Category Archives: Relationships

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What’s Important?

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When I hung around with evangelical Christians, I would frequently hear this phrase: “be in right relationship with”.  That was a core value in life.   I agreed then, and I still agree in some ways.  I very much resonate with the value of relationships.  I am “a lover” by temperament, so to speak, and being engaged with the universe is supremely important to me.  I also have a huge desire to be “right”, but that is exactly the thing I’m now trying to dismantle.  I was a compliant kid.  I was afraid of my father and of all authority.  I wanted to be “good” and “correct” because I wanted to be praised instead of punished!  Now, I find that being “right” is not all that great of a goal.  First of all, it can lead you to be self-righteous and judgmental.  Second, how do you even know what is “right”?  Is it “right” to do everything an authority tells you to?  What if that authority tells you to harm someone else?  See, it gets tricky.  How about if I just say that I want to have a good relationship with everything?  I think that covers it pretty well.

One relationship that I am really working to improve is my relationship with God and Christianity.  It has gone through a huge change in the last few years, one that has many of my friends scratching their heads.  Some of them are downright disappointed in the change and have told me so.  Some have just stopped communicating with me.  I am most in awe of those who are openly listening, talking, challenging, and engaging with me as I rework my theology and practice.  Yesterday was Ash Wednesday.  Instead of going to Church, getting ashes imposed on my forehead, and beginning a 40-day penitential practice (which is an indication of how I participated in that relationship for 47 years), Steve & I finished reading T.S. Eliot’s poem named for the day and discussed post-modern cynicism.  Despite Eliot’s conversion, he doesn’t seem very enthusiastic about life.  This morning, we had breakfast with his Aunt and talked about her church experiences with fasting and confession and Bible study.  Today, I got another e-mail from an old friend who is willing to discuss my journey and walk with me in it.  I’ve known this person since I was about 12 and she was 17.  Replying to her became my top writing priority for the day.  So, I’ve decided to use that material for my post today.  First, a photo or two to open the mind:

What is the value of a sparrow?

A cardinal far from the Vatican

My thoughts for today:

I feel like I have a continual discourse going on in my brain about my relationship with Jesus and the Church.  On any given day, other people enter that conversation and keep it going.  At breakfast, it was Steve & his Aunt Rosie.  As we walked to the library, it was just Steve.  Now you’ve entered the discussion.  Welcome!  Come, have a place on the panel!
The Church.  So much of it is about the social aspect.  Sometimes it acts like a group of people who are all friendly, who share affinities, who enjoy being together and taking care of each other.  Seems there’s nothing wrong with that, but I’m sure that’s not all Jesus meant the Church to be.  What happens when that group disbands, moves away or dies off?  Kind of like your Presbyterian congregation.  Or what happens when that group gets visited by people whom they don’t care for?  People of a different kind who don’t fit into their social circle?  How do they behave?  Is that what Christianity is about?  There is so much intolerance, so much judgment, so much exclusion, that it just seems to represent the worst of society as well.
Theology & Philosophy.  The Church getting down to what it actually believes about the universe.  And why.  I was taught by my Episcopal parents that there are 3 legs on the stool supporting what they believe: Scripture, Tradition and Reason.  My dad held up the Reason leg when he talked about Science. In the face of overwhelming evidence about evolution, for example, there’s no need to dismiss it.  It can be worked in with the other legs.  Scripture is about the story of human life, the salvation story, the emotional story, the behavioral story.  But it’s still a story, a Myth.  It is about Truth, but it isn’t literally true.  I don’t think it’s “true” that we are all sinners, or that we are all fundamentally separate from each other.  If you look at the biological universe, we are all very much interconnected.  I don’t know if there’s any evidence to prove that a historical Jesus even existed, much less that he was resurrected from the dead and will come again.  I still love Jesus’ teaching, whether he’s fiction or fact.  I love how he goes straight to the religious teachers of the day and preaches in their faces about how they have undermined values like compassion, inclusion, humility, spirituality, and forgiveness.  I think if it were possible for him to reappear in the US today, he would go straight to the Conservative Republican Christian Right and do the same thing!  Tradition seems to be aimed at behavior, how we live together.  The thing that is so tricky about behavior is that it needs to change, it needs to be responsive and responsible.  Most people think that Tradition is about keeping things the same.  I think that keeping core values is a good thing, but the way they are expressed should be flexible.
The thing I miss most about The Church is choir!  Singing!  And I have always loved Gospel more than classical, deep down.  Yesterday, Steve put on a new CD; I immediately recognized Odetta’s guitar and voice and purred with delight.  He laughed and said, “Priscilla wants to be a big, black woman!”  It’s so true!  I love the soul, the familiarity with humanity and suffering and the confidence.  I don’t want to be brainwashed or shamed or coerced by guilt.  I want to be free and respected for what I am.  And what am I?  A white Anglo, in part. But I am partly a big, black woman as well because we are all connected here on earth.
Anyway, that’s where the dialogue has me today.  I want to tell you again how much I appreciate you taking the time to engage with me in this part of my journey.  It means a lot.  I really get turned off by the tendency, especially in politics, for people to circle the wagons or form a fortress from which to sling rhetoric while refusing to actually come out peacefully and discuss something.  You know what I mean?  And the media just makes the whole situation worse, little Tweets & comments here and there but no real engagement.  Thanks for being willing to be real, to put your story and your thoughts and your experiences in writing and listen to mine as well.  I respect you for that.  I think that’s how Jesus was, too.  I think of the stories in the Gospel of John especially, of conversations with Samaritans, women, disciples, beggars, and Pharisees.  He didn’t just knock off a sound bite for the media and move on.  And as much as anyone stayed to hear more, he kept interacting.  What a great example!

