Wow

What has happened to my writing? New job, 13 year old son training to make the national team, six days of soccer, and big changes at church.

Still, isn't it interesting what we let go of and what we hang onto for dear life? I am happiest when I am reading/writing/creating and I've done very little of that during the last three months. Periods of disequilibrium are OK if they lead to a
renewed commitment to things that are vital. I hope that is what is happening as I emerge from a time of upheaval and change.

Years ago, I attended a week-end yoga retreat at Kripalu. I bought a deck of reflection cards that I have used ever since. Today, I drew a card that told me to trust my process, however chaotic. As I am trying to teach my students to trust their intuition, I will remind myself to do the same.

I may even pull out my knitting needles, blow off the dust, and get the newest member of the family properly shod;)

May we all slow it down, just enough to be in it.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Catching up

Summer is here in all her glory! It has been a time of transition for me as I leave one job and say goodbye to many dear friends but join another in a new endeavor. I am fearful that I care less about being nice as I get older but this friend knows me well and probably figures I have some other qualities that will see me through a new beginning;)

We just returned from an idyllic few days in New Hampshire where cupcakes, sand castles, and of course "the run" happened:







Tendinitis is keeping me from moving well but not keeping me grounded. It seems like there is a price to pay for many pleasures at 50....dairy causes grumbling, runs cause stiffness, and caffeine causes heart palpitations. I'm going to have to bring out the B list of vices because you have to have a few to remain trustworthy. I think what I need is a pick up. Bad for a family car, bad in the snow, and bad for the environment. That should cover me until I'm 60.

Emma and I had the great joy of going to the UU Assembly in Providence. Unitarians in a herd look like a group of easy going hippies until they see a hummer. Game on Philistines, game on.

Sister Simone Campbell give the keynote address on standing up to injustice, together and she was amazing. Walk toward Trouble. Then 5000 of us walked down to the river to participate in the water and fire ceremony. An amazing night.


Summer is the time to read and I have a few good ones on the docket. Jimmy Carter's new book on the oppression of women, a biography of Thomas Merton, and Neil Gamion's Ocean at the End of the Lane.

I hope to sink into it all like my husband the Zen master;)

Mother's day musings

I'm reading a new (to me) Anna Quindlin book called Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake..a memoir and sharing of her wisdom.  I like her writing and I like her wisdom.  As I was reading, it struck me that hitting 50 really sparks the desire to start spouting advice to whomever is listening.  And you, dear blog readers, are kinda  a captured audience.  Mostly though, I want to get something written down for my kids because I'm not sure they are currently paying attention, what with puberty and all.  It's my mother's day present to myself.

Here goes:

1.  Emma told me the other day that she figured out you either break up with people, or you marry them.  Break up until the cows come home...until you figure out that bright, shiny, and loud has got nothing on steady, quiet, and loving.  Your future is greatly impacted by which wagon you hook your star to....and if I may be so bold, your dad is a pretty damn fine prototype.  As I type this, he is picking up your cousin from college in the rain.  Steady as he goes.

2.  Hang on to your friends.  Especially as you continue to break up until the cows come home.  They will see you through it all and you will circle back around to each other, no matter how far you travel.  Being with them feels like being home.

3.  Family is a big deal.  I left a chunk of mine down in Texas and as they have aged, I have pined for them.  I had to leave to figure that out so I'm going to request that you figure it out without the leaving.

4.  Hang on to being a Unitarian Universalist.  As Luke says "We include everyone except people who do not include everyone."  Standing on the side of love, compassion, and the right to figure out what we believe ourselves is part of your New England heritage.  Even though you asked for a gun after our last youth group trip:)

5.  The Greeks had this ideal that you should balance intellectual pursuits, physical pursuits, and spiritual pursuits.  I think as long as you define those things for yourself, it is a good place to check in...Am I in balance? 

6.  You are going to hurt people when you are young pretty substantially.  Forgive yourself and vow to do it less as you get older.  I have found a spiritual practice has helped me with this.

