For the last several years, on or about February 1st, I have engaged in a ritual that holds me throughout the unfolding weeks. February 1st is the first day of spring in the Celtic calendar and on this day I bring out several vases and some colored stones, filling the various containers with the stones and paper white bulbs. I then place them in a window and fill them with water and begin to watch as the shoots emerge. The temperatures outside may be frigid and the ground may be covered deep in snow but inside…inside…a growing has begun. I probably have recognized this act as the ritual it is in other years but this February it really came to rest in me in a new, deeper way. There is much in the world over which I have no control, much that, frankly, breaks my heart. But in the coming together of container, color, water and the promise of growth I saw a truth that breaks through.

We all have rituals simple and ordinary. The morning cup of coffee for instance. I have a friend whose act of making her morning cup is pure ritual, one she carries with her from her home to wherever she travels. The coffee grounds, the pot, the water, the fire to boil, the cup that will receive it. Each step taken with precision and a certain attention that is somewhat sacred. As I observe, it seems to me that the action of making the coffee is nearly as important, nearly as enjoyable, as the actual drinking.

And then there are the rituals we have around holidays. Birthdays, Christmas, New Year’s, Thanksgiving, all hold certain acts we do over and over sometimes without thinking…unless we leave out a step. Then flags go up! Often it is the children in our families who call us task. And we realize the importance of these movements, these actions that go deeper than we know in our conscious mind and how we have implanted them in the next generation.

Creating my little February altar of bulbs caused me to think about the importance of ritual in our lives. What do rituals actually do for us, to us? I think of the rituals of our religious traditions. Candle lighting. Memorized prayers. Familiar scriptures spoken in certain settings. Kneeling. Sitting in silence with one another. Lifting our voices in song. They all remind us of the long line of ancient ones who have done the same things, said the same words. It connects us to not only what we name as holy but all those who did something similar. It grounds us and reminds us of our connections. Every time I recite Psalm 23 I am reminded of the thousands of years, the thousands of people who have said these same words. Their meaning may be as different as the lives of those who are speaking yet there is that invisible line of connection that holds fast. 

The poet Mary Oliver had a morning ritual which led to so many of the beautiful, inspiring poems we treasure now. She walked. With a notebook and pen in her hand, paying attention. Which is another thing ritual helps us to do…pay attention. 

Another morning and I wake with thirst
for the goodness I do not have. I walk
out to the pond and all the way God has
given us such beautiful lessons. Oh Lord,
I was never a quick scholar but sulked
and hunched over my books past the hour
and the bell; grant me, in your mercy,
a little more time. Love for the earth
and love for you are having such a long
conversation in my heart. Who knows what
will finally happen or where I will be sent,
yet already I have given a great many things
away, expecting to be told to pack nothing,
except the prayers which, with this thirst,
I am slowly learning.

The bulbs have now begun the important work of reaching up toward the light. They have also done the equally important work of reaching down, taking root, grounding themselves among water and stone. Reaching to earth and toward heaven. It is a ritual that brings life, one that allows me to rest in the ‘beautiful lessons’. In this fractured world, ‘who knows what will finally happen or where we will be sent.’ 

Yet there is something in this yearly ritual that has me ‘slowly learning’.

“Tantrum…and uncontrolled outburst of anger and frustration, typically in a young child.”
Webster’s Dictionary

Earlier in the week I was at a meeting at church. The church building also houses a day care center. Wafting up the stairway and down the hall into the room where I was, was the sound of a child having a tantrum. And it was a doozy! While I couldn’t see the child, I could imagine their face, pulsing red with tears streaming down their face. From someplace in my memory, I could see the contorted little body fighting against some inward emotion that was filling them with raw emotion and finding form in the world. The sound was like a wave…rising and falling with renewed energy and force that subsided for a moment but rebuilt with some push that came from somewhere deep inside them. No words were understandable except one…’home.’ Having dropped two toddlers off at preschool and seeing the meltdown that could sometimes happen, I heard the overwhelming desire of this little one. Home.

