Category Archives: Opportunities & Challenges

Oct3

Courage Reprised

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Scary ride at Topsfield County Fair (photo by Mark Murphy with Chris Doktor’s fancy camera)

Right now there are autumnal leaves on the ground. So why am I thinking about skiing? It has to do with getting on a scary ride at the fair, and trying to overcome my fears.

Every year (almost) I take one ski lesson, make several runs down the bunny slope, and then go to the “top” of one of the less-scary (aka, green) trails and ski down the side of the mountain with my family. For me, each year, this is an act of courage. As well as a sign of solidarity with my family. I want to do it once each year, just so I can be with them, and face up to something that scares me, too.

Each year, I get a little better. (Until I fall down, of course. Almost guaranteed to happen every year.)

As proof of this annual act, I have a series of photos of me posed part-way up a mountain, next to my daughter and husband. Just before we go down the slope together. Me making pizza wedges with my feet so I don’t go too fast or lose control. Sarah skiing in circles around me, laughing hysterically at my juvenile form, then swooping ahead and then swinging back again to cheer me on. Chris somewhere before or behind, usually shooting embarrassing videos.

Chris and Sarah, of course, are much more accomplished on skis than me. They go to the top of the trails. They enjoy black diamonds. They ski in Colorado with uncle Jeff sometimes, at much greater altitudes. Sarah will get on a snowboard, too, though I’m not sure she’d claim she’s as comfortable ‘boarding as skiing.

Now back to Topsfield County Fair. We made our annual jaunt there. Now that Sarah’s grown up, it’s usually just Chris and I, making the rounds of barns and rides for one sticky, deep-fried afternoon. (For years, it was me with other moms, our kids in strollers, stuck in the Kiddy Ride area.)

This year we went with our friends Mark and Lesley, who are visiting from Ipswich England as part of a Rotary Club cultural exchange. We wanted to share a quintessential American experience with them, and the County Fair embodies everything that is fun, campy and quirky about America.

Photo by Lesley Dolphin

C’mon, admit it! It’s the fair! Deep-fried food of every description. Cute child-made projects by Boy or Girl Scout troops and 4-H clubs, like collections of painted gourds decorated as Olympic teams or ghosts and witches for Halloween. The world’s largest pumpkin: 2,009 pounds! Clydesdales. Racing pigs. Farm machinery with big tires and bigger engines: pulling stuff. Goats, sheep, alpacas, cows, bunnies, guinea pigs, chickens, roosters, ducks, turkeys … and more. Bee-keeping house with honey, wax candles and live hives. Prize-winning flower arrangements, handmade quilts, jars of honey, and pies. The midway, with dart-throwing contests and every other sort of game in which you can lose a lot of money, plus lots of rides with bright lights and loud music.

Anyway, in past years, I’ve gone on rides at the fair with my family, for the same reason that I go skiing with them. To face a fear. To show solidarity.

Does it count as an act of courage, if you’re afraid to do something for sensible reasons, like the concern about gravity, steep slopes and fast downhill speeds, but you do it anyway? Does it count as an act of courage, if you’re afraid the whole time, but do it anyway?

This year I went on the Pharoah’s Fury with Chris and our friend Lesley. It is really a large boat on a swing, and it rocks higher and higher in both directions, while you face into the middle, so that eventually you are pivoted so high that you’re facing a 90 degree drop and staring down into the screaming faces of the people on the other end of the boat. And then it plummets down in the opposite direction, as it completes the swing to the other end of its pendulum motion, and you feel as if you’re falling.

Okay, this ride combines all my nightmares. You know … falling … heights … speedy drops … That sort of thing.

Meanwhile Chris and Lesley, to challenge themselves, let go of the bar and lift their hands to heighten the effect. They keep their eyes open. They’re laughing and whooping in excitement.

Me? Eyes closed. Hands clutch the bar. Moan. Complain. “I hate this. Why did I get on? I hate this. Aaagggghhh. Aaaaarrrrrrgggggggghhhhhhh!”

Screams. Squint, but open my eyes a few times, to experiment with peeking, because Chris and Lesley say it’s easier with your eyes open than squeezed shut. Stare down into the faces of the people on the other end of the ride. Stare DOWN at them, from my 90 degree vertical-drop position at the very other end of the ride. Aaaaaarrrrrgggghhhhhh. Looking isn’t helping. It’s worse!

Fried foods at Topsfield County Fair, photo by Mark Murphy

I scream every time we start the plummet downward. My stomach falls after the rest of me, of course. It can’t keep up.

And I never let go of the bar. Even though Chris and Lesley say it’s more fun — easier — if you let go. Let go! Let go!

Yes, it’s the mantra that I say to myself about so many other parts of life. “Just let it go.”

On this ride, I don’t work up enough courage to let go of the safety bar and throw my hands up in the air. That’s one more step than I can manage.

What did I accomplish? Well, I got on the ride, and didn’t panic enough to get back off again. I said NO to an earlier ride, but I got on this one.

And by the end of the Pharoah’s Fury — which felt like it lasted 35 minutes, if you ask me — by the end of the ride, in between screams, I’m laughing. Laughing!