7.  Try some crazy ass things that will lead to a scar or two.

8.  Get arrested for protesting or March on Washington, whatever fits your style.  Believe in the power of standing up against oppression.

9.  Surround yourself with people who make you laugh.  Things are just not that serious, no matter what.

10.  Tell the truth even when the telling of it feels like it might ruin something.  I fully expect one of my friends to tell me this list errs on the side of pompousness.  They will forgive me because it's mother's day, of course.

Finally, always love each other.  You two are my greatest accomplishments and I am so very proud of who you are!

And a big shout out to my mom, for teaching me all of the above:) 

Vacation Musings

April is National Poetry month and I needed some vacation time to delve into verse. Thanks to @OxfordJournals for providing access to several articles on esoteric topics. The following is an excerpt from TS Eliot's Four Quartets:

I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you
Which shall be the darkness of God. As, in a theatre,
The lights are extinguished, for the scene to be changed
With a hollow rumble of wings, with a movement of darkness on darkness,
And we know that the hills and the trees, the distant panorama
And the bold imposing façade are all being rolled away —
Or as, when an underground train, in the tube, stops too long between stations
And the conversation rises and slowly fades into silence
And you see behind every face the mental emptiness deepen
Leaving only the growing terror of nothing to think about;
Or when, under ether, the mind is conscious but conscious of nothing —
I said to my soul, be still. . . (pp. 27–8)

I am again reminded that poetry distills the spiritual and is so necessary.
I also checked out from the library The Complete Works of Emily Dickinson, which is a slog thru- mud. Confound her use of dashes--

Spring is coyly emerging in New England which means the venerable mud run:


April is also a month of birthdays. My sister and I failed to collaborate for my mom's present and each sent her the exact flower arrangement from the same company. I also called to wish her happy birthday on the wrong day. I claim head injury/and or stroke;). I also sent my Republican father a book of collected short stories from NPR's The Moth. Children are always trying to get their parents to join them on ground they feel is sacred. See me, see me,

Finally, my husband and I have acquiesced and are taking badminton lessons. Very nuanced game except when I play it.

Found time. May we all have it.

Micro Aggression

Roving Reporter, who will eventually have her PhD, and thus will need a new title on this blog... Doc-ed? is currently reporting on the latest trends in institutional policy and sociology.

Micro Aggressions are the small, cumulative acts that wear down one's soul.  So for example, it is not being called a slut or a whore that gets to you but rather the assumption that you like being addressed chest level or that you need help carrying a big box to your car.  Or that you enjoy making less than your male colleagues, don't know crap about putting together a basketball bracket (thank you Duke for confirming this one at my place of employment), and love to cook and clean.  Cultural micro aggression adds up over the years and that is why people over 50 are SURLY!

I couldn't write about last week, last week because it took me a week to calm down.  I don't know if the micro aggression I experienced at a Herb Chambers Honda dealership was directed at me because I am a mom or a woman or if they do it so routinely that it just lands on who it lands on but I am still quite angry a week out.

For starters, they said they inspected my car, charged me, and then somehow forgot to inspect my car.  This wasn't a problem until I was stopped by a police officer several weeks later and then proceeded to argue with him:

Officer:  Ma'am do you realize you are driving with an expired inspection sticker?
Me:  I absolutely am not.
Officer:  Yes, you are.
Me:  No, I had it inspected several weeks ago and there were no problems.
Officer:  The sticker is red, expired, and not in our system.
Me:  Those lying sons of bitches
Officer:  Check in with your garage and get that taken care of.

Now here is an interesting philosophical intersection:  did I not get a ticket because I was female?  I really don't think so.  I was argumentative, pissed, loud, and not at all traditionally feminine in my presentation at 6:30am.

I called the dealership, the guy on the phone looked up my record, apologized and told me to come in at my convenience and they would take care of it.  A pain, but stuff happens, right?
I get to the dealership, and instead of putting the new sticker on, they "retest" the car and this time it fails.

Apparently, they charged me for inspecting the car the first time around, but did not inspect it.  A pain, but stuff happens, right?
This is when things got dicey.  The service manager acted entitled, unapologetic for the original screw up and then had the audacity to tell me I could not take my car.
I grabbed my keys, had an unsavory exchange, encouraged them to call the police to stop me and got my car.