As I thought back about that experience I began to think that it seems to me that our country is engaged in a kind of tantrum right now. There is a rollercoaster of outbursts that keep us all on edge.  As we watch the fallout of what happens when revenge drives action, when bullies are given more power than is wise, there is a trigger response that wants to click. The potential to engage in tantrum behavior is tempting. Yet, any parent or teacher who has ever tried to counteract a tantrum with their own ‘uncontrolled anger and frustration’ knows that this never ends well. 

Instead, the adult who is witness to a child’s tantrum knows the best thing to do is remain calm. Most of the time the tantrum is caused by hunger, being tired, feeling ignored, wanting something that is not possible at the moment, frustrated to be without language for their deep feelings. In these cases, a snack, a place to rest, a patient, caring presence, a quiet, metered explanation can go a long way. It is not easy. it is often not pretty. But no tantrum lasts forever. 

The distraught child I heard kept saying, ‘home’. Clearly they wanted to be someplace that was not where they were. Home. In Meg Wheatley’s book So Far from Home she writes:

“As we let our hearts be tenderized by this sorrow-filled world, we discover that joy and sadness are one, that we can’t always distinguish between the two. Perhaps you have had this experience, of feeling tender and overwhelmed, heart wide-open, vulnerable, overcome by tears of joy that also felt like sadness. In these moments of deep emotion, it doesn’t matter that we can’t define the feeling in simple words. We are inside the heart of a profound human experience very different from every day emotions…opening to the world as it is, not flinching from what we see, keeping our eyes and hearts open-this is true warrior’s work. And what we see will always break our heart.”

The child I heard, for whatever reason, had a broken heart at that moment. Their response was a tantrum and a cry for home. This broken-heartedness is an experience many are sharing right now yet pitting tantrum against tantrum is never the best path. Perhaps we would be wise to practice what any mature caregiver knows to do. Take time for a snack, rest often, find a quiet place, listen deeply to those around, be patient, be caring, show compassion. In this we may just help someone find ‘home’ and we might find it ourselves. As the teacher Ram Dass has said: “We’re all just walking each other home.”

“Do we settle for the world as it is, or do we work for the world as it should be?” 
? Michelle Obama, Becoming

It is my first memory. Me. Hanging upside down from the limb of a tree in my grandparent’s backyard. This is how I would answer that question, the one that sometimes is posed in a getting-to-know-you setting or a meeting or retreat. I am never really sure about these ‘first memories’, whether they are true or fueled by a photo pressed at the back of an album or family story told over a dinner table. But, if asked the question, this is how I would answer. 

I love this memory for many reasons. I was not a real tree-climber. In fact, I am quite sure my very cautious parents would have discouraged a girl, their girl, climbing a tree. This memory also is complete with me doing this in a skirt…in a time before leggings were a thing…and would not have been considered ‘lady-like’ as my skirt slipped more toward my head than my knees. But most of all what accompanies this memory is the power and strength I felt. There was something wild and dangerous about hanging upside down from the limb of that tree on a warm summer day. It is freedom and a certain experience of power that surrounds this image in a kind of deep breath aura. 

Over the last days I have thought about this memory so many times as I have watched the acts being taken by our new President and those who surround him. Why? Because so many of the people who are being lifted up to leadership are also people who have threatened and demeaned women…women who were once young girls. As these people are being given power and authority to alter the lives of so many vulnerable people, the example they exhibit becomes norm. Young girls will now be confronted openly by the very people their parents warned them against, people they were cautioned about. What will this mean to their growing?

All these thoughts were streaming through my head when I went to church this past Sunday. It was a special day in which the women of the church were in leadership and were celebrating many of the important and good works they had completed over the year. One such project included making dresses for young girls in Africa. These dresses were sewn by the women of the church so girls can have the proper clothing to attend school, to learn to read and write to find their own voices. As a group of the young girls modeled the dresses…each brightly patterned and complete with pockets for all the things a girl might need to carry…I watched them and my heart filled with joy at their spirits which were both shy and exuberant. These girls from a world away were wearing dresses soon to be worn by others who would likely look quite different in their new clothes. Yet, the sweet vulnerability of their young lives shared so much. I ached for the thought that they would be treated with anything other than respect, honor and love for who they are and their future yet to be imagined.

