Tuesday in Holy Week

My beloved has agreed to drive me to the brain doctor, at the new location. Hooray.

It is Tuesday

In Holy Week.

The office

Of the brain doctor

Has moved.

So

In addition to preparing

My confession

About the yoga seizure

In October,

I must drive to a new location

On the odd address side

Of a busy street,

A place I have never seen before.

Suite B.

B is for brain.

I think about all of us

Brain challenged folk

Finding a new location

Preparing our confessions

Driving.

She says

Wisdom emerges from where it wills.

She says:

Someone,

Somewhere else in the world,

Someone

Is in exactly your same spot.

He

She

Shares the exact same trials.

She says:

Because you are in the same place

Your prayers

For him

For her

Are more exact

Are more fitting

No matter you don’t know

His name

Her name.

She says:

Therefore

Ergo

We pray for one another

Simply because

We know how and why and wherefore.

We know

They know too.

In the midst of life

Today brought a gift of a sermon to my email box. 

http://inwardoutward.org/tag/lent-year-b/?utm_source=inward%2Foutward+email+subscribers&utm_campaign=cd4721c677-The+Story&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_791e8aa8ec-cd4721c677-70564269

A gift for my sixtieth birthday. Lovely.

In the midst of life,

We are in death.

In the midst of death

Life.

Palms strewn

Donkeys ridden

Crowds cheering

On the way

To the upper room

To the Garden

To beyond.

But that is for later.

In the midst of life,

I am in death.

In the midst of death,

Life.

Today my birthday

Holds hands

With both,

One on either side.

We intertwine our fingers.

All is as it must be.

The song

Odd. What is that song? Perhaps I am not meant to remember. It was rather pleasant to have the crowd making up the words. Perhaps my next vocation is as a song leader.

The dream has me

On a small stage,

Filling in for another singer.

I strum my guitar

But don’t remember the words

To the song.

The crowd makes up words,

Sings along.

The song never comes to mind.

I wake up

To words

From

What have they done to the rain?

That was not the song

I was trying to remember

But maybe it will do.

Up for grabs

Turning 60 on Palm Sunday. I think it will be better than turning 33 on Good Friday when my marriage was collapsing. I am definitely in a better place these days. The fifties were good, all in all. The sixties are up for grabs.

What is it about entering

A new decade?

This life

Lived in the tens?

If we lived in Base 12

I would still be a few years off

From 60.

In the last ten years

I made more changes

Than in the fifty years prior.

I became a proponent

Of the fifties

An advocate for life

Rewritten

Rediscovered

Re-purposed.

The sixties?

The sixties

Are up for grabs.

Slow morning

I am almost 60 years old.I still must learn the price of taking things too fast, of adding too much into the day. I still must learn pacing. Today I am practicing again.

Slow morning.

I hear the voices

They say

One more thing

One more thing

Why do you move

So slowly?

There is more to be done.

Slow morning.

I remove another thing

From the list

So I may do the needful

This afternoon.

Slow morning.

So I may offer attention

Later on,

I center myself in the slow

Right now.              

Slow morning.

I move like the sloth moves.

He is my cousin.

Holy Week 2015

This is scrambling time for clergy of high liturgical bent everywhere. I am released from these particular details, being a counselor these days. I well remember the Easter Sunday we went out to brunch and I literally fell asleep in my plate. There is no BCP liturgy for the Easter Egg Hunt. And by this time, I figure, even if there was such a thing, the details would be lost well before Easter Brunch.

There is no week

More full of special liturgies

With all their component parts.

This is what all that training

Was for.

This is what all the planning

Is for.

This is Holy Week.

Everyone

Every congregation

Has his

Has her

Has its

Own way of doing things.

And

It will all end up

On Easter Sunday

With the liturgy

Of the Easter Egg hunt,

Three to five eggs

Per child.

By this time

In this week

With all its component parts,

Who’s counting?

I want people to learn

It's still amazing to me how often clients come in for my help with something I often struggle with myself. I hope it remains amazing.

