Tag Archives: Prayer

Dec19

Lamps and Light from Three Traditions

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Don’t you feel, just a little, pricked and prodded with hope by the tiny lights that flicker around us at this time of year? So many people put lights in windows, wrap them around stairs, weave them through evergreens, hang them outdoors to sway in the wind … making the darkness a little brighter.

And it’s not so much that darkness is unwelcome … there is a slumbrous, restful quality to deep velvety darkness … we can close our eyes and sink into it. Rest. Find peace. Yet we can be warmed, held, and uplifted by each small light that is kindled within it, too.

So I wanted to share sacred texts from three traditions about lamps and light. This idea crosses many cultures and faiths. It is a reminder that we are all deeply connected.

In the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament, we find this passage: Psalm 18.28 —
“It is you who light my lamp;  the Lord, my God, lights up my darkness.”

And also, Psalm 119:105 —
“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”

In the New Testament, we find this verse: Matthew 5:14-16 —
“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hidden. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.”

In the Qur’an, we find the following passage: Qur’an 24:35, Ayat an-Nur, The Light Verse —
“Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth. The Parable of His Light
is as if there were a Niche and within it a Lamp:
the Lamp enclosed in Glass: the glass as it were a brilliant star:
Lit from a blessed Tree, an Olive, neither of the east nor of the west,
whose oil is well-nigh luminous, though fire scarce touched it:
Light upon Light! Allah doth guide whom He will to His Light:
Allah doth set forth Parables for men: and Allah doth know all things.”

Oct29

Hurricanes, For Real

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Yesterday, after our faith community shared the names and worries and celebrations in their lives, about which we prayed as a congregation, I then closed by delivering a spontaneous closing prayer. Inspired by the impending hurricane, of course.  This was offered at at the church where I conduct my field education in Beverly. It went something like, “God, high winds are coming. We have lifted up to you our hopes and our concerns. And we know that you are the Creator who can calm the waters and create a quiet place in our lives and our hearts, a sanctuary amid the storms. Now we ask you to hold our concerns, the ones we speak aloud and the ones that we share through silence, hold them in your light.”

Today as leaves are torn from their twigs and then branches fly loose, and only tree roots cling tightly, as salty white-capped tides rush up over the causeways, making islands of green-tossed hillocks at the edge of sea and shore, as the world is shaken and blown, I’m inside writing  papers, working on an exam, finishing  deadlines, and hoping we don’t lose power, so I can fit it all in. As if I can outrace, outpace all the storms in my life. Can any of us do so?

Although classes are cancelled and businesses are closed, once the world reopens tomorrow, if enough of it remains in functioning order, we’ll be back on schedule. I won’t be permitted to turn my assignments in late, or say I didn’t have time to read my books. At least that’s how I interpret things … but I did take a break to make tea while there’s still hot water, and put a soup simmering on the stovetop. We have our candles and batteries gathered. Extra water set aside. We’re safe inside. Ready as we can be, I suppose.

So I want to pause a moment, and pay attention to Hurricane Sandy. She’s hitting the Eastern coast of the United States. We have friends and family directly in her path as she comes ashore. And likely our part of the country will experience some of her might and fury. Other parts of the country have felt the edges of her storm, which have created blizzards and snow storms, for instance. Her reach is extensive.

Always, I find comfort in language. This simple stanza by William Carlos Williams certainly speaks to our world’s weary resignation when pummeled one more time.

HURRICANE
by William Carlos Williams

The tree lay down
on the garage roof
and stretched, You
have your heaven,
it said, go to it.

Another blogger named Austen Allen collected some hurricane poetry last year. When I was researching storm poetry, his posting popped up, and I defer to that entry for a nice overview of lyrics about storms. You can find more at poetry.org.

Also, if you want to think more deeply about the words that surround our human responses to loss and disaster, consider visiting Nicole Cooley’s entry at poetry.org about the Poetry of Disaster. She argues that far from being voiceless and speechless at times of crisis, we fill the void of loss with language. We shape it. We reflect on it. We try to make meaning, to fit it into verse, so that is knowable. So we can  scale it down to a proportion we can actually understand: a size that fits in your mouth, or can be swallowed by your eyes, that can spoken and read and shared.

Sometimes the storms that lash out at us, that suddenly topple our lives, uproot our realities, or pick us up and carry us off in new directions, aren’t literal weather patterns. Maybe they’re emotional or mental assaults. Maybe their financial crises. Lost jobs or traumatized relationships. Sudden catastrophic changes. Violence or illness. Events we can’t imagine, over which we have no control, that leave us standing in a torn, flooded and sundered landscape. Where nothing is familiar anymore. All is changed and damaged. Yet we are left to navigate, to rebuild, to name and claim it all over again.

Meanwhile, consider this poet’s viewpoint about what is familiar and beautiful to you, and how it can suddenly become your undoing.

