unweaving the nest

from dust to dawn

"The end is where we start from."  ~ T.S. Eliot

Seems kind of ominous to begin with a headstone, doesn't it? Let's face it though, from dust to dust, right? It's in the Bible after all, "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return." Like everything else that has arisen from the earth, we will one day return to it. It seems to me that all religions were created, by God or otherwise, to guide us toward that one big mystery. 

Death is life's greatest mystery, and from the moment we are born we begin to die. It's the one big thing that we can know almost nothing about, no matter how hard we try. It can also be one of a human being's greatest fears, because of the immensity of its consequences and the sheer fact that it really is incomprehensible. Well, okay, so there are two things we do know about death: it is ineluctable for every living, breathing thing and it is the greatest unknown. That is all we know and all we are likely to ever know. 

So why is this the beginning? Because when we are born it's the only sure thing ahead of us. The one true thing we can rely on without fail. And in my admittedly limited mind it's the main reason for religious faith. I mean, hey, if we were born to live a life of flailing around a sea of never ending disappointments and struggles with no reward in sight, what would be the point? So, they give us a set of rules to live by, and if we do our best and repent when we fail, we will have eternal life, reunited with all of our loved ones, in a glorious place called heaven. Now, doesn't that sound like a plan? And also my personal point of departure from Religion 101.

Here is what has been my take on it: life itself is the reward. The world is too utterly amazing, wondrous, beautiful, stupendous and, all things considered, JOYOUS to think any other way. No matter how terrible things get, the world is still miraculous. Life is miraculous. People, with all of their flaws and foibles, are still miraculous. And shouldn't this be enough?

Watch this video sometime if you don't think life is miraculous even in the midst of tragedy:

I have made the argument with many priests that I just don't care what happens to me when I die. I have never bought into heaven, or felt a need for it. I certainly don't buy into hell. Heaven and hell are right here on earth. Look around, you'll find them. What's wrong with living life in the best way we can, yes, following the Golden Rule and other teachings of the Gospels or religious texts, and keeping our eyes set on just this: the here and now lived to the best of our abilities.

"But don't you want to believe that there is an afterlife?" they ask.

"I just don't care. I'm not really afraid of dying, I just want to live a really long time. I want to see heaven every day because it's all around me. And I want to learn from the things that resemble hell. There is so much to do while I'm alive, I can't be bothered with worrying about what happens when I'm not."

And around and around we go. I mean, I want to believe in Jesus. I read the Gospel and epistle every day. Really, I do. But...

Resurrection? I just don't know.

Enter the writings of eastern Orthodox priest and bishop, Kallistos Ware. Since discovering Orthodoxy I have read three of his many books and for the first time, since reading Thomas Merton, I found a religious voice that I could relate to. There is a balanced and real-world sensibility to this man's way of explaining things that make some of the murk so much clearer to me. A highly learned and literary mind that just happens to have palpable faith in the Christian religion. Things that seem outrageous and against all logic to me are held firmly in his heart as the truth. This is what he has to say about death and resurrection:

It is to be seen as the last and greatest in the long series of deaths and resurrections that we have been experiencing ever since the day that we were born. It is not something totally unrelated to all that has been happening to us previously throughout our life, but it is a larger, more comprehensive expression of what we have been undergoing all of this time. If the little deaths through which we have had to pass have each led us beyond death to resurrection, may this not be true of the great moment of death that we await when it is finally time to depart from this world? 

What are these little deaths he writes about? How about something that follows us all of the days, or nights, of our lives? Sleep. Every time we close our eyes to sleep, we surrender to the unknown with faith that when it is time we will rise again. It's interesting to consider that our bodies and minds cannot be regenerated without succumbing to the unconsciousness of sleep. I mean, we could have been created to regenerate by standing with our arms raised to the sun for an hour or so everyday, but that's not the way things are. All living beings must fall into an unconscious state of rest to keep on living. Sure, you can fight it, and sometimes have to fight for it, but nevertheless it is a given that people need to surrender to sleep in order to survive.