I want people to learn

What I myself often

Cannot do

Cannot see

Cannot hear.

I want people to learn these things

So I myself

Might

Begin again

To learn the same.

Unscheduled snow

Blech! 

I'm glad we made it to the store yesterday before this weather change. This same store did not carry pussy willows before the vernal equinox... except for their display pussy willows which were not for sale...only there as indication that spring might be coming. Yesterday we bought pussy willows AND forsythia. Good thing.

With the unscheduled snow

I am grateful for forsythia

And pussy willows

On the front table

Oh

And the six crows huddled in the ash tree

And the scarlet cardinal,

Now an accent

To the snow.

With this unscheduled snow

I am keeping an eye

On spring.

Charlie

In honor of Charles Greaves. He now waits with Jesus and all those who have gone before for the world to finish its act of being made new. He was a gift to me.

Yesterday

At the end of the morning routine:

The coffee

The writing

The consideration of spring

Finally arriving,

The robin,

The ducks out back,

The red male cardinal,

Contrasting now

With emerging green,

Yesterday

At noon

I learned Charlie died.

The funeral was at two.

So we went to the service.

At the beginning

Of my venture into counseling

Charlie told me

He could see it

Me

Sitting with people one on one:

Me

The one who brought him

Into my office,

Shut the door,

Told him he could not behave

The way he was behaving.

He listened.

I left soon after

So I never knew if he really stopped

Or maybe sort of stopped.

I wore my collar to the funeral

In honor of Charlie,

Sat in the back row.

A ladybug landed on the bulletin

Walked the entire edge

Top to bottom

Then back to the top.

Perhaps it was Charlie

Showing me he now knew

About boundaries.

No.

I know it was Charlie.

Now he is free.

Holding hope

So many things I might write today. This is what arrived.

The seeds arrived in the mail

Yesterday:

A butterfly garden to be sown

When the warm comes.

The robin searches out worms

In the backyard

Hop

Hop

Listen

Hop

Hop

Listen

He will feel that first hint

With his feet,

Hear the whisper

Of worms surfacing.

After all

Light is on the winning side

Today.

The worms must not be far behind.

The robin holds hope

Hop

Hop

Listen

The seeds are packaged

On the kitchen counter.

They hold the hope

Of butterflies.

Vernal equinox 2015

My first three seizures came at the winter solstice, the autumnal equinox, and the summer solstice. You better believe I was extremely careful around the next vernal equinox.

Today light and dark

Line up

For the moment.

We play evensies.

I remember

Not so long ago

Holding my breath

Until the equinox passed,

Rather like ducking when driving

Under a bridge,

Or lifting feet driving over

A river

(Of course

Not when I was driving)

Today light and dark line up.

Tomorrow light wins.

Tomorrow I can breathe again.

The rest of the week

Some weeks it's easy to get overwhelmed.

This week has already brought me

More

Than I could ever do.

I even asked for

A lot of it.

The rest of the week

Is dedicated to:

Never mind.

Never mind.

The rest of the week

Is for sifting,

Is for sieving,

Is for winnowing.

The rest of the week

Is for pouring through

Seeing what is left behind.

The rest of the week

Is to determine

The one next thing.

Farewells

Praying and hoping for new growth after the clearing away.

Today I am noting

Farewells

All the things I must clear away

To make space

For new things to appear.

I clip back the clematis

For new vines to grow.

That’s an easy one:

I know what it will look like

When it comes full flower,

Full purple flower.

It’s the farewells,

The not knowing what

If anything,

Will appear in their place.

It’s the possibility of ground

Laid fallow

For a season

When I do not have so many seasons

Left

When fallow

Might be all there is.

Chipping

Sometimes, particularly in the morning, words aren't necessary.

The cardinals are chipping

This morning,

No full-throated song

But morning chipping

Among friends and family.

The morning does not require

Arias

Or even speeches.

Sometimes a chip or two

Will do the trick.

Sometimes even that small sound

Isn’t necessary.

