This I Believe

This I believe.  A grateful loving heart is the key measure of a life well lived.  In fact, I believe it is the only relevant one.   In a lovely poem by e.e. cummings, the poet rejoices:

  i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth

Love transcends all else.  And, gratitude is her handmaiden.  This is where it begins.  Gratefulness makes things happen.  It is the key to joy.   Brother David Steindl-Rast, an eighty six year old Benedictine monk who through his books, lectures and participation in the global Gratefulness for Living Network (gratefulness.org) has brought spiritual depth to countless souls, describes faith as “radical trust in life and in the Source of life,” the opposite of fear.  He says to be grateful is to entrust yourself to life, much as you entrust yourself to water when you swim.   Trusting life helps you let go of fear.  When you trust life, you become open to surprise (hope).   Hope allows us to be attentive and see the gift in what life actually throws at us, even when it is not what we expected.

I didn't find this truth until later middle age. A near fatal pulmonary embolism uncovered an aggressive autoimmune disease. Three major hospitalizations, the last in a psychiatric unit, pushed me to the precipice, to choose life or death. I was given the grace to choose life and during a long recovery it became clearer and clearer that my dark night of the soul (and body) was a very great gift, indeed. The focus of my life had been on material things, achievement and acclaim in my chosen career, wealth, and earthly security. Now, I have none of these, but have never felt more happy and fulfilled. Letting go was surprisingly easy; I was ripe for it. Dealing with a progressive disease brought me to the heart of acceptance and the kindred souls I continue to meet on this journey illuminate my path.

Flashback

After an intense rain shower my cane and I were limping away from the Dupont Metro.  We looked like a  demented  crab  trying to avoid the newly sprouted  puddles.  At the Circle a delivery truck barreled through a deep puddle by the curbside heaving a tsunami of foul detritus which upended the cane and me.  Time stopped.  Dirty puddles.

I am six years old  happily waiting with my first grade class on the transport line.  It is three o'clock and the incipient scholars are more than ready to call it a day.  I am togged out in my new pale blue snowsuit which is much admired as is another kid's "I Like Ike" button.  A darkly clad nun on patroll issues admonitions in a high staccato voice.   My hooded ears miss the one about waiting for the bus to board before walking over to my waiting mother's car.  I wave to my friends  as I begin to run across the driveway, but trip and fall into an oozy mud puddle.  As I struggle to stand upright in my sodden snow suit, the dark robed martinet encourages a round of communal laughter.  Through tear blinded eyes it seems like an interminable interval before I reach the car.  My mother's eyes are welling up as she drives down the driveway past the statue of Jesus with the little children. (revised on 3/5/12).  

Summer Storm

Sailboats dozing under summer skies
beneath a canopy of cottony clouds
Seabirds basking in the balmy interlude,
forty winks on fluid futons

On the horizon blustery breezes
Confused clouds morphing into grotesque contours
Sleepy sea gulls ascending with strident cries
Careening craft lurching in their liquid chambers,
Lines slapping loudly on steely spars

Pelagic winds wafting landward
redolent of ripe seaweed and moist reeds
Sheets of spattering rain slapping
on straining sloops and slick docks
mirror my voyage through myriad permutations

From a very great Indian poet, Rabindranath Tagore

Death is not extinguishing the light
It is putting out the lamp because the dawn has come

Fleas

Sometimes my mind feels like matted fur with
clinging doubts, fears, resentments, karmic fleas
gnawing out of habit

Celebrating the Hours

Time is like a juggernaut hurtling through our lives.  It mows down our precious days into a compressed heap of dissatisfaction and regret.  Perhaps, we are the compressors.   Have we forgotten the timeless wisdom that each day is a mirror of life, with  its birth, coming of age, and eventual ending?  At aurora's first blush, greet the coming of the light with the crimson mantled Angel of Lauds.   Her name is praise.  Gratitude pours from her lips for a new beginning.