Problems with Hurricanes
by Victor Hernández Cruz

A campesino looked at the air
And told me:
With hurricanes it’s not the wind
or the noise or the water.
I’ll tell you he said:
it’s the mangoes, avocados
Green plantains and bananas
flying into town like projectiles.

How would your family
feel if they had to tell
The generations that you
got killed by a flying
Banana.

Death by drowning has honor
If the wind picked you up
and slammed you
Against a mountain boulder
This would not carry shame
But
to suffer a mango smashing
Your skull
or a plantain hitting your
Temple at 70 miles per hour
is the ultimate disgrace.

The campesino takes off his hat—
As a sign of respect
toward the fury of the wind
And says:
Don’t worry about the noise
Don’t worry about the water
Don’t worry about the wind—
If you are going out
beware of mangoes
And all such beautiful
sweet things.

Oct27

Boots, Birds and Good-Byes

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On a difficult pair of days, I wore a pair of high heeled boots, hid behind a costume, became vulnerable, wept, prayed, painted my nails, felt incredibly lonely, connected with special people, remembered those who are gone, and was visited by a winged messenger.

There has been a long silence from my end. Again. It’s been a few weeks of logistics such as deadlines, papers due, mid-term exams, and also … yes, pushing through difficult milestones such as the birthday of a departed friend and the anniversary of the fifth year since Jessie died.

Once upon a time, I wrote every day of Jessie’s treatment, and continued every day after she went on ahead of us, recounting the journey of the living. Now it takes me a week to reflect, in writing, about such moments.

Two days come close together last week. Both are difficult. One is the birthday of my friend Rebecca, who died of breast cancer a few years ago, after a long and gracious life, making a difference in the world of so many people, but especially her family, and most of all her two beloved children Ben and Anna.

Her headstone is only a few yards from Jessie’s, beneath a row of maples, at the top of the hill in the cemetery. Rebecca knew their spots would be close together. We visited those cemetery locations together. Stood while Rebecca was alive under the long shadows of old maples on young green grass, listened to songbirds, felt the stir of the wind, heard  its murmur through the leaves. Made memories up there. Had conversations we often couldn’t share with anyone else, about worries and wishes, realities and dreams, sorrows and hopes. Rebecca lived with a persistent form of breast cancer, and navigated a fine balance of hope in the possibility of a cure or new treatment, the wish for longevity and survival, edged with awareness of a threatening and mortal condition. Rebecca talked about a visit she had made to the cemetery with her family; wanting them to have a living experience with her there, as well as a place to visit in later days. We talked about where she and Jessie would both be (Jessie had already died, but we hadn’t interred her ashes yet), and how they’d be close to each other in the spaces between the maples, and imagined how maybe they’d find each other in the place beyond this one. We believed that Rebecca and Jessie would continue to visit those of us that they left behind, back here on earth.

The very next day marked the morning, five years ago, when my daughter Jessie died. Every year our family approaches this milestone differently. It is a markedly individual and separate experience for each of us as sister, father or mother. And of course, it is a day marked by our extended family, friends or her community, too.

This year, on the eve of the anniversary of Jessie’s death, I found myself locked in memory loops and traumatic flashbacks of the last 24 hours of her life. Vivid images or sensory memories came back. They blur together like this: her lung x-ray looking worse that last full day in ICU, followed by visits of specialists to her bedside, and a phone call conference from a small meeting room to consult with Chris and several medical team leaders to decide a recommended course of action, an evening visit from one transplant care team nurses who believed she’d make it, Jessie waking up that night and braking through sedation to kick and reach for me as I told her we loved her and named each member of her family, holding tight to her hand, 2am worries and conversations with a night-shift nurse as we changed her bed padding and checked IV lines and monitors and breathing tube, later kissing her as they took her off the floor — still medicated to a level of unconsciousness while on a portable ventilator — to undergo a lung biopsy, pounding on doors to get through to the room where a doctor waited to tell me she was dying, sitting in a numb disconnected state while a white-coated medical fellow knelt before me to deliver the unthinkable narration of events that transformed a scan room into an emergency operating suite, knowing our friend and minister Rebecca was beside me every step of that morning, and that Rebecca made the calls I couldn’t make, knowing that Jessie died while Chris and Sarah were en route to the hospital, walking with Chris and Sarah together as if through a gauntlet one final time down the hallway to her room in ICU, where it wasn’t Jessie waiting anymore, just her lovingly arranged body under a quilt, so we could say good-bye.

This year, those scenes – running on endless replay in my mind — recurred over and over. Sometimes scene-by-scene as they really took place. Sometimes as if I rewrote history and changed fate.

If only we had the power to change the script, stop the camera, halt the action, decide to make a different ending, give all the actors new lines, new roles … if only it was make-believe, fiction, theater … not real. But it isn’t. It happened. And there are no sequels or second versions of this particular story.

Of course, I have other beliefs about what comes next. About a spiritual life beyond this one … but admittedly, there is a difference between that spiritual and emotional comfort and the very physical and mortal reality of a child you can read to, speak with, hold close, argue with, sigh about, worry over or dance with.

