god the parent...

Clean up day. The sidewalk at the front of the house is stacked with boxes, an old chair, and dismantled cupboards. The pile of junk is shrinking by the hour. At this rate, the pickup truck won't have to come tomorrow morning. While reorganizing the stack to keep the sidewalk clear, a young man in a plaid shirt, jeans, and a peaked cap approaches. He asks, somewhat disbelieving if he can take the cupboards away. I assure him he would be doing me a favor but I don't have a crowbar for him to dismantle them. He hurries off down the street telling me to hold them as he will be right back.

A few minutes later, bending on one knee and rearranging the cupboards, I spot a pair of very little running shoes standing before me. Looking up and staring me in the eye is a two-foot-high replica of the young man who left a few minutes earlier. I catch my breath -- the same blond hair sticking out under the ball cap, the plaid shirt, and the smallest pair of blue jeans I have ever seen. Yet, I think this can't be his child, the young man hardly looks beyond child-age himself.

As he re-arranges the cupboards. I make eye-level conversation with his replica. The child is a bit shy but surprisingly responsive. I ask him his name. He murmurs, "Gerrit". And the young man is indeed his Daddy. Incredible, either I am as old as antiquity, or parents are younger now. Surely I didn't look this young when I had my four children in my early and mid-twenties. Yet, I must have been near his age.

Finally, with a couple of cupboard doors in one hand and the child's hand in the other, I watch them head home -- two silhouettes backlit by the evening sun. Their elongating shadows ripple the sidewalk. The father skips, adjusting his steps to little steps. The tiny jeans bulging out cause a waddle. Diapers, without a doubt.

I wonder at the miracle, of kids having kids and of what the great spirit in her wisdom trusts us with. The child looks up to the father, maybe asking him a question. He knows his Daddy has the answer, yes, all the answers. He is supposedly god-wise and totally to be trusted. This young parent in blue jeans, plaid shirt, and ball cap is the beloved...

You cannot swish through prayer...

Below is an excerpt from a visit with the cottage woman several decades ago, yet recorded then in the present tense. The italics are my musings on what she is saying. That spring day I needed insight into praying and its validity. Her wisdom, always simply put, seemed to inform me from a deeper or larger perspective and still does today.

At the end of that afternoon visit and just before she was to leave, I asked how I could pray more effectively.

Each person must be given space and time...

Before the cottage woman leaves, I need to ask about my uncle Ned. He is my mother's youngest brother and lives in Florida with his partner.  He tells me on the phone how much he enjoyed our family talks, during the previous summer. 

Now he has been diagnosed with throat cancer.  I have started praying for him but feel it is a feeble effort.  I also want to encourage him to visit again this summer.

 Nodding, this wise, old woman instructs, "You must continue to give him energy if he is to visit again. You still have an opportunity to work with his pain this summer, if he chooses, but he must be given the energy to do that.  You just listen.  If his energy drops low, you will pick it up." Really, praying lends him energy. Then maybe, I can lend him not only healing energy but also love and joy.

"Indeed, yet prayer is not effective if you swish through it." Oh, I know she is referring to my on-the-run prayers. Besides, I still don’t have confidence that my praying works.

"Yah indeed, prayer does not look tangible but it is, indeed, real." She continues, "Each person you pray for must be given a space and a time.  A mere second is not a fact.  Effective prayer is individual space given to each person one is praying for.  Scanning is not the same as focusing.  Take each person in their own turn.”

Attention and focus are what counts...

“Well, I am feeling uncomfortable about not praying as much as I should." It takes time to stop and pray.

 She bends closer and a wisp of hair falls past her ear.  "Good.  We are watching when you are uncomfortable. That awareness of being uncomfortable and knowing that we are here gets your attention.  That awareness is listening." This kind of listening is something she keeps trying to teach me in almost every visit.  "Effective intercession does not depend on time but on attention.  Your focus is what counts."

 Then she adds, "The person (Ned) has the need to know love.  At this point, he feels isolated, needs to talk, feels very misunderstood and feels not seen or heard."
Being several thousand miles away, I ask, "Who can help him?"

 "In part, the person who feels so moved.  Each can send love in their own way."

