NOTHING IS MISSING, YOU ARE ALREADY WHOLE

I love this quote. There are so many reasons for us to believe this.  For Christians, God says that nothing can separate us from His love.  His love for us is eternal.  He loves us as we are; His love is a gift; we do not have to earn it.  In the mind of God, nothing is missing in us; we are already whole.  

I was raised to love this quote.  My mother was not theological or devout.  But her love was a shadow of God's love.  I knew that I did not have to earn it.  Or my father's. What a gift it is to have parents like that.  Not everyone does.  And yet, with or without such parents, we are each already whole. 

I love this quote because we are whole whatever our religion or none.  We are whole no matter who raised us.  It is in our nature to be whole.

So, what does this mean day-to-day?  It means that it is our choice whether to give up or keep going.  We have the capacity to keep going.  We are made that way.  But it also means that even those who give up are whole.  We are all saved.  

We can pass by, or we can pause.  We can pause to enjoy the wildflowers.  We can pause to share.  We can pause. to give unto others.  We can pause so that our life is long and fulfilling. But even those who pass by are whole.  We are all saved.  

We can be vulnerable.  We can forgive, especially ourselves.  We can recognize that insisting on perfection in ourselves or others is more than unkind.  It is ruthless.  Instead of living in the dark, we can push up to the light.  But still. we are all saved.  

We can crumble or be brave.  Sometimes we must crumble in our hearts before we are brave. We can act in spite of our fears.  So much of what we choose takes bravery. But because we are already whole, we forge ahead.  We are saved. 

We might choose to have faith, to believe in the unseen, the intangible.  On Christmas we might believe that Jesus is born a baby in a manger of a virgin mother. On Good Friday we might believe that Jesus is crucified.  On Easter Sunday we might believe that He is Risen.  Other faiths are just as extravagant on their face.  They.  We.  Nothing is missing.  All are already whole. 

CREATING CALM

A Calm Place

I need to create some calm today, calm for my mind that worries too much about so many things, some that matter, some that don't, and some I can do nothing about whether they matter or not.  Oh my, I definitely need to create some calm.  

So I picked up a lovely magazine, The Simple Things for June.  That was a good start.  Simple things are calming.  Or invigorating.  Or pleasing.  Just about whatever we are escaping or needing, simple things help.  We know that too be true.  What's the opposite of simple things?  Well, complex or frustrating or nerve-wracking things.  Irritating things.  Convoluted thoughts, intrusive memories, worries that twist into worries. 

I must not be the only one who needs calm.  There are enough of us to write articles and books about it.  Classes on mindfulness and neuroscience courses as well. This June issue has a feature on Creating Calm.  "When life feels tough, doing something creative can have a soothing effect on the mind and body," is the subtitle. The jist is, we all have a creative muscle and using it is a kind of instant First Aid.  

My first-line creative endeavor is writing.  I often turn to this blog.  But also writing just for me, private writing or prayer journalling.  Writing helps empty the mind and release thoughts and feelings otherwise left festering and unattended.  The benefits of Trauma Writing are well-known, but in ordinary situations, more neutral writing prompts are wonderful.  They are sprinkled throughout this blog. 

The Simple Things article talks about writing when we need a short, powerful release to soothe the nervous system.  Who doesn't need that once-in-a-while? Choose words like shine, grow, safe, water or sky, or whatever you want, to get started.  Write as long or short as you please.  See if you don't feel better.  

The article also suggests moving in dance when anxiety levels are high.  It doesn't solve the cause of our anxiety, but the music and movement disrupt the messages of danger our brains are sending.  I daresay, music alone does that.  The soaring music of Puccini takes me where I need to go; I need to remember that when my mind is askew.  

Visual poetry is one I hadn't seen described with those words.  But it is thinking about a specific place that makes you feel alive, safe and full of possibility. Often a place outdoors.  Write down a few words or lines that transmit the feeling of this place for you.  Then pick colored pencils or markers and write the words in a way that shows the feeling.  Big letters or small, wavy or curvy, spaced out or staggered. Blue for one word, yellow for another, green for another.  This gives us endless ways to be joyfully creative.  I haven't tried this yet, but I'm getting energized just thinking about it.  Which of my happy places will I make a visual poem about?  Which of yours will you?

Finally, this article reminds us that collecting is a creative process.  I love this reminder.  We often feel guilty for keeping the things we keep.  More clutter, we might chastise ourselves.  But no.  It's healthy.  Seashells, handfuls of colorful buttons, embossed glass jars, tiny ceramic figurines . . . whatever. The article suggests decorating boxes for the little things we collect.  My granddaughter and I used to spend long afternoons carefully decorating shoe boxes for our keepsakes, the ones not on display.  I have boxes covered in washi tape, wallpaper remnants, chalk-paint labels and more, all mod podged into shininess. 

