So, How About a Picture?

It worked!  So, how about if I include a picture?

Technology is Wonderful!

My first raw experience with computers gave me the impression of more work and longer days.  The promise was for increased efficiency and more productivity, but the real draw for companies was the ability to hold people closer and expect quicker response and turn around. 

And then they gave out Blackberries, and 24/7 became a standard concept.  Remember when once upon a time, if someone got back to you within 24 hours on an email, you were impressed?  No, I don't, either.

And most everyone that knows me intimately has heard of my 'going postal' on a printer that was guilty only of requiring to be hand-fed paper one piece at a time.  Not really a problem when all you wanted was one copy at a time.  But I had to print a report that was 100 pages long.  I met my deadline and the printer met my office floor.  Several times. 

But I am discovering that technology CAN by my friend. 

Since social networking, I have regained a world of friends that were lost to me once upon a graduation almost 40 years ago.  (That number is positively scary and moderated only by the fact that I feel more alive now than I ever did once upon that time!) We have reconnected, rediscovered the joys of the town where we grew up, and started gathering with just the mention of someone coming in to town.  With this 'new' old group of friends I have found people interested in camping and sailing and dancing and making pancakes at 4:00 in the morning and canoeing and walking and just being together.

And then there is Facebook, which opened up the world even more - beyond high school classes - and into the wider world of global contacts.  At first my impression of Facebook was random updates going into the ether and wondering why, really, anyone would care? 

And then I learned that ministries come in all forms and can even be fitted in to 420 characters at a time. 

And now? I discover that I can write and email and post to my blog - which is my attempt to discipline myself into writing which will lead me eventually to me dream of writing a book.  How wonderful!  And this email is my first experiment with doing just that.

I hope it works.

Breathing God?

I am just beginning to read The Naked Now by Richard Rohr and am struck by some very simple yet profound thoughts.  The Jewish name for God, YHWH, was considered unspeakable.  It wasn't that it was a 'taboo' to speak the name of God, as I always believed, but that it was literally not something that could be shaped or spoken by the human mouth.

But it gets even more interesting.  The word wasn't spoken..... because it could only be breathed!  The thinking goes that the proper 'pronunciation' for YHWH is actual the sound of inhaling, then exhaling.

Imagine!  The thing we do naturally from the moment of birth to the moment we leave this earth - from womb to tomb as the boys used to say - is breathe.  And in so doing, we say/pray the name of God every moment of every day, sleeping and awake, in our torment or despair as well as during our bliss.  God is available to everyone in every moment.

This author went on to say something - not really 'new' but stated in such a simple way - that it made me laugh out loud! There is no Christian or Jewish or Muslim or Hindu way of breathing.  There is no American or English or African or Chinese way of breathing.  There is no wealthy or poor way of breathing.  We all breathe the same way, the same air, for the same reason for the same moments of our lives.

Not long ago I listened to a lecture that beautifully overlaps with this line of thought.   It was suggested that the word for 'heaven' in the ancient text actually means 'the air that we breathe', so that when we pray the Universal Christian 'Our Father',  we are actually identifying 'our Father' as the air that we breathe.  All around us, all the time, inescapable except in death.  And even then?

"And isn't it wonderful that breath, wind, spirit and air are precisely nothing - and yet everything?"

"Just keep breathing consciously in this way and you will know that you are connected to humanity from cavemen to cosmonauts, to the entire animal world, and even to the trees and the plants.  And we are now told that the atoms we breathe are physically the same as the stardust fro the original Big Bang.  Oneness is no longer merely a vague mystical notion, but a scientific fact."

Breathing God.  Breathing God!

The Missing Rib

There is a story that God made man from the dust of the earth and woman from a rib removed from man's side.  The idea is that man was made first and woman was an afterthought..... the missing rib that caused man pain from the moment of creation.  I am well aware that there are a lot of men who still think this is an apt analogy. 

I was thrilled to find a venue in the form of World Pulse that allowed women from all over the world to tell their stories of courage and strength and with their words dispel any thought of second-class world citizenship.  When the invitation came to write about personal heroes in honor of the 100th anniversary International Women's Day I was excited and then stumped.  What one woman is my hero?  There are so many women I admire and cherish and want to emulate.  My mother prayed me into existence and nurtured my dreams and inspired me to reach for the stars.  Many teachers nourished my mind and my hopes and aspirations. Friends throughout the years have encouraged me and cheered me on and held me when I hurt or stumbled and fell.  My daughter inspires me every day to continue to want to make the world a better, kinder place for her.

But choosing just one has been problematic.

And then it occurred to me that it is all of the women of the world - the mothers and teachers, sisters and friends, grandmothers and aunts - that inspire me and give me the hope of a dream that this world can be lovely and kind and compassionate and fair.  

