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

THE CYCLE OF LIFE

Fort Macon, Emerald Isle, NC

So, other than ourselves, our bodies, hearts and souls; 

Other than Salvation, the gift of His Son and Life Everlasting; 

Other than love and desire, effervescence and time; 

Other than laughter and bravery and tears; 

Other than my repentance and your forgiveness

Or your regret and mine, 

(Christe Eleison, Christe Eleison, Christe Eleison)

Other than laughter and touching and tears,  

God also gives us Nature.  

How about that?  

Sets us square in the midst of this regal space.

Lightning and lavender and dark swirling skies.

Deep things and old things, rough things or smooth, 

Each thing a process (and so too are we).  

A space that can lift up our traumas and bury our cares.

We live in a metaphor, yes and a world

Actualizing without shame or blame.

A fox or a tree or the rain or the waves; 

Something that skitters you only can hear; 

A hawk big enough to shadow the field; 

The air moist or dry, or colder or close; 

Wind to blow savage and topple a tree; 

The cycle of Life is His gift, 

Our cycle of emotions too.  

Everything coming round and round and round again.

Never an ending once more to begin.

                               Nina Naomi 

SOME DAYS ARE STORMY (IN VERSE)

Verse #1 for Today

What do you need? God asked.

To be understood, valued and loved.

Yes, God said, anything else?

Not just by You (a plea).

That too, God replied.

But how? she wondered.

Trust yourself?

Trust your intuitions?

Protect yourself?

"Yes those, but more:  Keep Me beside you."

Verse #2 for Today

If there is a time for everything 

Then there is a time for letting go.

Thoughts into memories, memories into thoughts.

Some are treasures that turn the tide

Rushing to cut off my heart, my breath. 

Things I let go return to have their say, 

And deep without warning I need to write.

Not all, just this, these words.

Verse #3 for Today

She never needed perfect,

She only needed love. 

Verse #4 for Today

Immutable is the Word

Knowing what I cannot know.

Acting when I cannot act.

Giving when I cannot give.

 
 

MEMORY AND INTUITION

Memory and Intuition

 This is how memory works.  

If you want to forget you remember. 

If you want to remember you forget.  

One day your memory comforts. 

The next day it torments. 

A memory never finishes.   

 An angle out of view, it travels side-to-side.   

A broken mind with broken thoughts

Does not a memory find.  

Where there's a memory shadowless, 

Its shelter fills our heart.

My childhood home, my children small, 

So much that's real and true. 

Or, memory takes a hurt and rags it like a bone.

"Leave me alone," we say, yet it does not. 

What's over not our choice. 

But intuition quite apart,  

Itself a memory shadowless, 

On it we can depend. 

Our intuition holds our hand as we approach the wall. 

   Unready for the news we fear 

Forever heart on hold.

It doesn't let us fail. 

With intuition there's no doubt, 

It's always on our side.  

With memory we can fall right through 

And land upright or not. 

But intuition could be God, 

Its saving grace a balm. 

Its wisdom greater than our own,

Its insight only bliss.   

  

 

A PRAYER FOR US ALL

The season is changing and so am I.

In winter I hibernate,

Tea and blankets and fire and long nights.

In spring I bloom,

Color and rain and hands in the soil.

In summer I run barefoot in my soul,

Climb trees in my mind and hit all the high notes.

And in fall my heart bleeds for losses but loves just the same,

Loves the past (but not all), loves the present (but just some), loves the future.  

Pain drifts out the windows, open and fine.

Lights reach my corners to keep out the webs.

In fall I get ready for whatever will come: 

Dying, living, rocks or sand, dry spells or fertile.  

I am here God for another season.  Take care of me please.  

Amen.

WHY WE PRAY (OR WHY WE DON'T)

Lately I haven't been praying as often.  Usually my mind is flooded with prayer.  The least thing.  I don't understand my daughter:  "Help me God."  I'm standing at the waters' edge at sunset, heels sinking with the tide's gentle outflow:  "Thank you Lord."  The Ukrainians are dying:  "Save them Lord."  "The test came back normal:  "Thank you God."  

 

But lately not so much.  So, it seems, instead of actually praying, I've been thinking about prayer.  I don't know if others do this. 

