A little less than 48 hours ago, the calendar turned to a new number. Whether this is something to be heralded or dreaded depends on your perspective I suppose. It is safe to say that the last year, the last two years, have had challenges we never imagined, ones with which we are still reckoning.  And so, to turn a new page can carry much…anticipation, fear, excitement, hope, so many emotions.

On December 31st, in preparing for a very quiet dinner to mark the ending of one year and the beginning of the next, I went searching my bookshelves for some words that might hold the evening and speak to the threshold on which we stood. Practically reaching out to me was a copy of the book Prayers for a Thousand Years, a collection of poems, prayers and writings for the new millennium. Remember that time? Talk about anticipation and standing in the ‘what next?’ of the uncertainty of what the next 100…1000… years might bring! Would all the technology we had come to depend upon be able to flip to the next page of the internal calendar that guided it? We filled our bathtubs with water. I can’t remember why we did that.  The words collected for this book contained these by writer Ursula LeGuin. They seemed to fit the evening of this particular new year so I shared them at my dining room table.

Please bring strange things.
Please come bringing new things.
Let very old things come into your hands.
Let what you do not know come into your eyes.
Let desert sand harden your feet.
Let the arch of your feet be the mountains.
Let the paths of your fingertips be your maps
and the ways you go be the lines on your palms.
Let there be deep snow in your inbreathing
and your outbreath be the shining of ice.
May your mouth contain the shapes of strange words.
May you smell food cooking you have not eaten.
May the spring of a foreign river be your navel.
May your soul be at home where there are no houses.
Walk carefully, well-loved one,
walk mindfully, well-loved one,
walk fearlessly, well-loved one.
Return with us, return to us, 
be always coming home.

LeGuin’s writing is always filled with rich metaphor and so each reader will make sense of this in their own way. The part that reached out and tugged at my heart were the last ones. “Well-loved one”…a moniker to carry each of us into the certain uncertainty of 2022. If we can live in the knowledge that we are ‘well-loved’, we can, I believe, live this new year with a deep knowing that together we can weather whatever the year brings. Reaching out to offer love to others… who are equally loved though they may not always know it… holds the power to bring us to a place we have yet to imagine, a new beginning. This great love extends to the two-legged, the four-legged, those with wings and fins, those that crawl and slither and to the soil on which we all co-exist. 

“Return with us, return to us, be always coming home.” Here’s to a new year, one that has never been before and will never be again. May we hold it gently and walk into it with compassion and care and a great love in which we are ‘always coming home.’

All over the world this week children will don costumes to act out the Christmas story. Tea towels will be tied around heads to make a six year old look like a shepherd. Bath robes will be worn to create what looks like the magi. Little girls will wrap their heads in blue fabric and put on their best face to appear like Mother Mary. A boy will look a little sullen standing by her side to represent Joseph. Ears and tails and pajama-like suited children will portray sheep and cows lowing. And anxious parents and pageant directors will hand long poles to the tea-toweled shepherds and pray that said pole remains a staff and not a light saber. Multiple photos will be taken by grandparents and parents as the story of the first Christmas comes to life starring their offspring. It is a sweet and poignant tableau, one that only the Grinchiest among could not be charmed by. At the church I attend this happened last Sunday and each of us left the service feeling lighter, more hope-filled and dowsed a bit by the Spirit of Christmas.

The idea that this happens every year never ceases to amaze me. We do not do it with any other of the stories from scripture. Yet, each year, it happens and we look forward to its happening. I have thought about this phenomenon over the many years I have either directed or watched the story come to life. And over time I have come to believe that the act of creating this pageant and telling this story once again allows each of us to enter the story in a new way, from where life has taken us this particular year. The year I had a new born at Christmas I identified with Mary at the miracle I held in my arms and I truly ‘pondered all these things in my heart.’ I imagine the parents who are trying to shepherd a wayward child wishing that the work was as simple as ‘watching over the flock by night.’ And the angels…oh, the angels…hovering near singing over the new life, the worried parents, the humble beginnings of such a family. I have a sense that our hospitals are filled with just such beings whose wings are not quite visible but being such a presence.

