"BEWARE THE BARRENNESS OF A BUSY LIFE," SOCRATES

                                           One Moment

You're always so busy

With no time to spare

To sit down and talk to me.

Pull up a chair.  

Weeks pass by so quickly,

The days just fly by.

It's hard to take breaks,

But I know we can try. 

Our work is important. 

     There's so much to do

But all that I want

Is some time with you. 

You always work hard,

Can you please leave the mess,

And give me one moment

                                   Of sweet happiness?

                                             daphnesdiary.com (revised by NN)

Does this verse trigger a question for you?  "Who is it who wants a moment with me?"  I think we all have someone whispering in our ear.  Our mom?  An elderly relative? A child? A neighbor?  Who?  Who should each of us slow down for?  Who needs a phone call, a visit, our undivided attention, our concern? 

When my dad was alive, for me it was he.  At 90 all he wanted was a visit.  Once when I stopped by after work he was sitting in his lobby.  I said, "How are you daddy?" and he said, "I'm fine.  I made it to this chair and now you're here."  He said it in a way that let me know how special I was to him.  How wonderful when our presence can be a gift. He never held my absences against me.  

I decided then and there to give him a jar of "Special Moments" that he could unfold and read when he was alone.  I cut scraps of paper and wrote good memories on each one.  Something we had done together, or that he had done for me and would be glad that I remembered. The times we went sleigh riding; how he cooked me fried eggs in the morning; the dollhouse he built; Law Day in the courthouse; and many more.  It took no time at all.  He often looked through that jar, he said.  Now that he's gone, it belongs to me. 

Many of us know the poems of Mary Oliver.  One of my favorites is "The Summer Day."  The last two lines read, 

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?   

It's a challenge, isn't it?  Our moments and how we spend them.  As far back as 470 BCE, Socrates warned that busyness could make our lives arid and unproductive.  What then of the wildness we should grasp before our winter years (and even then)? 

In our church we sing, "Praise God from whom all blessings flow."  If someone desires to share some of their precious life with us, we are blessed indeed.  Let's make sure that we are not too busy to notice; and then we can bless them in return.                Nina Naomi

 

 

MORE ACCEPTANCE

 Less fear more acceptance

Less deep sorrow more acceptance

Less rumination more acceptance

Less worry more acceptance 

Less lamentation of the past more acceptance

Less doubt more acceptance

Less procrastination more acceptance

Less avoidance more acceptance

Less self-blame more acceptance

Less fixation more acceptance

Less isolation more acceptance

Less perfection-seeking more acceptance

Less negativity more acceptance

Less denial more acceptance

Less wishful thinking more acceptance

Less anxiety more acceptance

More acceptance

ON THE BREATH OF A PRAYER, WE ENTER ETERNITY

Lift High the Cross

"I guess the family was all there, just visiting, and they were discussing nothing in particular when a chaplain came to ask if they wanted to pray.  They said yes, and right as the prayer started, her mother took one big breath...and was gone."

"Just like that?" I asked.

"Just like that."

"Wow," I sat, momentarily struck by the beauty of it all.

To imagine that on the breath of a prayer, you can cross unfathomable distance.  Your spirit and the doors of heaven meeting one another within the fraction of a whisper.  To inhale here, and then exhale in exhalation 10 million light years away. 

I don't remember who wrote this or where I found it, but I copied and framed it.  To me the words are true.  On the breath of a prayer, we do cross from life to eternity.  I've seen it happen.  

I didn't notice whether the breathing stopped after an inhale or an exhale, and I was sitting right there listening, right at the bedside.  We had been there since Wednesday and now it was Sunday morning, July 17, 2005.  We were watching and believing in God's promise of eternal life.  The room, a cold place where he lay sticky without speech or movement, was suffused with heartache and love.  Only we spoke and that not much.  We few, who loved him best, barely existing in the dim uncomfortable room where hope was for no more than another day of the same. 

Then came the silence of no longer breathing.  I heard it first.  The nurses had just come in to lift his head and smooth the covers.  

Witnessing death may be as universal as dying.  We want to be there for the passing of someone we love.  We put all our effort into reaching their bedside.      

