Rest beside the weary road

When I get older, losing my hair . . . Will you still need me, will you still feed me, When I’m sixty-four . . . (Lennon/McCartney)

Aging wine and cheese coming into its full ripeness.  The ancient turtle stopping traffic while burying her eggs deep in the mud on the lane by my creek.  The magnificent oak dating from the 1600s standing solidly on its huge old trunk by the track where I walk every morning.  Old songs.  Old lovers.  Old jokes . . .

When this song by John Lennon and Paul McCartney came out in 1967, being sixty-four seemed very old and impossibly far away.  It’s been several years now since I’ve seen sixty-four, and how can that be when I still feel so young?  Except that I do notice that all my friends and contemporaries are turning into curmudgeons.  As the psychologist and writer James Hillman says,  “We old ones are indignant, outraged, ashamed.”  He asks why older people become moralists, sentimentalists, radicals, chaining themselves to trees, marching, lecturing Walkman-ed ears about the moral decline of the West, “flicking a cobra’s tongue when we get riled.”

What I am finding is that I and they, my recalcitrant friends, are becoming more and more just what we are, with no apologies.  Perhaps because as Dylan Thomas said, we “rage, rage against the dying of the light”?  Or because we’re just too tired to pretend anymore?  Or maybe, just maybe, because before we were ashamed or guilty or apologetic about who we were, and now we delight in being ourselves . . .

The paradox is that we also seem to have more patience and compassion.  My father, who was still alert and sharp at 95, used to be judgmental and opinionated; at 95, he greeted almost everything with a tolerant twinkle and nod.  My 88 year old mother was convinced that indeed, the world was getting to be “a better place” all the time.

Regardless of our age, our soul’s mystery continues to evolve.  Oh, may we delight in it!  ” It ain’t over ’til it’s over.”  Tennyson’s portrait of the aging Ulysses, scarred, haunted, longing, says:

Old age hath yet his honor and his toil, Death closes all; but something ere the end, Some work of noble note, may yet be done, Not unbecoming men that strove with gods.    . . . Come my friends, ‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world.

And . . .

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;  It may be that we shall touch the Happy Isles . . .  Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’ we are not now that strength which in old days moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are, made weak by time and fate, but strong in will, To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.  

Come, my friends  . . . For my purpose holds . . . To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths of all the western stars, until I die . . .

What happens to us as we age?  As we accept that “we are not now that strength that we were” but still “strong in will,” how do we “sail beyond the sunset, and the baths of all the western stars”?  Where is that?

Our bodies change, perhaps “made weak by time and fate,” perhaps just seasoning.  They sag and droop, and we wonder who that person in the mirror is and when did THAT happen.  But this is the exciting thing: along with the descent of our body parts, perhaps we are growing down into our souls also.  Deepening — deepening our capacity for humor, for joy, for reflection, for anger and outrage, for compassion.  There is meaning in this “growing down” . . .  Let that be your consolation the next time you discover yet one more displaced body part.

Maybe the last pieces of the journey, the final adventure, the “work of noble note,” of which the aging Ulysses speaks, is “Growing Down” rather than the achievement of any power or profit in the outer world.  In that Growing Down process, any will to power or control or greed can be replaced by, as the writer Helen Luke so elegantly describes, an “immediate  presence in which love flows clear-eyed into all our exchanges.”  Growing Down to a place, not where power is overcome by love, but where love is power and power is love.

In old age wandering on a trail of beauty lively may I walk, 

In old age wandering on a trail of beauty living again may I walk.

It is finished in beauty.

 

 

 

Brokenness speaks:  In the dark times, will there also be singing?

And Gratitude replies:  Yes, there will also be singing about the dark times.  (Brecht)                                                     

Brokenness:  None of us begins the day thinking, “well, today I will do the same stupid things I have been doing for decades, but it will all turn out better.”  None of us set out to deliberately repeat our history, but it happens.  The same themes seem to be replicated in some mysterious pattern, sometimes daily.  (Hollis)

Gratitude:  The medieval Christian mystic Meister Eckhart suggests that if the only prayer we say in our lifetime is “thank you,” that would suffice.

Brokenness:  A strong woman is a mass of scar tissue that aches when it rains, and wounds that bleed when you bump them, and memories that get up in the night and pace in boots to and fro.

