving problems.  Winning cases.  Helping families.  Being productive. Feeling useful.  Being challenged . . . 

Oh, how I love to be with family.  Laughing.  Clowning.  Playing.  Loving.  Appreciating. Listening.  Caretaking.  Sharing traditions.  Sharing stories.  Sharing food.  Sharing heartbreaks.  Relying upon.  Being together. . .  

Oh, how I love to be with my spouse.  Talking.  Listening.  Laughing.  Planning.  Deciding.  Doing.  Remembering.  Anticipating. Worrying. Sharing. Loving. Sleeping.  Solving.  Watching movies. Eating.  Taking care of each other.  Being together . . . 

All of these things we do, alone or together, at home or away, often or seldom.  Each thing waiting its turn to give us pleasure or comfort or excitement, however each of us completes the sentence, "Oh, how I love . . .  Such fullness arrayed before us.       

                                                    Gratefully, Nina Naomi

DEEP PAIN, DEEP HEALING

 

Sometimes a pain is so deep that we have to repeatedly cleanse the wound.  This is what Letting go is about.  not denying a hurt or the reality of what caused it.  That doesn't work.  We can reframe a narrative but not without admitting, "Someone or something hurt me. Something I thought would never happen did happen. I can't change that fact."  

Letting go is a mental state where we no longer cause ourselves extra suffering.  A reminder, or trigger, is a stimulus that causes a painful memory to resurface. We don't bring them on ourselves.  They just happen. When they do, it can pull the past forward so that our body may react as it did then. If this has happened to you, you know how your breath changes, you lose focus, you may retreat.   

As time goes on, each reminder may reach deeper levels of sadness or trauma which we then let go by facing the mental weight of the former pain and letting it pass.  Miraculously all emotions do pass.  Such is how we are made.  We know that happiness and joy don't last forever, but sadness, fear, anger the same.  Yes, they may recur, but we let them dissipate again.  

This is not as bad as it seems.  It is not hopeless. Not at all. In fact, it can be transformative.  We note how the heavy weight of an event lessons.  Reminders that may have stalled us for days or weeks do not.  Our mental reserves replenish more quickly.  If we don't fight what is happening, we conserve energy; mental tension does not consume us.  We recognize how we feel but give it only the space it needs to move on.  we do not feed the flames.  We promise not to make ourselves feel worse.  It is a promise we can keep; we each have so many ways to cope.  (This writing is one.)

Letting go does not mean forgetting, not of what we wish we could forget nor of what we wish to hold dear.  For those of us who have lost someone, forgetting is what we most fear.  But letting go of grief is not letting go of those dearest to us.  For years I had a mantra I used with my despair over the death of our son whose name is Adam:  "More Adam, Less Grief."  Focus on him not my (and, Dear God, his) loss.  (Yes, writing this my breath has changed.) 

In a different scenario, if you have forgiven someone their hurt, let that thought come forward.  There is a reason you forgave (or were yourself forgiven).  It was a choice you made listening to your heart and to God.  That's where the transformation comes in.  That's where the narrative can be reframed, and honestly so.  "I was brave when I took the steps that led to forgiveness."  "I save what matters most to me."  "Dear God, thank you."

There may also be something to forgive yourself for and heal.  I would like to forgive myself for not sitting with my father the entire day that he died. His last months were hard on him but on me too.  the death of a Parent can be like that.  Sometimes neither of you is much good at comforting the other. When I returned to his side at 3 pm it was hard to tell death from life.  After an hour and a half of checking, the hospice nurse said he was gone.  

So, we have deep pain and need deep healing from many things in many ways.  We have wounds to cleanse and emotions to survive.  And we do.  We know that just a sigh can be a prayer that is answered.  We don't deny or avoid our feelings and we don't accept minimization from others.  In these ways we follow the nature God has given us.  

And we do so much more than survive.  We become role models.  We nurture others.  We take care of ourselves.  We take every gift we have been given and use it for good.  We count our blessings and at the end of the day live in joy.  