This year the characters that most fit my own story are the wandering Wise Ones. In the journey we have all been on over the last months and now years, we have indeed been traveling a road that was unfamiliar, treacherous, and toward some future we cannot yet see completely. The twists and turns cause us to stop and take stock of what is guiding us, where it is safe to go and where it isn’t. And many times we have found ourselves needing to ‘go home by a different road.’ A few years ago I wrote this poem I called Night Seekers:

What must it have been like?
No maps, no highway.
Only the twinkling of stars
and the deep, velvet blue of sky
to guide their way.

What courage –
to step out in their search
following the brightest star,
propelled by a deep knowing
that they were, indeed,
on the right path.

Their visions in the night
fueled their longing,
to see, to know, to behold,
a world transformed,
led them further and further
until there was no turning back.

Gaze turned heavenward,
they traveled on.
Stars illuminating the sky,
they traveled on.
Until…there
right before their eyes.
Everything was forever changed.

May this Christmas find us reflecting on the transformation the last months have brought us and finding the courage to embrace the very best of it. May our eyes scan the nighttime sky looking for the Star that will guide our way and lead us toward a peace we have yet to realize for the infants, parents, shepherds, angels and wise ones among us. Blessed Christmas to all.

Going through some of the many photos I’ve snapped over 2021, I came across some I had taken when I was in Columbus, Ohio over the summer. The images took me back to the stunningly beautiful day and the sculptures suspended in a beautiful garden in what is known as German Village. The sculptures were such a delight and were filled with a winsome quality that made the day even more special than the blue sky called forth. 

Looking back at the photos, I was reminded of the song from the musical Wicked called “Defying Gravity”. This powerful song ends the first act of this story that allows us to know how the Wicked Witch of the West comes to be the evil character that haunted our childhood dreams. It seems, according to this telling, that Elphaba(the Wicked Witch’s name before going to dark side), saw through the Wizard all along and that he was not really a hero but a con artist and one with evil intentions toward the animals of Oz. Glinda, the Good Witch, doesn’t see the Wizard in this way and tries to talk her out of exposing him as they share this song. It is a break in their friendship and in their lives. Elphaba’s refrain is:

Tell them how I am defying gravity!
I’m flying high, defying gravity!
And soon, I’ll match them in renown
And nobody in all of Oz
No wizard that there is or was
Is ever gonna bring me down!

These sculptures which had all who were walking through the park that day craning our necks in wonder at the way the figures and, in turn, the artist gave a taste of ‘defying gravity’. I venture to say all of us were a bit envious of the power of these beings to fly high above our heads. We longed for the freedom of lifting above the Earth and seeing the world with new eyes.

For much of my life I had a recurring dream of flying. I think this is pretty common. My ability to fly started with me beginning to move my arms as if I was swimming, the front crawl, limbs moving through air, not water. Soon my whole body would lift up and I would be flying above the ground and all that was happening below to those who had given in to gravity. I haven’t had this dream in some time and I miss it…and the way in which I felt so light, so free, so able to see further than my grounded eyes could ever do. I don’t know how dreams work but if I could ask the dream gods to be visited with that dream again, I would certainly do it.

In the last two years during these pandemic times, wouldn’t it have been wonderful to be able to defy gravity and lift up to see things with a clearer view? What might we have seen and learned? The answer to that likely depends on one’s perspective to begin with. But I do know that an equally powerful story to that of The Wizard of Oz, The Tales of King Arthur and the Round Table, contains a wonderful scene where Merlin gives the young Arthur the ability to fly. As he soars over the landscape, Merlin asks his student what he notices. Arthur says: “There are no boundaries.” The landscape and the people who share that vista were all in it together, there was no division. The vision of the Round Table becomes the place where people can see one another with connection and, in turn, compassion. 