Another example of a little death is when we are separated from someone or something we love. It could be when a child finally leaves home for good, or a divorce. It could be when someone who lives in our heart passes away. It can even be when we unwillingly lose a job. Life is full of separation and sometimes the effects on us can be traumatic and last our whole lives. But the miracle part is that we can go on living, not without a heaviness in our hearts, but almost always, things do get easier. Our spirits are meant to survive tragedy. To learn from them, to know what it is to be deeply human and feel great pain. But we are also able to find goodness and beauty again, even from within the tragedy. We can smile because we know that love never really leaves us and that unless we learn the courage it takes to separate when we need to, or to leave our familiar surroundings, we will never fully arrive at our potential as a human being. In the eyes of a Christian, says Bishop Ware, suffering is a gift. It enables us to really see beauty, to really know love....maybe even for the first time.

There are other types of little deaths. What about rejection? What about the first time you loved someone and it wasn't returned? And hey, what about the death of our childhood beliefs and faith? What about the doubts that creep into our adolescent minds? The ones that challenge all that has been accepted as truth when we were young and trusting? Bishop Ware says that doubt is a healthy sign of maturation, and to be fully realized, our faith must continuously be tested and reborn.

Here’s the catch: in all of these situations the little deaths turn out to be creative forces, not destructive. They propel us forward into something better, or to a place where we can look back at all that happened and know we have grown somehow. This is what my lifelong take on dying lacks...this trend of transformation that occurs throughout our lives on every level. In my way of looking at things, it would all simply end. Right then and there...back to dust. But truthfully I cannot say, and neither can you, that it’s not what happens. No one can. Not the wisest man or woman on earth. 

Faith. It’s all about faith. Doubt and dying, faith and resurrection. Life’s constant and reliable ebb and flow. It’s the natural pattern of everything: out of dying comes resurrection. Why wouldn't the death that comes at the end of our lives fit the same patterns? That is the question I am left with after reading Bishop Ware's words.

You know, it’s not that I don’t want to believe in resurrection. It’s not that I don’t want to believe that the end of my earthly life is really just the final page of the prologue. That there is a much greater story to unfold in the ever after. I just always thought it went against every logical way of thinking; maybe it just seemed too good to be true. But I'm not so sure anymore. I'm coming to think that resurrection is logical after all. I can't prove it. I can't even say I will always believe it. But I am mysteriously willing to give it a try.

*End note: Long time readers of this journal may realize that I tend to write about spirituality or religion now and again. I hope to be doing more of that. It's a big part of my life and my struggles, and I'm thinking that might be the same for some of you, too. If you ever feel like it, please join in the conversation by leaving comments below. You can also email me if your prefer. I think our doubts and questions about the spiritual side of ourselves can sometimes be a lonely place to dwell. I hope that by opening up my own box of those uncertainties, others might find a way to recognize and express their own. For a long time I believed my secret and stuffed-way-down doubts were a bad sign. Must be a Catholic thing ;) It's taken a lot of prayer, study and plain old time to realize it's just the opposite.

Doubt is a healthy sign of maturation, and to be fully realized, our faith must continuously be tested and reborn.
 

lovingkindness

There is a practice called metta that is central to Buddhism, which encompasses the ability to empathize with the suffering  as well as the happiness of others---those we know intimately but also the world at large. It is particularly important to practice when trying to understand forces that go against us, that might otherwise cause us pain or despair. I have known very few people for whom this comes naturally, but I have also seen it in action at one time or another by most people I know. It is how we innately want to be.

It is not about waking up one day and having a sweeping desire to change the world with some grand motion...no, it is a subtler practice. A simpler practice. It is about bringing a selfless attitude into one's daily affairs..how we interact with those we know, those we love...and even those we encounter on the street that may be complete strangers to us. It requires mindfulness, and is not always easy...hardly ever easy...but when we do engage in its practice the results are instant and usually so positive that its value encourages us to try again and again. Of course, the goal is to let this mindfulness permeate everything we do. And again.. this is easier said than done. But the principles are simple enough that we can pick up and try again every time we fail.

The core of it reaches out from a center of desiring ALL human beings to be happy, without exception. This is the tricky part...because if we are to truly practice it, it means we must even practice it for our enemies. Those who have wronged us, those whom might in our eyes even seem evil. In true Christianity, this concept also exists in the virtues of selfless love, forgiveness and non-judgment. The knowing that judgment can only be left up to God. We can only love and forgive. And we must.