Okay, so maybe the stomach-drop sensation ride is FUN in a sick-scary sort of way. Me? Laughing?

To laugh, I’ve actually gone through the mental exercise of admitting that I’ve talked myself into a place of greater anxiety than this ride warrants. It’s almost ridiculous. But that’s why I won’t open my eyes or let go, because I’m so afraid.

So let’s ask this question again. What did I accomplish? Well, I opened my eyes. I peeked. It didn’t kill me, though it wasn’t any better. I won’t let go of the bar. Nope. But I can laugh between screams.

Does that count as courage?

Sure, it would be a better story if I’d released the bar, unclenched my hands, flung them into the air and completely immersed myself in the experience of my fear of heights, vertical drops, falling sensations and all of those things. If I’d faced it entirely, without any anxieties or reservations, and then walked off the ride … cured. A new person.

That isn’t quite the whole story. I got off the Pharoah’s Fury, wobbly, but smiling. As if, indeed, the weight of all those fried foods that we’d gobbled down earlier in the afternoon had been left behind. (Which they hadn’t. For the record, I didn’t puke.) As if I’d overcome some part of myself that was hunkered down in a dark corner, hands over eyes, back turned to the light, unwilling to uncurl and take a chance.

Scary ride, but my eyes are open, and Lesley’s arms are flung wide. (Photo by MArk Murphy)

Yes, I held on tight. Yes, I complained, “I hate this.” Yes, I screamed. Yes, I kept my eyes closed most of the time. Yes, it’s true. I did those things.

But I also got on the ride. In the end seat, where the ride is the most extreme. I stayed in the seat. I opened my eyes a few times, to check it all out. Between screams and rounds of “I hate this,” I actually relaxed enough to laugh. To admit that it was fun to be scared. Glad I’d done it.

That’s a lot for this year. (Does that count as my going-to-the-mountain moment? Can I skip the ski slope?)

For me, going on Pharoah’s Fury is about like going to the top of a ski trail on skis. To go down a mountain with my family. Would I do it myself, for my own satisfaction? No. Would I do it to keep someone I love company, and try it, even if it’s not “my thing?” Yes.

Is that courage? I don’t know. But when I laughed, as the ride dropped into its swing toward earth, it felt like something new was happening inside. And I didn’t need a new pair of underwear when I got off the ride, by the way!

Sep23

Rock Wrangling

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Moving boulders? A classic New England tradition …

It’s like a gift, this day of serene blue sky, warm afternoon sunlight, crisp air and gold-crimson colors appearing in the edges of green foliage. A perfect autumn moment.

I just want to be in awe of it for a little bit. I spend so much time indoors on a computer, reading books, in a class, working with clients or otherwise staying busy, that I need “excuses” to get outside.

So what’s a good reason to go outside? Well, some people garden. Can’t say that’s my strength. Others run a few miles, cycle a few miles more, kayak or walk or just get outdoors to exercise. Pick apples. Go fishing.

What coaxed me outside the past few days?

  • A bonfire in the evening, enjoyed in the company of my husband and a friend or two. With dinner and drinks.
  • Reviewing renovations to the house and plans for the yard.
  • Walks downtown for hot beverages at Zumi’s and a seat along the river.
  • Best of all, our weekend rock-pushing escapade.

Attaching boulder to rear appendage of tractor

Huh? Rock-pushing? Were we suddenly trying to re-enact Greek-mythology? Recreating the eternal act of pushing a boulder up a hill, over and over, as a punishment in the underworld, like the king of ye olden classical days, Sisyphus?

Er, no. Just because I’m in divinity school doesn’t mean we’ve suddenly decided to live out the myths and stories of many religions. Nope. This was more along the lines of continuing the good old New England tradition of harvesting rocks from your field.

A few years ago, a neighbor of ours dug a large granite boulder out of his yard. It may once have served as a front step for his home, but didn’t work in that way anymore. We wisely (or foolishly) accepted his offer to take the boulder. So it was dropped off by a bobcat at the far end of our driveway. And there it sat, summer and winter, year after year, awaiting a purpose and a place in our small yard.

More recently, Chris’s colleague Matt acquired a tractor that can lift and move large landscape features. He was sure it could handle re-positioning the granite boulder. And he enjoys opportunities to use his machine (of course).

Boulder carried up Summer Street

So this past weekend, it was guys’ day with big machines in the backyard. They tried lifting it in the tractor’s bucket, but the boulder is just too big. Our friend Matt pushed it with the bucket about halfway down the drive, but that didn’t solve how to get it around the corner, up the street to the intersection of Summer and North Main Streets, where it was supposed to perch at the corner of our house.

After much problem-solving and the arrival of our other friend Just, the guys used chains to attach the boulder to the back end of the tractor, which is actually stronger. (It practically tipped the entire tractor when attached to the front bucket.) They had to tip the boulder up enough with the bucket end to wedge wooden blocks under it, lifting it off the ground, so they could run  chains beneath the rock. After extended experiments, the three determined guys found a way to wrap and secure it so that the tractor could lift the boulder about 6 inches off the ground. Then Matt hauled it carefully up the street, and nudged it into place.

It was like watching tractor ballet, for goodness sake!

