MY KINGDOM IS NOT OF THIS WORLD (John 18:36)

 

Trinity Episcopal, Santa Barbara

"If you will trust in God to guide you, and hope in God through all your ways, God will give you strength what 'ere betide you, and bear you through the evil days." (l7th century hymn)

I didn't awake this Sunday morning thinking of God. I began it on my phone reading what we needn't call news anymore because there is nothing new about it:  the Epstein Files, the Strait of Hormuz that I couldn't have located before we bombed Iran, the southern states that are gerrymandering Black voters out of representation now that the Supreme Court majority has reversed the Civil Rights Act, the billionaire grifters ruining/running the country, the liquidation of the United States . . . .  See, not news.  

Then we went to church, the church we are visiting while we are here in Santa Barbara, California.  And the words from a hymn written over 300 years ago about evil days brought everything into focus.  God will "bear you through the evil days."  My morning read was about nothing but evil days.  

We sang the rest of the hymn.  "So do your own part faithfully, and trust God's Word" we continued. I'm not sure what was going on in the 1650s, but today that must mean live out our faith in strength, working for what is just and right for all of us.  I felt like the hymn was speaking to me:  trust in God, hope in God, and do your own part faithfully.  

This seems simple, doesn't it?  Trust, don't lose hope, and follow the commandments.  

I read Engaged Defenders 4 Democracy, ED4D, on Substack.  A Durham based state-wide advocacy group for democracy.  I can't claim to be an active participant in the daily demonstrations across our state.  But I can sign my name, phone, spread the word and donate.  Maybe I/we can help keep hope alive, the mantra popularized by the late Rev. Jesse Jackson in his electrifying speech at the 1988 Democratic National Convention that I listened to again today. The man who, sounding a lot like Jesus, said that his Rainbow Coalition was of "the desperate, the damned, the disinherited, the disrespected and the despised." The man who gave us the rainbow as the symbol of inclusivity. 

The Communion Anthem was one we sing often at my home church in North Carolina:  "Let us Break Bread Together on our Knees."  The Blessing was adapted from the Rev. William Sloane Coffin (1924-2006), who prior to his ordination was a CIA officer (I didn't know), which lends a new credibility to his prayer "the world is now too dangerous for anything but truth." 

When I began the morning with the "news," I did not expect or want the journalists to lament the breaking of the Ten Commandments by the regime; or to note its sinful disregard of "Love your neighbor as yourself."  What we want from the free press now under siege, are the facts unadulterated by threats from a political party. We want a separation of church and state.  That separation allows the church to speak truth to power, from the pulpit and from the pew. 

Yes, from the pulpit and from the pew, the world is now too dangerous for anything but truth.  Too small for anything but love.  Attending worship is always a gift.  It is where we hear "You have the words of Eternal Life." Nowhere else.  

Where we are this month, the ocean and mountains remind of the eternality of things.  But so does the Gospel.  Jesus says, "My kingdom is not of this world." (John 18:36). No, but in this world we must keep the commandments, trust, hope and do our own part faithfully. Praise be to God.  AMEN

 

 

 

 

MAY GRAY IN SANTA BARBARA

Fog Lifted, Clear Night

 Not on little cat feet, no, but everyday

The fog floats over the wavy lines of Santa Ynez 

Seen out the window disappeared.

The city too, no valley, no mountain, no horizon;

All obscured by mist.

We could be anywhere.

We could be in the arctic, blinded by snow

Or in a sandstorm.

We could be asleep dreaming, no place no time,

Only close, close the bougainvillea visible,

The water in the fountain heard.

The doves nibbling seed, the woodpeckers the suet.

Can there be an ocean near? The cliffs? The thousand stairs? 

Maybe later, maybe then the city lights shine 

In the valley below this house on a hill

Where we live now this short time happy in the fog.

 

 

 

 

 

 

CALIFORNIA THOUGHTS

 While we've been out in California (new reader, North Carolina is our home), I feel like we've visited some of the most beautiful places on earth.  I could be exaggerating, you might say, if you've been in Switzerland, or Fiji, or the Bavarian Alps or the Norwegian fjords.  Where else?  Upstate New York maybe, the Great Lakes, Costa Rica, the American West.  But to me the California coast is a wonder.  One of the best parts is that it is accessible; Hwy 1 (State Route 1) travels up and down the Pacific coast, a kind of harrowing drive actually, according to my husband who did most of the driving. 