The issue according to Honda was that I needed a new airbag for 1, 096 dollars.  The  issue according to my regular mechanic was a sensor light for 271.00.

Again, bs repairs leveled at me because I'm a mom who is uber concerned about safety?  Wrong mom, gentleman.  Told I couldn't take my car off the lot?  Wrong woman, gentleman.


I used to think some old people were pissy.  Now I retroactively applaud their reaction to a lifetime of micro aggression. Stand up to injustice, wherever you experience it.

I hope to be back to a place of equanimity next post::)

Covenant circles

The UU's do a lot of things right. I am pretty fond of our 7 principles, which you can find here: http://www.uua.org/beliefs/principles/.

This winter, I was asked to join a covenant circle which is a cross between a focus group, a salon, and a consciousness raising group. We practice deep listening and honor each other's narratives. You also get to know members of the congregation in a pretty meaningful way. As an extrovert, I'm kinda digging it.

Interestingly, I tried to talk about my grandmother tonight and could not stop crying. I did not kinda dig that. I think I might be a crier. Today, I cried three times: once at work after sitting with a student who is struggling with cancer; once watching the news about Boston's fallen firefighters, and severely while I was trying to describe what my grandmother means to me. I never cry in front of clients. Maybe it bottles up and discharges after the fact. I have never thought of myself as someone who cries easily but rarely a day goes by that I don't cry.....which means I'm a crier which means covenant circle is raising my consciousness....like it or not.

I have the great luck to be in with someone who loves Emily Dickinson, he brings a poem of hers each week. This one is new to me:

I reason, Earth is short--
And Anguish--absolute
And many hurt,
But, what of that?

I reason, we could die--
The best Vitality
Cannot excel Decay,
But, what of that?

I reason, that in Heaven--
Somehow, it will be even--
Some new Equation, given--
But, what of that?

The Tibetans have a word Zifi that means "shine on"

That's all we can do, really;)

Don't make me shoot my horse

As I was sitting in my stalled car (ambient temp outside 17) waiting for the tow truck, I had this song running through my head: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=o7pVjl4Rrtc
I paraphrase but I did find myself sitting in a large automobile, watching the days go by.....and this was not my beautiful life!   But it is, because I can't bring myself to trade in my dying car.  To whit, she recovered after a brief rest in front of the Broadmeadow apartment complex and is scheduled for a checkup tomorrow.  Can she be saved?  It will probably take a new transmission.  Everyone, and I mean everyone is done with her.  Except me.

This could be a Texan thing but she does kinda feel like my horse.  She is steadfast in the snow and does not get pushed around by fuel efficient ponies.  She takes tons of gear and every dent and scratch has a damn good story.  Like the time she was crushed by a tree and we had to wait 3 months for a new top from the Midwest.....only one in the country.

So yeah, it might be time to start thinking about a more reliable car but let me say for the record, my heart is with the old one.

Lake Placid

I'm not sure what to say about the last couple of days that will not smack of hyperbole but I will start with THE BEST TWO DAYS EVER!

Luke was asked to train at Lake Placid in the classic winter sport of Badminton:)

We got to go along for the ride.  Yes, we were the only family who stayed overnight in the OTC (Olympic Training Center).  Yes, I was the only mom who got in the bobsled but his embarrassment was a small price to pay for THE BEST TWO DAYS EVER!

A huge shout out to Coach Chong for making this all happen and for his sang froid in dealing with my absolute giddiness:

Coach:  Was that you in the cardio room at 8:30 last night?
Me:  Yes, is it just for the athletes?
Coach:  No (Bit of a heavy pause), good for you

A certain someone who was indeed in the cardio room teared up looking at a signed picture of a luger from 1982.  You could feel the Olympic energy, I swear it!

Lake Placid is magical, and we went into hyper overdrive and saw the ski jump, ran, skated. bobsledded, and skeletoned.  Scott and Emma also fit in a bit of soccer.

