“You must wait patiently, knowing that you’re waiting, and knowing what you’re waiting for.“ (carlos castaneda)
way back when, almost three decades ago, saltines were my meal of choice. i was waiting for the birth of my first child and saltines were helping me wait – patiently. i woke each day, wondering, wondering. i knew that what i was waiting for would change my life forever, would give different meaning to being here on this good earth, would be a miracle of outstanding proportion. it did change my life. it did give different meaning to being here. it was, and still is, a miracle of outstanding proportion. my girl and my boy – both waited for, with all my heart.
most things in life require waiting. some things require more patience than we can muster. we balance impatience with the force of knowledge that we simply cannot change the time it will take. it takes what it takes. my sweet momma would say, “good things are worth waiting for.” sometimes you need to tie a weight to your toe…to ground you from floating away in a cloud of impatience, to keep you in balance, keep you in grace, to help you wait.
my sweet momma had a painting of a modestly nude woman hanging in her master bath. she was proud of this painting and of its location. it traveled with them from long island to various homes in florida, an item that made the keep-it cut time and again. now, this painting was not a brilliant work of art, for it was actually a paint-by-number that she had painted at some point before painting her own abstracts. (more on paint-by-numbers at a later date.)
but momma’s painting was meaningful to her and i suspect it represented a powerful statement – the beauty of a woman’s body, the grace of line, the respect shown. perfection. i think it resembled her in her youth, and in later years reminded her of earlier years, an earlier body before babies and emotion and injury and surgeries and wrinkles and time changed everything. changed the shape and the look of body but added strength and wisdom that only life lived can add. momma was indeed a woman before her time.
CLASSIC is such a painting, but is exquisite art. the beauty of a woman’s body, the grace of line, the respect shown.
momma would have loved this painting of david’s and, probably, would have convinced him to hang it for her in her own home. it would remind her of how much she loved being a woman. of how she taught her daughters and granddaughters to embrace being female and yet, not to stand by meekly or idly or retreatingly. to revel in the beauty of having a body that is female, but not to tout or compare or compete. to move with grace as best as you can, for in that movement grace will be found. to show and expect respect for your own body, in all ways. to recognize perfection. in all the times of life.
successories built a business on reminders. powerful, thoughtful, inspiring words that encourage us, motivate us, reassure us, remind us. we hang them in our offices, in our homes; we have daily mini posters on our calendars or our apps; we have mugs with words. we need reminders. in this world of challenges, worries, failures among the triumphs, our tender hearts need to see snippets that keep us going, keep us moving forward, keep us in grace.
i walked into the restroom at the red cup, a sweet coffeehouse on washington island. on the mirror were these words: “you are so cool and intelligent and strong and fierce.” my face stared back at me, right next to these words. a reminder. stand up straight.
to be honest, i suppose the first thing i thought was, “i’m not really cool,” a leftover from high school a million years ago, where i was definitely not in the cool crowd. (i never cut a class. i always did my homework. i practiced the piano. i rode my bike or drove my little vw bug to the beach all year round. i wore lots of hand-me-downs. i never smoked or attended a high school drinking party. i didn’t run with the cool group.) interesting how i still react to that ‘label’ and how it still plays inside me. this stuff hangs on; images we have of ourselves long-haul stick with us.
my next thought – in the restroom – was that we need these reminders. you and i. we ARE cool – in our own distinct ways. we are intelligent. we are strong – stronger than we know. and we are fierce…ready to stand firm for our children, our families, our friends, our beliefs, our selves.
it doesn’t hurt to be reminded. every day accosts us with new problems, complex seemingly unsolvable gordian knots, new reasons for our self image to take a blow, to feel less-than, to fail in this competitive world. every day presents with a new chance to remember all we have done, all we have risen above, all we have helped accomplish. a chance to see how cool we are, how intelligent. a chance to, yet again, be strong and fierce. look in the mirror. stand up straight.
