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.

New Growth in the Midst of Decay

The pasqueflower pictured here is one of the first of the mountain wildflowers to blossom. These photos were taken April 8th, the flowers opening more than a month earlier than last season.

They remind me of new birth and renewal. I think of new birth as new eyes opening, new insights, new ways of seeing both ourselves and others. Renewal--maybe that too is seeing old things in new ways.

The thing that struck me most while photographing the flowers and later budding trees and bushes at nearby Walden Ponds was the new beauty coming in the midst of decay from previous seasons. That is hopeful. Past mistakes, rotten attitudes, or plain old years past don't portend today's ways or preclude today's blossoming.

Reading the Psalm for today (51), I was struck by two lines that weren't as familiar as most of this Psalm--"You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart." That speaks to me of practice of silence in God, giving Divine Wisdom an opportunity to speak to our inner selves. For me it is the practice of centering prayer. For others, it is a quiet walk or another meditation practice, perhaps the prayerful preparation of a meal or caretaking for one whose gift is presence.

I will borrow a story told in a children's homily by our interim rector. A blind woman friend told her that she and her husband had gone to a place where people gathered to watch sunrises. A woman, seeing her cane, came over after the sunrise to commiserate. "I'm sorry you couldn't see the beautiful sunrise," she said. The blind woman replied, "I felt the warmth of the sun's rays shining on my head. Then I felt it move down my body, and finally to envelop me in its warmth. I'll be you didn't see that."

We see in different ways. The small pasqueflowers, strewn among the decay of last season, would have escaped us, had we not been looking for them. Those pictured here were at the very beginning of the trail. We saw other pasqueflowers along the trail, but missed these on our way in and out. I found them only because I was looking for a photograph after my friend had gone. Beauty among the decay. How often can we see? Do we even look?

Meditation on a Scene

The various colors of the tree trunks in this photo brought to mind how we show or cover ourselves as we meet others on our paths. The center gray trunk represents those times--all for some, part of the time for most of us--when we need to cloak ourselves in anonymity to avoid being noticed or truly seen. The tree on the right has color showing through the gray. What about this as a way to walk through the world--enough protection, but letting part of our true selves show through. That sounds good. Which part shines through? The pretty part? True side? The loving part? Do we choose or does whatever part of us is strongest that day determine what is seen? A friend recently told me that what she saw in her first exposure to me (across a room) was first deep sadness, and second, strong anger. Both were off-putting and made me unapproachable. I have no doubt that what she saw was true, and she made these comments in a loving way--how much I had changed. However, I am sure that other times during that same period, I was kind and loving, though the sadness may have been leeching through. Fortunately for me, there were those friends, new and old, who loved and nourished me anyway. But what she saw that day was what was strongest rather than what I would have chosen to show. On the left, there is the tree trunk split open, it's color blazing in the sun. Is that tree still alive? Maybe not, but for the sake of this meditation, let's say that it is. It represents us when we are able to show our true selves to the world, our Divine selves. Divine compassion allows us to grieve with those who grieve and weep with those who weep. That may look gray at first glance, but looking closer, Christ's light can be seen shining through the tears. Jesus exhorts us to let our lights shine so that the world can see God in us. My prayer is that I can clear the way, put aside my doubts and fears, and let Divine love show through me.

Presence --

This morning I am present to the clear blue sky, green bushes, and a large pine outside my windows. The weather has changed and this tiny room encased in windows is again warm enough to sit in--quietly for meditation, thoughtfully for writing, or creatively for painting, such as it is.

The wrens fly in and out of the bushes just outside. Flying away on the wings of the birds was a fantasy escape for me as a child. Being present was hard. My escapes were many. I became a character in a book, I flew on white fluffy clouds, I was transported to another kingdom in Kipling's tales. And I went down the rabbit hole with Alice on a regular basis. I learned how not to be present.

The safest place for presence was with nature. I could be with the woolly worms that I tried to get to climb up my fingers. I felt the moss--velvety or coarse. I talked to the trees in the woods, and examined gooseberries and the colors they turned as they ripened. The woodpecker was a special friend since he continued his work while I stood on the ground and watched.

At Dad's farm the limestone outcroppings were decorated with lichen of various colors. I tried (in vain mostly) to pry them off the rocks. I put a finger in the smooth space between the stickers on the prickly pears (cactus), and followed the small creek through the trees. I made faces over the spring's green water and listened to its gurgles.

It is no wonder that as I have recognized deep wounds from childhood, I have turned to God's creation for healing. Basking in the beauty of the mountains, streams, sunrises and sunsets--noticing the changing shadows and colors as the day moves on, I am renewed.

Are my weekly flights up the canyon to hike or snowshoe in RMNP escapes, or are they simply nourishing my soul and exercising my body at the same time? They are sometimes both. Yesterday I attempted to be fully present to the drive I know so well. As I came home I noticed that the colors of the canyon walls looked brighter in the cloud-covered afternoon than they had in the morning's sunlight.

We had expected a bright sunny day like the one we experienced last week. We hadn't had sunshine at Mills Lake this winter. What we did have was an almost wind-free lunch time sitting on rocks at the lake's edge. Overhead the clouds covered the sky, and as we turned to head back down, the wind picked up and the darker gray clouds filled with light snow moved our way. Soon the hikers we met starting up would be able to see only a few feet in front of them. We had experienced several days like that this winter.

Bright sunny vistas create an inspiring presence. Watching my feet and the path just ahead is more like my day-to-day presence. Just now. The present moment is what is. I was glad to be out in the mountains with my friend yesterday. It was good to be there. But I admit to disappointment that the sun didn't grace us with its light. That sun shining on the snow and glistening on the mountain peaks transports me. It's that light that God has implanted in us. It is with me in the present moment--when I allow its presence.

"Our true home is in the present moment. The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green earth in the present moment." Thich Nhat Hanh

PS: For a view of Mills Lake in winter (with a cloudy sky), go to the December 18th post about holiday thoughts.