One Wild and Precious Life

Helloooo Out There!

Oh, my, where does the time go?  A whole year has come and gone since I wrote on this blog!  Well, at least the date has turned over to 2010.  My only excuse is that I had an absolutely abysmal Advent, Christmas was fine, but gone in a flash (the whole Twelve Days!), and there doesn't seem to be the lull I expected between Epiphany and Lent.  We've had the Bishop's visit last Sunday (I also celebrated my 10th anniversary of ordination to the priesthood), tomorrow is the annual parish meeting, and next Saturday is our vestry retreat.  For non-Episcopalians, the vestry is like the parish council or board; we meet monthly, but once a year we take the better part of a day to do a little self-evaluation, planning, and envisioning for the next year, as well as to orient new members.  Of course, for each of these big events, there's a lot of planning and preparation that I also do, so it keeps me hopping.

As for the abysmal Advent:  I don't know exactly why or how that came to be, but almost without realizing it, a few days before Christmas, I realized I was very depressed -- so much so that I knew that I needed to monitor myself carefully, and if it continued, get some help and medication.  I think a lot of things came into play all at once, including, of course, post-Italy-adventure letdown.

In any event, on Christmas Eve I woke up, and suddenly everything was all right again.  It felt like a peaceful Christmas Eve morning, and I had energy, and my mood was fine.  I spent the day decorating my house (I had my tree up, and the rest of the decorations in from the garage, but hadn't had the energy to decorate), including hanging some tinsel garland outside (I don't do outdoor lights) and buying a new garland for my front door wreath, with little mittens on it.  Very cute.  I did some grocery shopping, including a turkey roast (with light and dark meat -- perfect!), a duck (frozen -- to cook on New Year's), and a beef rib roast.  I had gifts to open from family, and especially, as always, from my generous friend Cheryl, who is the best gift-giver I know.  I had a festive little house.  My sermon was done, and my time was my own until some time before the 10 pm Christmas Eve service.

I had a great week after Christmas, doing some intensive journaling, reviewing 2009 and preparing for a new decade.  I started a new book, When the Heart Waits by Sue Monk Kidd, and I'm still reading it, little bit by bit, savoring just a page or two at a time.  Her language is beautiful, and she captures that time of transition and discernment so well.

Now my decorations are mostly down (though not completely packed up and put away).  I tend to leave the predominantly red, white, and silver stuff out through February, when I begin to switch over to green for spring and St. Paddy's day.

I will continue my Italy travelogue another day.  I'm still working my way through it all.  But here's a photo I'll leave you with -- my creche for Christmas 2009-10.

I hope you can get a clearer image if you click on it.  I didn't put all my critters there, but the dragon on the roof of the stable is new, and I'm not sure I used the airplane (also on the roof)  Elvis and Santa are there, as usual, along with the snack truck, the street lights, and the little mouse, offering the baby Jesus his piece of cheese.  It makes me smile every time I walk by.

I will also leave you with one Italy shot:

I ate lunch here one day, just outside Altavilla Milicia, which is about 20k from Palermo (Sicily).  It's a great story that I promise to tell one of these days.  The trees in the foreground are lemon trees -- the lemons are green in Sicily -- and that blue line at the horizon is, of course, the ocean.  The restaurant owner gave me a bag of lemons, right off the trees, which I took back to my landlady in Palermo.  What you can't see off the far right edge of the photo is a line of several attached cottages -- kind of like old-fashioned motels used to have.  Now I didn't ask, but I'm convinced that at least some of them are summer vacation rentals, and my fantasy is that I will spend my retirement winters in one of those cottages, writing books and walking my dogs to the seaside every day.

Incidentally, at midnight in Palermo, it's 55 degrees F and partly cloudy right now.  As a man said on the train one day, "Ahhh, Eeetaly!"

The State of Things

No pictures today, but some talk about gardening and travel.

I'm just about ready for my upcoming trip to Italy.  It's hard to believe that I depart in a little more than 2 weeks!  I'll fly into Zurich and see the black madonna in Einsiedeln.  You can google this and see her.  Than I ride the train down through the Alps to Milan, and go see the black Madonna in Oropa.  Then it's on, on, on to all the black madonna sites I can reach in about 2 1/2 weeks.  I've got a tentative itinerary done.  I've got my map.  The main book I'm using is Lucia Chiavola Birnbaum's book, Black Madonnas: Feminism, religion, & politics in Italy.  She includes a great map with what she says are the "25 significant sites" of black madonnas in Italy.  It was a great starting point.  I've discovered maybe 5-10 others that I want to see; I'm sure there are more.  Her book is still available, if anyone's interested.  I'll admit that I'm not all that interested in the political movements in Italy, but that's really only one chapter of 11.  What I'm really interested in is the map, and her theories about the origins and popularity of the black madonnas, most particularly in Italy.