At 656 miles, it is second longest State Route in the U.S.  The Big Sur section, from San Luis Obispo to Carmel, is designated a national scenic by-way and we drove the whole thing the other day. It was breathtaking, over and over again. 

Cliff Top homes, Carmel

Point Lobos, Carmel

Pfeiffer Beach, Big Sur

Whenever I travel I think about people who were born and raised there.  People for whom this view, this culture, this climate, is what they are used to.  I remember on our honeymoon we had saved every penny to budget-travel Western Europe.  We were in a Zimmer Frei, a room in someone's house available to let. Pre-internet, you would hop off the train and look for a Zimmer Frei sign in a window.  

 

I had barely ever left the Midwest and here we were in Interlaken, in the Swiss Alps with a spray of cold mountain air freshening the streets and outside tables.  Wouldn't it be wonderful to be born here, I thought.  To have my brother and parents and friends here and we knew how to ski and raise goats and we picked Alpine meadow flowers in spring.

 

What if Big Sur weren't someplace you traveled across country to see, but a place you came for picnics on weekends and school holidays?  Do you ever have imaginings like that?  Maybe everyone does, thinks of other lives in other places.  And some are able to make that happen, relocate somewhere exotic or special to them.  

 

My husband and I are too satisfied, too deep into our North Carolina lives to move. That's always been true of some of us, hasn't it?  We like to travel but we love to be home.  Our reality is actually as good or better than any fantasy.  I don't think this is sour grapes (you know, Aesop's fable where the hungry fox decides that the grapes he cannot reach must be sour and not worth eating).  It's healthy to be satisfied.  Smart to admire something but not want it.  Energizing to appreciate some thing, some place, and move on.

 

So, sour grapes notwithstanding, here are a few of the places I am loving and from which, in just 16 more days, we will move on. I hope you enjoy the photos, that they bring up some of your own travel memories.

 

The View from Nepenthe, Big Sur

Back Garden Orange Trees

A long walk down . . . Santa Barbara

Giraffe with an ocean view. Santa Barbara Zoo

 

With all these photos, I feel like this has been a self-indulgent post. I.e., giving me more pleasure than it may give you.  But we do all need breaks from the regime that is too much with us, the crazy-tweeter too much with us, and his exploitive billionaire cohorts too much everywhere.  So, thank you for taking this break with me.    Nina Naomi

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MEMORIES OF HOMES

 Is there one place you have lived that you love more than any other?  Is it because of the place, the time or the people?  I may be thinking about this because we are living in our friends' home in Santa Barbara, California.  I have been posting about this.  They have a view of the mountains.  None of my own homes has ever been in a setting like this. 

My life is more prosaic.  Our North Carolina home is mid-century modern with trees and a meadow. Lots of privacy but always needing clean-up and repair.  Fallen branches, flooding creek, piles of debris.  Deer ticks and humidity.  A lovable place in every way, but hard to keep up.  Here, "seems it never rains in southern California," as the song goes.  So as house-sitters, we are watering desert-like pot plants that sit on a pebbled patio (no grass of course).  I never knew how vibrant bougainvillea are. 

Where do you live?  Overlooking a city street?  Traffic sounds out front?  Do you have a balcony to lean over?  Can you wave when a neighbor walks by?  Or is it swings and a sandbox in the back yard for you?  Have you been able to make all the places you've lived feel like home?

Where we have lived in Princeton, New Jersey for short stints, the bathroom window abuts the sidewalk where the kids line up for their school bus.  The kitchen door opens to a fire escape and laundry is in a moldy basement.  But with plants, pillows and fairy lights it's a super place to live.  I could make that home.

Where we stay in London, we carry our laundry to the basement across the street.  Years ago when we lived there as international students, we were all young and having babies.  Decades later we lived in a colleague's apartment in Zimbabwe while our London-born daughter taught in Lebowa, South Africa. Twice a week a woman washed our few clothes in the bathtub and swept the worn carpet with a broom. I remember all these places with affection.

I think about people who have lived in the same place forever.  Maybe that's you.  My best friend from childhood-to-now, has lived in our native state her whole life. Her children and grandchildren too. Same with my favorite cousin who is like an older sister. I can't help but think that because their friendships are longer, they must be deeper than mine. Deeper connections with place, with the history around them.