During the anniversay of Jessie’s death, I always set aside productivity. I don’t do school work or client projects. I cancel any appointments, skip most commitments.

Instead, I give myself permission to be in the moment and experience whatever comes. To make space and go through this, because it will catch up to me one way or another.

It isn’t a day when someone needs to fix what’s wrong. It is simply … an unspeakably sad and moving day. A time when we are permitted to weep or pray or be pissed off or act off-the-charts giddy or stay silent. A time when we experience the feelings that are natural to such milestones; and almost every possibly emotion is likely to surface, visit and be expressed along the way.

On such an anniversary, I don’t have many expectations about what will or should happen. I may lose myself for part of the day. Or find Jessie all over again. Connect with Chris or Sarah, if possible, on this day. Retreat. Or be in the company of friends. Mourn. Remember. Acknowledge. And yes, celebrate.

We often try to experience some of Jessie’s best-loved activities on this day. For instance, my friend Martha got me started on the self-care and healing of pedicures and manicures. You may scoff at this self-indulgent choice, but it is a place of respite where no one expects anything of you, someone takes care of you for a little while, you float and let go, and you even feel a little better (or prettier, or something) on the other side of it. I did it again this year.

And this year Chris and I attended the Rotary Masquerade fundraising ball that evening. It happens every year; it just fell on the same night as Jessie’s anniversary. And what better way to celebrate her vibrant spirit? She loved dressing up, going out to dance, to be with friends.

I dared to wear a pair of black high-heeled boots and a short skirt and a wig. I was someone else: pretending, letting go, running away, wishing, and forgetting. And I was myself: grieved, sad, lonely, determined, giddy, connected, remembering, and living ‘in the moment’.

Underneath the black lipstick, fake eyelashes and sequined outfit, I was a mother thinking about both of my daughters: my beautiful intelligent grownup daughter putting away her textbooks and going out with friends to the night-life of cafes in Thessaloniki during her first semester abroad in college in Greece and my younger child whose ashes rest beneath a headstone graven with her name, marked that day by a blossom and a crimson leaf. Under the red-and-black wig, beneath the black spider rings, I was a friend who asked the opinion of girlfriends about makeup and party outfit, wanting someone to cheer and encourage me for risks to self-image when I wore an edgy costume. In the black boots and red silk top, I felt like a vamped-up sexy wife on a date with my husband, spending time together on a day that holds deep and surreal connotations for both of us, in a year that has been full of exhausting transitions, some wonderful, some challenging. Dancing among peers in masks and feather boas, capes and fedoras, applauding the band and jumping to the rockin’ music, I was one member of a club and a community that showed up to raised funds for local causes.

We aren’t binary: black-and-white, one-or-the-other, either-or. We, as humans, are so much more complex and layered and intricate and impossible to unknot or explain. We are just … who we are. And different, every moment, every day.

The next morning, I woke to the rush of wings as a bird fell or was knocked down my chimney. It emerged, eventually, from the hearth in our bedroom to circle and perch in our room. A common bird, familiar and full grown. Dark-tipped, pale-chested, bright-eyed. We caught it in a net and released it safely out the front door.

What do I believe about the sudden fall and flight or that common backyard bird that often visits the feeder outside our kitchen window? For me, its sudden arrival represented the visitation of a winged messenger, a spirit guide. A reminder that she’s here in many ways, and somewhere else, too. (You’re welcome to your own thoughts about it … whether you believe its coincidence or meaningful.)

The eve of Jessie’s anniversary, I relived nightmares. The day of her anniversary, I ‘got by’ in fancy nail polish and high-heeled boots she would have liked a lot. The morning after her anniversary, I participated in a startling and sacred moment.

And I am reminded, and I remind you, that we are connected. Body, mind and spirit. This world and the next world. All of us, always on a journey, perhaps in different places along the way, but not so far apart as we sometimes feel or imagine. Nearer than we suppose.

Sep24

Home

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Yesterday I started field education. That’s an internship, so to speak, working at another church. I’ll gain valuable parish experience and perform new and familiar roles in a congregation that isn’t my home church.

The difficult part of this transition is that Chris and I spend every Sunday morning together, and we have so few chances to spend time in each other’s company, that I miss those mornings … even though we’ve only spent one Sunday apart. In addition, First Church in Ipswich is the longest I’ve ever been rooted in one faith community. We’ve belonged there for 18 years. To spend a schoolyear away from my own congregation, working elsewhere, feels as if the ground is shifting under my feet.

Along with all of the other transitions, it feels as if parts of me are being torn away.

Yes, I know intellectually, that this stretching and moving away from what’s familiar and easy, is all necessary. To work and grow in this new vocation, I must step outside my comfort zone, which in this case is my own community.

It’s what I want. That’s what I tell myself, though I miss what I must give up to be there. Even after one morning away.