I chose Italy because I was there in 2005, so I know Italy a teeny bit, love it passionately, and have the tiniest bit of Italian to work with.  The number of madonnas there seems manageable, unlike southern France, where there are dozens, if not hundreds (see Ian Begg's book, The Cult of the Black Virgin, which includes maps of France).  Sorry, I'm not even doing hyperlinks tonight -- how lazy is that?  Google is your friend.

I'm going alone.  This is not a "store bought" pilgrimage or study trip, though it will be both for me.  I'm making it up as I go.  When I get back, I'll share what I saw and learned, and you can do it yourself -- or I might just lead a pilgrimage myself!  The climax of the trip will be Sicily, where there are 10 sites.  I intend to spend 6 days.  But my plans are very fluid.  I've been sick, and due to allergies, am still not 100% well.  I will do what I can do.  If I get slowed down and only have 2-4 days in Sicily, so be it.  If I get there and am not happy there, I'll come back to the mainland and spend more time in Naples, or Rome, or Florence.  Win/win.  I'm not one of those people who has to be locked into a schedule and reservations, being a certain place on a certain date.  In fact, that seems really distasteful to me.  I want to be able to stay in the places that call to me, stay with the madonnas that call to me.  And then move on.  I'm so excited I can barely stand it.  It's like Christmas Eve as a little kid, multiplied by about 12, till I'm actually leaving for the airport.  I know what clothes I'm taking and wearing.  I do not think my rolling, carry-on knapsack will be nearly full.  Plenty of room for souvenirs and icons and pictures, even though I've also packed an extra duffel if I buy too much.

But as I said, I've been sick.  I'm over the bronchitis that I came home with a month ago, but I'm still working on managing allergies.  I never had allergies till I came to Tennessee.  Now I do.  In previous years they took the form of stuffed up nose and sneezing marathons that could go on for 15-20 sneezes.  Occasionally I had to take an antihistamine to calm them down.  This year, they've decided to live at the back of my head -- in the form of post-nasal drip and a tendency to cough.  I have to talk a lot in my job, so the coughing has got to be managed, somehow.  Antihistamines and decongestants seem to do the trick, but working out the right combination is no mean feat.  But by George, I think I've almost got it.  But it has left me tired and drained, and still with a pain in my side (from a pulled muscle, people tell me) that responds to ibuprofen.  So my energy has been low.  I've learned something about not being 25 again, when I recovered from anything in about 5 minutes (or 5 days).  I've learned about just submitting to the time it takes for my body to heal, and to be gentle with myself (even though part of me feels I should be at least back to 100% now, if not more).  I've learned about accepting the kindness of others to bring me stuff, or just to give me permission to be sick for a while.

My spiritual director is also a reiki practitioner, and Friday she gave me a treatment.  I don't know exactly what happened, but by yesterday I felt so good that I did 2 hours worth of gardening (which was, of course, like stuffing pollen directly up my nose).  My back walk looks fabulous, and I learned some stuff about what I want to do back there with the runaway, invasive bamboo that my predecessor planted.  The answer to that is: nothing.  Cut it back a couple of times per season, transplant any other things I want to save, and just give the bed over to (trimmed) bamboo.  It's hopeless.  I've heard that burning and digging out and herbicides are powerless against bamboo.  Resistance is futile.  But it actually looks nice if I keep it cut back off the sidewalk, out of the boxwood, and from around the hosta.  So even though I was all choked up for most of the day (not a good thing on Sunday, with 2 services), I've learned some stuff.  And there's such great satisfaction in seeing the difference my two hours' labor made.  I've decided to do just a bit each week that pleases my eye, and I'm slowly encroaching on the borders of the big beds that my predecessor planted (with the help of 3 assistants -- I have NO gardening assistants), making them just a bit smaller on all sides.  Six inches or a foot smaller on each side can make them easier to maintain.  Just when I get the jungle of yard conquered, it will be time to retire, or to leave this parish!

I've also been enjoying my tiny back porch.  I sit out there in the morning when I can to enjoy the birds and plants, and to write my morning pages.  Yesterday I went around looking for leftover perennials, but could not find the coreopsis I was seeking for a pot.  So I bought a big pot of yellow mums at Walmart.  Not bad for 5 bucks.  Five dollars for a pot of pure sunshine.  Yellow-gold mums (not the eye-shocking bright yellow, but a golden color), big pot, beautiful with my gold marigolds with the deep red edging.  Sunshine every morning.

So that's my last couple of weeks.  I hope to post daily or so when I'm traveling -- I'm taking my mini-notebook with me, which has a card-reader for photos, and wireless capability.  So if I can access wi-fi, I'll be able to show you what I'm doing and seeing.

