Llight Shines, Darkness Hides

The way my childhood worked, the farm was pretty, the sunshine warm and hot. Ugliness hid in the darkness. The darkness made anything light seem amazing and wonderful--a trip to town, especially one to spend time with the Wood teacher cousins without my parents, a skipping trip across the far field to Price's Market for that box--always wrapped in brown paper, a drink from the pump over the well or from the spring at Dad's farm (other place), white fluffy clouds floating across the blue, blue sky that allowed me to imagine that I would go with them to exotic lands.

There were many little lights along with the darkness on our farm. What I want to write about isn't that, however. It's a way of looking at the light without ignoring the darkness--which is what I had to do growing up.

When I look at the darker areas of these photographs, some areas simply are without the sun and other parts are completely dark. In my spiritual journey of self-knowledge, I've learned that some of what was held in the darkness was there because at that time, I couldn't have acknowledged it. Other experiences and character flaws I have kept in that darkness either because I didn't want to look at them or because I wasn't strong enough to take in what was there. I've recently become aware that underneath my appreciation of the beauty of nature, of friends and of the depth of God's love is a deep expectation of the other shoe falling.

Yes, it does come from childhood, from the mornings when I awakened and listened to hear how Mother's day was beginning, knowing that even if she was whistling with the birds, at any minute her mood could darken, and I could be considered the cause.

I believed that I had outgrown that apprehension--or that my centering prayer practice had healed it. Now that I am fully aware of this presence, it robs my days of deep peace and bring anxiety that must have been there all along to the surface. What I have learned is that it is by awareness of those feelings that have been held in the darkness, by bringing them into the light, that healing occurs.

There are always lessons in those emotions too. In this case, more compassion for those who live with the awareness of constant anxiety. Others may follow. I will hold this childhood anxiety with gentleness and care and ask the Holy Spirit to dispel its dark presence.

"The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it." John 1:5 NRSV

Water

The fast melting snow in the mountains is not melting fast enough for those of us who want to hike on higher paths, but it's making rivers and streams flow with rushing, gushing water overrunning paths and spraying faces as we try to capture its beauty and force with our cameras.

Beauty and force--how often do we think of those words as describing the same scene? Or the same person? The beauty of nature--the skies, hills, mountains, streams, flowers--have the force to change a bad day into a good one. Uplifting beauty and powerful force--both thoughts came to me as I viewed the falls and river's flows at Wild Basin yesterday. Earlier Bridal Veil Falls splashed down and gushed upward, spraying in all directions.

The news daily carries stories of rivers flooding towns, wiping out communities so that others can be spared. Our mountain streams flow swiftly, rushing as if to meet some unannounced deadline downstream. A bridge is washed out, another damaged on one of the most traveled and loved trails in the Park, the stream flowing too fast and high for hikers to risk crossing. An annoyance, but not a disaster.

Do we prefer to view rushing water through the trees (Ouzel Falls in the above photo) or through the mist, as at the Cascades? Or are we drawn to the rushing waters at our feet, spelling danger should we make a misstep? Do we look at life through the mist or the trees, choosing not to see the force, the danger, the beauty of the moment. Do we throw ourselves into the current or watch from a distance? That is the question I ponder today.

I've been in the current. I could go there again, but now I'm mostly on the sidelines. What does this stage of my life call for, what am I being called to do? Holy Spirit, I'm listening. What do you have to say?

Illuminating the Forrest

As I look at these uploaded images, it would appear that the bright flashy shooting star illuminates the forest most of all. It is beautiful, but so tiny in the forest floor that had there not be a clump (can I use such a word to describe these lovely blossoms!) of them, we might not have noticed.

Instead, it's the aspens that will change the forest landscape for the summer months. It's their tiny opening leaves that call to me each spring, call to take a hike among them as they bring their annual beauty into full bloom.