 

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What are you doing the rest of your life?

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Steve and I had a long ramble along the Ice Age Trail yesterday in the golden, muddy afternoon.  We got talking about decision making, finances, the next step of our lives.  These are tough talks for us.  They require concentration, attention, soul-searching, vulnerability, risk…and we love it. Really, we do.  Getting past drifting and down to brass tacks really feels good in a relationship.  It feels real, genuine.  This is not a dreamy romance.  This is a shared life.  Along the way, I took some photographs, and now looking at them, I like the way they illustrate the terrain of our conversation.

Are you bound to habits, a lifestyle, a way of thinking that is keeping you together in some way, but may not be allowing you to grow and change?

What do you see when you look out to the horizon?  Where are you “pointing your canoe”?  How will you use your energy to get there?

Are you keeping open to the flow of all different variables?  Are you aware of the constancy of change?  Are you able to employ your intuition and avoid getting hemmed in by dogma?  Are you remembering the elemental things, the things that are most important to you?  Do you want to move forward or stay where you are right now?  Are you willing to wear away at obstacles to get to a new place?

While we were standing at the spring, and I was trying to figure out how to change the settings on my camera to get the rocks into sharp focus and the water into that soft, fuzzy blur I see in other peoples’ photos, I realized that we were deep into an important conversation, and I had better put the camera away!  So I did.  We kept talking.  By the time we were driving home in the car, I was compiling a list of words to remind myself of the things we agreed were important to us in living our lives.  Helping, challenging, rehabilitating, keeping open a place for something to grow, nurturing, teaching…and outdoors.  When I got home, I decided to see what would happen if I put a combination of those words into the search engine.  I came up with something that really sparked my interest.  An ecovillage in northeastern Missouri called Dancing Rabbit.  So I’m investigating.  Stay tuned! (or as Stuart would say, “Watch this space.”)

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Resistance

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Earlier this week, we sold a book called I Want That!: How We All Became Shoppers by Thomas Hine.  The blurb about it reads:

“Shopping has a lot in common with sex,” Thomas Hine observes near the beginning of this wide-ranging exploration of the history and psychology of one of the most commonplace and important activities of modern life. “Just about everybody does it. Some people brag about how well they do it. Some keep it a secret. Most people worry, at least a little, about whether they do it right. And both provide ample opportunities to make foolish choices.”

Choosing and using objects is a primal human activity, and I Want That! is nothing less than a portrait of humanity as the species that shops. ”

Me?  I hate shopping.  My first reaction is always, “I don’t want that.”   I have been thinking about getting a place in a more rural area of Wisconsin.  Lying in the bathtub this morning, I was struck by a realization.  Even if I pay cash for the real estate (from the sale of my former home), I still would have to pay property tax every year.  I don’t want that.