Whew!

Well, last Saturday night I got home from our Episcopal General Convention, held every 3 years.  The trip from Tennessee to Anaheim, California, is a big one, on a number of levels.  It was overwhelming, amazing, hard work, but with a bit of time to play.  I didn't expect to go, as I was a 2nd alternate deputy, with only the regular deputies and the first alternate having a paid spot.  But the first alternate had to drop out, and I got an expense-paid trip, with 5 days' notice.  Everything fell into place in the most remarkable way: dog care, supply clergy, kitty care, and all the rest).  This is my fourth General Convention, but the first one where I haven't been a visitor, and actually felt some responsibility to do some work!  There was a lot of work to do, though I had the easiest end of things, being an alternate, and only called into duty when deputies needed to be off the floor of the legislative session.  Still, there was a lot to do, a lot to learn.  I admit, I only got to the health club once, and didn't get to the pool or hot tub a single time.  I went to committee hearings and legislative sessions.  But I was only an alternate -- it was our deputies, who also had committee responsibilities, who worked so very hard.  I loved it, and did also work hard myself, and saw my friend Fran, and we talked and talked and talked.  I haven't seen her in 7-9  years, but I think we had even more to say to each other, more to share about common interests and activities, than we did back when.  Oh, I finally counted and figured it was close to four hours we were together, but it felt like 1/2 hour.  For anyone who thinks folks on the internet are axe-murderers:  neither Fran nor I seem to show any proclivities for that.

But after 2 weeks away, it sure was good to get home.  I've loved being with my dogs again.  I've loved sleeping in my own bed.  I've loved being back in the weekly routine of office hours, services, bible study, and the people I love here in Tennessee.  It was great being with colleagues and our dear bishop in California, but home is always best, isn't it?  I know I won't be here in Crossville for the rest of my life; but right now, right here, it feels absolutely right.

I spent the week debriefing from the time away.  The Convention did enact some controversial resolutions dealing with openly GLBT people in the discernment process for ministry -- ordained or not.  We made the news in those places where people find religious news.  This had to be presented to the people here at home, the people in the pews.  But I didn't really get fully caught up on what happened here while I was gone, both at work and at home, and now I'm heading out again!  I'm going to Buffalo (where, I'm sure you  remember, I lived for 24 years), and will see my best friend's new house.  I will spend a few days by the lake, where I can just unwind and get back to my true self.  I'll see lots of old friends.  I've taken care of all the details I need to take care of, and now can do my laundry and re-pack my bags, and I'm out of here soon.

I'll miss my garden, I confess.  There are beans, cucumbers, and tomatoes (finally!) to pick, weeds to pull, and grapes to watch.  I've recently (finally!) transplanted annuals into pots and containers for my porches.  They need watching and watering.  There's always more to prune and burn and spray.  I don't use a lot of poison, but just today I attacked my bumper crop of poison ivy.  I've watched it uneasily for long enough -- now it needs eradication!

But I will enjoy the cool of Buffalo (I hope  -- it can get hot there, but on average is lovely in the summertime.  And when we go out to the lake, in a camping trailer on the Rez, near Silver Creek, it's bound to be even cooler and more refreshing (though sometimes rainy, right there 100 yards from the lake).  I can't wait.  I need this time to rest and revitalize, before a 6-week return to work, and then my 3-week trip to Italy.  I know I will be nourished by the love of my friends.  My best friend Cheryl and I are truly soul friends.  Despite each of our tendencies for self-preoccupation, we always listen eagerly and offer free, unsolicited advice to one another.  I know Cheryl holds me in her heart always (as I do her), and that kind of acceptance allows for deep rest and re-creation.

How is travel for all of you?

Lent

I love Lent.  It's the Church's time of "New Year's Resolutions," a time to examine oneself, and make a plan to address a shortcoming or two.  Shortcomings are those things that stand in the way of our fullest possible relationship with God, of course.  God absolutely longs to be in relationship with all of creation.  We humans erect barrier after barrier to that intimacy that is our true home.  Lent is a chance to live more fully into that relationship between creature and Creator.  It's less about sackcloth and ashes than it is about the mutual longing between Lover and beloved.

We had our usual Shrove Tuesday pancake dinner at church, and it was lovely -- 40 or so people gathered together to eat pancakes, celebrate Mardi Gras in our dignified, Episcopalian way (still with much laughter and fellowship), and just be "family" with this group of people who have chosen to worship and celebrate together on this mountain.  The men's group cooked; the women's group served.  I blessed the food, ate heartily, wandered around socializing (not the easiest thing for someone who's a classic introvert), and went home, satisfied in body and soul.