Boulder arrives at Summer & North Main.

Between building bonfires and rock-wrestling with the help of a motorized wheeled vehicle with a lots of appendages and a powerful engine, it was like … well, yes, I’m going to just lay down a stereotype here … it seemed like “guy Nirvana.”

And you know what? I put down the textbooks, stopped outlining my paper on the story of Joseph as told in both Genesis and the Qur’an, and stepped outdoors. I was out there with the three guys, snapping photos, watching traffic, and participating from a helpful (aka, safe) distance.

By the end of the rock wrangling, we were all grinning from ear to ear. What a crazy way to spend a few hours out in the autumn sunlight! It’s a novel pastime, that’s for sure

Can’t say I expect to ever have another afternoon quite like it. But if you get the chance to move a boulder or two in your life … you just gotta do it, don’t you think?

Nudging a boulder with a frontloader bucket. Or whatever it’s called …

Sep21

Autobiography … What Faith Do I Claim?

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One of the homework assignments in a few of my classes has been to write and present a Spiritual Autobiography. Hmmm. It feels self-absorbed and narcissistic, in many ways, to focus inwardly and then to talk about oneself in this context. To an audience of peers and professors.

Yet it’s an important question to pose for ourselves. We need to be familiar with this story. To know why we arrived at a Divinity School to study. And what we want as the outcome of this time in graduate school. What is our connection to the Sacred?

I think it’s a question that all people pose for themselves at one time or another. What does my faith mean to me? What do I believe? What makes meaning out of the world to me? What do I hold as Holy or Sacred or bigger than myself?

As students and facilitators, we discuss milestones. Events or people or experiences or texts that shaped our faiths. Or raised questions that we’re still trying to answer.

Many of us consider our personal views of the sacred or the divine. Identify the language and images we use around those ideas. For some of us, the language might be a Trinitarian Christian concept (God-Jesus-Holy Spirit). For others it might be monotheistic Allah or Yahweh. For others it is a Boddhisatva, or a Goddess, or a different deity.

For some folks, there isn’t a specific deity or name that defines what is sacred. Maybe there’s a “Creative Force.” Or for some of my classmates, connection with the Sacred is inseparable from being human.

Some of these ideas may sound like heresy, if you are uncomfortable with the reality that people around the world follow many different religions. If you believe, or your faith tells you to believe, that there is only “one true way.”

I don’t put the idea of “one true way” into quotations to belittle that concept … just to acknowledge that not all belief systems require that people follow their way of thinking, being and doing. Not all belief systems consign everyone else in the world to Hell if they don’t convert. I’ve never been comfortable or okay with the concept that my faith is the only faith, and that everyone else is outside the circle and isn’t going to be okay, isn’t going to heaven, isn’t going to evolve to the next phase of being … I cannot reconcile that. Never could. Still can’t. Maybe it’s not my job to work out that dichotomy. I’m just admitting that I don’t embrace it.

Interestingly, many people in this era consider themselves to be spiritual, but not religious. And it’s a fair distinction.

Religion, as such, is the human-made institution that grows up around the seeds of a faith. For example, Christ and his first followers, for instance, were Jews. They were not Christians. And initially, Muhammed and his people weren’t Muslims with a capital “M.”

These Prophets didn’t necessarily believe they came to start new religions. Simply to bring a message to the world.

What evolved afterward, the codifying, the creation of a structure of authority and governance, administration and policies and laws and practices … those aren’t the original parts of any faith. Those are Religion with a capital “R.” They are systems developed and put into place by humans around the original messages brought to us by Prophets. At least, that’s my simplistic definition of it, but I think it’s a reasonable one.

I’ve learned, in the past few weeks, that saying that there’s one version of any Religion is also naïve. Is there one acknowledge and universal experience of Christianity? Christians would chuckle if you ask that. There are so many variations on what Christianity means and how it is experienced, starting with the major division between Catholic and Protestant. And you can go on from there.

The same is true of Judaism and Islam. Do you belong, for instance, to a temple that is Orthodox or reformed? Is the Judaism of a temple in Brookline, Massachusetts similar to the Judaism on a kibbutz in Israel? Unlikely.

Some contemporary scholars say that is it more accurate to acknowledge many Islam(s) rather than one Islam. Because again, these Religions, though springing from the seed of one origin, have developed within varied social, historical, ethnic, political, economic, and geographical contexts. Islam practiced in the neighborhoods of Chicago is different than Islam experienced in London or living in a nation such as Turkey. It has markedly different interpretation and practices in Afghanistan or Iran than in parts of India or Indonesia.

Some people following a specific Religion (with a capital “R”) will say there is only one true version, and all other schools that fall under that same umbrella or label are false. Not the real thing. But which version of any Religion is real? True? The only authentic one?

Those sorts of schisms and arguments are probably another reason why so many people in the world don’t want to be called Religious. For a lot of folks, technicalities lose sight of the whole point of faith. It sounds something like this. “Who cares about the semantics? Can’t we just pay attention to the original message? Can’t we get back to the bigger reason for why we worship and pray?”

Spirituality, on the other hand, seems to be a more universal impulse in humans to seek a connection with something greater than oneself. Something that some of us would call Sacred. Maybe some others would call it Nature or the Universe.

