To Every Thing There is a Season

As I packed away another season of Christmas decorations I lingered over a few that have become sweet symbols of the past.  Mostly they are the worn ornaments made by my daughters during their pre-school and elementary school years.  I am not sure why I am so attached to these things but I know it runs deep.

Looking at the abundance of homemade tree ornaments filling up the storage bins, I realize my zeal has resulted in too many "things on strings" for the tree. It's time to cull the herd of crafts, as it were.  And yet, as odd as it sounds, it's a struggle.

I thought about other things as strong symbols as I read a front page item in the Sunday NYTimes regarding what the town of Newtown CT is doing with its many memorials to the sweet lives lost in December. The items carry more than memories - they embody the desire to hold up those lives as important.  They also give people a place to grieve.   http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/06/nyregion/as-memorials-pile-up-newtown-struggles-to-move-on.html

Grief has a clear beginning but where it ends, if it ever ends, is vague at best. 

Officials in Newtown CT began the process of removing the most elaborate memorials a couple of weeks following the shooting. The town's selectwoman, Patricia Llodra, waded into those delicate waters with sensitivity and focus.  The community was alerted by phone about the removals. Plans have been made to process organic materials into "sacred soil" in a future memorial.  Stuffed animals and other inorganic materials will be processed into bricks for use in constructing a tribute.

Families of those killed were given police protected time to visit the memorials privately.  Then, in the middle of the night, items were removed.

Practical reasons like harsh winter weather pummeling the memorial items, rendering 
them as sad reminders instead of sweet honor guards, along with traffic issues moved town officials to take some action.  I applaud the light, thoughtful touch this effort is being given.

Grief's path is marked by infinitesimal movement. The term "moving on" is often used and perhaps this is Newtown's effort to do so.  I'd like to think it is more of a way to simply move regardless of direction. 

My friend Linda, whose 22 year old son died in May, recently shared one of the things she realized during this past difficult holiday, "I believe I can survive my grief.  I'm learning to move through it."  I relish her awareness.  We don't so much get over or under grief, but if we can come out on the other side of it, we learn how capable we are.  If and how we do this is where the work of love takes place.

There is a local roadside memorial to a young woman named Aimee that I used to pass each Saturday when I drove home from taking my daughter to dance class in the city.  (It sits along the southbound on ramp to Rte. 1 as you exit Rte. 476 in Springfield PA)  It marks the spot where this young woman was brutally abducted; she was later found murdered in a North Philly lot.  It has had various incarnations over the years with signs and symbols but they are mostly all gone.  Someone planted a tree in her honor and it flourishes.  I think of her every time I pass that spot. I hope those who loved her are also flourishing. 

It's not the spot where someone dies that contains meaning about their life; that singular spot is the place where we started grieving.  If we can learn to give our focus to how we loved their lives, then perhaps the place where they died receives a more balanced treatment.

My grandparents died in 1979.  The cemetery was near my home so I would stop by their gravesite to have some silent time with them.  Once I moved away a few years later, those visits ended.  I think the last time I was at their gravesite was at their son's burial in 2001.  I think I've learned to spend silent time with them in other ways.  

The Bible says it well but Pete Seeger's lyrics sung by the Byrds adapted it best:  "To everything (Turn, Turn, Turn) There is a season (Turn, Turn, Turn) And a time to every purpose, under Heaven."

 

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 King James Version

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; A time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

 

Postscript: The topic of roadside memorials which mostly honor those where they died in traffic accidents is addressed in a 2009 documentary.  Here is a clip from that film.

 

 

 

Things I Learned in 2012

(Once again, thanks to my friend Heather as I steal her idea for a year in review...)

I learned more about SuperPACs from a political pundit and faux newscaster (Stephen Colbert) who took them for a spin around the block with his own SuperPAC "Americans for A Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow." (start video below at time marker 3:47)

 

 I am waiting for Stephen Colbert to simplify the college application process.

When you start walking almost every day, you eat better and clothes fit better.

When you stop walking almost every day.....oh, you know the rest.

North Carolina is a very beautiful state with changing landscapes.

I can drive for 8 hours and not turn into a pumpkin. 