On Ash Wednesday we had two services, 10 am and 6 pm.  We had 45 people between the 2 services, which is extremely good for a weekday service, even a fairly momentous one, liturgically and ecclesiastically.  It's a big day in the Church, kind of like Good Friday in significance -- but for most of the world, it's really "just another day."  In between our services, I visited two parishioners who were hospitalized with heart problems -- I call these folks, with some humor, but certainly not to trivialize -- "broken hearts."  I've had a fair number of parishioners with broken hearts in the last few months, and it breaks my heart, as well.  Some weather their problems relatively easily, be they bypasses, stents, heart catheterizations, pacemaker implants, defibrillator implants, or whatever.  I see others grow more and more frail, recovering less and less quickly.  My parish is predominantly a retirement parish -- they don't get any younger.  People who were vital and active when I came here six years ago are, in some cases, quite frail, and several have died.  My people face the possibility of death on a regular basis.

But both of these Ash Wednesday hospital visits, one in town and the other in Cookeville (off the Plateau and 30 miles west of here) were delightful and precious, true gifts.  I can't tell details, of course, because of confidentiality -- but I will say that anointing people with oil and laying my hands on their heads for a prayer of healing is one of the greatest privileges I have as a priest.  And as my heart has broken right open in these last few weeks, I'm also privileged to be with people in a way that is holier than I ever could have asked or imagined.

As for me, I considered my own Lenten practice with due sobriety and reverence.  What I realized was that, rather than the typical season of quiet self-reflection, what I needed to do to honor God best, was to make this season a season of action, rather than inaction.  You can't imagine the amount of time I spend in relative inactivity:  sitting at my desk, meeting with people, reading, studying for church related things, or parked in front of the computer (like now!), the television, the Spider Solitaire game, or other mindless diversions.  I have discerned several very special calls from God (in my own view, at least), and also particular practices that make me the best person and priest that I can be.  I have tons of creative ideas that hardly ever come to fruition.  So I examined (there's the self-examination!) exactly which of all these things and ideas that I felt most passionate about, which things I felt most strongly called to do, which things would restore holy balance to my life.  I came up with six projects that I've dreamed of, written of, spoken of, and neglected to act upon.  Perhaps I'll tell you exactly what those six items are at another time -- just now they seem a little embarrassing in their simplicity.  I made a silly little chart, like we make for our children so they will do their chores.  I painted it Lenten purple and bought silly and pretty litle stickers.  I want to work on each of my six projects for at least 1/2 hour, at least 3 times a week.  That means 18 stickers a week for each of the weeks of Lent.  What fun!  I bought glittery shamrocks and chickies and bunnies and flowers.  I'm actually excited, in a silly sort of way.  I don't want to completely trivialize this -- project boards and progress stickers really seem to work for me.  They helped me do all the tasks I had to do for my spiritual direction program.  Today I did 2 things, and so I  now have 2 stickers on my chart (which is on a piece of poster board, 22x28 inches).  Who knows?  There might even be another sticker before I go to bed!

Today I also met with my spiritual director.  I drive an hour each way to see her -- it's a good thing that  I like to drive!  These monthly meetings are a chance to itemize all the times during the  month that I feel God has touched my life.  By the end of our meeting today, we were laughing, because I found myself saying, "Oh, and just one more thing -- just this one more thing, I promise....!"  There is great abundance in my life right now.  God is touching me often.  Sometimes it's the gift I receive from someone else.  Sometimes it's a creative idea (or two, or two dozen).  Sometimes it's a confluence of things that seem to all come at once, falling together, opening doors, making one or another path seem like it must be the true path for me.  Like another trip to Italy this year.  I haven't yet purchased my ticket, but I think it will happen.  O Happy Day.  O Happy Lent.  I'm so grateful.

First Snow

Fall has been and is still beautiful around here.  This is the best place for seasons that I've ever lived.  Each one is of roughly equal length, and none so severe as to impose serious hardship.  The length allows us to truly savor each one fully, and anticipate the coming of the next.  The colors are just about at full height right now; last week I had occasion to drive down off the mountain to Knoxville twice, and the brilliance of the leaves took my breath away.  There's simply no more beautiful place to live.

Now the bad news.  I have photos -- any number of photos.  I have a couple of autumn shots, and several of our first snow two nights ago.  But for some reason, Typepad is refusing to upload my photos tonight.  I've noticed that since their "new improved" format, my photos take a long time -- but tonight I gave two different ones over a half-hour, and they still didn't upload.  Maybe tomorrow.  Or something.  Or maybe I'll have to try another server.  I've certainly seen good results on the free blog servers.  I pay good money to get frustrated.  Sigh.