More people consider themselves to be Spiritual than to be Religious. Many people don’t want to be categorized, labeled or aligned with a particular tradition. It’s feels like a bad word or way of imposing limitations, for a lot of people.

And in a way, although I realize I am fundamentally Trinitarian (Christian), I am also connected to other practices. Yoga traditions, which can embody Christian references as well as others. Aspects of Buddhism that I have been taught. Native American beliefs that I find in poetry, art and stories. Teachings handed down from Asian origins by mentors who instruct us about spiritual practices as well as physical ones in martial arts classes such as kickboxing or karate classes. Jewish and Islamic offerings that I share during special holidays with my community. Other influences.

I don’t discount or turn away from the beauty and truths that I find in other places, other faiths. I incorporate them. I learn from them. I listen to them. Maybe I learn their practices, when those may help to offer balance or healing in my life.

Yet I am also learning not to make the mistake that all these Religions or practices are, underneath it all, the same. That’s a dangerous mistake. These are different faiths. The people who claim them also experience and view the world through a somewhat different lens.We live in a pluralistic world; that’s okay. In fact, that’s complex and amazing.

Yet we can inform and inspire each other. We can live peaceably. Build community. Share a world together.

Sep17

Partings

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Today Sarah joins her college classmates and sets off by plane for Greece. She’ll study nursing in Thessaloniki for three months. Probably visit other cities, and even other countries, while she’s there. She’s considering more travel around Europe after the semester ends.

Why not? She’s young. Relatively footloose and commitment-free. When is there a better time?

And what can substitute for life experience, when it comes to education? Books and professors are great. They give us context. Theories. Even practical ideas that we can apply in the real world.

Yet lessons often come the other way, too. Firsthand. In person. As realities that we handle and experience. Eventually, to make space in our minds and hearts for greater understanding, we must touch, see, think about and feel events, cultures, people and ideas for ourselves. We cannot fully appreciate the similarities and differences that make the world so complex — sometimes beautifully so, other times tragically so — unless we take the chance to engage it.

She’s traveling to the second-largest city in Greece, steeped in history of many cultures, ethnicities and faiths. For instance, some of its inhabitants appear in the sacred text of the New Testament in letters from the Apostle Paul; she’ll walk some of the sacred sites I’m studying in books. She’ll reside in and explore ancient ground that was holy, thousands of years before Christianity was ever born, populated by Greek deities and temples. She will live in the multicultural realities of a city that was once a bustling part of the Byzantine empire, became a sanctuary for Jews outcast from Spain for a period of about 400 years. It joined the Greek nation in the early 20th century, burned in 1917, was largely rebuilt, and was home to thousands of refugees in the wake of a ‘population exchange treaty’ between Greece and Turkey in 1923. It remains a vibrant and diversely-populated place. For more detailed information, visit www.greecetravel.com/thessaloniki/introduction.html

We’ll stay here in Boston. Say good-bye and watch her walk across a threshold. It’s a coming of age moment, as she launches herself into the world, to learn lessons from her college classrooms and other lessons on the streets or in the cafes, shops, and other hangouts around the city.

I expect, as we say good-bye, that she will continue to experience her own partings. She’s leaving behind her high school self. Her friends are all already on their college campuses. Or finding jobs and moving away from home. Or serving in the military. Beginning the next phase of their young adult lives. Sarah, too, will let go of childhood and start anew.

When she walks through the security gate and later through customs, she will be walking into a new world. And a new part of her life.

And here? Though we aren’t flying away, but staying home, we’re also beginning the “next step” in our family life. Whatever that might mean … whatever shape it takes … big house, empty rooms, long work or school days, late nights, early mornings … two of us trying to make chances to connect. Finding purpose in our adult lives, now that we have started Sarah on the path to her own life apart from us. And always, the way parents do, thinking about both of our daughters.

Somewhere, Jessie fits into this transition. We’ve said good-bye before. Farewell to Jessie was different. This day, as Sarah waves and joins her classmates, this is the good-bye you’re supposed to say to a child. It means you’re doing what you should, helping your child take steps toward adulthood and independence.

After all, it’s not permanent. It’s not forever.

Yet we also realize … the young woman who comes home again after her adventures… she will be Sarah. But she will be a new, changed, more mature and experienced Sarah.

Sure, I thought I was ready to let her go. Stoic. I knew, cognitively, what this separation meant. I talked myself through it. Rallied around its importance and symbolism. Believe it’s good and right for her to do. But there’s a difference between knowing something and feeling it. It’s easy to know something with your head, but much tougher to live through it with your heart.

So I thought it would be easy enough to get ready and say farewell, because this departure has been happening in stages for several months. Years, even.

Yet we’re all on edge. Trying to be gentle with each other, but equally prickly and moody and temperamental. Right now, we often say or do the wrong thing, as often as we make the right choices, to help each other through this good-bye.

My husband I will be different, too. All of us – humans — change. Nobody is static, fixed to one moment in time and space, unable to transition. Life and consciousness itself is a response to stimuli. All humans, even when we feel stuck, are somehow in flux, moving, transforming.