Gratitude:  I asked God for strength, that I might achieve, I was made weak, that I might learn humbly to obey.  I asked for health, that I might do greater things,  I was given infirmity, that I might do better things . . .    I asked for riches, that I might be happy,   I was given poverty that I might be wise.  I asked for power that I might have the praise of men,   I was given weakness, that I might feel the need of God . . .  I asked for all things, that I might enjoy life.  I got nothing that I asked for — but everything that I had hoped for.  Almost despite myself, my unspoiled prayers were answered.  I am among all men, most richly blessed.  (prayer of an unknown Confederate soldier)    

Brokenness:  It’s not one damn thing after another.  It’s the same damn thing again and again.  (Millay)

Gratitude: The thing is to love life.  To love it even when you have no stomach for it, when everything you’ve held dear crumbles like burnt paper in your hands and your throat is filled with the silt of it . . . (Bass)

Brokenness:  At age 4, success is not peeing in your pants.  At age 12, success is having friends.  At age 16, success is having a driver’s license.  At age 20, success is having sex.  At age 40,  success is having money.  At age 50, success is having money.  At age 60, success is having money. At age 70, success is having sex.  At age 80, success is having friends.  At age 90, success is not peeing in your pants.

Gratitude: Okay, I know you’re scared to try again, and that you think this is all there is, but I’ve put up with your whining and carping long enough.  Let me tell you a story. The ancient myth of Sisyphus tells us that our friend Sisyphus, having offended the gods, is obliged to roll a boulder uphill, endlessly, and then to watch it roll back down the hill, endlessly.  The author Camus imagines that he can see the face of Sisyphus at the bottom of the hill, facing the futile task once again, but also imagines that finally Sisyphus is smiling  — and in smiling, Sisyphus chooses to push the boulder back up the hill, and therein is able to get his freedom from this perpetual task from the gods. A pragmatist might argue, “Hey, same hill, same boulder, same outcome.”   But, life is more than outcomes; it is also attitude.

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It’s a brand new shiny year!   Even in the face of all our brokenness, our shattered dreams, our losses, our disappointments, and the awe-full ambiguity of living in this particular moment of history on planet Earth, we are offered an invitation every moment of every day to “be our eccentric, different, perhaps strange selves, and to add merely our small piece, our little clunky, chunky selves, to the great mosaic of being” (Hollis).

We are alive! — broken, maybe, but alive — and to joyfully risk being who we truly are out of sheer gratitude for that gift of life is both our challenge and our privilege.  For some of us, that might mean risking “a talent, an enthusiasm, an imaginative summons” — for others, taking the risk of loving again — for another, stepping bravely out into the unknown.

Wisdom lies in engaging the life you have been given as fully and courageously as possible, and not letting go until you find the unknown blessing that is in everything.  (Remen)

L’Chiam, (a Hebrew word pronounced le CHI yeem), offered as a toast, meaning that no matter what difficulty life brings, no matter how hard or painful or unfair life is, life is holy and worthy of celebration, that life itself is a blessing . . . (Rachel Remen) 

Just to be is a blessing,  Just to live is holy. (Abraham Heschel)

For Christmas several years ago, I received a calendar from my brother-in-law (a dedicated pastor) which delighted me totally, not just because it was full of glitter and glitz, and was a lot of fun, but because he “saw” me in a way that acknowledged and supported and even affirmed who I am and what I believe, no matter how different it may be from his own thoughts.  The name of the calendar, created by Suzy Toronto, was Dare to Be Wacky — Live a Life Worth Loving.  The different months were entitled things like:  Make Your Life a Work of  heArt;  When You Stumble, Make it Part of the Dance;  Rise by Lifting Others (no hot air required);  Stop What You’re Doing and Start Living;  Don’t Let Your Frame of Mind Frame You In;  Some Days You Just Have to Act “As If”;  In a World Where Bigger Is Always Better, Think Small! . . .     The calendar goes on to advise and exhort us about ourselves with messages like:

Take a deep breath, let go, and LIVE. Live outside the box. Life is not just about the difficult big things,  but about finding the simple things that take our breath away. These tender moments give our lives deeper meaning and sometimes become our most treasured memories, moments like nuzzling a newborn’s cheek and vowing never to forget that sweet smell. Or sitting on a porch swing with your grandmother and praying you’ll always remember her voice. It’s laughing at a silly joke between friends and hearing the echo of your own childhood giggles. It’s watching a parade with a lump in your throat and your hand on your heart as the vets go by. It’s waking up in the morning and really feeling grateful for one more day. 

As I write, an old year is passing away, a new year is beginning. On each of our personal journeys, an old chapter is closing, and a new chapter opening.  The choices that we make will determine to a large extent what words will be written on the pages of this chapter.  While sometimes it may feel as if we have little control over the external events in our lives, we do have control about how we’ll respond to those events.

I’m not big on New Year resolutions, but just in case we wanna reach for the shiny brass ring of all New Year Resolutions, the ultimate New Year Resolution of them all, wouldn’t this be a good one?  — That we will treasure each and every moment of our lives, knowing that it is the only moment like this we will ever have, that it is holy.   That things like kindness, giving, sharing, loving, and caring matter. That, no matter how trite it sounds, we can be the change the world needs.  That inspiring, uplifting, and empowering others is the greatest gift we’ll ever receive.  That each of us can make a difference in someone’s life — and thereby change our own.  That each of us can reach deeper inside ourselves than ever before to confront our doubts and fears and find our true Self, our true strength and courage.

