Sophy Burnham's Blog, page 3

Grief

I haven’t written on this site in many weeks. I had nothing to say, as I reeled from the loss of three people in three weeks. Grief is so close to depression, you hardly know what’s come over you, and it takes time to heal. I say “you.”  I mean me, of course, but maybe it relates to you, too.  You have to tell me, because right now I feel the ground still rocking, unstable, underfoot.  What have I to share? In grief, one sees through a veil; everything seems dulled: color, music, friendships. I have to remind myself to laugh, and all the time, I beat myself up for not feeling upbeat, happy, optimistic, and especially for having lost my way spiritually.  Where is God? The best I can do is to comfort myself that all things change, that everything is temporary, including life itself. 

      “Out, out, brief candle,” says Macbeth, on the death of his wife:

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
that struts and frets its hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more.It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.

    Is it true? Is there really no meaning? That’s what it feels like, and where is my generous spirituality in this?  Sometimes you cling with all ten claws to faith alone, trying to remember those times when you saw and heard the angels sing, when your heart leapt up with joy at the beauty of a tree or horse or the eyes of a friend. That’s what faith means.  That you can’t see “IT” anymore (whatever “it” is) — but you remember having seen it once (or many times!), and you cling to hope and faith.  You cling to faith that you are still loved, and that you still love, even when you don’t feel loving. You return to the cold comfort of intellect.  “We do not see things as they are,” according to the Talmud, “We see them as we are.”  Perhaps you remember St. Paul, “We walk by faith, not by sight.” You remember that grief itself is a poignant expression of love, and the deeper the grief, the deeper the love. I say you. I mean me. 

    When signs of the spiritual are absent, I walk by faith alone, by the memory of blessings poured upon me earlier, or of felix culpa moments, in which terrible things turned out serendipidously in my favor.  In grief, I walk by faith, praying, and then one day, I know, I’ll begin to blink my spiritual eyes again.  

    It just takes time. Grief is just another of these life-long journeys into love.  

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My angel crow

For a year and a half, I have tried to attract birds to my garden. I put up a birdbath, and grieved when no bird came to drink.  I put up a bird feeder, and watched the squirrels hang upside down, feeding at leisure on what had promised to be a squirrel-repelling mechanism .  And then this spring, a single crow swooped onto my bird bath.

I was thrilled. I love crows. They are smart, social, observant, cunning.  And black.  They warn other birds and animals of peril. They caw at any illicit movement in the forest; they attack or deflect a hawk. But what my crow was doing baffled me.  Sometimes it drank the cool, clean water, but without tilting its head to swallow, as most birds do.   Apparently, it could swallow without tossing the water back into its throat. Sometimes, it bounced around the edge of the bath, dunking its beak and head. What in the world was it doing?  When I cleaned the water, I found a tiny bone and a tuft of gray fur swirling in the water.

The crow had come to wash its food!  I watched in admiration. They rarely kill for meat. But they’ll scavenge carrion, and now my crow appeared several times a day to shake and wash the dirt off her food. Sometimes, afterwards, she washed her gleaming black feathers in a spray of glistening waterdrops.

A few days later a second crow appeared.  Evidently, my crow had brought her mate.  And a few days after that, a whole murder of crows settled noisily on my birdbath, four, five, six, flapping, cawing, scolding, socializing and raising holy hell on the birdbath edge or running along the fence.

It was hilarious—a parody. I had expected my garden to attract a St. Francis image of pretty little bluebirds flitting about the feeder. These were rascally, raucous, rebellious juvenile delinquents, taking over the local swimming pool, terrifying the little kids.

And then something extraordinary happened.

One morning, no crows came.

Instead a cardinal appeared, a swallow, some nuthatches, two American goldfinches, and woodpeckers. Birds were flitting and flying at the feeder, dipping to the birdbath, disappearing into the woods, skimming smoothly away.  But no crows. No cawing, noisy marauders , no gunslingers, strutting on the fence.

I miss my crows.

But I wonder about them, too.  Why did they come?   Where did they go? They were like angels, leading the little wood birds to the clean water in the birdbath and to a feeder that had attracted only squirrels for a year. You’ll think I’m nuts, but I see angels everywhere. Angels come in many forms. They play hide and seek with us poor humans. Now you see them, now you don’t.  Sometimes they even appear as black birds, dark forces, posing as disaster, yet bringing with them, joy, hope, beauty, change.