The first thought is, why do we pray? To be closer to God surely.  To claim God as our center.  To admit that we are not alone and don't want to be.  To lay our very selves before the one who made us and whom we know will be there no matter how deep we sink.  To prostrate ourselves and be lifted.  To seek respite.  To give our burdens away.  To say, "Help me please."  That's on a bad day. 

On a good day we pray to give thanks.  On those days we worship with joy and sing God's praise.  We pray because we are grateful for every season, every blossom and seed, every lizard and spider and chipmunk.  We are grateful that our children are better, our lives have been spared, the floods have receded.  We give thanks for our best self, the self that cares for others, that loves with abandon, that lies on our back and feels the rain. 

We can pray to feel better, or we can pray to live better with how we're feeling.  Doing the latter often results in the former. We learned as children not to set an agenda for God.  After all, the words of the Lord's Prayer are "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done," not ours.  Hopefully we use prayer to be more open, receptive and present to God and not to tangle with our emotional life, our history, and the thoughts in our mind. 

Prayer is not a clever way to be happier, that we know.  Although turning over the unsolvable on earth to God--really letting it go--does help our stress and anxiety and maybe even depression.  

 

It's been said that a lack of prayer means a lack of faith and a lack of trust in God's word.  I actually read that.  Written by someone highly judgmental, no doubt.  That mind-set is easy to run into.  The same writer said that we pray to demonstrate our faith in God.  Demonstrate to whom would be my question.  I can't say that ever in my life have I prayed to "demonstrate" anything.  I pray out of need, gratitude and thanksgiving, knowing that not everything can be fixed, not world events and certainly not every private unpleasant experience.

I also read that prayers un-prayed will be prayers unanswered, but that too is not true.  God answers many prayers that I am too absent (or tired or unknowledgeable or devastated . . .) to pray.  I bet for each of us.

 

I'm sure that prayer will come easily again.  Sometimes something happens that destabilizes us for some reason and we need a re-set.  I bet God will answer a prayer that I don't even know how to phrase.  Sometimes that is my prayer:  You ask and You answer; I will accept.  Thank you Lord.  AMEN

"GOD UNBOUNDED NET UNFURLED" BY NINA NAOMI

 

Faith is the water that buoys the soul. 

Rising, rocking

Heart-held, fear-felled. 

 

Faith is the thing with wings 

That lifts me from the mud and sets me loose. 

That lets us fly. 

No more this, no more that,

Just God unbounded net unfurled. 

 

Faith is the memory of all we believe.

All we trust. 

For you, for us.  

Our lovers perhaps, ourselves, our God.  

Faith makes a nest for love. 

 

Faith can be borrowed when all is ruined,

Until your own returns.  

Faith can sleep and then awaken like a moth.   

It will take hold of you, gently, and say in your ear 

"I am here.  I am here."  

 

 

LIVING IN REVERSE

 

As you get older you start living in reverse, at least I have.  What else is the rage for de-cluttering if not living in reverse? 

When I young and registered for wedding gifts, clutter was not on my mind.  All that stuff I wanted.  A special dish for deviled eggs!  Now I'm giving away my mother's cow collection:  cows that pour milk, cows that dance, cows that play music.  Too many cows.  Linens, sheets and tablecloths pile up for the thrift shop.  Sheets for beds in sizes we don't even have anymore; tablecloths for dinner parties from a different era.  Business suits land in Nearly New.  Furniture, bake-ware, bits and bobs all wait for charity.  Too many toys, blankets and purses.  Was I really the one who bought all this, or kept it? 

The gift list gets smaller; the gifts more carefully chosen.  No more bulk-buys for networking.  How many this-or-that with some company's logo haven't I tossed?  And promotional tote bags? They sprout and multiply.

The pandemic has brought clarity, hasn't it?  Relationships that don't serve us can be let go as well.  Someone who's too competitive, or negative, or more frenemy than friend is not in our best interests. We can't fix everything.  

Fears fall away along with prejudices and complaints.  We collect experiences rather than things.  We give eachother our time and attention.  We plan outings.  For the children too.  