I think I will say, Thanks be to God.        Nina Naomi

 

IN TUNE WITH THIS WONDERFUL TIME OF YEAR

Winter Sunset, NC Beach

I am looking forward to the Winter Solstice, only about a month away, three nights before Christmas Eve.  As soon as the time changed, I began lighting candles against the darkness, eating supper earlier and enjoying an earlier bedtime.  As the days turn, I check Fairbanks, Alaska because we loved our time there.  Then it was the Summer Solstice with the dusk intermingling with the dawn.  No night at all.  This time of year, Fairbanks moves toward deep and long nights, ending with only 4 hours of daylight on the longest night of the year.  I would love to be there for the town fireworks and merriment. 

At the North Carolina Beach people are attuned to the waning day, on a clear winter afternoon heading over to the neighborhood sittum in hats and jackets to watch the sun drop behind the ocean. They stay for the show of colors across the horizon, leaving only when all is gray, the shore birds long gone.  If you live by the ocean, you share that pleasure, perhaps in a different season. 

Inland I am hardly aware of when the sun goes down.  Yesterday I noticed the pink beyond the trees while sweeping leaves from one place to another.  Our leaves aren't snow-covered like the Northeast and Midwest. Here, most afternoons the winter day is just all-of-a-sudden simply gone and the lights come on.  A good resolution for me is more mindfulness of the gifts of nature, more responsiveness to its rhythms.  

Saint Teresa of Calcutta says that God is the friend of silence.  "See how Nature--trees, flowers, grass--grows in silence," she says.  "The stars, the moon and the sun move in silence." That is what's so wonderful about being in our homes this time of year.  If we're lucky we can find a bit of silence.  Or at least only the sounds we want to hear. Right now, Mr. Wiggles is breathing softly and there is music in the background.  No one else is home.  The geese have not yet begun their ruckus as they decide where to roost.  The train won't pass for hours.  

No talk of busyness today.  I would like to stay in tune with what the world has to offer.  Perhaps we can all find some time for that.    

Happy Winter, Nina Naomi 

EVERY DAY WE BECOME BETTER

                                  

A Path to Follow

Have you noticed?  Every day we become better and better.  This doesn't mean that everything is perfect. Not at all. In fact, isn't it true that your life isn't really what you expected it to be?  No one's is. 

Maybe we haven't found the right partner.  Or the right job.  Maybe my best friend has breast cancer.  Or I do.  Maybe I never really knew my dad.  Or have a sibling who died.  Maybe someone we love is chronically depressed.  Or on parole, or in jail.  Wow!  These are the everyday problems of everyday people--you, me, us.  And I've only named a fraction.  We can all list life situations we weren't counting on.  Some good, too. I live in a house in the woods, which I never planned on.  I became a lawyer, which I didn't predict either.     

For the hard things, is there a silver lining?  Well, no.  Sometimes all we can do is wade through.  But this is also true.   That every day we become better and better.  You know the saying, "This too shall pass?"  Well, no, again.  Objective facts don't pass.  My friend may die of cancer. A person I love may remain imprisoned by mental illness.  It may be too late for this or that. Time for amends may have passed. Some things can't be changed, or at least not by us.

BUT. . . EVERYTHING CAN BE MADE BETTER.  Healing is as much a part of life as suffering. What does pass is our anxiety, our despair, our whatever-emotion-is-keeping-us-down.  Time, counseling, prayer, perhaps medication, or just new circumstances--all these and more make us better and better at being the person we need to be.  God is on our side, always.  Our friends are on our side.  We are on our side.  There is Good News, there are good people and there are good things everywhere.  We not only bloom where we are planted, we bloom in spite of almost every adverse condition we can imagine.

So, have you become someone you never thought you would be?  A single parent? Divorced? Never married? Fighting an illness? Well-to-do or struggling?  A person who has survived a loss beyond all contemplation. Or someone with a good marriage or remarriage, a successful career.  A grandparent?  And I bet you're doing well at being that person.  I bet you have done things that have made your life better, and the lives of others too:  gotten an education, helped raise a child, helped those less fortunate, crafted a job and a life, cherished those who love you, never given up, had fun, been awesome. . ..  Am I right?  Am I right?

WE ARE MIRACLES

Does your heart sometimes tangle with worry? Mine does.

