Living-Deliberately.com

Not running. Not marching. Sometimes leading, sometimes following. Sometimes walking, but only a step at a time, and always listening.

It’s humbling to trip over that large lump in the carpet, cleverly (or not so) disguising the Elephant. I prefer hardwood flooring anyway…which is to say, I prefer uncluttered, clean, honest, natural elemental living. Carpet collects dust, dirt, and dander and buries out of the reach of any vacuum. It’s handy for hiding what lies beneath. But then, the day of revelation always comes and the truth must be faced….

So I’m sitting on purpose. The carpet has been ripped out from under us. The floor beneath is scratched and worn but it’s real. My legs are crossed and my eyes are closed and my ears and mind are open.  I no longer feel a call for a big mantra, a big movement…massive momentum that sweeps up and carries away.  Maybe it’s because there is still a rather large bruise on my backside from that fall. Maybe this is just a season for sitting and listening and opening.

I read a bumper sticker today that said, “No Farms, No Food.” I marveled at the simple truth there. If we don’t grow it, we won’t eat. It’s simple and complex, all at the same time. Having farms to grow food requires steps along the way that promote sustainable farming. A million decisions along the way will determine if we have farms or not, and thus, food or not.  And someone removed all the carpet from that truth, down to the bare, four words that sum it all up.  Someone, and I’d bet they are someone familiar with dirt and seeds and weather patterns and The Farm Bill, knew to scrape away the hyperbole and clutter down to the sitting-down essence.

So here I am: I want to be authentically human. Just that. A real person who really loves and is loved. Under the screw-ups and imperfections and ideals and visions and goals…under the defining roles and positions filled, we all have the same humanity. We can all deliberately sit down and hear one another if we try. Maybe part of me hopes more will be accomplished that way than all the militant crusades I could go on put together.

If we want food, we must farm. If we want to hear, we must listen. Be quiet on purpose. Be willing to fail and still love the self beneath. Take this day and let it be. And maybe sweep my floor each morning.

It wasn’t, technically, of course. A year ago we were chrismated on Lazarus Saturday and had our first Pascha here in Florida, as it was also the same week as Easter, while we visited family. It was freezing cold, we had no idea what was going on, didn’t know how to pack a basket, we got there late and left early, fought the whole way home, and I vowed last year that every year after I would do everything I could to make sure I celebrated Pascha with the same people I’d gone through Lent with. It matters. I hope I never have to travel during Holy Week again but wherever I am, suffer and celebrate with the same souls.

And so, this year, I did. Ironically, I am now a regular part of that same church in Florida, and have come to love the faces that a year ago, were strangers to me. This year, I was able to ask someone how they did their Pascal service, how to pack a basket, what to expect. We knew to come early and the kids played on the lawn, giggling with new friends young and old. We brought pillows and sleepy little heads rested while we stood in the quiet, mourning of the Holy Saturday half of the service. The church was packed…there were people standing outside but this year, it was not us. A friend shared his prayer book with me. Another friend helped make sure my children weren’t squashed in the press of people and candles. I found myself crying…the grief of the tomb, the light gone, the darkness, and then the growing light from the altar…spreading from candle to candle, and then as we processed around the church and we all shouted, “He is RISEN!” in so many languages, and felt the true restoration of hope and light and peace. It was not metaphorical for me…the transformation is absolutely literal in my life this year.

And then, oh my, the PARTY! The baskets (mine held meat pies, Cardomom braids, brie and apples, wine, chocolate, and lillies) were all generously blessed and we shared and laughed and hugged….(for there is a tremendous amount of hugging that goes on in an Orthodox church, most especially on Pascha!). New friendships continued to be made and I cried again at being on the inside this year, amongst so much joy. We stayed in town (no driving hours away in the wee hours of the morning) with friends, who with much hospitality showed me again how even as a gypsie traveler this year, God always provides for us. Breakfast and swimming and more hugging (and more “He is Risen!” greetings!) and then to a pan-Orthodox picnic.