I dropped out of college for a bit to see if I was good enough to make an Olympic cycling team.  Oh, I was not even close but I will never regret that dream.  This week, as we watched all athletes compete in Sochi, and visited the Olympic Museum in Lake Placid, and watched our bobsled driver smoke a butt....Magic, pure magic.

Go to Lake Placid if you get the chance.  It will remind you of your dreams and your age, all in the same second.  BEST TWO DAYS EVER:)

Snapshots from a snowy day

Another glorious snow day. Everyone home safely, three channels of Olympics and all the great poetry here: www.poetryfoundation.org. Maxine Kumin recently died who was best friends with Anne Sexton. She wrote this when Sexton committed suicide:

How it is

Shall I say how it is in your clothes?
A month after your death I wear your blue jacket.
The dog at the center of my life recognizes
you’ve come to visit, he’s ecstatic.
In the left pocket, a hole.
In the right, a parking ticket
delivered up last August on Bay State Road.
In my heart, a scatter like milkweed,
a flinging from the pods of the soul.
My skin presses your old outline.
It is hot and dry inside.

I think of the last day of your life,
old friend, how I would unwind it, paste
it together in a different collage,
back from the death car idling in the garage,
back up the stairs, your praying hands unlaced,
reassembling the bits of bread and tuna fish
into a ceremony of sandwich,
running the home movie backward to a space
we could be easy in, a kitchen place
with vodka and ice, our words like living meat.

Dear friend, you have excited crowds
with your example. They swell
like wine bags, straining at your seams.
I will be years gathering up our words,
fishing out letters, snapshots, stains,
leaning my ribs against this durable cloth
to put on the dumb blue blazer of your death.
--Maxine Kumin

I found in my husbands closet a pair of slippers that my grandmother knit for him. Her way of communicating was to make something for you. These slippers said welcome to the family. My husband has kept them all these years. He has an active way of communicating without words, as well.

My mom sent me beautiful tulips and irises for valentines day. They brighten up this snowy day. Things are good. A glorious,snow day.

Happy birthday love

We headed up to Vermont to celebrate Scott' s 50th.....or 32nd based on the number of things I was actually able to pull together for the birthday bag.


Conditions were a little icy on the mountain but our glasses were so fogged, we couldn't tell. And you know what? We kicked ass. Well, Scott did. I was trying to "be the snow". Turns out it is tricky to ski when you can't see. But 50 teaches you to flourish under less than optimal conditions. Happy birthday love!

It is so cold, it burns

I have the polar vortex blues.   I just finished a very long winded book about the futility of  time "The Magic Mountain" which certainly did not mitigate the existential angst.  Heart palpitations brought on by stress are not helping all the much, either.

What does one do to emerge from a philosophical funk?  I have opted to take on a more active role at church, including joining a covenant circle to get to know a few congregants more deeply.  I'm working hard to get the director of religious education ordained as a minister.  Apparently individual congregations can "call up" a member and ordain them.  It is like getting called up from the minors to the big game, except that congregations rarely do it....a Quixotic task always takes one out of oneself.

I'm going to try to go on a bobsled run in the near future and attempt to get my husband 50 things for his birthday.  So far, I have 27 and that is counting a six pack of beer as six things.  I have a new pair of black cowboy boots (thanks mom) that I am wearing every other day so New Englanders can  wonder if I am training for a rodeo in the near future.  I have added a new yoga class with another sassy older teacher who takes no yoga excuses....and hands me excessive amounts of props.

I continue to go to work, against all odds.  Nuff said.  

But most of all, I am trusting that when the light and the heat return, when the polar vortex is a cold, dark memory that my balance will be restored.  What the hell, polar vortex.  What the hell!

Dear Blog

Hey there, you are looking good.  Have you lost a few words?  No?  Listen,  I have been meaning to write but with the holidays and the kids birthdays, you know how it goes.  Yes, that's right, I usually do write about that during this time of year.  What?  No, I have not been writing with any other medium.

#LIAR!!!!!!