Ideas flow like air.  I exhale thoughts.  The longer we live the more we understand because somehow, in some way, we've been there before.  The way one generation lived through WWI, another lived through the Great Depression. The way some experienced the assassinations of the Kennedys and Dr. King, the Gulf War or 9-11, everyone today will know where they were when the pandemic shutdown began.  I remember the name of Allison Krause, a student killed by Ohio National Guardsmen during a peace rally at Kent State on May 4, 1970.  That anniversary is coming up. And I know I'll remember the chants, "Say his name" . . . "George Floyd."   The longer we're alive the more formative moments, bad and good.

We bother to get to know ourselves and, Eureka, like who we are.  Or if we don't, we take steps.  Our friends are more precious. And love . . . love becomes most precious of all.  We don't throw away love; that we recycle. Take it, give it, take it, give it. Round and round.  If we have a lover we live in ripples of tenderness.  But we also dig for love from within.  We learn to love ourselves with that same gentleness we give to others.  We learn to forgive, even when forgetting is not in our control.  We don't save our emotions and we don't squander them.  We lay it all on the line.  

I pray more.  I'm getting to know God as God has always known me.  It's just another kind of embraceable love is what I'm finding.  I don't know how God manages to find me, but it happens every day.  Maybe because I'm outdoors more.  Mary Oliver says, 

When I am among the trees, 

especially the willows and the honey locust,

equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,

they give off such hints of gladness,

I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I would say that too.  We have beech and oaks and pines.  And cedar and dogwood.  And volunteers that grow huge and look more like weeds than trees. When I'm out amongst the trees I too feel saved. 

Could it be that as life reverses and becomes smaller (as it has for us all this past year), our thoughts become larger?  Our ideas range further? So that de-cluttering is also a gathering in, a pulling together and what remains matters more.  Matters more and has more space and time.  That would be good, wouldn't it?                                              
                                                         Nina Naomi

P.S. Full disclosure: I still have the plate for deviled eggs. It's useful and sparks joy!

                                                 

 

 

 

 

DAYS OF LONGING, VERSE FOR TODAY

 

It was quite chilly today.

It reminded me of my longing for Christmas.

For the coming of God in the humanest form.

Amid presents, greenery, ribbons and love.

Love all around.

Love in the Hallelujahs,

Love in the sweetmeats and drink,

Love in the loneliness, even there.  

Even there where someone worships alone, all alone.

Longing for Christmas, longing for love. 

 N.N.

 

It was quite sunny today. 

It reminded me of my longing for peace.

For the coming of Christ amid sunbeam and shadow, 

straw and the braying of donkey and fool.

Love all around. 

Love in the dust motes, the warmth of a touch.

In the languor that clings to a quite sunny day.

Alone or together we seek it.

Alone or together we find it.

Alone.

Or together.

N.N.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

IT'S HOLY WEEK. THIS YEAR IT'S NOT THE SAME.

Duke Chapel, Durham NC

It's Holy Week.  Normally I am looking forward to Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday and Easter.  All good services.  Each a little different than the other.  The striping of the altar, the Crucifixion, a day of waiting, then the Resurrection.  A lot of silence during Holy Week.  A lot of contemplation.

This year it's not the same.  At least today, Monday, I feel like it won't be. Of course maybe I'm wrong.  Maybe when Thursday comes and I follow our service on-line it will actually feel like the day of the Last Supper, the day of the first communion.  "Take, eat.  This is my body.  Take, drink.  This is my blood."  Even though we can't take communion except from prepared packets available by drive-through.  

Maybe if I listen to the Friday service in the dark it will feel like Tenebrae, the service of darkness where candles are gradually extinguished, leaving only the Christ candle to be carried out of the sanctuary symbolizing Christ's death; followed by a loud noise, the slamming of a large Bible symbolizing the closing of the tomb. Maybe I can somehow replicate leaving the church in silence in my home.  

Of course on Sunday I can't parade around my home in my Easter clothes (today is the first day in 3 weeks that just for a change I didn't pull on jeans).  There won't be a congregation singing "Jesus Christ is Risen Today," though the organist I'm assuming will play it.  There may be some Easter lilies in the background of the video but we won't be able to smell them.  We won't share an Easter breakfast or watch the children hunt for eggs.  