The other thing about homes, though, is they aren't just places of comfort.  We all know that tragedies happen in our homes.  Bad news.  Hurtful discoveries.  Facts that won't disappear.  Words that can't be unspoken:  forgiven, yes, but not unsaid.  Where love is greatest, emotional distress is too. Our beloved pets die.  Our parents die.  A spouse, a partner and yes, even a child may die.  So home isn't just a refuge.  It's where we get bad news as well as good.  We have fights there.  We get hurt there.  We crawl inside our closets and hide our scars. Home is not such a simple place after all.

The sayings about home are interesting. Is home people or a place?  I don't have a single friend in London, but the city myself is my friend.  I know the bus routes and alleyways, the neighborhood restaurants.  I can shelter in a museum or cafe. Many of us have a favorite city.  

Robert Frost (1874-1963) says, "Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in."  That may be true if our parents are alive.  Or a brother or sister or friend who loves us.  But not everyone has a place like that.  The greatest scourge is homelessness.

British poet Dame Edith Sitwell (1887-1964) says that winter is the time for home--good food, comfort and warmth.  But so are the other seasons, we might say.  I am here in our friends' home in spring.  That too is a time for home, when we might grow with the season.  Or summer, when the sun warms our souls and bodies. Or fall, when the reds and yellows remind us of death and rebirth.

My widowed father lived in his home until two weeks before he died at age 94.  By that time home was a small apartment in a retirement community where he had spent the last ten years. He enjoyed it as much as any home where he had ever lived: company, good food, activities and just 10 minutes from me.  May we all be so fortunate.

Thoughtfully, Nina Naomi 

  

  

THIS IS OUR WORLD TODAY

We are still at our friends' home in Santa Barbara, California marveling at the different vistas of creation--the Santa Ynez mountains, the Los Padres National Park and the endless Pacific.  Have you visited friends or family in distant places?  North Carolina has mountains and sea, cities, college towns and villages.  It is my favorite state--home.  

But different ecosystems are a wonder to see.  Here we have sage brush, sea lavender and the iconic ice plant all protecting the cliffs from erosion.  The fig and eucalyptus trees--the latter the tallest known flowering tree on earth--are abundant.  Also the jacaranda with their purple blooms in May.  

 

This is different than visiting a city. No skyscrapers or even tall buildings as this land is earthquake prone.  Fires a present danger too.  Maybe you have lived in California and know more than I.  I am awed by the shoreline and cliffs, mountains and sky.  The people too, all friendly and dog lovers, as am I.  Without a pup now, I covet the animals we see being walked along the shoreline or off-leash on a designated beach.  

The other thing we love is visiting other churches.  Here we attend an Episcopalian church.  We can see the spire from the window of our friends' home, which is on a hill.  I light candles in our home church and in churches where we visit.  I have done this for over 30 years, wherever we find ourselves.   It is good to be with people who worship the same God.  It is good to be with people like Californians, who work so hard to protect their immigrant population.  My first NO KINGS day was here. 

Our friend whose house this is, is bilingual and coordinates a community carpool to take immigrants to doctor's and other appointments.  Her husband, a pastor, has served churches in vacancy.  Like Durham, North Carolina, this is a good place. 

Since 2017 I have been posting in my mother's name, Nina Naomi, in this blog titled "Diary of a Mindful Nature Lover."  With Mother's Day next weekend and house-sitting in a spot where mindfulness faces not a single obstacle and nature is wild and abundant, I feel grateful and calm.  I hope you do too.  We, you and I, are not replicating each other's experiences.  I am usually at home with the chores an old house brings and the stresses of age.  You may be home with chores, job and family.  But we share the need for time outdoors, time with trees and garden, time for possibly prayer and reflection and perhaps to light a candle, if only for ourselves.  

So wherever we are, let's take care.  Of ourselves, each other and God's creation.  And if you are inclined to share your reflections on this post, please do.  I would love to hear from you.             Nina Naomi 

 

 

 

 

 

"THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US"

 

Dwarf Red Maple and Snap Dragons

I started writing this post last week, seated outdoors with time to think. Having just finished my peruse of The Guardian, half my mind was on Donald Trump, who facing 80 and dementia, posted an AI picture of himself as Jesus Christ.  Inanity and blasphemy. Like all of us when "[t]he world is too much with us," to quote William Wordsworth (1770-1850), I needed to transition back to the moment.    