More glorious feasting food, grills, happy faces of every ethnicity, children running, egg hunts and tosses, soccer games, music, laughing, hugging, hugging, hugging, dappled sunshine from large and ancient shady oaks…utter joy, all of it.

I got a notion of why this is called “Bright Week”…the glow, the joy, the restoration just carries. There is no doubt more of a theological connotation to it than that I’m sure but it feels as if It could not possibly be contained in one service or one day or one week. The overflow is just too massive for that. This knowing that He “trampled down death by death”, that He was victorious, that there is light in the world, is like the shining glow on the face when there is news of a new baby or one is in love…happiness that spills over, optimism that can not be contained. The mechanics of complicated life still demand time and attention but it’s as if I’m kind of floating over them…part of me is still in that service, watching the spread of light grow and feeling the swell of anticipation. I’m so glad that the liturgical calendar allows time for this beautiful season, that it lasts longer than a day, that the effects of such transformative hope on the human soul is given time to be processed and acknowledged.

“He is Risen!”

P.S…this is an effervescent depiction of the joy that crosses language, enthic, and global lines…watch and enjoy.

1 Corinthians 13

Love

1If I speak in the tongues^[a] of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames,^[b] but have not love, I gain nothing.4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. 11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. 12Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

13And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

One of the things my counselor encourages me to look at is how I feel when I come away from someone. That feeling, that perception, is very often a valuable clue as to what kind of influence they are in my life, and how they really feel about me (which may differ from their words). For instance, someone who you leave feeling happy and empowered is likely not trying to oppress or coerce you. Someone who leaves you feeling defeated or dirty, has little respect for you, etc.

I’ve started making it a bit of a litmus test for the myriad of relationships I have. And I’m seeing the importance of knowing how someone really feels about you/your choices, during times of change and transition.

Earlier last year I was trying on a thought that I’d had in a dream. It was basically this, “Underestimate me and I’ll likely surprise you. But I’d rather you’d believed in me from the start”. Not a statement without flaw, but it was the start of steps toward realizing my own self-worth.

Because it all wraps back up into love. If someone loves you, they will believe in you and your abilities to do well. They will want you to do well, to improve, to grow, to do better. They will not box you in, not try to manipulate you into their purposes. They will not cage arguments motivated by envy with the appearance of caring.

When going through change (and every life not entrenched in stagnancy *will* experience change, deliberate or not), everyone needs voices of support around them. Strong voices, who think they are awesome people, even in times when it’s hard to see that themselves. I wonder if, in the absence of strong support, silence would be preferred to a negative? Then, at least in the quiet, there is a chance of an angel whisper on the breeze, reminding the soul of potential…of faith, hope, and love.

I’m reminded of the old platitude, “if you can’t say anything nice, say nothing at all”. Negative voices are like hollow, clanging cymbals…just noise, rather than adding anything of merit to the conversation of life. In the decluttering process, ridding of noise both tangible and not, stillness and peace is found. Angels can indeed whisper. And now and then to the clean quiet, a voice is introduced and the decision made whether or not to let it in.

There is the reward of honing self-worth. How does that voice make me feel? Do they know how wonderful my children are, or do they only see them as entanglements? Do they think I’m capable and confident and worthy? Would they feel it an honor to be invited into our lives? Because self-worth leaves in it’s wake a peace that knows without voices, we’ll still be okay. We’ve cut out the clanging cymbals and stood in the silence and heard the whisper of faith, hope, and love on the breeze.

Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

Not without flaw. Not yet perfect. But to be “fully known” is something that happens where there is real love present. Anything else is mere dilution. Love is never without risk, without challenge, without stretching. Maybe therein lies it’s value. So as I love, so do I grow.

I’ve seen these done several places…a few newspapers and People magazine…comparisons of various reusable bags available on the market. None of them included the BEST bag though so I’m writing my own about my favorite bag and why I think it’s better than the others. If a week’s groceries takes 10 bags (and that’s modest, because they usually double bag), that is 40-50 a month, or between 520 and 600 bags a year FOR ONE FAMILY. It’s nigh impossible to find enough recycling sources for that many bags and a sickening use of energy and waste production. So bring on the reusable bags!!!!