I wonder how we fit into this scheme of things as we take our transforming journeys through life's cycles. I might have though of myself as that small shining flower when dressed in one of the pink dresses that my teacher Wood cousins, grandmothers in my experience, bought me. Now I more nearly represent an old Aspen tree, one that has withstood storms, bruises and scars showing, but still standing. How I open my God-given beauty to those around me each day is up to me. I don't always see myself as having that beauty, but somehow God sees it in me. It's up to me to open the Divine love that shines through me to the forest, to make it a little brighter, warmer. My prayer today is for God to show me the way to blossom this spring, in Her love, Her ways, Her joy. Peace.

Returning to Old Places

The Walnut Street Bridge from the Hunter Museum Sculpture Garden on the river and above right, through

the lens of the Hunter Art Museum's new addition

In my recent visit to Chattanooga, where I had lived and worked for ten years before moving west, my friend and I drove out to the Chickamulga Lake area where I had lived for nine of those years. The development was in its infancy when I lived there, and I expected changes. I wanted to see whether the new owner of my place had kept the roses I so loved.

We walked around one side of the town homes and saw that the long planter that divided my next-door neighbor's yard from mine was no longer in place. We noted that the yards were uniform--as if they were an extension of the golf course that meandered down a drop-off several hundred feet below the yards. We noticed several people working around--from what we could tell--an elaborate garden with water, flowers, rocks, benches, at the back of one of the properties. My friend, willing to show up as nosier than I was, walked to the other side of the town homes and wandered into the view of the folks working on the project. Quickly, a sprightly woman came to see if she could help us.

When we told her I had lived at 5914, she said, "Oh I remember you--the writer." I nodded, wondering about the memory of me as a writer. "You remember Jack," she said. "Yes," I replied. "We got married three weeks ago!" she said. "Come on down and say 'hello.'"

Jack greeted me with a big hug, though he, like me, remembered the differences we had about how the yards were to all look alike. After telling us he would soon be ninety, he pointed to a lone rose bush. "It is still alive," he remarked. "No one does anything to it, but it blooms every summer." I allowed that it was a hearty old-fashioned rose and was doing its job. I didn't ask how soon the new owner of my place had ripped out the other bushes. The rock-lined rose garden in the center of what had been my yard was filled with a large spreading bush. It and the lone rose bush were the only things that kept the expanse of yard from being solidly grass down to the old codger's elaborate fish pond, chairs, flowers and shrubs. It was pretty in his ornamental garden.

When I commented that he had gotten rid of the trees that he had disliked, most of which had been on the back of my lot, he pointed to the two large evergreen trees that remained. "We're going to get rid of those next. I hate evergreens." He referred to the woman who had bought my old place and said that she wanted them gone too, but I had the impression that he was paying to have them taken out and away.

Jack's bride, some twenty-five or so years younger, was delighted to report that both their spouses had died and that they had been traveling and having so much fun that they decided to get married. I sold my place about twelve years ago, and would not have expected this old man to be living in his town home continuing to be committed to having the other yards looking exactly the way he wanted them. The photo of my blooming back yard and the trees beyond, taken shortly before my move West, barely resembles the place now.

It was an enjoyable and surprising visit. They suggested that we drive to the back side of the development to lots that jutted out over the large TVA lake and see the "castle." During that drive I saw that almost all of the wildness of the place--what made it an area I loved--was now replaced with mansions and manicured lawns. The woods where I could climb down to water's edge had been thinned or cleared and were back yards. The development had been successful. It was attractive and upscale--and I was glad I no longer lived there.

Downtown Chattanooga was beginning to experience beautification before I left. There are truly lovely spots in its landscape. The photos here are in the heart of the city. Two are taken from the Hunter Art Museum's new addition. The Walnut Street bridge, completed while I lived there, is for pedestrians. Places change--for better or worse, depending on the viewer.

Healing -- A Journey

Healing is always present for me. It is a huge part of my journey. I think of healing primarily as emotional and spiritual, although I have learned that with healing in those areas has come healing of body stresses as well. From time to time through the years I've had a role in accompanying others on their final journies on this planet. There had been a respite in this area of life, but at my age, that's never expected to last.