So yesterday I spent my first morning in a new congregation. Spent time with both pastors, who have already welcomed me onto their staff. Met some of the congregation’s compassionate and committed lay leaders and community members. Witnessed the youth of this church presenting their summer mission trip to Maryland.

It was all quite nice. Safe. Just not my own faith community.

Finally, at the end of yesterday’s worship service, a friend of mine appeared. I hadn’t expected to see her there. She belongs to this new church where I’m working (I didn’t realize it). One of the ministers is her daughter (I didn’t know that either).

This friend of mine used to be on staff at Winthrop Elementary years ago, where both Sarah and Jessie attended school. She was especially instrumental in Jessie’s successful interludes at school. We all shared an intense journey together each time Jessie made the re-entry to Winthrop classrooms and culture. Her office was often a retreat, when Jessie needed a safe sanctuary to collect herself. They developed a special friendship independent of my connection to this woman. She represents, even now, some of the most wonderful and tempestuous experiences in our long journey with childhood cancer.

So when she appeared unexpectedly in front of me, at the new church, we leaned across the pew and hugged each other. I think I yelped with happiness.

Then I burst into tears. Held onto her much longer than the embrace of friends exchanging greetings. Hung on as if she was holding me up.

I think a knot of emotions all rose to the surface. Every loss and transition I’ve experienced in the last few weeks and months. And maybe ever years.

So much has changed. So much has fallen away. Jessie is gone. Sarah is off at school. I’m starting college again. Chris and I are struggling to find times to maintain connection. And I’m spending a lot of time away from my entire community, including the church which sustained us through everything.

My friend received that grief with a hug. And then I was laughing, overjoyed that I know someone in this new place, this new congregation with whom I’ll sojourn for the next two semesters. Growing. Reaching outside myself for something more. Connecting with something greater. Trying to remain rooted in what continues to be important to me: family and community.

When my friend greeted me in that new house of worship, suddenly I felt as if this new church could also become home.

Can you be at home in two places? Or even more places? Of course you can.

I have many homes. My house on North Main street in Ipswich is intimately familiar, though rather empty now. Ipswich is where I feel connected. First Church’s congregation has been our extended family for years. Already the Harvard graduate school campus feels comfortable.

And now this new church? When I first sat through the worship service, it felt just a little off-kilter and strange. As if I was trying to transpose my former surroundings — the place and feelings of worship among old friends — onto a new and different congregation. Perhaps I was. I * want * to feel comfortable and connected there. But as we all know, as I must remind myself, that comes with time and experience.

Then my friend reached over the pew, and held onto me while I acknowledged everything I’d lost. And everything I’m trying to reclaim. Suddenly, it began to feel more like a new home. Another circle of belonging.

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.

Sep19

New Things, New Year: Encountering Other Faiths

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On one of the first days of Rosh Hashanah, which is THE (or one of many, depends on whom you ask) Jewish New Year, I tried something new. Part of this graduate school time is to work and study and play among people of many faiths. Develop chances to visit, to dip my toe, into other experiences.

Along the way, perhaps to better understand and embrace different traditions as something akin to my own cultural identity … connected, related … though not the same. I’m learning to make that distinction.

Yes, we can share many facets of history, belief and experience in common. Yet we don’t have to be one homogenized, same-everything confluence of cultures. The days of the immigrant melting pot, when we shed our pasts, changed our names, and tried to be like everyone else (usually in a white American-European-Protestant-Christian context) are over. In the past several decades, it has become increasingly safer for people to claim their roots, their ethnicity, their language, their religion, their race, their gender identity, their individuality. That should be okay.

Does this sound idealistic? Yes. Possible? Yes. Easy to do? No? A work in progress? Always.

We should be able to live side by side, yet be different from each other. Coexist in a pluralized society that respects and wrestles together with constructing a civilization that accommodates and welcomes diversity in many forms.

As part of this journey, I want to de-mythologize other faiths. Remove the stereotypes, biases and assumptions that I have internalized, or at least carried with me as an unconscious filter.

One of the forms of education I am receiving is to recognize other religions, practices and beliefs as different, but not as something that occurs “outside” a spectrum of societal patterns. Not “apart” from what we define as culture and civilization. Not “other” or “alien.” Not wrong, bad or in any way unacceptable.

One way that I’m grappling with this goal is to take classes. To study other religions through their history, art, development in different nations and languages, their connection to governments and politics, and through a glimpse into their sacred revelation. To understand each religion in its role as part of our broader American (Western) tradition, as well as its presence in other parts of the world. To this end, I’m taking two classes on Islam. It makes me look differently, already, at world events and the media coverage of them, political rhetoric, and our responses to them.

On the other hand, it’s best to get to know diversity up close. To form relationships with people who identify themselves in association with a variety of race, ethnicity, nationality, religious tradition, gender association, cultural affiliation and other characteristics. To make friends. To get to know each other, and put a face on “differences.” To study and learn together. Ask each other questions. Share each others’ traditions. I can do so with my classmates. We all learn and share with each other, and it’s safe to ask questions and explore diversity in this setting.