Still, as I write this I am changing.  I can feel it.  Writing can do that.  I find I am picturing each service, each part that I will miss.  The foot-washing on Maundy Thursday, reminding us to serve each other in humility.  The pace of the Good Friday service:  hymn, lesson, candle snuffed, lights dimmed, repeat.  Slower and darker untill we tiptoe out in silence.  The hiatus of Saturday when Christ lies in the tomb.  The newness of Easter morn that matches the bright green spring leaves in my little part of the world perfectly.   


The self-isolation and my classes on meditation have brought me closer to God.  My Prayer Journal the same.  I read this morning that we bring our suffering to God and I agree.  I am more likely to think of God out of need than gratitude.  Gratitude takes practice.  Need doesn't.  Usually I write in my Prayer Journal because I have something I desperately need to tell someone; only God will do.  God keeps our secrets.  He listens.  Now when I open the Prayer Journal--take off the rubber bands, slide out the pen--my breath slows, I am focused.  I know what's coming.  God will be there.  Maybe that will be true of the services this week, on-line or not.  I can still hear the organ, still hear the words.  Maybe God will be there.  After all, God often finds me in this house.  

Perhaps this has been a prayer.  AMEN.              Nina Naomi

The Abbey of Our Lady of Gethsemani

"THIS IS MY SONG, O GOD OF ALL THE NATIONS"

Monday January 6 was the Twelfth Day of Christmas.  Epiphany which, according to legend, is the day the three Wise Men visited the baby Jesus.  Astrologers otherwise known by the carol "We Three Kings of Orient are / Bearing gifts we traverse afar." 

All week I've been singing, humming and listening to "This is My Song", the hymn we sang last Sunday. I've been listening each afternoon as night falls so early and it is black outside my windows.  The fire burns against the dark.  It's sung to the tune of Finlandia by Sibelius.  You can call up the melody under "This is My Song," Finlandia hymn.  Take a minute to listen. The words alone are powerful but with the music there is majesty.  It seems a perfect vessel for mindful attention.

This is my song, O God of all the nations,
a song of peace for lands afar and mine;
this is my home, the country where my heart is;
here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine:
but other hearts in other lands are beating
with hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.

My country's skies are bluer than the ocean,
and sunlight beams on cloverleaf and pine;
but other lands have sunlight too, and clover,
and skies are everywhere as blue as mine:
O hear my song, thou God of all the nations,
a song of peace for their land and for mine.

May truth and freedom come to every nation;
may peace abound where strife has raged so long;
that each may seek to love and build together,
a world united, righting every wrong;
a world united in its love for freedom,
proclaiming peace together in one song.

text by Lloyd Stone (1912-1993) stanzas 1 & 2 and Georgia Harkness (1891-1974) stanza 3
sung to the tune Finlandia by Jean Sibelius 

Is this not moving?  "But other hearts in other lands are beating / with hopes and dreams as true and high as mine."  Imagine, these words written by a 22-year-old in 1934, someone born here who loves our country, but recognizes that others everywhere feel the same as he.  A thought sometimes so easy to forget.  The same with stanza 2--"but other lands have sunlight too, and clover, / and skies are everywhere as blue as mine."  Easy to forget that the earth belongs to us all and that God is "God of all the nations," that ordinary people are everywhere alike. 

Our preacher this past Sunday when we celebrated Epiphany wasn't much over twenty-two herself.  She talked about the visit of the Three Kings to the Infant Jesus and how King Herod ordered the death of all boys under the age of two so that his reign would not be threatened by the infant called the King of the Jews.  Mary, Joseph and their baby escaped by fleeing to Egypt like so many fleeing violence today. 

I had debated attending church.  I don't need a Sunday off as much as when I worked full-time, but during these cold and drizzly January mornings the home-fires are tempting.  But I'm glad I went if for no other reason than the hymn.
You may have a favorite version at your fingertips.  It's hymn No. 437 in the United Methodist Hymnal and No. 887 in the Lutheran Hymnal, ELW (Evangelical Lutheran Worship).  Or you can find it on YouTube at HD Classical Music, "This is my Song," Finlandia Hymn - Sibelius or MemChurchHarvard or Panoplyimaging and elsewhere.  