No one knows which breath will be the last.  No matter how faithful the waiting, the cessation is startling; on that Sunday morning 18 years ago, it was louder than any other sound in the busy hospital.  Someone hears it every day.  A sound so clean it leaves no doubt.  This body will never breathe again. 

A life doesn't stop alone; it brings everything buckling inward with it, until later the survivors claw their way out, as we in our family have done and as you in yours no doubt have too.  

Then, maybe quickly or maybe more painfully, we understand.  This being is standing before God.  He does not see through a glass darkly, no; he sees face-to-face.  In the seconds it takes our tears to gather, this soul is already consoled by the arms of God, whose love is as great as ours, even though that we can't imagine.  But then, we can't imagine any of it.  We can only believe.  That we cross an unfathomable distance and arrive on our knees at the throne of God, where all is light transcendent.   It is 10 million light years away.  The meeting place for our souls.  A story, an event, that never ends.  Thanks be to God.  AMEN 

                        Nina Naomi

GARDEN THERAPY

 

Front Courtyard

Isolated in a country parsonage, after our second child was born, I had the post-partum blues.  Winter in a bungalow without insulation and one icy bathroom, made caring for two in diapers harder than I expected. Sleeping was more like waking.  Anyone else remember days like that?  

As soon as the ground thawed a neighboring farmer plowed a garden for me. Not having any idea that planting was the easy part, I put in more seeds than we could possibly harvest.  Mounds of zucchini, trailing cucumbers, tomatoes that would have lost any competition . . .  I couldn't have had better therapy.  Same for the children.  They rolled around bundled in parkas until the temperatures rose.  

Hoeing and digging, I found out, are mindful--a word we didn't use then.  It takes you out of yourself.  The children felt it too.  Outside they didn't fuss.  They sang songs and shared their toys while the cat chased garden snakes out of the strawberry patch and the dog ran in circles. 

In the next house in a different part of the country I planted flowers and bushes instead of vegetables. But the therapy was the same.  Hours planning beds, pruning bushes and raking leaves.  Mindful repetitive actions that caused stress to evaporate.  While I raked, the kids swung back and forth, pumping up and down in graceful rhythmic motion.  It was one of the best times of life. 

Gardening is still therapy.  If you garden, I bet you agree.  Where but outdoors do our senses lie so open to the quivering universe?  Pain and anxiety--whether physical or emotional--are healed in the garden. Not quickly, but steadily.  The more time we spend in nature, the better we feel. 

There are times that I feel the pull of sadness until I go out; I wonder how many of us feel the same.  Growing older, I may just tidy the courtyard, sweep the paths, hose the deck or dead-head the plants, whatever my unreliable back allows.  Somehow, placing our feet on solid ground, our hands in the loam, our ears and breath straining with the wind in the trees . . . is where perspective settles fears.

Most recently gardening has been an escape from the daily upheaval.  There are no news bulletins where I clean up after a storm.  Intrusive thoughts keep their distance from wildflowers.  Even chronic sorrows diminish.  When we are outdoors, all that we love and appreciate seems to move forward in our hearts. We come inside renewed.  

Therapy is "treatment intended to relieve or heal."  So, yes, gardens do that, and without side-effects or contraindications.  If I were to pray about this, it would be a very simple prayer, "Thank you God for this space of seeds and flowers, herbs and trees, rain and sun and shade.  Thank you for a place where we can step out our door and feel your healing warmth.  Thank you for all the ways we can work in your creation:  planting, watering, weeding, harvesting and just being with all our senses open.  Thank you for in these simple ways relieving our cares and healing our hearts. AMEN."       

                                                               In peace, Nina Naomi

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PRAYER FOR A GOOD DAY

Yesterday looking out the bedroom window I spied a lonely deer feasting on a patch of plentiful mushrooms, cream and yellow, thumb-sized red, puffy domed speckled brown and flat pancake orange.  I love watching the deer forage.  They are not rambunctious like the squirrels (who also sit on their haunches and nibble mushrooms), nor as particular as the birds at our feeder, but graceful. Sometimes they stand on their hind legs and reach high for a leaf.  This deer chose some mushrooms and chewed them happily while passing others by.  