Back to the “new thing” I experienced.

Yesterday I attended a Rosh Hashanah New Year’s service. It was an improvisational service led by one of the students, Jeremy. It included many readings and songs in Hebrew. Jeremy’s voice rose, rich and redolent, to the rafters. His face shone with happiness to share this time with us.

We participated in some responsive readings in English. We recited a statement of faith (This rarely happens in the  annual Jewish tradition, since this is a religion of practice versus creed, unlike Christianity, but much like Islam. In fact, it may only happen in this service each year.) We remembered the departed. We considered and let go of our trespasses from the past year, since this is a time of letting go and starting anew.

Side note: My friend Miriam, however, celebrated somewhat differently. Among other rituals she and her children participated in Tashlick, which is the act of releasing crumbs or pieces of bread in a moving body of water. Naming regrets or transgressions, and letting them go. Setting new intentions for what you can do right, better and with more integrity in the coming year.

At the end of the worship service Jeremy sounded the shofar. This is a ram’s horn. It makes a blatting cry. It resounded through the chapel. We all listened to its echoes fade.

I cannot say I understood or connected with all aspects of the service. The parts in English resonated with me. They’re akin to my own statements of faith, and align with my beliefs. I felt bound in community.

Here’s the frustrating part. Admittedly, I was restless, listening to long passages in a language I don’t understand, regardless of how beautiful they were.  I felt, right then, like a little kid attending a classical orchestral concert, with no education or appreciation for what I’m listening to, and a tendency for my mind to wander, even while I try to pay attention and let it all soak in. * sigh *

A fellow student Lauren explained that much of the language (Hebrew, so I didn’t understand some of it, though we were provided with translations) of the service is a metaphor from archery. The intention is to recognize where we have “missed the mark” and improve our “aim” through our actions and intentions, so we will be “on target” in the coming year.

Another student, a Muslim peer, also attended the Rosh Hashanah service.  Like me, she’s trying to learn. To expand her understanding on an experiential level. She asked permission to record Jeremy’s recitation. I haven’t asked her why she wanted to record it, although I suspect that the Hebrew chants echo with the art and practice of oral recitation of the Qur’an.

The echoes fell silent. The year has begun. It is a sweet time, these High Holidays, in the Jewish year. We dipped apples in honey. Left the room, a little lighter in spirit, and perhaps a little wiser … or more foolish and opened-up … than we’d arrived.

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.

Aug28

Obstacles as Blessings

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A wise person from my past once made the observation that we grow frustrated by obstacles. Yet if we look again, we might realize these are providential occurrences. Blessings.

For instance, we’re in a hurry to arrive at a destination. We’re driving. Ahead of us, someone is going slowly. Below the speed limit!

We grit our teeth, talk to ourselves, complain out loud, gesticulate and generally grow agitated. The woman making this observation, Rev. Sue Remick, challenged her listeners to reconsider whether the slow driver ahead was a problem or a gift. She suggested that this driver, going slowly and causing us to brake and travel at a more thoughtful pace, even causing us to arrive late, was placed in our paths to keep us safe.

Such situations – like a maddeningly slow driver, or losing your keys so you leave the house later than you’d like, or getting a call just as you’re about to walk out the door — could be read as cautionary signs. Blessings in our travels. Fateful moments that we could interpret as a chance to take a little time. Breathe. Pay attention. Stay safe. Slow down.

Some people call these moments “God winks.”

My kundalini yoga instructor has her class recite a specific chant three times at the beginning of many sessions. She also says the chant to herself three times before she turns on the ignition in her car. She believes that it is the difference between safety and danger …  this discipline that causes her to pause, focus, take a little extra care, and begin her journey with a breath of prayer to bless her way. She thinks those few seconds of repeating sacred words, invoking divine assistance, may have saved her life more than once.

I say this same prayer to slow a wheeling mind at night, or to calm me down when I’m angry or overwhelmed, and need to breathe slowly and deeply.

In any situation, you can be annoyed by the delay. Feel your blood pressure escalating.

Or you can breathe. Say a prayer. And try to be grateful for the frustratingly slow driver, or missing keys, or extra errand that sends you on a detour … and consider it a blessing. You may not know just what fate you have escaped today. Or what fate you have embraced.

Such an interpretation is entirely yours to make … but if the event is the same, regardless of how you respond to it, you might as well receive the benefit of it, yes?

After all, if you arrive safely at your destination, or even find yourself going someplace else altogether, you are one step further along your journey … wherever it may take you.

 

Aug9

Self Care: Checklist from the Past (Still Works)

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Self care in difficult places. How do you do it?

Back when we spent extended periods of time with Jessie at Childrens Hospital Boston, it was easy to let go. To make excuses and just overindulge. To say to myself, “You’re under tremendous stress, so don’t worry about what you do to make yourself feel better. Just take the elevator, because time is more important than exercise on the stairs. And the breakfast pastries? Those carbs don’t count right now.”