Listen, there is no need to go all Caps and get over excited with exclamation points.  I can explain Twitter.  Easily.  In fact, so easily.  And so quickly.  It's not you, it's me.

  Don't be like this.  I'm here now, right?  Droning on and on and making my circuitous points.  I hope there is room in my writing life for both you and Twitter.  In fact, I am starting to experience Twitter fatigue as I had to sort through many posts about the Golden Globes and which star flipped off which camera.

In the end, this is a letter of apology.  I am following pithy comedians, British football, Joyce Carol Oates, and the Huffington Post but I need more.  Although you feel a bit bloated and over wrought, you still give me the space I need to meander toward truth.

So I am back.  Short and sweet ain't always a feat.

Happy New Year!

Winter Solstice Poem (my actual favorite)

Each winter solstice, I put together a "Solstice Sack" to celebrate one of my favorite holidays and to remind all of us New Englanders that the light will return.

This year, my favorite poem didn't make the Sack, as it could be construed as a death poem and I don't want to make the kiddos cry:)  It was the best one, however:

Lines for Winter

Tell yourself

as it gets cold and gray falls from the air

that you will go on

walking, hearing

the same tune no matter where

 you find yourself--

inside the dome of dark

or under the cracking white

of the moon's gaze in a valley of snow.

Tonight as it gets cold

tell yourself

what you know which is nothing

but the tune your bones play

as you keep going. And you will be able

for once to lie down under the small fire

of winter stars.

And if it happens that you cannot

go on or turn back and you find yourself

where you will be at the end,

tell yourself

in that final flowing of cold through your limbs

that you love what you are.

                                                                        Mark Strand

Winter is a happy time up here in the North!

State of the Union

You know how presidents feel compelled to address the nation about the state of the union?  How far we have to go to achieve social justice, universal healthcare, and global warming?  I feel the same way about turning 50.  Compelled to share my wisdom, plead for unity in my house of representatives, and set a course for the next few years.  Turning 50 feels quite different than the other landmark years.  I have no urge to get a tattoo, move to Nepal, or take up paddle boarding.  I still may do all of those things but in a more peaceful manner.  Out with the wolf on the bicep, in with the OM mantra so I can still chant when I lose my memory.

It's nice to be past the mid-life crisis point and on to the spiritual crisis point in my trajectory.  My big move will not be to dye my hair, pierce some parts, and lose a few pounds.  My big move is to continue to move inward.  Talk less, judge less, care less.  Just realizing for the first time the connection between "careless" and "care less".  Pay attention to subtleties .  Luckily, I married well for that one.

Appreciate the mortality of my parents, and everyone.  It is all so fleeting.

I am proudest of my relationships.  My family.  My  friendships reflect well on me (for having the good sense to pick them).  The people in my life rock in all kinds of amazing ways.  They write and teach and solve equations and make music and art and history.  They protest and help those without much power.  They all have integrity and courage and that is how I have those things.  At 50 you know that you draw strength from people who put the shopping carriages back and do what they say they are going to do.  People who forgive and show compassion, even when it hurts one's own pride to do so.

At 50, I'm hanging on to the physical side of myself because I have young kids and because I want to keep moving forward.  I have learned that I can still run with the Navy ROTC guys for the first mile in a 5K and then I will nurse a groin injury for 2 months after that fleeting 7:45.  2 months and counting, actually.  Pace yourselves:)

These are the things I think my younger  friends need to find:  yoga, a supportive bra, a favorite poet, good pressed powder, a compassionate pediatrician (if applicable) and one good joke.  It just has to be funny to you.......I was addicted to the Hokey Pokey, but I turned it all around.

So this is me at 50.  Proud of who I am, where I'm from and most of all....who I love.  Peace to you all!

Serendipity

We have been in a frenzy over here preparing for Thanksgiving, hosting Thanksgiving, and storing 3 gravy boats from Thanksgiving.  It was an amazing day and I may do it again someday.  Nobody got food poisoning, so that increases our chances.

While we were turning the office into a dining room, I had to go through piles of papers, books, and detritus.