My husband taught me that all good stories are redemption stories. In the redemption story of each individual — in the chapter each of us will be writing in this new year — in many different ways the tiny flame of love and awareness in our inner selves will likely somehow be challenged with extinction, and saved only through the humility and sacrifice of our being brave enough to keep it alive through our moment by moment choices.  This is the ultimate battle between ‘good’ and ‘evil’ that is depicted in our stories, songs, and art, and in the personal drama of each individual life, no matter how seemingly ordinary it might appear.

Each individual life matters.  At the end of his life, the psychoanalyst C.G.Jung continually stressed that only if enough individuals would commit themselves to this work, each of us undertaking the search for his or her own inner truth, and making the kind of choices reflected in the above “Brass Ring” Resolution, could the world avoid disaster.  May it be so.

 

 

Perhaps all the dragons of our lives are really princesses waiting to be saved; perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something that needs our love.  (paraphrased from Rainer Maria Rilke)

. . .it is the suffering, crippled side of our personality which is both the dark shadow that won’t change and the gold hidden within us which can save us.  (Liz Greene)

 

Once upon a time there was a psychologist who lived with her husband and an odd assortment of cats, dogs, goats, chickens, what-have-you, on a farm which bordered a place called Endless Caverns.  Many of the people who would come to see her would remark on the strangeness of visiting a shrink at a place with that name — “Endless Caverns” — since so much of what they worked on in their therapy had to do with forays into the depths of their own personal underworld, which unfortunately can seem, especially in dark times, to have “no end.”

But that is another story. The story that we want to tell today has to do with a troll who lived in the deepest reaches of Endless Caverns. Now for those of you who don’t know, a troll is a mythical, cave-dwelling being who is typically a giant and who is said to have a very ugly appearance. This troll was a Rock Troll, and his name was Eddie. By nature, trolls are taciturn, solitary creatures, and Eddie had a reputation even among trolls of being a real loner. He lived in the darkness and never ventured out. He only fed on the darkest and hardest of rock. Light hurt his eyes, and crumbly limestone gave him indigestion.

But Eddie was as content as a troll can be, for his home in the depths of Endless Caverns was almost perfect. He was troubled only occasionally by far-away voices from the pesky tourists who were periodically led through the caves.  At those times, he would fade deeper into the underground tunnels, muttering to himself.

Unbeknownst to the shrink and her husband, those underground tunnels formed a network of holes which reached far under their farm, and in his attempts to avoid the caverns tours, Eddie would often end up directly under their home, gnawing on hard rock in the darkness. At these times, only the cats could detect his silent presence, and they would cock their heads and widen their eyes and sniff curiously in the corners. Eddie smelled Old, and mysteriously Dark, and intriguingly like eels.

Curiosity is a powerful incentive, but most of the farm cats were sleek and lazy and well-fed. Eddie might smell interesting, but there was warm hay to nest in, and the gossip of mice and spiders to listen to. But once in a while, a cat who needed to explore every nook and cranny of the unknown, who wasn’t satisfied with only warmth and love and good food, would find its way to the farm, and for awhile these Cat Adventurers would be welcomed into the fold. Until, that is, the wanderlust would creep into the corners of their awareness, and slowly they would venture further and further away. Inevitably their adventurings would lead them to the holes leading into Eddie’s underground home.

As the story goes, the first time one of these critters found its way into the reaches of Eddie’s caverns, he was greatly taken aback. His eyes glinted red, and he ground his strong teeth in an alarming manner. The four-footed thing looked far too soft to eat, and far too self-possessed to be threatened by the likes of even something so threatening as Eddie.  (He was unaware of how delightfully like eels he smelled).  Eventually, as the occasional cat would wander into Eddie’s territory, he started to make them warm nests of straw on the rock ledges, for he found that of an evening, he loved to listen to their tales of life above ground.

For the cats, of course, as cats will, still ventured back to the surface, to catch mice, and to renew old acquaintances, and to bask in the sun. But the irresistible aroma of Eddie always drew them back to their straw ledges. Gradually their stories persuaded Eddie to make the awesome journey to the outside himself (which is also another story).  And eventually, his fondness for his furry companions of the dark allowed him to be persuaded to go to a place about which they told him called Food Lion, which held the most remarkable delicacies, they said.