But those indulgences did count. The cravings, the bad food, the less-than-virtuous habits, the lack of movement … it all added up. And I carried (and still do) the results of that lack of self care even now. I’m still regaining balance.

Now let me clarify, that given the constant crisis in which we often lived, I coped darned well. I only slept a few hours each night, but I was alert and functioning at a very high level. Always “on” …  checking monitors and daily numbers, being Jessie’s companion, working out Jessie’s schedule for the day (coordinating visits with friends for her, organizing therapeutic appointments, negotiating time on/off the IV so she could be more mobile, making a plan with her nurses for any other particularly difficult procedures, scheduling her daily ACE flush, participating in rounds with the oncology and transplant teams … later ICU teams … and any specialists), consulting with a variety of staff members at crazy hours of the day and night, and keeping up with Chris and Sarah either during their visits, calls or remotely (I was still handling Sarah’s schedule and organizing the logistics of her daily life, from a hospital room in Boston, through a network of phone calls among friends). We did a lot from a small room in Boston. But only because we had so many people willing to help. Chris and I were a team. And our community was an extended web of compassionate hearts and hands, willing to make almost anything possible.

Taking care of yourself and each other? Could depend on your definition, I suppose. In a way, when your child is diagnosed with a mortal illness, your sense of power, control and competence is already being put to the test. You can’t make her safe anymore. The disease wasn’t cause by your lack of vigilance, and it won’t be fixed because you pay extra attention now. And yet … you have been dealt a severe blow to your own self-image as a parent and member of a family.

Realistically, although only one body is affected, this kind of trauma happens to everyone. It ripples out and touches, affects, changes all family members … and also friends, peers, community. In my family? I think we all feel like we had cancer, though only Jessie truly did. And if she were here, she’d stomp her foot, raise her voice, and be quite clear that it happened to her body, it was her experience, and not mine. Not dad’s. Not Sarah’s. But in many ways … yes, it happened to all of us. Hurt all of us.

Below are some of the ways we managed self-care even in stressful places and times. Many of them would translate well to virtually any experience in life. Admittedly, it’s easier to dole out wisdom than to act on it … I attempted all of these things, but I was better at some than others, as I’ve admitted earlier in this entry. If you find something helpful on this list, that’s great.

