the first time i joined hands with david and prayed, i cried. truth be told, we both cried. it was a powerful moment…one i will never forget. there is something deeply grounding about prayer with another person. it is forging, like iron in a hot smelter, clay in a kiln…seeking the solid base, making something stronger.
this painting, prayer of opposites, reminds me of that gift – the exchange, the sharing of peace and words of comfort, words of gratitude, beseeching words – with another. the passing of that spiritual energy one to another.
were we to pray with opposites, would we not ultimately be drawn closer?
probably one of my favorite photos of graffiti i’ve taken, i found this sprayed on the wall of a building in tuscany years ago. i thought it was kind of lofty then and i think it is lofty now. living without fear seems next to impossible. how can one be that brave?
there’s this song we sing in the band called only the brave (t.hughes, m.smith, n.herbert). we just sang it a couple days ago along with our ukulele band. the first line, “this is the moment, this is why i’m living to face the giants with you…” who is the You in your life? the vastly abundant magnificent Love you may call God? your partner? your best friend? your mom? someone of this earth? a spirit-filled presence? the song continues, “it’s now or never, and though my heart is racing, i’ll leave my armor with you. your love makes us stronger, and your love sees us through. only the brave will go where you go, into the fire but never alone. we know you’ll always carry us home; only the brave….”
as i get older, i find myself in this sliver of a space between fear and no fear. a quandary of emotion. i look back at all the things that made me quiver, the things that ate away at time itself and i realize that maybe, just maybe i had been just a teensy bit braver than i thought. i look at right now and worry; i look ahead and worry. am i brave enough? will i be brave enough? life has a way of presenting challenges right alongside bliss.
i find that words i had written in a post three years ago – a post about being brave – speak to me now and so i’m just going to copy and paste them here:
we face down our fears, we risk our dreams, we forgive without being forgiven, we acknowledge our disappointments, we are given grace in our mistakes, we plod on, we face the sun, we scurry through the rain, we feel our way through the fog, we celebrate the moment without investing in the whole day, we love without ceasing.
yesterday on her way out of church one of my friends stopped to talk to me. she said (words to the effect) that the only reason she was able to sing the last song (which was o beautiful for spacious skies) was because the last line has the expression “self-control” in it. more specifically, “america! america! God mend thine every flaw, confirm thy soul in self-control, thy liberty in law.” she asked if i had picked it intentionally, this one patriotic song she felt she could actually sing at this moment in time – beCAUSE of the expression “self-control.” i couldn’t stake claim to the wisdom of picking this one; ptom had requested it weeks earlier for yesterday. but i understood her completely.
self-control. america. it doesn’t seem, these days, that these go together. if you’ve ever had the chance to look at a small child’s coloring book – you know, the ones where they have puzzles in them also…the one where there are four shapes, for example, three circles and a square and at the top of the page it says, “circle/color the shape that doesn’t go with the others”, you will know what i mean when i say this. perhaps there is a coloring book page with the words “america”, “division”, “polarity”, “untruths”, “inequality”, “retrograding” and “self-control”; the directions on the top of the page read “circle the word that doesn’t go with the others.” you would be hard-pressed to NOT circle “self-control”. so i understand marykay’s ability to sing this song with the YEARNING of the soul of God confirmed in self-control.
this coming sunday, the other weekend flanking this week of the fourth of july, the sending hymn will be this is my song, lyrics by lloyd stone and georgia harkness with music by jean sibelius (the tune of finlandia) and i AM choosing it intentionally. these are the lyrics:
this is my song o God of all the nations, a song of peace for lands afar and mine. this is my home, the country where my heart is; here are my hopes, my dreams, my holy shrine; but other hearts in other lands are beating with hopes and dreams as true and high as mine.
my country’s skies are bluer than the ocean, and sunlight beams on cloverleaf and pine. but other lands have sunlight too, and clover, and skies are everywhere as blue as mine. so hear my song, o God of all the nations, a song of peace for their land and for mine.