In the darkest part of the night, Eddie would steal into this place of the Food Lion, carefully choosing the items they requested. He himself was disgusted that nothing there even began to resemble the best smell of all, that of Cold Rock, but he was nevertheless willing to bring back to the caverns the godly nectars of  tuna and Little Friskies, and even 9-Lives.

And with his strong, sharp teeth, he would rend the metal of the cans apart, and watch as his companions delicately gobbled the disgusting (to him) stuff which lay inside. Afterwards, when they had carefully cleaned themselves, they would always snuggle close to Eddie, and the sound of their low rhythmic snoring would warm even Eddie’s cold heart.

And so they live, the Cat Adventurers and the Rock Troll. The people on the surface at the farm mourned each cat’s disappearance, and sometimes, in the evening shadows, they would catch a glimpse of the strangest thing.

The moral of this story?  Perhaps it is that underneath our places of everyday living, deep in the underground, deep within us, is where we find the best friends (or at least the most extraordinary), and the best places of all.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.  (Shakespeare)

Faith is believing when common sense tells you not to. (from Miracle on 34th Street)

Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus.  The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see.  Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn?  Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there.  Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.  (from Yes, Virginia, There Is a Santa Claus)

 

My mother never met a superstition she didn’t like. Black cats, lurking ladders, broken mirrors, ornery umbrellas, itchy noses — they littered my childhood with fearsome warnings.  If she heard of one with which she was unfamiliar, she would immediately adopt it and make it her own. When my Cajun husband, who had his own supply of superstitions from the swamps of southeast Louisiana, told her never to dig in the ground on Good Friday or else blood would gush forth, my gardener mother eagerly embraced it as definitely possible.

Mother grew up in the central Appalachian mountains, part of the oldest mountain range in North America.  A big part of the legacy of these ancient mountains was a wealth of folktales, legends, traditional stories, and superstitions.  She was of Scotch-Irish stock, red-haired and freckle-faced.    The Scotch-Irish were not people of Scotch and Irish descent, but rather Protestant Scots from the north of Ireland, who came to this country to escape poverty, famine, debt, religious persecution, and for the sheer contrariness of it.  They were a staunchly self-sufficient and independent people, these Scotch-Irish pioneers, and for all their bravery that sometimes bordered on foolhardiness, they brought with them an abundance of superstitions and fears from the ‘old country’ that shaped their lives to a great extent.

Mixed with these old Celtic customs, stories, and superstitions was another strain of folk wisdom coming from my grandmother, who was supposedly of Native American descent.  I say “supposedly” because my recent reading from Ancestry.com shows not a drop of Native American blood, but instead healthy degrees of both Irish and Greek/Italian ancestry.  My sister and I decided that Mother’s strange belief that she was perhaps stolen from a band of gypsies traveling through the mountains might not have been too far off.

Suffice it to say that Mother’s background, whatever strange mixture it might have been, was one that predisposed her to a whimsical turn of mind.  Rather than cataloguing all the superstitions she lived by, (and which still color my life, as even today I rolled my eyes, but still tossed salt over my shoulder as I cooked Christmas dinner), let me tell you about my very favorite superstition/folktale/wonderful tradition.

And that is that at the stroke of midnight on Christmas Eve animals of all sorts can talk, using human speech.  Perhaps this wonderful old tale, which seems to have originated in Europe, is based on the idea that speech was a gift that the Christ child’s birth conferred on the animals.  Animals certainly populate our Christmas story to a significant degree — sheep, camels, donkeys, mice, dogs, cats, other assorted ‘stable’ types . . .  That could mean that there would have been quite a lot of conversation going on!

Others speculate that this legend may have had pagan roots, like many of the other trappings of the season.  Whatever the origins of the tale, it has grown over the centuries with many variations based on locale.  One such tale from Brittany has the household animals plotting against their masters.  Another, from the German Alps, has the animals foretelling the death of one of the farmhands.  Another, that the animals in the stable are given the power of speech only to start bickering and insulting one another.  A Native American variation has it that on Christmas Eve all of the deer in the forest fall to their knees to honor the Great Spirit.

In a recent article by Laurie Kay Olsen, she recounts an episode of the television show “Northern Exposure,” in which Chris, the local radio disc-jockey of the fictional Cicely, Alaska, has this to say:  It’s an old legend that on Chistmas Eve at midnight all of the animals fall to their knees and speak, praising the newborn Jesus.  Back in the winter of ’69, my dad was serving a short time for a DUI and I don’t know where my mom was.  Anyway I was home alone on Christmas Eve and I stayed up extra kinda late to see if my dog, Buddy, would talk.  And he did.  I don’t remember his exact words, but that’s not important.  But what matters is that a seven-year-old boy experienced his own personal epiphany.  What’s my point?  Well . . . . it’s that Christmas reveals itself to us each in a personal way, be it secular or sacred.  Whatever Christmas is, and it’s many things to many people, we all own a piece of it.