The post My angel crow appeared first on Author Sophy Burnham.

My angel crow

For a year and a half, I have tried to attract birds to my garden. I put up a birdbath, and grieved when no bird came to drink.  I put up a bird feeder, and watched the squirrels hang upside down, feeding at leisure on what had promised to be a squirrel-repelling mechanism .  And then this spring, a single crow swooped onto my bird bath.  

[image error]

   I was thrilled. I love crows. They are smart, social, observant, cunning.  And black.  They warn other birds and animals of peril. They caw at any illicit movement in the forest; they attack or deflect a hawk. But what my crow was doing baffled me.  Sometimes it drank the cool, clean water, but without tilting its head to swallow, as most birds do.   Apparently, it could swallow without tossing the water back into its throat. Sometimes, it bounced around the edge of the bath, dunking its beak and head. What in the world was it doing?  When I cleaned the water, I found a tiny bone and a tuft of gray fur swirling in the water.  

    The crow had come to wash its food!  I watched in admiration. They rarely kill for meat. But they’ll scavenge carrion, and now my crow appeared several times a day to shake and wash the dirt off her food. Sometimes, afterwards, she washed her gleaming black feathers in a spray of glistening waterdrops.

    A few days later a second crow appeared.  Evidently, my crow had brought her mate.  And a few days after that, a whole murder of crows settled noisily on my birdbath, four, five, six, flapping, cawing, scolding, socializing and raising holy hell on the birdbath edge or running along the fence.

   It was hilarious—a parody. I had expected my garden to attract a St. Francis image of pretty little bluebirds flitting about the feeder. These were rascally, raucous, rebellious juvenile delinquents, taking over the local swimming pool, terrifying the little kids. 

   And then something extraordinary happened. 

   One morning, no crows came.

   Instead a cardinal appeared, a swallow, some nuthatches, two American goldfinches, and woodpeckers. Birds were flitting and flying at the feeder, dipping to the birdbath, disappearing into the woods, skimming smoothly away.  But no crows. No cawing, noisy marauders , no gunslingers, strutting on the fence.

    I miss my crows.  

    But I wonder about them, too.  Why did they come?   Where did they go? They were like angels, leading the little wood birds to the clean water in the birdbath and to a feeder that had attracted only squirrels for a year. You’ll think I’m nuts, but I see angels everywhere. Angels come in many forms. They play hide and seek with us poor humans. Now you see them, now you don’t.  Sometimes they even appear as black birds, dark forces, posing as disaster, yet bringing with them, joy, hope, beauty, change.  

 

to Do or to Be

So, my masked-bandit daughter came over to visit and we started talking about how  the pandemic has thrown all our values into question (not to mention 6 planets then retrograde), because what can else you do while social distancing and washing obsessively except move toward the deep, inner reflection and introspection that this pandemic has inspired?

She said, “We’re taught all sorts of values, but what if they’re wrong? There’s aesthetics, for example, being beautiful (hair, clothing, lips, eyes, body). And then there’s the value of how to enter a room, or make an entrance. You were taught to make an entrance,” she added. “That was a value for you.”  And I had to admit that entering a room was taught to my generation the way we were taught waltz or tango steps in dancing school. We were taught which fork to use at a dinner party, and how to make the hostess feel comfortable when her party goes off the road.

“Not to mention,” my daughter continued, speaking as much to herself now as to me, “the value of accomplishments and achievements—and all that stuff we’re judged on, like keeping up with the New York Times, knowing about politics, and art, or theater, and the latest rage:  that’s another value.

“And what,” she mused, “if all you had to do was be yourself?”

“What?”

She lost me there.  No accomplishments? No doing?  Just being?  My whole life has been a search for approval. ( If I write a book, will my father love and notice me? If I’m more tactful, will I belong?)

She said, “Look, you don’t have to do anything to be noticed.” At which I began to preen myself, until she added to my astonishment that she’d be happy just to go away with me for a weekend, where we wouldn’t have to do anything.  “Just being with you is enough,” she said. “Why do we have to do something all the time?”

I was stunned. Is that true?