There's politics. There's the Russian war in Ukraine. The winter uptick in Covid is upon us.  And there's our personal stuff:  jobs, kids, parents, family, health.  Not to mention that icebergs are melting.  

And death of course, highest on anyone's spectrum of worries:  from natural causes, accident, suicide and shootings. Every day, on average, 316 people in America are shot in murders, assaults, suicides, unintentional shootings, and police intervention; every day 106 of them die. One day this week three University of Virginia football players were killed by a fourth. 

We live in the "andness" of life.  There's this and that.  Example:  "I'm frustrated in my work and glad to be working." "I love my fill-in-the-blank and he/she/they drive me crazy."  We all have contradictory feelings, and not about trivial things. Sitting in a recliner with chemo flowing, we cherish each day.  Praying for a friend who is ill, we enjoy the sun on our back.  When my mother died, I was not at her side even though I knew the end was near. I went home for the night and my father went to his room.  "I want to be here and it's OK if I go," we each must have thought.  Two hours later we were back.

This should all be too much for us, but somehow, it isn't.  Somehow, we are made to cope with death and sadness and grief and life and joy and relief all at the same time.  This is the gift given to our humanity. 

Life is short and precious, the biggest contradiction of all.  Although we all walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we do not despair.  In fact, we thrive.  We face the death of those we love and continue on, the rest of our life and our own death lying just around the corner.  We are miracles.   

So yes, our hearts are tangled.  Today, I woke to a chilly morning with deer out the bedroom windows silhouetted against a light frost.  Younglings tussled with each other. One stood on hind legs reaching for new cedar, a food shunned in warmer seasons. 

Out the kitchen window dozens of robins swoop into the holly trees for tasty red berries.  I turn up the thermostat.  The kettle sings and announces warmth. I fill a cup with strong black tea.  Mr. Wiggles stands at the door waiting to come in for his breakfast.  He routed the deer.  

Right now, I have my usual worries, those I have lived with for some time. I am also praying for friends whose health is precarious and treatments brutal. It could be me.  This is our life, mine and yours.  There's much we can't change. Nevertheless, Covid is lessening; that's what pandemics do.  Political grievances wax and wane.  Jobs, family and health fluctuates, but much abides.   It's just as fair to be hopeful as discouraged. Probably more so.  

I want to admire the resilience that is part of our humanity.  Our ability to accept the andness of life.  If I were in church, I might make this a prayer.  In peace, Nina Naomi

 

 

 

WHEN WE WAKE . . .

When we wake in the morning at sixes and sevens this just might be existential dread.  After all, how many people awake with self-assurance and aplomb?  

Well, perhaps the truly narcissistic but thankfully that's not most of us.  Most of us do not talk about our innate superiority.  That phrase would not come to mind.  Most of us do not pass our names on billboards every day, as if we knew something others did not.  Most of us do not deceive ourselves and those around us.  We are not users.  We are not monetizers. 

Instead, we wake with a very normal anxiety about life. We are not looking for validation from anyone but God and those we love.  We savor small moments that bring us contentment.  We accept love, even if it is inconsistent with something that happened in the past.  We welcome apologies and we forgive.  We learn to pause and live in the adagio.  We trust our instincts.  

For most of us, God is our silent companion.  God illuminates our path.  We do not want to go it alone. We connect with friends and strangers and never for self-aggrandizement.  We have nothing to market.  

We go deep.  We learn to live in the present moment.  We accept each day as a gift.  In this season, as winter's darkness closes in, we find the light.  We look for rituals for our stressed souls.  We pray.  We journal.  We ponder.  We walk.  We write.  We create.  We enjoy the birds who find the berries on our holly. We watch for the moon and the stars.  

We can live a lifetime and know more about other people than we do about ourselves.  Alice Walker (b. 1944) says that the most foreign country is within; we are our own dark continent.  Yes, we've noticed:  the journey to find ourselves is the longest journey we ever take.  For myself, I find God easier than I find myself.  My trust in God is certain.  