Last night, on Christmas Eve, I listened, as I have every Christmas Eve night since I was a little girl, to hear the animals talk.  And you know what?  They always do!  Perhaps you heard them, too.

I hope you had a wonderful holiday, whatever that might have been for you.  And I hope that you never lose a childlike sense of wonder and faith, and belief that there are so many more things possible in this world than we have ever dreamed of.

On the road again, Goin’ places that I’ve never been, Seein’ things that I may never see again, And I can’t wait to get on the road again.  (Willie Nelson)

Willie supposedly wrote this song on the back of a barf bag on a plane trip way back in 1980, the year I moved from New Orleans to the small Appalachian mountain valley where I live now.  It makes it even more special for me.  Oh, how I love to travel!  Whenever I get in the car, and a road trip lies ahead, sparkles of joy bubble up inside me that hearken back to that song I used to carol when I was a child, little knowing what it meant, about faraway places with strange sounding names . . . calling . . . calling . . . me . . .  

While I was growing up, our family didn’t travel; folks would sadly shake their heads and talk about my grandfather’s “wanderlust,” and perhaps that’s why my father was so sedentary — he’d had enough.   And maybe that’s why I can’t think of anything that gives me the same kind of happy, bouncing kind of anticipation today.  I never got enough of that kind of unplanned adventure.

And maybe that’s why I became a shrink in the depth psychology tradition:  from a sedentary place on my trusty chair, I could invite others on an interior journey of their own, to those faraway places within themselves.  And even better, I could go along.  I loved my work, and it was such a privilege to share the journey of others.

All that aside, we’re keeping a 3 month old puppy for my stepdaughter over the holidays, and 2 a.m. awakenings for pee breaks have become part of my week’s agenda.  My husband’s growling “No. No. No” in response to the whining and snufflings that follow those pee breaks usually results in me heading for the Keurig machine and my iPad.

And this morning before I braved the cold house for hot coffee, I got to thinking about Mary and Joseph, mythically “on the road” this week (it’s December 22nd, as I write).  They must have been just about in the middle of their journey right now, mythically-speaking of course, since we really don’t know for sure what time of year this journey actually happened.

The bare bones of the story?  Two thousand years ago, more or less, two people had to take a trip between Nazareth, their home, and Bethlehem, a hilltop town situated on a ridge near the edge of the desert about 5 miles from Jerusalem . . . a journey south through many small mountains, hills, and valleys, not an easy trip, that is about 80 miles or so walking, and would have taken maybe four to six days, probably more since Mary was nine months pregnant.  A newly engaged couple is forced to register for a census in a town far away.  When they finally reach their destination after an arduous journey, there is no place to stay.  The woman gives birth in a stable.

Scholars and clergy differ on whether the Nativity stories in the Gospels of Luke and Matthew are historical accounts or symbolic narratives of Christianity’s beginnings, but one thing is certain:  the world of Mary and Joseph was a dangerous place, one whose harsh conditions were not fully described in the rather sweet and sanitized versions of our westernized “Christmas story.”

At that time, this would have been a journey over unpaved hilly trails, with pebbles and boulders, overgrown with reeds, thorns, brambles and “wolf’s paw,” a ravine on one side, the mountain rising on the other.  In this heavily forested valley of the Jordon River, one of the most terrifying dangers had to be the lions and bears and wild boars that lived in the forests and hills.  And bandits along the lonely stretches were described as common hazards.  They would have carried water in wineskins, and a lot of bread — dried bread for breakfast, bread and oil at midday, and herbs with oil and bread in the evening.  Supposedly, Mary was able to ride on a donkey, although the discomfort of that bony beast probably made walking just as desirable.

Journeys such as these still take place today as refugees search for safety, entering into strange and unfamiliar places.  But we all have to take a symbolic journey such as this, not just once during our lives, but many times.

Can you find yourself on that road to Bethlehem, on that unknown and hazardous road to new beginnings, new possibilities in your life?  I did this morning in my imagination:

Perhaps, just perhaps, on the road to Bethlehem, on that hard, bleak road to new beginnings, is a valley, a hollow, a low place amidst the hills where there may be no view, no capacity to see the terrain of the future, no real vantage point.  But it is not a horrible place — rather a place of sometimes feeling closed in, and sometimes even sheltered and protected.  Am I afraid of what lies over the next knoll? — you bet.  Do I expect it to be good? — no, I’m too afraid and gun-shy.  Is the road weary?  Yes, but at the moment it’s quiet.  Are there bandits and dangerous animals?  Yes, but they are not bothering me right now.  Am I alone?  Yes, and that brings tears, although I have the sense of countless unseen others trudging this road as well, on their individual Journeys, each at a different place.