Cancer has come to our family--technically to my children's family, their father. Although divorced for more than 30 years, we have remained part of an extended family, sharing holiday celebrations with children and grandchildren. Tom's cancer has brought up feelings of "it's my job to fix this." I too often saw my role in our marriage as that of the fixer so now--the healer. I was supposed to heal Mother, I thought as a child. Those old feelings have resurfaced--coming to the forefront to be released at a deeper level.

That release brings a lighter feeling on one level and a more helpless one on another. We react differently. Our daughter, who lives here in Colorado, is planning to take her father and his wife to the beach this summer. That was a place we all enjoyed being together, a good spot for another kind of healing. Our son, who lives in Nashville and sees his dad often, is listening for the oncologist's prescription. He's walked the last months of a difficult cancer with a close friend so knows something of what is likely coming--and he'll be the one close by. Two of Tom's brothers are anxious to visit before he's really sick. That's his birth family's way.

I pray for as many kinds of healing as possible for Tom and our children. I pray for openness for the healing that's available to all of us, including Tom's wife of many years and her children. Each about ten years younger than ours, they got the better fathering.

Going deep isn't easy. It isn't the way we live. Our culture doesn't support introspection. We want a quick fix, not a journey. I'll admit that when I think of a good death, I think of a quick one or at least one that's mostly pain free. Not knowing what lies ahead isn't comfortable. Pain makes us want a pill, a shot. Being present to what is--that takes courage. I know that journey when it comes to emotional and spiritual healing. I know pain that comes from being with those feelings and the release and healing too.

I too know about watching a spot that could be cancer. I didn't have a doctor doing it with me like Tom has had. I pulled my bangs down over my forehead spot and went to France for six months. The dermatologist was alarmed when he saw the spot, was 95% sure it was melanoma, rearranged his afternoon schedule to do the surgery. I was lucky, he said. It was growing down a hair folicle and would have spread quickly. It was fast--diagnosis, surgery, pathology report, more surgery, all gone. I am reminded every six months when I go to the dermatologist for a check up and they say, oh yes, you had melanoma. Briefly I am present to cancer. Daily I am present to my spiritual healing journey.

My role in Tom's journey will primarily be to support our children, to pray and have my prayer groups pray, to follow from a distance. For me that's more uncomfortable than doing something tangible. I've been invited to his 75th birthday dinner at their home May 22nd, the day prior to grandson Will's high school graduation, since Tom's birthday's on graduation day. It will be an unusual birthday dinner--with lung cancer joining us at the table and with only our children and grandchildren present. (His step-children will be there this coming weekend.)

I have at times thought I might be a healer--not that I didn't recognize that God does the healing. But I thought of myself as perhaps having a contributing role. Looking through a different lense today, I see praying and being present to what is as my contributions--one simple and the other, presence, being a practice. Presence to being on the sidelines and yet involved--maybe that is what being with another's healing journey is.

The journey may be rocky, but there are always beautiful moments. Light may shine only on a tiny part of the path. Looking deeply won't be easy. And sometimes the path will climb steeply, with a golden glow appearing in the distance.

Prayers for the journey that we are all taking--and peace.

I'm thinking of all those who have lost loved ones and homes in the storms in the southeast this morning and have been checking in with friends in Alabama and Tennessee--all are okay so far. Thankfully, I have no personal photos of storm damage to share.

Here in Colorado, we have a bright, sunny day. However, in the mountains record snowfall has residents worried about flooding if the snow melts quickly. It reminds me that nature's beauty can also bring about destruction and that we have no (or little with floods) control over weather-born tragedy.

Last night our centering prayer group listened to Dr. James Finley discuss the first Noble Truth of Buddhism--suffering. He pointed out that suffering is in and all around us all of the time. For personal suffering, he emphasized that to let go of or transform our suffering, we must first recognize it. He reminded us that both Jesus and the Buddha recognized early in life that suffering could not be avoided. In our culture, we emphasize happiness and want to ignore suffering, especially the suffering right around us.

