START SMALL

Start Small

Fill your favorite mug and watch the sun go down.

Let your eyes blur with the yellow, red and orange of the disappearing day.

Set aside your phone and read a book.

Or listen to your heart and write your thoughts. 

Go for a drive and stop for photos:  cows, barns, paperwhites,

Birds roosting in trees--whatever the season offers.

Take a new route and see how your town is changing.

Find a funky shop.  

Create pockets of peace everywhere--

On your couch, under a tree, at your table, in your bed. 

When we string small things together they feel large.

Then we say, "I can do this.  This is good, this life of mine."    

SIMPLY GOOD THINGS

Some things are unequivocally good, different for each of us.  If you like lists--and many of us do--listing them is a pleasant reminder of what's good in each of our lives.  I ran across someone else's list that prompted me to make my own.  Maybe this will do the same for you.

Simply Good Things

• being alone in a bookstore
• phone calls with friends or family
• days when you meet a goal
• crafting, making art (or music)
• when your writing flows
  
• listening to music you love
• laughing with family
• having private jokes
• driving with the moon roof open
• being with someone who really listens
  
• remembering something that mattered to you
• times when you know what you want
• good books
• naps
• lying in a hammock  under a canopy of green
  
• a friend who always makes you feel good about yourself
• words that describe just how you feel, a poem, a song . . . 
• finding something small that brightens your day
• a old photo that brings memories
• sunshine after rain
  
• swimming
• changing seasons
  
• the fragrance of newly mown grass
  
• a long marriage between people who are still in love
• anyone who is grateful for you    

Somehow the more we think about what to us is simply good, I suspect the more blessed we feel.  

MAKING A LIFE FROM SCRAPS, PART 2

Prize Winning Quilt by Nina Naomi

Last September, lying under a quilt stitched by my mother, I got thinking about making a life from scraps (posted Sept. 6, 2021), more figuratively than literally since I can't sew.  Rather, about how we all have bits and bobs--family here and there, friends, treasures saved (a piece of baby blanket, a cracked vase), old photos, letters (if you're old enough), playbills . . . .  A kind of emotional quilt I called it.

At that time the pattern of my quilt was a furnished apartment in New Jersey where we spent the Fall.  A bit darkish, was the apartment--needed twinkle lights and candles--but a hugely rewarding change of scene with special family nearby. Aren't the best places to visit where there's family? Plus we could walk everywhere. 

Now the pattern is home in North Carolina and Springtime.  This morning I felt like the buds had waited until I went to bed to burst into glorious green.  The difference between yesterday and today was the difference between oh-it's-coming and a brilliance almost blinding.  Last night's rain had settled on each new leaf like a sparkling jewel.  

When I awoke today the birds were vying with eachother for the most melodic trills.  And now, near dusk, the sky is blue with tufts of white.  It is said that nature inspires our creativity and focus.  Surely that's so.  When I look at my mother's quilt I see appliqued tulips. I know she was living at the beach at the time she made it--retired after years of teaching in Missouri. Enjoying the splendor of the ocean and dreaming of tulips.  

There's so much healing power in nature.  If we're bleary-eyed from our screens, going outside makes all the difference.  We can feel the change in our breathing, in our step.  There's no brain-fog outdoors.  It's an anti-depressant with no bad side-effects, as simple as that.  We can become addicted to nature and be the better for it.  What else calms, soothes, inspires and invigorates and is free?  

Today is Maundy Thursday.  I went to a noon service where the altar was stripped waiting for Good Friday and the Crucifixion.  So, we have our faiths.  We have our fears for the world, foremost this Spring our fears for the brave people of Ukraine.  We have the gifts of God all around us.  My Easter Sunday will be with grandchildren.  Praise be for that. 

When I wrote about a life from scraps last Fall, I said that all of us are lucky.  We're surviving the pandemic and making our way, I wrote.  We're appreciating each day and finding moments of joy and contentment.  The older we get, the more scraps to gather and stitch.  But the quilt of us is coming along nicely. It's true. I love being where I am--no matter where that is.  I bet you do too.   

                       In peace, Nina Naomi

THOUGHTS FOR THE DAY from Nina Naomi

Berthe Morisot, Bath (Bain) (1894)

Life isn't about finding yourself.  Life is about creating yourself.  This is wonderfully reassuring if we're at 6s and 7s.  We're not hidden.  We can start fresh, as often as we want.

Hope is stronger than fear.   And love is stronger than death.   These truths are Easter truths, whether we are Christian or not.  Love makes us brave.  The few times (only time?) I have been brave, love has been the catalyst. 

You can miss something without wanting it back.  Our youth, our children's infancy, a house we lived in, an old romance . . . . Not perhaps profound, but helpful.  It makes missing a more welcome part of our lives.