At the noon hour the Angel of Sext blows his golden trumpet.   With the midday hour a  diminishment of spirit often intrudes.   A day half spent with unaccomplished goals, frustrated in a sea of busyness,  now awaits the inevitable waning of the light.  The Angel's clarion call sings out look upward.  Stop for a moment and reflect.    The sky hasn't lost its blueness and the birds still sing their joyous  songs with abandon.   Awaken to the wonder  anew and with the Angel whisper a prayer for peace.

At the day's close, about an hour before retiring, the Angel of Compline, clad in a diaphanous robe of muted hues, descends with closed eyes.   This can be a time of tranquility or terror.   The Angel invites us to deal with ourselves gently.  The prayer of Compline embraces the whole day, its vertiginous  heights and labyrinthine depths, and enfolds  us in a merciful mantle of protective serenity.  

The Preacher and Me

I recently had the opportunity to do a video of a very special moment from my childhood. My dear friend, Judy Wagner, is a marvel with these things and she deserves the credit for our 'production.'. The time is around 1952 when I was 7 years old. The Preacher was my first romantic interest (he didn't know it of course). Here is the link:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-P8XFu4ISg&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Or, you can just go to YouTube and search on: Clare Gnrcco Preacher Roe

Veil

The ancient Celts called them the thin places, those geographic sanctuaries of spirit where the veil between time and the timeless is as sheer as a dragonfly's wing.  The isle of Iona in Scotland's Inner Hebrides is such a place. It's a deceptively small and rocky spot, just a dot on the map near the large isle of Mull. There are few motor vehicles, a few crofts for farming, long horned chestnut hued cattle and black faced sheep roaming at will down ancient pathways leading to the surrounding sea. The old Abby church still stands overlooking the water as it has for hundreds of years. One early summer's day after morning prayers, I was gazing at a tall weathered Celtic cross trying to decipher its runic like symbols. A young ewe and her wee bairn were grazing near the Cemetery, burial place of ancient Scottish kings and saints. She seemed to be beckoning to me. I followed them down a rocky route through deep green grass toward the sea. It was a breezy day and I could taste the salty sea winds, a delightful sensation. My animal guides stopped near a small stone chapel close by the sea. As I crossed the threshold, time stopped. I sat on a sturdy wooden bench near the unadorned altar and gazed out through the single window at the sea. My monkey mind slowed down to a whisper and I had the sensation of looking into a deep clear pool. I lost all sense of my physical body, absorbed in the serenity of the eternal now. A strong gust of sea wind struck the window and I came back. Two hours had passed. As I was walking away from the Abby, two young islanders, who were repairing the ancient stone fence in front of the Cemetery, greeted me. They were looking at a small stone as if it were a perfect emerald. After a lengthy search, they had found the stone that fit a small gap perfectly. In a way they were praying, you see, and so was I.

Mid-summer Madness

YeeeOwwwwww!  Eeeeeeeek!  Piercing screams and squawks penetrate the steamy air of a languid summer's afternoon.  Assorted moppets, playing in the sun drenched courtyard, run for cover.  Anxious parents emerge to investigate the source of the cacophony.  Then, a whining  siren-like sound  begins, quickly reaching an ear piercing crescendo.  "Where are the cops?" my neighbors enquire as they approach my house with trepidation.  Momentarily a squad car, with siren blaring and strobe lights flashing, roars into view.  A police officer with a buzz haircut sporting a pair of those bug-eyed reflective sunglasses, begins to pound on my door with a cudgel-like implement.  He screams "What the hell are y'all doing in there - havin a crack party?  Open the door before I kick it in." As I comply, he is accosted by an angry lime-green creature fanning a magnificent set of tail feathers.  My parrot, Spanky, responds with hysterical laughter and a "Hey, Big Boy." He dive bombs the interloper with clawed feet flailing leaving a pea green dollop of organic material on one of his meticulously polished jackboots.  The peace officer promptly exits the premises tossing a citation of some sort on my lawn as he jumps into the safety of his adamantine auto and streaks off.