We’ll all get through it. And blossom on the other side of the transition. Yet that doesn’t make the moment of parting any easier. In order to hold the love, you must also hold the pain.

Sep13

Stress: The Good Kind

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I’m so busy I almost can’t breathe. I’ve added every deadline, book, project or homework assignment, class time, phone call, advisory meeting, and other school task to my calendar to keep up with it all. Getting home at midnight one day a week, and between 8-9 pm the other nights. On campus in Cambridge all day, either in classrooms, library or quiet work spaces.

And then there’s family life; that’s being “scheduled,” too, so that I can grab some time with Sarah while she’s home again before going off to her semester abroad in four more days. (I saw her Monday night between 10pm-midnight, when we picked her up at the airport, so far.) Or to make a date with my husband Chris while we’re both awake. Mostly I maintain contact with them via texts. * sigh *

Work life fits tidily into chunks of the day when I can plug in my computer. Sometimes on the train, or in the library. As emails exchanged between classes. Or on the weekdays when I’m staying on the North Shore.

Field education hasn’t started yet. That starts next week. (I’ve already had the interviews). I’ll be apprenticed or interning, so to speak, at a UCC church on the North Shore to gain professional experience in a parish other than my own home faith community. This works both as part of the educational experience at Harvard, but also toward my “discernment” process for ordination by my denomination (UCC/Congregational).

All in all, it’s a whirlwind time. I dream about school. I’m reading books about Christianity and Islam and pastoral counseling and philosophy and language, instead of suspense and science fiction novels. I pack a lunch and dinner. Carry a to-go mug for hot coffee, as well as a water bottle. Have external pockets with  easily accessible student ID, T-passes and commuter rail ticket. Wear sensible walking shoes for the hike from train station to subway station, from subway to classroom, class to library.

In a way, this rhythm is familiar. I used to make the commute in and out of Boston to an office. Rise and go before the sun came up. Come home after it set. Rarely saw the sky, except through the office windows of executives in the buildings of the large financial corporation where I once worked. Made well-intentioned goals to get outside for lunch, walk instead of eat, but usually found that I needed every work hour to complete a project, so that I could make it home to pick up children from extended hours at daycare.

Even further back, I used to work full time, then attend classes at night. Took two courses a semester, for several years, to earn a Bachelors degree with Honors from UMass / Boston. Chris was deep in studies to pass his exams for licensing as an architect. So I’d work on my thesis until 2am, and walk home across the Boston Common at odd hours of the night, to our apartment in the city.

It seems like I’ve always been juggling a lot. All of us have been.

It’s happening to Chris now. He rises at 3-4am to start his work day. Volunteers, works, and makes time for his family when we can be here to connect. Fits in a bike ride now and then.

It’s happening to our daughter Sarah as she juggles saying good-bye to the few friends who haven’t left for college already, or makes trips to see them on campus in Boston. Then packs for her own adventures through Northeastern University’s international program next week.

Yes, it’s stressful. But I want to acknowledge that this is stress we choose, and in which we willingly participate. It leads to something more. Opportunity. Open doors. Education. Vocational shift. Personal transformation. Survival. Hope. Healing. Tangible change. Something we want. There’s incentive to take on this busy schedule, instead of remaining within the status quo.

This form of stress contrasts with situations that are out of our control. Circumstances that cause stress to which we also respond, not because we want to, but because we must. I have lived inside that pressure cooker, too.

In fact, I don’t have to describe much of it to you. Many of you knew us during those times.

Living inside a hospital as the levels of acuity increased over time. First, a shared hospital room with other cancer patients and their parents. Having roommates for weeks at a time throughout the cancer journey. Transfer into private rooms on the oncology unit, which might sound like a privilege, but was too often a bad sign. It was usually due to severity of infection, contagious complications, or more life-threatening conditions (beyond cancer, as if that wasn’t enough). Later, months of life on the transplant unit, inside a single room with changeable mood lights in the ceiling as a second-best attempt at environmental stimulation instead of being allowed to live in the larger world. Life reduced to one room, inside a HEPA-filtered unit with its own air and water circulation, and airlocks to control the environment and separate it from the rest of the hospital (though strangely, you could escape to the Prouty Garden if you traveled …  you couldn’t share the elevator, wore a mask through the halls, and didn’t touch anything).

Finally, the most critical level of care. ICU. Where they have two medical rounds a day, and I woke up for each shift of consultations, regardless of the time of day or night, because events moved so quickly that even 24 hours wasn’t enough time to assess things; we only slept about 2 hours a night. Where the lights are always on, and the number of tubes and machines attached to the patients multiplies.

Through it all, Jessie just stymied everyone. If you looked at the reams of paper, she shouldn’t have appeared as perky as she did. She shouldn’t have transitioned once off the ventilator, sat up within hours to play Hangman with her primary nurses on the ICU team, and lured us all once more into hopefulness. But hey, that’s how she lived through every hour she was allowed to be awake. And even consciousness was taken away, at the end, because she needed to be sedated to stay on a ventilator. But she broke through the drugs from time to time, to try to whisper to us, to kick her feet, to squeeze our hands, to cry, to listen to books, to be part of this world and connect with us.