Sometimes it's all we need in a week where the news cycle is as bad as this one:  to be both calmed and invigorated by something that stirs our hearts. I am thankful this week for this music.       Nina Naomi 

 

"THE PRIVILEGE OF A LIFETIME IS BEING WHO YOU ARE"

This quote is by Joseph Campbell (1904-1987), the world's foremost expert on mythology.  I ran across the quote and remembered studying him, Carl Jung and other heavy-duty thinkers in university.  A quotation relevant enough to today's interests, that Joseph Campbell's ideas seemed worth reviewing.   The chat between him and Bill Moyers (b.1934), journalist and White House Press Secretary, in the 6-part PBS series from 1988, "The Power of Myth," is binge-worthy.  The quotation about being who we are triggered my desire to give Campbell a re-look.  His ideas spark thoughts.  See what you think.   

Whitewater Falls, Cashiers, NC

First, Campbell's thinking about God.  He says "God is a metaphor for a mystery that absolutely transcends all human categories of thought."  Hmmm. . . . I would delete one phrase and say, yes, "God is a mystery that transcends all human categories of thought."  But not a metaphor.  For Christians, God's Son helps us understand the mystery.  Someone fully human and fully divine who lived in an historical time and an historical place--not a metaphor. I pray to Him daily. "Thank you God" in gratitude or "Help me Lord" in need.   


So that's who I am.  And it is a privilege to be who we are, isn't it?  "No one in the world was ever you before, with your particular gifts and abilities and possibilities."  Also a Joseph Campbell quote, though not unique to him.  Think of the variations on "Be yourself; everyone else is already taken."  Campbell says that "myths are the ongoing search for the experience of life." The experience, not the meaning. I like this. The emphasis on the here and now, not some future eternity. Our experience is the meaning, he says. We don't have to look for meaning in the future, whether here or hereafter. I may believe in eternal life, but I don't live there! So consistent with not wasting our hours and days, isn't it?  With mindfulness.

The first function of mythology is "To evoke in the individual a sense of grateful, affirmative awe before the monstrous mystery that is existence."  I must say that many days I feel like that, especially when I am out in nature as we were this week in the mountains of North Carolina.  Campbell calls the teachings of Muhammad, the wisdom of the Buddha and the parables of Christ all mythologies, vital stories that help us look for the truth within ourselves through the guidance of people, real or not, who have gone through similar trials. (Post "Easter is about Dying and Rising; So is Life," 4/5/2018). So I feel comfortable asking my transcendent God for help and guidance. Someone else prays five times daily facing Kaaba, the House of God at Mecca.  Someone else sits in contemplation.  Each of us has a way. 

Illustration by Ruby Taylor

I read that everything Joseph Campbell writes is an explanation of how ancient and modern myths and religions try to reconcile the harsh reality of the world we live in with the transcendent beauty of our impermanent existence.  The difference between the world's beauty and the especially harsh reality of life in America today has certainly been on my mind lately (Post "Another Week of Shootings," 8/19/2019). It's not a small discordance and worthy of deep thinking.

My first acquaintance with Joseph Campbell's writing was his idea of "following bliss," that is to discover when we are happy--not excited, not thrilled, not 'on top of the world,' but deeply happy.  Content many of us would say.  At peace.  At one with ourselves and the universe.  For others it may be different, but when I am in that place God is always there. Maybe just lurking, but somehow a part of my deep contentment (well, to be honest, my husband is often there too, or a grandchild or two).

I also like Joseph Campbell's idea of creative incubation.  And that the first law of life is that we are all one.  That the psychic unity of humankind is poetically expressed through mythology.  And I like what he says about marriage:  "Marriage is not a love affair."  I would say not only a love affair. "A love affair has to do with immediate personal satisfaction.  Marriage is an ordeal; it means yielding, time and again.  That's why it's a sacrament.  You give up your personal simplicity to participate in a relationship.  And when you're giving, you're not giving to the other person; you're giving to the relationship."  Reminds me of that song from "The Music Man" where Marian the Librarian says about her dream man, "And I would like him to be, more interested in me, than he is in himself.  And more interested in us than in me." Do you know the song? Are you hearing it if you do?