There are gifts to both gravity and defying it, I suppose. As we move toward a new year, I pray for the ability to defy what is holding me down to old ideas, past hurts, bygone patterns that no longer serve. May it be a time of reflecting on what these months and now years have taught us. And may we find a refreshed enthusiasm for what draws us together and lifts us above all that would bring us down.

***If you haven’t seen ‘Wicked’, I invite you to check out the many Youtube videos of different folks singing this powerful song.

…And what we see is a world that cannot cherish us,
but which we cherish.
And what we see is our life moving like that
along the dark edges of everything,
headlights sweeping the blackness,
believing in a thousand fragile and unprovable things.
Looking out for sorrow,
slowing down for happiness,
making all the right turns
right down to the thumping barriers to the sea,
the swirling waves,
the narrow streets, the houses,
the past, the future,
the doorway that belongs
to you and me.
~Mary Oliver, excerpt ‘Coming Home’

It started out as an ordinary day. I had completed the majority of tasks on my ‘to do’ list and run the errands that needed attention. So, I decided to treat myself to a cup of coffee and some time with a book I was reading at my local coffee shop. I was reading away when I saw a young man lift his phone toward the crossroads just outside the window. The woman with him was also looking and soon two other people in nearby chairs were doing the same. I followed their lead to see a male deer standing at the corner as if waiting for the light to change, his antlers held high. But, of course, he was not waiting. He was trying to make sense of where he was and how to escape the predicament in which he found himself. Cars slowed, stopped, watched, drivers likely pulling out their phones as well, as we all watched this beautiful, huge animal try to make his way to safety. I held my breath hoping he wouldn’t try to cross at an inopportune time and be hit by a surprised motorist who had been paying less attention than they might have. Soon we all watched as the beautiful, brown animal jumped across the street and headed toward the nearby park and the woods and the river that lay beneath. We all breathed a sigh of relief. An accident had been averted, one in which we would have all been helpless bystanders.

Not long after I was sitting in my living room and there was an urgent knock on the door. I opened it to a man who said there was a runaway dog that he had corralled in my backyard. The man seemed so caring and shared that he had recently had to put his own dog down after it had become ill. I could see the concern and grief lined on his face. I went to the backyard to see this sweet, young black lab bouncing about and trying to figure out either his luck in finding freedom or his fear in the danger of being loose in a world without his caring owners. I tried to remain as calm as possible and slowly the dog came to me and I talked to him and we were able to read the tags on his collar. After some time of quiet talking, he allowed  the man to hold his collar while I fetched some rope to create a leash. Calls to the vet on his tags soon had him reunited with his owners. I then learned that ‘he’ was really a ‘she’ and his owners had been frantically searching for their beloved pet. 

These two experiences had me thinking about the fragility of life. A deer misplaced, a dog lost, confronted with what can be a harsh world. Certainly over the last months, years now really, we have become aware of the fragility each of us wears like a scratchy sweater. Mostly we don’t want to think about it, this fragile, precarious nature of our living. But then there is an illness, an injury, a virus, a mistake, a loss, a death, a broken bone or heart, and we are propelled into the truth of our own fragility. Things can change in a moment and what was will never be again. Circumstances arise and we are called upon to see the world with new eyes, a fresh perspective, often without really wanting to. We find ourselves ‘believing in a thousand fragile and unprovable things.’

What does it mean to live with all this? How do we continue to put one foot in front of the other and show up in this life for which we have been blessed to have another day?  Perhaps it starts with tenderness toward all living beings and, especially, ourselves. This might be followed by offering grace upon grace, forgiveness even when carrying a grudge seems so much easier and fulfilling. All this might be held in the precious knowledge that ‘we are all just walking each other home’ as Ram Dass said with such wisdom. That goes for the two legged and the four legged, those with wings and fins, those with limbs and petals. And, of course, our dear Earth home. That we are linked through invisible lines of connection in this Universe can help us each remember to walk gently, care deeply speak compassionately, as we help build a nest for all the fragile creatures.

Sometimes it just stuns you
like an arrow flung from some angel’s wing.
Sometimes it hastily scribbles
a list in the air: black coffee,
thick new books,
your pillow’s cool underside
the quirky family you married into.