Skype is the best free thing around.  It took me to London, Milan, and Hawaii.

Hearing my freshly minted 21-year-old order a drink with dinner is weird.

Toasting to my freshly minted 21-year-old is satisfying.

Making a photo book using Shutterfly's endless options can turn into a full-time job.

Our childhood is everything, but not the only thing.

Helping backstage at Rock West's Nutcracker was fun every time.

Dancers are athletes who happen to dress fancier.

How we treat our children says everything about us.

 

Baroness Schraeder (The Sound of Music) is not a demon - she's just misunderstood. (This is for my dear friend Joanie who has voted herself President of the soon-to-be-formed 'Baroness Fan Club')

Opening zany gifts on Christmas Eve turns me into a 10-year-old girl.

Photos of star-forming nebulae and all things outer space silence me. (Thanks to my brother, Joe, for sharing this on Christmas Eve.)

.

from http://blog.sciencemusings.com/2012/12/o-holy-night.html

Happy 2013 to all!

.

That's Me in the Corner...

...that's me in the spotlight, losing my religion.*

I think I asked a lot from religion - to be the path, the salve for our wounds, the rule maker, the forgiver of rule breakers, the answer giver, the safety net for an afterlife.   

And religion responded with answers.  First it did so literally in the form of questions and answers from the little blue Baltimore Catechism of my childhood.  That suited my tiny brain perfectly.  Have a question? Just look up the answer.  Done!

I remember memorizing these succinct morsels. 
Q. Who made us?  A. God made us.  Q. Why did God make us?  A. Because He loves us. 

While wrapping Christmas gifts this year I was channel surfing to find a holiday movie and stumbled upon "Roots" - the 1977 miniseries based on Alex Haley's novel.  It was the first episode and I was locked in.  A favorite scene is the one with the father of Kunta Kinte raising up his newborn son to the consuming starry sky. He says the memorable line: "Kunta Kinte, behold the only thing greater than yourself."  What an ancient proclamation.

This nugget has become my religious baseline.  For me, a spiritual foundation is essential. As for organized religion, let's say I have lots of questions. 

Upon graduating from  a Catholic high school I went to a college run by Jesuits.  What a difference! After being part of a very traditional rigor where students were receivers of information, I entered a world where challenging religious tenets was encouraged. I was a lightweight compared to the heft of Jesuit knowledge but they loved a good fight and a well thought out argument.

In those brief four years, having a seat at the table with those thinkers, renegades, and passionate educators rocked my world.  But just as quickly, I returned home to the familiar structure of belonging to a local parish.

The more lockstep religion became, the more I silently questioned its role in my life.  But I stayed on the path, had my daughters baptized, volunteered, and I even taught CCD.  I suppressed my questions with the comfort of doing what was expected.

CBS Sunday Morning recently aired a piece titled "Losing Our Religion" in which organized religion membership was the topic.  http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-3445_162-57559432/losing-our-religion/

 It was a look at the declining numbers of people in the US who belong to a church and why.  According to a new study by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, the nation's spiritual landscape may be becoming a little less.religious.  "Some 45 million people, or one-fifth of the U.S. adult population, now say they belong to no church in particular," CBS reporter Lee Cowan explained.

And it's not a question of folks losing faith since only six percent identified themselves as either atheist or agnostic. No, the study suggests, Cowan reported, that "it's organized religion - with respondents overwhelmingly saying many organizations are too focused on money, power and politics."

For the first time Protestant religions are not the religious majority in the US, now representing 48 percent of the population.  No one faith is immune from this gradual shift. The study suggests that religious expression is not in danger but rather religion is not keeping pace with social issues. As the two collide, believers are frustrated by the immobility of organized religion. 

Cowan reports the demographic making the change is, not surprisingly, a youthful one. "Indeed, it's the young - one out of every three persons surveyed under the age of 30 - who say they don't link themselves with a church, a mosque, a synagogue, or anything else. Compare that, with the "Greatest Generation," where only one in 20 claimed no religious home."

Just like a tenant is at the mercy of the landlord, believers can be at the mercy of their organized church of choice.  It seems however, rather than argue with the landlord, renters are opting out.  Faith is not taking a hit, but houses of faith are.

