My New Book

The Mystery within...

My new book, Both/and Things—The Power in Reflection, is soon to be published. It highlights my growing understanding of the paradoxical nature of everything. In my first memoire, God Never Hurries, I danced with fear and anger for my mother’s and my safety. In Both/and Things—The Power in Reflection, I am evolving in my dance with love, forgiveness, and connection. I share what I am learning about fear and courage, evil, vital decay, recycling pain, curiosity, diversity’s many gifts, the evolution of love, unconditional love, and forgiveness. The following highlighted words capture the essence of Both/and Things.

Empowerment - Fear brought me closer to the truth to show me how my compliance with patriarchy allowed destructive behaviors in the other and myself. I learned I was the one who needed to change. And I’m still a work in progress.

Acceptance - Somehow the creative force of the Great Mystery exists in the interplay of darkness and light where so much becomes clear. I am learning that embracing the darkness is the first step to creating goodness and strength in us all.

Diversity - When we reflectively interact with nature and each other, we become good medicine for the earth and one another.

Belonging - I am learning a new language of belonging is needed to treat all of creation and each and everyone of us as holy.

Love - Each day brings ample opportunity to work toward life’s ultimate goal—love of self and all others unconditionally through the power of reflection.

Forgiveness -  It’s all about forgiveness. Sheer compassion and forgiveness of myself teaches me how to love and forgive the other unconditionally.

Wisdom– My reflections in Both/and Things begin with quotes from diverse souls who understand what life is about: 

Pema Chodron 

“Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth.” 

“Nothing awakens the heart like extreme sadness.” 

            

e. e. cummings 

“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really 

are."  

Richard Rohr 

“Darkness, mistakes, and trials are the supreme teachers. Success really teaches you nothing; it just feels good."

Jellaludin Rumi 

 “Grief can be the garden of compassion. If you keep your heart open through everything, your pain can become your greatest ally in your life’s search for love and wisdom.”

            Albert Einstein  

        “Never lose a holy curiosity.”

              

Stephen Covey 

 “Strength lies in differences, not in similarities.”

Teilhard de Chardin 

“Yet it is the law of all progress that is made by passing through some stages of instability and that may take a very long time.”

“The most telling and profound way of describing the evolution of the universe would undoubtedly be to trace the evolution of love.”

“Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world [man] we will have discovered fire."

What if we all came to know the power in reflection?  

    

    

Thresholds' Review

The Mystery within...

On our July “Women Gathering 2018” weekend retreat we were led to reflect on the many different thresholds we have crossed in our life. Our one-day winter follow-up, on where each of us are with our life’s thresholds, was held January 19, 2019. This review made it clear to me all of life is about change and how I accept and grow with those changes.

The challenging threshold I was standing on in July was to find my voice and express myself to a public political ideologue. I feared getting “dirty” in a fight. My initial fear of getting “dirty” led me to find the courage to write my truth respectfully, through a series of letters to the editor of my local paper. 

Main ideas in those letters were: we are all in this together—vote responsibly. Service to others is the hallmark of a healthy community. The health and education of our children is our country’s future. I shared recent tips I had learned in how to search the internet to be better informed on the issues and candidates on the ballot for my district. I acknowledged my gratitude for the Dane County League of Women Voters who listed statewide Wisconsin candidates and how each proposed to served the people if elected. I summarized the first ever Ozaukee County Democratic Party fundraiser where speakers called for respect and dignity of all; more equitable tax distribution, critical infrastructure maintenance, returning science to environmental management, investing in our children’s education, mental health, and adequate, affordable health care for all. And I quoted excerpts from Parker Palmer’s book, “Healing the Heart of Democracy: The Courage to Create a Politics Worthy of the Human Spirit”. I acknowledged we need grace in governance, and voting is more than a civic duty, it is a spiritual exercise. And finally, I shared how learning to breathe from my heart allows me to feel sheer compassion for those who govern with self-serving agendas.  

I was in a better place for our “Women Gathering” January Thresholds’ review. I realized how much effort I put into reflecting/writing/speaking my truth. Not just in political matters, but also from my own life in the completion of my second memoire titled, “Both and Things – The Power in Reflection”. In my first memoire, “God Never Hurries”, I danced with anger and fear for my mother’s and my safety. In “Both and Things” I am learning to dance with love, forgiveness and connection. The nest photo in this post was an art therapy piece from July’s “Women Gathering” weekend  retreat. When “Both and Things – The Power in Reflection” is printed, the nest photo will become the book's cover and will include an explanation of its symbolism for me.