Now I keep wondering—What would it be like just to Be? Certainly, it releases all obligation of accomplishing anything (like vacuuming the living room right now, which it sorely needs).

It had never occurred to me that someone might want to be with me, except perhaps for my quick mind, and the quirky way I see the world. But when I think of those I love, I realize I don’t really care about their achievements or what high-wire act they perform, if they will simply let me bask in their presence. I’m happy watching them (and also my grandchildren, I might add, who are infinitely fascinating, like watching a lovely waterfall, without their having to say or do or perform in any way).

Is that what love is about? Just being? Mindfully. Observing without judgment. Or, put another way, just allowing, accepting, admiring, in the same way that I attend to a tree or to that bird that stopped at the birdbath to dip its beak and drink at my offering.

Can I allow myself to Be?

The post to Do or to Be appeared first on Author Sophy Burnham.

to Do or to Be

    So, my masked-bandit daughter came over to visit and we started talking about how  the pandemic has thrown all our values into question (not to mention 6 planets then retrograde), because what can else you do while social distancing and washing obsessively except move toward the deep, inner reflection and introspection that this pandemic has inspired?  

      She said, “We’re taught all sorts of values, but what if they’re wrong? There’s aesthetics, for example, being beautiful (hair, clothing, lips, eyes, body). And then there’s the value of how to enter a room, or make an entrance. You were taught to make an entrance,” she added. “That was a value for you.”  And I had to admit that entering a room was taught to my generation the way we were taught waltz or tango steps in dancing school. We were taught which fork to use at a dinner party, and how to make the hostess feel comfortable when her party goes off the road.

    “Not to mention,” my daughter continued, speaking as much to herself now as to me, “the value of accomplishments and achievements—and all that stuff we’re judged on, like keeping up with the New York Times, knowing about politics, and art, or theater, and the latest rage:  that’s another value.  

    “And what,” she mused, “if all you had to do was be yourself?”

    “What?”

    She lost me there.  No accomplishments? No doing?  Just being?  My whole life has been a search for approval. ( If I write a book, will my father love and notice me? If I’m more tactful, will I belong?)

    She said, “Look, you don’t have to do anything to be noticed.” At which I began to preen myself, until she added to my astonishment that she’d be happy just to go away with me for a weekend, where we wouldn’t have to do anything.  “Just being with you is enough,” she said. “Why do we have to do something all the time?”

    I was stunned. Is that true?    

    Now I keep wondering—What would it be like just to Be? Certainly, it releases all obligation of accomplishing anything (like vacuuming the living room right now, which it sorely needs). 

    It had never occurred to me that someone might want to be with me, except perhaps for my quick mind, and the quirky way I see the world. But when I think of those I love, I realize I don’t really care about their achievements or what high-wire act they perform, if they will simply let me bask in their presence. I’m happy watching them (and also my grandchildren, I might add, who are infinitely fascinating, like watching a lovely waterfall, without their having to say or do or perform in any way). 

     Is that what love is about? Just being? Mindfully. Observing without judgment. Or, put another way, just allowing, accepting, admiring, in the same way that I attend to a tree or to that bird that stopped at the birdbath to dip its beak and drink at my offering.  

     Can I allow myself to Be?

Easter: Christ Risen

Easter. Rebirth. Resurrection. Spring. It is also the time when we celebrate the Resurrection. Or, if you’re like me, puzzle over it, filled with questions and doubt: did Jesus resurrect bodily, or was it a mystical return from the dead? Had he fully died? Maybe he went into a trance or coma in those last hours on the Cross, and once buried came out of it – although how he got out of the closed tomb with its great stone rolled across the mouth of the cave, to be seen by Mary in the garden— that gives one pause.

    I know people who are waiting for the Second Coming, convinced that He will return in bodily form, mature, having somehow skipped a childhood.  I’m not sure what happens then, but I imagine, as the Grand Inquisitor says in Dostoyevski’s “Brother’s Karamatsov, that we humans turn on Him and kill that exotic Other all over again.  Meanwhile, I understand nothing.  