What has stuck with me over time are her words, "You cannot swish prayer" and the person that can help is "the one who feels so moved." The latter reminds me of Gregg Braden* when he asked a venerated, Tibetan monk in the highlands of Tibet, how did he pray? The answer was profoundly simple, "The feeling is the prayer."

That feeling is for whatever catches me and I relate too, be it young families separated at the border, sixty miles away, or maybe the feeling for the earth trying to rid itself of toxins. Thus, when the feeling is really there, I am constantly discovering, the prayer begins to pray itself.

*Braden is renown for his work in the study of science and spirituality which I have referred to in other writings.

to the moon and back...

Several weeks ago, I received in the mail a large heart which said, in inch high letters, "to the moon and back." It hangs here in my living room, intriguing me when it catches my eye, which seems to be frequently. So, I ask, "What is it that draws my attention, makes my heart take a leap? What lures me like some magic, mystical magnet to this seemingly small, round ball in the sky? Some nights, out on the deck or standing on the desert floor, the moon and stars just seem to scoop me into this feeling of great upwardness. Then, I find myself flying through the stars and heading to the moon.

Yet, this is not really the moon the astronauts walked on, kicking its sand and dust. (Although they are one.) I want to go to the moon that is written about in poetry, fable, and song. "Fly me to the moon, let me play among the stars, fill my heart with song, and let me sing forever more.... "* That's the moon Tiny Tim wanted to go to when he shouted with joy on a cold winter eve, several centuries ago saying, "I'd love to go to the moon."  Ah, the moon of intrigue, folk tale, and soul food.

Several years ago, in Copenhagen, I strolled past Hans Christian Anderson's house on the canal where he wrote thirty-four verses about a lonely boy and the moon, which, (somewhat paraphrased), begins, "I am a poor lad...one evening I sat in the window...opened the encasement, and oh how my heart leaped up with joy. Here was a well-known face, at last, a round friendly encountence, the face of a good friend I had know at home. In fact, it was the moon who looked in on me...."  I can see this small boy as I write, called Hans, looking to the moon and the moon looking in on him, as if it were not a century or two ago.

Yes, this moon does appear to look back with compassion on our human condition. So when I go to the moon, I'd like to visit the dark side, as well. I don't want to miss it. I think it is pretty amazing -- to be free of human stuff. For to know the dark side, is truly to know ourselves.

Tiny Tim, the poor lad and we, have a relationship with a little round ball in the sky. How seemingly insignificant? But is it really? What value can we put on a shout of joy on a cold, dark, winter night or find companionship in a velvet, silent presence in our loneliness? The heart expands. It's no little thing to walk on a beach or the desert sand in the moonlight with love -- be the companion, a child, friend, dog, lover, or oneself.

How invitational, this moon of the sage, poet, and storyteller. How do we explain this sacred coming home in ourselves to a place where we are not alone? I can't, of course. Yet, a sweet song of mystery and magic does breathe in our hearts.

*"Fly me to the moon..." is written by Bart Howard who sounds like he may have taken the same trip as Tiny Tim...

What does love want me to do today?

The morning begins early at 3 a.m. I listen to some beginner-blues-piano riffs on YouTube. Now, too late for more sleep, I look to the day. The question put is, "What does love want me to do today?" A slight surge of sweetness, anticipation, a tinge of excitement ripples, beacon-like -- invites a curious heart.

What does love want from me today? I will call my son this afternoon. Ah, a small round hole of dull light in the blind catches an eye. Suddenly, it burst into star-like rays of dancing color telling me its source is just peaking over the Rincons.  Later, it will ask me out to play.  Yesterday, an onion dropped on the floor and glancing down, there lay the mystery of the Nautilus, a circle circling to infinity and veins mapping its skin as they do on the back of my wrinkled hand. And, oh, how lovely that love calls us to play.

Love also wants an object to love.  A new keyboard makes me smile rather than frown, yet this smile need not move the lips as it spreads its warmth in the chest and makes the fingers itch. We say,"I love that."  I love the blouse I'll wear today. Yet, it isn't the blouse or the keyboard -- not the object, but the love.