We have endured that other kind of stress. It escalated inexorably for years. Then months. Then weeks. Then hours. Final moments.

That accumulated stress seeped deep into muscles, bones, minds and spirits. It took years to work its way to the surface, and be released again. We’re still letting go of it, I’m sure.

So I acknowledge that these stressful circumstances may be different in every family, caused by different issues, but that many of us live with them. Unemployment. Mental health issues. Diagnoses of chronic or terminal conditions. Economic instability. Uncertainty about shelter or food: basic necessities. Lack of access to other resources. Addiction. Violence. Crime. Death or endings of many kinds. Loss. Isolation from community. Caregiving for a loved one with an extreme condition.

Perhaps that’s one of the reasons I’m seeking this vocation: pastoral care. Stress is a universal experience. With many causes. We all share it at some time or another, in one form or another.

And I believe — I hope — we all have chances to experience a different kind of stress. The “good kind.”

Although my calendar is busy —  my phone vibrates often, my computer pings with reminders and alerts and alarms to keep my use of time focused, my backpack is quite hefty with gear and books, and I’m always moving —  I don’t mind. There are other sorts of alarms and appointments, meetings and conferences, phone calls and consultations, that lead to different outcomes.

Right now, this stress leads to transformation. So I celebrate it.

Sep5

Puddles: To Leap or Not to Leap

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Sometimes on dark days, when lightning and thunder crash overhead, when rain drenches, we need a reminder that there’s an arching sky above that heavy roll of clouds. And above this mass of grey storm, the heavens are blue blending into purple fading into black.

It’s there, waiting its turn: the light and the blue sky. There’s always a sun burning on one side of the globe or another, and our planet wheeling around it. And beyond our nearest star sprawls an infinity of stellar bodies, sending back light that is already thousands of years old, piercing the veil of darkness on clear nights.

It feels heavy, this weather. Punishing, almost. Torrential. We travel in layers and under cover. We dive for shelter, we crave something warm in our hands.

And yet, our earth needs this renewal. We know this, too. It’s essential.

And of course, stormy days are not unexpected. They’re natural. Hopefully we’re prepared for the turn in weather, not surprised by it … we have waterprfoof gear.  Umbrellas. Boots. Slickers.

I remember being the one who loved to jump into puddles. First one in. Not just as a kid. As a grownup, too.

As a freshman in college, I’d take off my shoes and run barefoot through puddles. I was a young woman on an undergraduate college campus. Didn’t care about social conventions. Walked to class surrounded by friends who were equally inebriated with the sheer joy of life, independence and possibilities. Once one of us tried it — jumping in puddles – we all did it. Laughing under umbrellas, soaking wet, snared between childhood and adulthood.

Mostly now, I admit it, I’m glad to stay warm and dry. Happy to be on the inside, looking out at the rain and lightning.

And yet I wear high waterproof boots that are good for sloshing through deep currents. I’ve used them to wade into the ocean’s tide or the river when walking dogs with friends. They’re excellent for puddle-jumping, too.

Sometimes it’s worth being ready to step into the water. To go through the puddle instead of around it. To make a splash. After all, every day is its own blessing … it’s wise to savor each.

So we can choose to look up. To gaze up beyond the low-slung horizon of  clouds toward the assurance of bright starlit heavens. Or peer down at the ground and the promise of a nearby puddle.

Either way, take this gift of time for what it is. I wish all of us the courage and wisdom to find joy on days like this one. Whether it’s the contentment of being dry with a steaming cup in your palms and the percussive rhythm of rain pounding the roof and the window … the spiritual certainty that our earth is being quenched … the assurance  that the sun is there beyond those clouds, waiting to return … or the elemental joy of stepping outside into the storm and wading through the puddles.

Aug30

Go In to Go Out

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Yes, we all know by now, the seasons are changing, and many of us find ourselves in transition. In the middle of all this change, chaos and bustle, self-care becomes more important than ever.

After all, most of us are responsible to and concerned for other people in our lives. We serve as partners, friends, colleagues, caregivers, guardians or advocates of some kind. We are engaged in relationships with people who need or expect some connection with us.

Yet if I don’t make it a priority to pay attention to my own wellbeing, who will do it for me? Admittedly, I don’t claim to know what that means for everyone else. Probably you know what’s good for you, and what’s not. You know what you want to do, what you should do, and what you’ll do anyway …

I have a well-intentioned debate with myself almost every day. It takes on countless variations. Sleep in or wake up for yoga? Drink caffeine or water? Take the stairs or use the elevator?  Walk or drive?

So this is just another reminder to me … and anyone else who needs it … to make time for what helps maintain equilibrium.

  • Sleep. (It’s the greatest gift we can give our bodies and minds, which are designed to rely on this daily renewal in order to operate at best capacity.)
  • Movement and exercise. (Our bodies work better when we use them. People in recover from joint replacements, for instance, are often supported and encourage to move as soon as possible, especially to reclaim as much function as possible.)
  • Nutrition. (Eat well. Hydrate. Choose healthy meals. Refuel.)
  • Spiritual practice. (Prayer, meditation, reflection, journaling, music, etc.)
  • Pastime or avocation. (Something you love to do, that engages a different part of the brain or different muscles, changes your rhythm and focus, and helps you switch gears. Maybe it’s yoga or running or reading  or crossword puzzles or cooking.)