I am unsure what to do with all this. “Do we settle for the world as it is, or do we work for the world as it should be?” A wiser person that me spoke these words. All I know is that within me there burns the fire of the young girl who felt her power and strength hanging upside down from the limb of a tree. And I will hold fast to that inner wisdom as I find ways to protect and shield the young girls around me from the forces that would do them harm. This is my solemn vow.

Sometimes a word just visits you and you are unsure where it came from or why. Does this ever happen to you? Over the last few days I have been visited by the word ‘endure‘. Endure. It is a strange word that keeps floating just below the surface of my mind and periodically swimming up for air inviting me to ponder. In searching for its definition I saw what could, at first glance, be conflicting meanings. The first: endure…to suffer(something painful or difficult) patiently. The second: endure…to remain in existence; to last. My brow is furrowing just writing those words. 

The presence of endure came to me at first while I was reflecting on the beauty of a frozen Minnesota lake while experiencing some mighty cold temperatures. Bone chilling, mind numbing, motor stopping cold. In the early morning, I watched as the Sun was rising creating a kind of Monet-like, foggy wash over the distant trees. It was a magical scene. As the Sun rose over the trees the fog seemed to evaporate and a long shaft of rainbow-hued light shot down over the trees. It was almost as if there were two suns rising. The rainbow hovered over the lake for some time until it was eventually outshone by the ever-brighter Sun. 

Seeing this, a message pierced my mind: “This is what endures.” I have no idea where the message came from or why. All I know is that ‘hearing’ it brought an overwhelming feeling of connection with something Greater. I felt my body ground itself, realizing the depth to which I had been holding myself in tension as I anticipated the inauguration on Monday and all that might mean. Standing and looking out at that body of water that had become solid,so solid, on which I had walked the day before as the ice crystals formed on my eyelashes, a deep sense of peace washed over me. 

This experience helped me to begin to think about all that truly does endure…all that stands throughout changing and difficult times…all that holds when the world seems to be unraveling. No matter the number of years we have walked the Earth, we have all known the experience of having change that threatens to undo us. Change brought on by loss and sorrow and injustice and uncertainty. Change from which we often think we will not survive. This is perhaps where that other definition of endure comes takes shape. We all have had times of ‘suffering’ that can only be done with patience. 

And so it is that those of us who are walking into these next weeks and months and years with a trepidation that pulls at our spirits might begin to pay attention to what ‘remains in existence’ to what ‘lasts’. Certainly the incredible beauty and strength and power of Creation gives us cues. And the relationships that lift us up and remind us that we are mostly miracle and that love and kindness always win. Being on the lookout for what endures seems to me to be an intention I can give myself to as I seek to be the best human I can be in a world that aches for our noticing. 

We are in for some difficult and terrible days, I fear. Yet all around us there are glimpses of what endures. We need only open our eyes and our hearts to do the work that needs to be done. As wise and wonderful Mary Oliver wrote:

“I tell you this
to break your heart,
by which I mean only
that it break open and never close again
to the rest of the world.”

May we be about the work of holding onto what endures with all our might. With all our broken yet beating hearts.

If I carry my father
I hope it is a little more
than color of hair
or the dimple or cheekbones
if he’s ever here in the space I inhabit
the room I walk in
the boundaries and peripheries
I hope it’s some kindness he believed in
living on in cell or bone
maybe some word or action
will float close to the surface
with my reach
some good will rise when I need it
a hard dense insoluble shard
will show up
and carry on.
~ Marjorie Saiser

It is the middle of January, 2025. I fear the year started with not much fanfare and is rolling along with some speed. The Christmas decorations are tucked away for another year. Bulb gardens are appearing in nurseries. Books received as gifts have been opened and stories are unfolding in imaginations. Children have returned to school and the winter is holding us in the way winter does.

In the midst of all this I am sitting with a word in my hand. Each year on the Sunday of Epiphany, the faith community where I find a home offers ‘star words.’ These little cards are gems that we are invited to choose with a word that might be a guide for us for the year to come. Truth be told it seems to me that the word usually chooses the person. This year my word is a doozy…’goodness.’ Walking away from the table where they were arranged and turning the card over, there it was, eight letters to ponder, question, pray, argue and wrestle with, ignore, accept. For a year.