Anyway -- there are other things to say.  I've been thinking about lots and lots of things, and life has been good here in my little corner of Tennessee.  We've had a couple of nights of hard freeze, but temperatures are moderating, so I may still get some glorious time in the garden, preparing it for winter.  I've got volunteer lettuce coming up!  I've covered it with a row cover, so we'll see if it survived.  You know how I love gardening: it truly grounds me, both literally and metaphorically.  I think it's good to counter time spent in the lofty, heavenly reaches, with a bit of time shoveling manure onto vegetable beds.  It's the nature of us humans to reach toward heaven, but to also need to ground ourselves to our mother earth.

I had a root canal today, and feel pretty good (Tylenol is my friend).  It wasn't really painful, thank God.  I had one years ago that was excruciating -- but not today.  I'll tell you, though, it's not comforting to hear one's dentist say, "Uh-oh.  I don't like the look of that."  There I was, helpless, with my mouth gaping open, full of sharp tools.  When I told her that, though, she said that a worse thing to hear the dentist say is, "Oops."  I had to agree.  Now there's just the matter of paying her for the work, and the crown I'll receive next month.  Isn't it funny that they call that appointment "the delivery?"  I told them it sounds like childbirth, but they said it was a little like that, only they "don't go there" to that other end of the body, where childbirth happens.

I had an argument (yep, a real argument) with a parishioner a couple of weeks ago, and this person told me, "You just don't listen to us!"  Well, as someone who was a professional listener for 18 years, you can imagine that I was quite taken aback!  Then I realized that we English speakers tend to use "listen to" in a couple of different ways.  One is a simple attending to, receiving, and acknowledging information.  That's how I listen.  But there's another way we use it:  "listen to" can mean to obey.  Remember how we sometimes say to our kids, "Listen to me!"  We mean, "Do what I say!"  "You should have listened to me!" means "You should have done what I advised you to."  And in that sense, no, I often do not "listen" to my parishioners.  When I make a change in the way we do things at church, it is usually a well-thought out one, with due consideration given to pros, cons, and dissenting opinions.  Sometimes I act anyway, despite dissenting opinions.  This was one of those times -- but at least I understand the accusation a little better now.  No, I'm not the obedient "little woman" or "hired hand" that some may have imagined I would be.

I've been feeling a kind of restlessness.  Time is flying by.  As I said, two nights ago we had our first snow, and most of us missed it, because it fell overnight, as we slept.  Sometimes I feel as though I'm sleeping my way through the "first snows" of life a lot of the time.  On Monday a parishioner described the passing of time as though driving down the road with the telephone poles seeming to whizz past the windows -- that's how the days and weeks and months, and yes, even the years are whizzing by me -- sometimes I can almost hear them blowing past my ears like a strong wind.  It is three years now since I was in Italy; it's six years since I came here.  Just about this time of year I interviewed for this position, and it was the first week in November when they called me to be their Rector, and the second week in December when I finally arrived here, lock, stock, and barrel.  Where has the time gone?  My life keeps slipping away, and there is so much I want to do.  There are books to write, and countries to see -- whole chunks of the world that I haven't yet experienced.  There are all those black madonnas in Europe that I still haven't seen.  Yes, I've been to Costa Rica and the Caribbean since I was in Italy -- but I haven't been back to Europe, and I'm desperate to go.  And I just keep getting older.

Maybe this is how it feels sometimes as another year draws to a close.  Maybe this is how it feels to be getting older.  Maybe the time is coming for me to put on my traveling shoes once again.  Who knows?

But it amazes me that life can be so rich, and at the same time feel so elusive, so slippery.

I finished Joyce Rockwell Hudson's "Natural Spirituality: Recovering the Wisdom Tradition in Christianity."  I highly recommend it for those who want to pursue a Christian spirituality that allows for the teachings of Carl Jung, for listening to dreams (an old and esteemed biblical tradition), and for listening to the wisdom of the Holy Spirit that we sometimes carry within us.  It's a refreshing and stimulating breath of fresh air when you life in the land of fundamentalism.  Keep in mind that I only live 50 miles or so from Dayton, Tennessee, home of the Scopes Trial, and where opposition to the theory of evolution is alive and well in the churches.

I'm having a suit made -- knit gaucho pants and a jacket.  I know gauchos went out of style a couple of years ago, but I've got one pair that I wear to death because they're adaptable, flattering to my less-than-perfect body, and so very easy to wear.  I want them in every color, so I can wake up in the morning and dress like a guy -- gauchos, a top, a jacket, and look presentable to go wherever I need to.  If this suit (in a dark blue, not quite navy) is a success, I may have others made in different colors.  I used to sew -- I think I'd try it myself, but knit fabric is crucial, and I never learned to sew with knits -- it's a real art.

I've been developing another idea for a book.  This is the third idea that seems really, truly viable.  Now if I could just finish one of them.

