Summer!

     Summer.  It’s shoes off time - that time of year when the shoe pile at the foot of the stairs grows ever larger - a pile of flip flops, Chacos, Tevas, running shoes. You know it’s summer when footwear gets kicked off at the door.  And this week, with both girls home, shoes will be everywhere.

     Taking off your shoes says “I’m slowing down, I’m through with the “doing” of the day, now I can just ‘be.’”  In summer, it’s a kick back moment, but it’s also a moment to remember the goodness of the life we live.   God stopped Moses in his tracks.  “Do not come any closer," God said. "Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground."    My back porch is not Horeb, the mountain of God, and I don’t see a burning bush anywhere close by, but moments at home, of being family, of simply being present to life can be all be holy ground, if I can pause long enough to let that awareness sink in. 

     In Seasons of Your Heart, Macrina Wiederkehr writes “Taking off your shoes is a sacred ritual...It is a way of celebrating the holy ground on which you stand.  If you want to be a child of wonder cherish the truth that time and space are holy.  Whether you take off your shoes symbolically or literally matter little.  What is important is that you are alive to the holy ground on which you stand and to the holy ground that you are.” 

     So, go kick off your shoes, celebrate summer and remember you are holy ground.

AF

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Ridin Solo

I took the kids to see Disney's Brave and was pleasantly surprised to see a strong heroine, Merida, who doesn't need to be rescued by a prince. She whips out arrows while on horseback, nailing targets on the move. Disney is way overdue is sending out a healthier message to young girls about following their talents and passions, without waiting on that perfect prince.

In author Eric Klinenberg's book, "Going Solo," he makes the interesting observation that we're becoming a nation of independent souls who are crafting new ways of going solo. In 1950, only 22 percent of American adults were single, but that has changed today to be 50 percent with 31 million—roughly one out of every seven adults—living alone. He brings out the fact that our demographics are changing with the number of people living alone making up 28 percent of all U.S. households, which makes them more common than any other domestic unit, including the nuclear family. I'll be honest. As a family gal, that makes me sort of sad.

But you have to love Brave's heroine Merida. She stays true to herself, refusing to chose a husband she doesn't love. More importantly, she learns the lesson of pride and how it tears the fabric of relationships, a lesson she'll dearly need should her prince-sometimes-charming ever show.

         For that matter, even if he doesn't.

The best movie I've seen in awhile is The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, where a bunch of people on their last leg so to speak find more authentic ways to live their lives and relate to others. I think we have to drop our masks and Hollywood conditioning to do that. I caught myself in Brave looking for the Hollywood "love interest" part of the script. Good for Disney, he was a no show. Merida had to do the hard work of growing all by herself.

DB

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     Never thought to find myself here,

     On this middle-land, this in-between.

     Water on either side, tide rising.

     Where do I go?

     I've come too far to return.

     A growing pool separates me from the safety of beach.

     But out there, in the depths,

     Who knows what I'd find?

     Or what might find me?

     I don't have all I need to go that way.

     Maybe in time, I will.

     But the tide is rising faster than my courage.

SS

Unexpected Celebrations of Life

The River of Life

     My good friend Danielle sent me a countdown text for how many days until our July raft/hiking trip through the Grand Canyon will be. It’s the trip of a lifetime, something we’ve been trying for years to do. It’s a sacred place of ridges and cliffs, glowing rocks and red waterfalls, rare condors with their nine-foot wing spans.

     Why then, is fear seizing my gut?

     In the abstract, it seemed like such a great idea, but now I’m trying to shove a week’s worth of stuff into a pack that is not allowed to weigh much more than 10 pounds. Then there’s the fact that we’ll be sleeping on the ground, enduring blazing heat and living through thrashings by the Colorado River, something I hadn’t worried about until a friend sent me a link to this hilarious video by comedienne Jeanne Robertson, “Don’t go rafting without a Baptist in the boat.”

     Then horror of all horrors, I’ll be without cell service for 8 days. How does one live without that?

     I have no doubt the trip will change me. In one sense, it’s a rite of passage for this season of loss in my life. My divorce is final just before I leave. On the wall in my office is the Radmacher quote: "I am not the same having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world."

     So, I keep culling through my pack, seeking just the essentials for my spirit to thrive, psyching myself to take the plunge.

DB

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     It was a lot of birthdays in a ten-day stretch. On Tuesday, my friends raised a birthday toast to me as we sat at a waterfront table on Shem Creek. The previous Saturday, I gave lots of treats and special fun outings to my dog Hurley as he turned four. And the Sunday before that, I got to fill the pulpit at a small church on Pentecost, the traditional birthday of the Church. My sermon encouraged us all to be amazed at the workings of the Spirit in our lives and rejoice, as in the story from Acts when thousands of new disciples joined the Church on Pentecost. Looking at another biblical story of the Holy Spirit, though, my sermon reminded us that we, like Ezekiel, can see a lot of "dry bones" surrounding us, situations that look hopeless and irredeemable. Birthdays are a time to acknowledge both the joy and the hopelessness as we reflect on the last year of life and look to the next one.