It is the women of this world who are caring for the children orphaned by disease and war.  It is the women who bake the food that goes into homes of families that are wailing with grief over a lost loved one. It is the women who rock their hungry children to sleep at night, listening to stomachs rumbling while they sing the lullabies that help their babies forget.  Women are there when friends are sick or troubled and need a shoulder to lean on.  Or cry on.

It is said that the women of the world do two-thirds of the world's work,  grow 1/2 of the world's food while earning 10% of the world's income and owning only 1% of the world's property.   Startling and impressive statistics that make a person truly think. 

And I have always believed it would be women who eventually said 'no' to war and violence and hunger and greed.  It is the women who have delivered cherished babies in blood and pain that know life is precious and not to be wasted on the battlefields or in the violence of the streets.  No woman sends a son or daughter into the killing fields of any battle without something dying inside of her.

A friend of mine recently wrote a poem about the idea of women holding up half the sky.  The imagery of the metaphor is haunting and beautiful.  The other, equal half is held up by our men who we love and want and need to walk with us through all our lifetimes.

And still, the half that is held up by women will be better for the living out loud, raising our voices and expressing our ideas and dreams and asking - expecting - to be heard and included and admitted and deferred to when what we say makes more sense.

So I have to thank the women of today, of days gone by as well as days to come for their courage and wisdom and love to keep holding up their half of the sky while keeping most of the world running underneath it.

And, if the story is true, I have to thank that man for giving up his rib so that we could do it all together. 

Be Thou My Vision

One of the most beautiful hymns I know is Be Thou My Vision.  Countless times I have stood in a congregation on Sunday morning feeling a little dis-sorted or un-something and then this hymn is listed as one to sing, the organ starts playing, the congregation stands and I am in humbled and thankful awe, once again, for the blessings of God Moments and serendipity and community and small miracles.



Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art.
Thou my best thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.

Be Thou my Wisdom, Be Thou my true Word;
Be Thou ever with me and I with thee, Lord;
Be Thou my great Father and I thy true son;
Be Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one.

Be Thou my breast plate, my sword for the fight,
Be Thou my dignity, Thou my delight.
Thou my soul's shelter, Thou my high tower.
Raise Thou me heavenward, Great Power of my power.

Riches I heed not, nor man's empty praise,
Be Thou mine inheritance, now and always:
Be Thou and Thou only, the first in my heart,
Thou Sovereign of heaven, my Treasure Thou art.

High King of heaven, my victory won,
May I reach heaven's joys, O bright heav'ns Son!
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be Thou my vision, O ruler of all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_qL6FNwEsY&feature=related

Amen.  Amen.  Again and again. Amen.

The Christmas Rose

There is a lovely Christmas song....  that anyone who ever sang in a school or church choir probably had the great privilege to learn.  The notes float out and around you and if you are lucky enough, you sing in some wonderful venue where the notes resonate around the room and back, singing, ringing, floating in a kind of Christmas music magic.  The last time I sang this, it was with my precious children for a Christmas Eve service.

My memories are many - and sweet - of singing with my children.  From the first days of their lives, holding them gently in front of me, looking into those eyes that were so recently bound to me physically... inside of me, and now were a separate, breathing, heart-beating entity magically and lovingly created.  I sang 'Ash Grove' and 'Summertime' and 'It Had to Be You'....... and continued to sing them every night putting them to bed after lights were out.

There were long car trips home to see grandmothers - 'journeys of misery' as my drama-queen daughter dubbed them - where we played the 'Matching Game' and sang at the top of our lungs along with the songs, repeated time after time until we were ready to move on, starting with all things Raffi and Hans Christian Andersen - 'Down By the Bay' and 'The Ugly Duckling' will always be songs with a story in our house - and eventually on to the Broadway musicals that inspired my talented babies eventually to recreate on the stage (Godspell and Les Mis to name a few).

I remember the first Christmas Eve service that my children stood with me in a darkened sanctuary and sang 'The Friendly Beasts'.  That first Christmas Eve was the beginning of many family performances, eventually leading up to us singing together as a complete family - Tom included.  Tom will say that these are among his favorite memories.

And there were the nights sitting in a darkened theater waiting to hear those grown babies singing from the stage while I sat, breath held, in the audience. And, yes, crying.  For joy.  For the memories.  For love.

Babies.  There is such magic and such power and such overwhelming and profound love that goes with that word.  So much so that just trying to write this, the tears are streaming down my face.

And this time of year, I think of the baby that this whole season was created to celebrate.  The Christmas Rose.  My relationship to this baby is simple.  I call myself a "Christmas Christian" because it is the life that this baby went on to lead that thrills and inspires me.  I don't need or care whether he was the result of a miracle any greater than the pure miracle of conceiving and bearing a child into this world.  I don't need a 'virgin birth'.... but I love the story and the tradition and the life that was the reason the story was ever told to begin with.

And I think of the mother, young and frightened, huge with a child that I know she wondered about.  I'm referring to true 'wonder'... filled with awe at the absolute miracle of being able to help create and grow inside of her a human life until it was able to take its first breath independent of her body.