  • Walk. Use the stairs. Exercise. The hospital staff used to pass out pedometers, so that parents could measure how many steps they walked. We figured out that several rounds up and down the halls of the hospital, as a parade of patients and parents riding or driving wagons, tricycles, IV poles and plastic cars, totaled a mile or more. (Jane Roper, the mom whose daughter has just completed her first month of treatment for leukemia, made a humorous post about her exercise regimen. It was familiar, I assure you.) Or you could go down to the garden, as Jessie often wanted to do, and run laps. We had a timer and stop watch, because she liked to be clocked for speed. Usually I was timing her, not running, though. Using the stairs? It was an easy way to improve cardiac health. I started, in the last few months of Jessie’s stay, to challenge myself to do this every day. I admit that down was easier than up.
  • Eat healthy foods. Homemade food didn’t really exist at the hospital. There was plenty of cafeteria food, and it was fine, but not home-cooked and not always very appealing … the best, healthiest menu item available was the soup from Au Bon Pain restaurant. Otherwise, we always asked for homemade food in containers … Chris would bring a stack of filled Tupperware for us to put in the unit’s refrigerator, slices of all the casseroles and meals that our friends were delivering to the house each week. I tasted a lot of those meals. Now kids on treatment have steroid cravings, or can only eat restricted diets, and sometimes homemade foods won’t work. There were lots of times when we gave up, and let Jessie eat whatever she wanted, but we worked hard to offer healthy alternatives, and not to buy into the “every calorie is a good calorie” mantra we’d been taught early in her treatment. Like us, she had to have healthy eating habits that could translate in and out of the hospital, as much as possible.
  • Say yes. When people offer to help, let them. Be specific and express your needs. It empowers others when they can’t actually do anything about the disease, but you give permission for others to “do something” in other ways. It heals everyone. And lets you focus your limited resources and energies where they’re most needed. We went through this journey, as I mentioned above, in the company of hundreds … possibly thousands … of caring souls, starting with our own extended families and our town of Ipswich. Meals. Pet care. Household chores. Rides. Visits. Errands. Childcare. Yard work. There are always so many big and small ways that others can assist … it takes a village to raise a family living with cancer, you might say.
  • Find a mental escape. A little every day. Late at night, when Jessie finally went to sleep, was the only time my brain could have “down time,” and I craved that almost more than sleep. I needed to go on a mental vacation. So I’d put on earphones (one side only, so I could listen for Jessie and the monitors, though) and if I was too tired to read a book, I’d watch movies … all of the movies made from Jane Austen’s novels or the Bronte sisters’ works … and the entire JRR Tolkien Lord of the Rings series. Fantasy. Period pieces. Stories so removed from the room where we lived, with beeps and clicks and small flashing red lights and digital numbers counting down, that I was transported away, could escape and unwind a little bit.
  • Swap shifts. Take a break. Most families had some variation on this routine; parents would trade roles. One would spend time at home, the other in the hospital, with brief overlapping periods. Some would do a night-day rotation. In our family, I’d do the week shift, Chris would come in and handle the weekend, and I’d go home, spend some time with Sarah, and get the only real sleep of the week. Chris would take a fresh look at the situation in the hospital, and problem-solve whatever he could.
  • Sleep. When you can, every day. Naps are good. If Jessie slept, sometimes I did, too. I’d start off in Jessie’s bed, until she was deeply asleep, and then I’d move over to the “parent bed” and attempt to sleep more deeply.
  • Counseling. Work on what’s happening. We had a therapeutic relationship counselors. We spoke (or in Jessie’s case, played) with the counselor as often as possible. We also did a lot of role-playing with dolls and stuffed animals. Writing stories or creative art projects.
  • Social time. We made play dates or therapeutic sessions for Jessie. Adult friends came down to visit, too. (And the staff were often friends, so you could have plenty of bonding time with them, too. Many of the nurses and a few of the doctors remain good friends even now; they allowed themselves to be more than just medical caregivers. If you think about it, we basically lived with them for extended periods of time.)
  • Shower. It helped to scrub away one day’s stress, stand for two minutes under the pounding hot shower, and then feel slightly more alert and a little more pulled together.
  • Clean clothes. Chris did loads of laundry and brought them in, exchanging dirty for clean garb … it was possible to do laundry in the hospital, but it was another chore and expense that we handled at home instead. And when the new bag of clean clothes arrived, it smelled like our detergent, our house, our …. Our lives. I developed a “hospital uniform” that was layered for temperature changes (we would travel to different areas that were hot or cold), could stand up to messes (blood or puke, for example), remained comfortable (I was often contorted into weird positions, crawling into bed with Jessie, playing games in odd spaces, etc), felt clean and loose (I hate tight constricting clothes) and forgave my lack of grooming, but made me feel presentable when dealing with teams of professionals who can shower and change into cleaned, laundered and pressed outfits with heels or polished leather. I was lucky if I got to brush my teeth. Jessie had a whole different wardrobe. It was mostly pajamas and some street clothes, all marked by her style. Lots of cute slippers or flipflops. Head gear, scarrves and hats. When she had certain kinds of cardiac catheters, we sought halter-style dresses, pjs and tops, because of how we had to maneuver her arms in and out of clothing.
  • Personal grooming. Take a little quiet time. I liked to get away from the hospital room, behind a closed door inside a bathroom to myself for five minutes (on oncology, ICU or transplant, parents shared a few bathrooms, so you couldn’t monopolize it for long). Completed small daily rituals. Brushed my teeth. Shaved armpits. Applied deodorant. Washed my hair if there was time. Changed my socks and undies. Phew.
  • Cry. Mostly in the shower. You can weep in private in a shower. Your child or spouse won’t know. And you have to let it out sometime.
  • Journaling. Wrote a daily blog entry that I would email to Chris, along with photos if I’d taken any, and that he would post for us. It was a joint effort to maintain the journal every day during Jessie’s treatment. Tried to make some meaning of this experience, and also communicate with everyone who cared about what was happening. Other people did it through scrap-booking, or video journals, Youtube posts, or online journals such as caringbridge or carepages, or MySpace or Facebook, or yes, old-fashioned diaries. In all kinds of ways, the experience was recorded. In addition, we kept a running Daytimer schedule appointment book that was passed back and forth, so that when we handed it to each other, we’d recorded such items as what medications had been given, what doctors had visited, Jessie’s vitals, her temps, if she’d eaten or gone to the bathroom, what she’d had been doing (active, tired, playful, cranky), any memorable quotes, and those sorts of details.