How better than to share the beauty of the courtyard where I was sitting, the dwarf red maple newly blooming with last year's snap dragons reseeded?  My daughter-in-law had said that morning that we must pace our attention to the state of our country. So I worked in the yard, watering the moss because we are in a drought; pruning the dead branches from the hydrangea, which always bloom on our anniversary, early June; and best of all--swam. (Yes, it reached 81℉ that day where we live in North Carolina.)

Last year's fulsome bounty!

We live in an old mid-century modern house with a small concrete pool.  Great for my bad back.  I can slide in and reach the other side in eight strokes.  A luxury I never dreamed of until we found this abandoned property over 20 years ago.  After a lap, I raised my head to a small field mouse, paddling in desperation.  I put a float under it and out it scampered, into the grasses.  Whew!  

So a small but, to me, luxurious day.  I always feel like I may not deserve this old house in the woods with mice and a pool.  I may not deserve a long marriage and retirement.  I may not deserve the free-time to sit and blog.  Do you ever feel like you don't deserve your good things?

Now, this week, we are back at our friends' house in Santa Barbara, California; the third year they have invited us to house-sit while they're gone, leaving our sweet old home to the field mice, squirrels and deer and my indoor plants to my gracious daughter-in-law. Here the purple jacaranda are in bloom.  I feel lucky again. 

How do you feel about your life?  I hope you mostly--if not entirely--love it.  Are content with it.  Wouldn't want to trade with anyone else at all.  Most of us say that, I've read. We may need more security and better health, but our life is ours. We won't give it away. 

No matter how we feel, here are my suggestions for spring, the suggestions of someone who has lived long:  Stick with the outdoors, stick with nature.  Wordsworth's poem continues, 

"late and soon, / Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; / Little we see in Nature that is ours; / We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!" 

Backing away from the news from time to time keeps our hearts intact. Loving nature helps us love our lives, doesn't it?  I plant a few pansies and when the heat takes them, choose impatiens, begonias and geraniums.  Here at my friend's I am planting her thyme, basil, mint and oregano. My own has come up fresh and fragrant.

While here, I enjoy the orange and lemon trees, the amazingly fuchsia bougainvillea and the sight of the cold Pacific Ocean.  This is unusual for me.  Many people live in vacation spots or cities and towns known for their charm.  Not exactly true of Durham, North Carolina, a blue-collar town we do not intend to leave. 

So, there is no moral to this story.  Trump and his cruelty continue but so do our lives and loves.  So does God's creation.  So do our daily needs and resets.  So does the means of our salvation, our relationship with our God, with our families, with the life and water outside our door. 

Somehow after writing, this feels to me a bit like a prayer.  

AMEN

Nina Naomi  

 

  

 

 

 

 

  

A SPRING MOMENT--LASTING LOVE

 

 My Midwinter Moments are over for the year, the last one posted on January 22.  It's time for Spring Moments.  Of course, the first isn't a moment at all; it's a way of life.  Today, the day I am writing, is two weeks after Easter.   Like many, we had a our typical Resurrection Sunday:  church and Easter Breakfast.  We sat with friends in the Fellowship Hall and gorged on eggs, pancakes, sausage and fruit.  Very Lutheran.  

This year we had no family for brunch or supper.  We were alone together, our favorite way to be.  We have committed to de-cluttering this spring.  We are beginning with old love letters, the handwritten kind, written when we were very young and before email or cell phones.  It is the first time we have ever re-read these longing, romantic missives sent between college students living states apart.  

For three years we each wrote almost a letter a day.  Having met in junior high and dated in high school, in college we were growing into adults together, sharing our academic pursuits (both English majors) and amazing feelings of overwhelming love.  Not puppy love, or first love, but what was to become lasting love; love that would weather all storms, even great losses.  But of course, when we wrote these letters, we knew nothing of adversity.  We knew not that we were setting a strong foundation that would build trust of one another we couldn't, and didn't want to, break.  

I am going through the boxes and reading the yellowing letters aloud to my husband, bits and pieces, as he gives intermittent attention to a project on his computer.  We run across adventures we barely remember. Each letter is full of feeling.  

"1 a.m. Monday morning.  Back in the dormitory again!  It seems I just left.  You were in my thoughts all the way from St. Louis to Fort Wayne, as I dreamed many beautiful stories about us which will all come true. . . . You are all the brightness in my life; you are my life.  Without you, there would be nothing.  I love you with all my being, with all the strength that I have, and never, as long as I live, will I cease loving you."

