Spirituality

The Paradox of Both-And

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graphic doodle image of a seated individual centered on a large heart shape

A recent weekend retreat provided time to feed my soul through calm introspection. Together, with more than 50 women, I explored the theme (Be)Coming: Meditations on Sacred Intersections.

At a time when it feels as if every decision is – this or that, right or left – it is unusual to consider a both-and opportunity rather than either-or choice. The retreat theme, the keynote presentations, the small group discussions, and our activities explored paradox. The idea that at first blush something may appear contradictory but with closer reflection a beautiful, intermingled tapestry may be discovered with the prospect of both-and.

As previously experienced, the sound meditation and “walking” a labyrinth, if only with my fingers on paper, were refreshing. New to me was the mudra we repeated throughout the weekend which incorporated symbolic hand gestures as used in various spiritual and cultural practices while reciting peace-focused words. Our time together provided a nice balance between quiet reflection and intellectual content all with the added attraction of staying in Rochester and sleeping at home rather than a conference center dormitory.

Doodle graphic: © 2024 Emily Morgan

Reading

A Gathering of Poetry | November 2024

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wetlands in the early morning light - book cover of poems by Steve Garnaas-Holmes

With the conclusion of an emotional campaign season and election results that presented a clear dichotomy between progressive inclusion and conservative isolationism, this poem written on November 6 by Steve Garnaas-Holmes served as balm for my wounded spirit. For those still reeling and wondering what the future holds, I hope you, too, find comfort in these words for the third Thursday Gathering of Poetry.

 When news is bad 

Take seriously your grief.
It is love, stripped bare.
Let it flow through you.

Trust that you are held.
We all are held by the Beloved, 
the Broken-Hearted One,
the One who Suffers most Deeply.

Know you are not alone.
Millions bear your sorrow.
Ancestors and even unborn generations
walk with you gratefully.

Seek others who are tenderhearted.
Receive all the grace you can.
In the flesh is best, but even in spirit,
know we are here.

Trust the Goodness.
God has not given up on us.
Through every disaster grace remains.
Refuse to despair.

Choose courage over selfishness,
trust over fear, love over anger.
You do not know the end of grace.

There is much you cannot change,
but bring healing where you can.
We are not promised to be given light,
but to shine with light.

Don’t become an enemy of the world
and its brokenness. Stay tender.
Become a source of comfort and joy for others.
Let this purpose bear you through the darkness
and you yourself will become light.

Take courage; trust grace;
stay connected; practice love.

Steve Garnaas-Holmes is a retired Methodist Minister living in Montana who shares daily reflections at Unfolding Light. His weekday thoughts are “rooted in a contemplative, Creation-centered spirituality … which invites readers into a spirit of presence, compassion, justice and delight.” His blog is Unfolding Light, which is also the title of several volumes of poetry.

Writing

On the theme of repair and the care of my fragile psyche

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white pottery covered cookie jar with colored decoration at top and bottom edge

My Dad could fix anything.  Or so I believed as a child as I saw the bits and pieces, he made whole.  In the fourth grade, I fell on the ice-skating rink at school and broke my blue glasses that were only three days new.  He closed the break near the hinge (a tricky spot), and I wore those glasses for the next two years.  Or, when he glued together the lid of the Red Wing Pottery Cookie jar, not once but twice.  Both times, years apart, I had dropped the lid while sneaking Pecan Crisp Christmas cookies.  Only the nearly squished frog that I rescued when crossing Vine Street was beyond his saving.  Somehow Momma convinced me, in my very distraught state, that the frog was not really appropriate for a “glue job.” We waited patiently for the small green creature in my hand to stop wiggling.  Then, with care, we dug a hole together for the frog’s safe resting place under the apple trees in the back yard near the black tire retaining wall.  