Since that day I have kept the card front and center on my kitchen table. I have told people about my word. Some folks lift their eyebrows in wonderment.There have been scowls. I have heard things like “Wow! That’s a lot of responsibility.” One friend told me that recently she had been trying to say “Oh, my goodness!” instead of “Oh, my god.” I wondered if it might not be the same thing.

Anyway, this word, ‘goodness’, is mine now and I am trying to explore what it means. I don’t feel the responsibility of trying to be goodness in the world though I’d like to think I sometimes do. I have come to think that perhaps it is more about being awake to goodness, noticing it when it is present. This seems a good place to start for now. After all, I do have more than 340 some days to mine its other attributes.

Watching the evolving wild fires in California and the devastation that is happening every day, I have also been aware of the goodness. People helping feed, clothe, house others. Folks helping neighbors and complete strangers. Humans with few resources and those with many sharing with whomever is standing right in front of them at the moment. States and countries sending firefighters and first responders to fight the immensity of flames that seem untamable. So much goodness.

If our only lens on the world is the nightly news or what we read on social media it is easy to miss the goodness of the ordinary. Every day there are teachers walking alongside students who are struggling with reading, with life. People are holding doors and shoveling sidewalks. Healers are healing, helping. Others are visiting with the those who are ill, elderly, lonely. Someone is bringing flowers to a person they know needs a pick-me-up. Another is taking a moment to pen a quick note to a friend or relative…just because. Someone is listening, really listening. So much goodness.

Over the last few weeks I have experienced the goodness of a few people who have helped me with this website and blog. I have been trying to migrate it all from the church’s website where I first started writing to managing it myself. It has been a complicated process and along the way several people have shown up and tried to help. Finally, after many emails, texts and phone calls, a former employee solved the puzzle. He didn’t have to do this. None of those who tried did. But they gave of their time and expertise. So much goodness.

Side note: For those of you who received the Winter Solstice post this past week, this was a result of all that technology being moved and shoved around. Hopefully its arrival on the day of the Full Wolf Moon game you a chuckle.

Perhaps the goodness we carry and bring to birth in the world is placed there by some relative, an ancestor that has gone before as the poet says above. Whatever its genesis, I will be on the lookout. Today. Tomorrow. Until 2025 draws to a close. 

Which begs the question…where are you seeing ‘goodness’? 

The world has tilted far from the sun, from color and juice…
I am waiting for a birth that will change everything.
~Hilary Llewellyn-Williams

Darkness. It surrounds us. The darkness arrives long before dinner time and stays with us until what seems like mid-morning. It is palpable. Over the last weeks, I have taken to asking Alexa what time the sunset will be and what time the sun will rise. I am not sure why I am doing this. Perhaps there is some assurance in hearing a voice..even one created by AI… say that there will be light…sometime…just not yet.

As I write this I am looking forward to marking the Winter Solstice on  December 21st. This has not always been a practice. In fact, I lived a large part of my life not even being aware of this day which others have celebrated since…well, for a long, long time. The ancient ones certainly noticed that the Sun was retreating in ways that we more ‘modern’ beings mostly just complain about. They took in the mystery of the Universe and marked their lives by the times of light and dark, of the ways the seasons unfolded, by the slant of shadow cast by trees or animals on snowy, white fields and forests. When you live close to the Earth these are the patterns of living that emerge. I long for more of this kind of wisdom.

In anticipation of the Winter Solstice, I began searching many of the Celtic books I have accumulated over the years.The Celts seem to have honored this time of the year when darkness became a companion. The quote above comes from one of these books, The Celtic Spirit by Caitlin Matthews. In another of her books she writes this welcome to the Winter Solstice:

Brightener of Darkness, hail!
Keeper of Clearness, Opener of the Depths.
Gifts of plenty are arising,
Winter wonders, white snows’ fall.
Joyful be the heart within us,
Open wide the guesting door,
Wisdom waken in abundance,
Warm our beings to the core.

Darkness is both reality and metaphor. There is darkness that seems to walk with us in new ways these days. The many places around our world where injustice and violence is a way of life casts its shadow far and wide. This week, once again, our children and those who cared for them experienced the darkness of fear as shots rang out in the hallways of their school. This shadow hangs over us all with a cloak of powerlessness and anger. When will we do something as a country to stop this madness? When will we light the way for change in our gun laws so that this darkness will no longer hang over us?

