"WHAT DOES THE LORD REQUIRE OF YOU BUT TO DO JUSTICE?"

 Every morning I begin the day with a look at my phone--the New York Times, the Guardian and Substack.  Some of my Substack favorites are about nature, poems, watercolors, attention to the minute like a salamander or frog that lives happily on someone's front porch or daisies in a meadow (like mine).  

But I also get stuck in the news:  the wanton destruction of Ukraine and Gaza, the cruelty of cutting food for the hungry, medical research for the chronically ill, educational budgets for our school children, Medicaid for the deserving poor . . . the list is long.  When I think it can't get worse, it does.  Like the $4 million jet from Qatar or the attempt to exclude international students from Harvard.  (full disclosure:  My grandson is an international student at St. Andrews, Scotland.)  Or maybe the worst, some movie-inspired parade of military might on Trump's birthday. We've all seen those in old black and white Nazi propaganda clips. 

Many are saying that America isn't immune from cruelty, recalling Indigenous genocide (full disclosure again:  we just visited the Taos Pueblo, what remains of the sovereign nation of the Tiwa of New Mexico); the cruelty of slave holders; the internment of Americans of Japanese descent during the second World War.   Three groups that looked different from the whites with the guns or whips and power.  But it does seem simplistic to conclude that this administration loves cruelty for its own sake, as sadists do.  After all, what our president seems to love more than anything is gold and wealth, for himself and his friends.  Think of the golden escalator at Trump Tower (more disclosure:  we've ridden that thing) leading inexorably to the glorified new Air Force One from Qatar (no doubt embedded with golden listening devices).  

No, as analysts are noting, the demonization of immigrants, gay adults, trans youth, women who need abortions, Medicaid recipients, international students who might support Palestine, protesters, grant recipients, NPR and PBS (I loved Downton Abbey!), scientists, the judiciary, is not for its own sake but rather the playbook for fascism, dictatorship and white supremacy.  We live in a hard time.  

As a Christian, many wonder, what can we expect from our churches? In a different time, Martin Luther King Jr said, "The church must be reminded once again that it is not to be the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state." Surely this is true.  There is no conscience in this administration and its supporters.  No empathy.  No kindness.  To speak up is a duty; to waffle or remain silent, a sin. 

After the new Pope Leo XIV (Chicago native) appeared on the balcony of St. Peter's in Rome, a writer for the New York Times (David French, an evangelical from the rural South) noted:  Trump is no longer the most important American in the world.  We have an American of malice and an American of love and compassion.  French said, "Christianity is an ancient faith, one that has endured through rulers and regimes far more ignorant and brutal than anything we've ever confronted in the United States."

I find hope in this, that our faith will help us endure--not passively but in active protest--and that long after Trump is gone from public life, Pope Leo will be preaching the Gospel that has sustained us for over 2,000 years.  

We have two visions and only one is sustainable.  The Bible says in Micah 6-8, "He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your god?" 

There will be protests all over America on June 14, easy to find under No Kings, Mass Protest, June 14, 2025.  I signed up for our local one.  It is something we can do, a showing of conscience.  For what is required of us but to do justice.  

                   In peace, Nina Naomi

 

PRAISE?

 

Lilac Field, Cliffside Santa Barbara CA

I've been thinking about the words we Christians use.  Other religions use them too.  Praise is one.  It is in hymns, liturgies, everywhere.  Perhaps my mind is on praise because of the wonders of the season.  I love the transition from overheated summer to clear-headed fall, from browning leaves of late August to autumn leaves of red and gold, from stifling air to a blowsy breeze.  Fall brings no negatives, not mosquitoes, not humidity, nothing I can think of today as I work by an open door with pansies, mums and red-orange nandinas in view.  My beans and kielbasa are in the pot and Basmati rice is simmering. My plum cake is on the counter.  This day is perfect. 

The Bible says, "Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God the sacrifice of praise."  Hebrews 13:15-16.  As I read this, I note the word sacrifice.  Not all my days are like today.  Perhaps yours isn't perfect at all.  Sometimes sacrifices are forced upon us.  Many times.  We lose a pet, a job, a parent, a spouse, a child.  Or we are stripped of our agency and independence by poverty, war, accident, illness or age. Some days we may feel like our lives are nothing but sacrifice. 

A religious writer asked the question, "How can we offer praise when everything we had and hoped for lies slain at our feet."  How can the Ukranians?  How can the Israelis or Palestinians?  How can the families of another round of ordinary people--this time in Maine--killed by the endless supply of shooters in America?  How has Christianity, or any religion, survived the history of a world marked by wars and marred by those who protect guns over people?