It is not unlike the concept of motherliness, the selfless love that a mother has for her children, only this must extend to all of God's creation. The Tibetan culture has a belief that we were all another person's mother at some point in a previous life. This makes the bond we have with all of creation seem clearer; even if there is great emotional distance, we can still cultivate a compassion and love for others, if only in our heart center, even when it is not possible to demonstrate it in some sweeping way. It is a subtle shift of perception. We don't have to always agree....we only have to accept.

Here is the practice: in a quiet and receptive or meditative state of being, one generates feelings of lovingkindness first to oneself. It is often said the first step is to love oneself...not in a vain or selfish way, but in a way to manifest a sense of well-being, which can then and only then be passed on to others. Second, we focus it onto a respected person. That part is easy, and natural to us. Third, a loved one, like a parent, child or spouse. Also usually natural, but sometimes not...it is the arena of our life that affects us in the most broadest of ways. Next one passes this feeling onto a neutral person, someone we may not even know, that may not have any particular effect on our own lives. And finally, we must generate this feeling towards some whom we feel hostility towards. It is meant to be a short, yet daily practice. Perhaps 5 minutes. It is the last part of the practice that is so difficult, but that brings the greatest result; feelings of hostility are washed away and the destructive energy that has been directed towards that last person in our mind can be be redirected into more positive channels. We become open to the possibility of forgiveness, and how can it not send a positive energy into the world...the world at large..and affect everything we else do on any given day?

Simple in concept...difficult to do. But possible? Oh yes.

I know for myself that when I am mindful of the practice of metta, negative and imposing feelings transform into feelings of warmth. Vengefulness becomes kindness. The need to criticize becomes a need to be sensitive. The tendency towards co-dependency surrenders itself into a knowing that as individuals we are responsible for cultivating our own happiness, and carving out our own way. Even as we hold the other person's best interests in our hearts. Even when they do not conform to what we believe is 'right' for ourselves.

It's not unlike a mother letting go of her child when it is time for them to go out into the world and make their own way....in their own way. To make their own mistakes. To experience all the good and bad, joy and pain that is so much a part of being human. And always being available with an open heart to listen and be a firm place for them to lean when they need to get their footing again. And again. But it's not to impose our own judgment, our own way of being. Does that make sense? The word acceptance comes back to me again. Non-judgment and acceptance. So difficult, but I think so important.

I know I want to make a conscious effort to give this kind of energy out to the world. I am certainly not always so good at it, but when I have practiced it, even in my own small capacity, well, it makes me want to try again. Even when I fail. Especially when I fail.

Today I pray for the grace of selfless love. For knowing when to let go. For knowing how to allow another to live their own life. I pray for that grace.

(This post was first written in September of 2007. I came across it while going through some old writings and it was something that I really needed to revisit for myself. In that spirit, I am republishing it today.)

is it sweet?

I have been itching to write again. In every way. I've decided to get back to this here online journal, and today I was thinking a lot about truth. Some days I feel like my brain is as sharp as a marble, like I'm just going through life in a fog, but if I keep letting that dissuade me from hitting the keyboard I might never write again. So I guess I'm apologizing right up front for my meandering posts and with that little bit of throat clearing out of the way I'll just begin.

I've been thinking about truth and why it's such a big deal. I mean, of course it's a big deal, but why can it seem so dangerous or forbidden? What would the world be like if it was just impossible to not tell the truth all the time? I guess sometimes it might not be such a good thing; sometimes it is appropriate to not tell the truth if it will truly hurt someone. And how do we even know what truth is? Is it subjective? .

In the Hindu/Yogic tradition the Sanskrit word for truth is satya. I find it a beautiful and full word to say. It has many connotations and layers of meaning, just like some of our weightier English words. It is one of the ten ethics of yoga and it weighs in at number two as far as its importance. The first is Ahimsa, or non-violence, another weighty word. But satya is what I want to focus on. 

We all have a basic and natural born instinct about truth, but it is somewhat of a mystery. Of course it is almost always apparent to us when we are telling a lie, but the truth is much more subjective. Can you always recognize the truth when you hear it? And after living 46 years I am also painfully aware that it is just as difficult to sometimes know when I am lying to myself. Somewhere deep inside I might know the truth, but it is often difficult to recognize, or maybe it's just too painful to let it see the light of day. I imagine you have had moments in your life when the epiphany came that you had been lying to yourself. And how can we move beyond that and be certain when the truth hits us square in the eyes?