we carry it all with us. baggage. baggage upon baggage upon baggage. i once (poorly) drew a graphic of a stick person with an “outbreak of baggage”. rollie bags and attaches, spinners and hardshells, suitcases and totes; i depicted a person with multiples of these, pulling and dragging and lugging them everywhere. each experience shoved into the depths of some piece of luggage; more and more loaded into expandable bags, the zippers stretched to the breaking point. we lose sleep, perseverating over all the baggage we have. the wee hours of the night nag us; we miss the hope of the sunrise.
but the sunrise happens nonetheless. and the grace of a new day is gifted to us. just as the tide-wave rushes in to the shoreline and cleanses the beach, washing away the footprints of the previous day, smoothing the rough edges, so does the new day grant us another chance. we stand – present – right now, feet neither in yesterday nor in tomorrow. our load is lessened, our baggage drops away. we are freed to step lightly into next. for our past does not dictate our future.
the woods along the trails by the des plaines river have been burned. the fires, intentionally lit to restore native life to the forest floor, to burn out the invasive species that have harmed the vegetation. already, post-burn, we can see green amid the blackened mulch. already, there is newness of life. the toxic has been deliberately remediated and goodness will prevail. it will take some time, but it will eventually tip the balance and the woods will be better for it.
this is simple. it is all around us. the necessity for an intentional burn. we wake up to a new day, a new sun, a new chance. in this time of re-birth and restoration, we are amazingly gifted. with grace.
i cannot help but think of the world despairingly coming together to lift up notre dame as it was on fire. not at all intentional, not necessary, absolutely devastating to that beautiful and majestic cathedral, yet somehow it brings together a global community of people who recognize its importance, its value, its history, its soul. and it will prevail. in a divisive world, grace.
less is often more. it is in that spirit i recorded this track of amazing grace.
download ALWAYS WITH US VOLUME 2 on iTUNES or CDBaby
you wouldn’t know it looking out the window today, but it is spring in wisconsin. under barney, the old piano in the backyard, green is sprouting up through the mulched-up-leaves and mess leftover from winter. along the back fence are some reminders that, indeed, there are plants there. in the front yard, next to the old brick wall, the daylilies are insistent and green shoots are rising amid the dried beige of fall’s version of ornamental grasses. spring. a time of new. out of the fallow, out of the dark.
yesterday, in the meditation book jonathan gave us, there was this sentence, “please give me a clean blackboard today and help me to do the writing.” do you remember writing on the blackboard in elementary school? it was always an honor to have that chance. the feeling of chalk on your fingertips, eraser dust in your nose. stretching to reach high enough, that sound when your fingernails scraped the board. and those days that the teacher chose to use chalk in many colors? it was nothing shy of pure excitement. funny how simply colored chalk could change things.
i loved this reading. the vision in my mind’s eye of a blackboard – or an etch-a-sketch – or one of those magic slates where you can still hear the “pfffffffft” sound in your head as you lift the cellophane off the cardboard pad to clear the picture you drew with the plastic stylus. a chance to do it over. draw it again. live it again. spring. green out of beige and brown. grace. another chance. color. new birth.
as i awake each day this spring, i cannot imagine a more grace-filled thought than please give me a clean blackboard today. pffffffffft!
my sweet momma always said that you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. although she stood her ground, she rarely pushed back. well, maybe at my dad…i certainly heard her push back in that relationship. she was a woman before her time, struggling to be seen and heard…in relationship, in work, in the world. nevertheless, she led with kindness and generosity.
recently i surprisingly found myself in a situation where i felt the kind of civility that is needed to accomplish anything was lacking. instead it was aggressive, pointed, antagonistic. “when push comes to shove” implies escalation and this, indeed, was the case. instead of actual conversation, it was a push-shove back-and-forth. instead of communication, it was a shining example of what-not-to-do.
we drove past a passiton billboard on the way up north that read these words: when push comes to shove, don’t. civility is in you. what does a boorish push or a retorted shove accomplish other than an establishment of immaturity, a driving desire and play for power and an uncooperative non-collaboration?