Today, in a “being well” session during a week-long orientation at Harvard University, we were encouraged to continue our spiritual and physical self-care practices, regardless of how hectic life gets. After all, when we’re the most pressed for time and energy, when we’re pulled in too many directions, when we’re overwhelmed … that’s exactly when we need balance the most.

The reminder was posed as, “We go in, so we can go out.” This was the wisdom offered by Kerry Maloney from the Office of Religious and Spiritual Life at Harvard Divinity School. Her challenge suggested that we take care of ourselves (“go in”) so that we can serve others (“go out”).

By this, she meant that we turn inward … that we engage in self-care at the level of mind, body and spirit … so that all those integrated aspects of ourselves are whole and in good health. By maintaining internal equilibrium, we have resources and energy available to share with our loved ones and our larger community.

It’s a timely reminder, as we hasten toward the next page in the calendar, and enter an autumn humming with appointments, commitments, obligations and activities.

 

 

Aug29

Note to Self

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Today at one of the orientation sessions for graduate school, incoming first-year students (that’s me) were asked to write notes to our “future” second-semester selves. We jotted down reflections about our hopes and expectations. Also, our worries and challenges.

Then we sealed them in envelopes. No one will read them … except each student opening and re-reading his or her own note. Next year.

Yes, these notes will be mailed out to us next March. They will serve as a check-in about where we find ourselves toward the end of our first academic year.

We’ll read our notes to ourselves, and gain some perspective.

  • Have we each accomplished or experienced what we hoped?
  • Have we resolved the issues that concerned us?
  • Have we found balance?
  • How are we doing?
  • What’s going on during the spring semester?

It’s a good idea to check in with yourself from time to time. Reflect. Recap.  Take a step back, and remember there’s a “big idea” to many of the decisions we each make in life. Ideally, we’re not just reacting … not just getting by. Optimally we have made some focused, goal-driven, value-laden choices that provide meaning and context to our  home, relationships, career, education, community, health, and other commitments.

Many of us are in some form of transition. Moving. Changing relationship status. Working toward sobriety. Seeking treatment for better health. Entering or hunting for a new job. Taking up new pastimes. Giving time to special causes. Going to school.

Whatever the reason for change … and whatever the nature of such a transition, it’s easy to worry about details, and forget about the new chances that await us. (This presumes that we can view the cause or result of transformation as an opportunity, which may not always be the case.)

In times of flux, we may lose perspective. In my case, I’m sometimes overwhelmed by a litany of anxiety about juggling loan payments, train tickets, textbook purchases, work projects, class schedules, commuting times, registration info, family time, community service commitments, and many other logistics.

Instead, today I literally wrote a note to myself. Months from now, I’ll open up that envelope and read it as a reminder about why I’m back in school. My reasons include personal growth, vocational development, and the integration of professional and spiritual experiences.

You have your own reasons for whatever changes you’re making.

We can each care for ourselves, metaphorically, by checking in from time to time. Maybe you, too, will write yourself a note and open it sometime in the future, like a time capsule. Or you could flip open your calendar and make an appointment with  your “future” yourself … to pause and take stock. Or make it a diary entry. Or a prayer.

However you do it … take the time to reflect. To appreciate. To observe.

And hopefully, if circumstances permit, to celebrate.

Aug24

Last Summer Wishes

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Are you ever ready? Yes, yes, some of us are muttering, “Is it time for school to start yet? Will summer ever end? I’m ready …”

But are we ready? Do we wish to give up what we have right now? Do we desire to reach for something else?

Each season seems so brief, when we look back at it.

Moon over Castle Hill during Entrain concert (image by Miriam Novogrodsky)

At the beginning of this flip of the calendar, we felt wealthy. For instance, just weeks ago, I lived inside a largesse of time and possibility. Our summer schedule seemed well-stocked with a balance of plans and freedom: days and evenings, nights and mornings, to dawdle away or jam with activities … to spend as we chose.

We blinked, and now suddenly it is almost gone. It feels as if we’ve used up our wealth of time. Or worse, let it slip away, unappreciated.

Now there’s just one week until Labor Day weekend. Counting down. Ticking away summer in our last adventures!

Our exchange student (aka, Italian host-daughter) Chicca and our own eldest child Sarah are savoring their final days in the United States, and then they travel to Italy early next week. Their last few days are filled with:

  • Evening concert at Castle Hill
  • Camping at Pawtuckaway in New Hampshire
  • Swimming
  • Friends
  • Bonfires
  • Sight-seeing in Boston
  • Whatever else fits into one last long weekend …

Many high school and college students are already deep into training for the fall sports season. School begins next week for many local public schools. College students are moving into dorms (or flying away, similar to Sarah, to their destinations around the world for global exchange).

Folks with different seasonal vocations or roles will soon (if they haven’t already) be starting new schedules and projects. Me? I expect to be indoors for the much of the remaining month. (Who planned this?!) Next week, for instance,  I’ll spend four days at orientation for grad school.