There is a little test I read about once and I've used it many times since. It stems from a simple question we can ask ourselves when the water gets murky and we're just not sure how to make it clear again. The question is "Does it taste sweet?" Now that may seem like a strange question, but think about it for a minute. Apply it to a personal example. Truth CAN be tasted. It IS sweet. And not just to your mouth, but your whole self. Think of something quickly that you know to be true and right and then think of something that has to pass as truth, but you know it's not right at all. Which tastes sweeter? Think of something in your life that you love dearly and that makes your world a better place. How does it make you feel? Does it taste sweet? If something "tastes" sweet, we can be fairly sure that it's truth working in our lives.

Often we see facts as truth. This is not always the case though; facts are not always true. You could say that it's a fact that the apple on the table is red, but what if the person looking at it is color blind? Truth is sometimes perception. What is true for me might not be true for you. It's a fact to me that cats are the most lovable creatures, but you might be allergic to them and find them incredibly aloof or sneaky. For me it's true that cats are lovable, for you they might as well be the devil.

Truth can also be a weapon if you use it to cause harm. I've been the victim of that kind of truth before, and I've also been the aggressor. For a silly example, let's say someone I'm not too fond of gets a really bad haircut and I happen to run into them and decide I'll just tell them their hair looks like Darth Vader's helmut. And maybe it does...but no matter how juicy that moment might feel, in a matter of seconds I would probably get a sour taste in my mouth, because that's not a sweet thing to do at all. I know it's a stupid example, but it's a clear one. Truth is perceptive and we can use it towards violence. I understand that as meaning that if it doesn't taste sweet, I just shouldn't do it. What I perceived to be the truth about that person's hair is only my opinion and then I used it to harm them. And that's not the kind of truth I'm searching for.

But then it gets even trickier. What if the truth might hurt someone, but in the end will make things better? I think of my marriage. The truth was, it wasn't sweet. And yet to come right out and say that and to do something about it was going to hurt not just the two of us, but our kids and other people in our lives as well. But here's the thing...it was already hurting everyone in an underlying way. It may have been well-hidden as a "fact" but deep down everyone knew. You can live a long time looking through rose-coloured glasses, but they are only glasses after all. Eventually you will lose them, or they will break and the harsh reality of daylight will burn your eyes. So is it better to draw it out in fear of the pain you will certainly suffer, or is it better just to get on with it and feel the pain, and readjust to the clear and honest light of day? I guess that answer might be different for everyone and my former husband and I certainly let it go on for a long time. But when the truth finally came out, it did get better. Not without some real suffering though.

Even truth that may cause pain or suffering can be sweet. When it dawns on someone that the alternative is living a lie, or lying to yourself, which is the greater evil? I ask myself, would I rather go on living in denial and pretending and having this constant anticipation of the fall, or would I rather get on with it, even fall down hard, and then rise up from the ashes and know that at least my life is authentic? Sometimes there's not a clear answer for that; I know that all too well. It's easier sometimes to deceive myself. Like I said, the pain of the truth can be bittersweet at best, but I have to believe I am better off in the end by letting go of the burden of deception.

Lies come in big and small packages, elaborate and plain, and truth is not always simple. Oh it can be really sweet, like the truth of loving your child, no matter what. Maple syrup sweet, sustaining and rich. But it can also be slow to recognize, like the sweetness of malt in the depths of all that hops that first hits your tongue when you're sipping a beer. It can be bitter, too, like that crazy dark chocolate that's supposed to be so good for us. The real truth is always sweet and in the end it will be soothing, no matter how it feels in the beginning. Sometimes we just have to let it linger on our palette a little longer to discover it. The trick is to not only recognize it, but to let it shine when it's revealed.