And, where has love also led me? Being aged, through countless loses. You learn to take the knocks in one form or another. It isn't always chocolate ice cream Yet, love is the great teacher in this human school as it shapes us in its light.

What does love want me to do in this day, this world?  It invites me to witness to myself and to that larger essence?  Love is lonely by itself and needs to see, hear, and relate. It anchors, saddles me, and I am not alone. And even when I might be sad that can only be love, as, without love, there is no sad. It also puts me into kindness, compassion, and the beauty of its loveliness. Then, I see differently, more with magic eyes.

What does love want? An answer whispers back, love wants me to expand my little heart and love today -- be it an onion, a son, a tree, a lover, a prayer or a spark of morning sun bursting into rays of dancing color through a little round hole in the blind.  Love wants us to love and play at loving, no matter what it takes.

Waiting, a sacred act...

It's about 5:30 am. With a laptop on one shoulder and files in a backpack on the other. I head for Starbucks for four hours of writing. I have a small corner there that if I arrive when they open, feels all mine for a few hours.

I never turn the light on when I step out on the second story deck so I can see the stars and the lights rippling on the water from across the lake. Being in a slight hurry, with eyes to the sky, I make the usual sharp turn right for the stairs. Instantly, pain shoots through my leg, Then I am upside down in flight, and banging this and that. With the momentum of body, computer, and backpack I know I am heading down. I grab a white vertical rail and vicariously hold the position. My feet are on the deck, my back is on the second step, heading down. I attempt to breathe and there is not much that doesn't hurt.

The cause of this flying leap was a large plant pot in the corner of the deck. A wind storm the day before had blown it horizontal, and left it blocking the stairs. However, the good news is, I didn't break a bone yet back tendons and muscles took a beating and one leg needed it's dressing changed twice a day for several weeks. All in all, my life came to rather an abrupt halt. Ceiling-watching filled the weeks as the only relatively painless position I could find was lying flat which initially meant: no walking, no sitting, no computer, no writing, no piano playing, and no picking my Grands up at school for a dairy treat.

Now, ceiling-watching wears enormously thin rapidly and does not leave one many active options. It's rather like living in a void, an emptiness -- this waiting to heal, to getting back into life. Thoughts can dull and turn negative if one is not watchful. Thus, after the first couple weeks, when progress seems snail's pace, it is not the physical body but possibly the emotional body that may need some care. Yet, it takes an effort to drag oneself away from the gravitational pull of unhelpful thought.

However, thankfully, ceiling-watching has another partner called Waiting.  This non-activity appears to be a passive, tedious exercise.  Yet, within waiting is passion.  Both words, passive and passion have nominally, the same Latin root. I also discover waiting is like a box of energy which has space and dimension that can be used and worked at if I ask -- what thoughts, emotions will serve my higher self?  What does waiting want from me and what do I want from me?

Waiting to hear, I begin to watch differently, think and thus, feel differently.  The body does want to heal itself, inside and out.  The self and spirit long to expand. A richness, aliveness, and a fresh newness begin to enter body and spirit.  At one time or another, adult children, friends, my Ex, a stranger, and Grands occupy the blue chair at the end of the bed. And, I resolve that every face coming through that door will be the most special face in the world and I will love it.

Yes,  waiting is a passionate act and has a sophistication when giving oneself over to it. We wait -- to heal, to rejoin life, for a child to be born, and we wait for the beloved. Something is going to happen, some compassionate moment, some Royal visitor. Indeed, as scripture tells us, those who wait on Spirit will renew their strength and rise on Eagle wings...

I am writing now from Tucson, almost three months later, and still doing a little ceiling-watching as I continue to learn that, waiting itself is a sacred act.

The many beams from the Star in the East...

The real story comes from a love-source that cannot be understood with the intellect. 
                                                                                                                                     ~ Mark Nepo

A couple of weeks ago, my eight-year-old granddaughter asked the dreaded question. Is there really a Santa? Her brother who is now ten asked the same question a few years back and catching the parents off guard, things did not go well.