It is content with so little really;
even the ink of your pen along
the watery lines of your dimestore notebook
could be a swiftly moving prayer.
~Andrea Potos

We are in that season when words like gratitude and thankfulness become the stars of the stage. This poem called ‘Essential Gratitude’ came across my reading plate this past week. The word ‘essential’ has been bandied about a lot over the last months and when it appears it brings about all kinds of questions within me. What does it even mean? Who can say what is and isn’t essential? Everyone’s life is so very different and to try to define what is essential for anyone of us seems an audacious act. In this conversation about essential we became confronted with all the people who plant, grow, harvest, sell, serve our food. All essential and most underpaid and under appreciated. Certainly, during these last months, we were reminded in ways we so easily forget that those who offer health care, elder care, child care, respite care, just plain everyday care, are certainly essential to our daily living. And then there are the teachers who welcome the young ones, witness to their lives, teach them skills they will need, inspire them with kindness and a sense of belonging, work hours longer than any of us would endure…essential all…and worthy of our thanks.

When I think back over the last months I am stunned at the many ways I have been bathed with a sense of gratitude. Certainly there is deep gratefulness for all those I have mentioned and also for the other numbers of people who have surrounded me and others I know with attention, phone calls, notes, ways of connecting that have lessened the isolation we have all felt from time to time. I have been grateful for the creativity of so many as they dreamed and brought to reality new ways of doing every thing from church to education to exercise. Aren’t we all astounded by what we have learned in the midst of this pandemic? And, of course, paramount is the gratitude for the scientists who came together to solve problems I cannot understand to create a vaccine that has helped us breathe a little easier. So many people to be grateful toward.

And yet, I think the poet is pushing us further. “Black coffee, thick books, the cool underside of the pillow, ink, cheap notebooks.” As I look out my window on this cold, November morning, I see the brown of the leaves from the trees that now make a winter blanket for my garden plants. Earlier in the summer these same leaves brought brilliant green to my yard and shade from the Sun’s rays. The wind is doing its work to bring the hangers-on to the ground to join their limb neighbors, a wind that is strong and cold and also reminds me of how the Spirit moves in our lives, unseen yet powerful nonetheless. A butterfly who lifeless body I found in June still adorns flowers on my kitchen table, its beauty a visual of what was and what will be again when summer returns. The Sun is slanting across the bowl of fruit that sits nearby and the colors of orange, yellow, red and green give my eyes a show. 

What is essential? What isn’t really? Important questions to consider. Essential gratitude? And how to cultivates its importance in our lives. Every day is filled with so much that I had nothing to do with bringing about but which serves my life and begs me to notice. Perhaps that is the true act of gratitude…the pausing, the noticing, the naming, as it becomes the ‘swiftily moving prayer’. 

“So this, I believe, is the central question upon which all creative living hinges: Do you have the courage to bring forth the treasures that are hidden within you?” 

~Elizabeth Gilbert: Big Magic:Creative Living Beyond Fear

In the last  few weeks, I have experienced two big ideas that came to life. They came to life because the creators possibly overcame their fears, their inner critics, the naysayers that likely showed up on their path. These creators followed a hidden desire to bring something to life that had niggled into their brain and would not let them go. We all have them…and some follow that thread that leads to an outcome that may even surprise them in what is born. 

The first big idea come to life happened on a trip to souther Wisconsin to a place called Kinstone.(https://www.kinstonecircle.com) Sitting in the beautiful farmland surrounded by the ubiquitous corn and soybeans, Kristine Beck worked several years creating stone circles, a dolmen, prairie gardens and a chapel that is small and so enveloping that it feels like a sacred embrace. Standing in this amazing landscape, I could only imagine the neighbors who watched as flatbed trucks hauled immense stones along the gravel roads to eventually be lifted high and placed into the ground. She must have been constantly questioned and challenged. But the big idea that lived within her and those that worked with her would not be quelled. And now this place welcomes others to come and stand in the amazement that is echoed in places like Stonehenge and New Grange. 