These are some of the many things that seem to keep me away from this blog -- these things and also the frustration of not being able to post pictures.  Yep, I just tried again.  No go.  Typepad, please get it together, OK?

Life in the Garden

This was a great weekend.  I love my quiet little life here on the Plateau with my parish, my books, my pets, and God's creation all around me.  I guess lots of people would say that my life is pretty small, but it feels just right to me.

I spent a good deal of time in the veggie garden on Friday and Saturday; as usual, the perennial beds go begging.  I started out with this:

Yeah, I know -- it looks pretty bad.  Okay, really bad.  It wasn't too bad when I went away on vacation the end of June, but by the time I got back late in July, it was already overgrown, and the heat and discouragement got to me.  But as I said the other day, the temperatures are really moderating around here, and it was really great gardening weather over the weekend.  So after only an hour, things looked like this:

Not nearly perfect, I know, but so much better!  And no, I didn't make the tomatoes appear this weekend -- they were already there, just not in the last shot.  Back against the fance, you can now see the rosemary, which has grown to huge proportions (I wasn't even sure it would winter over up here), thyme, and the wispier growth is asparagus.  The nearer bed is my strawberry bed, which is in need of some renovation and mulch.  I'm always amazed at how it just propagates itself, though, with minimum upkeep.  And even now this scene looks better yet, as more of the path is completely weeded and mulched with several layers of newspaper and then a thick layer of wood chips.

Now, you'll need to look very closely at the next two pictures, to see what I saw when I got ready to walk the dogs this evening:

The first is the two fawns who live in our woods, grazing at the back of the yard; the second is one of them munching apples in my driveway in the gorgeous afternoon light.  You can see by the raised ears that I've been spotted -- my next quick shot didn't even catch a glimpse of disappearing white tail!  I love these deer -- the doe has raised her two fawns in close proximity to my yard, and they're often seen from the church (you can see the side French doors of the church at the back of the photo).  It always feels like a blessing when they come to eat the apples that fall from my trees; I know as a gardener they are supposed to be my rivals (and they did eat over my garden fence and devoured my green beans while I was away) -- but it's an honor to be host to such gentle, timid, beautiful creatures.  I can scarcely believe that in about a month it will be deer hunting season, and men will take to the woods with their guns to kill these babes and their mother.  I do hope they'll be safe in my woods, but nobody can always keep the scavenging hunters off their property.  Grrrr.  It's one thing when it's the locals, especially the "hills and hollers" folk who need venison for their family's winter sustenance; it's another when it's big men in their camoflage, making sport of killing these beautiful critters.

I pray that my deer will be safe and sound out behind my house.  The difference in the pictures, incidentally, is that the first was taken through my dining room window, and the flash went off; the second was taken as I crept through my side yard, trying to get a clear shot (with my camera only, of course!) of these sweet children.  May you all be blessed with such beauty in your lives.

Ah, one last mention, since I included "books" in my categories:  I'm currently reading Kenneth C. Davis' "American's Hidden History" for my study group.  Very interesting little-known background on the settling and earliest years of our nation.  Even though I knew about Fort Duquesne in Pittsburgh, it never really soaked into my mind that the French were in Pennsylvania!  This book contains lots of stuff we never got in the history books.  I'm really glad our study group is doing it, because it's not one I'd read on my own -- I'm not much of a history buff, except biblical history.  I just finished an unabridged audio version of Ken Follett's "Pillars of the Earth," and I'm excited to hear that there's a sequel out, or soon to be out.  It was fabulous.  And then I read "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini (author of "The Kite Runner").  It was chilling and fascinating and absolutely enthralling.  And now I'm reading "Middlesex" by Jeffrey Eugenides.  These last two were lent to me by a parishioner who keeps up with recent fiction, and I'm so grateful.  I've been reading and writing lots more lately; maybe that's why I seem to have less time for blogging.  I'm only coming to learn in my later years that I really can't do and have it all -- there are only so many hours in the day!

Stroke of Insight

Has everyone in the world seen this (the information below, not my pretty peony)?

http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/229 (it's about 19 minutes, well worth the time, and a site with lots of other good stuff, as well)

And this?

http://www.amazon.com/My-Stroke-Insight-Scientists-Personal/dp/0670020745 (it's the book)

And these?

http://www.oprah.com/spiritself/oss/guest/oss_guest_jboltetaylor.jhtml (you could spend a couple of hours on this 4-part interview)

I found this information through a NY Times article from May 25, and had not heard of it before.  As a psychology undergraduate, I was fascinated with research on cerebral hemispheres, and always thought myself far more "right-brained" than "left brained" (I'm left-handed, and my left-handedness is pretty strongly dominant).  Now I see that's part of why I felt like a "natural born mystic."

