FIND COMFORT HERE

Quote by Jane Austen

 These are thoughts I have that comfort me.  May they comfort you as well.    Nina Naomi

     There will be better days ahead. 

    When we look for the light, we find it.

Faith is the water that buoys the soul. 

    Everyone has their fair share of bad days.  I have no more nor less than anyone else.  

Faith is the thing with wings that lets you fly.  

    Hard thoughts, prayers and petitions, thankful hearts:  these can be a good day's work.  

Faith is the memory of all we believe.  

    To live in the moment is to be unaware of the hours. 

    There is goodness in setting your face to the sun. 

Faith makes a nest for love. 

    It's possible to grieve and live fully at the same time.  

    We are called upon to care.  

    Anyone who has knelt in desperation knows that they have not reached the end.

Faith can be borrowed until you find your own.  

    No one regrets an hour spent with a thankful heart. 

    There is room to breathe for all of us.  

Faith can sleep and then awaken.   It will take hold of your shoulders and whisper in your ear,  "I am here.  I am here."  

 

 

 

 

  

BEING A FRIEND TO YOURSELF

 

Valentine's quiz:  Who's the hardest person to love?  Isn't it strange that it's the person we spend every second of our life with?  We love our children before they are even born.  Many of us are lucky enough to have parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters to love.  We have lovers, spouses, partners.  We love our best friends.  It's effortless.

We overlook the faults of those we love.  We extend compassion and grace to those around us.  We look past their mistakes to their inmost beings; we see the real person and we are kind. As they are to us. How many times didn't my children overlook my preoccupation with work? My son never in his life held onto anger.  Ready forgiveness was a character trait with him. How often haven't my husband and I taken a breath, made a joke, and let an annoyance pass? How often don't we look for ways to affirm our friends? "You did your best."  "I would have done the same thing."  "You're right."  And always, "You look great!" We even compliment strangers.  

Where do most of us fall short?  In loving ourselves. We hold ourselves to a different standard.  Our self-critic can be brutal, our internal dialogue cruel:  "Why did you do that?  Won't you ever learn?"  Badgering questions we would never ask a friend.   

Mindfulness has helped me with this.  Actually feeling in my body when God is near has helped.  In fact, believing my body rather than my mind is always a good choice.  My mind ruminates; my body has let go of the past.  My mind catastrophizes; my body reaches for tenderness and gives it in return.  It knows what I need more than my mind does.  This is a lesson I'm forever learning.    

This year for the third time I am delving into This Naked Mind by Annie Grace (www.thisnakedmind.com).  Her challenges have become an annual pleasure, reminding me why I enjoy keeping alcohol in the periphery of my life. I ran into her work at a time when I wondered how I had become a daily wine drinker without intending to. I love learning the science of how our minds and bodies work.  Annie Grace also talks about how we don't have to become a person we can love.  We are that person already.  

Certainly Christianity tells us this:  to love your neighbor as yourself, you must first love yourself.

If we're accustomed to listening to negative self-talk, we can change and extend grace toward our own struggles.  February is all about love--hearts and flowers, chocolates, special dinners and outings.  For me February is triple-special.  The anniversary of my husband's and my first date; our first grandchild's birthday; and Valentine's Day.   

For all of us February could be a time to concentrate on being kind and supportive to ourselves, as compassionate as we are to one another.  Greater Good Science Center based at the University of California, Berkeley (www.ggsc.berkeley.edu) researches the neuroscience of well-being. An article in a recent online newsletter ("How to Become a Friend to Yourself, Feb 5, 2021) explains that self-compassion looks outward, recognizing that everyone struggles and makes mistakes.  This is different from self-pity which looks only at oneself. Self-compassion is a reliable source of strength.  

Three years ago on Feb 4, 2018 I posted "Falling in Love with Your Life for Valentine's."  I do love my life and hope you love yours.  That after tallying all the pluses and minuses, you wouldn't want to be someone else, with their friends, children, hopes or dreams. . . and not yourself.  For this our first--and we hope only--Covid Valentine's, my husband and I are bringing in a lovely carry-out from the local beach-front Caribbean Grill.  We are isolating here in rainy Pine Knoll Shores, NC after our second vaccine shot.  This is a blessing for which I am grateful beyond expression.  

Beyond that let's work on offering ourselves warmth and unconditional acceptance.  That is my February goal.   

                     With kindness, Nina Naomi

 

  

 

 

 

DESPITE ALL ODDS, WE HAVE WONDERFUL DAYS

I've been finding wisdom everywhere these days.  It seems to seek me out.  Sometimes what we need finds us. Maybe what is finding me will resonate with you as well. 

This is from mid-nineteenth century poet, essayist and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson.  Perhaps you had to read him in school as I did.  He writes, 

“I have confidence in the laws of morals as of botany. I have planted maize in my field every June for seventeen years and I never knew it come up strychnine. My parsley, beet, turnip, carrot, buck-thorn, chestnut, acorn, are as sure. I believe that justice produces justice, and injustice injustice.” 

An entry from Emerson's Journal (1852)

I love the way he expresses this:  we grow what we sow.  Whether in our gardens or in our hearts.  Or in our national life, we might say as well.  I believe that's right.   That the laws of moral causation are as scientific as the laws of nature. We can trust our life to it.  So if we want to change what we grow we need only change what we sow.  Individually or as a community.  It may be a simplification, but isn't that what the summer protests over the suffocation of George Floyd at the knee of a police officer were trying to accomplish?  

This next thought is from poet Mary Oliver in her little book Upstream.  It seems profound to me, and applicable during this time of pandemic death.  She says, 

"In spiritual work with good luck (or grace) we come to accept life's brevity for ourselves." 