Chico Bags:

I saw these little cuties in the store the other night…seemed like a good option for throwing in my purse so I’d always have on hand, not unlike the Bummi Bag I used to carry for cloth diapers and wet spills when I had babies. They are cheap (5/each) and lightweight. The website says they make sure the China-production is fair labor/fair wage. They are nylon and can hold 20 lbs. Favorite selling point? Their small size when balled up. I think I’d use these in place of a baggie…but not a grocery bag.

Ecobags, offering The Green Bag: The Ecobags site offers several kinds of bags but for grocery bag purposes, I’ll focus on The Green Bag. It’s made from polypropylene and has a flat bottom. At just a couple of bucks a piece, they are cheap. I actually don’t trust the price….the adage, “you get what you pay for” comes to mind. I need durability!! This bag may be great for a jam… just getting a few things at the store and one’s available for an impulse buy at the check out stand; I may buy one knowing I’d use it at least a few more times. But given time to think about it, I think I’d rule this out as potential clutter, not being strong enough to go the distance.

Envirosax: Oooo!!! What a pretty site! And pretty bags too! My first reaction to these bags is that I wish the straps were longer! They’d make cute messenger bags (what I use for a side-carry purse)! They cost 8.50/bag and there are a few styles currently out of stock. I do wish it were a bit more obvious on the site what the product construction is, where it’s made, and how much they can carry. That bottom seam-design seems like it would strain. But these bags are going to speak to a certain kind of customer and more power to them!

Earth Totes:

Australian site offering organic cotton and hemp bags. Oy! Pretty cool….but alas, they are Australian and that intimidates me about ordering overseas. I would definitely look for their cool designs while in my health food store. And they DO have long enough handles to be side-carry. One thing….I think I’d use this as a typical tote and not as a grocery bag because they are too hippy-cool to gunk up weekly shopping.

The Use-Again Bag: So…full disclosure…my mom owns this venture. But I LOVE these bags and bein’ her kid doesn’t keep me from getting to talk about them! The are 100% American made. Come in great colors. Nylon…so they can be balled up, folded up, washed, dried, and they’ll still be great looking and lightweight. The handles are super strong (can hold up to 60lbs for those one-trippers out there!) and have hooks on the insides so they fit into the brackets that the store baggers use.

They are pretty, durable, compact, strong…they are the total package in reusable grocery bag design. And they aren’t expensive either…10/apiece and with durability that exceeds expectations. A supply of these bags will last and go the distance with families who buy a lot of groceries. We’ve used them for overnight travel totes, quick trips to the store (they fold small and fit in a purse easily), trips to bulk warehouses, and the get used every week for the regular grocery runs.

But whatever bag you use, make the switch away from plastic!! This is one way, we ALL can have an immediate impact on our environment…for the better!

Tomorrow is the anniversary in the liturgical year of my Chrismation into the Orthodox Church.  What a journey it has been… a year of discovery, admitting the truth, finding forgiveness, love, and healing. This year I expect to more thoroughly participate in Holy Week and really, my first Pasca, having missed out on most of it last year due to travel and family issues.  It’s a quiet countdown, and end to the lenten season, and a feeling of joyful anticipation as we look forward to calling out, “He Is Risen!”. Somehow, it’s as if the voices and threads of history are joining us modern-day believers in the rich tapestry of the coming days.

My ark, my wilderness, my lent, my time for purification….40 days until the legal system catches up with the rest of life; for the spiritual change, the emotional transition, the physical distance have long been sealed. What has happened in reality long ago will finally be put to rest in man’s contrived system. I am surprised, in a way, that I’m not in a greater amount of grief over it….and then at the same time, not. Grief passes, loss has stages, and “what’s done is done” was done so very long ago. What matters through changes is getting one’s “head around it” and once that happens, the rest is almost a formality. That’s been true of any change I’ve made in my life, from the way I eat, to where I live, to becoming a parent….one way in the heart first, the body second. And too, when one is working as hard as I have been (single parenting while forced to travel, run a business, and work out major emotional trauma times 5 is hardly an easy feat) a “nose the grindstone” pragmatism must develop, just in order to survive.