I don’t want to be indebted; I don’t want to be obligated.  I don’t want to be coerced or pressured into a relationship with any thing.  I am beginning to feel a mounting sense of resistance.  I’ve resisted getting a full time job for more than a year.  I’ve resisted being a consumer, especially of clothing and beauty products.  I’ve resisted Facebook.  I’ve resisted television and movies.  What is that about for me?

I am still struggling to be my own person, I guess.  I am struggling to focus on the things that I do want in a manner that I like.  I’m not ambitious.  I am an observer, an appreciator, but not much of a go-getter.  I resist marketing, for sure, but I don’t mind discovery.   Maybe part of that is simple laziness.  Maybe part of that is wanting the freedom to choose my relationships and responsibilities.

When I first read that comment about shopping having a lot in common with sex, I didn’t get it.  I hate shopping.  I love sex.  I suppose my consistency is in insisting on having the freedom to be very particular about my engagement with both.

And now, for the photo portion of my blog.  Choosing images and focusing where I want to, observing and appreciating has led me to these shots.  If you discover you like them, great.  I will not try to convince you to, though.  (Do I sound testy?  Okay, so be it.)

A fungus among us

The pod people have hatched

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While You Were Sleeping

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As usual, he called me at the office that afternoon while he was working from home.  “Hi.  How are you doing?”  I probably mentioned something about my ordinary frustrations on the job or something about our daughters.   Then it was down to business.  “What are you doing tonight?”  It was Friday night.  Our youngest had a rehearsal at a church only a few blocks from our house, starting about a half an hour after I got off work.  “Do you want to go out to dinner?”  “SURE!”  It was cold, the roads were icy.  We didn’t want to go far, so we dropped her off and went to a bar & grill  that had just opened behind the strip mall in our little town.  It was full of activity: TVs were on, people bustled about, artwork from the public schools was displayed on the wall.  There was lots to look at and hear.  The menu was new to us.  Teriyaki green beans sounded good.  So did fried artichokes.  I ordered a beer; I think he did, too.  We had sandwiches as well.  Then he got a call on his cell phone.  Our daughter was not feeling well and was leaving rehearsal early.  We said we’d meet her at home.  We all talked in the living room for a little while, as he sat on the couch gathering his strength for the climb upstairs.  He seemed pretty tired.  He’d come home from the hospital just 10 days earlier with 2 cardiac stents implanted.  In the bedroom, he turned on the flat screen TV, took his medications (all 23 of them) and hooked up his dialysis machine and his sleep apnea mask.   In our big, squishy bed, we watched an episode of “NUMB3RS”, and then the movie “Regarding Henry” came on.  I’d seen it before: Harrison Ford and Annette Bening in a good story about marriage, change and intimacy.  It complimented the mood perfectly.  We were feeling secure, companionable, close.  I fell asleep beside him, holding his hand.   I awoke at 6:30 AM.  His body was still and cold.

That day was exactly four years ago. What did he dream about that night?  Did he feel any pain?  Did he try to get up?  Did he try to call out or wake me?  Did he see a brightness as his neurons flashed for the last time?  Was it peaceful?  I can only imagine.

I can imagine him firing up feelings of love and bathing in them, floating on a surge of endorphins while images of his babies rushed by.  I can imagine him strolling an endless golf course of rolling green fairways, tree-lined and bright.  I can imagine him soaring with the tenor section in an angel choir, his energy trembling and resonating with clouds and stars.  I can imagine him satisfied and proud and smart and good and kind.  I can imagine him wrapped in the embrace of the Universe…forever.

I can imagine him, but can I know him any better, any more?  I still feel open to him, and as I continue to try to expand my awareness, I wonder about that.  I know that I don’t know what I might be able to know.  What is memory? What is sleep?  What is consciousness?  What is death?  Are they ‘real’?  I don’t know.  What is ‘real’?  What I know is that I don’t know.  What I feel is that he mattered and still matters.  I feel that he is.

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The Flow of Emotions

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Peace like a river.  After the burning of Valhalla, the Rhine surges its banks and brings everything back to a gentle equilibrium.  Sometimes I feel like I’ve burned out on the passions of the world and slipped into the calm of old age and wisdom….and then the flames flicker under the surface, and I dive into the drama with an eagerness that mystifies me.  Why do I want to go there?  Is it my ego grasping for some thrill ride?  Beginnings and endings are often infused with heightened emotion, even and maybe especially in the recollection of them.   There’s an excitement to those feelings that can be addictive.  I wallow in the concept of new love and the tearful goodbyes.  And then I get a headache and puffy eyes and wonder why I’m so masochistic.   I blame hormones.  And social traditions like Valentine’s Day.