On Christmas Day, columnist Maureen Dowd handed over her op-ed spot in the NY Times to a longtime friend Father Kevin O'Neil.  He wrote a frank, bare bones piece titled, "Why, God?" It is simply beautiful.  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/26/opinion/dowd-why-god.html

Father O'Neil shares his beliefs with a good dose of wonder.  When his brother died unexpectedly at age 44, the priest questioned why, knowing no answer would satisfy.  Yet, something was revealed that become more precious.

He writes,"I experienced family and friends as unconditional love in the flesh." He marveled at, "the many ways that people reached out to me let me know that I was not alone. They really were the presence of God to me. They held me up to preach at Brian’s funeral. They consoled me as I tried to comfort others. Suffering isolates us. Loving presence brings us back, makes us belong."

After the Newton CT killings, a sobering need to be kinder, gentler seemed to pulse.  It reminded me that we are a community of people first. If we choose to be a member of an organized religious community, it is a freedom we enjoy as Americans. It is not a necessity. Sharing ourselves,  person-to-person,  to ease another's pain, that is the necessity.  I may struggle with organized religion but I feel at peace with our expression of God's love.

Father O'Neil puts it this way: "Unconditionally loving presence soothes broken hearts, binds up wounds, and renews us in life. This is a gift that we can all give, particularly to the suffering. When this gift is given, God’s love is present and Christmas happens daily."

The Hills Were Alive...

Thanks Bryn Mawr Film Institute for another joyous "The Sound of Music" singalong this week. 

Both sold out theatres burst with enthusiastic (and many costumed) moviegoers who channeled their inner Maria, Captain von Trapp, or any of the seven von Trapp children and belted out lyrics and dialogue to the 1965 hit.

 I once again savored the wonder that is the voice of actress Peggy Wood who, as Mother Abbess, brings the audience to unknown heights with her blessedly powerful "Climb Every Mountain."

Thanks to the friends who joined in the fun.  There is something magical about friends from different parts of our lives meeting at such a silly, joy-filled event.  I inhaled all of it. Here is the link to my post from the 2011 show and photos from 2012.
http://asubjectforconsideration.blogspot.com/2011/12/favorite-thing.html

How do you solve a problem like 4 Marias???

They are 16 going on 17!

Mother Abbess, Max and the audience pleasing Fraulein Schweiger
whose constant bowing brought down the house. 

A couple of Favorite Things! Girls in white
dresses with blue satin sashes and brown
paper packages.



Some Abbey residents share a night out with a brown paper
package.

More girls in white with blue satin sashes!

Ray- a drop of golden sun!

A very existential "La" who was a music history
major before going to Penn med school.  Love it!
 

Anne Lamott

 

If Anne Lamott wasn't an author, I believe she'd be a comedienne - a very introverted, dry, one.

I appreciate her writing and her wit equally and was thrilled when my friend Heather, who introduced me to Anne's writing long ago, alerted me to the author's local visit last night.


Anne Lamott signing books and
chatting with guests.

Anne's broken, loving life has been a topic covered in many of her non-fiction books with her most recent effort titled "Help Thanks Wow." Her talk at the sold out Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church quickly settled into the comfy chair of those three single word prayers.

"I love to write about what I come upon and I love to come upon spiritual stuff," she shared.  Books about truth, resurrection, healing - these fill her huge heart. 

The "Help" in the book title is probably the most common prayer.  Life tosses us all sorts of hot potatoes.  When the juggling gets dicey, we ask for help.  This prayer has many faces when I beg, cry, scream, demand or negotiate for it. It is the Wild West of prayers - anything goes.  Anne's experience in recovery has kept this prayer active for her.  "It's when you've made such a catastrophe of your life and have run out of options that you allow yourself to be helped," she noted.

"Gratitude is a habit," she said regarding the second prayer of the title.  "It's irresistible." The author joked about often being scattered in thought but on this point her clarity shimmered.  Gratitude is not just for the good times.