civility is not that hard. it should be what we lead with. respecting others and their place in their world. we each get the same air to breathe and we each breathe in and out the same way. instead of escalating to shove or pushing yet harder, how might we fill our lungs with responses of peacefulness, thoughtfulness, fairness, appreciation, intelligent consideration, magnanimity, grace, even reconciliation. why must push come to shove? it needn’t.
delicate wings, barely visible…a reminder that each of us has them…right there…ready and waiting. sometimes we search inside for answers; this painting tells that story for me. we stoke up the fortitude. we call on peace to enter our souls. we ask our heart to hold on. we forge through what will invariably challenge us. but our wings, gossamer and full of grace, gifted to us by a magnificent Love, give us the lift. we know that no one can clip those wings. they belong to us and we can soar back (or forward) into ourselves. when we are ready.
to view or purchase david’s painting on his gallery site, click below:
“…well, i will walk by faith, well, even when i cannot see, because this broken road prepares your will for me…” (lyrics from a really great 2002 song by jeremy camp called ‘walk by faith’)
trust. practice. faith. repeat. not necessarily in that order. through the ages, a common challenge – faith without seeing. ‘we’ are no different now than ‘they’ were ‘back then.’ faith. it’s ambiguous.
it’s funny. you might think that the most faith-reinforcing moments come during a service and this true for some. as a minister of music for three decades, i have always sought to create those moments for others…when all things come together: music, lyrics, emotion to amplify the words (and the word) spoken in the service and resonate within someone’s heart and reinforce their feelings of faith. it is a job i take seriously; sometimes you only have one chance to help connect a service with a person’s heart, one chance to reassure, one chance to raise awareness, one chance to have them ask questions within their faith, to challenge their assumptions for and otherwise.
for me, though, the most faith-reinforcing moments are outside of the faith-based venue, be it a church, temple, cathedral, mosque. they are the moments that i can feel the hugeness of this universe of God and my absolute tiny-ness within it: walking in the woods, standing in the sunlight, looking out on a mountain, holding hands, seeing the moon rise over the lake, watching the surf, seeing love pass between two people’s eyes, hearing my children’s voices, finding the right chord for a song, eating breakfast on the deck in the sun with cardinals, hearing music swell…
as a minister of music, i have heard a lot of sermons and been at an un-countable number of services. think about it. (and this is not counting all the years not spent in this position, nor does it count all the extra services at certain times of the year…you’re thinking, “ok, ok, ohmygosh, we get it!” ) so thirty years multiplied by 52 weeks multiplied by at least two services a sunday (sometimes three, but we will round it to two, as you roll your eyes.) that equals 3,120 services and sermons. and let me just mention, some have been…ummm…way better than others. so you would likely deduce that i would know all the stories of the old and new testaments pretty well by now. well, i beg to differ with you. for me, those stories are peripheral.
what really counts for me is the stuff you can’t see with your eyes, the things you can only experience: love, kindness, peace, generosity… simplicities. complexities. these are the foundations of my faith. faith in goodness. faith in being held. faith in grace. choosing actions that are life-giving. knowing that if i fail today, i can try again tomorrow. walking the broken road, faithfully believing that there is a higher power that i can’t see but i can experience. one that surrounds me in my joy and in my pain. ptom, in his lenten sermon the other evening, said, “God is for you.” it takes a little (read: a lot of) practice; it’s a new day every new day. but i believe.
more than once i have been in a moment when i thought, “this is a slice of heaven.” everyone has them. like this scene, it may be on the beach. it may be in the woods. it may be in the rocking chair with your tiny baby. it may be on the mountain in fresh powder. it may be listening to music while running (or sitting quietly) or reading poetry in an adirondack chair. it’s different for everyone. regardless of where it is, of when it is, of what it is, everything feels in balance and all feels well with the world, at least in your little piece of the world. we feel grateful and alive. and we wish for more of those moments.
what if we treated every breathing moment like that? like a slice of heaven.
reverse threading 