I think we were 19 and 20 when this was written.  We have grandchildren those ages now.   Can we look to the future from a letter like that?  Do such feelings make an unbreakable bond for a marriage?  Or might someone feel that way at 20 or 30 and squander it all for a secret relationship at 40?  Or even 70?    

I tend to think that the early longing we endured built, in me at least, expectation and assurance of lasting fidelity.  I believed that early letter and responded in kind. The slightest deviation from that kind of love, for me, would not stand. My husband, I hope, the same.  

I have stacks of letter yet to go through.  Then we will save some and discard most.  I want to save the one I quoted.  How sweet is that, from a 20-year-old to the girl he loved?  I am lucky to be that girl, that woman.  We are both lucky.  Reading these for the first time in decades is a Spring Moment for us.  

With happiness, Nina Naomi 

 

EARTHLY KING, HEAVENLY KING

 

It's almost time for the next No Kings Day, Saturday March 28.  I wouldn't miss it.  I hope you can participate too.  Not that what we have is a King.  Kings can be benevolent, wise, concerned for the good the their country.  But not dictators, or the Mad King, the wannabe tyrant.  

We are at the coast and will be for No Kings.   I will attend in the neighboring Town of Beaufort, on the Newport River alongside Beaufort Inlet.  Being here changes one's perspective.  Vastness does that, doesn't it?  Far horizons, dark skies, eternity all around.  Go outside any night and look up.  It's a comfort, like an embrace.  A feeling we need these days. 

From time to time I read Robert Reich on Substack.  Professor, political commentator, and former Secretary of Labor, Reich reminds us that tyranny cannot succeed where people refuse to submit to it.  And that's what we're doing, day-by-day and each time a No Kings comes around--refusing to submit.   We rally, we find joy in knowing that we are millions.  

We gather to show that our communities won't submit to a police state.  We won't tolerate anyone who protects pedophiles.  Or tolerate arrest without due process.  We gather because the opening words of our Constitution's Preamble are "We the People," not "I the President."  We gather so that those who follow Mr. Wannabe become more worried about losing our support than his.  

We gather out of respect.  If we are people of faith, we gather because our faith asks that of us.  If we are Christian, we honor one king only, our Heavenly King of Kings and Lord of Lords:  the One who keeps His promises, who asks those who need help to approach boldly, who changes not.  The Heavenly King who every spring sacrifices that we might be saved.  Our resistance says, "You may be a greedy billionaire who thinks to rule by fear.  Not me, not my neighbor, not today, not ever."  

I ask God to help and guide me.     In Peace, Nina Naomi

 

 

 

 

 

 

SPRING'S SACRED DANCE

Garden, Pierre Bonnard, 1935, NY Met

God of the equinox, spring or vernal, autumnal or fall,

We ask You to bless the light and the dark in our days,

Our country and world.

In our country shine your light on the evil being done in Your name

To Your sorrow and ours expose and defeat with our help and Yours.

Make us one with You and Your Word 

So that in our fear of wars and rumors of wars we remain steadfast

In action and faith, resisting always each in our given way. 

In this time when the sun hovers over the earth to equal day and night

And the song birds return to lift the universe with sounds only theirs, 

(The first of Your creation to sound the alarm of hope),

Teach us to use all Your resources--insect, bud and bloom, refreshing rain,

Green and yellow, purple too as imperatives to follow your Holy call. 

Inspire us to turn despair to action.

 

Out my window is dancing, spring is dancing, days longer just for the dance. 

Forsythia are dancing, redbud are dancing on roadsides.

Lenten roses are taking a bow.

We hear Your invitation to join this sacred dance.

To sing songs of protest if we wish, to march with signs of Love Conquers Hate.

To become peacemakers without falter.

To remember that every dictator dies ignominiously and alone. 

But we with our Lord, doing the tasks that our faith assigns us,

Shall grow this Spring with the flowers, using Your strength to restore Your world.

For this we pray in Your name O Lord.  AMEN 

 

 

 

 

IT MIGHT BE SPRING SOON

 

 Sometimes we need a break from everything, absolutely everything.  One thing we always need a break from is the quest for perfection.  Getting older helps with that; there's not a single thing I can do perfectly anymore.  My garden is not perfect and never will be.  Just the other day the top of a large ash tree hit the ground, blocking my "fitness" trail (i.e. a path of moss I tend lovingly).  I will have to call the tree service for their regular post-winter clean-up.  I want them to start at the road and work their way back, chipping the downed trees and branches--We live in the woods. This will take at least a half day and cost my winter savings.  