     Yet twice I have seen Christ, and nothing can convince me the visions were not real.  Perhaps the Second Coming is happening to all of us all the time, and what is missing is recognition alone. Perhaps Christ is coming to us again and again, in tiny moments, reminders

of kindness, in bursts of laughter, or enjoyment of wine and social company. He must have been fun when alive. I’m inviting you all, dear readers, to confide your own experiences. I need to know them. I want to know I’m not alone.

    Some spiritual encounters are so fragile that you hardly know what’s happened. I remember one Easter slipping into Christ Church, Georgetown, onto a folding chair at the door, and suddenly bursting into tears, overcome by . . . what? Beauty? Flowers? Spiritual ecstasy? This, too, brought me no closer to church devotion. (I’m a hard case., it seems.) 

    Both of my Jesus sightings were similarly memorable. That is to say, I can’t forget them.  Yet, curiously, both were so ordinary that nothing changed. I didn’t fall to my knees in worship of the Son of God. I didn’t become more devout, or  churchly or “Christian.”

    Here is one.  I was living in my cabin in Taos, N. M.  For weeks I had been praying to see Jesus. You see, I’m not a very good Christian (always doubting, arguing, ready with contemptuous and critical inner commentary).

    So there I was that Easter morning, reading in my green tattered armchair by the fire, when I glanced up from my book , and out the window — I saw Christ walking toward me across the lawn. He was dressed in a long, white robe, like in the pictures, and he looked sort of as he’s depicted :  a face, a beard, though I don’t remember his face, merely his arms  opening  in welcome and the smile of greeting as he strode toward me. The next moment he was gone. The whole vision couldn’t have lasted more than an instant, less than a second, and it left no effect on me whatsoever., “Oh, that was Christ,” I thought, and went back to my book. As if I’d seen my brother.

      The problem was, the memory kept coming back, as now, writing about it.  Was it real? I have no idea.  But jut thinking of it fills me with joy. Did it change my life?  Make me go to church more regularly, stop arguing, found hospitals, build orphanages, give all my worldly goods away and join a monastery? No.  

   But I can’t forget that sense of being loved. Or His joy, the absolute delight, at seeing me.

   The other experience was totally different, and you can make of it what you will.  I was walking up the hill on the street in Washington D. C., where I lived, when I noticed a man walking slowly on the far side of the street.  He was young, perhaps in his twenties, dressed in dark, somewhat dirty and ragged clothing ,and carrying a backpack. He was pulling up the hill, slightly hunched, deep in thought, staring at the sidewalk at his feet, but what made him unusual was . . . some ineffable quality that drew me to him. He was utterly absorbed in thought (prayer?) eyes down, impervious to his surroundings.  I hurried across the street behind him, hastening to catch up. Who was he? Why did I want to stand beside him? He looked destitute, orphaned, and content in lonesomeness.  To  speak to him. would be an intrusion. He didn’t need me. He didn’t need anyone. But my heart poured out toward him.  I wanted to help.  All of these thoughts occurred so quickly I was hardly aware of them. Walking past, I reached out to offer money. He pulled back, shook his head. “No, no.” Did he say the words aloud? I don’t remember, but certainly the message received informed me that he didn’t need money.  I walked quickly on, forging uphill, curiously disturbed by him but careful not to interrupt his meditations.  After a few moments I turned to look behind. He wasn’t there.  Maybe he was someone’s son, who had just reached the front door to his own house.

   Why do I think he was the Christ?

   I would love to hear other experiences. Here was a man, or prophet, or Son of God, who has been worshipped for 2000 years; who never wrote a word and yet influenced more people than anyone on earth.  Have you too had experiences? Did they change you? Do you dare to share them with us on my blog?

Easter: Christ Risen

Easter. Rebirth. Resurrection. Spring. It is also the time when we celebrate the Resurrection. Or, if you’re like me, puzzle over it, filled with questions and doubt: did Jesus resurrect bodily, or was it a mystical return from the dead? Had he fully died? Maybe he went into a trance or coma in those last hours on the Cross, and once buried came out of it – although how he got out of the closed tomb with its great stone rolled across the mouth of the cave, to be seen by Mary in the garden— that gives one pause.

I know people who are waiting for the Second Coming, convinced that He will return in bodily form, mature, having somehow skipped a childhood.  I’m not sure what happens then, but I imagine, as the Grand Inquisitor says in Dostoyevski’s “Brother’s Karamatsov, that we humans turn on Him and kill that exotic Other all over again.  Meanwhile, I understand nothing.