It is enough

Dreams are funny sometimes. In between dreams, I woke up remembering Dayenu "It would have been enough." Dayenu "The Passover Song." Dayenu "Sufficient in the very best, the most grounded sense of the word." Dayenu.

I have rarely been as happy

As today.

No.

There is no point

In comparison

With any other day,

With any other person,

With any other thing.

I am here.

I am placed.

It is today.

Dayenu.

Dayenu.

Dayenu.

I plan

Today is a day to make a list for winter clean-up, maybe even summer possibilities. Today the snow has mostly melted. If my daughter makes it back in time from the dyeing of the Chicago River, we will get our toenails done. If not, we won't.

Today the plan is

To begin to reassemble

The back yard;

To clip back all

I did not clip back

In the fall;

To re-stake the now fallen

Pink flamingos

Next to the crab apple.

I watch the cat

Drowse in the sun.

I drink the remains

Of yesterday’s coffee

In the dinosaur mug.

I order seeds

For a butterfly garden.

I plan

I plan

I plan to make a fresh pot

Of coffee

New chapter, same book

Recently I have rediscovered many friends and connections from the past. I wonder how they got from there to here. With many I have missed a lot of chapters. With some, it seems, they have erased a number of chapters, maybe even think they have started a new book. Still... it's all connected and it all counts. New chapter, same book.

My friends and connections

Have mostly moved

Into new chapters

With subtitles

I never would have thought of,

So many chapters

Written it seems

In new vernacular.

I know

The connecting points

From old to new

Have been there all along.

In this spring of our lives

We unearth new things

Which are not new

At all;

New chapters, perhaps,

But the very same book

We have each been writing

From the beginning.

Flamingo

My beloved purchased two pink flamingos in different poses last year. We considered putting them in the front yard, but decided they might disappear like the rainbow spinner we lost a couple years ago. We were also not sure if they'd be appreciated by the neighbors in all their pink plastic glory.

The flamingo

Is staked on its metal legs

Next to the crab apple

In the back yard.

It is warmer today.

Most of the snow has melted.

The flamingo

Throws his shadow,

Her shadow,

On the crab apple trunk.

It’s hard to tell

A male from a female

In pink plastic.

The silhouette also says

It might be either one.

Wet earth

Finally warm enough to open the window.

Finally I can

Open the window and catch

The scent of wet earth.

Resonance

Ah, dreaming. I dreamed a church supper with a bishop, a random woman bishop. At my table we opened a lima bean pod, rather like edamame. Each of us got one bean, and it seemed to be enough.

Some mornings I write

So I won’t lose the dream,

Even the snippet of a dream

I had,

That one small piece.

It resonates.

Sometimes

If it happens in the middle of the night

I keep waking

And waking

And waking

Like last night.

Here in the light of day I think

I should have written it down

At 2 AM.

Maybe next time.

Mind-meld

I am getting better at taking things as they come, one thing at a time. It seems there are things to learn like this too.

For a time

I had two Monday clients.

Now Monday is clear.

The sun shines

Through the two front windows.

The cat tries both spots of sun,

Determines to sleep instead

Under the rocking chair,

On the edge

Of a sunny spot.

It appears I am meant

To mind-meld

With the cat,

Eyes slit shut,

On my edge

Of a sunny spot.

Jesus and the moneychangers

I never know what will happen at church. This is mostly because I do not have my finger on the plans. I arrive expecting one thing, and encounter another. I am not in charge any longer. I most probably never was in charge. Surprise! No moneychangers! Surprise! A conga line of teens.

Because we are reading

The entire New Testament

For Lent,

Today we forwent

Jesus and the moneychangers

In the temple

In favor of

Hebrews,

James,

And all of Mark.

I went to church prepared to hear

About tables being overturned,

Doves being released,

The Temple being rebuilt

In three days.

Instead

Instead

We had Hebrews

James

And Mark.

Then a conga line of teens

Singing

We are marching in the Light of God.

Some other year

We will hear about

Jesus and the moneychangers.