this is my prayer, o God of all earth’s kingdoms, your kingdom come; on earth your will be done. o God, be lifted up till all shall serve you, and hearts united learn to live as one. so hear my prayer, o God of all the nations; myself i give you; let your will be done.
for the world i want to live in is a world of peace. it is people (each of us striving individually and in community) in a world continuing to move toward MORE unity, MORE equality, LESS judgment, MORE truth, LESS division, MORE generosity, LESS polarization, LESS elitism, MORE inclusiveness, LESS hatred, LESS self-serving indulgence, LESS excuses, MORE respect, with the soul of God (or whatever you call this spiritual magnificence) clearly demonstrated in our mindful self-control.
the image is strikingly beautiful. two men tenderly holding their baby. shared fatherhood. for me, personally, as i have written about before , a hopeful vision of The Boy someday…
but the words “shared fatherhood” makes me also think of people who have been in the lives of my children. in addition to their father, there have been others in their lives who have had impact. i distinctly remember The Boy recalling the day my dad – his Pa – made him respectfully remove his hat at the table; no bones about it…lessons. and i remember the generous message he wrote for my dad’s funeral service. i know there is an unbreakable connection The Girl has to her Pa, the man she bought a sweatshirt (that he adored) which read “smart-ass university”. their paternal grandpa was a sweet sweet man as well, and i know there is take-away from their relationship with him. but when you sort out further – the concentric circles in their lives outside of family – that’s when i must also express gratitude for other people who shared in “fathering” them. their high school band directors, the marketing teacher, tennis and other coaches, private music instructors, talented men who cared deeply about them. even more, they were there for them. in past years i knew that i could count on them for support, for demonstrating what was good, for the love they showered on them.
we walk through life, sometimes unaware of the impact we are having on others. perhaps we need a moment or two to stop and think about all of those people who have contributed to our growth, who have shared in our lives, who have “mothered” or “fathered” us regardless of whether there was a biological connection or not.
father’s day – another day to recognize that we are, indeed, all one family. better together.
shared fatherhood II, mixed media on panel 25.25″ x 40.25″
we have dandelions. ask our neighbors. luckily our neighbors on the west (and our sweet friends) share our love and adoration of dandelions. well, maybe not love and adoration, but they don’t have a terrible aversion to them either. neither of our households competes in what charlie calls “the lawn olympics.” we have old houses and, thus, old lawns. and yes…i have walked around our neighborhood and there are plenty of old houses with utterly rich, dense, verdant carpets. but, alas, that is not us.
we have much to learn about grass. everyone in our circle asks dan, because dan is a lawn god. his grass is gorgeous and cross-cut and weedless. we do have a lot to learn from him. we are glad (but only for the grass reason) that he and gay don’t live next door. but if they did – (and that would be lovely, but only on the east side so as not to displace our west side neighbors) – i am betting that our dandy dandelions would be gone and we would have dandy grass instead.
the choir, ukulele band and handbell players all came to our house last week. it was the end of the year party. it’s a tradition to gather here several times a year to celebrate all the music we make together; everyone brings food (amazing dishes and treats) and drinks (wine and delicious frozen drinks or other concoctions ala dan) to pass. conversation is loud and laughter punctuates everything. dogdog runs out to greet people and revels in the fact that babycat is locked away for the party. we crowd foods onto our dining room table and a variety of other flat surfaces. when we are lucky it is nice out and people can spill out onto the deck and the patio. it is joyous!
many moments during the evening i will find myself just looking around at these dear people…a community…my community…our community…and i will have a rush of wonder and gratitude and great fondness; d and i both love them. they are these faces in our life and it is the love with which they surround us, just like the devoted love in this song, that makes me feel more.