I've enjoyed thinking about all this, challenging my brain to sort it out.  We like doing that sort of thing, don't we?  Our minds aren't just for those intrusive thoughts we want to banish or for work or home chores.  They should be free to wander, ponder and wonder. That's one of the privileges of the lifetime of being who we are.  
                                                                      Nina Naomi  

  

LOVING-KINDNESS MEDITATION

When you meditate you can also notice the softer

more subtle thoughts that you usually race past.

 

This morning I had time for a guided loving-kindness meditation.  A chance to enrich my fledgling meditation practice.  I needed it.  I'm still home recovering from a major surgery. That's why I had the morning free. You can find free audio resources for mindfulness meditation at www.Mindful.org.  "Healthy Mind, Healthy Life," that's the motto of Mindful.  

Because I rely upon God for help and guidance, I try to integrate my faith into my meditation and mindfulness practice.  Although I'm a beginner, it's not too hard to do.  In fact, I feel like it comes naturally. When I am focusing on my breathing I remember that it is God who created me, who gives me breath, who I call upon when I am anxious, distressed or afraid.  When I move from my breath to a body scan, I thank God for each part of my aging body.  In fact, we can thank God for age itself, for not leaving this precious earth before our time. 

I've practiced Yoga for years, but taken only one 10 week MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction) course at Duke Integrative Medicine, signed up for a full Day of Meditation, and later a 3-Day Urban Retreat.  So, yes, a beginner.  But perfect after any of our 'Big' birthdays, or during life transitions (empty nests, job changes. . .), or after traumas or griefs or betrayals or anything that needs healing.  I've learned that much already.   

Today's guided meditation began with a focus on ourselves and on someone who loves us.  My mother I thought, or my husband, but finally chose God.  That kind of unconditional love fit the meditation.  Having God say to me, "May you be happy, may you be safe, may you be protected.  May you be free from pain [yes! I need that!], may you have health and well-being as much as is possible. . . . "  I know God doesn't promise these, not health, not freedom from pain or suffering; rather God promises to share our afflictions.  But I do believe that God wants wellness for us, wants safety for us, wants health and happiness for us.   

I always add, "May you be kind."  I want that for myself as well.  All these loving-kind wishes, for me and then as the meditation goes on, from me to others, and out into the world.  So much wonderful hope in this meditation.  Feeling the love of someone else for you; or of God for you; or you for yourself; or yourself for others. . . .

I am working to find more time for this each day.  I have tomorrow's guided meditation picked out:  "A Loving-Kindness Meditation to Boost Compassion" created by Dr. Emma Seppala of Stanford University.  How can we lose, each of us, our compassion out-flowing into our families and communities and from there to who knows where?  I am going to try.  Nina Naomi

"THE CLOSER ONE APPROACHES TO GOD, THE SIMPLER ONE BECOMES" TERESA OF AVILA (1515-1582)

Many of our worries are unavoidable, but some take time and energy that we could spend better elsewhere.  And some that are legitimate and valid we simply cannot solve, not on earth.  Mental illness in our family, for example. Denied and untreated. That I must turn over to God.  Over and over again, as I forget and grind against this sadness, I must turn it over to God.  Lay it at God's feet and ask for help and guidance. Lay it at God's feet and walk away.  What could be simpler?

Whether our faith includes God or not, we can also recognize that there are some things in our life we simply must back away from, and do that gratefully. There have been things in my life that I have turned over and they have resolved. Or they have not resolved but I have become more accepting.  I have asked for help and guidance and have received it. We can begin anew after almost every heartbreak I suspect. When that happens in my life I give thanks to God. We all have places to lay our gratitude. What could be simpler? 

Teresa of Avila (1515-1582) says that the important thing is not to think much but to love much.  How perfect is that?  Not to analyze, dissect, fret, project, but love.  What could be simpler? 

She says we have only one soul, only one death, only one life.  If we remember this there will be many things about which we will care nothing.  Again, what could be simpler than that?  