Of course, reading can be calming.  If I hadn't picked up one of my favorite magazines, none of these ideas for creating calm would have come to me, not in this way.   Release, recharge, restore.  Goal achieved!    

 

ANOTHER JUNE HAS ARRIVED

 It's June already. Our anniversary is June 4, and it always arrives as a surprise. This is the front of the Anniversary card my husband gave me this year.  We have a tradition of doggie pictures.  The card I gave him has a corgi and a schnauzer on it, but this one is better.  I love it.  

We've had so many anniversaries that we can't remember where we spent them all.  Some traveling of course; after all, it is June.  One in London, one in Rome, one in Alaska and the Canadian west, several at little B&Bs, but most with good friends or family, often at the grill in our own backyard. This year we met close friends who also have a June anniversary for supper at a local place with an outdoor patio.

Tongue-in-cheek, I will tell you the secrets of a long marriage:  marry young, live long and don't get divorced.  I will also tell you the actual keys to a good marriage, at least some of them:  don't keep secrets from one another; don't hurt one another--but if you do, stop, repent and apologize when you're wrong and forgive when you're right; cling together during traumas, no matter how brutal; do what's best for the marriage.  There are other secrets of course.  Sleeping like spoons helps.  Embracing often, whether when making love or not, is good.  Physical touching restores.  Fight fair, don't try to one-up, listen to each other, show interest.  So many of the things we do to maintain all of our friendships   

Be together more than you're apart. Love with abandon.  Give each other space, but not too much.  Don't put others before the marriage, not even other family.  Don't let grievances simmer; address them with persistence but kindness.  

I'm not an expert.  No one is, not even the 'experts.' But we have survived the most difficult of times and will miss the other desperately when one is gone. And yet we prepare for that too, in our way, discussing our blessings and how one of us might live when alone.  And as it happens, we have our faith.  That always helps.  

So, June it is.  Just moments ago, it seems, we were enjoying the cold days and dark nights of winter.  That's a good time to strengthen a marriage too.  But for the hubbub of Christmas and the hours at our jobs, we tend to hibernate in winter, like animals in dens or coiled under the leaves waiting to be roused by the sun.  Most of us love that slower time of year.  It's a time to cuddle under blankets with Netflix.  Whether with someone or not, it's a special time to be kind to yourself.  I like the saying, "Nothing is missing, you are already whole."

Spring is brief where I live and summer long.  And now it is here, not according yet to the calendar-- still a few days away--but already we are headed to the longest day and shortest night.  The winter solstice is barely over when the summer one is in our sights.  Every year the quickness of the cycle is a reminder of the brevity of life.  It's a truism that hours might drag but years do not.

What shall we do from anniversary to anniversary, from winter to summer, from birthday to birthday?  I'd like to be better at savoring.  If you're single, savor your independent life.  If you're in a good marriage, savor that.  Since we're aging, savor that.  We have lived longer, know more, think with more precision, understand how the past affects the present and the present, the future.  We have achieved much, I in my long marriage and on my own, you wherever in life you are.  

I am so glad it is June, and we are headed to the longest day.  Let us savor the light.  And when the year is half over, let us look to the approaching longest night.  Nothing is missing, our lives are already whole.  

                                    Congratulations to all, Nina Naomi

IT ALL GETS BETTER

Wild Iris, Fairbanks, Alaska

 A day of depression, 

The morning not clear,

Not the whys nor the wherefores. 

Pushing back (from my friends)

As the cloud of talk floats--

I'm as hazy as dust motes.

The air warm and sultry,

My heart distant,

Not too lonely.

It's been worse.

I've been worse.

Remember, my mother said (as she was dying),

"It always gets better."  

And it does. 

NOT WITHOUT HEARTACHE, NOT WITHOUT JOY

The month is May, and I am the matriarch.

A family not without heartache, not without joy.  

Roots entangled, branches reaching,  

I never stop searching.

My joys may be common, my heartaches unique.  

(Probably wrong, so often wrong.)

My son died too young,

The age of our Savior 

When blinded by God, 

Bowing to Majesty, palm touching palm. 

Blessings to give and blessings to take.

Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour . . . 

My daughter plummeted 

Not without heartache, not without joy,

With a mind fearful muddled

And blind to her losses, 

Leaving pain in its wake (and she chooses the wake).

Me the repository, 

I am the matriarch.

Secrets solved but remembered.

Bravery and love.  Bravery and love. 

Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us . . .

Our grandson is living this summer with us.

I am full,  

More full than I pictured this sweet month of May.

   

 

"AFTER GREAT PAIN"

Madonna and Child
Vincenzo Foppa, 1480

"In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness.  We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans." Romans 8:26

This text was a recent Sunday's bible verse. 

Like some, I light candles before worship.  Some of the people I have intentions for, a simple prayer that they be well has not worked.  After many years, they are not well.  The Spirit needs to determine what is the best prayer.  A pray for healing can be unrealistic. But there are other prayers, like "Help, save, comfort and defend us Gracious Lord." There are many.

When someone young was dying, a close Catholic friend said to him, "When I come back next week tell me what you want second."  Perhaps we should all think about that.  

Some people pray for surcease from pain.  I do that only in moments when pain is acute, which does not happen too often.  Many people's daily physical pain is more than mine, many less.  As we grow older, some degree of chronic pain is common.  It makes me think of Emily Dickinson's poem:  

"After great pain, a formal feeling comes - / The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs -" 

Many of us have had pain that hijacks our attention. When it passes the nerves are on edge, waiting. Is it over?  We treat our bodies tenderly.  Our nerves have been traumatized; like a baby, they need to be comforted.  We tiptoe.    

Mental and emotional suffering is another kind of pain.  It can arise when someone we love hurts:  our child, our spouse, our parent . . . would we even notice a bad back or hip or knee as we sat at the bedside of a loved one?   Or it can arise when we ourselves hurt from loss or betrayal, grief, trauma or the imminence of death.   

Some readers think Dickinson was writing about suffering, in other words, emotional pain.  In the law, with which I am familiar, physical hurt is called pain, emotional hurt, suffering.  If our leg is gone, we may have no physical pain at all.  But we may still suffer.  In her poem, Dickinson wonders whether Christ's pain was like ours or whether ours is like His.  

"The stiff Heart questions, 'was it He, that bore,' / And 'Yesterday, or centuries before'?"

She continues, " A Quartz contentment, like a stone / This is the Hour of Lead - " 

Some commentators think that the whole poem is about emotional or psychic pain.  But it is not.  It is about when pain ceases. " First chill - then Stupor - then the letting go."   There is a great surcease when we return to equilibrium.  The "letting go" is tangible.  We breathe easier.  Our muscles relax.  Our brows unforrow. 

The death of someone may be a surcease of pain.  It may bring relief, to them and to us.  We are grateful for their life; we are grateful for their death.  Haven't you experienced that?  The Spirit helps us pray when someone dies; when mental illness drives the cart; when a disc slips or a brain bleeds or a heart stops.   

The Book of Romans tells us that the Spirit intercedes through wordless groans.  My own groans may be no more than, "Oh please."  We want the pain or the suffering to stop.  Let us believe the promise that it always will.  AMEN

DO SOMETHING LOVELY

 What are some lovely things you might like to do?  My meadow of daisies is blooming right now.  I have set out vases of daisies everywhere! 

When the news is just too much, it's nice to back away from the pain of the world and make our lives smaller.  It's healthy, too, to take a break from the visage of the former President on trial. Our psyches deserve a respite. 

So, I admit, I pick daisies.  If the stars align, we might even come to the beach, where we are right now.  Then a smaller life seems like a larger life.  Then we hear the waves and see the water, shades of green and deep blue today, graduated out to the horizon.  We turn on the ceiling fans and leave everything open.  We eat sea bass and softshell crabs and steamed shrimp with butter.  Life here is simpler, yes, but fuller at the same time.  To me, bare toes in the sand always feels expansive. 

We can make home like this too.  We can make our houses feel just so us, so only ours, different from any other house we have ever seen or been in.  That's why home shows are so popular.  We delight in having these spaces to make uniquely ours.  Our plants, the colors we choose, the views out our windows, the feel of plush carpet or slick hardwood.  If we have to move, we take Uncle Roy's rocker with us, Grandma's china and her lace tablecloth we seldom use.  At least I do.  Some people start fresh, just as brilliant. 

 My mother was an embroiderer.  She made me an exquisitely embroidered linen blouse that, except for the embroidery, has not lasted.  So, I cut out patches and framed them.  Now I think of her when I look up from my computer to the shelfie above.  

What are some lovely things you might do?  Frame something, paint something, rearrange the furniture, declutter a room or two? Walk to whatever shore is near you, whatever valley or path or hill?  Eat outdoors? Bring home flowers?  Put problems on hold and make your life simpler, smaller and more expansive at the same time.  Enjoy! 

                                      Nina Naomi