I found an old dog-eared copy of Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh.  Married to an alleged Nazi sympathizer, first born kidnapped and murdered and yet out of that pain came such a beautiful and elegantly written gift to women.  Following on the heels of Thomas Merton's The Seven Storey Mountain, it was a welcome balm:

     With a new awareness, both painful and humorous, I begin to understand why the saints were rarely married women.  I am convinced it has nothing inherently to do, as I once supposed, with chastity or children.  It has primarily to do with distractions.  The bearing, rearing, feeding, and educating of children; the running of a house with its thousand details; human relationships with their myriad pulls--woman's normal occupations in general run counter to creative life.......It is more basically:  how to remain whole in the midst of the distractions of life; how to remain balanced, no matter what centrifugal forces tend to pull one off center; how to remain strong, no matter what shocks come in at the periphery and tend to crack the hub of the wheel.

I need to revisit some of her wisdom as I enter the holiday Tsunami season.  My hub is not cracked but it seems to be veering off the road on occasion.

Of all the books to reappear, this one is truly serendipitous.  As my darling children scream and throw socks at each other, in an inescapable game they play daily called "Stinky Feet", I give a silent prayer of thanks for the wise women who carved out enough time to pass on their wisdom.    

The Greatest Generation

My stepfather's father died this month at the age of 91.  Lt Col. Frank Crook joined the air force 10 days after Pearl Harbor on the day he turned 20 years old.  He was a fighter pilot and later served in the Korean War.  He traveled all over the world and retired to Shreveport LA.

I knew him as a kind, generous man who was always by the side of his wife Joyce.  I never saw the two of them apart.  For the past ten years, they sent cards to my children every Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter.  A ten dollar bill always fell out when they opened up the holiday greeting.

This afternoon, when I grabbed the mail, I saw two cards addressed to Luke and Emma in beautiful script that will soon be extinct in the modern world.  As they opened up their Happy Thanksgiving cards, the money fell out, as expected.

In the middle of her heartbreak, Joyce remembered to send my children their cards.  I am simply stunned by our elders and their adherence to doing things in a mindful and honorable way.

As I ponder the loss of the greatest generation, I hope that somewhere along the way, we pick up some of their habits.

God Bless you Lt. Col Crook.

Something is bugging me

Whenever I get stressed, I get psychosomatic lice.  It is such an odd thing to be terrified of, really but those of us who have been down that road never forget.  I tried to get my husband to check my head at 4:00am this morning but he has learned to pace himself, and refused to wake up.  I had a colleague do it at work, very professional but I had to know.  "Just Dandruff" she says jauntily.  Whew.  All clear.  Except for the underlying anxiety that drives me to think I have lice about once every 3 months.

I am reading a biography of Thomas Merton, a Catholic Trappist monk who talks about  his sinful life before his conversion experience.  At the top of his list was his fascination with Freud and Jung and the "false God" of psychoanalysis.  He attributes getting a young woman pregnant and fleeing Oxford for America to that particular cult which ultimately lead him to Columbia which ultimately lead him to God.  A circuitous route.

I worship at both the shrine of modern psychological thought and the mysterious unknown of spiritual contemplation.  Which can shed light on our fears and peccadillos?

I looked up the Freudian interpretation of bugs and found that in dreams, bugs are considered symbolic of cares and anxieties.  They are considered projections of our own disowned human behavior.  Never was much of a Freudian so onto the Jungian interpretation of  insect phobias:

To this day God is the name by which
I designate all things which cross my
willful path, violently and recklessly
All things which upset my views
plans, and intentions
And change the course of my life for
better or worse.

God has landed on my head.

Or the fear of God.

I wonder what Earwigs symbolize?

Keeping Faith

Mom is back in the hospital.  My thoughts are with her and her recovery.  I have written and erased this post three times which leads me to believe that my feelings are a bit complicated about her experience as a patient.  The important piece of information is that she is getting the help she needs.