The daffodils and early blue hyacinth are pushing up.  I picked a few daffs today for my shelfie.  And the Lenten roses are lush.  I've sprayed the hyacinth and nandina with Deer Off to deter the still-hungry deer.  I've put out pansies and sprayed them too.  They will weather the few frosts still to come in North Carolina.  I'm using Squirrel Repellent liberally.  What a late winter garden:  everything smells like urine!  

So--perfection.  My favorite magazine, UK's The Simple Things, had a feature on The Slapdash Manifesto.  I.e., whatever is good enough is good enough.   I love that.  After all, being imperfect is what makes us human.  My house, my garden, my baking, my knitting, my hobbies, (my hair!)--all works in progress.  Simple means imperfect, and simple is really, really enjoyable.  

The Slapdash Manifesto consists of general principles for good enough:  

• Become a dabbler.  Just have a go.  Begin. 
• Enjoy the journey.  Its the doing, not the result that matters.
• Try.  Get in the spirit.  Forget criticism, your own or others. 
• Make your own rules.  Have fun.  
• Pause.  Go slow.  Stop and smell the roses, or eat cake, or take a nap.  

 Isn't this nice?  It makes me feel good.  Tomorrow I will check on the new plants, the perennials just sprouting, the sedum coming up in all my pots (I use it as filler, it's so reliable and sturdy), mint that is peeking through the leaves, oregano and chives I transplanted.  Even violets that will show any day now.  And won't that be wonderful?  

 

This Diary of a Mindful Nature Lover is thoroughly imperfect.  I've been posting since 2017, a long time ago now.  Whenever I check, it surprises me, the number of readers and where they (you) are from.   So, take a walk.  See what is making its way through the leaf letter in your garden or neighborhood.  Take a photo.  Show the world some love.             

                  In peace, Nina Naomi

 

 

 

 

LENT AND BLACK HISTORY MONTH

 

Lent this year began in February.  A moveable feast, our Shrove Tuesday (Fat Tuesday) pancake supper is, falling the day before Ash Wednesday which is 46 days before Easter, which itself is set by the Lunar Calendar, Easter being the first Sunday following the first full moon after the vernal equinox.  The resurrection of our Lord--like the tides that lap our North Carolina shore and yours, wherever you may be--is dated by the phase of the moon, our constant companion, using the Gregorian calendar which superseded the Julian calendar (put in place by Julius Caesar) at the First Council of Nicea in 325.  Could anything be more ancient? 

Something we might be especially thankful for, Lent 2026 (and many years, Ash Wednesday falling somewhere between Feb 4 and March 11) begins in the month we dedicate to honoring Black History.  This year is the 100th anniversary of Negro History Week, inaugurated by historian and author, Dr. Carter G. Woodson in 1926.  Then in 1976, during the year of our nation's Bicentennial, GOP President  Gerald Ford made the month official. 

So appropriate.  We began the Lenten journey on Ash Wednesday with the words, "Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return."   These are words of repentance and mortality.  They require kneeling.  Is the time we have to repent before our death really any longer than the time between Ash Wednesday and Easter?  Has it not passed, is it not passing, more quickly than we ever knew? 

February is the birthday month of Frederick Douglass (1818-1895), abolitionist, orator, statesman and one reason the month was chosen to celebrate Black history.  You might want to look up the stirring poem "Frederick Douglass" by Robert Hayden, the first African American to hold the office later known as Poet Laureate of the United States.  Part of it reads:

this man, this Douglass, this former

slave, this Negro

beaten to his knees, exiled,

visioning a world

where none is lonely, none hunted,

alien,

this man, superb in love and logic,

this man

shall be remembered.   

 Today we still have human beings lonely, hunted, alien, beaten to their knees, exiled, killed.  In Lent we repent and seek forgiveness.  Jesus says "Love your enemies."  Tyrants foment hate.  Jesus says, "Forgive."  Tyrants seek revenge.  Jesus says, "Feed the hungry, heal the sick."  The tyrant cuts humanitarian aid and medical research.  Jesus says, "Blessed are the peacemakers."  The tyrant creates masked police forces and inflicts fear.  Jesus says, "Give to the poor."  The tyrant enriches himself.  