Unfortunately, the certainty that one’s parents control the whole of the world is an illusion left behind in childhood.  Through years of growth and decades of study, right directions and missteps, love found and health challenges, I realize there is very little within the realm of personal control.  We find reassurance but not control in the predictable (fall leaves cascading in riotous color, the coolness of November days at our 44° latitude, or bluejays frolicking in the neighbor’s crabapple trees.)  Even as I acknowledge those scenes are beyond my control, my brain drifts to November 5 and I slip towards dismay again, shocked by the name of another nominee; worrying about the safety of friends who choose to love differently or whose faces are not the color of mine. 

As a result of this month’s assignment for my writers’ group, even in the midst of these anxieties, I experienced a positive mental uptick.  Yesterday morning, while waiting in the Physical Therapists’ lobby, I realized that my malaise over the election has altered my behavior.  Suddenly, I have been “doom scrolling.”  Spending far too much time scanning social media for an uplifting image, an inspirational quote, or just watching random clips from previously viewed HEA movies. I mean – really – who needs to watch disjointed scenes from Pretty Woman?

Today, I am expanding my self-care regime hoping to repair my bruised psyche.  My plan already included drinking more water and limiting the time spent reading the news.  I will replace “doom scrolling” with reading poetry.  And, following the advice of poet Steve Garnaas-Holmes, I will “seek others who are tenderhearted” rather than cocooning. Today’s gathering of my writers’ group served as my beginning.

Photo credit: Red Wing Collectors (Please note: The cookie jar from my childhood is yellow, still in regular use and it will be filled with Pecan Crisps next month.)

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Baking Away Worries: Reflections after the election

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fresh chocolate chip cookies

On a lethargic morning suffering from an election induced migraine, I found it easier to concentrate on the old Betty Cocker recipe for chocolate chip cookies than to contemplate the former president’s re-election to a second term. His promises for the “first day” of his administration are chilling and include initiating mass deportations of migrants, pardoning January 6 insurrectionists who violently sought to overthrow the Constitution, and cutting climate regulations despite evidence of ever more severe weather conditions.

All day, ping-ponging worries bounced through my brain while I creamed the butter and stirred in the chopped pecans, all the while trying to breathe deeply and to re-direct my focus.

  • Worries that eliminating Head Start will enlarge an already existing education gap between those children ready for school, those who can count and know their colors and those who have never held a picture book.
  • Worries that the end of prescription price caps will only serve big pharma’s bottom line and cause those on tight budgets to have to choose between paying the rent, putting food on the table, and buying lifesaving drugs.
  • Worries that a greatly curtailed National Weather Service will return us to the “old days” when checking the sky and feeling the wind on our face were our only weather alerts rather than using science to identify the path of approaching storms.
  • Worries that banning books, like giant book bonfires of earlier generations, will chill the creative spirit of writers and artists and curtail the mission of public libraries as the “people’s university.”

Then, late this afternoon, I listened to Vice-President Kamala Harris offer a gracious concession speech that acknowledged the exact range of my emotions. She advised, “Do not despair. This is not a time to throw up our hands, this is a time to roll up our sleeves”.

I began to shift my energy from worry by focusing on her words and a prayer shared by Rev. Robin Tanner, “Beloved One, hold the pain and the fear, hold the dream and the fury, hold us as we hold one another. Call us into being with a love that does not let go.”

And more words of encouragement from this evening’s Election Vespers:
Mary Housh Gordon – “I think humans in western cultures often need to feel there is an upward arc to history and some promised arrival in order for there to be meaning. But the place we are going is just around the sun on a miracle of a planet – and we are still alive in a world that is so beautiful and so brutal all at once and always has been. And it is all drenched in meaning no matter where it is headed and it matters that we love each other well and drink up the beauty and resist the brutality.”

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Civic Duty: Two votes cast

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two people sitting in the car with sunglasses each with red I voted stickers

I am proud to have voted in every election since I became eligible – from local primaries and school referendums to presidential elections.  There is an excitement and a patriotic satisfaction in that simple act of going to the polls.  Whether as the four-year old who, in 1956, was allowed to pull the large metal lever that closed the curtain of the mechanical voting booth at Lincoln Elementary School, the Ninth Ward polling place, or standing in long, long lines in 2008 waiting to vote for Hope.

