R. Mark Liebenow's Blog: Nature, Grief, and Laughter, page 3

Loving Horror but Hating Death

I’m delighted to have an essay published today in Paper Dragon out of Drexel University. “Poking Death’s Boundary” explores our fascination with horror movies, cemeteries, walking with grief, and dancing with death like a distant cousin. 

https://drexelpaperdragon.com/poking-...

(The artwork above is by Martha Liebenow.)

Respect and Responsibility

Nurturing Compassion for All Creation

When someone or something we love dies, we grieve.

Right now, half of the country is angry and the other half seems to be gloating.

(Much of this post is something I first published on October 6, 2017.)

In Lauret Savoy’s essay, “The Future of Environmental Essay,” published by Terrain Magazine, she says there are two words we need to remember when we interact with other people, other cultures, and the land: respect and responsibility.

Each of us carries a community inside us. The history of all who came before us — our ancestors — are held within us. Our lives are rooted in their past, and we carry remnants of what they went through, the trauma they suffered as well as the joys and celebrations. 

The home we grew up in is an environment as much as the forests, meadows, and rivers that live around us. Our neighborhood is an environment, as well as the rest of the city. The weather and the seasons are part of us, shaping our outlook and modulating our moods. For example, if we love warm sunshine, when it’s cold and rainy for a week, we become negative.

Respect yourself and others.

We can lose sight of our values, both personal and communal, under the grind and stress of everyday chores and social discord. 

With all that we have to do to just get through each day, we may not think we have the time to consider the long-range implications of what we do, how our choices affect other people, or how they harm the land. It is helpful if we take a few moments every morning to be quiet and remember our values so that they can guide our actions and decisions throughout the day.

Respect other people and listen to them. They have a right to their views as much as you do. Make decisions together. Collective wisdom is greater than individual hubris. 

Respect the land and take responsibility for your actions.

In the news, another large earthquake shook Oklahoma in an area where they never used to have earthquakes. The cause has been identified as fracking. In Ohio and Pennsylvania, drinking water for cities has been polluted by the industrial wastewater being injected into the ground. Those who are making money off of fracking say it causes no problems. Will the politicians and business people who profit from fracking take responsibility and pay for the damage and illnesses that fracking is causing? If we are shareholders in an oil company that fracks, but we say nothing against it, then we are guilty of causing the damage.

In North Dakota, an oil pipeline is shifted away from Bismarck because its largely white population worried that an oil leak would pollute its drinking water. The new route now goes by the water supply for Native Americans. The powerless are taken advantage of, and another treaty is broken by the United States. The oil company says the pipeline is safe, but then why move it away from Bismarck? And why has this pipeline already sprung a leak?

Respect people and your communities.

We continue to sell the lives of poor people, women, and peoples of color to make money. We belong to several communities — our family, our neighborhood, our city and nation, and the land we live on — and we have responsibilities to each of them.

We need to acknowledge our interdependence with each other and the land. We need to stop large scale exploitation and destruction of people, cultures, and the natural world.

We do not create community by putting up arbitrary boundaries of us and them, or by manipulating people for our own gain. 

When death takes away someone or something we believe in, we grieve. Then we have to pick ourselves us and start over.

Living with Prostate Cancer

 

I’m nearing the two-year mark of dealing with aggressive prostate cancer, and I’ve been writing about the journey to keep my sanity. The essays that have come from this are beginning to be sent out to journals. 
Both internal and external beam radiation procedures were completed last fall, but leuprolide, the androgen-deprivation drug, is still having its way with me. I think its side effects are beginning to fade a tad because my hot flashes aren’t as frequent and they aren’t as intense. The hair on my legs is still gone, as well as what I lost off my head. What muscle I have left still has no definition, and even though I exercise twice a day, I don’t see any changes there. 
Because I lost strength, flexibility, and balance, I’ve begun going to yoga and Pilates classes to get them back. Most of the classes are what they call “hot,” which means that they heat up the room into the mid-90s. The idea is to sweat out all the toxins in your body. After going to classes every other day for the last two weeks, I have yet to make it through a class without needed to rest in the middle and catch my breath.
Dealing with cancer is not for the faint of heart, not that you have a choice. But I’ve experienced the grace of fellowship among cancer patients and the great compassion of the nurses and doctors.
More on all of this later.

Two New Essays

 

I am thrilled to have two essays published recently. Both of them are about grieving someone you love and trying to make sense of the world without them in it.