As we move through Lent toward Holy Week, we are aware that corrupted power, religious hypocrisy and state violence are at odds with peace, truth, trust, hope and the promise of new life. It is up to us to work for the peace of God that builds community and passes all understanding. What a wonderful challenge we have before us.  

As the Rev. Jesse Jackson said at the 1988 Democratic National Convention, we are "at the crossroads, a point of decision.  Shall we be expansive, be inclusive, find unity and power; or suffer division and impotence?" "Common ground," he continued.  "Think of Jerusalem . . . . A small village that become the birthplace for three religions--Judaism, Christianity and Islam."  "Yearning to be free," is our common ground, says this pastor we remember this year of his death this month of Black History.  

Lent 2026 we might recognize as one of special opportunity, wondrous opportunity.  It might be the Lent we have been waiting for.  We might become the people we need to be to act in faith and save those hunted, alien.  If so, we say, thanks be to God.  AMEN

 

 

OH HAPPY DAY

 It's dusk now  and the snow continues to fall without a sound.  We have our Christmas tree, sans ornaments, out on the front deck where we move it until we can bear to take it, stripped bare, into the woods, any day now as it's February.  It sparkles as darkness falls.  As I write, I can see the outline of the trees standing tall in the woods, each branch just lightly snow-covered (more by morning I'm sure) looking ethereal.  Now, moments later, only dark.   This is the North Carolina Piedmont and we can rhapsodize about the snow, it blesses us so seldom. 

I haven't left the house for days, suffering from a strain of flu that escaped my flu shot this Fall.  But today is Day 5 and symptoms are much better, so that nothing could be more welcome than what looks to be a genuine soft snow that will make our woods a refuge of white. Tomorrow our meadow will look like this: 

Cedars after snow storm in our meadow

 It is a beautiful sight.  The other day, during a dusting, I woke to find deer lying just up from our back patio.  They stayed that way the whole time I watched, no stamping of little hoof, just a direct gaze. 

I wonder where the resident Canada geese are during this weather?  No honking as they cross the sky tonight.  The birds must be hunkered down too I hope.  I hope the cedar trees are providing shelter and food.  We couldn't fill the bird feeder this week with the path all icy and both of us with the flu. 

We know how much is going on in America.  Mostly in Minneapolis but elsewhere too.  Cruelty and sadism to deplore and togetherness and community resistance to admire.  My mind, perhaps like yours, is buffeted and my actions more sporadic than I'd like. But we must always find what's wonderful, too. So tonight it's snow, deer, candlelight, blogging and a lifting of the flu symptoms that Tamiflu has helped with this week.  Tomorrow we will be solidly snowed in, in our house in the woods with no snowplows in sight and I will cook what we have.  My husband has been waiting to bake a cake; me, chili with every bean and veg in the house, lots of cumin.  If we loose power of course, all bets are off--two grandparents like ourselves.  But for now, thank you God for this snow.  Thank you for the time to write.  Help us defeat the totalitarianism in our country and keep us strong for that task.  Keep us mindful of the hungry deer and birds and all animals in our path, that we care for them as you intend.  AMEN

 

 

 

 

 

 

JANUARY 28, FOREVER

 

My mother Nina Naomi, born November 6, 1922-died May 25, 2005

My son, born January 28, 1972-died July 17, 2005

His daughter, born July 29, 2005

His nephew and our younger grandson, born January 28, 2005 

Everyone has a hardest year.  Ours was 2005. Our house was filled with love and grief so intertwined that swirling molecules of one collided with molecules of the other.  My mother was in a nursing home dying of cancer and her first born grandson could not visit her because he was dying of his own cancer. She was 82 and he was 33. My daughter had a 4-year old son and a baby born January 28 (today as I write this) the day her brother turned thirty-three. We have a photo of them together, our son, a tall man with soft light brown hair worn long in front--now bald from chemotherapy--and his nephew with the downy scalp, held high, matching bald head for bald head. Our son looks quizzical. 

Twelve days after our son's death, his daughter was born, a healthy amazing child with straight-up punk-style strawberry blonde hair. 

I still remember being in the hallway when a nurse asked me, is the new mother your daughter?  No, she's my daughter-in-law I said.  She made the connection and looked stricken for me. "Oh, I'm so sorry," touching my arm. 