The second big idea in which I had the privilege of being present was the Immersive Van Gogh experience that has taken up residence in a warehouse in Minneapolis. What would happen if you take some of the most beloved paintings in the world and allow people to be held in the images as they float up the walls and dance on the floors? This must have been a guiding question that played in the mind of the creators. Add a background soundtrack that moves through jazz and classical music and the participants become a part of a play that never ends whose actors are ever changing and reacting in new and different ways. I can imagine the critics who tried to shoot this idea down for countless reasons. But the big dream that had been born in the creators would not bend to the critics words. In the end, people who might never see the smaller versions of these paintings in museums far away, feel the pulsing color and fluid movement of Van Gogh’s brush as it strokes their faces with color. 

These two experiences reminded me of Elizabeth Gilbert’s book, Big Magic:Creative Living Beyond Fear. I was blessed to meet Ms. Gilbert when she was on a book tour and to hear her speak about this inner drive that we all have to create, to make. “Do whatever brings you to life, then. Follow your own fascinations, obsessions, and compulsions. Trust them. Create whatever causes a revolution in your heart.” That night, her enthusiasm was contagious and I think everyone there walked out with the inner coals of creativity fanned. I know I did.

Of course, walking back into the daily, that enthusiasm can get lost or squelched by the outside(or inside) voices that want to keep us dreaming small. Thinking about these times in which we live, it seems to me we are hungry for the big ideas, the big dreams. How do we move on from this pandemic life? What will we do to hold onto all that was good that came to us? How will we resist the urge to try to return to things that seem ‘normal’? How will we change the systems that keep us hostage to a way of ‘us and them’, of the ‘haves and have nots’? All these questions need the work of big thinkers.

Ancient stones lifted to standing is not new. But it is new in the landscape of the southern prairie. The paintings of Van Gogh are not new. But the ability to have them embrace you with their beauty is. Big ideas or big dreams do not have to be particularly new to dazzle or inspire or shift the trajectory of human life. “It might have been done before, but it hasn’t been done by you!” says Liz Gilbert. 

What are the big dreams smoldering in your belly today? They might not need a giant crane to lift into place. Or a warehouse to house them. I believe they are there in all of us. May we find the courage to stoke the embers, our big dreams, for our own healing and for the healing of the world.

It is the season of letting go.
Green makes way for red and gold.
Winds blow with fierce intention
and what once held strong
now releases its grip on limb and bough.

These words began a piece I wrote for a collection of prayers, poems and reflections for a book entitled Autumn printed by the Iona Community’s Wild Goose Press. The writings would most likely be used by those preparing worship services but the invitation to reflect on the gifts of this season in which we now find ourselves reminded. me once again of the wisdom of the rhythms of Creation. This time of the year which we call ‘fall’ confronts us with the lessons of letting go, of slowing down, of being present to our own mortality. As I write this the leaves are dropping from a maple tree I have concerns about…its leaves have turned prematurely brown and an arborist has instructed me to watch it, to water it and to wait until spring to see if the summer’s drought has injured it and nothing more. Like with many of life’s circumstances, only time will tell.

It is the season of slowing down,
of remembering the bud and seed,
of measured light, dying beams,
slanting across the changing rhythm of our days.

Darkness is now coming earlier in the evenings and exiting later in the mornings. This change in light can bring on a melancholy, our bodies seem to need the light to propel ourselves off the mattress. Having been a morning person most of my adult life, I find the darkness something to grapple with, something to hold gently as my own rhythms shift and become accustomed to this shadowed beginning to the day. I have to remind myself of all the good things that come from darkness: babies in the womb, bulbs that will bloom from dark soil, stars that can only be seen on a background of blackened sky.

It is the season of returning,
falling back to the earth,
to the life that quivered in summer breezes,
to the energy that shone sun onto our upturned faces.