Times have changed.  We no longer have a neighborhood doctor who goes to church with us and knows our families.  We have three different primary care physicians in our family and I have the following additional doctors:  cardiologist, neurologist, rheumatologist, physical therapist, gynecologist, and hematologist.  I love some of them and suffer through the arrogance of the others.  I currently have been trying to get an appointment with my cardiologist for 3 weeks.  His office will not call me back because I am fine.  Which begs the question of why I have to see him every year?  Let me go, please.

I am no better or worse a patient than my parents.  When I am sick, I  pretend to feel better than I do; I hate hospitals, and I am the boss of me.  The doctor who knows all of that about me will be retiring any second now.  She will be replaced by a 12 year old who I will hate initially but will hopefully come to grudgingly respect.  I can't wait.  Really.

So, what it really boils down to is that I am feeling grateful that the imperfect system we have in place managed to catch my mom as she was falling.  I will try and keep the faith in our medical system, against the odds.

Notes from the Pew

I'm really enjoying not teaching RE this fall.  I love the curriculum, I love the kids, and I love Margaret (our RE director) but I also love hearing sermons.  When I chose to attend church as an adult, I initially made that decision because I wanted to give my kids a spiritual framework.  I also wanted a free thinking group of folks who could band together when we saw injustice in the world and make a difference.  Of course, the UU's spend a lot of time thinking about which particular injustice should get our time and resources but we always eventually land on something.  I have said before that every Sunday I attend I end up singing and crying.  Without fail.  That is worth the price of admission on it's own.  As I was crying this week, I had the thought that crying is soul work because we are opening up and letting wisdom/emotion/pain flow through.  It is often tears of joy but not always.  I also had the thought that crying is not about weakness and that our culture has that wrong.

But there is more.....this Sunday a group of parishioners spoke about what they believe.  All ages, all races, and all cultural backgrounds.  The youngest is 12 and the oldest in her 60's.  All spoke from the heart about the importance of taking responsibility for one's actions (12), believing in the unlimited potential of the human race (16), and the extraordinary in the ordinary (60's).  The stories were inspirational and the honesty and openness, inspiring.

Changes are happening in my beloved community.  I am on the committee to find candidates for an interim ministerial position.  Judith is retiring to pursue her own spiritual quest.  She was the perfect minister for me and so many others.  I can't imagine anyone else as my spiritual teacher and then I receive a teaching from a 12 year old.

As I grapple with Judith's last year of ministry with us, I promise to stay open to the new possibilities.  I also promise to do my best at finding balanced candidates to help us bridge the gap as we let go of the known and move toward the unknown.

This guy plays it better:

http://www.youtube.com/v/KiypaURysz4?version=3&list=PL4E982DE936554472&autohide=1&autoplay=1&attribution_tag=H46R3vx49ofTApJftGLBRQ&showinfo=1&feature=share

Snippets

Stop

My sister had a childhood friend who ended up sleeping with all of our boyfriends and some of our husbands but I digress.....she was a single mom who said "I just see extra work when it comes to birthdays and holidays."  This morning when my husband told me his workmates had put together a Halloween extravaganza for the children of employees, I said, "Aren't they too old for that?"

Sometimes, in the whirl of life I forget how blessed I am that life is whirling.  Bitterness sneaks up on the back of fatigue so I am headed out to yoga to knock it off.

My little red riding hood and Neo were not too old.  It was me.


And

Do you want your kids to be happy or to be accomplished?  People who are good at things have put in some pain time.  And that brings me to yoga.  I spent the bulk of last night, as I do most Tuesdays, trying not to cry or vomit.  My teacher is not unduly hard but I am unduly broken.  It is not relaxing or easy and I am not happy while doing it.  Yet every Tuesday I go because I know that I have to try and undo some of what I have done to myself.  I am trying to figure out where the drive to do hard, unpleasant things for a greater good comes from.  How do we teach it?  Can we teach it?  I just know that we need to.....

Rejoice

I noticed today that I am not creating enough art.  For the first time in many years, I did not make origami bats with some of my students.  Never mind that nobody came down to guidance and said, "hey, where are all the cool origami bats"?  To be balanced is to create...food, music, a line up a cliff, or an origami bat.  Tonight, I am starting on Christmas gifts, while watching the Sox win the world series.  Surely.