P.S. There is a cool new feature with Typepad. They have joined with Facebook so that every time a blogger publishes a post it is announced on their wall. There is a little "like" button at the right hand side of this page. If you click it on a blog that you regularly read, and you have a Facebook account, then you will be notified in your news feed whenever that blog is updated. It's also a great way to publicize your blog, if you have one, and to find new readers. I believe it is available on Blogspot, Blogger, Typepad and Wordpress. It links to Twitter as well, if you are one that tweets! :)

 

on a wing and a prayer

I have this eclectic approach to spirituality. Raised Roman Catholic, I am comfortable in the ritualistic forms of prayer, like novenas, the divine hours or praying the rosary. I also call upon my understanding of the yogic form of prayer with mantra and mala, meditation. Sometimes I take to the fields and woods and find my special spot and simply pour out my heart and then request wisdom from the spirits of trees. And then there are times when I collapse into bed and just have a good old straight heart to heart with the creator. I don't subscribe to any structured faith, although I find wisdom in many. But one thing is certain...I believe in prayer.

I have been known to seek the company of monks at the abbey. To drive to a small chapel in a nearby town, say my Hail Mary's and light a candle or two. I am enthralled with my friend Michele's beautiful Greek orthodox faith with its icons and incense and mass spoken in an ancient tongue. I've received mantra initiation from a swami twice in my life---once when I was just a young girl and again just a few years ago. All are paths leading to communion with the mystery of faith in something much larger than myself or the world I can touch and see. It's all one divine creator. One way to find solace in the unknowns and ask for the grace I need to find my way through. 

Contemplative prayer sends my intentions, my worries and strife, my concerns for others and the world around me out into the universe beyond my control. It empties my cluttered mind and my sometimes heavy heart and helps me find the room to fill it up again with hope. It keeps me believing in miracles, big and small. And to be honest, sometimes it just takes the edge off, and certainly the pressure I feel now and then that it's all up to me. Because it isn't all up to me, is it? As much as I would love to plan it all out and have it happen just so, that's just not how life works. Life is an ever changing wind and I just never know which way it will blow, if the current will catch in my wings and lift me, or send me plummeting to the ground. It's indifferent, life. Dispassionate. Makes no promises.

Prayer gives me the space and distance to see past the immediacy of now and gives that glimpse of hope and possibility called tomorrow. And I think, for me, it helps to know that someone is listening. Someone hears my joy, and understands my sorrow.

where the light comes in

 

This morning was unusually dark. I felt it. It was rushed, for one thing, no time for a small fire or even to light a candle while we ate our breakfast. We did not plug in the Christmas tree, which is such a welcome bit of sparkle and brightness on those dark early mornings this time of year. It also dawned on me that soon I will be going to work when it's just getting light and going home long after dark. I work 12 hour days for seven days, but I do get Christmas Day off. I can't complain, because:

• I have a dependable job.
• Every one that works in my department works the same hours throughout the holidays...we are all in this together. No one is exempt.
• I get paid double time for the entire week.
• I have a job. I get a regular paycheck. And health care benefits. I'm fortunate. 

But still...it has strange effects on a person, that many hours for that many days, sitting in one place, indoors, with a headset attached to your head, listening to all kinds of voices from all over North America complain about things that really don't matter at all. Consumerism and commercialism is what ticks me off about the holidays. I've written about it before, and I won't get into again. I LOVE Christmas. It's my very favourite holiday besides my birthday...but I love it for the palpable magic in the air on that very day, not for the cultural phenomena it has become for weeks and months leading up to it.

What I want to write about is light. Whoever chose December 25 as the day to celebrate Christmas did not just pull it out of a hat. It comes right after the darkest night of the year, Winter Solstice, and no wonder we have come to include flame, wax candles, electric candles, evergreens and all things glittery and light-reflecting over the years. No wonder we try to bring our thoughts towards the brightness of well-wishing, merry-making, family togetherness and the unity of all humankind at this time of year. It's dark out there.

There is a poem by John Matthews that I like. I don't love it, because somehow it's not quite dark enough, not quite shimmery enough, not quite how it really tastes...(and of course I should not be judging as I have not written a better one...) but here it is:

Between Darkness and Light

It is within the darkness and the silence

That the magic of Christmas starts;

Somewhere between the glimmer of lights

And the first breathless moment

When children come

Stumbling like new-born angels

Into morning light.

Within the darkness and the silence

We sit, watching wonder

Evolve into form; where we

Enter the ringing silence

In which the first bells of Christmas

Sound the music of the soul;

Where the morning joy begins

With a single carol

To a half-forgotten tune.