Christian writer Melissa Nussbaum says one way to praise in the face of all things bad (my words) is to remember that praise is not applause (her words). Applause is a way to show approval and appreciation for a mountaintop high.  Our five-year-old spread her arms and spun in circles the first time she saw the ocean. When all is great, we stand up and applaud.  

But in grown-up life, when and where is everything great?  So if we continually offer our praise, as the writer of Hebrews instructs, the offer must be spiritually sacrificial.  We are not extolling our valleys of darkness; we are praising the One who accompanies us through them.  Biblically, sacrifice means to give to the Lord what He requires.  A burnt offering; a lamb; our very selves.  When we do that in the face of all that is wrong in the world, it surely is sacrificial praise.  And what is returned to us?  Somehow when we praise God in all situations we receive joy, peace, love and faith in return.  Praise keeps us in His presence, and we cannot be in God's presence without feeling the peace of God that passes all understanding. 

I should stop writing here because I've butted up against the inexplicable.  But something more:  an inexplicable Truth.  

                                                                       In peace, Nina Naomi

THE WONDER OF SILENCE

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) wrote "Silence is the universal refuge.  The sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment."  It's where we go to lick our wounds and savor our achievements. Pablo Picasso said, "Without great solitude no serious work is possible."   

Like many of us, my mind can be too noisy.  Sometimes something huge--war and famine and flood. Way beyond my ability to solve. Tragedies that will outlive me, that I must give to God. But also, small things--home repairs, my dirty house, my unweeded garden, stuff. The constant buzz of worries, big and small.  It all needs a bit of silence.

So many people have profound things to say about silence and solitude.  You can look them up if you want. It's calming to see how many of us ponder the benefits of a bit of quiet. Most everyone notes the difference between solitude and loneliness, silence and boredom, hearing and listening. 

Silence has its own dimension.  Author Guy Finley (1949- ) says, "It only seems that there is something more important for you to do than to just quietly be yourself." What a lovely idea.  This is something we each can do:  quietly be ourselves.  And isn't it true that silence draws people together?  Only people at home with one another can be silent together. When we think of a comforting silence it is often in the presence of a soulmate. 

Some things we can only do alone.  When I turned 50, I asked my father, "How long will I want to ride the waves?" He didn't know. Now I think it's when I can no longer push myself up from a belly flop on the shore.  Like when we ride the waves, which we do alone even when someone else is near, our best companions could be our solitary selves.  Surely true when we read or write, pray or meditate, learn a new piece, practice our art.  Just us and whomever we invite, like God.  

I've not yet traveled alone (except for business), but read about that, about the freedom to please only ourselves and the sense of achievement we feel when traveling alone.  Sometimes we feel pleasantly apart even when others are there. 

Solitude also gives us time to grieve when that's our lot. The silence to lean into our grief and hear its message. To let our suffering ebb and flow and dim on its own. That unwanted new person we need to be--someone who has lost a child or spouse, or our security or peace of mind--solitude helps that person survive and grow.  In silence we pay attention.  Our situation may change for good or ill, but however it changes, we become better at life in that world.

Look how wordlessly nature changes.  Yes, we hear the wind, the leaves rustling, the branches creaking, the water flowing.  We feel their force.  But the story they create, they do without a word.  Look again at the quote by Thoreau.  How easily we could say instead, "Nature is the universal refuge . . . a balm to every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment."  It's important that there are times when nature and silence are interchangeable.  

Khaled Hosseini in The Kite Runner says it well:  

"Quiet is peace.  Tranquility.  Quiet is turning down the volume knob on life.  Silence is pushing the off button.  Shutting it down.  All of it."  Times there are when nothing else will do.  Shhh . . .                             

 

   

MOMENTS OF PEACE AND SOLITUDE

 

Silent Shadows by NN

• Being held close in an embrace
• Watching the sunset
• Turning off the reading light and snuggling down to sleep
• Pulling into your drive after a road trip
• Journaling in a quiet house
• Watching snow fall 
• Lighting a new candle, vanilla for me
• Hearing the creek after a deep and steady rain
• Settling into a hot bath, no rush
• Making a good decision
• Opening some doors, closing others
• Watching a hummingbird dart
• Lying on the cool side of the pillow
• When the cicadas sing at night
• When the shore birds dance in the morning

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

OLDER BY A DAY WITH A CURIOUS MIND

Renoir, Misia Sert, 1904

Today I am older than I've ever been,

With hair still long and curious mind,

A peaceful home and love forever by my side.  

At night we coil and kiss and he says, "I adore you."

I wake to birdsong, legs entwined and back just shy of pain.

Yes, older than I've ever been, but feeling almost young.