Yet twice I have seen Christ, and nothing can convince me the visions were not real.  Perhaps the Second Coming is happening to all of us all the time, and what is missing is recognition alone. Perhaps Christ is coming to us again and again, in tiny moments, reminders

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of kindness, in bursts of laughter, or enjoyment of wine and social company. He must have been fun when alive. I’m inviting you all, dear readers, to confide your own experiences. I need to know them. I want to know I’m not alone.

Some spiritual encounters are so fragile that you hardly know what’s happened. I remember one Easter slipping into Christ Church, Georgetown, onto a folding chair at the door, and suddenly bursting into tears, overcome by . . . what? Beauty? Flowers? Spiritual ecstasy? This, too, brought me no closer to church devotion. (I’m a hard case., it seems.)

Both of my Jesus sightings were similarly memorable. That is to say, I can’t forget them.  Yet, curiously, both were so ordinary that nothing changed. I didn’t fall to my knees in worship of the Son of God. I didn’t become more devout, or  churchly or “Christian.”

Here is one.  I was living in my cabin in Taos, N. M.  For weeks I had been praying to see Jesus. You see, I’m not a very good Christian (always doubting, arguing, ready with contemptuous and critical inner commentary).

So there I was that Easter morning, reading in my green tattered armchair by the fire, when I glanced up from my book , and out the window — I saw Christ walking toward me across the lawn. He was dressed in a long, white robe, like in the pictures, and he looked sort of as he’s depicted :  a face, a beard, though I don’t remember his face, merely his arms  opening  in welcome and the smile of greeting as he strode toward me. The next moment he was gone. The whole vision couldn’t have lasted more than an instant, less than a second, and it left no effect on me whatsoever., “Oh, that was Christ,” I thought, and went back to my book. As if I’d seen my brother.

The problem was, the memory kept coming back, as now, writing about it.  Was it real? I have no idea.  But jut thinking of it fills me with joy. Did it change my life?  Make me go to church more regularly, stop arguing, found hospitals, build orphanages, give all my worldly goods away and join a monastery? No.

But I can’t forget that sense of being loved. Or His joy, the absolute delight, at seeing me.

The other experience was totally different, and you can make of it what you will.  I was walking up the hill on the street in Washington D. C., where I lived, when I noticed a man walking slowly on the far side of the street.  He was young, perhaps in his twenties, dressed in dark, somewhat dirty and ragged clothing ,and carrying a backpack. He was pulling up the hill, slightly hunched, deep in thought, staring at the sidewalk at his feet, but what made him unusual was . . . some ineffable quality that drew me to him. He was utterly absorbed in thought (prayer?) eyes down, impervious to his surroundings.  I hurried across the street behind him, hastening to catch up. Who was he? Why did I want to stand beside him? He looked destitute, orphaned, and content in lonesomeness.  To  speak to him. would be an intrusion. He didn’t need me. He didn’t need anyone. But my heart poured out toward him.  I wanted to help.  All of these thoughts occurred so quickly I was hardly aware of them. Walking past, I reached out to offer money. He pulled back, shook his head. “No, no.” Did he say the words aloud? I don’t remember, but certainly the message received informed me that he didn’t need money.  I walked quickly on, forging uphill, curiously disturbed by him but careful not to interrupt his meditations.  After a few moments I turned to look behind. He wasn’t there.  Maybe he was someone’s son, who had just reached the front door to his own house.

Why do I think he was the Christ?

I would love to hear other experiences. Here was a man, or prophet, or Son of God, who has been worshipped for 2000 years; who never wrote a word and yet influenced more people than anyone on earth.  Have you too had experiences? Did they change you? Do you dare to share them with us on my blog?

The post Easter: Christ Risen appeared first on Author Sophy Burnham.

Read, Pray, Watch

When I was in college I remember making a “Great Discovery.”  I was so pleased with myself! I don’t remember what it was anymore, but I remember being thrilled by  my own wisdom, and proud of myself— until I found that Plato had said it first.  Such a letdown. I remember a few years later during my Junior Year Abroad in Italy, going skiing with my cousin over Christmas break at a place he’d found called Cervinia.  I arrived in dead of night and the next morning, when I looked out the window the mountain, so majestic with its high crags and peaks, took my breath away.  “Why has no one ever talked about Cervinia? This place ought to be famous! “ I was all set to report on it.  Then I discovered that on the far side, in Switzerland, the mountain was called the Matterhorn!