“Speaking of That … which we weren’t” was published in the Chautauqua Literary Journal. This is a print-only journal, so you can’t read it online.

But “Fragile, Fracture, Fear” is online. It was published by Cleaver Magazine, and this is the link:

https://www.cleavermagazine.com/fragi...

gratefully, 

Mark

To Be a Hermit

 

Growing up in a small farming town in Wisconsin, I felt most alive when I was outdoors, and I would sit for hours in the woods or on the shore of a nearby lake and feel that I was home. 

When I began reading the words of Thomas Merton fifty years ago, I tried to imagine what it would be like to live as a hermit. Would it be complete isolation, talking only to the wrens and squirrels, and the occasional bear walking by? Or would I be like Thoreau, and come into town now and then to visit people? And where would this hermit place be? A cabin in a forest keeps coming to mind. But what about living in the desert like Georgia O’Keeffe? Or in the highland mountains of Scotland like Nan Shepherd? What landscape could nurture me for the rest of my life?

I also wondered what it would be like to live in Merton’s hermitage that was near Gethsemani Monastery. Reading John Howard Griffin’s book of living in the hermitage while he worked on Merton’s biography gave me a sense of what this would be like.

My essay about this was published in the new Merton Seasonal. It’s called “In the Hermitage with John Howard Griffin.” I am grateful for the insights of Steve Cary and the assistance of Dr. Paul Pearson of the Thomas Merton Center.

(The photo is of the altar in Merton’s hermitage where he celebrated communion.)

In Merton's Hermitage with Griffin

 My essay in the spring issue of The Merton Seasonal is called “In the Hermitage with John Howard Griffin.” In reading about how Griffin felt living in Thomas Merton’s hermitage for months as he worked on Merton’s biography, I debated whether I would ever want to stay there, if given the chance, as well as if I would want to be a hermit somewhere else.

The Merton Seasonal comes out quarterly from the International Thomas Merton Society. Each issue focuses on exploring Thomas Merton's writings for today's world, and on reviewing new books that have come out about him. If you don’t have a yearly subscription to the Seasonal, you can buy this issue, as well as other earlier issues in stock, for $5 per issue, or 3 issues for $12, 5 issues for $18, postage is included to U.S. addresses.

 Checks made payable to “ITMS” should be sent to: Dr Paul M Pearson. Thomas Merton Center, Bellarmine University, 2001 Newburg Road, Louisville KY 40205

At Merton's Gethsemani Monastery

At Merton's Gethsemani Monastery    Trappist, Kentucky
Pray for us, Thomas Merton,who’ve come for consolation.
Pray for those who rise with the bell at 3 a.m. to touch the incorporeal, who enter heaven’s silenceand wonder if they’ve heard things right.
Pray for the farmer driving holy rolls of Cistercian hay to pay the bills.  Pray for monks pouring good bourbon into fruitcake and fudge to sell.  
Pray for the cheesemakers filling molds with fresh milk.Pray for those who study mysteries they can never clearly explain.
Pray for the comely lass at Vesperswho distracts from Gregorian chant.
And pray for me, a Protestant in Catholic’s clothing, who meditates under the ginkgo treewhere the Dalai Lama once sat,
who bows at the right time, kneels with the wrong knee, almost remembers to cross himselfwhen passing by the sacred Host. 
Pray for us—the confused and fakes, the spectacular failures and saints.  Ratchet up our screw-loose hearts.Orphans at your gate.
first published in Liturgical Credo
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My essay "Tinkering with Grief in the Woods," about spending a week at Gethsemani Monastery while dealing with grief, was published by Literal Latte: https://www.literal-latte.com/2012/09...

Easter Dawn

 

Easter Dawn

The air is cool and hesitant.

Stars twinkle out slowly 

as the black sky gives way 

to the promise of the hidden sun.

Feelings of longing, belief,

and hope fill my body 

and surge with unspeakable joy!

Expectant grays give way

to the pink, orange, and yellow of dawn

as the light of the young sun 

rises slowly over dark shadowed trees.

People gather as the sky deepens to blue.

The excited chatter and songs of the birds 

lift our hearts that rise 

with the steady strokes of wings,

rising towards the unknowable 

Presence.

Mark Liebenow

Listen

 In the morning, before you begin your activities, find a quiet place where you can listen to the day opening up. - Mark

Find a Bench

 

Find a bench where you can pause your busyness. - Mark