I did not plant them. And yet, there they are. Blooming in my garden. A bouquet of lavender petunias. And one strikingly tall sunflower. How they did this is both gift and mystery to me. Among all the other plants and bushes I did plant and tend, some blooming with more success than others, I have now added these two guests to my care. In the gardening world, I believe they are called ‘volunteers’…they volunteered themselves to make beauty in my yard, to bloom where they were planted. 

Who understands such a phenomenon? Who can give language to these many gifts that show up at our doors?  Who can speak with adequate eloquence of such mysteries? It seems to fall to the poets and artists to do so. Of course, Mary Oliver, poet and observer of all life’s beauty said:”Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous to be understood.” You can say that again, wise poet! 

Truth be told, I have never been a fan of petunias. And I would probably never have chosen this particular shade of lavender. Yet I have come to love it as much as the other blooms scattered about the yard. And sunflowers never fail to floor me so I have watched this stalk, now taller than I am, grow and grow and open its sunny, yellow face to the Sun. Today I stood and watched as the bees collecting energy for their journey fed on the golden brown center. If all goes according to the stalks’ plans, there are three more floral blossoms to appear before autumn makes its inevitable entrance and the flowers fade. 

These two blooming volunteers have given me much to remember and reflect upon in these steamy days at summer’s waning. Whether gift or mystery, we are surrounded by so much that comes to us from no work or effort on our part. Of course, we need look no further than our dinner tables. I think of the abundance of summer vegetables coming our way right now. Some people may have a backyard garden but the majority of us rely on the planting, harvesting, transporting and selling of the food that nourishes our bodies. People we have never known and whose lives we can only imagine have toiled on our behalf. They have made sacrifices we know nothing about. They have sweat in the morning sun, ate home-packed lunches in the heat of the day, then dragged themselves home in various states of exhaustion. They have battled sun, rain, insects and working conditions both just and unjust. And this says nothing of the animals who offer their very lives for the protein that graces our diets. So many gifts. So much mystery.

As for me, I want to walk the world in awareness of all the many concentric circles of connection that bind us to one another, living as human beings having a spiritual experience. I want to never take for granted those who have labored and offered gifts for my living, whose lives are intertwined with mine. In the minutiae of the daily, it is often difficult. I get bogged down in the lists I make, the details I try to accomplish. But on a good day…in a particular moment…I become awakened to these invisible threads of connection that make my life possible and my heart is lifted in gratitude.

So today, I will say thank you to the petunia and the sunflower for starters. Again, as Mary Oliver urges:
‘Let me keep company with those who say
“Look!” and laugh in astonishment,
and bow their heads.’

Yes. Yes, indeed.

The 2021 Olympics have come and gone. Like everything over the last months, they were not what anyone expected. No cheering audiences. Masks were worn by athletes as they walked to podiums to receive their medals. Testing for the virus became as daily an activity as stretching, jumping, running, and moving through water. Watching these mostly young people, my heart went out to them knowing their experience was so much different than most had imagined since they were children. 

The Olympics always has those of us who watch learning new words, words we never say any other time in a given four years. Triple Salchow comes to mind. “Will she land the triple salchow?”, we say, allowing it to trip off our tongues. Watch enough of ice skating and you can recognize one when you see it and to be able to flaunt the knowledge of what it is called seems appropriate.

This year’s word that seemed to be front and center was the ‘twisties’. We learned about the ‘twisties’ when Olympic champion Simone Biles sat out most of the events she was expected to win because she was suffering from this condition. Describing it as ‘the experience when a gymnast loses their ability to judge where they are in the air, made most of us quake in our armchairs. The fact that these young men and women can catapult themselves into all manner of heights and then land safely on their feet is always a marvel. To think that there might be a time mid-air when they lose the ability to know where they are is completely unnerving. Ms. Biles’ courage at sitting out of the events she has trained for over so many years provided a learning opportunity for all of us.