For those of you who don't like to follow links (why not??), Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor is a brain scientist who had a stroke that disabled her left hemisphere (which deals with language, numbers, linear thought, cognitive memory, and just about everything that we call "rational thinking").  Her right hemisphere remained intact -- that hemisphere of wholistic, kinesthetic, intuitive, sensate knowing.  Her experience, as well as her reflection on that experience, is fascinating.  She basically shows the anatomical basis for what Christians, Jews and Muslims call mystical ecstasy or union with God, what Hindus call nirvana, and what Buddhists call enlightenment.  She shows that it's our left brain, with all its language-based chatter, that inhibits our sense of the mystical, and that to silence the chatter allows the ecstatic to be experienced -- and it's there within us all the time -- we just cover it up with the chatter.

Now anyone who has practiced centering or contemplative prayer for any length of time knows this.  Through that very difficult process of quieting the thoughts, we can, from time to time, experience the Holy in a direct way.  I'm not saying that God is within us, exactly (though we are made in God's image, so some stamp or thumbprint or shred of the divine must be there) -- but it's that quiet, still place, that right brain, if you will, where we hear God.  God doesn't often speak to me in words, but rather in senses, impressions, perceptions, intuitions, that my left brain then attaches language to, and which become ideas and phrases and sometimes sermons!

Is this a little "New Agey?"  Perhaps some would say so.  As an Episcopal priest (turns out Jill Bolte Taylor's father was my priest in Terre Haute, Indiana, in the 60s), I don't find anything in these ideas that are incompatible with Christianity.  I think Jesus told us not to worry, and to not get too attached to any material things or relationships, because they interfere with this quiet mind that contains or can enter the kingdom of heaven and the voice of God.  He did say that the kingdom of heaven is within us, among us -- not some pie-in-the-sky future thing (though, since the kingdom is eternal, it will also be in the future), but RIGHT NOW, if we choose to reach out and accept it.  I do not have a problem with the integration of the scientific and the spiritual.  In fact, I love it when the scientific bears out spiritual truths that have been known for millennia!

And now I'm off to see my spiritual director.  It's a hot, sunny day on the Cumberland Plateau, and it's my day off, besides.  I hope life is beautiful wherever you are.

Hands in the Dirt

I've noticed that when my head gets up in the too-mystical clouds (and this happens easily, as I'm a natural-born mystic), it's hard for me to keep my feet solidly on the ground, and the concrete, down-to-earth details of my life (like paying bills and opening mail and reading the newspaper) begin to slip away from me.  It's so hard to keep that balance!  And I much prefer the mystical heights to paying bills and cleaning the cat box.  I've been doing lots of reading, lots of dreaming, lots of writing and realizing things about the black madonna and why she means so much in my life.  I've been bowled over by how holy my life is -- how holy all our lives are.  Why is it that we can look at a flower,

or a blooming redbud,

and see God's glory reflected in them, but forget so often that our lives are also things that we (or others) could look at, and also see God's glory shining forth?  And the black madonna is all part of this realization for me.  I'm coming to see how I embody her for others when I sit with them in the dark, painful places in their lives, holding their hands, just being present with them, not needing to fix or resolve it in some way, but just being there.  It's the black madonna who is present during the painful times, during birth and death and illness and fear, and that's where I'm often called to be, in this retirement-age and older parish, with a fair number of people who are facing the very end of their lives.  There's more than that, but you can see what kind of clouds have been surrounding my head for the last several weeks.  A book I finished on my cruise is Longing for Darkness by China Galland.  It took me the longest time to read it, and it took her the longest time to get to the meat of things, but in the end, I loved this book.  It really helped me to formulate why the black madonna has come into my life in such a strong way.  Before that I read The Moonlit Path: Reflections on the Dark Feminine, edited by Fred Gustafson; but I read it very quickly, to complete my paper for the Haden Institute.  I want to reread it more slowly and thoughtfully.  Now I'm working on The Cult of the Black Virgin by Ean Begg.

So today was a nice day -- cooler than yesterday (which was mid-70s), but just right for some crawling around in the dirt.  Getting my hands in the dirt is the very best way to get my head out of the clouds and my feet on the ground.  So shortly after noon, I headed out to the veggie garden (yes, with the perennial beds crying out to me for some weeding and order-making).  I haven't shown you my new little garden gate, which a parishioner made and installed for me.  I did stain it, at least, and I'e also got to put the chicken wire across the bottom of it (bunnies and other critters can squeeze through those holes.

Isn't it adorable?  Don't you love my initial in the center, and the clever little latch?  I wish he would have put the fencing on the back, rather than the front, but I'm not complining, no not one little bit!  And do notice the condition of the raised bed directly behind the gate!  And the one to the left of it!