And I do sense bands of angels, guarding, protecting, manipulating the surrounding forces at the same time that my freedom is complete.  As I trudge onward, can I physically “dance where I’m lame,” or is it just a state of mind that I’m not capable of right now?  It feels like maybe it could be just a small adjustment, a “relaxing into” what already exists, and I will perceive the world differently, that instead of being so hyper-vigilant and task-oriented and afraid, I could delight in the small things I sense on the way, the aromas, the sights, the sounds, tastes, touches  . . .

But not right now . . .  The road feels weary — or maybe it is not the road, but I who is weary . . .

I could sit and rest awhile . . .  and listen . . .

And ye, beneath life’s crushing load, whose forms are bending low,  Who toil along the climbing way, with painful steps and slow,  Look now!  For glad and golden hours, Come swiftly on the wing;  O rest beside the weary road, and hear the angels sing.

I wonder what angels’ singing sounds like . . .  I betcha, I just betcha  . . . my angels probably sound like Willie.

 

 

Live each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit and resign yourself to the influence of each — be blown on by all the winds.  (Thoreau)

As autumn deepens into winter the light gives way to darkness, bringing with it coldness and barrenness, and it is easy to feel lost and alone.  Soon the trees will be bare from the ravages of cold.  The crystal stillness of snow, intricate frost designs that glitter in the sunlight on a winter window, the steely blue of a winter’s early dusk  . . .  all remind us of the incredible beauty that is present in the cold and barren times.  But it is still cold. Important changes are occurring deep underground and in the depths of the soul, but unaware of that necessary inner process, we can feel dead inside, and as if life is meaningless.  Our experience can be one of grief, loss, loneliness, and even despair.

The morning following the unexpected death of my husband, bewildered and in shock, I opened my journal to find a quotation that I wanted to be read in his eulogy, and the first thing my eyes fell upon was the following quote from Joseph Campbell:  We must be willing to release the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

That began a long journey through grief that lasted years.  Through all the seasons of those years, it was always winter.  One of the few things that gave me some solace and kept me clinging to life was that incredible beauty that I mentioned earlier.  That, the love of friends, and writings and images from others who had walked this path ahead of me . . .

The quotations that I offer to you were ones that kept me going through that time.  If and when it is given to you to walk the short days and long nights of the winter of grief, perhaps they will comfort you as well.  I offer them to you with so much love, and the awareness of how hard this part of the journey is, but also with the faith that there is a way through.

 

I give you this one thought to keep:  I am with you still — I do not sleep.  I am a thousand winds that blow.  I am the diamond glints on snow.  I am the sunlight on ripened grain, I am the gentle autumn rain.  When you awaken in the morning’s hush, I am the swift uplifting rush of quiet birds in circled flight.  I am the soft stars that shine at night.  So do not think of me as gone . .  I am with you still — in each new dawn.  (Native American prayer)

 

Sorrow, like the river, must be given vent lest it erode its bank.

 

Death brings you a choice.  It can lead you to the edge of the abyss.  Or you can build a bridge that will span the chasm.

 

Everything flows.  You can never step twice into the same river.

 

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

 

. . . the way past the pain is to go all the way through it.

 

Don’t pass so quickly over the Present.  Before you can determine what will be, it is necessary to determine what is now.   (Haydon)

 

Know you are where you are not by accident but by the design of your Creator for your development, or for the development of those around you.  (Bahan)

 

We have to be whatever we are at any given time in our lives, even when we are wounded.  We have to live that moment on the way to other moments.  (Neeld)

 

The Lord is close to the broken-hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.  (Psalms)

 

To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heavens.  A time to be born and a time to die . . .  (Ecclesiastes)

 

The only kind of courage that matters is the kind that gets you from one moment to the next.

 

How strange to think that great pain may be impermanent.  Something in us all seems to want to carve it into granite, as if only this would do honor to its terrible significance.  But even pain is blessed with impermanence.  (Remen)

 

Perhaps before we live our lives, we choose our earthly lessons  . . . and once we’re here, it is really our decision whether we will or will not honor our soul’s journey with as much grace as possible . . .

 

Seek only to keep growing.  Accept gratefully whatever the earth gives.  If you live with its rhythms, you will learn to bend.  There are marks on you, evidence of brokenness and age; do not think of them as scars:  they make you more beautiful.  (Smith)

 

Part of getting over it is knowing you will never get over it.  (Finger)

 

Truly it is in the darkness that one finds the Light, so when we are in sorrow, then this Light is nearest to all of us.  (Eckhart)

 

Sometimes I go about pitying myself, And all the time I am being carried by great winds across the sky.  (anonymous Chippawa fragment)

 

Life breaks everyone . . . but some grow stronger at the broken part.  (Hemingway)

 

. . . I learned that life knew best, that it was wise, and would lift me up and carry me, whether I wanted to or not — in the face of this reality, all I could do was respond with gratitude, praise, and reverence for whatever life brought — I learned that this was healing.