there are days i know my poppo is in the wind. i can feel him there. somehow he lets me know. it was six years ago today that he left this earth and, before he said goodbye, i made him promise to hang around. i told him i had no idea how i was going to adjust the timing on the ’71 bug without him, i wouldn’t be able to call him on the phone to ask him how to rube-goldberg a fix on something, i would be missing his “hi brat!”
with him in the wind and my sweet momma and my big brother and all the others who i miss, i have help from guardians. with everyone who is by my side on this beautiful planet, close or far away, i have help from champions. we each do.
we face into the wind, challenged by change and our ever-fluid lives. we put on our invisible capes, take a deep breath, hold onto each other. together we are superheroes.
faced with the word “brave” as our two artists tuesday image, i flounder with where to start.
very early this morning our dear friend linda left her home to go to chicago to have a cochlear implant. we spent time with her a few evenings ago, as she sorted through hope and fear, what she’s known and the future unknown. one of her greatest passions in life is dancing. she dances to music designed for dance, to music she hears in passing, to music in her head. terrified of losing the ability to hear music post-surgery, she pondered the what-if of not having this done. but her desire to actually be able to hear MORE (more beloved voices, more broadcasted music, more cds out on the deck or in the dance hall) won out and she is on a new journey. she is brave. brave. brave.
my sister just had surgery on her hand to remove a skin cancer. i am grateful and relieved she is healing from this and will likely not have to have any additional treatment. d and i talked about this on a walk the other day. i was weeping openly on the sidewalks in our neighborhood as i spoke about my big brother, who died after a valiant fight with lung cancer, my daddy who was a twelve-year-or-so survivor of lung cancer, my sweet momma who had a double mastectomy for stage four breast cancer at the age of 93. i cannot help but have some fear. who among us is exempt from that? but my big sister was brave and positive and i am determined, as i move forward in life, to be brave as well. in all arenas. on all fronts. d says i am much braver than he is. i’m not sure why he says this, but his words make me feel stronger.
we meet our challenges singlehandedly, we meet our challenges with a world of support, which is sometimes just one living person, one other being. our bravery is fortified by the love of others, by their words of wisdom, by their ability to shift our perspective, even just a little, by our re-defining. for we are not in this alone. we have on our wall in the bedroom a sign that reads, “wherever you are, that’s where i will be.” our ‘brave’ is fed by our faith, the sisu (perseverance and fortitude) we’ve honed in life, the courageous alter-reaction to the terror of taking a step, our community of people. susan and i have used the word “scrappy” to describe our lives; in looking at the definition of “brave” i would add intrepid and plucky. great word – plucky.
i mean, let’s face it – just being in the world and being who we really are each day is damn brave.
my sweet momma had a favorite quote. it reads, “i shall pass through this world but once. any good, therefore, that i can do or any kindness that i can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now. let me not defer or neglect it for i shall not pass this way again.” (this is generally credited to stephen grellet.) the thing about favorite quotes and humanness is that sometimes we tout them, but fail to live by them. momma really truly lived by this one. she chose kindness, even over her own comfort, even over how she might humanly default in a given moment. a little card with this quote hangs on a piece of tin in our kitchen. being thready and all that means i love to gather things around me that remind of, well, things and people and places and ideals and moments. mmm…you know what i mean.
ptom recently spoke about what it means to be in community…what building a sense of community boils down to. he answered his own question, “radical kindness.” can you imagine a world – everywhere – that was radically kind? KIND. sheesh. what on earth would happen? if kindness was everyone’s first response. if everyone led with kindness. if kindness superceded competition and agenda and reactionary anger and brazen cruelty.
when i drew this image i have to say i had never before noticed that the word “kin” is IN the word “kind”. somehow it hadn’t occurred to me. but after i drew all the stick people in a field of hopeful yellow scribbles (representing sun and warmth and generous days) i saw the word KIN.
be kind. be kin. yes. we-are-all-in-this-together. in the whole wide world. should be simple, eh? this week’s melangetwo artist tuesday.