The Winter Solstice is a teacher that reminds us that even in the darkest day the light will loyally begin returning. There is comfort in this. It is a threshold time…reseting the darkness that has held us in its grip. Slowly, if we notice, each day the darkness will recede and more light will appear. This threshold asks us to rest in the sacred, constant rhythm of the Universe. 

Those of us in the Christian household will celebrate the birth of Jesus just days after the Solstice. Like the poet we are ‘waiting for a birth that will change everything.’ On this December 21st may our hearts be open to the ways the light…the Light…can give birth to the change the world so desperately needs. May the Winter Solstice find us with joyful hearts, open to the doors that awakens wisdom. Wisdom in abundance.

On the day before the election I was walking with a friend on Summit Avenue in St. Paul. This is a favorite walk as you pass by the magnificent homes whose original owners were those that helped shape the city into its identity as Minnesota’s capital. Not long into our walk we came upon a flock of turkeys making themselves at home in the front yard of a beautiful mansion. Oddly, this is not an unusual sight. As the birds pecked their way in the grass I remarked to my friend that these creatures could have been the symbol of our country instead of the eagle. We laughed at this given that the knowledge comes not from any history book we studied but from the Broadway musical ‘1776’. In one scene our founders argued over the legitimacy of the two beautiful, yet very different, birds to become the star symbol of the experiment of this democracy.

The day after the election I took what has become a favorite trip down the Wisconsin side of the river to try to make sense of the choices our country had made and my own feelings about it. This drive was one I took many times during COVID and there is something about the rolling farm fields and the flowing river that I find very comforting, that helps me gain some perspective. After going as far as Nelson, I turned toward Wabasha and crossed back into Minnesota. All along the way I split my focus between the road and the sky as I watched for that national symbol, the eagles, that I know soar above this part of the state. Driving into this river town,I followed a pull that I couldn’t explain and walked into the  National Eagle Center, something I hadn’t done in years.

Standing with a group of folks that represented several generations, I listened to a young man talk about the two majestic birds in the room. He talked of how we nearly lost the presence of this symbol due to the use of harmful chemicals. They were nearly extinct but are now visible across the country. Several times the birds would let out a screech that was startling. The handler assured us that they were not squawking at us but at something they could see far out the window and down the river, something maybe miles away. That whole ‘eagle eye’ thing is real! 

As I observed these magnificent birds I was reminded of the ‘1776’ conversation from the days before and how it felt as if so much had changed in such a short time. On one of the placards in the museum it was explained that the eagle, known as ‘wambdi’ to the First People, the Dakota, was honored because they represented honesty, truth, majesty, strength, courage, wisdom, power and freedom and they carried the prayers of the people to the Creator. I sat with that for awhile. My prayer in that moment was that all of those attributes would be infused in, we the people, as well as the winged ones. I prayed that our collective prayers for our country would be carried on their strong wings.

Then I remembered this poem by Joy Harjo, the first Native American to become the Poet Laureate of the United States. It is simply called “Eagle Poem”.

To pray you open your whole self
To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon
To one whole voice that is you.
And know there is more
That you can’t see, can’t hear;
Can’t know except in moments
Steadily growing, and in languages
That aren’t always sound but other
Circles of motion.
Like eagle that Sunday morning
Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky
In wind, swept our hearts clean
With sacred wings.
We see you, see ourselves and know
That we must take the utmost care
And kindness in all things.
Breathe in, knowing we are made of
All this, and breathe, knowing
We are truly blessed because we
Were born, and die soon within a
True circle of motion,
Like eagle rounding out the morning
Inside us.
We pray that it will be done
In beauty.
In beauty.

I was reminded that the eagles I observed at the Eagle Center were tethered inside a building but their eyes could see life far out the window, down the river and they called out to what was unseen to us. This election has the power to tether many, those on the margins and those that have been demonized by horrible political rhetoric.  It also has the power to hold our hearts and collective, creative spirit in a grip that will keep us remembering that we, like the eagle, can circle those most vulnerable in utmost care and kindness. We must all rise up with the strength of the eagle. And we pray that it will be done…in beauty…in beauty.