This, without a doubt, has been a quest to live a deliberately authentic life with higher stakes than any other. No more shiny-happy images on the surface while suffering and abuse lie in the background. It took 13 long years to find a voice strong enough to say something was wrong and untenable but thanks be to God, I finally spoke up. It’s cost more than I could have imagined….but then, I think any step towards honesty will cost.

“The Truth Hurts” is what we toss around…but it has. Realizing the extent of denial is not a pretty process. Seeing the reality that remains after the props are removed is down right ugly. The thing of it is though…the truth is ultimately the truth…and on the other side of the ugly is healing and freedom.

And that is where victory really lies. Seeing children not in turmoil from constant stress but playing and laughing again. Welcoming the healing from stress-related illness. Seeing anger responses that don’t involve violence. Smiling again and enjoying a pretty day. Feeling hope, over many things, in the future. Not flinching when I spill something and retraining my inner voice to allow for imperfection (”Oh! I’m so human!” rather than, “Oh! I”m so stupid!”). Going longer than I have in years un-manipulated, un-spat upon, un-physically intimidated…all in the name of “love” and submission, has had an effect.

If marriage is an image of how Christ loves the church, it’s been good for my faith to tease that apart. I couldn’t really see it before, though I longed for it, that God really does love me. Me. I’m not hideous, unwanted, rejected, disgusting, or a failure. I am visible to God…not just half of a supposed whole, there just to do the work. Beyond my imperfection and sin, He sees someone who is lovely. In some ways, the eternal ways, that is all the freedom I need.

One aspect of the domestic abuse cycle is the mutual lack of self-worth. And that is exactly what starts to form when a break away is made. I can “hear” that God-so-loved-me-that-he-saved-me. He thought I was worth that.

It has reminded me of stewardship, a big ideal I hold….it’s what motivates my financial, environmental, and health goals. And I was a very poor steward of myself and my children in the previous decade. I let myself be thrown away, quite literally, and while I took steps in every other area towards health and the appreciation of worth and value, I failed at the first step every morning…that person in the mirror and those children down the hall. The old adage of “don’t let yourself be a doormat” is a true one. No one else will respect you if you don’t first respect yourself.

So for myself, and the women in my support group going through very similar journeys, that comes first. It is the first step out into the wilderness, on the path, toward honesty, health, and life. Knowing that our lives are worth fighting for and that our children need better. That even our abusers deserve better because salvation is for them too, and may they also find healing and redemption.

Respect, worth, honesty, healing, forgiveness…that’s the hard part. The legal signing of papers is so very easy in comparison. Very nearly just a chore needing to be done. I suppose it’s not unlike it’s reverse…that wedding, after the emotional process of courting, falling in love, and committing, is comparatively easy…more work for the caterer and seamstress than the bride and groom. When the hype falls away, the parsed truth is much less complex than one may think. I don’t know if I would have thought this before my mile in these shoes.

And so there are forty days left. Forty days for the word to catch up with the deed.

This story in the NY Times is warm and inspiring…average people, who love where they live, see the bright side of things, and change their environment without debt….beautiful. I can’t wait to read his book, “All the Way Home: Building a Family in A Falling Down House”.

This is how they found it,

A rogue wisteria in the yard had eaten its way through the side of the house where the chimney met the wood, and was, Mr. Giffels would discover later, wending its way across the attic floor. Inside, a harp stood in a darkened, junk-filled living room. The smell of cat urine was pervasive. The house was not, as everyone had thought, deserted. The inhabitant was an elderly woman, bent over with osteoporosis, who seemed lost in a world of her own. When the Giffelses walked into the solarium, they saw a ceiling rotted to the laths, as well as two chandeliers. As a couple who loved tragic ruins, they didn’t have a chance.