I appreciate my partner and the safe but challenging environment he creates.  He asks me what I’m feeling and waits patiently while I try to fashion words from the vulnerable soup of my damp thoughts.  I am learning to be aware of myself, my cyclical moods and intractable psychological baggage.   He senses when I’m “stuck” and when I’m “flowing”.  And so, I dedicate this photo to him:

Thanks, Steve, for your compassion.

 

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The Cycle is Complete

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I have just returned from spending 6 hours at a modern multiplex movie theater.  Hate the glitz, the ads and especially the totally incongruous pre-show music.  I was there to see the HD simulcast of the Metropolitan Opera production of Götterdämmerung, the fourth and last installment of Wagner’s Ring Cycle.  If you’ve never learned anything about opera or Wagner before, I must encourage you to at least read up on it.  This was my first time getting the whole story and the whole score into my head.  I’d heard from my parents about how looooong the operas are.  I’d heard snatches of the music, even parodied by Elmer Fudd (“I shot the wabbit…”).  I’d heard about Wagnerian sopranos and sniggered at breastplates and horned helmets (hasn’t everyone?).   I was not expecting to be emotionally gripped and wrung out on an epic and divine scale, though.  The psychology is deeply moving.  The music supports it as cinematically and sumptuously as may be humanly possible.  The live action, singing and acting, is absolutely intense.  Seeing it with close up camera shots accentuates the intimacy, but it may take away from some of the total experience.  For this production, the set was designed by Robert Lepage of Cirque du Soliel.  It features a monstrous hydrolic machine which often distracts during the quieter instrumental passages as it whirrs and chunks into new positions.  Nevertheless, I was spellbound.  Particularly, I think, because I found myself identifying with Brünnhilde so painfully, on so many levels.   I’ve  been left sobbing at the ending of each of the four operas. 

Yes, I’m a bit of a drama queen.  I was a Voice Performance major in college and spent the last 7 years working for a theater company.  I can really get into live performances.  I put myself into the skin of the lead soprano every time.  But that’s just surface kinship.  Like Brünnhilde, my father was a god (in my eyes, at least, for a very long time), and I did everything I could to please him and do the right thing.  I ended up disappointed, my sister ended up banished, and the betrayal felt very real.  I left my father’s protection and fell in complete and holy love with a hero, a demi-god to many people.  He was duped and taken from me by a fatal disease.  I felt the anger, the confusion, the crushing grief and vowed to put the pieces together and learn the truth.  It took all my strength to face the facts, give up the ring of power, and stand for love.  I want to believe that in the end, greed, envy and the renunciation of love will sink down to the bottom of the river and that true friendship and faithful love will rise up.   So when our heroine mounts her trusty steed and rides into the funeral pyre with the ring on her finger and all of Valhalla (the gods’ palace) burns up and is engulfed in the flood of the Rhine and the ring finally returns to the river maidens, I experience an emotional catharsis that draws from a deep well of tears. 

Brava, Debra Voigt!!!

Drove home in below freezing temperatures, dove under the blankets in my bedroom and looked out the frosty window at this sunset:

It’s like Valhalla is still burning.  Will we ever learn?  At the end of the world, will love win?  The shamans of the Romantic era are telling us it’s possible.  Dare I believe?

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Photography Ups and Downs

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So my son’s fabulous camera, a Nikon D-80, is showing ERR on the display.  Somehow, the camera isn’t speaking to the lens.  Not sure how this falling out occurred, but to restore them to their previous relationship will require some mailing back and forth and money that he doesn’t have.  Bummer!  Nevertheless, we went out to the Nature Center with two Panasonic Lumix cameras that I got for free from Steve’s aunt.  We walked around the lake and found the frozen waterfall below the dam.  And he showed me how to focus manually, which really made me happy!  We are now sitting at the dining room table, laptops side by side, playing with our pictures and spooning up some re-heated chili while a chicken roasts in the oven.  Here are some of my photo results from the day:

I have lots more playing around to do and more to share, but this will be enough for today.   I’m spending time with my son!!!  🙂

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Soaring Hopes

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What is it in the air?  That scent of wet earth, that change in light and warmth, that lengthening of days, that springtime feeling that quickens the pulse, that vitality?  Dare I call it ‘hope’?