Sometimes when memory interferes, I scold and back it stays.

" Not wanted," my heart beats and chastised it retreats. 

Thoughts of that never-time when from great fear I persevered. 

That never-time I wanted not. 

That blot that fades as we grow older than we've ever been,  

That cannot change the truth and--now I know--that never could. 

I am not plagued by worry or perfection, not of body nor of soul.

I've layered doubt with intuition and asked my God to comfort me. 

My ears are full of silent sounds, my eyes the trees, the meadow grass, 

My heart the shaggy hickory bark, the bugle weed and ash. 

To find faith everywhere is such an easy ending, 

And yet an ending to embrace when--you know--we grow old.   

OUR MOTHERS, OURSELVES--

This weekend is Mother's Day and we're bound to be thinking about the person who mothered us.  You know about my mother; she's the Nina Naomi I dedicate this blog to. Her memory is alive in me, and I talk to her often.  Since her death in 2005 I've had to provide her responses too.  It's not a fraught relationship.  Before she died, I told her, "Mom, we have no issues."  

And of course, many of us are mothering someone ourselves.  Before my son died too young, he said, "Mom, no son ever loved a mother more than I love you."  My most precious gift.  And I had issues aplenty with that headstrong boy.  But from boyhood he was quick to give and forgive.  I think my daughter's sons are the same with her. 

A writer in the New York Times (Jancee Dunn) asked readers to share moments when their moms were right. This response resonates:

After my first child was born, my mother put her hand on my arm and said, "Honey, you have breathed your last free breath."  And she laughed--in a kind, not a bitter, way.  Her words meant that I was now to know love so consuming that every second of the rest of my life would be spent in fear of loss.  I feel connected to her knowing that we have shared this deep and meaningful terror.  Shannon Kilgore

I don't know how young we are when we learn the fear of loss.  Some younger than others.  The children of Ukraine are learning too soon.  For the mothers of all those murdered in America the terror comes true.  Such is life, so far, in this 21st century.  

But what else is important in this mother's advice?  She said it "in a kind, not a bitter, way."  That's what mothers do.  They let us know about the world, how it will be for us.  They don't do it harshly.  They want us to be kind and not bitter too.  They know that only great love gives rise to great fear, and they want great love for their children. 

Another reader response brings solace: 

I once asked my mom, "What am I ever going to do when you are gone?"  She said, "Exactly what you're doing now."  I was startled by the simplicity.  In a few words, she let me know that life would go on and I would be fine.  Mary Ellen Collins

When I feared losing my own mother, she said to me, "I had the best mom in the world, your grandma, and I've done just fine."  I knew she was right, on both counts. 

This graduation/Mother's Day weekend I hope your heart is where it needs to be.  That whatever our history we have found love and peace.  And if we need to give or forgive, we can do that too.  In love, 

Nina Naomi 

   

WHY I LOVE GETTING OLDER

 The Boxer   [verse 4]

Now the years are rolling by me

They are rockin' evenly

I am older than I once was

And younger than I'll be;  that's not unusual

Nor is it strange

After changes upon changes

We are more or less the same

After changes we are more or less the same

. . . lyrics by Paul Simon

Why I love getting older and why you may too: 

I've learned how to find peace.  There are things I won't "get over" or forget. And no doubt more to come. But I accept what has happened and my emotions about it.  That's peace.  

I like being with people, but equally being alone. Although my husband and I are mostly at home together, we may each be doing our own thing apart. I'm especially happy outdoors on my own while he writes from his home office. 

I like most everything about myself.  Like doesn't mean admire but it does presage contentment.  I think that takes aging.  We've accomplished (or modified) our ambitions, we've reached (or rethought) our goals, we've become ourselves.  It's too late to "find yourself," but just right to "be yourself." 

No one else decides how I spend my time.  I can read to my heart's content.  Reread the classics. Indulge a true crime penchant.  I can take classes:  pottery, a history class on WWI, a webinar series on living Alcohol Free, a lay ministry class. I can blog.  I've taught myself to collage, the most hands-on creative I've been for years: washi tape, art paper, my own poetry and prose, stamp art, embellishments.  I'm proud of these collage journals, which are just for me. 

There's emotional freedom from stress. I wanted to be a lawyer since 5th grade and hold the years practicing in memory happily with no regrets. But I ran on stress. I wanted children since at least our honeymoon, but anxiety and child-rearing are daily companions.  As a grandparent, I embrace that easier role with gratitude and joy. 

The worry about saving for a house with more space, college or retirement is over.  Within reason we can do what we want, enjoy a meal out, grocery shop without tallying, and travel.  