To facilitate our January review of our individual Thresholds we were given these words to ponder: Acceptance; Letting Go; Mindfulness; Compassion; and Identifying Helpers. My helpers were easy to ID. They are retreat facilitators Cathy Gawlik and Dawn Zak, and our beautiful circle of women, who are gently guided in discovery and sharing. Poems also accompanied each of the five words for reflection. This stanza from a David Whyte poem titled, “Start in Close”, stood out for me:

Start with

the ground

you know,

the pale ground

beneath your feet, 

your own

way of starting

the conversation.

Also poignant for me were these words from a John O’Donohue poem titled “A Blessing, A Poem”:

May you arise each day with a voice of blessing 

whispering in you heart that something good 

is going to happen to you.

What if we all felt empowered through reflection?  

Recreating One Another

The Mystery within...

Teilhard de Chardin:  “We are one, after all you and I, together we suffer, together exist and forever will recreate one another.”

On Being columnist, Courtney Martin, poignantly shared her angst over president elect Donald Trump in her column titled “Where I’mTurning to be Comforted and Challenged.”  I empathized with her frank admission of fear and feelings of inadequacy in how to be and respond to this looming presidency.  Courtney’s need for solace was important for me to read as my fear for our country escalates.  Mr. Trump has now announced as long as Wisconsin’s senator and Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, agrees with everything he says and does, Ryan is okay, but if he doesn’t, then he is not okay.

I looked back at some of my past blogs that addressed fear and excerpted the following:

Philip Chard:  “…existential disorientation calls for visiting one’s existential home, which is the natural world.” 

From God Never Hurries:  Instinctively, I was aching for naturalness.  Every season brought me new and deeper insights that helped me navigate through dark times and brought deep learning.

Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor:  “God does some of God’s best work with people who are seriously lost.”

Gavin De Becker wrote in his book the “Gift of Fear”:  “Nature’s greatest accomplishment, the human brain, is never more efficient or invested than when its host is at risk.  Then intuition is catapulted to another level entirely, a height at which it can accurately be called graceful, even miraculous.” 

De Becker also states real fear is not paralyzing but rather energizing and refers to it as coiled up energy.  Perhaps courage is another word for that energy.

From God Never Hurries:  Forgiveness is most needed where things are least safe; and you need to be in a safe place to work on forgiveness.  

Forgiveness results in emotional control.  It transforms who we are.  Freedom and a more real life view are its fruits.  Forgiveness is giving up resentment and coming to view perpetrators with compassion.

...old fear surfaced.  And now I clearly see I still have shadow work to do with forgiveness.

The opportunities to recreate one another appear endless.

What if we each saw our suffering as a way to recreate and be recreated more often?

Goodness Within

The Mystery within...

During times of extreme stress or difficulty I have occasionally experienced a Caring Presence within--separate from myself—but yet a part of me.  Recently I have experienced something similar that I would call a brief invitation to a good cry.  It was fleeting but a comfort to know a good cry is within if I need it.

In a more distant past I am now recalling when the Goodness Within brought life giving acceptance and forgiveness of another when I felt overwhelmed with rejection.  I was having a hard time just functioning so I sat down and did some deep diaphragmatic breathing while saying a prayer I adapted from a former yoga class.

Lord, keep me protected.

Nourish and guide me in my life.

May I help create vitality among one another.

May there be no enmity among us.

When I got to the line, "May there be no enmity among us," my overwhelming feeling of rejection was replaced with a blessed sense of acceptance and forgiveness of the other.  It was a life changing moment that became a catalyst for changes I needed to make in how I lived my life.  Those changes allowed me to tell the tale of other life changing encounters with the Goodness Within in "God Never Hurries." 

From "God Never Hurries:"

"Be not afraid."

"Justice will be kind it will be done over a period of time."

"I hold your hand and all of you, know that we are one."

"Your father will forgive you."

What if we all trusted the Goodness Within to guide us through life changing encounters? 

Spiritual Consciousness

The Mystery within...

Spiritual consciousness is not easy to define, achieve or maintain but I know I experienced an awakening to a Divine presence in my everyday life. Paradoxically, grief and struggle spawned comfort and affirmation, much of it coming in the natural world.  Feelings of desperation led me to look for and find answers in everyday experiences.  It was the hard work of accepting my pain and disillusionment, learning to be true to myself, and trusting good would come of it that made all of life more clear.  I came to know everything is a both and thing, and its all about forgiveness.

From "God Never Hurries":

"Silence is a both and thing.  It is golden when I curb my ego and silently accept another's shortcomings in the name of kindness.  It is a gift when it leads me to reflect on the messages in my life.  But silence also feeds abuse, and as Anne LaMont writes in Bird by Bird, '…we are only as sick as our secrets."