That brings me to a realization that came to me as I was discussing my childhood at lunch on Tuesday. My companion kept asking about the minister in the church where I grew up. Didn't he know what was happening in the clandestine meetings that took place in the church basement on occasion? Did he participate, she asked? As we talked, I had to acknowledge that this calm, quiet pastor, who lived with his family in a house at far end of the parking lot, had to have known that something bad was happening. He simply turned a blind eye. In that way, he, too, was a participant in the abuse of small children. It was a difficult realization, one I had chosen not to see.

I have to ask myself what else I haven't wanted to see from those childhood traumas, how much I haven't wanted to own of the damage done to me, and how much damage I have done as a result of what I haven't been willing to see. Looking at our own deep suffering takes courage. Being one with the world means we are part of all suffering--more than I can wrap my arms around. I can extend my heartfelt prayers to the suffering children of this world--whatever may cause their suffering. Our St. John's priests have come to expect that when I read the prayers of the people, I will have inserted a prayer for those suffering children. I hope it reminds others to extend their hearts and prayers too.

Last evening a prayer group member told me of a woman who seemed to be mentally ill coming up to a table of women having coffee and speaking to them in a disjointed way. The prayer group member interacted with this woman in a kind, humane way. When the woman wandered on, the other women in the coffee group commented on how kind she had been to the disturbed woman, as if that was a strange thing to do. Kindness to the suffering stranger--remarkable. What does that say about our community? Would we have taken the time to pay attention and be kind to the disturbed woman? Who is our neighbor--the one we should love as ourselves?

Prayers today for our suffering world--and for those around us whose suffering we do not see.

Downtown Boulder in Blossom

Yes, this is the Monday in Holy Week and tonight begins Passover. There will be time this week to ponder deep suffering, death, deliverance--darkness before the dawn.

Today I'm going to digress from these long-held spiritual traditions and share the beauty of the annual blossoming of tulips on Boulder's downtown Mall. They don't all open at the same time, but this weekend many of them were waving in full glory, though by the end of yesterday, the winds would have claimed pedals that were loosing their holds on the stems.

Several photographers with long lenses were out, some with tripods, as I wandered through choosing colors I most love and masses of blooms opening to the sun and clicking my point and shoot to capture the beauty. I noticed a scowl from one such photographer. I may have been in his way as I leaned over the tulips to get the shot I wanted.

Mothers, aunts and grandmothers photographed children in front of the blossoms while others watched the man perched on his high ladder perform tricks for the audience that gathered as he balanced and joggled. In the high sixties, sun brightly shining, it was a lovely Saturday on Pearl Street. Outdoor dining was popular too. I suppose some wandered into the stores, but the out of doors was the big attraction.

The beggars, some sitting on blankets near the Courthouse, a couple playing musical instruments with buckets nearby for donations, those who wanted petitions signed--they were there too. I don't photograph those begging though there was an older man torquing his body into Yoga positions mine would never make who tempted me.

Yesterday's paper featured an article about CU law students and legal aid attorneys taking on the cause of those homeless who sleep on public property (or private without permission) being ticketed for breaking Boulder's law against this. It seems that covered only by ones clothes, sleeping on public grounds is okay. Were this law repealed, there is no doubt that sleeping blankets, perhaps small tents would mushroom on the Courthouse lawn that borders a block of Pearl Street Mall. City Council members quoted said that were that allowed, it would deter Boulder's many visitors and hurt the local economy. Who wants to stroll down a delightful public mall, maybe venturing into stores and restaurants to purchase overpriced merchandise or to eat tasty food and be reminded that many are not so fortunate? It might cause a rush of gratitude.

I walked back to my parked car through trees covered with blossoms, snapping photographs and smiling all the way. Spring is busting out all over Boulder, weeks earlier than usual. It is lovely, and I am grateful.