Endings are always difficult. Summer’s end carries the memory of color that arrived after winter’s white and spring’s promise only to burst into greens and reds and brilliant yellows with summer’s arrival. This circular movement reminds us of the cycle of birth, life, and death that exists in the Universe, a cycle of which we are all a part. How to rest in that wisdom and allow our bodies to settle in it? It is the always present call offered to us if we choose to listen, if we choose to stay awake. 

Creator of all seasons, enfold us in the wisdom of letting go.
Infuse us with the breath of slowing down.
Guide us in the dance of returning
as we rest and renew in this most holy season.

May this day find each of us looking up to the trees that want to teach us. May we spend time watching a leaf as it falls to its resting place. May we notice the skies in their brilliant blue as they make a home for fluffy, white clouds and birds in V-formation heading to their winter home. May we await the darkness with gratitude for all it houses. May we know the gift of letting go. 

It is the music that undoes me. Almost as soon as it begins, I feel the tears pooling in my eyes while my throat tightens with that overwhelming desire to fight off the emotion. Why do I bother? I look around and see that I am not alone. As someone who has logged more hours in church that I care to admit, the return of being with others in what is called worship still draws me in while holding an ambiguous feeling. Even though the services I attend are held outside and some of us are wearing masks, the experience is still held in that gray area of the unknown. The spoken words are mostly familiar and the rhythm of the liturgy is there and yet…we know that something has changed in how we come together. And we don’t know what it all means for how we will move into a future that holds both the ‘way we were’ and the ‘who we will become.’ It is probably true for schools and work settings, for sports teams and card clubs, any place where two or more are gathered.  Many of us find ourselves in this tenuous place that has not yet formed, caught in the in-between. And that in-between place carries so much that is unknown and also so important.

But the music. In the first in-person time of worship I attended on the lawn of the church, the service began with singing “Morning Has Broken”, a simple tune with words planted inside me from camps long ago. Through my masked face, I did not get more than a few words out until the tears started to fall. Finally, I gave up singing and just let the music wash over me, allowing the place where the tune first entered me to be stroked with memory, gentleness and healing. Yesterday, the opening song was “There Is a Balm in Gilead” and the same thing happened. I was reaching for a tissue when I noticed the young woman sitting near me wipe an errant tear from her cheek before it could be caught in the cotton of her mask. “There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole”…may it be so. I managed to make it through more of this tune than I did on that earlier Sunday which I am counting as a win. Perhaps by Christmas, I will be able to get through a whole, tearless song but I am not holding my breath. Perhaps by Christmas, we will be able to safely meet in the sanctuary. Again, no breath is being held. Mostly, I am simply thankful for the care and caution exhibited by those planning for these important times, for the ways in which they have taken into account those who are most vulnerable, the oldest and the youngest among us.

These tearful musical experiences have had me thinking about the role that music plays in our lives. As a former middle school music teacher, I remember realizing how music became that place of identity during those precious, often painful years. The music listened to during adolescence bores into some cell deep place and defines who we are, what we hope to become. How many of us remember certain songs when we drive past a particular place or down a certain street? As we get older our music palette may change but those initial songs we could sing by heart, over and over, are within us and we can’t escape their presence. The words and tunes told of our longings, our dreams, our hopes, our fears. For those of us who still listen to a lot of music, the same can be said. There are certain songs and those who perform those songs, that create the soundtrack for our days saying things we might not be able to say for ourselves.

Yesterday’s service contained a song that was new to me, by Sara Bareilles.  As the young woman began to sing this tune called ‘Brave’, the tears once again welled up in my eyes. The lyrics urged the hearer to ‘show how big your brave is’. The last months have required much of us all. Compassion. Empathy. Isolation. Caution. Patience. Discernment. Intelligence. Creativity. Perseverance. Resilience. All these and so much more. And also, I suppose, I certain kind of bravery. The next months may ask more of the same. Bravery comes in many forms and, hopefully, we will all have the wherewithal to show how big our brave is. While we’re at it, may we be surrounded by music that lifts us up, fortifies us and brings us to tears. 

Here’s a link to the song. You’ll need to skip through the ad. Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUQsqBqxoR4 

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.