    Everything I’ve ever learnt or seen in my long and interesting life, has already been discovered, usually millennia before I was born. And nothing that I know is unusual.  Do you know what I mean?  Do you remember the first time you fell in love?  Do you remember thinking, “No one has ever felt like this before!”  And of course it is true; no one had felt it before because no one had been you before, and therefore the experience you were feeling was the first for you, for the first time ever. We are all like Eve in Eden opening her marvelling eyes on the first day of her life. Again and again in our lives we get to experience what others have discovered before, and in no way is the experience diminished by use: each time new, each time fresh. Each time Eve, stepping out on the dew-shining grass, marvelling, in awe.

     Today, instead of some illusion of insight, I point to other people’s sayings and lovely thoughts. Thank God for the rest of you! Thank god for the beauty and bounty of this earth, and the wisdom dropping generation after generation.  

As in this Inuit song:

I think over again my small adventures,

… My fears,

Those small ones that seemed so big.

For all the vital things I had to get and to reach.

And yet there is only one great thing,

The only thing.

To live to see … the great day that dawns

And the light that fills the world.

Or this, from the beautiful spiritual teacher Ticht Naht Hahn:  “We have to walk in a way that we only print peace and serenity on the Earth.  Walk as if you are kissing the earth with your feet.”

   Listen to the media and it’s dog-eat-dog out there, and we’d best cower under the covers and never get out of bed.  While all the time, the planet is revolving round our sun and all over the globe mothers are cooing to their babies, and fathers are helping their neighbors or protecting and playing with their families.  Goodness surrounds us all the long day, if we can only recognize it.  Thousands of spiritual essays and personal posts sweep the internet, encouraging us.    

    Earlier I mentioned the spoken-word “Blabs” of Margaret Dulaney’s Listenwell.com.   Look also for the postings of the author and Franciscan friar, Richard Rohr from Albuquerque, who was called by PBS,  “one of the most popular spirituality authors and speakers in the world.” Look for his daily meditations from the Center for Action and Contemplation. 

       “Once we know that the entire physical world around us,[he writes] all of creation, is both the hiding place and the revelation place for God, this world becomes home, safe, enchanted, offering grace to any who look 

deeply. I call that kind of deep and calm seeing “contemplation.”

Or check out FaithShapes, in Alabama, at ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­Faithshapes.com/new/category/words-of...,                  which is the site of a lovely spiritual woman just wanting to send out encouragement and love. Or Zencrunch by Christina. Or one of my favorite organizations, Silent Unity, based in Unity Village Missouri, whose sole purpose for 150 years has been to teach, heal, comfort and pray. Anyone can call (800-Now-PRAY) and ask for prayers, some which are answered before I have even put down the phone.  Or simply go on the internet and type in “wisdom.” You find such quotes: “Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom” by Francis Bacon.  

    I’m amazed at the numbers of inspiriting and inspiring videos on U-Tube. It is good to remember that the Universe is pouring blessings onto us, anointing us with goodness, even  in the midst of sorrow and fear and grief.  It is good to recognize that gratitude and humility bring serenity beyond our wildest dreams; that angels surround us, with nourishment, warmth, comfort, caring; and that love springs up like the grass in springtime, even in our old age, and nothing we can do can keep out love.  We are loved, loved, loved.  At the very core of our being, the cells of our body, we are made of love, and we love, love, therefore, throbbing and radiating out of us even when we don’t feel it, even in the midst of fear and grief.

The poets are there to tell us, like this by Adrienne Rich:

“My heart is moved by all I cannot save:
so much has been destroyed
I have to cast my lot with those
who age after age, perversely,
with no extraordinary power,
reconstitute the world.”

Or this much beloved piece by Mary Oliver:

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

….

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things. 

As for myself, in the face of such wisdom, generation after generation, what can I do but move into silence, hoping as Francis Bacon promises, that “Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.”  Read, pray, watch.