 

Only the heart that has walked the knife edge of grief, fear, and suffering can see through the fiction of the pitifully limited “me” invented by the ego — only when suffering ceases to be an abstract concept do we act to free ourselves and others.  The twisted pine clinging to its rock above the sea, buffeted and bent by the wind, has a more enduring strength than the beautiful rose grown in a sheltered garden.  Compassion is the fruit grown in the grisly groves of the haunted charnel grounds; it cannot be found in the pleasure gardens of the gods.  (from Parabola)

 

We turn to God for help when our foundations are shaking, only to learn that it is God who is shaking them.

 

Out of every fresh cut springs new growth.  (Karon)

 

You have no plans for yourself.  Well, that is of no consequence, as God most certainly has.  You have merely to wait and pray until they are revealed to you.  (Goudge)

 

Tears are a river that take you somewhere.  Tears lift your boat off the rocks, off dry ground, carrying it down-river to someplace new, someplace better.  (Estes)

 

Death is nothing at all.  I have only slipped away into the next room . . . I am I, and you are you.  Whatever we were to each other, that we are still.  Call me by my old familiar name, speak to me and about me in the same easy (or maybe not always so easy) way you always used.  Put no difference in your tone . . . . wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.  Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we enjoyed together.  Play, smile, think of me, still pray for me.  Let my name be ever the household word that it always was.  Let it be spoken without effect, without the ghost of a shadow on it.  Life means all that it ever meant . . . it is the same as it ever was.  There is absolutely unbroken continuity.  Do not feel that I should be out of mind because I am out of sight.  I am waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near just around the corner.  All is well.

 

 

These words are dedicated with deep caring to all those who are in loss, but especially to Joyce and Marilyn.  Be at peace, my friends.

 

(Many of the above quotes were scribbled on scraps of paper before being transferred to my journal, and for many, I am unable to give appropriate credit.  This is done with my sincerest apologies; these words meant a great deal to me, and I am so very grateful that others wrote them to show the rest of us the way, to shine the light a bit further down the path when we were in darkness.)

 

 

 

And still their heav’nly music floats, O’er all the weary world . . .

Silvery bells.  Glistening treetops. Dancing sugarplums.  The crystal stillness of snow.  The steely blue of a winter’s early dusk.  Twinkling lights against a darkened sky.  Bright red holly berries, and the fragrance of balsam and pine.  Decorated cookies and hot chocolate with marshmallows . . . .

I love the sights and sounds and aromas of the holiday season.  The richness of the images of this time fill me with delight.  And wonder.  The return of the light on the longest, darkest night of the year.  Sacred oil that doesn’t run out.  A baby born in a barn, surrounded by the earthiness of farm animals.  Angels bending near the earth.  A long road to travel, and a desert to cross . . .

And gifts to be wrapped.  And cards to send.  And special meals to prepare.  And special programs to attend.  Santa Claus to see.  Parades happening.  Caroling and cooking and guests coming and cleaning to be done and more gifts to be bought and . . .

The wonderful, but sometimes too-muchness of life.

Life that won’t be controlled according to our wishes and plans.  When life is rushing by too quickly, how do we keep from being overwhelmed . . .

How do we take the time to remember that we each have our own lonely road to Bethelem to walk, that we each have a star to follow and a desert to cross . . .  And angels to attend to . . .

But who wants to hear that, especially when our last nerve is hangin’ on by a mere shred . . .

What helps during this very special, this very crazed season?  Being gentle with yourself and everyone around you.  Following that wonderful old saying:  Be kind, everyone is having a difficult time.  Lightening up.  Softening up.  Laughter . . .

And treating yourself with heart and sympathy, and appreciating the rare and precious person you are.  One of a kind.  With your OWN guardian angel, who is doubtlessly “bending low” and inviting you to Come.  Sit.  Listen.  Maybe even  summoning you . . .

 

In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order.  (C.G. Jung)

 

In a recent interview in Salon, Anne Lamott, author of Hallelujah Anyway, was asked about our last election:

It feels like a lot of things have come into more dramatic relief since the election, and that there’s a particular political vindictiveness now.  What do you think about the need for mercy in politics and culture now?    I think that things did change on the evening of November 8 . . .  Trump is president, and the world is scary, and we’re an extremely vulnerable species.  But you know what?  Hallelujah anyway.  We’re here.  I love my people.  I love my animals.  It’s a beautiful day outside here today  . . . it’s like having a miracle — a miracle is tough and messy and time-consuming . . There’s a level of hatred and insanity in our country now, and some days you wake up and feel like there’s a sniper in the trees.   But we still stick together; we lurch ever onward.