There are other reasons I'm not focusing on right now.  Of course, the greatest is gratitude for living.  Long life is a universal goal, and I am officially too old to die young. 🙏 

Thank you, God, for my very life these many years.  I have come to appreciate it more as it lengthens. Give me the grace to accept whatever comes next and the feelings that are sure to follow.  This is my prayer for us all. 

Nina Naomi

  

THE DIFFERENCE THIS YEAR

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you, Lord.  AMEN

 

MAYBE TIME STOOD STILL

 

(I found this at Barnes and Noble)

 Don't let yesterday take up too much of today.

After Bonfire day (Post: A Bonfire Day, 3/21/22) when I set my thoughts and prayers to flame to free the future from the past, I bought A Journal for Self-Discovery in Nature; a charming little book with sketches, prompts and space.  It is a most inviting place.  It begs for stories and goals, things imagined or true, the random or the persistent . . . .   A place to make so fine that it could slow your breath. 

Perhaps you have a special place to write too.  Here is what this workbook pulled from my heart this morning. 

• Keep love alive.  Offer it, accept it, take care of it as something fragile.  Friendship the same.  Good things are fragile; like plants they need water and a tender touch.  Love doesn't thrive if neglected. Or usurped.  It may change into habit or routine or even die. We know the phrase, "a wandering eye?"  Even companionship needs a watchful, not wandering, eye.  Think how your companionable dog attunes to every sign of what you want. 

• Accept the past, bad and good, what you would change and what you would never.  We can not win a fight with the past.    Acceptance is admitting the truth of whatever happened, whether by me, by someone else, or to me.  As simple as that.  The most unbelievable things happen; believe them.  There's no way out but there is something better:  a way forward. 

• When something wonderful happens savor it, prolong it, let it spread and give it a special place in your memories.  Today nestled in sleep I heard loving words and woke smiling.  Not words from a dream or a memory, but words being whispered.  Today I lived for the moment, the shining warm moment of requited love.  Today I let those words permeate me with no other thought intruding.  Today is never yesterday.  Today is always now.  

• Seek out the places where you find yourself.  Where is your place?  I go into the woods to find myself.  I go into the woods to find God.  I go into the woods to find peace.  To be delighted by soft green moss, spreading clover and variegated  pine cones.  What words fill-in-this-blank for you? By a lake?  On a hill top?  Under the open sky? On a walk?  Into a church?  There is no one who doesn't have a place.  

• Be vulnerable in love.  Say words that show trust.  Some words of love come trance-like from the soul.  "Love me," is a deep request, a beautiful admission.  The feeling is one of air--fresh, clear and warm.  Or like a circle of lamplight inside the night.  Words of trust make us feel clean as from a shower, soft from the soap, ready for bed.  Windows open, moths hitting the screen.  It could be years ago. Or maybe time stood still.   
  

 

 

 

NO JOY ELUDES HER

 

 "If my son hadn't died . . ."

There, she said it.

That's all she wants,

A do-over of life

With no death in sight. 

"If I'd never been hurt . . ."

She said it again.  

Nothing to hide.

Staying in bounds, no crack to be found.

A life lived un-stunned.   

Yet no joy eludes her.

Not peace nor flame.

Nor love fierce as steel.

No summit, no goal.

"Nothing can change but I." 

            nina naomi  

 

 

 

 

GLOBAL SADNESS FOR OUR UKRAINIAN NEIGHBORS

More sadness now, global and at the hands of Vladimir Putin.  It seems inappropriate to talk about all those lovely, simple, ordinary and mindful things we do each day to nurture ourselves and others, when Ukrainians are hiding in subway tunnels and lining up at checkpoints to enter neighboring countries as refugees. They are running for their lives.

I read Putin's speech justifying his full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The transcript is online at Bloomberg.com and elsewhere.  It is a speech, as historians know far better than I, that echoes Hitler in the 1930s.  Analysts call Putin's speech "bizarre" and "irrational." He is a last-century man avenging a past that began with the fall of the USSR,  and creating a victimhood for his country beyond which he cannot see. The speech reflects a paranoid fear of the West and NATO.  The result in real terms, so far, is a powerful country crushing a smaller sovereign nation. People are dying. 

So much, this reminds me of the annexation of Austria by Germany on March 15, 1938, just this time of year. My mother was a historian who studied under Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg of Austria after his exile to America.  She talked often of those times.  President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine has refused offers of exile.  If the world needed a hero, this brave Ukrainian Jew is he.  

So, we will watch and pray and vote and some of us (younger and better than I) will be activists, while governments sanction and vigils are being held and protests against Putin's War all over the world, and in Russia as well.  And Ukrainians will defend their homes and cities.  And we will admit that there is evil in the world and that all is not well.  We don't know what is to come.