My definition: n. A kind of trust or confidence…but not necessarily about a specific future outcome.  It points to a relationship and carries a sense of intimacy.

Why today?  Because my son is coming to visit me for a few days.  My only son.  He’s about half my age now.  I remember writing a poem about this kind of surging feeling when he was about 7 years old.  “A brilliant day in April…” it began.  I saw him walking home from school, baseball glove on hand, tossing a ball in the air and lazily catching it while his white-blond hair sucked a sunbeam into his entire being.  What was I feeling?  Pride?  Joy?  Awe?  That womb-love from the Hebrew scriptures?  Yes.  Absolom, my son, my son.  Coming home to me.

Ah, progeny.  How we load that concept with cultural baggage.  What is the reality of this young man’s life?  That’s what I want to learn.  The economy sucks.  Student loans suck.  Losing your father sucks.  Growing up is difficult.  And the world is a wonderful place.

What can we make of this visit?  While I wait for it to unfold, I will make chili and a clean place for him to sleep.  And I know he’s bringing his fabulous camera.  It’s a place to start.

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Four Years Ago Today

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I’m feeling rather gray and gloomy today, like the motionless monochrome sky.  I went out with wet hair, first to breakfast with Steve’s mom, then to do laundry at the laundromat, then to the grocery store.  I feel thoroughly chilled.  I think my hair is still wet.  Yet, there’s no snow on the ground, so I can’t really blame the weather.  It’s still far from wintry…not like it was, say, four years ago…

Four years ago, there was a snow storm.  Four years ago, the Super Bowl was on.  Four years ago, my husband was in the hospital.

I could give you the whole background history on his medical odyssey, but it would come out dry and clinical.  What I’m feeling now is more surreal.  Let’s just say that he was in the cardiac wing, waiting to be stabilized enough for surgery.  Waiting.  Like waiting for Godot.   There was no sense of time after a few days.  Doctors would come and go and offer conjectures and imagine scenarios.  I got the feeling that I should simply camp out with him and see what happened.  So I did.

My husband was a sports fan, and the Super Bowl game was a big party occasion on our calendar most years.   During the regular football season, we’d watch games together on Sunday afternoons and nap through a good chunk of them.  I can enjoy the game and root for the underdog or a sentimental favorite, and usually Jim would fill me in on some of the finer points of strategy or history.   I guess you could say we were companionable about it.  Jim watched a lot of TV in his later years, and in the hospital, there’s not much else to do.  “Camped out in the cardiac wing” meant that during visiting hours, you could find me squeezed in next to him on the bed, cranked up in sitting position, watching whatever was on the box suspended from the ceiling.   But I thought the Big Game should be more festive.  So I asked the nurses if we could watch it from the visitor’s lounge on the floor, on the big screen, and invite a friend or two.  They gave their permission.

It wasn’t a party.  It was just me, Jim and one of our church friends who stopped by for a while.  I brought a couple of coolers with snacks and drinks.  I got in trouble for bringing beer.  Not that Jim was drinking it, but I guess it was against some rule, because a nurse came by and told me I couldn’t have it there.  Jim was comfortably situated in one of the lounge chairs with his IV pole and beepy-thing beside him.  We were in clear view of the nurses’ station the whole time.  A few other hospital visitors peeked in periodically, but mostly, we were alone.  Our friend Dave told us that there was a huge snowstorm outside.  Toward the end of the game, we actually lost power for a while.  When it was over, it was past visiting hours, and I was concerned about digging my car out of the parking lot and driving home, so I packed up my coolers and kissed Jim good-bye pretty quickly.   Three days later, he had his surgery.  Ten days after that, he was dead.

I found out today that the two teams that are in the Super Bowl this year are the same two teams that played four years ago today.  They will play on Sunday.  And I won’t be watching.  I haven’t watched a football game in a long time.  We don’t even have a TV.

Life changes.  Waiting only lasts a while.  Those days, suspended in gray like a snowflake, drift down slowly, but eventually, they evaporate, and something else takes their place.

I’m okay with that…I think…  Yeah.  I’m okay.

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What is Love?