Author Anne Lamott

She writes in the book, "sometimes our mouths sag open with exhaustion, and our souls and minds do too with defeat and that saggy opening is what we needed all along.  Any opening leads to the chance of flow, which sometimes is the best we can hope for, and a minor miracle at that, open and fascinated, instead of tense and scared and shut down.  God, Thank you."

''Wow" is the prayer for everything else.  "You don't go outside and see a starry night and say 'eh,' Anne said with a tilt of her head. "You say wow!.'"  Recognizing those moments is the task.  "To us much is given, we just have to be open for business," she writes. 

Anne touched on aging, body image, recovery, her son Sam and her writing process - each infused with her well-honed humor.  "The grace of getting older is that you get you back," she stated. "No one notices your butt, no one cares. Get on with it." 

Anne converted to Christianity 27 years ago - she was drunk.  "I got sober 26 years ago - I call that 12 months in between my gap year," she wryly added.

A question about Advent and holidays prompted Anne to discuss her anxiety over the hype of the holidays and her conviction that we need to be lights to one another.  "Be a lighthouse," she suggested.  "Stay lit.  Lighthouses don't go running around the island looking for ships to save," she added  "They simply stay lit."  Light was a consistent theme during her talk.

In the hour before the event start time, Anne made her way all through the church signing books, talking, listening, connecting.  It was warm, easy, welcoming.  She is accessible without giving up her essential self. 

She closed her talk stating what seemed to be her strongest conviction, "You are loved and chosen exactly as you are, exactly as you are."

 

"You know how vulnerable we are.  It's not out there.  You're not going to find it , lease it or date it. 

Grace is knowing you can stop the mad scrambling after things."   Anne Lamott

Lingering

I'm nearing the end. The urge to pause overwhelms me, so I stop for a moment.  This is the place to linger.

I am 75 pages away from finishing Cheryl Strayed's novel Wild which chronicles her solo 1100 mile hike along the Pacific Crest Trail in 1995. She was 26. She has gently brought me along the trail and her life in such a way that I have been lulled into the journey forgetting, like all journeys, this too must end.

But not yet.

I am a lingerer.  In sorrow or joy, I find a strong pull to pause. It could be defined as a moment to be in the moment.  Ah, I wish I was that evolved.  I'm not.  I linger because I know what I'm dealing with versus the next moment where I don't.  In the case of Wild, I don't want it to end.

Often I linger not because I am appreciating the moment but because I fear what may or may not come next.  It isn't a terrific life skill.  It can be a pseudonym for avoiding. It's the old devil you know besting the devil you don't know. In that vein, I am a repeat lingerer.

Sometimes, just sometimes, lingering serves me well.

As the grandchild of Italian immigrants, I learned that lingering was the thing you did after each meal and before you left someone's home. It was second nature.  Doorways and dining room tables were the places we paused to stay gathered as a unit.  It's primitive - gathering around the hearth, campfire, or wherever early families ate. 

Several years ago I traveled to Sicily with my folks and niece to visit my dad's extended family and to see the house where his father was born and raised.  I expected to learn about living in Sicily.  I learned more about how similar my extended family and I are.  We resemble one another, we share the same hand motions and verbal intensity in conversation, and we are bossy, loud, and hospitable.  We marveled at our family tree whose branches crossed land and seas. 

My European relatives always take time to linger.  They raise after-meal time to high art. Italians drive their cars like demons ablaze, but they slam on the breaks when it comes to sitting at the table.  Conversation, espresso, fruit, pastry and anisetta keep everyone at the table in luscious lingering.

Passeggiata
 

Another form of this primordial pause is the passeggiata (pah-sah-JOT-tah) Every Sunday evening around dusk in many small Italian towns it is the time for passeggiata - a collective saunter through the streets. Families, couples, singles stroll down narrow streets closed off to cars greeting neighbors, meeting friends, sipping coffee, eating gelato, heading nowhere, being everywhere.

It is the ultimate "see and been seen" scene.

I recall watching this unfold from my cousin's Castelbuono balcony, drinking in the sweetness of it all.  As we strode through town everything emanated warmth, family, togetherness.