Dear God, help the world find peace.  In the name of the Gods of every nation, time and place.  Amen. 

 

  

 

 

WISE WORDS, A COLLECTION

 

 

Reader, I've filled my 2021 collage journal with these words and would humbly like to share them with you:

Winter reminds us that every living thing, including us, needs quiet time.

The world is full of magical things waiting for us to notice. 

"Books are the destination and the journey.  They are home."  Anna Quindlen (b. 1953)

When the astronauts looked back, they saw that what they were leaving behind was perhaps even more beautiful than where they were going. 

Acknowledging the good you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.  Eckhart Tolle (b. 1948)

A healthy wish:  To live simply.  To sit by the window when it rains and read books, and never be tested on them.  

Another healthy wish:  To fall asleep when the moon is high and wake up slowly without penalty.

Go ahead, write about your life; it's completely yours.

"[Books are] the only time we really go into the mind of a stranger, and we find our common humanity doing this.  So the book doesn't only belong to the writer.  It belongs to the reader as well.  And then together you make it what it is."  Paul Auster (b. 1947)

Trees have given us shelter, food, warmth and healing for all of human existence.  Now we must care for them with love.

"Life is to be lived, not controlled."  Ralph Waldo Ellison (1914-1994) 

"Make your life a little easier, especially in your head." unknown 

What we pay attention to thrives.  What we ignore fades away. So place your attention carefully.

"It is a serious thing just to be alive on this fresh morning in this broken world."  Mary Oliver (1935-2019) 

Peace doesn't mean no noise, trouble or effort; it means to be in the midst of these and more, yet still be calm in mind and heart. 

"The greatest wealth is to live content with little."  Plato (428-348 BCE)

Change is inevitable.  It's OK to change your point of view, change your priorities, change your beliefs, your mind, your behavior . . . .

"One short sleep past, we wake eternally." John Donne (1572-1631)

There's more to come, and some of it will be beautiful. 

Just connecting to beauty is consoling.  It helps us know the best we can do; the worst gets so much publicity. 

As life progresses, there are certain things we just have to get used to.  

"Something that is loved is never lost."  Toni Morrison (1931-2019)

"You are never stronger . . . than when you land on the other side of despair."   Zadie Smith (b. 1975)

It's easy to love life when everything is new to you, but surprising to still love every day as I get older. 

We don't live to ourself or die to ourself.  If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's. Romans 14:7-8

How wonderful when you realize that you can save yourself.  How amazing it is to be brave without forethought.  

Learn to stop rushing things that need time to grow.

Sometimes just going forward is superhuman.  Give yourself credit. 

A Star led the way to the Light of the World.   

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

A SAINT'S PRAYER FOR US

Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)

 Saint Teresa, Spanish mystic, prays for us:

May today there be peace within.

May you trust that you are exactly where you are meant to be.

May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith

in yourself and others.

May you use the gifts that you have received,

and pass on the love that has been given to you.

May you be content with yourself just the way you are.

Let this knowledge settle into your bones,

and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love.

It is there for each and every one of us. 

Thank you, Teresa, for praying for us; for sending your prayer across the ages to each one who reads it; for speaking directly to me. I have read every line slowly.  I will trust that I am where I am meant to be.  Word by word, what you wish for me is what I wish for myself.  To know the love of God in my very bones, so that they are never dry.  How did you know? 

With appreciation, Nina Naomi

 

 

 

THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS

 

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

 Wendell Berry 2012

IF EVER A YEAR NEEDED CHRISTMAS THIS IS IT

Our pastor, our vicar and the church administrator have all been exposed to someone who came into our church building and then tested positive for Covid-19.  We're not a large church, so the outdoor service and drive-through communion for this week are cancelled.  The clergy are isolating, getting tested, and we all have our fingers crossed.  My husband was in the building this week too.  We're sorting through that.  No different than what each of you is going through I'm sure.  Everything on a scale.  Trying to be hyper-vigilant without succumbing to fear.  Balancing risks.  

So yes, if ever there was a year that needed Christmas this is it.  For a thousand reasons.  When life is as complex as ours is right now reading or writing a poem sometimes helps.  Here is my offer, small as it is.

Advent is a time to wait.

Silent thoughts.

Whispered prayers.

Hushed hopes.

It is meant for contemplation.

     As the night tucks in the day so should we.

O come O come Emmanuel.

Bring peace on earth to us as well.

While we wait let us be more, let us do less.

Now is not the time to do, but the time to undo.

Take a breath.

The air is fresh.

In and out as we wait . . .

Nina Naomi