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Yesterday, I read a travel post about a European romantic trend called Love Locks.  Apparently, an Italian novel whose title translates to “I Need You” has spawned the custom of lovers affixing padlocks to public fences, bridges, gates and whatnot as a sign of their everlasting love.  This idea really rubs me the wrong way, so I’m sorting out my thoughts to figure out why.  Of course, this is about me, not about judging any of the couples who have participated in this ritual nor about anyone else who thinks it’s romantic.  So, what do I know about me?

First of all, I worry about the accumulation of stuff.  Seeing all those padlocks encrusting a surface reminds me of the proliferation of manufactured gadgets and things that we humans often allow to run unchecked.  Apparently, many city officials also consider them “an eyesore”.  It occurs to me that if they were something natural or biodegradable (like flower petals or garlands?), I would probably not feel this instant repulsion.  This may be just the surface of the aesthetic mismatch, however.

Second, I think a lot about symbolism.  What does a padlock say about love?  In all fairness, I have not read the novel, so I am probably missing the finer points.  I understand the desire for security in a relationship.  I was married for 24 years, “until death”, and I positively flourished under the safety of that bond.  But now that Jim has slipped all surly bonds, I think that anything everlasting must be a bit more mutable than metal, more plastic than any tangible material.  The words of a song by John Denver keep floating to the surface of my consciousness.  The title of the song is “Perhaps Love”.  Here’s a bit of the chorus: “Some say love is holding on and some say letting go; and some say love is everything and some say they don’t know”.   I guess I have to say that lately I’ve been sitting in the “letting go” camp.  Out of necessity, obviously.  I did the struggle of holding on.  I found it to be an ego thing, ultimately unsustainable.  Letting go, opening up, imagining expansiveness is a way to include a lot more without confining it to an embrace.  I believe love wants to include a lot more by nature.

Two nights before my love died was Valentine’s Day.  We celebrated at home with champagne and salmon in the company of two of our daughters.  My oldest brought out a book of Pablo Neruda’s poetry and read this one (Love Sonnet #92):

My love, should I die and you don’t,
let us give grief no more ground:
my love, should you die and I don’t,
there is no piece of land like this on which we’ve lived.

Dust in the wheat, sand in the desert sands,
time, errant water, the wandering wind
carried us away like a navigator seed.
In such times, we may well not have met.

The meadow in which we did meet,
oh tiny infinity, we give back.
But this love, Love, has had no end,

and so, as it had no birth,
it has no death. It is like a long river
that changes only its shores and its banks.

Translation: Terence Clarke

I cannot imagine trying to put a padlock on a wheat field or on the desert sands, on the wind or on a river.  I cannot imagine putting a padlock on time, even though that’s a concept we made up, just like the padlock, as a way to try to control things.  I do know that the impulse to lock down an experience is very human and very old.  The ancient story of the Transfiguration of Jesus comes to mind.   Jesus and three of his disciples (Peter, James and John) climb a mountain, and there the disciples have an experience of seeing Jesus in glowing white raiment talking to Moses and Elijah.  Good old impetuous Peter gets all excited and bursts out with an idea.  “Let’s build three booths (or tabernacles)!  We can put each of you in one and hang on to this experience for a while longer, perhaps invite others….”   He is silenced by a booming voice from the clouds. “Listen!”  When the cloud lifts, Jesus stands alone, and they decide to keep quiet instead.

I am beginning to recognize a kind of flow, a yin and yang of contrasting energies, in myself.  I think it has something to do with my biological cycle, but it also manifests in a mood cycle.  I feel that expansive, fecund, open sense bubbling up in me, settling me down, inviting me to nurture and set free.  Then, a while later, I feel a feisty urge to grab hold and wrestle with my circumstances and force them to conform to some idea in my brain.   I could say that I am still loving with both energies.  I used to tell my children that I disciplined them because I loved them, and I believe that’s true, but I think there’s an ego love and a non-ego love.   They are both part of me.  One is not “right” and the other “wrong”, but I think that the non-ego kind is more beneficial in the universe.

Valentine’s Day is a few weeks away.  It’s a time when many people are thinking about love, romantic love.  I keep challenging myself to think bigger, to open up.  I hear the voice booming from the clouds, from the trees, from the water and the air.  It asks me to Listen.  So I guess it’s time to shut up.