Only once, when a national library conference conflicted with a Minnesota spring primary, had I ever voted early.  Of course, Covid changed that and health issues again this year factored into our decision not to wait for November 5.  Richard served 20 years as an election judge, always working the early morning shift, 6:00 am-2:00 pm; part of the team responsible for setting-up and covering the early morning and lunchtime rush.  Rather than take a chance of not feeling at our best on election day, we took advantage of Minnesota’s early voting option and voted at the County offices.  Twenty-six minutes from ballot to voting booth to seeing a flag on the optical scanner.

Join us in the vital democratic process!  Vote early or vote November 5. Just VOTE!

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50 years ago…

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… it was legal to deny a woman credit without a male co-signer.

I don’t have any recollection of knowing it was a momentous day for women when President Gerald Ford signed the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) on Monday, October 28, 1974.  I may or may not have watched the nightly news that detailed a new Federal law making it illegal for creditors to discriminate on the basis of sex or marital status.  At the time, I did not possess a credit card and thus had never been denied.  I was living at home and carrying a full credit load.  I would have been focused on a full schedule that included methods classes and other subjects required for my second Bachelors – the Elementary Education degree.  When I finally applied for an AMOCO card so that I could pay for gas when traveling to and from Brodhead, I signed the application myself never realizing that just 14 months earlier, my Dad would have been required to sign for me. So much has changed in my life and so much is at stake in this election. 

“We are not going back.”

Writing

Charismatic Leadership

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My parents met John F. Kennedy in Eau Claire as his campaign swung through Wisconsin in 1960.  My sister and I stood in a sunny hay field near Augusta, waiting over three-hours, for the arrival of Bill and Hillary Clinton and Al and Tipper Gore.  The newly nominated presidential ticket and the soon to be First and Second Ladies had embarked from LaCrosse on a national bus tour that morning.  Richard and I joined a small rally of only a few hundred people at the Rochester Civic Center when Amy Klobuchar first announced her run for the US Senate.  Accompanying her on this round-robin journey to Minnesota’s small bergs, large cities, and the Metro was the junior Senator from Illinois, Barack Obama.

What struck me in July 1992 and stays with me today is the genuine excitement engendered by these candidates, a palpable energy that exemplifies charisma.  While I know there are behind the scenes speech writers refining the text of each presentation, the core message and certainly the delivery belongs to the speaker.  In each case, these campaign stump speeches, whether spoken by the men who would be president, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama, or presented by unsuccessful candidates, Al Gore, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, or Bernie Sanders, the speakers clearly conveyed complex concepts, presented plausible policy developments, and inspired hope.  Tim Walz has this same rousing ability. 

While they may appear folksy – Tim wearing a red-and-black flannel shirt and Kamala ready to cook in her kitchen – I believe they are ready to tackle complex national and international issues.  Together they already possess comprehensive knowledge of complicated topics and are quick-studies when presented with updated information.  They each have a history of developing effective strategies in their work towards justice, often with bipartisan cooperation.  And, as a librarian friend described one weekend during those days of speculation when we wondered who Kamala would select as her running mate, Tim really is the kind of guy you invite to your backyard barbeque.  I cling to a fragile optimism for the Harris-Walz ticket, despite a constant barrage of negative news.

But even as I try to maintain a degree of positivity, I am not so naïve to think the world uncomplicated or our societal challenges easily remedied with one election.  Near to home, there are increasing demands on the local community food shelf and growing numbers of unhoused even as we move into frigid months.  TikTok videos reveal unprecedented devastation brought by Hurricanes Francine, Helene, and Milton, each having made landfall within days of each other.  Gaza still holds the nightly news spotlight as death and destruction occur daily and nearly two million people are suffering from severe malnutrition while living in famine-like conditions.  Mentioned less often, despite deaths numbering in the tens of thousands, are the wars in Ukraine, Myanmar, Sudan, Nigeria and other never mentioned places around the globe.