My Birthday Present from God

Every month, as I sit down to write my blog, I think, “This will be my last post. It’s time to stop. Too many people are creating, publishing, and screaming for recognition, for me to add one more word.” (As if anyone is actually reading my posts, itself perhaps an illusion.)   “I’ll just stop. Give everyone a break.” But then some uplifting or fascinating story grabs my attention, and I want to pass it on. It happened this time, too:  a Christmas present from the Universe, as I call the majestic, expansive, divine, unknowable energy we call God, a gift from Spirit, or spirits plural, from that pulsating mystery that we catch occasional glimpses of before the windows slam shut.

    This story concerns my work, but it’s not interesting for that. It’s intriguing for what it says about fate, kismet, predestination, about life after death, and the importance of the most insignificant of actions, events that we dismiss as imagination, or “fun,” but certainly not necessarily “real.”

    It begins, as most spiritual stories (and some books) do, with doubt and deprivation, fear and anguish, as I felt myself last week falling into one of my dark holes and questioning (again!), why was I born? What have I ever done of any use?  Mind you, it’s not as if I haven’t led a charmed and marvel-rich life, full of adventure, love, learning, success, failure, goodness and hardship.  Yet these bleak moods fall over me suddenly like a mantle, it seems, and what I do is pray. As I prayed then:  “God, take this from me, unless it’s teaching something— thy will be done.”  Or simply, “HELP!”

     Immediately help came.  

     It always does, if we pay attention. Within hours an email blinked in from a stranger in California asking to talk, tell a story– the very one I’m about to repeat to you, and by the time we had finished talking by phone the following day, my heart was flying around the ceiling, calling and crowing with exuberance. 

    Elisabeth is in her thirties, a healer, very spiritual.  In January of this year, before the pandemic, she applied for a job as a professional nanny to a movie actress, and arriving at the interview discovered her prospective employer interviewing a well-known medical intuitive for a podcast. (I don’t feel comfortable telling names without permission.) She was asked to wait a few minutes in the living room, where on entering she found a monk, dressed in typical monk costume: robe, cowl, sandals. She assumed he was an actor on some gig, but he seemed weird. He stared at her. He came right up in her face.  She backed away, then went to the powder room—except he followed her right in.  “Stop that!” She told him. “Go away. You can’t come in here.”

    “Oh.” He looked surprised.  “You can see me.”  

    Now he was not only weird but crazy.

    “Of course I can see you. Get out.”

    When she returned to the living room, he asked her to look out the window.  “Where am I now?” he asked with her back turned.

    “There.” She pointed.

    “You really can see me.  Most people can’t.” And he apologized. He noted that Elisabeth had crystals in her eyes, and she admitted that both she and her sister can see a wider range of the red spectrum than most people. 

     I go into these details in case someone knows of any explanation for something I don’t understand.  He said he was The Voice of Compassion. It turned out he was a spirit and the companion to the medical intuitive who was being interviewed for a podcast in the next room.  They talked together comfortably.  At one point she asked, “What’s it like being dead?”

    “Oh, that’s a difficult question,” he answered.  “There are so many answers, but when you go to visit your grandmother this Fall in Minnesota, go up in her bedroom and look on her bedside table and you’ll find a book by Sophy Burnham that has the best description of what it’s like after you die than any I know.”

    She had no plans to visit her grandparents in Minnesota in the fall (and how did the V. of Compassion know the grandmother, or that she lived in Minnesota?) but put that problem aside.  Their conversation continued for some time, including later standing at the door with the medical intuitive and the prospective employer. For the purposes of this record, what happened later is not relevant. She was hired for the job, however, and then the pandemic struck.  

    In the Fall, perhaps early November, her grandfather died, and her grandmother was in such a state of grief that Elisabeth moved to Minnesota to stay with her. It was from Minnesota that she telephoned me last week a few days before my birthday, because once there she remembered her encounter with the monk, and on her grandmother’s bedside table found as directed my book, A Book of Angels, which contains at the end a Future Life Progression. Elisabeth had just finished reading it, and—overwhelmed—had phoned. 