It is here, between the darkness

And the light,

That we wait, uncertain,

Seeking the moment

That challenges us to believe

In a freshly minted miracle

Born every Christmas Day.

What caught me the first time I read this poem was this: the freshly minted miracle born every Christmas day. Being challenged to believe in something, uncertain as we are sometimes while waiting for that light. I'm in a much happier state of being than I was for many, many years of Christmases. Years. But I also remember that no matter how sad I could be inside, no matter how lonely in the deepest place in my heart, I sought that magic, that miracle, every Christmas Eve. Did I write about it on my last post? How I would stay up very late, all by myself and wait for it. Sometimes it would take me a couple dips in the whiskey-doused eggnog, but hey, it's the holidays. But I always found it. Always always. It's magic. And I dare you, no matter if Bah Humbug is tattoed across your forehead, I dare you to stay up late, all by yourself on Christmas Eve, and walk outside, hopefully to a bunch of snow---but it really doesn't matter---and look up into the sky and take deep, slow breaths of the air and close your eyes. I dare you to not feel it. I don't know what it is...but it's there. And it can fill you up just enough. Just enough.

And I wonder if it has something to do with all that darkness. You know how all those philosophers write stuff about "you can't know joy until you know sorrow" and "You never know light until you've known dark?" Maybe I'm just extra sensitive to things like this. Maybe I imagine it, maybe it's not really magic at all. But I tell you it's so real to me that it even has a special smell. I can smell it right now...the smell of those deep beaths outside, very late on Christmas Eve. And why is it important? Because it got me through the holidays when I was otherwise fairly pessimistic. It gave me a little jolt of wonder to soften the hard edges I was feeling overall. And even though I don't wear those hard edges anymore, I still look forward to that night. I still seek the freshly minted miracle that does not exist on other day of the year. Christmas miracles are special...and they may not even be something we can see, or touch, or hear, and certainly nothing that can be unwrapped (unless it's a puppy!). But close your eyes and go outside. Slow yourself down enough to take deep breaths of midnight air. Open yourself to the possibility of tiny miracles and joy even if your flame is down to an ember in the darkest corner of your heart. You'll feel it spark. You'll feel it between the darkness and the light.

The spring is often the time when we think of re-birth, but I believe it starts earlier. I believe it starts on the longest night, when the sun stands still if only for a brief instant. For some it might be that night in Bethlehem when their saviour was born. Joy to the World and all of that. Even I, doubting Thomas of the faith I was baptised in, place the tiny baby in the manger at midnight on Christmas Eve. It's a symbol to me, and I light a candle at Mary's feet---with the sometimes uncertain but deeply felt belief that there is wonder in the world. And goodness.  

It's the winter solstice afterall...the light will only grow stronger.

    

*Thank you, with all my heart and then some, to my beautiful friend, Misty for my new banner... perfect beyond perfect. xo

the butter thief

There is a story from the Hindu culture that I have enjoyed reading again and again. It is a story of Krishna, the blue skinned god of infinite incarnations, when he was a young boy. I am not an expert on Krishna by any means, so my summary of the story is simply paraphrased from different accounts that I have read...but in this particular incarnation Krishna was known as Gopala. Apparently he was a handful as a child, delightfully mischievous. He would take every opportunity to sneak into his mother's kitchen to steal sweet butter, breaking the pot instead of just lifting the lid and dipping his fingers in. Soon, he was sneaking into other kitchens in the village to break pots and steal butter, and by the time he was five he had become the scourge of the neighborhood. And yet he always claimed innocence of any wrong doing. There is a reason that his stolen good of choice was butter, as it is the essence of the milk produced by the sacred cow: the symbol of ultimate sweetness of Divine Love hidden in every illusion. Now remember, Gopala was a God. Everything divine is already his. So why would he need to steal it?

One time his mother caught him red-handed in the butter pot. She asked him, "Why are you doing this? You know I would give you anything. You just have to ask. Besides, it all belongs to you, anyway." His reply? "Then how can you accuse me of stealing, when you have just said it belongs to me?"

Why would a God resort to thieving in the night, breaking the pots to get at the sweet butter, in secret, when it all belonged to him anyways? It is explained that he broke the pots to awaken the household from which he was stealing, his mother's included. And that it's often the case that we wake up from our illusions only after they have been shattered by painful experience.