Next encounter

I sit with people bringing with me what I have been able to acknowledge, and hearing what they have been able to acknowledge. Sometimes the juxtaposition feels utterly magical.

It occurs to me

That writing every day

Brings me to this next encounter.

All I have recognized

All I have written down

All that has poured through me

All that has come through

And out the other side;

All that sits in front of me,

All the holds my hand

Brings me to this next encounter.

Here we are

Here we are

Both of us together.

The next encounter.

What brought you here today?

In praise of open-ended questions. In praise of the Society of Friends. In praise of any faith community which makes no assumptions about why a person is there.

A friend attended a Quaker meeting

Last Sunday.

She was asked

What brought you here today?

It allowed

Any answer she wished.

It allowed

For conversation.

It allowed

For her to share

At any level

That seemed appropriate

To her.

She could say

I came by bus.

She could say

I am exploring churches.

She could say

God told me to come here today.

She could say

Absolutely anything

At all.

I do my best

Maybe spring will come.

I do my best

To focus on the blue sky

The cloudless blue sky

Oh yes

And the sun.

I do my best

To remember the arrival

Of daylight savings time.

This weekend.

We lose the hour we gained

Last fall.

It will seem lighter

Longer

Or morning won’t lighten

As quickly.

I do my best

To focus on the sun

To appreciate it

Exactly the way the cat does

Simple and full

And now it’s time

For a nap.

He does not care

What the clock says,

Only that the sun

Is there.

Still the door must first be opened

This means what you need it to mean. We all have doors, and we all must determine who we will open them to, much more who we will invite in for tea. 

They come up the front walk,

Wonder whether they will be welcomed

At the door,

Or even

Invited in.

Momentary visitors,

They occasion a tentative knock.

Perhaps the door will open,

This time.

Perhaps a cup of tea

Might be offered,

This time.

So many steps

So many knocks

But still

The door must first

Be opened.

Extra things

Today I would like to sit on the park bench and talk with Emily Dickinson. We would talk about writing. We would talk about what a very few words can do. Maybe we wouldn't say much at all. She would understand the very clutteredness of Lent. She would understand the irony, the almost sigh of relief whe
n Easter comes.

Everyone it seems

Produces extra things

For Lent:

More words and poems

Fill the mailbox

Fill my head

Fill my heart

Connections become

Somehow imperative

In these forty days,

In this wilderness,

In this damned March snow.

It is as if

This is the only time

Anyone really pays attention

Quick

Quick

It’s Lent

Quick

Easter is coming.

Then it will be

Too late.

Surprise

There is a post running around Facebook re: If you could sit on this park bench with anyone in the world, past or present, who would it be? I am never good at these exercises. The answer is always: It depends. Who is your hero? It depends. I can never choose. I read everyone else's answers. Hmm. This morning I sit in my blue chair, sun streaming through the window. I sit with the world at hand and I am surprised at the company I am given.

Surprise

I am awake earlier 

Than usual.

Surprise

My vision is clearer

Than it often is.

Surprise

I have a full

Unplanned day

Ahead of me

(Perhaps I will do laundry)

Surprise

The sun angles through the window

Just so,

Signals possible eventual spring.

Surprise

So many things yet to see

So many people

Yet to meet

Surprise

Surprise

Surprise

Who knew such a day

Might exist?

A reflection on Yes

I often find myself, standing outside in the parking lot, perhaps, counseling others to say no to invitations that they don't feel called to accept. Yeses are important. But so is the no which leaves room for the full-throated yes.

While I believe

In the importance

Of saying yes:

To my beloved 

To my children

To my cat

To the bunch of pussy-willows

When they finally appear

In the spring;

While I believe

In the importance

Of yes,

I know some yeses

Leave no space

For the yes

Which must be explored,

Must be considered,

Must be heard,

A call sometimes

Out of the wild:

It requires an answering assent,

A joining in the pack

Baying at the moon

A full-throated yes.

It simply drowns out

The others.