Nasty Food Of the Month: Margarine

Image from bigoven.com

I don’t think I ever understood the appeal of margarine. Greasy and weird tasting… ick. It seemed weird to me that the stuff never aged, never grew mold. But there’s a lot of positive press for it, when research is spun to isolate one element and then create a product that addresses that one element, and then science enters in, and the audience already eats a host of non-foods anyway….

My instinct tells me that no matter what the latest research says, when faced between a real food and a non-food, my body will always know what to do better with the real food.

The book Nourishing Traditions, which honestly changed my food life more than any other book I’ve read on the subject, has this to say about the globby-perpetually-yellow- I-can’t-believe-people-eat-this-stuff…..

“Hydrongenation is the process that turns polyunsaturates, normally liquid at room temperature, into fats that are solid at room temperature–margarine and shortening. To produce them, manufacturers begin with the cheapest oils–soy, corn, cottonseed or canola, already rancid from the extraction process–and mix them with tiny metal particles–usually nickel oxide. The oil with it’s nickel catalyst is then subjected to hydrogen gas at a high pressure, hig-temperature reactor. Next, soap-like emuslifiers and starch are squeezed into the mixture to give it a better consistency; the oil is yet again subjected to high temperatures when it is steamed cleaned. This removes it’s unpleasant odor. Margarine’s natural color, an unappetizing grey, is removed by bleach. Dyes and strong flavors must then be added to make it resemble butter. Finally, the mixture is compressed and packaged in blocks or tubs and sold as a health food.”

from another page:

” Excess consumption of polyunsaturated oils has been shown to contribute to a large number of disease conditions including increased cancer and heart disease, immune system dysfunction, damage to the liver, reproductive organs and lungs, digestive disorders, depressed learning ability, impaired growth, and weight gain.”

“One of the reasons the polyunsaturates cause so many health problems is that they tend to become oxidized or rancid when subjected to heat, oxygen and moisture as in cooking and processing. Rancid oils are characterized by free radicals–that is, single atoms or clusters with an impaired electron in an outer orbit. These compounds are extremely reactive chemically.”

And aw gee, free radicals are badies of the kind where the info about them is widely available. Want more facts and research documentation? It’s in the book. But really….my largest selling point against margarine and in favor of butter is how good it tastes, how real it is, (organic bodies can deal with organic foods much easier than plastic…common sense!), and good I FEEL. Saturated fat is necessary for learning, concentration, emotional stability, growth, and health. Butter doesn’t need to go through a huge process and then have nutrition and taste added in because it’s already, quite naturally, there!

One more nasty on margarine:

“I put a cube of margarine, the kind I had been selling, on a saucer and placed the saucer on the window sill in the back room of my store. I reasoned that if I made it readily available and if it was real food, insects and microoraganisms would invite themselves to the feast. Flies and ants and mold would be all over it just as if it were butter. That cube of margarine became infamous. I left it sitting on the windowsill for about two years. Nobody ever saw an insect of any description go near it. Not one spect of mold ever grew on it. All that ever happened was that it kind of half-puddled down from the heat of the sun beating through the windowpane, and it got dusty….”

In early May! So

• set a goal.
• Articulate it.
• Make a plan for meeting it.
• If you can, blog it (or use my comment section if you don’t have a blog).
• Make sure you link back here so I can find you and/or leave me a comment directing me to your site.

At the end of the month we’ll post progress and then I’ll choose a winner.  The prize is a free Use Again Bag!!

And pssst!!! Coming in June, the biggest contest I could possibly think of, designed to deliberately impact the world for good! Be watching for my post after Memorial Day!

Story One: a friend and I were having a lunch at the kind of place where you order at the counter, get a marker of some sort, and then it’s brought to your table. Drinks are self-serve after getting a cup from the cashier. When I ordered my standard “water with lemon” she said, “Oh, did you know we are out of ice?”

“Out of ice?”

“Yes, ” she said. “We ran out”.

a little bufuddled, I gave her a confused look and asked, “how do you run out of ice?”

“Oh, our machine broke and we’re trying to get someone in to fix it”.

Ah. So they didn’t “run out”….they have a broken machine. Now I’m thinking of all the times I’ve ordered a fast food milk shake and been told they “ran out” when in fact they just didn’t clean their machine the night before and now can’t use it.