**If you are interested in the song from ‘1776’ please see this link.

During the lock down days of the pandemic I went to these words by author, farmer-poet Wendell Berry quite often:

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

The wisdom of these words grounded me, caused me to take a deep breath and to remember my place in the family of things. How there are creatures whose knowing is often richer and fuller than my human abilities. I would read them and imagine that body of water, those winged ones, the stars that are there even when I cannot see. It became a sign of the ‘grace of the world’ when grace often felt in short supply.

These last days in anticipation of this very consequential election that looms, I have been drawn back to them. And it has pushed me to envision what I can do in the next hours, days and probably weeks to rest in that kind of wisdom. I have been thinking about what I can do to relieve my anxiety and to help me rest in the grace of the world which once again seems to be a shadow on the edges of our daily lives.

So, I began to make some lists. Here goes. Every day I will remember to take deep, long breaths preferably of the fresh air outdoors in an autumn that is simply warmer and more beautiful than is usual. I have decided to make something every day…even if it is a sandwich…some act that brings to birth something that wasn’t there before and was created by my two hands. If it is music or art or a poem, even better. Reaching out to friends and making human connection will be very important so I will do that as many times a day as seems necessary. I will drink plenty of water remembering that I am made up mostly of this life-giving liquid. I will read beautiful words and listen to inspiring music. I will watch only what uplifts and brings me joy. If this includes a Hallmark movie or two or three, no judgment there. And I will recite the names of people I love and have loved and whose presence has shaped me and instilled a vision of hope in me. I will find ways to laugh, hopefully fully-body laugh, tears down your face laughter. I will spend as much time outside as possible unplugged from the media sources whose job seems to be to stir up fear and the anxiety I am fleeing. And I will walk…and walk…and walk some more holding close the Latin words “solvitur ambulando”…it is solved by walking. 

In thinking about what the next days will offer up I was also reminded of a short Colman Barks poem that always made me laugh and also rang with such truth: 

A child stood on his seat in a restaurant,
holding the railing of the chair back
as though to address a courtroom.

“Nobody knows what’s going to happen next.”

Then his turning-slide back down to his food,
relieved and proud to say the truth,
as were we to hear it.

Indeed, no one does know what will happen next and we have very little power to influence it except to vote. HAVE YOU VOTED?! Yet we do have choices about how we will traverse this time, how we will seek out the ‘grace of the world.’

What are your plans? I invite you to share them. They may help some one else which is grace in and of itself, isn’t it?

These words have been growing in me for several months yet I have not taken the time to set them down in print. For me the last months have been a time of many life events…those times that lift humans above the ordinary of laundry and shopping lists, of making dinner and vacuuming the carpet. Over the last weeks and months people in my life have celebrated significant birthdays and there are still some to be sung into a new decade. People I know have brought babies into the world with all the joy and promise that always accompanies such a miracle. And it has been a privilege to witness as two lovely young couples in my life walked down an aisle to be married as those that love them deeply and fiercely beamed the light of love and hope upon them. We often call these ‘life events’ as they become markers for a new chapter, an opening, a turning, a time of what was before and what will come after.

What has been growing in me as I have been present to all these is how each life event is certainly about what is happening in the present moment and yet carries with it so, so much more. In each of these transitioning times there is also a sense of those who may not be physically present but whose spirit hovers near. In the minds and hearts of those who are living the life event there exists the flicker of light of those who have gone before, those who inspired and supported, those who cautioned and cared. And of course, each person who walks into the room has bags fully packed with joy and sorrow, disappointment and desire, dreams realized and those dashed… all that life has thrown their way. I have come to think of it as this vast tapestry of the vulnerabilities and triumphs of humanity, a cloak that draws around whomever is the focus of the event itself, a crazy quilt of embodied love. It is a joy to behold.

Perhaps it is the season of autumn that is drawing these thoughts together for me. Looking out my window now the trees are the visual reminder of cycles etched deep in how life works.In my particular yard, many have let go their leaves while others hang on for dear life. Scattered in the nooks and crannies of my deck some of those leaves have already turned brittle and brown. They carry what they knew of their green, verdant hue while preparing to be the mulch that brings the new life that will emerge in a few months. Their beauty is perhaps no longer visible yet their ability to bring life still exists. This represents their own ‘life event.’ 