Isn’t that phrase Hallelujah Anyway enormously relieving? — like a long sigh —  With “hatred and insanity” and a degree of political polarization in our country that is alarming in its potential to rip us apart as a society, that reassurance and encouragement to shift our thinking even a fraction is so welcome.  And it somehow draws us back to a more centered, balanced place, and gives us a sense of proportion, a bit of a different perspective.

Miracles are tough and messy and time-consuming, Lamott says.  Implicit in the idea of chaos is disorder, confusion, unpredictability.  Sounds like chaos and miracles, those “highly improbable or extraordinary events, developments, or accomplishments that bring very welcome consequences,” are kissing cousins.

How would our lives (and maybe even our political viewpoints!) be different if we believed that out of the messy, chaotic times in our lives would come new life, fresh creativity, new beginnings?  And who wouldn’t want that??

And you know what?  It’s mighty hard to say Hallelujah Anyway without smiling, and sometimes even laughing.

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?  (Mary Oliver-)                                                                                                                                  

So if you see me on the street, cupping something as I lean into the wind, don’t be shy . Come over and help.  For it’s God I’m carrying, or at least that portion of God we call the soul.  So come and help.  And I will calm your fear of what’s chasing you.  And, perhaps, we can put whatever books we carry down, and open our small flames to the sun. (-Mark Nepo-)

On a recent morning as I stopped by the local convenience store to pick up a cup of coffee, there was a lot of laughter swirling around the room.  Evidently the clerk had mentioned that our local “gentlemen’s club,” an establishment with the unlikely name of Paradise City, just across the state line about 20 miles to the west, had been a candy store when she was young, and that she had hung out there a lot.  The guys in the store were being guys, punching each other and saying things to the effect that, yep, Paradise City is still a candy store, just different kinds of candy now.

Where it took me was back in time to when I did an internship in New Orleans, and stood in breathless awe at beholding my first “ladies of the evening,” gorgeous to the small town girl I was.  While I learned later that these elegant creatures on the street corners were probably cross-dressers, it in no way dimmed my admiration for their resplendence.  I resolved then and there that this was one of my secret fantasy professions, right up there with being a park ranger.  And later, much later, when I met my first “ladies of the evening” at our local fitness center, who, as it turned out, were employees of Paradise City, I began to learn the human stories behind the oldest profession in the world.

What struck me first about these women was that they were highly indignant that some young women from the local university were trying to earn their way through college by dancing at Paradise City, and giving them some unwanted and highly resented competition for jobs.  The second thing I learned was that they could use a good dental plan, probably because of the drug usage that was part and parcel of their doing this type of work.  And the third thing I learned was the human story of the need to survive that drove each one of them to do what they felt they had to for themselves and for their children.

I came to love these earthy, real women, who “danced where they were lame.”  Their woundedness from childhood was usually extreme, and their need to survive in their here and now world intense, but the courage and determination they demonstrated was a tribute to the human spirit.  And what became more and more apparent was that the way they told their stories, what they believed to be true about themselves, determined, at least in part, what stories they were in fact living out.

Doesn’t storytelling have an enormous power over us?  It conveys meaning in a way a mere explanation never could.  How you tell your story, whether to yourself or to someone else, determines how and what your life is like right now, and what it will be about in the future.  Your early woundings and later losses, your victories and loves, your wanderings in the desert — all of these do indeed shape your life, but do not have to determine your future.

The music of a generation shapes and forms our values and  beliefs in interesting ways.  Coming to age in the idealism of the ’60s, the Beatles’ song “Hey Jude” impressed me no end as a way to live one’s life, to “take a sad song and make it better.”  I think sometimes that the work of counseling that I did for 40 years is just about this.  We work with stories such as the ones these women are telling themselves, stories that have to do with feelings of pain, and rage, and self-hatred, and helplessness . . .  Stories that speak to the sense of disempowerment that has controlled their lives.  And our task as counselors was to “get in the way of” these stories.  We say,  “NO, that is not who you are.  You have a choice.  Understand the pain out of which your choices have come in the past.  Experience the anger and fear and grief about what those past choices have meant for you, and then release it, let it go, and know that you can make new choices . . . Choices that have to do with living your life in way that creates some sense of well-being and happiness for you.”

The reality may be that the outer lives of women such as these does not change at all, or it may change remarkably.  But the difference will be that they now have a choice, it is their choice, and that makes all the difference.

Getting in the way of a story.  Getting in the way of our own story.  Taking a sad song, and making it better.

And the last two lines?                                                                                                     Remember to let her into your heart                                                                             Then you can start to make it better.

 

.artwork by Susan Seddon Boulet.