Then as I was leaving the house a red-tailed hawk sailed cleanly through the trees and out into the open sky.  Later, returning home, I saw two deer bounding from the meadow where they were visible into the woods, their bodies arch-shaped, leaping with front legs parallel, all four feet in the air.  Yesterday was a good day.  Don't you feel that way if you spot a box turtle or a tree frog? When we see a turtle, we want to tell someone.   

Sometimes I want something other than what I have.  To travel more and see the world, redo the kitchen, or fix the cracked fireplace.  To drive a new car with all the safety gadgets or have an automatic gate instead of one that nearly hurls me into the ditch when I yank it open.  To be young instead of old.  Sometimes I barely notice the deer and hawks; I speed down the driveway on an errand or stay home doing chores and forget to turn on the music.  

Then, other times, the better me remembers that there are people praying for what I already have.  People praying the war will cease (as do I), the well water is clean, the flooding will abate, the fires will be put out, the bullets won't ricochet tonight (in my town as well).  People praying for a full plate, quiet rest and long life.  People praying for a life that I may take for granted, having lived too long to die young, having money enough for the life I lead, and being as healthy as anyone else my age.  

Are you ever like this?  Overlooking the wonder and blessings of today?  I'd like to always notice the hawk overhead and the rabbit under the cedar; the downy woodpecker hammering the dogwood tree; the pop-up storms, the faithful moon and the leaves after summer rain.  

I do hear the owl most every night.  And I almost always look for the moon on Mr. Wiggles' last walk before bed.   But I'd like to never take the magic of the mundane for granted.  Just because it's here for the taking shouldn't make it less precious.  

If you feel the same, we could share this prayer: 

Dear God, let us be ever grateful for what we have.  Let us look to the sky and under every rock to find the treasures you have hidden in plain sight.  Snails in their shells, hickory nuts, fallen persimmons, moss and fern--whether high or low, let us appreciate what is so abundantly around us.  Help us remember that someone is praying for greenness to rise out of rubble and to be alive at dawn.  When we encounter your everyday gifts let us keep them in our heart, preserve them, and share them in whatever way is best.  And if we find only one sign of magic, however small, let that be a good day.  AMEN

                                                               Nina Naomi

HOW TO SPEND YOUR HOT JULY by Nina Naomi

 

Backyard Pool 

How to spend your hot July --

Wake up when the air is cool and birdsong bright.

Unwind the hose and soak your plants,  

The yielding moss, 

The petals poised and shy,

All just rising as are you. 

Or if it rained breathe deep,

Your face aslant to feel the mist, 

Bare feet in water pooling after stormy nights.

Embrace your work in casual clothes of linen, cotton, colors pale.

And salads, lovely ones for lunch, 

Flaked salmon, greens and hard-boiled egg.

Stay in the cool.

But if you're home and days are free,

Then do as you will and answer to none. 

Lie on a raft in shade or sun,

Float or doze, read or dream.

Blanket the grass with your mother's quilt.

Iced tea, perhaps a nap, a book, your art your craft with paper paint your thoughts and words.

Or meet with friends in sleeveless blouses sandaled feet and order something good to eat. 

A cake, a drink with lemon tart,

This month is one to give your heart.  

miniature garden

THINGS THAT MAKE ME FEEL CALM

 

TAKING THE DOG OUT AT NIGHT

FINDING THE MOON AMONGST THE TREES

HEARING THE OCEAN 

WATCHING THE WAVES

CUDDLING, ARMS AND LEGS ENTWINED

A BATH, JAMMIES AND FRESH SHEETS

READING IN BED

BROWSING IN BOOK STORES

THE LAUNDRY ALL FOLDED

SWEPT FLOORS

SWIMMING LAPS

RIDING MY BIKE AT THE BEACH

BUILDING A FIRE TO SIT BY

AN EASY DINNER 

CLEARING BRUSH IN THE YARD

BEING SHOWN LOVE

AFFECTION

ANOTHER CUP OF TEA

COLLAGE JOURNALLING

KNITTING WITH MY FRIENDS

SERIOUS TALKS, ONE-ON-ONE

THE FAMILY ALL SAFE

HEARING FROM A GRANDCHILD

REMEMBERING TO GIVE IT TO GOD