So I decided that it's time to plant lettuce and peas; therefore, that's the bed I set to work on today.  Despite how bad it looks in the bed directly behind that gate, that whole clear bed took me only an hour and 10 minutes from start to finish -- to weed, to cultivate and dig out roots, and to get the 18 inches closest to the gate planted with 3 rows of lettuce.  I couldn't find my peas -- a bunch of seeds got wet and sprouted last summer, and the peas must have been among them.  So I'll have to buy more peas.  In this next picture, you can see the bed more clearly:

You can also see the weeds and dandelions in the surrounding path and beds!  But now that I've shown myself how quickly it goes, the rest shouldn't be too terrible.  There's enough room for succession planting of lettuce (or Swiss chard, which I tasted for the first time yesterday).  At the back of this bed, you can see my trellis for my peas.  It's ready!  It's obvious that I could spent hours and hours in this veggie garden alone, and I'm determined to do better with my perennial beds this year, too.  But an hour a day with my hands in the dirt is very good for my soul, and for keeping me (literally) more grounded.  So I'm off to walk my dogs, then to buy some sweet sugar snap peas, and then we'll see what the rest of the day holds!

On Retreat, and a Bit of Shopping

I went out this morning for two reasons: to buy some yummy groceries for my retreat menu, and to pick up a plastic bin to pack away all my red winter decorations.  It's just about time to make way for green springtime decor.  Of course, I always get distracted from my mission, and I found a bunch of stuff at Big Lots that I simply had to have.  But there's also a (relatively) new Roman Catholic book & supply store in town, and I decided to stop there, thinking I might get one of those large glass candles to burn for the duration of my retreat (just a little extra blessing).

Well, I did get my groceries and my bin, but look what else I found!

The Virgin of Guadalupe is, of course, technically considered to be one of the only American black madonnas, and she is suitably elaborate, done here mostly in varying shades of foil.  I love her.  Plus I had a great talk with the two women who run the store about pilgrimage travel and black madonnas.

I'm off now for a couple of hours of reading and art-making before I prepare my lunch.  The temperatures are slowly rising here (by Monday it's supposed to be in the 60s), our 2-day snow is melting, and I'm having the most delicious time.  More later, I'm sure.

The Life of the Mind

Tomorrow I am taking a single vacation day from work.  Combined with my two regular days off (which I take whenever possible), I have 3 days off -- a nice chunk of time to be away from church work.  No, it's not as good as a week with my family, or two weeks in Buffalo or Italy (let's see, all other things being equal, how could I choose between Buffalo and Italy?).  But it's time away.  I have planned my time in the past, when I've scheduled time off.  But this time I played.  I scheduled the whole three days.  I designed a retreat.  I have allowed for art, reading, writing, nature, and lots of fun time, too.  I printed myself an elegant program of offerings.  After I playfully designed it for myself, I thought that it might be something others would enjoy.  Of course, if I really had the space for others here in my home, (well, I do have 3 guest beds, but work space is at a minimum, unless I use the church hall, too), I might build in more options and flexibility.  But this is how I will spend my next 3 days:

Download a_life_of_the_mind_retreat.doc

It is a MS Word document.  I can't seem to import multiple pages directly.  I hope you'll take a look at it.  For me, it's perfect.  Some comments:  I've begun eating oatmeal daily for breakfast, and find it delicious (with the fruit added) and filling.  I prefer the steel-cut oats to rolled oats, but am using up a very old box of rolled oats before I resume the delicious steel-cut ones.  Making oatmeal with milk (even lowfat) ratheer than water certainly kicks it up a notch, as Emeril would say.  Certainly for more than one person, I'd have to incorporate more breakfast options, though it would never be a buffet!  Of course I incorporated my current art and reading projects.  And I love to watch TV (Friday night is a very good TV night).  We have the luxury in this town of a yoga studio and teacher that people come to from miles around.  She spent years studying and India and teaching in New York City before she relocated here to be near her parents, who retired here.  What a gift my teacher (dare I call her a guru?  Maybe not!) is!

Even though I have no immediate plans to offer this private and personal retreat to others, I'd love your feedback.  Is this something you'd attend?  How would you change it, if you could?  What parts particularly engage you?  I only ask because I began by designing something that would appeal to only me (since I'm the only one on this retreat).  But I know I love providing quiet days for my parish, even to the small number who attend.  It occurred to me that this is something I'd travel and probably pay big bucks to attend, especially if I got my exquisite massage therapist to come in and offer massage to participants who chose to purchase it.

At any rate, it was great fun.  I intend to put my schedule into a folder and luxuriate in it.  I will not think of work one time.  I will emerge feeling as though I'd had a vacation at the shore.  And I welcome your constructive feedback!