     We must have talked for an hour or more, and when I put down the phone I was likewise overcome with humility and gratitude, for prayers answered, for the knowledge that even in the spirit world my work has met with approval, for confirmation of fate, as if the book of our lives is written in advance.  (How did the monk KNOW she would visit her grandmother in the Fall?)  And especially with awe before the questions all this raises— what about Free Will, or, ‘co-creation’ with God, as some describe it?  For those of us given gifts of insight into other dimensions, why do we still have moments of doubt, disappointment? Is there meaning to life, or is the meaning different for each individual at different moments of our lives?  Are those who suffer loss, poverty, homelessness, violence, war, fear — did they agree to such lives before they came down? Why are we born, and why as ourselves? Is suicide spiritually forbidden, “wrong?”  What about abortion? Doesn’t every spirit have the choice of NOT being born to an unhealthy life? Oh, I have nothing but questions, even as my soul soars with hope, love, joy at the beauty and bounty of this life and the next.  

     I’m pretty sure that all that is really asked of us is to be compassionate to those in need— to help, love, care; and I’m pretty sure that those who take on that warrior role  (the lost and homeless, the mentally ill and  incarcerated, the tortured or victims of violence, war, rape, poverty, loss, pain)  are the heroes on this sorrowful, joyful, magnificent planet where we briefly live. Briefly. Gone in the blink of an eye.  Except evidently, we’re not. Gone, I mean.

    I’m still up there at the ceiling, my soul soaring with love and joy.

Happy Christmas, world. Happy holy days. Happy coming of the Light.

YOU HAD A LIFE!!

(Parables of Sunlight by Margaret Dulaney)

Every now and again I come across a book so luminous and lyrical, that I find myself telling everyone I meet – “Oh, I’ve just read the BEST book!”  in fact, I gulped it in two evenings, even though clearly the reader is supposed to open it at random, read a few pages, and put it down to reflect on and to allow the gentle aroma to lift your spirits with a tender smile.  It says something about our culture that these books are not the ones to receive awards or reviews.  In fact, The Parables of Sunlight, by Margaret Dulaney, is self-published.  (What a world! What a world!). 

     The book is about death and how we relate to dying, and also about the way we treat our animals and the humans on the journey of our lives. She is, as she admits, casual, even glib about this serious topic, (except when it comes to her beloved animals).  It’s an attitude, she writes, that none of us could have adopted “if we weren’t convinced that everyone on earth will one day enjoy their own otherworldly vacations.”

   And then she tells a story so lovely that all week I’ve walked around with a little smile at the corners of my mouth.  I keep repeating it to every poor person who makes the mistake of crossing my path.

    I’ll quote it, and then you’ll see why I ‘m so delighted by this book and by Margaret Dulaney, who deserves the widest audience.

I have a library (she writes)  full of ecstatic visions, near-death experiences and the writings of the mystics. And, though I am no longer looking for descriptions of heavenly landscapes, if I am able to find in a story of return from death even a morsel of new truth, I feel it is worth the attention.

  There is the man, for instance, who learned during his brush with death that none of his grand accomplishments—awards, successes, career advancement —could outweigh a small moment in the grocery store when he was particularly kind to the harried woman behind the checkout counter. There is the young woman who was reunited with (and could understand the thoughts of)  a bird that she had as a child. Given the opportunity to communicate telepathically with this old friend, she took the opportunity to apologize with great remorse for the times when she had tossed the bird to the ground after it bit her. ‘Can you ever forgive me?’ asked the young woman of the bird.

            ’Are you able to forgive me for biting you?’ the bird replied.

            ‘Of course,’ answered the woman

            ‘Then I hope you will forgive yourself for tossing me to the ground when I did so.’

            There was another woman who was greeted on the other side by an enthusiastic group of friends, none of whom she had known on earth, but whom, she understood, she had left behind when she had taken her plunge into her life. These dear ones raced up to her, apparently against their better judgment, which would have allowed her time to find her footing, and surrounded her. They couldn’t wait to hear about her life, eager for every detail.

            The woman told about her life thus far, without sugarcoating the details. She had not always behaved as she would have hoped. She had hurt people. She was no saint. But interestingly, as she outlined the details of her life’s journey, the faces of her friends did not alter from their original anticipatory delight. Bright and fascinated, they would respond, “but you had a life! A life!’

            They regarded her as if she were the bravest of the brave, an award-winning astronaut returned from a solo circumnavigation of the moon.

            ‘You had a life!!’