Lunch chatter between my friend and I included lamentations of ailing customer service, and how many other ways that could have been addressed, rather than sending busy lunch customers to their tables with iceless cups.

Story Two: happened about a week later in a different state. A Chik-Fil-A, located between a hospital, a college, and a bustling shopping center is understandably full at lunch. When I pulled into the parking lot the first thing I noticed was the manager directing traffic into two lines: one for the drive thru and the other, to the parking spaces. As soon as I was calmly led to the drive thru line (for there seemed to be no air of hurried panic among the drivers in a crowded lot at a busy hour as I would have expected), a girl approached my window with a pad in hand. She cheerfully took my order and handed me the slip of paper.

Two car lengths up (still a good four from the speaker box), another girl with a cell phone in hand took my paper and gave the cashier inside my order, and me, my total. The line moved quickly; I paid with my debit card and got my food in the next moment.

The whole thing took less time than it ordinarily would have had their speaker been in working order.

I was stunned. Normally, when a fast food restaurant has a broken speaker, they tape up a scribbled sign and either take orders at the window (much further down the line, resulting in less time to assemble orders) or make customers scream over staticky sound. This manager clearly understood that he had more than a “task” to address and kept the “experience” at the forefront of his mind.

So here’s a shout out for a job well done to the East Chase Chik-Fil-A in Montgomery, an encouragement to do better to the Trio restuarant in Knoxville, and a thanks to Dennis Snow for articulating the difference between “task” oriented and “experience” oriented customer service.

Little Samuel was born on Tuesday night, making me an Auntie again. Being his Mommy’s doula was a complete privilege, being her sister is a greater one. And I know I”m more than a little biased…but this baby is beautiful!

From the summer of 2005 to the summer of 2006 we moved three times. I count them as gardens lost: 3 planted, 3 left.  In 2007 the years of tension and disfuntion were working their way to a head, like glass buried under skin’s surface, slowly festering. The unraveling has led to half  a year of forced transience with no certain end in sight. In reading through my archives, I “hear” certain repeated threads and thoughts…one of them has been my longing to settle in security, to plant in soil that I’ll turn season after season. Though life has required a gypsie-like flexibility, it isn’t who I really am, and the hunger remains. And as this journey progresses, I suspect my thirst is more for a relational home than a positional one.  This post was first written two years ago…March 2006. I’d like to dedicate it to all the reluctant travelers out there….especially the military wives who move and move and move.

You know that feeling when the blankets and sheets are all tangled up around your legs and feet and your toes can’t find their way out to some cooler air? When every spot on your pillow is hot and you just want to find a refreshing corner? When you’ve had on flannel bottoms and a T for too many days and you desperately want to shower and change but still feel dizzy every time you get up?

Physically and metaphorically, that’s how I feel. We’ve had two weeks of whatever virus this is and there are still fevers and coughs in the house. So, another week and we still won’t be going anywhere both for our own benefit and everyone around us. Cabin fever took a while to set in though…it pretty chilly out there and feelin’ yucky, no one really wanted to upset thier cozy little spots. It’s a weird cold: We don’t particularly want to watch TV or read or work puzzles. Just layin’ there is just fine.

An interesting aspect of this line of germs is the fastidious feelings it leaves it’s sufferers with. I chuckle sometimes when reading in my homeopathic book some of the symptoms that say, “sufferer wants attention but not to be touched”, or “patient feel intensely about thier environment and may spend time straightening thier bed covers”. And sure enough, there are cold strains that make us feel just like that! This one has nagged me with cleanliness. Far away from just lying there and not caring, if I’m going to go through the effort of being up, I”m going to have the laundry cycled, the meat laid out, the counters wiped down. It bugs me that the floor needs mopping and yesterday I vacummed in spurts every time my sinus pressure let up a little.