So many of us have been reminded of life's brevity this year.  It is my hope that our spiritual work prepares us for the end when it comes, even though we have done our best to live. That is my wish for the 426,000 souls who have died thus far in America from the coronavirus and the over 2 million world-wide. I remember how attuned my mother was in her last days, continuing to console those around her that we would survive the final beat of her heart.   

Oliver expresses another truth that has come home to those who mourn. 

"In the mystery and the energy of loving, we all view time's shadow upon the beloved.  We do not think of it every day, but we never forget it."

In some ways we spend our lives anticipating the deaths of those who are beloved to us, as they do ours. It is why we are so precious to each other. Because in the wide swath of time everything material and temporal must fail.   

I do not see these thoughts as depressing, merely dark, quiet and gentle.  Each of us has been wounded at some time and place, if not now.  A wound may be secret or not.  It may be held private or shared for solace. But whether our traumas lie in shadow or sunlight, are old or new, our wounded brains still have the capacity to partake in wonder and joy.  Every day we find the good that takes us forward. We know this to be true. Despite all odds, we have wonderful days.  That is our glory, yours and mine. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TODAY THE SUN SETS ON THE OLD. TODAY THE SUN RISES ON THE NEW.

 

January 20, inauguration day in the US.  Many of us, most of us in fact, 78 million and counting, have been waiting for this.  There is much to say about these events as the day continues to unfold. One thing I thought of today is those well-known words, "Ring Out the Old Ring Out the New."  That is what is happening before our eyes. Amazingly the words of a poem from another time, another place, speak directly to us.  

• Academy of American Poets
• National Poetry Month
• American Poets Magazine

• Login
• Membership

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
   The flying cloud, the frosty light:
   The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
   Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
   The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind
   For those that here we see no more;
   Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
   And ancient forms of party strife;
   Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
   The faithless coldness of the times;
   Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
   The civic slander and the spite;
   Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
   Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
   Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
   The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
   Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

In Memoriam, "Ring Out Wild Bells" (1850)

Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

CONNECT WITH YOURSELF, CONNECT WITH OTHERS

"Rose of Sharon" means love, beauty and healing.

Found this in Bellagracemagazine.com, unattributed.  I think you'll like it.

I know it sounds fake but you really do have a lot of 

silent lovers on this planet who look at you and wish

they had your smile or your hair color or your

humor or your intellect or your intentions or your

heart, your manners, your eyes, your ease, even just you.

People who are too shy to tell you what they

admire about you or what they wish for you.

Even though it isn't verbalized, 

the universe has still heard and 

the universe has loved you for helping out on its creations.

You're that person.  You're you. 

I feel like this is absolutely true and each of us should know it.  How lovely for an anonymous writer to give us this thought to ponder.  How generous.  Let's accept these words today as part of our appreciation of self, appreciation of others.       Nina Naomi 

 

 

  

TIME MOVED LIKE HONEY TODAY

 

Monet, "Sunshine and Snow," 1881

Time moved like honey today.  Maybe for most of the pandemic for those of us who from need or choice have been home-bound.  For a change the days have not been over before we've had a chance to pay attention to  them.  Slow like honey; sweet like honey.  When ever have Mondays been like that?  And in spite of the 1/6 events in Washington; in spite of even those.  Congress meets, the cabinet defects, we are another day closer to the inauguration and still the day redeemed itself, as days have a way of doing when we let them.

That's one of my intentions for the new year, to keep whatever good the pandemic has given birth to.  The habit of zooming with friends far away.  The habit of asking how others are doing and really wanting to know.  No more pro forma these days.  The habit of listening, tuning our ear to the nuance of fear or loneliness.  Bringing the indoors out with fire pits and blankets to live in consonance with the season. 

But perhaps most of all the new way of making the best of the worst.  When the mob stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6 most of us watching the news felt our connectedness to eachother, much as we did on 9/11.  I don't know what all the ramifications will be.  But I'll be paying attention and looking for whatever small part is open to me. 

For now I'll still be doing it from home, whose every nook and cranny I've come to love more during these ten months of seclusion.  The place where we're safest from the virus; where the masks come off and we can hold each other close.   During these months I've lifted so many prayers from this space and had so many of them answered.  One of the unspoken ones today, when time moved like honey.  

Thinking of each of you,  Nina Naomi

 

 

 

 

WINTER CONTENTMENT

 

Do certain things remind you of your childhood?  Winter reminds me.  Some of the reminders are not particularly happy.  One time I told my parents:  "I will NOT walk to school when the temperature is below than 20 degrees!"  It was probably an eight block walk and my nose was running, my fingers stiff, my bones sore from hunching against the cold by the time I reached the equally chilly high school.  We lived too close for the bus and I had no car.  My best friend and I tried singing, skipping, everything to keep warm.  Nothing worked.  St. Louis has cold winters. 

But most childhood winter memories are good ones.  You too?  On our second date my husband and I, then teenagers, sneaked into a country club and sledded by moonlight.  St. Louis is also hilly.  We shared a sled.  I had no complaints about the cold that night.

Do you agree that a wonderful thing about childhood is that our pleasures were simple?  I lived in a drafty house, had my own room and we had a dog.  The warm air from the coal furnace blew the dog's hair everywhere.  My job was to sweep it up.  A mix of collie and super-shedder, she lost large tufts of hair year-round.  I got an allowance for my chores.  I kept a diary which was mostly about boys I liked who sometimes liked me back. 

My first dog's name is still my password.  I bet something from your childhood is your password too.  I wonder if anyone has researched that. There's a reason security questions often have to do with our childhoods.  I can't articulate it, but someone can.  Some memories don't fade. 

One thing winter brings is time for introspection.  The quiet that accompanies the cold leaves more room to think.  The coronavirus has certainly left time for contemplation. Even with home-schooling and all the rest, winter is a slower season.  Let's be content.