i don’t think i’ve ever binge-watched anything before. not even repeated viewings of my favorite movie my big fat greek wedding or even when harry met sally. ever. (oh wait. one time in minneapolis while waiting for the girl at her apartment, her roommates convinced me to watch a few hours of big bang theory, which i loved. but that was merely a few hours, so i’m not sure it counts as total binge-watching.)
but yesterday? yesterday was different. d and i celebrated our second wedding anniversary, sitting on the raft binging on a show we hadn’t even been aware of till recently. despite its emmy award-winning status, we were mostly unaware of this is us. But then everyone at ukulele band rehearsal was talking about it and we thought, “ok, ok…i guess we should watch an episode and see what they are talking about.” daena offered us her netflix account (or was it her hulu account?) but we ended up just streaming it on nbc.com, which meant we watched commercials over and over and over. these not only gave us time to talk about the show, but also to breathe in-between the segments of show. the punctuation gave us a moment to rest. just like in music. yeah, just like in life.
we started the day on the rocks watching the sun rise over the lake. it was cloudy and windy and the waves were just about splashing us as we sat on a flat rock clutching our thready-breckenridge-plastic-travel-mugs filled with coffee. (coffee tastes better in real mugs, we discussed on the rock. coffee aficionados that we are, we are experts on mugs and double-experts on thready mugs…ones that make us remember moments, places, people, events, simply breathing.)
a fresh pot of coffee later, with rain in the offing, we all four (dogdog and babycat too) got on the raft and started what ended up to be an out-and-out-major-binge of this show. i was reticent ahead of time to think i would get tied into it…a disbeliever of sorts. i knew that the girl and the boy have binge-watched shows of choice and, yet, didn’t think i could sit and watch for that long.
but as the day wore on and the snacks on the raft changed, my husband’s hand firmly in mine – all day – i began to see that this was indeed a show that drew me in. excellent writing, good acting, lighting that spoke to me, a music score that resonated….it all drew me in. well done. very well done.
we talked about the show as we watched, particularly after episodes as we pondered the next snack on this celebratory day, a day we had put aside to do whatever-we-wanted. the real-life-ness of it was painful sometimes. we could relate. we couldn’t relate. mostly, we could feel it. the sign of a good show.
somewhere in there i looked at d and said, “life is just messy all over, isn’t it?” nothing is neat or tidy or figured-out. nothing is really as it looks. nothing is easy. it’s all complex and layered and muddy and…stunningly beautiful.
a few nights before this anniversary we gathered at dear friends’ house with other friends. we drank wine, toasting our anniversary and john and michele’s as well. we had appetizers, looked at flowers in the garden, took pictures in golden sunsetting light on the lake rocks. we filled ourselves with dinner and conversation and laughter and, yes, dark chocolate. d and i spent a lot of yesterday reliving the days before our wedding, when our children and our families and friends came together to help us marry…in a church community we treasure, in an old beach house where we all danced and gathered for the food truck and wore glow necklaces around a bonfire. we marveled at the relationships with all of these amazing people. we marvel today at the same.
late last night we read our service together. we listened to the music we chose for the service…and we remembered. we honored that day. the song d walked down the aisle to – and now– made us have tears and gabriel’s oboe – what i walked down the aisle to – made us weep openly. 11:11 – the time of our wedding – is a sacred time for us. we notice it as often as possible. yesterday was one of those days.
david painted me a painting as a wedding gift. it hangs in my studio. it is called and now, same as the song i wrote him. we are joined by hands in this stunning-heart-painting, our bodies touching, reaching forward toward the future. each moment in that time stretching forward will not be without stress, without things that are difficult or painful. but each moment THIS will be us. getting there – together.
this is us appeals to us. not just because it is truly a riveting show. but because this is us reminds us that THIS is us. THIS is life. THIS messy, complicated, incredibly blissful, excruciatingly painful life….IS us.
reverse threading 