* * *

"I helped my mother bathe.  I felt my touch asking for her forgiveness.  I saw it in her eyes.  My heart wanted to stay.  My head said, 'Go'; my back said 'Hurry; my soul said 'Leave.'  Things were not meant to change then.  There is a line in Diane Ackerman's book "Deep Play", '…there are truths that can only be learned when you're dancing in chains.'

* * *

"Forgiveness benefits were many and were said to come from the head and the heart and resulted in emotional control.  It was said true forgiveness is not trivial for it transforms who we are.  Freedom and a more real view of life are its fruits.  Forgiveness is also giving up resentment and coming to view the perpetrator with compassion.  Who wouldn't want all that, I thought?"

* * *

"The week had unfolded with everything falling into place for a new infrastructure.  But the next evening when I pulled into my garage, my muscles were again tight.  My mother had been very lucid when I left and her words were clear.  She asked if she could come home with me and spoke of no family care.  But I left her there in the care of strangers and just let pain be pain."

* * *

"In God's valley a gentle shower of fine snow crystals fell from a high cedar bough.  When I lifted my maturing face to them, I felt a gentle blessing."

What if we all knew spiritual consciousness in everyday experiences?        

Fear, Forgiveness and Prayer

The Mystery within...

Fear, forgiveness and prayer have been on my mind with the recent mayhem wrought by the terrorists in France.  Damning talk of revenge has me longing for prayers for the perpetrators of those heinous acts and prayers for the rest of us to accept our anger and fear that can start us on our work to forgive.  I know something of prayer, fear and forgiveness for they threaded throughout my memoir.  Some excerpts from “God Never Hurries:”

I sensed fear was at the heart of my father’s need to control, and his fears undoubtedly were heightened by my mother’s growing dementia and the fact that she had been the center of all things relative to a functioning home. 

…I felt empathy for his fears along with a sense of futility in any attempted dialogue. 

…I was also truly scared.  Scared for my mother’s and my safety. 

…fear is more than fight or flight.  Guile and cleverness are just two of many ways to address fear; and fear keeps the world in check.  [Adapted from “The Gift of Fear” by Gavin De Becker.]

[I attended] …a two day workshop on forgiveness sponsored by a Unitarian church in Milwaukee featuring Robert Enright and Susan Freedman from the International Forgiveness Institute.  I had previously heard them tell of their mission on public radio—to help people gain knowledge about forgiveness and to use that knowledge for personal, group, and societal renewal.

It was comforting to learn that forgiveness is a process; the first step is believing it is a possibility.  We can then look to our Pride, the negative kind, which blocks the process.  Denial of anger was cited as a clue to Pride and an obstacle to forgiveness.  It takes humility to admit being hurt.  It is humbling to admit woundedness.  Therefore, it can be healthy to get angry and Prideful to deny it.  Pride was said to be a formidable foe for we are very unaware of it.  I also learned forgiveness is most needed where things are least safe; and you need to be in a safe place to work on forgiveness.

Forgiveness benefits were many and were said to come from the heart and the head and resulted in emotional control.  It was said true forgiveness is not trivial for it transforms who we are.  Freedom and a more real view of life are its fruits.  Forgiveness is also giving up resentment and coming to view the perpetrator with compassion.

Like Teyve in Fiddler on the Roof, I had many informal conversations with God.  I am called to pray for my enemies out of love--though love does not preclude justice for the wronged--it just makes me more whole.  And I learned to trust God's slow work in me.  

What if we all became more whole by praying for our enemies out of love?

Life's Messy

The Mystery within..

There was a vacuum cleaner commercial some years back with the slogan, “Life’s messy.  Clean it up.”  I’ve learned from life’s traumas to keep cleaning because like vacuuming it’s not something I do once.  Learning from trouble requires ongoing engagement.  The important thing is to do the work again and again.  If there were no struggles, would we ever know true forgiveness?  And how else would compassion be learned?  

My traumas taught me about hope, trust, patience, reflection and planning along with forgiveness and compassion.  I heard Martin Luther King had said, “Struggle is about hope.”  His words helped me accept my angst in caring for my aging parents.  Also enlightening and comforting, was a copy of a Teilhard de Cardin’s prayer, “Above All Trust in the Slow Work of God.”  That prayer seemed to find me whenever I really needed to let go and trust things would eventually work out.  I also remember being very open to everyone and everything around me during that difficult time.  My heightened awareness to the people, places and things I encountered daily was the source of my learning, along with reflection and writing that helped clarify the next steps I needed to take.