The poet Lucille Clifton wrote this about this time of the year:

the lessons of the falling leaves

the leaves believe
such letting go is love
such love is faith
such faith is grace
such grace is god
i agree with the leaves

While we mark certain times as ‘life events’ the reality is that we walk through all our days with the spirits of those who are not visible as companion, their words of encouragement urging us on. We make our way through each day flanked by people whose pain and happiness, whose grief and goodness helps fuel our next steps. And like the leaves of the trees around us we are letting go in the hopes that what falls away may give birth to a newness we have not yet imagined. Love. Faith. Grace. God. 

I agree with the leaves.

In my high school days I watched a soap opera whose tag line was “like sand through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives.” Watching the lives of those portrayed in the 30 minutes of television that housed the program, it was clear to me that the sand flowing through the lives of these  characters was much more dramatic and interesting than mine. The stories allowed me, for a small commitment of time, to glimpse complicated, complex, edgy lives, people with incredible clothes and mind bending relationships. It was fantasy and a welcome respite from an ordinary, small town,teenage life.

I thought of that quote a few weeks ago in an unlikely place. Having been bombarded by the usual noise of the day that is so prevalent right now, I headed to the Minneapolis Institute of Art to observe a group of Tibetan nuns creating a mandala with sand. Walking into one of the rotundas at the museum, I walked toward the center to see women leaning over an elevated table. Just near them were two other tables…one with their supplies of small bowls of colorful sand and the metal tubes they used to move the sand into place. Another was adorned with flowers and other things that constituted what I assumed to be a shrine of sorts. This defined the space for their work. Their movements were slow, smooth, nearly balletic in nature. Somehow the shaking of the metal tubes allowed just the right amount of sand to find its place in the beautiful, intricate pattern of the mandala. They did not speak to one another but seemed to, in some intuitive way, know what their role was in the creation of this art. Other people watched from one floor up, peering over the balcony. Others walked along the outside of the invisible circle the nuns had created and filled with the intensity of their work. 

The whole experience moved through me creating a sense of calm and peace. Somehow by being witness to their work I felt part of it. The noise and clatter of all I listened to on the radio or read in the paper melted away. For a short time it was like being transported to a time and place where the grains of sand reflected the wisdom that had been a part of time eternal. These women who have dedicated their lives in ways that are mysterious to me exuded the message that even in the midst of what often feels like chaos and uncertainty, it is possible to take something as elemental and small as grains of sand and use them for beauty, for good. 

As I stood there watching their work, I wondered what was going through their minds. Was there worry about the future …the kind that has been gripping my brain these days? Were they thinking about the many places in the world erupting into violence daily? The lives that have been lost with no end in sight? Were they lamenting our warming climate? Were they thinking about what those of us watching were thinking about them? Did their minds travel to what they were going to do that evening after their creating had come to an end? Were they thinking about supper? These questions say more about me and them I’m sure.

It is probably true that their meditation life is so deep that the ability to be fully, fully present is all that is needed. They were most likely focused on the grains of sand, their brilliant colors and the steadiness of their hands as the sand was added to the patterns. Though it is from a different tradition, a writer in the Hebrew scriptures in the book of 1 Kings writes about king Solomon:”And God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding exceeding much, and largeness of heart, even as the sand that is on the sea shore.” Perhaps that same fullness of wisdom and understanding and largeness of heart lived within these women as they did the work they were called to do.

Standing to the side of their workspace a young woman  quietly answered questions. Though I knew the answer to the question about the ‘what next?’ of the mandala, I asked anyway. Yes, it would remain in the museum for a week for people to enjoy. Then it would be dismantled and for those who wanted sand it would be placed in small vials for people to take. And what was left? It would be poured into the Mississippi River so “its gifts could continue flowing.”

Crossing that mighty river as I do nearly every day, I am imagining the wisdom, the largeness of heart and the peaceful calm that was created and exhibited by these small, dedicated women. The work they do has been done for centuries and will continue after all the chaos and uncertainty passes over us. Like sands…flowing down a river…so are the days of our lives.