When compared to the gravity of local, state, national, and world issues, my vote feels but a nanometer (that is a measure of only one billionth of a meter) and yet I persist in believing that each vote matters and we won’t go back.  Armed with poetry and a votive candle, I accept my congregation’s invitation to daily reflection using Poetry for Politics ~ Care for the Soul in the days leading up November 5.  

Reading

A Gathering of Poetry | October 2024

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Every time I hear Amada Gorman read her poetry I shiver with inspiration.  To be so young and yet so eloquent.  This past summer in Chicago, during the Democratic National Convention, she walked proudly unto the stage and laid this challenge before each of us: 

This Sacred Scene

We gather at this hollowed place because we believe in the American dream.

We face a race that tests if this country we cherish shall perish from the Earth, and if our earth shall perish from this country.

It falls to us to ensure that we do not fall for a people that cannot stand together, cannot stand at all.

We are one family, regardless of religion, class or color. For what defines a patriot is not just our love of liberty, but our love for one another.

This is loud in our country’s call, because while we all love freedom, it is love that frees us all.

Empathy emancipates, making us greater than hate or vanity. That is the American promise, powerful and pure. Divided, we cannot endure but united, we can endeavor to humanize our democracy and endear democracy to humanity.

And make no mistake, cohering is the hardest task history ever wrote, but tomorrow is not written by our odds of hardship, but by the audacity of our hope, by the vitality of our vote.

Only now, approaching this rare air, are we aware that perhaps the American Dream is no dream at all, but instead a dare to dream together.

Like a million roots tethered, branching up humbly, making one tree, this is our country. From many, one; from battles won; our freedoms sung; our kingdom come has just begun.

We redeem this sacred scene. Ready for our journey. From it together, we must birth this early republic and achieve an unearthly summit. Let us not just believe in the American dream. Let us be worthy of it.

© 2024 Amanda Gorman

Check the Gathering of Poetry pages shared by Bonnie and Kat for more October verses.

Knitting

Autumnal Knitting

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a selection of six hand knit beanies in various colors on a wood floor

Unlike Shel Silverstein’s Mr. Smeds who had twenty-one hats, and none of them were the same, I knit only eight beanies for this year’s Halloween hat drive sponsored by Hawthorne Helps.  Momma joined the giving with a donation of two knit scarves.  At nearly 101, she may be their oldest donor and HH will feature her picture on their October 29th distribution poster.

Hawthorne Helps is a community partnership between Rochester Public Schools Hawthorne Education Center and the First Unitarian Universalist Church.  The program also receives support from local faith, service, and business groups.  Twice a month, HH volunteers distribute essential items that are not eligible purchases using Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, such as deodorant, dish soap, or toothpaste.  Each fall, the selection of items available to the adult learners includes wintery weather gear – hats, mittens, and scarves – which are especially useful for new immigrants arriving from warmer climates.

Gardening

Quick time fall clean-up

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large terra cotta pot filled with geraniums on the left and two green pots with marigolds on the right

In less time than it took the banana bread to bake, the fall garden clean-up was complete, 

With a laudable goal of staying in our small Kutzky Park house and after church friends (Robin and Heather) electronically “liked” Sargent’s landscape maintenance, we committed to their services.  In August, this well-respected Rochester business took on a portion of our gardening tasks.  They trimmed the overgrown lilac bushes, as well as re-shaped and refreshed our rain garden by removing unwanted weeds, thinning overgrown perennials, and adding plantings for greater variety.  The monthly maintenance allowed us to enjoy our outdoor living space while harvesting vegetables and making zinnia bouquets without the worry of encroaching weeds.

For the two of us, fall clean-up has always been a major undertaking, a job made a trickier by Parkinson’s Disease.  There are hostas to cut back, more than 20 terracotta and bright glazed pots to empty, and no-longer producing cucumber and tomato vines to compost.  In less than 60 minutes, Sargent’s crew of seven using heavy-duty hand and power tools completed what would have taken us days and, even then, without a guarantee to finish before November snows.  We kept the potted marigolds for All Souls Day and, while the front of the house looks a bit sparse, the porch still has bright flowering geraniums to welcome the mail delivery person.