I sometimes long for that heightened alertness that made me so very present to what was going on around me, but not the accompanying trauma. Lately, I tried applying Bessel A. van der Kolk’s recommendation to hover calmly and objectively over my thoughts, feelings and emotions as a way to access mindfulness and not let my emotions hijack me.  It did help me respond to others more calmly and made me want to plan for better outcomes in daily living.  Remembering to hover is the tough part.  

What if we could all know struggle stands for hope and to trust mindfulness will eventually lead us to better life outcomes?  

The Conundrum 1) and its Complicity 2)

The Mystery within

1) a confusing and difficult problem or question

2) the state of being involved with others in an illegal activity or wrongdoing

Richard Rodriguez – The Fabric of Our Identity, was a Krista Tippett On-Being program.  I identified with Rodriguez’s eloquent praise for his Roman Catholic upbringing as a foundational gift in his life, especially his participation in the Mystery of the mass.  And yet it is this institution that denies him the right to openly love his long-time male partner.  Rodriguez praised women, and their fight to win the right to vote, with his freedom to be who he is in society.  That surprised me since I suspect gender inequities will be the last discriminations to disappear.  But nevertheless I was pleased he credited my gender with such an important step forward.  Rodriquez also expressed concern for immigrant families wanting to come to America because he sees the American family eroding, with its emphasis on wealth and individuality, over society and family.  He said every thirty years we should all be sent back to where we came from to keep America healthy.  He closed with a poignant vision of a drunken priest slurring the words of consecration at mass, “This is my body, broken for you,” and concluded it is all about growth through trials and forgiveness.  And he asked, “Why don’t we talk about difficult things?”

It’s not easy to talk about difficult things or write about them.  I related Rodriguez’s words to my struggle with abuse; my aging parent’s care needs, and my decision to leave the church of my birth at age 60. I felt compelled to tell my story but I didn’t want to focus on the abuse, only the help I encountered throughout the long struggle to free myself from it.  I too valued the Catholic mass and attended frequently from a very early age.  It continued to sustain and comfort me after losing both my husband and son to suicide.  But once I saw my complicity in my family abuse, and its relatedness to the discriminatory teachings of my church, I then began the long and painful process of separating myself from it.  In my memory’s eye I can still see my favorite priest raising the host high in the air and reverently proclaiming, “This is my body...” His words triggered in me a sudden hollowness and a voice within saying, “God is in all things and everyone.”  So I went looking, and found God everywhere, as well as finding myself.  Amazing things happen when looking for God in each day, especially when you are desperate.  They arrive in the form of Synchronicities in landscapes, animals, weather, books, radio voices, and encounters with others, successes, failures and more.  And when reflected upon, they all point the way.  And I too was shown it is all about forgiveness.

What if you read my memoir, “God Never Hurries,” and had some difficult questions.  Would I welcome them?

Present Moment Clock

God is...

What an oxymoron!  What paradox!  How perfect to describe my life as told in “God Never Hurries,” with a present moment clock!  Picture a flip chart easel with paper and a clock face with the word “NOW” at 12, 3, 6 & 9 o’clock and “now” at 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 8 10 and 11 o’clock.  Between each quarter hour, running around the circumference of the clock, instead marks to delineate seconds are the repeating words: ”struggle—growth—transformation—forgiveness.”  I drew such a clock to help me describe the indescribable for my presentation titled, “Does Nature Speak to You?” at the Schlitz Audubon Nature Center this past week.  And centered on my clock’s face I wrote:

Reflecting

on

What Is

Accepting It

Touches

God Energy

for

Growth

Underneath my present moment clock I wrote:

Recycling Pain

I continued my presentation by reading from my October 7, 2013 post, “Recycling Pain,” which ponders how this mysterious God, who somehow lives within us, grows us through suffering; and my May 20, 2013 post, “The Paradox of Fear,” which sourced the grace I experienced in nature.  I didn’t know how else I could start telling my story of help and comfort with the tension and pain surrounding my again parents’ care needs.

From there I could relate how the Sun, beaming through the trees brought solace letting me know I was worthy of good self-care.  I could tell of the saplings on a muddy slope letting me know I would need help.  I told of the huge oak tree where I would go for communion and strength; and my Courage Recipe telling me to trust my mind, heart and gut.  I could then relate the curious deer that sparked my curiosity and led me to know I can question everything; and another deer that taught me all is Eucharist.  I could tell about the writer’s block that began with a bumper sticker and its release after I understood and wrote everything is a both/and thing; and how understanding my complicity in abuse was the way out of it.  I could tell of the dead alewives that let me accept the messiness of life, and tall gray herons appearing as a darker color of dense fog letting me feel the seamless world soul.  And finally I told of the power of true forgiveness and coming to know both the struggle and reward of being true to myself.   

What if whenever we look at a clock we could always see it is Now and know if we stay there we will grow?