But even then, just twelve days after our son's death, his daughter closed the circle. Our grief was cushioned by our love: for him, for her, for her mother.  Our daughter-in-law was sleep-walking.  She went from nursing a husband to nursing a baby; flush with all her new-mother hormones, yet asking God "why?"

I got through the day of the funeral holding the precious baby who had been born just six months before.  Our daughter handed him to me as we came home from the church, knowing who I needed to stay upright as friends came by. I focused on his silky soft head (99th percentile, his father bragged). By six months this baby boy was already saving a life.

From the moment of her birth our son's daughter filled the family with joy and admiration. She is a smart, willowy college junior.  As God's gift to her and to us, she has never shared our grief. She has her own knowledge of loss, I believe, but not with the depth of ours. When she holds out her arms for an embrace, no person is luckier than I.  

I am writing this small remembrance on January 28, the birthday of my son and my younger grandson.  Now, 21 years after the death of my son, it is my grandson who I awake thinking of.  His happy birthday, away from home in Scotland at St. Andrew's University, living his best life and sharing it during long phone calls, with us. 

In the midst of this remembrance of love and sadness, I get a call from our granddaughter.  It is Daddy's birthday, she says to me, and I am thinking of you.  Who raised such a girl I wonder.  How can she know I need her voice today?  

We are home with the flu and she drives partway up our icy drive, then walks the rest of the way carrying a bag of cough medicine and spicy Peruvian chicken.  She leaves it all on the back stoop and taps on the window and waves.  We are snowed in and feverish but now we have enough chicken, rice, beans and Robitussin to last till weekend. There are yucca chips in the bag too.  

The hardest year is long over.  We survived it.  We do, don't we?  Our daughter-in-law stayed a widow for ten years, until that no longer seemed right, and then married the man our granddaughter calls Dad.  But Daddy is still our son, a man who has filled her with his tenderness of spirit and so many other qualities.  More than any other feeling, I feel lucky and blessed.  I feel hope in the younger generations. I feel God's gifts in my marriage, in the snow softly falling again, in the candlelight glowing by my computer.   

In Waiting for Godot Samuel Beckett (1906-1989) said, "I can't go on.  I'll go on."  This is supposed to reflect the essence of human persistence despite despair, and it does.  But to Christians, surely a statement of God at our side. 

Thank you for reading.  Nina Naomi 

 

MID-WINTER MOMENTS, PART II

Four friends had lunch today at a cafe where we ordered lovely food and drink, a lunch that stretched two hours because we had so much to say.  That's a mid-winter moment.  We were willing to go out in the cold and make time for talk and each other.  Isn't one of your winter goals, or even a life goal, to be analog I've heard it called--i.e. spend time with people not technology?   

Although we didn't discuss this, I bet each of us will have a simple supper tonight.  I love eggs or pasta.  Tonight I have spaghetti in mind, olive oil, lemon, a few shrimp or scallops, spinach and white wine, all on hand in fridge or cupboard.

 

Before that, time with my collage journal. Here's a page from a few years ago.  I am finishing my 5th year of collage journalling, keeping track of my life with pictures, poems by me and others, cutting and pasting and layering and texturing and glittering, enjoying those endeavors a working person almost never has time for.  

Here's another bit, cut out and framed. Tea is a favorite solace of mine, gets me up each morning, but welcome anytime.  My husband makes me a cup when I ask, perfectly sweetened and milked. 

Today's conversation, as is often the case when women get together, was full of affirmation. Maybe because we share a faith but probably not just that.  Women have this knack. Here is how I would summarize the gift given:  My dear, nothing is missing, you are already whole. 

 

I would add to that, for each of us and for everyone I know or wish I knew. 

Believe in yourself.  Treat yourself as you would a friend. 

These are my winter moments from this ordinary winter day.  Tonight a fire with my pasta, feet up and a movie. Knitting on my simple cowl.

We can do this, you know.  We can take care of ourselves and also take care of our community.  We can use winter moments to keep ourselves healthy without losing sight of our goals for our country. We're heading into a winter storm.  After a good night's sleep we may wake up to snow, not as common here in the North Carolina Piedmont as on the rest of the East Coast.  Snow silences commotion and soothes the soul.  With that respite we will continue to resist those who wish to divide and conquer even though they are our own government. 

 

 

For all this we say, thanks be to God.  

Nina Naomi