The poet Anne Sexton (1928-1974) says that "Saints have no moderation, nor do poets.  Just exuberance."  I am not like that, but I would like to be.  Not like a saint, but like a poet.  Like someone who sees the hand of God everywhere and is grateful.  To be on a path of life where prayer is the mortar that holds us together.  

Yes, this could be a safe awakening.  This would be enough.    

                                                Nina Naomi

                                   

"this is just to say"

Degas

You might comfort me. You might, thinking not of yourself but of me.

You could say, "I'm sorry you were reminded this week.  I know how it makes you feel.  I don't want you to feel that way." 

That's something you might say.  

You could bear that, couldn't you? To touch me with hand or word? 

Some things stay with us a long time.  We think that deep healing has come and IT HAS NOT.  

This week shocks for the soul.  

The pearl whom I never dreamed remembered what you called your "friendship" -- says it so clearly.  

How much you must have talked about your "friend"."

Did you hear what I said just now?    

We live with this.  Much to let go.  

The mind moves so rapidly that sometimes how one felt in the past becomes how one feels in the present.  

Something that took my breath once takes it again (and then again).  

For good or ill some memories-thoughts-facts do not go away.  For good or ill.  

Ill as in sad, needing God.  

Heart-held, mind-felled, cat-belled warnings please, no more right now, so much to dodge.  

Each of us carries a lot, sometimes mired in sand.  

Letting go is not a one-time event. 

It doesn't erase anything; that is not its job. 

Letting go can only change our relationship to what is.  We do it over and over.  

I let go of something long past.  I admit the reminders are not your fault.   

I do not know anything you do not know; that is probably true.    

So much is a dance.  Not all of life, but some.  

The parts we might want to sidestep, to leap beyond, to twist away from. 

So much of life is a dance. 

Look at the leaves, they're dancing.  

I can dance with you.  

TO LIVE IN SERENITY

Isle of Iona, Scotland

Psalm 63:8 "My soul clings to You; Your right hand upholds me."

To forgive we need to accept.  But more.  To live in serenity, we need to accept.  Acceptance is surrendering to what is:  our circumstances, our feelings, our problems, our health, the delay of our dreams . . . The present and, even that worst of things, the past.  

When we are disturbed, it is because we find some person, thing or situation unacceptable. Until we accept it, we cannot transform it.  We cannot take action.  We are immobilized.  First acceptance, then action.  The action may--where there is contrition--be forgiveness.  When someone asks for forgiveness because they are sorry beyond all question or doubt, the choice is clear.  Who would not wish the pain a wrong causes to lift?  When we forgive we choose not to avenge.  We choose not to pay back.  Forgiveness is not "an eye for an eye."  It is love that is deserved.  

The action may also be something else.  Confrontation, setting boundaries or, in the extreme, facing endings and embracing new beginnings.  The action may be a change in ourselves.  "This is what I will do to make this day as good as it can be."  But acceptance is key (Post, Oct. 19, 2022).   

Small things:  this is my age, this is how I look, these are my abilities. Bigger things:  this is my present, this is who loves me, this is who hurt me, this is who I miss.  Even bigger:  this is what I must live with for ever and ever and I need God's help.  "You, Lord, are my rock and my salvation.  Be by my side this morning, noon and night."  

Then acceptance becomes a tool for transformation.   When we accept, we relax.  We breathe.  We let go of the struggle.  We say to God, "You lead, I'll follow."  

"This is the way my life is right now," we admit, even if I am facing the end, as every single one of us does.  "I will not wait until tomorrow to be thankful, until tomorrow to enjoy myself, until tomorrow to be grateful to be alive."  

I cannot say all that needs to be said.  I cannot think all that needs to be thought.  That would take someone more special than I.  So, in peace let us pray to the Lord.      Nina Naomi

 

IT'S OK TO BE ALONE

Edouard Vuillard, "A Seamstress," 1892

 It's OK to be alone

with our thoughts
         with our prayers
                 with our pets
                         with our books
                                 with our crafts

in our car
     in our home
         in our garden
              in our bed
                   in our hearts

on a road-trip
     on a plane
          on a couch

shopping
     watching
          singing
               biking
                    baking
                         working

taking photos
         taking time

it's OK to be alone (no, it's lovely to be alone)