     In both these biblical stories, the wind of the Holy Spirit blew in and brought about new beginnings. The dry bones lived again, and the small group of disciples grew into the Church. I love that hope for change, for newness. I don't know what that might look like in the life of the Church, or in my life, or even Hurley's. But I am hoping that the Spirit-wind will sweep in some good changes, and that this time next year, we will have a lot to celebrate.

SS

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     Don and I were sitting on the back porch, enjoying one of the last cool evenings of late spring, when we heard the tinny music of an ice cream truck slowly making its way through our neighborhood.   Our girls are grown and gone, but we considered grabbing a dollar or two and running out the door to get a rocket pop or a nutty buddy or a dreamsicle or even some soft serve ice cream - just for ourselves. As we pondered, the repetitive music kept tinkling away.  

     “What is that tune?” I wondered out loud.  We both paused, listening attentively.  It was familiar, but I couldn’t place it.  After running through my mental list of childhood camp songs, I listened again and started singing along.... “We wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year.”  The ice cream truck was playing Christmas songs!  The truck rattled on through “Jingle bells, Jingle bells, Jingle all the way” and the fa- la -la’s of Deck the Halls.  A cheery “Silent Night” faded away as the truck turned out of the neighborhood.   

     Sometimes it’s difficult to recognize the familiar in an unexpected place.  We see a friend from home in a faraway vacation spot and it takes us a minute as we pause and wonder "Is that _______?"  We hear a the voice of a familiar actor speaking in a commercial and pause to recognize them.  "Is that ________?"   I think the Holy is like that as well, surprising us by showing up in unexpected places, waiting and hoping that we will pause for just a minute to listen and wonder "Is that _________?"


                                                                   AF 

Summertime...

     I need the ocean. I'm not sure how I survived most of my life without being able to stand with my feet licked by waves anytime I needed it. And I feel the need for it often. When my own loneliness or the stresses of life or the emotional toll of my job get too heavy, I need the weightlessness of seawater. Even if I can't submerge my body, lose myself in a sort of re-baptism as I sometimes want to, even wading is enough. 

     The water reminds me how small and finite and fragile I am, but that I am a unique character in a grand story much longer than my lifetime. A friend wondered as we walked the beach one day whether these waters could have been drops of the Red Sea parted by Moses. And I laughed when I heard a child another day tell an adult, "Some of this ocean probably used to be dinosaur pee!" Mother Teresa said that all the good we can do is just a drop in the ocean, but without it the ocean would be less. I think about that quote often as I take walks on the beach after a long night at the hospital. Those are the times when I most need the ocean to remind me. And it's always there.

SS

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View under the Congress Avenue Bridge (bat bridge), Austin, TX

     14 days.  10 states.  Four plane flights. 1760+ miles by car. Two graduations. One exploratory grad school trip.
     It's been a busy two weeks. From the bat bridge in Austin, TX to the silver arch in St. Louis, MO, from the dusty reds and browns of the desert southwest to yellow and green midwestern squares, it's been two weeks of wandering and wondering through the natural beauty of this country.  Each place carries a different charm and offers another piece of the story of our intertwined lives.
     So much of travel is simply being where you are.  Sitting in a plane on the runway listening to the different voices around you.  Trying to remember some college Spanish in a restaurant in Texas.  Watching bats emerge from under a bridge.  Trying to take a picture of an arch in Missouri that doesn't fit in your camera frame.  Checking out different fruits and vegetables in the local grocery. Watching oil pump from a well in Indiana.  If you pay attention, travel opens you up to new perspectives and unexpected beauty. It knocks you off balance, out of your narrow routines and prejudices, and opens the window to a fresh view of life.  
     And then, at the end of the journey, there's the grace and blessing of your own pillow at home.  Ahh. 
  

AF

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Stolen Moment

    I sit for a moment and watch it rain, the air heavy with salt and marsh and earthy ozone. The subtle switch to summer settles into the sinuous channels dividing the marsh, water rushing to the ocean, like seniors after the last school bell. Fragments of the song, 'Summertime" and the livin is easy' drift through my mind. I notice mimosas have joined the landscape, their frilly, pink hats like a page torn from a Seuss book. Rivulets of rain make channels down the windshield, some coming through my cracked windows, cold drops plopping. All is quiet, even the trill of the red-winged blackbird absent from the expanse of the marsh.

    I love summer, with its ease and lightness of being, with its late afternoon thunderstorms. It makes me believe there's time. TIme to put off chores, sleep in a lounge chair, watch a caterpillar crawl. Mary Oliver in her poem Summer Day describes how she takes the whole day to stroll through the fields, being idle and blessed. 

"Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?"

      This, of course, is so true.

      So I sit in the rain where the livin's easy, being blessed.

DB