Like the person who wakes up to different priorities in life after a serious illness. Or when mistrust, anger or pain enters into a relationship and makes you see it as it really is. Or when someone suffers some kind of great loss and learns the hard way what the essentials of life really are. All things that get at the truth, the essence behind the illusions. Things that break wide open the beliefs and concepts that we create for security and comfort and the mirage of a reality that really isn't there at all. The butter thief comes and steals what we think is important so that we are forced to wake up and remember what is real.

I've had my own share of butter pots broken wide open in my life, and I'm sure I haven't seen the end of them. For instance, just recently I've experienced for the first time, really, having unexpected expenditures arise and leave me with 23.76 in my checking account and little food in my cupboards while I wait three days for my next paycheck. And I am in no means in dire straits...it's a very comfortable life here on my little plot of land compared to most of the world. But it surely broke the illusion of always having what I used to think was "just enough". What I had then was more than enough, and what I have now is also more than enough...but now I have to always be aware of something I never really had to think about before when I had someone else's income to rely on. Maybe that is not a great analogy, but it's a lesson I've been learning. What I used to take for granted, now is much more real...and also much more respected and appreciated.

Take for instance something not so concrete as money. How about love? I was in a marriage for almost 24 years that, yes, had it's moments of glory and brought great gifts into my life...my children, experiences, and a journey that made me who I am today with all of my strengths and my flaws. But for the majority of its duration it was an illusion at best. It took a big crashing pot to come down right in front of me for me to see the truth of it. Five years of depression and denial and hope and pain to finally get to the point where we could let it go and move beyond it. We both played our parts in the illusion. And I think of the false comfort and sense of identity that was tucked into that jar we tried to protect for so long. How you can really believe that by keeping it safe and intact life will be much easier than by letting it finally crash to the floor and break wide open for the whole world to see the truth of it? But what I'm learning is that the truth eventually leads to peace, and sets things right. Even though there might be quite a mess to sift through and clean up. Even though there might be ripples and jolts of aftershock to deal with. And I believe that even though reality might cause a shake up at first, people are usually receptive and understanding when you tell the truth.

 

The other day I was walking home from a friend's party and a woman that I know, but don't really know, stopped to give me a ride. I accepted and we had a nice chat. She asked me about my children..."Oh, isn't your daughter is going to be a senior this year? Where is she going to college?" For a moment I played along and then I decided to just tell it like it is. I told her this: The truth is folks, my daughter may not be going back to high school this year. She had a difficult time this past school year, some of it beyond her control, and some of it very much her own doing. Some of it the fault of her father and I and our circumstances. Some of it just part of who she is. After much discussion and thought and heartache on all of our parts, with one another and the counsel of school vice-principles and others, we have decided that her course will be a different one than we had planned before. She is going to get her GED and go right to community college to begin classes towards a transfer to a 4 year degree at a state university. She knows what she wants to do, as much as any 17 year old could know. And believe me, it has been keeping me up at night, filling me with anxiety and regret, and finally coming to a place of understanding that it doesn't always turn out the way you think it will...but who is to stay it's not the right way for her?

Well, the woman I told this to, this almost complete stranger, was a little taken back with my honesty. It wasn't the answer she expected. But you know what? She was silent for a moment and then she said, "You know, we've actually had a little of that uncertainty with our oldest while he was in college. And eventually he went back to school. Things work out the way they should. I guess we have to remember that there's more than one way to get somewhere." It was a pretty cool moment in which we connected as mothers who just want the best for their kids, even if it's not what we wished it might be. I was happy to have told the truth and not just glossed over it like I normally would, just to keep things comfortable. Because you know what? My daughter is not perfect, and either am I. But I'm proud of who she is, and who she is becoming, as a human being. Not as a super-achiever, or a star athlete, or even a very gifted artist (which she is), but as a young woman who has a nurtured heart and a broader perspective of what is real. I believe that will serve her and how she lives her life, for her lifetime. Especially the hard lessons she is learning about things not always being what they seem, and not always working out like they should...but that even when what you thought was real, like your mom and dad's marriage, or even being a high school student on the standard path, comes crashing in on you and leaves you disillusioned, we can learn from it, and lift ourselves up and move forward. And we can be forgiven.

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