Relax.  You are enough.  You have enough.  You do enough.  Of course, this may not actually be true if we are sluggards and shirking duties right and left.  But absent that (and maybe even then)--WE ARE ENOUGH.

God is not remote from us.  He is at the point of our pen, our paint brush, our trowel, our vision.  The classroom, the operating room, the desk where we write, the closet where we cry, the chair where we sit, the bed where we lie, the path we walk.  He is there.  Oh, embrace.

When someone dies know this:  God loves that person even more than you or I do, more than you or I can.  God created this person.  He or she or they may be your child, someone you love or even you yourself.  So do not despair; never despair.  

If death is sudden and unexpected the same is true:  we are not ready but God is.  God is right there ready.  The person who dies does not have one second of disorientation.  God is right there. 

Self-knowledge is part of spiritual growth.  Self-knowledge is not self-absorption.  We cannot face life's difficulties without being tender with ourselves.   

God holds our soul between His palms.

Begin each day anew.  That is the point of a sunrise.  Blunders, mistakes, griefs, wounds--leave them behind.  Start fresh each day.  Each day is a gift.  That's why we go to bed and wake.  To begin anew. 

 

 

 

 

 

LIFE RESURRECTED

 

Isn't it wonderful that it's spring? I have been outside all week, enjoying the tiniest of wildflowers and the brilliant green of my woods.  Doug, the chipmunk named by our granddaughter, has been boldly darting from deck to spilled bird seed.  He is by far the cutest rodent we have ever seen. He was a regular last year and we were so glad when he emerged from hibernation.  Did you know that chipmunks make refuse tunnels so that their sleeping quarters are clean? We've been rooting for him against the hawks that circle. 

Plus Easter and Passover.  What could be better?  Two Holy Days  commemorating great events in each religion:  the Resurrection of our Lord for those who are Christian and the deliverance from slavery in Egypt for those who are Jewish--two days with ancient origins.  

Passover always falls on a Full Moon because of its place in the Hebrew calendar. Easter falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon that occurs on or after the spring equinox.  If the first full moon falls on a Sunday then that day is Palm Sunday and the next is Easter. This year Good Friday falls on the same day as Passover.  Sometimes  I have been privileged to celebrate both. There can't be a better beginning to the Easter Passion.

Obviously these are not historical dates, but that's just fine. I suspect that those who believe, of whatever faith, are not looking for literal confirmation of acts of religious significance.  Did deliverance actually occur when the moon was full?  Maybe.  It makes sense.  But does it matter?  We have been given faith as a gift, and as our heritage. There are pagan antecedents of Christmas too.  Religion finds its place in the community.  It has for centuries.  

So the two combine--spring and Easter.  New life and resurrected life.  Every year, in greens and yellows and purples, we see the manifestation of John Donne's statement:  "Death thou shalt die."  It's in my yard and in yours.  Amen.                    Nina Naomi

 

 

IN WHAT CAN WE TAKE COMFORT?

In what can we take comfort? 

• That better days are ahead.  When we look for the light we find it.  Everyone has their share of bad days.  A bad day is not a bad life.
  
• What we can control:  
• our reactions, 
• how we treat people, 
• who we choose as friends and lovers, 
• how we spend our money, 
• what we believe, 
• the space we create for ourselves, 
• the boundaries we set, 
• how we use our free time, 
• our actions . . . .
• That it's possible to grieve and live fully at the same time.  
• That there's no good reason not to be happy with who we are. We shouldn't miss a chance to lift our face to the sun.   
• That hard thoughts, prayers and petitions can be a good day's work. 
• Thoughts about where we have been.  Then we become more clear about who we are and where we want to go.  Traveling outward and inward are both good.  This can be a metaphor.  Or not. 
  
• Our childhood home and neighborhood.  Family graves. Let's visit them.  It's wonderful to think about those who came before.    
  
• That the more things remain the same, the more things remain the same.  So change if we need to.  Don't change if we don't need to. But sort it out and do it.  We can.
  
• That although losses don't always get better, they do become something we can bear. They become who we are.  It's not a trade, never a trade, but without a loss we might not be who we are.
• Our true home.  Outdoors?  Indoors?  By the sea? In the forest? A certain country or place?  Go there we must, if only in our mind.  
• That we can let go of rumination. Rumination is consistent, repetitive attention on past occurrences that produce negative emotions like anxiety, hurt, etc.  It is not part of processing. It is not our natural state. 
• Being loved by someone deeply.  This gives us strength, security and peace.  Loving someone deeply in return does the same for them.  This is perhaps the most important comfort of all.  It can be anyone.  This need not be sexual or romantic.  It is just love.
  

Oh, aren't you ready for these comforts?  Aren't we all?  Some are easy, some not so much, but all are there.           In peace, Nina Naomi