 Four years ago, I wrote about my Grand stopping on her way out the door at the newly unwrapped foot-high Santa standing on the chest in the hall. She fingered his beard, his red velvet coat and then took her time to feel all the little presents sticking out his pockets. Gazing for as long as a four-year-old gazes, she finally looked up sideways at me and states, almost solemnly and with considerable passion, "I love that guy." And from her look, I knew she meant it down to her little toes. Her face revealing she had entered that special place of wonder and love. 

She has held true to this passion for the "guy".  However, now four years later, her father texts me last week saying, "She asked if Santa was real yesterday. We said, yes, he is spirit. She was quick to reply, "Good, he's spirit."  Then she tells him she is relieved, as she thought it would be kind of creepy having someone in our house while we were sleeping.

My first thought was, how natural it is for her to accept the invisible and know there is more to life than what we see with our human eyes. Just because Santa is not in the flesh, not visible, does not mean he is not real. This great spirit flys through the sky on a sleigh pulled by eight tiny reindeer (an amazing feat) bringing light, joy, and love to every boy and girl. Yet, unfortunately, he does tend to become more calcified and non-existent for adults.

However, Saint Nickolas (270AD) was always intended to be more spiritual. He was known for his great generosity and gift giving. Miracles happened around him. He became a metaphor and we need to think more metaphorically.

There are many beams from the Star in the East. It just did not happen in Bethlehem. Artists, mystics of the great religions, enlighteners, higher beings in whatever form and the angels among us often were and are moved by the experience beyond bone and flesh. They leave behind their scent -- kindness, compassion, an ocean deep wisdom and most importantly, at center, each is love. The way we identify wind is when the tree bends. The way we see electricity is when we turn on a light. A reality cruises through the invisible. Everything is larger than it looks.

I love such mysteries as they are beyond my wildest understanding. So yes, Granddaughter, there is indeed a Santa Clause as you so wisely observed -- who is a magical spirit, who loves every boy and girl and lands on every rooftop with bags of joy, wonder, fierce anticipation, and heaping generosity.

Indeed, we do need to think more metaphorically as it allows many approaches with many faces. If we see it only as who we are as humans then a greater power is missed. Yet, if we see it larger, the universe is ours, mindfully and spiritually.

How finely tuned we each are...

I often underestimate how sensitive the larger spirit is and how willing it is to help us in every minute and intimate detail -- when we explicitly ask. Yet, the other day I was surprised again. I had an unhappy spot that I had been suspicious of for a while. No matter how happy I was the previous day, at times, a dullness of spirit was present on waking. I am now suspicious of the influence the iPad I watch at night might have on my spirit first thing in the morning. I want to wake in elevated feelings like joyful purpose and a merry, eager heart.

Crawling into bed at the end of a day, I usually catch the news, an interesting interview or podcast, and am asleep in five minutes -- which is a real perk. Thus, I was not looking forward to putting the iPad out in the hall. Besides, would it do any good anyway? Would something larger than my human self hear? Plus, habits are hard things to break, especially when you enjoy them.

After pondering it a few days, and another touch of dullness, I set my intention and asked for a little spirit intervention. With the iPad out in the hall the next night, I try for sleep. An hour later and much churning, I am still button-eyed  At some point I must have dozed off.

Usually, on waking I literately roll out of bed to the floor and meditate. However, just before waking this morning, I am floating in water with kayaks (one of our fun activities on the lake) passing me like sandpipers when swimming at the shore. I love the feeling. Then the experience changes. I am floating on my back watching this lit candle floating in front of me. The experience leaves me with a serenity, sweetness and indeed, a light and merry heart.

Waking, gratitude and excitement weigh in. Something in me did hear! I roll out of bed laughing, realizing this morning there is not much difference between waking and meditating. No dullness, only the hum, and feel of spirit. I asked and was responded to! A coincidence maybe, yet, I know this land too well and have experienced it's magic too often to say, "Nay."

Truly every hair on our head is counted. An invisible reality/that great love does care, hears and responds to the smallest intention and littlest act. At the same time, in each of us, something larger than our humanness also hears and responds. Indeed, how finely tuned to the divine we each are and what magic we can discover by setting a resolve and asking. Dullness can become candlelight.