As I thought about ‘the twisties’, I couldn’t help but think this is a perfect new Olympic word to learn this particular year. Doesn’t it describe for many of us what we have felt over the last eighteen months? While we have not spun high in the air and done splits on a balance beam, we have tried to find a way to gauge how to hold our lives together in ways we have never done before. I know I have lost the ability to judge many things. What day it really is, for one. Which situations are safe and which are not. How to interact with others who see this pandemic much differently than we do. How to move forward from where we are into an uncertain future. All of these can throw us off balance, unable to judge, not only where we are, but also where it is best to land.

Perhaps we can all take a cue from Simone Biles. What did she do when ‘the twisties’ overtook her? Of course, I don’t know for sure what her process was when this happened but this is what I observed. She stopped. She sat still. She named the anxiety that was gripping her. She watched her friends doing the things they all love. She talked to those who support her even when she is not doing stupendous jumps in the air. Stillness. Naming. Being witness to others. Continuing to hold onto what you love. Surrounding oneself with love and support. 

In June, we thought this pandemic was on its way out the door. Things have changed and we are still in its grip. In the days and months to come, the ‘twisties’ may still visit us. But as the poet/saint Mary Oliver reminds us:”it is a serious thing // just to be alive / on this fresh morning / in this broken world.” And so it is. So, I will continue to practice…stillness…naming…witnessing…loving…holding onto those who continue to circle round. All this may not keep the ‘twisties’ from altering my judgment. But at least, I know climbing back on the beam is a possibility. We can’t stay in the air forever.

“Then the singing enveloped me. It was furry and resonant, coming from everyone’s very heart. There was no sense of performance or judgment, only that the music was breath and food.” 

~Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith

This has been a summer of reunions for me. At the beginning of the summer, I headed to my hometown to look into the amazing faces of those I had known since early childhood. Last week, I was in the presence of people with whom I joined voices and created beautiful music for the Ohio State Fair, for people all over the state of Ohio and for audiences of strangers as we toured Europe together for three weeks. It was a memory held, laughed filled and poignant gathering as, with one another’s help, we stitched together memorable concerts, songs and relationships. 

Singing in a choir is one of the ways in which we get to experience what it means to be a small part of something larger…to bring our individual gift and team it with others to make something greater, more beautiful than one voice can ever do alone. One person sings a note, another joins in and yet another adds to it and, Voila!, music that lifts the human soul is created. For those who have sung in choirs, you know what I mean. Even as you carry your, perhaps, tentative voice into the space, you are lifted by the energy and power of those around you, joining you, making music.  The singers look out on an audience and know that they are communicating something to them that only sound and poetry can offer. Which is why these last months, without singing, has been so tragic. To think that the very thing that has the power to heal the hurting heart can also be the thing that spreads illness seems unbearable.

I am sure that folks who participate in a team sport experience a kind of bonding that may be similar. Never having done this, I don’t know for sure, but I have seen a camaraderie build among those on teams my sons have played on. So I know it is possible. And yet, I believe, there is something special about making music together. There is always the possibility that a song with erupt in the oddest of places! And I know for a fact that spending time basically living with other singers, traveling to places that challenge and excite you, changes you and creates a place in you that will be with you forever. This is what happened this past weekend when these singers gathered again. Stories were shared, life updates were told, memories were dredged up and the bond that had been forged so many years ago was again strengthened. Our lives had at one time been joined in such a way that, even though we have not seen one another in years, was renewed. 

Reunion. Re-Union. “The act or process of being brought together again as a unified whole.” Of course, in this reunion many were missing from our ranks. Not everyone could travel to the weekend get together so perhaps we were not completely ‘unified’. But those of us who were there remembered and celebrated for the whole that we once were. The music we once made. The adventures we once shared. The hearts we once stirred.

I believe we are all hungry for a re-union. As the pandemic lingers on, we are all aching for an experience of being ‘enveloped’ in something ‘furry and resonant, coming from everyone’s very heart.’ A re-union that has ‘no sense of performance or judgment.’ Something like music…which can be both ‘breath and food.’

“If music be the food of love, play on.” says Shakespeare. So here’s to more music…more love…more re-union.