It’s gorgeous outside this morning, so sunny and bright. We had frost on the hill so I know it’s cold. But I can almost hear the ground pounding and asking when I’m coming out to turn it over. We’re suposed to put in a good gardening weekend this coming Saturday, health allowing. I’m somewhat ambivilant. I think I’m feeling the reality of being a “transplant’. If I put alot of work into this garden, how long will it be mine? A year probably but there’s also a chance I won’t see it to harvest. As fat cats cross our yard in pursuit of birds and ground creatures (we see 6 or so a day) I long for the ability to have pets again. The kids want a dog. I feel that old link to St. Francis, the saint my birth hospital was named for, the one who I sometimes wonder doesn’t mysteriously have some affect on my longing to be around animals. Being sick, we’ve missed important contacts with new friends. It’s nice to be included in party guest lists and makes us feel like we are starting to belong. Then, to miss them, and realize how easily it would be for us to just fade away, almost unoticed is unsettling. After all, a short 10 months ago these people didn’t know we even existed. Miss a few more functions and we won’t be missed. It’s no one’s fault; just a result of a transient society I think. I LONG for some ROOTS. I want to put some down on land we’ll own. I want the kids to stretch on ground they can be sure will still be part of our lives next year. This transplant is getting thin and leggy, reaching for light, and whose little tendrils of root are hitting the sides of the pot and getting circular and tangled.

I’ve got tons to do and probably not enough time to get it all done. It seems what is needed first though is some time to straighten things out. Beit covers or searching roots or emotions or tasks…it’s time for a little order.

 This has been a very special free verse poem to me for years; I first posted it here in March of 2006.

Thin Place

The road turns right almost as soon as it leaves the village, and
twists again in the other direction at a place where a

bit of lake-edge swamp comes up close to the pavement. That’s
where something changes, at that spot. I don’t know

what it is: but each time I come here, I get that same feeling
whenever I pass that stand of reeds: that I have left one

part of this particular world and stepped into another.

It’s the woods in part: woods almost always get to me, especially
when they’re near water. I know that. I do indeed

have a “thing” for woods and hills, because that’s where I first
sampled this particular taste, in taller forests and

bigger mountains, many years ago. But people report the same
feeling in deserts and dunes, on the top of barren

screes, on buttes, at wide silver water, along a shore at low
tide. There are sacred rocks well known to the people

who live close to them, and holy springs, and clearings that have
a certain radical peacefulness. Who knows? Maybe

there’s some phone booth on a Manhattan street corner that has
something special about it. I’m not willing to rule it out.

Up here in the Madawaska Valley there are miles and miles of wood,
and miles and miles (although not as many) of

riverside and lake edge. It’s lovely, wild, bony country. When
you’re here, you get clonked with the realization that

this is the civilized, highly populated fringe of the Canadian
Shield, and the Real Thing goes on and on, largely

unpeopled, for, oh, something like a thousand kilometers to the
north and west: a huge mass, terrifying in its

immensity. Is that vastness spotted, as this country is, with
places with this feeling? Or do you have to have people

there to notice the feeling? It’s the old tree-
falling-in-the-forest problem. (Would God be in this world if we weren’t here too? I think too highly of moose to believe otherwise.)

But there is that feeling here, just at the turn in the road and
on. It’s somewhat thicker and stronger where the

community has its white-painted house and its working buildings,
and thicker and stronger still on the island among

the reeds, where the log chapel stands. A sense of something
peaceful and yet gloriously alive Of Joy lurking

somewhere in the landscape.

The Celtic tradition had a phrase for it (Celtic tradition would,
of course!): it call places like this “thin places,” or so

I’ve been told. There are spots where this world and the realm of
the spirit come close together, some claim. That

may be; or it may be that there are some places, like some chords
in music, that evoke something spiritual in

people, as the smell of burning leaves can bring back childhood to
many of us; and that some places have more of

that power of evocation than others. Whatever. I don’t know, and
I’m not sure it’s all that important anyway. Even if

scientists could pin down the loci of the brain centers involved
and isolate the requisite stimuli, would it really make

any difference?