This need to linger extends beyond the home mealtime table.  The evening before we met our relatives, the four of us ate at a quiet seaside restaurant.  Business was slow and so were we.  After dessert, we asked for the check.  We not only insulted the waiter but most of the employees with our very American request.  After much arm waving and spitfire translating by my dad and niece, we were admonished to aspetta (wait). 

It was the first time I was yelled at because I was freeing up a table at a restaurant.  Once we agreed to stay, the self-satisfied smiles returned to the waitstaff and we lingered in the land of our ancestors.  It was a glorious hint at what was to come with our deliciously cordial relatives.

In her memoir, Cheryl Strayed sought out the solitude her trek offered. Yet, when she could spend time with fellow hikers at various stops along the trail, she lingered with fresh appreciation.  She cautiously welcomed time for togetherness. It offered an unexpected balance on her solo hike. I believe she embraced the Beatles' suggestion to "Let it be."

As I near the end of a really good read, I feel the familiar ache of losing something dear.  I hoard the moment.  It's like the end of a great vacation or an unexpected call from someone special.  Please don't end, please don't end - this is my prayer-like wish. 

Learning to let it be and accept the moment morphing into the next does not come easily.  But I am trying - trying to linger with less of a death grip and more of the gentle whisper of aspetta.  

A Two Party Home

The running joke in my house is that for most - okay, all - presidential elections, my spouse and I have canceled out each other's vote.  We've always had opposing political points of view. 

The high-minded perspective suggests that it makes for rich dialogue.  But really, it can make life contentious. At this point in a presidential election year, it is wearisome.

While one of us is of the red persuasion and the other blue, we do find common ground.  We share an ardent belief in voting and we vote in every primary and general election.  We sadly witness the slim showing in the "off" election years when poll workers are not quite as busy. I guess it really is the full democratic experience - Americans can choose to vote or not vote.

When our two girls were little, we always brought them to the polls. Each of us would take one of them to the booth.  They would follow us as we punched holes, pulled levers, or filled in bubbles.  We wanted to imprint the importance of this act.

Those memories unexpectedly wash over me when I vote.  I recall the first time my husband suggested we bring our oldest daughter to the polls when she was just a baby.  I scoffed at the idea and he persisted.  I'm glad he did.  Our daughters have witnessed our pointed political differences at the dinner table, in social settings, and in the car. It is satisfying for them to also see us share in the act of voting.

Walking into the polls with kids in our arms or holding our hands showed we may disagree politically, but we see eye-to-eye on this eloquent right.

Sheila Heen's article "Sleeping With the (Political) Enemy" in the Sunday 11/4/12 New York Times shares the ups and downs of being married to someone who is the yin to her yang of political beliefs.  She writes the obvious noting, "when you marry across the divide, you have to give up things that provide the like-minded, self-satisfied comfort."

She and her husband, John Richardson, are both Harvard Law School graduates who work in and teach the art of negotiation.  Imagine the chatter at their dinner table! Better yet, imagine a double date with seasoned political consultants and married couple James Carville and Mary Matalin.  What a hootenanny!

Ms. Heen deftly comments on what being married to the other side requires.  She understands the importance of civility in disagreement.  "As tempting as it is, we can't demonize those on the other side as idiots who are out of touch, because they're liable to reach out across the dinner table to touch you (and rather sharply.)" There is always some truth in humor.

Scrolling through the mountains of comments that follow political articles on my hometown Patch website, what becomes immediately clear is the bitter banquet of ideology on both sides.  It's clear there is frustration out there, but it spills over into name calling and self-righteousness.  I picture pulsing neck popping veins and the pounding of computer keyboard keys as people do lots of proclaiming and little listening.  Conflict trumps conversation.

The fact that bothers me most is that those commenting can use pseudonyms. I believe if they had to use their real names civility might be the victor.  One can only hope.

On Tuesday, our youngest will be doing some local exit polling as part of her high school government class. Next year she will be old enough to vote.  Taking this class in a presidential election year is poignant and I savor her questions and thoughts as the process comes alive for her.

I hope her experience tempers the vitriolic noise out there as she and her classmates query voters one on one about their choices and the reasons behind them.  Most of all, I hope she understands political passion can be harnessed so we hear each other and that the process starts at home.