As  I am recovering from surgery this holiday season, I am not free to engage in anything hectic.  My holiday season is simple.  Maybe I can go to church this Advent, maybe not.  Maybe I can toast the New Year or, if still on painkillers, maybe not.  I don't know where you are as the Festive Season is in full-swing.  Minding children? Juggling work? Caring for someone sick?  Sick yourself? Planning dinner for the whole family? Navigating loneliness? On top of the world?  I think Teresa of Avila, Spanish saint and mystic, speaks to all of this.  What could it hurt to be closer to God?  Or to become simpler? What could be better than that?  Nina Naomi

HEALTHY ATTITUDES (MARRIAGE)

 

Linda Hock, "Set for Two," Mattie King Davis Gallery, Beaufort, NC

What makes a healthy marriage?  How much independence should spouses give up in order not to hurt one another?  These questions are not meant for abusive or unequal relationships.  They are meant for relationships where both partners want nothing more than comfort, peace, companionship  and love and want it to last a lifetime.  

It doesn't have to be in a marriage.  But it is a marriage where people take vows, make promises, become a new entity.  It is a marriage that creates duties.  Some are absolute duties--the duty of fidelity (emotional, spiritual and physical) for example.  If it is a Christian marriage the partners are "made one in Christ."  A marriage or other committed relationship brings the obligation of no secrets.  This does not mean every moment of the past has to be deconstructed.  But it does mean no present secrets.  No e-mails that the other cannot read.  No conversations that flourish in private.  No intimacy in word or thought with someone else.  In other words, no one about whom one partner has to claim, "We're just friends."  These are by nature betrayals.  And, no self-deceit that allows such a relationship outside the marriage to exist. 

The best way to avoid these situations is to be honest with ourselves and open with our spouses.  If we want to have coffee with someone and we know (or should know--that's the hallmark of 'no self-deceit') that our spouse will be made uneasy by this, we don't do it.  To ignore our spouse's preference out of a need for independence is devaluing our spouse.  It jeopardizes something of paramount importance (a lifetime relationship) for something less, whatever that lesser thing may be. 

Whenever we choose something that has even the potential of causing discomfort to the person to whom we are committed, we are making a statement.  "I  want something (or someone) other than you, even for just a few hours. I'm happy to maintain our status quo but only if I can do what I want. I have moved beyond the friends who strengthen our marriage. I want [admiration, a feeling of youthfulness, the buoyancy of a 'special friendship,' whatever . . .] even if that bothers you (or would if you knew)."  Otherwise why not ask,  "I was thinking about catching up with so and so.  Are you free to do that with me? "  Now that makes a healthy marriage!  

There may still be questions as to why you want to catch up with so and so.  But at least nothing will occur in private.  Boundaries will be set.  After all, private is the same as secret.  And if our spouse says, "No, I don't want to come and I don't want you to meet with him/her either," that is something we should respect.  Friends should be friends of the marriage.  Friends of the marriage are healthy.  Of course, friends of only one of us can easily become friends of the marriage.  That happens all the time.  But if one person doesn't want their friend who is the same sex as their spouse to be the friend of both, if he or she raises some obstacle, that it itself is tell-tale. 

I've been reading the memoir of a friend of our marriage.  A friend who lives in South Africa, was important in the struggle against apartheid, and who is now a widower (watch for the publication of I Beg to Differ by Peter Storey).  He has written about his marriage, 

     "No marriage is without struggles; the law of self-disclosure makes it  impossible to hide our self-truths no matter how adept we think we are at disguising them.  But much depends on whether the frailties thus exposed are grasped as opportunities to find 'a more perfect union' or as reasons to cut and run.  I won't traverse the sore places which I, more than [my wife] created, except to stand in awe of how much more ready she was to learn and grow from them."

Ah, do not we all want to have and to be such a spouse?  Would not our lives be easier, more God-pleasing, more honest and sincere if we used every opportunity for a more perfect union? I am drawn to the statement, "The law of self-disclosure makes it impossible to hide our self-truths no matter how adept we think we are at disguising them." My husband and I have been working on that.  Not surprisingly, it makes for some amazingly wonderful times.  I want to thank God for those.  Thank you, God.  Nina Naomi