  • Communicate. Visits in person. Notes and letters. Pictures. Skyping. Phone calls. Facebook. Staying connected.
  • Photography. An amazing tool for family and the patient, too. The lens can be turned toward the experience itself, or pointed outward, away from the body and self, to whatever else draws the eye. The birds in the garden. Other patients. The hospital environment. Details. Also, we put up the prints of loved ones and home where Jessie could see them and visitors could look at them. They can help with visualization. And remind caregivers that this is a real person, a well-rounded family, and they’re only meeting us in one part of our lives, but through photography they can learn more about their patient as a whole person, with other interests and even appearance (like a kid outside on a soccer field with hair, not just bald in pajamas hooked to an IV pole).
  • Take a walk. We’d negotiate ten minutes to walk outside in the garden. Or while a nurse or therapist kept Jessie company, because she didn’t usually ever want to be alone in her room, even surrounded by staff, I’d make a quick run for supplies (toiletries from pharmacy, snacks from grocery or new titles and games from the book store). Sometimes I’d stand outside the front entrance to Childrens, ignoring the traffic and the pedestrians, and just lift my face to the sky. You don’t know how important it is to feel any kind of weather on your face … rain, sun, wind, snow … until you’re stuck behind a layers of insulated glass in an environmentally-controlled, filtered-air, cycled-water, colored-lights-in-the-ceiling unit … where nothing is real.
  • Caffeine. I wanted to sip chai latte every day. Some people love Dunkin Donuts for its coffee. I drink tea, so I went to Starbucks, because there wasn’t a Zumi’s in Boston.
  • Creativity. Sing. Dance. Make a video. Express yourself.
  • Pets. Animals are an amazing form of unconditional love and affection, and a safe place to put feelings you don’t share with anyone else. They won’t give away your secrets.
  • Create family time. We’d organize visits for the whole family, so Sarah remained connected, as much as possible, to events in the hospital, and Jessie got family time. We’d eat a meal together downstairs (during the periods when Jessie was allowed off the floor or in our room), play video games or board games, take a nap, watch a movie, read a book … just hang out.
  • Scream. Jessie had to yell in her bed. We worked on ways to handle rage. We’d close the curtain. She had a “monster” pillowcase on which she’d drawn the “mad monster” and the “happy monster”. She’d flip sides, and pound on the pillow until some of the anger dissipated. Or she’d just yell invectives at the top of her lungs. And why not? What was happening wasn’t okay or fair or anything resembling the childhood that any child might hope for. You can call it a “Book of Job” moment if you want. Other cancer parents have told me stories about throwing rocks at the ocean … hurling missiles at the biggest, most impassive element in their worlds … because it was the closest they could come to screaming and hitting at their Creator (or fate, or providence, or karma, or whatever … depending on faiths).
  • Pray. Yes, always. Sometimes the negotiation variety. “If I do this, will you do that?” We’d make lists of what we hoped for, and ask everyone reading the blog to pray for specifics. Good blood counts. Stability. Remission. Healing of infections. And we were sent all kinds of prayers. Stones with words in them. Angels as pins and small objects. Buddhist prayer flags. Quilts. Native American prayer wheel. Tibetan prayer wheel. Cards and mementoes from sacred places known for their healing power. Meditations and mantras. Digital messages with scriptural texts. Visits with our minister Rebecca. Songs. Oh, and all the unspoken prayers that arrived in every bag and box delivered to the hospital … embodied as stuffed animals, books or homemade food.
  • Laugh. We learned early about the power of laughter to release tension and restore balance. Another family from Ipswich, whose daughter was treated for non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, told us right away about a website called squirreltales.com and a list of funny observations called “You Know You’re the Parent of a Kid with Cancer when …”  We posted the lists on our hospital room door, and other pediatric cancer families also read them and guffawed out loud. We all understood the bizarre humor. Meanwhile, Jessie was a big fan of playing jokes and pranks. She had a fart machine. She’d draw fake rashes with washable marker. She’d make squirt guns out of clean syringes and shoot water at her nurses. Oh, the fun.
  • Seek alternate therapies. The staff used to arrange chair massages for parents. Once a week, if you were lucky, a masseuse would come work out the knots of tension, anger and grief in your neck and shoulders. (It might be the kindest and most intimate touch you experienced in place filled with masks, gloves and gowns.) We also had access to reiki, which didn’t require touch, and was safer for patients to use, too. And then there’s simpler therapy, like doing manicures. Believe it or not, that used to be a very helpful pastime for parents and patients alike. Except you have to leave one fingernail unpainted, so they can hook up one of the monitors that clips to your finger and reads vitals through your nail (I think it was O2 saturation, but blessedly, it’s been long enough that I don’t really remember, and I’m not going to research it for this blog). And yoga.
  • Know you’re not alone. It was humbling to realize that we were surrounded by other families also on the same journey. When you look outside your own door, or even peek around the curtain in a shared hospital room, you learn that this story has many variations and many outcomes. And you have a whole lot of companions, people you’d never meet any other way, who share this common experience and can understand it from the inside out, and may even have more wisdom or tips for how to cope. And as mentioned earlier, you also have friends and family participating, as much as possible, in this journey. And staff, who also become like family along the way. You really have a whole lot of support and community available. (I hope others also find this true, anyway.)

Okay, here’s a confession. I also had “drinking” on this list. As in, adult beverages. Margaritas. A beer. Social chances to unwind. But then I decided that was never a self care habit; it was more along the lines of eating too many carbs and making excuses. Not when you’re run down and strung out. So I can’t recommend it as a responsible therapeutic step. Even if it’s soothing.

The truth is, we also cope by indulging. Becoming childlike in our activities. We play video games. Eat sugary or salty foods. Misbehave in many ways. And that’s okay. That’s human, and it’s part of what happens in stressful times. It’s just good to find equilibrium, and use those other resources listed above to maintain some healthy counterbalance in life, and not tip so far over into any unsafe, destructive choices, that you can’t be a responsible, competent caregiver to your family or yourself.