So what will be on my personal wish list for the remainder of the summer?

  • Enjoy being in Boston and Cambridge next week. (Maybe get outside and spend time in Harvard Square.) Walk along the Charles River.
  • Kayak on the Ipswich river.
  • Walk on the beach.
  • Picnic.
  • Bonfire.
  • One last late summer dinner with friends.
  • Jump off a bridge (into the river)?
  • Harvest part of the share from Appleton fields.
  • Date night with Chris.

We have one week remaining. Okay, a little longer. So pay attention. Don’t let it slip past you, unacknowledged. Grab hold of some of it. Enjoy it. Make it count.

Then perhaps we’re ready for summer’s hot sweaty rhythms to wind down. We’re able to welcome autumn’s vivid colors and crisp days into our lives.

And the goodness of what we have experienced over the past few months … and surely there are some bright, wondrous, simple interludes to be savored and remembered … will continue to provide healing and balance, long after the days grow shorter and the nights grow longer.

Aug22

Listen for the Music

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This past weekend I finished 25 hours of training in order to teach or facilitate OWL (Our Whole Lives) curriculum for either middle school or high school students. It’s an intense, honest and complex program to present information with the core values of self worth, sexual health, responsibility, justice & inclusivity. It was created as an non-religious approach to this subject by UUA / Unitarian and UCC / Congregational denominations so that it can be used in secular settings; companion books available from UUA or UCC denominations discuss the role of faith in this context.

I attended the training for several reasons. It’s a balanced curriculum that has been taught by many organizations, including my church, and is used nationally by thousands of churches, health programs, schools and military facilities. I wish it had been available to my own children in our town; we had to provide this information through other resources. (Our children need factual and comprehensive information on this topic, but that’s a different conversation, and may be uncomfortable for many families from different faith backgrounds or traditions, yet I cannot apologize for my beliefs, many based on personal experience, around this topic.) At some point I’ll probably be a facilitator for this program in my own faith community. Additionally, the information seems invaluable in the context of graduate classes about hands-on care for different constituents such as teens or trauma victims.

Yet one of the best messages I brought home from the training wasn’t about the content of the curriculum itself. It was about working in teams, respecting different backgrounds and viewpoints, and finding ways to honor each other’s talents, strengths and approaches to facilitation. Especially within this message and value-laden context, we worked to accept variations in “body part” terminology, for instance, in order to appreciate the intention of what we were discussing together.

At the beginning of this long weekend of training, we all wrote up a covenant about how we’d work together. And one of the debates we held was about the use of language … could people use “street words” or “common discourse” for body parts in a class that deals with human sexuality, or should we stick to medical terms? For example, should we avoid “boobs” and only use “breasts?” (There were more colorful examples, but my point here isn’t about shock-value, it’s about getting past shock-value.)  We wondered aloud.

Some people find the more casual or common terms to be vulgar or offensive in origin. Others habitually use them, and it’s hard to talk about those topics or body parts without slipping into vernacular language.

Of course, part of what we discussed was the necessity to be aware of our language. The words we use convey values and messages. On the other hand, we wanted people to speak freely.

In the end, though, we decided that if the words were used to refer respectfully to a body part, and weren’t used in a name-calling connotation, that people should use the words they most comfortably choose. Within this context, for the purposes of our classroom discussions, “boobs” are as okay as “breasts.”

(Note: Please understand that there is a whole educational unit about language, the categories it falls into, and when and where to use it, what’s negative, what’s neutral, what’s positive. We do want facilitators and students to consider their language for its own role conveying cultural and personal messages.)

The final agreement, when we discussed this use of language, was to “listen for the music” of the experience. This idea comes from curriculum around peace-making for younger children. (I want to give full attribution but don’t know the author of this curriculum … it’s used in some UUA / Unitarian and UCC / Congregational churches.)

The metaphor is that many notes, chords, stanzas and instruments comprise music. We don’t all have experience with specific types of music: classical, for instance. Or we’re not experts in it. If we attend such a concert, we don’t always remember all the intricacies within a song, just the sense of the music. We can’t analyze every run of chords, every interplay of wind and string, every nuance and bridge. We have to let it all stir together and form an overall impression. We have to “listen for the music” and what it means to us, what it says to us.

When we remember a classical song later, if we’re lacking an expert’s lexicon to discuss it, we recall the music’s overall impression. We discuss or consider the emotion that comes with the experience. We’re appreciating its intentions.

This also applies to conversations fraught with language and discussions about human sexuality, relationships, etc. We wanted the same level of listening within our classroom conversations.

We sought a similar tolerance and appreciation. We might not remember every word. Or be able to agree with every statement.

We wanted to get past the use of the specific terminology to the larger conversation we’re all trying to hold together, and the information we’re sharing.  We got there, but only after much discussion and agreement to use the standard of “listen for the music.” We spent a whole weekend, preparing presentations on many different units of information, organized and presented by lay teachers from all over the country, with many different professional and personal backgrounds. We all learned from each other. And it stopped being about colloquial uses of specific words, and became all about how to present and share this information so that everyone could safely talk about it and explore it and learn from it. We “listened for the music.” And we heard it.