The important thing about this particular thin spot (or whatever
you want to call it) is that it fetched a holy woman — a

brilliant, passionate, fiercely courageous woman whose Godlove was
huge and whose energy was boundless — and

she found her own particular Madonna in these sandy pine woods.
Her cabin is on the island and the feeling there is

so thick you could almost slice it and use it for shingles. She
founded a community that keeps going through hard

work and cheerful begging and that has tendrils reaching far out
into the world. I come to visit this community

sometimes, partly for the community itself, but largely because
this place feels like a drink of cold water when you’re

really thirsty.

I was talking about all this to an old priest who lives here, one
who’d been close to the holy woman and had known

this place almost from the first days of the community. I asked
him the tree-falling-in-the-forest question: did that

woman find Mother Mary already here in the woods, or did her
prayers bring Mother Mary here? Mary had always

been here, he said; the woman had only named her and had taken
root here because of Mary’s presence. Question

answered.

But, he said, while there are places that call us toward holiness,
maybe it’s a two-way street. Maybe there are places

that we can help make holy. That felt right: I have known places
(my home church is one such) that seem to seep

the same feeling from their walls as I got from this place, as
though the prayers and joy and pain and angel-wrestling

of the people who had worshipped here had, in some fashion, sunk
into the very fabric of the joint. The priest said (he

had known her very well) that the woman’s cabin was like that; it
was, for him, full of the scent of her agony. What

had that agony been? I asked him. “That Love goes so unloved,” he
answered.

Maybe — I don’t know — if we could be completely open to God’s
love, as we never seem to be able to do, maybe we

could *make* more thin places. Maybe by love and prayer we could
clear some of the rust and debris that evil has left

spotted on the face of this earth, the scars on the faces of God’s
children, by facing them front-on and loving them as

best we can.

A more radical thought: maybe we could work on becoming ourselves
the thinnest places we can manage to be. Not

thin in the sense of meagerness, as fashion models are thin — in
fact, now that I think about it, the “thin place”

people I know are as often as not quite comfortably upholstered –
but thin in the sense of transparency: being as full

as we can hold of the love of God, and leaking it like crazy.
Highly permeable membranes. The priest himself was

like that; he leaked a deep and quiet peace.

Sounds simple, becoming a thin-place person; but in fact, it’s not
easy at all. Our notion of love often isn’t Love but

ego, and it needs to be stripped down to the chassis and rebuilt.
It means giving God leave to do whatever we need to

undergo if we’re to become the vessels God wants us to be. That
may involve being opened and stretched in ways

that I, for one, find terribly painful at times. God’s hand is
very tough on the clay at times, and if you think that’s

rough, you should see what he does to brass.

And sometimes it seems like it’s all for nothing. Listening to the
priest talk about the woman who had lived here, I felt

like a scant and wavering taper next to a glowing potbellied
stove. I feel muffled off from God’s love so much of the

time. I can take only a sip at a time of all the living water on
offer, however much I want to gulp it down. I’ve got my

areas of indifference or cruelty, spite and self-serving. I too
don’t want to see or be seen too much or with any real

accuracy. I too don’t love Love, or at least not often or nearly
well enough.

But the thin-place places and the thin-place people don’t judge
us; they call us, fetch us, offer us the startling gift of

grace, get lodged deep in our inmost selves. They tell us, here,
this is what Love tastes like, this is what Love’s

supposed to be. And nothing else ever really feels the same –
which is good, really; it keeps us from looking for

God’s Love in things and people that aren’t equipped to give it.
It helps if you can see that the idols are only plaster;

you can even feel sorry for them.

God-love is alive and active in this world; God’s fingerprints are
all over the landscape. That love bubbles through

among these particular pines and rocks and in communities like
this, but it also surfaces in all love: in a mother’s

gaze on her sleeping child, in the affection of friends or care
for strangers, for all love is ultimately God’s, love passed

on. It’s in the stillness of contemplation and in the action that
flows out from it. It’s yeasty and unstoppable and willing

to suffer anything to get through our stubborn unlovingness to
reach us. It’s here. You just have to be willing to step

into your particular woods, stand still, breathe deep, and open
your soul to it.

Combermere, Ont.

For Fr. Emile