All mothers feel this way, don't they?

And then the miracle of delivering that child into the world and getting him through his first year, alive and well and walking.  And then helping him learn to 'be' in this world on his own, year after year, kissing boo-boos and rocking to peaceful sleep and cheering him on as he continued to grow and separate more and more from where he first started.... deep inside of her, connected and part of.

And I remember standing in front of The Pieta in St. John's Basilica in Rome with my husband and the father of my babies, and weeping with him, at the sheer power and beauty of a mother's agony and love, holding her precious child in her arms.  I was looking at a marble sculpture, but could literally feel the searing pain of that mother, holding her grown baby in her arms after his life had been extinguished.

At that moment I wanted to rattle the rafters of every public/political building in the world and throughout history that had ever entertained the discussion of war and death.  I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs that babies were never made to slaughter.  Only to love.  We make our babies to live and thrive and love and continue on in the world, not to march into war and die.  Mothers would never declare war.

Would they?

Tom and I had been to Florence and saw so many of the Christian paintings of pain and torment and death.  We wondered how anyone who had not been steeped in the stories of Christmas and a loving Christ wouldn't be frightened away by these images of sorrow and fear.

But this one sculpture, this Pieta..... this one silent declaration of love and loss and love eternal..... this could change the heart of anyone.

No, I don't need a virgin birth.  And I don't require someone else dying for my sins.  I believe we were all made in the image of God and will - all of us - return to that light and love, regardless of choices made or beliefs or lack thereof.  I do pray for peace and compassion and enlightenment and awakening.  And I pray that everyone who wants to hold a baby in their arms - and to sing to - would have that chance.  And to see it grow strong, healthy and happy into a world of peace and purpose. 

Because that, to me, is the Christmas miracle.  That we can experience a Christmas Rose of our own.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyuOIYCERc4

Merry Christmas.  Blessings and love.

Trees

Trees captivate me.

Some of my earliest memories are of trees.  I remember lying in the grass and watching the sunlight playing through leaves and just....wondering... about being alive and breathing and being in love with that perfect moment of stillness and beauty. (We are so wise as children and then, for some reason, we lose it.)

My brother Paul and I used to scout through the woods looking for treasure and adventure and one day discovered a magnificent beech tree.  This particular tree was like a ladder to the clouds and we knew we had discovered something incredible.

The first thing we did was climb that behemoth!  The branches were close enough to the ground that small people could easily reach and swing skinny legs up and over and then it was just a hand-over-hand climb up, up, up.  The trick was to keep climbing and always concentrate on the next hand and foot hold... and never, ever look down.  I know this because the once that I did look down, I was frozen in place.  My precious brother and best friend had to help me down, one branch at a time, until I was close enough to earth that I felt safe.  Lesson learned?  Keep looking up.

We immediately ran home and reported our find to our mother who promptly agreed to be shown this monster tree.  She put aside the work she was doing and followed her excited and happy children back into the woods to check out their discovery.  Mama had exactly the same reaction to that tree as we did.  She started climbing.  It is a wonderful thing to discover for a child that you have a mother willing to drop her work, follow you into the woods and then climb an enormous tree!

When mom moved into her current home, she wasn't satisfied until she had a beech tree sapling planted squarely in the middle of her enormous back yard.  She planted it for Paul and me.  That's love.

Over the years I have continued to be drawn to trees to the extent that my husband refers to me as a Druid, an apt moniker.  He has had to stop the car in order for me to take pictures of particularly striking trees.  I have an album dedicated to the pictures taken over the years and a dream to publish my work or display it somewhere.  Tom has seen me throw my arms around particularly impressive trees as well as witness me mourning the mutilation or death of trees.

The only thing sadder than the untimely death of a beautiful tree (through storm or fire or ill-planned construction) is the scalping of a tree in the name of tree husbandry called topping - as if something akin to tree torture could be considered beneficial to the life and growth of a tree.  I know that those responsible for this kind of abuse believe that they are doing the tree a service but they wouldn't dream of cutting off fingers and toes of a child to help them grow better.  I see no difference.

But enough of my personal rant and back to what I love.....

There is something profoundly beautiful about a tree in winter.  Partly because without all the dressing of green or outrageous fall colors, a winter tree stands proudly naked for all the world to see without regard to age or infirmity assuming, of course, that it hasn't been trimmed and topped and pruned into submission or some other definition of beauty.  A winter tree shows us what it is truly made of.  We can see that each species of tree has a specific shape and quality making it uniquely an oak or a maple or a sycamore or a walnut.  It doesn't hide its weathering or wear.  The breaks and falls it has taken over the years can be seen, but one can also see the self-healing the tree has accomplished given enough time.

Ruthie B is in love with trees for all these reasons.  I especially love the metaphor they represent to a life well lived -  their strength and individuality and character, their ability to provide shelter and protection,  their invitation to climb and explore and reach for the stars.... and their willingness to expose their hearts for all to see.