“You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.” Thomas Merton
Do you remember the movie “Indiana Jones, the Last Crusade?” World weary Indy, who has been everywhere and seen everything, is no believer. Perhaps, seeing hearts torn from the living in the Temple of Doom or enduring poison arrows and massive rolling boulders guarding a stone icon soured him on religion. But Henry, his father, played by Sean Connery, is just such a man.
The elder Dr. Jones has not spent his time on artifacts, but rather searched his entire life for clues to the location of the Holy Grail, the cup Christ drank from at The Last Supper. When the Nazis shoot Henry, Indy’s only chance to save his father is to find the Grail. To do this, he has risk his own life to get past several challenges. The secret to accomplishing that is found in his father’s journal which holds the wisdom Henry has discovered over a lifetime.
Of all the scenes in any of the Indiana Jones movies, my favorite is Harrison Ford, standing on edge of an abyss, pushed to embrace stepping forward into seeming nothingness or accept his father’s death. Indy, relying on the wisdom in his father’s journal, faces the void and makes the “leap of faith.”
Have you experienced that kind of moment? A point in time when you can or perhaps must embrace the next step forward….or retreat to the tried and true.
Doug and I are looking at his retirement…and it truly appears like a step into the unknown. We haven’t quite reached it….but it is there up ahead, looming closer and coming within view. And it is filled, if not with emptiness, with uncertainty. What will it be like for someone who has pretty much worked every day, even on vacations, to stop? What do you feel like when you have checked off every item on your to do list….and you don’t even have a list anymore? Or maybe only a bucket list. Is it wonderful freedom…or a loss of being needed…or both?
We have ideas about how to fill this lack of unrelenting necessary, and do look forward to escaping the tyranny of the urgent. For me, selling my book, and researching the next. For Doug, some writing as well. For both of us, volunteering in areas of our interest and expertise.with those who have experienced trauma, veterans or victims of violence. But even given that, it seems like there is a vast unknown territory out there.
It seems to me that aging and retirement lead to both a redirection of focus that carries the exciting opportunity for a new beginning, yet simultaneously require the letting go of some of the things that give you status and recognition for who you are, of what you are expert in, or what you have achieved.
Yesterday, Doug had a medical consult for some surgery he may have to have. In filling out the paperwork prior to the visit, I watched him fill in his occupation, his employer. The words said so much about him. Occupation: clergyman Employer: First Presbyterian Church of Edenton Just reading those words you gain clues to his interests, and at least possibly some of his skills. He is learned. A scholar. He writes and speaks well. He is great with people, caring, compassionate. He is a man of faith.
Then, he filled out a section on me. Occupation: Retired Employer: Blank All my skills and areas of expertise unreported. A blank slate…an empty slate….or a clean slate, perhaps.
The abyss
…the new opportunity.
Henry Jones’ journal carried this entry about the challenges Indy was to face: “Now, he who finds the Grail must face 3 challenges. First, is the path of God: Only the penitent man shall pass. Second, is the word of God: Only in the footsteps of God, shall he proceed. Last is the breath of God: Only in a leap from the lion’s head shall he prove his worth.”
The path for Doug and for me has passed the first two challenges. Our work has taught us that we must be humble in the face of the lives that have been entrusted to us, and to seek forgiveness for the ways we have been unable to help at times. For the second, we have tried to proceed in the paths we believe God set before our feet. Now, we face the third.
Frederick Buechner says it this way: “Faith is the word that describes the direction our feet start moving when we find that we are loved. Faith is stepping out into the unknown with nothing to guide us but a hand just beyond our grasp.”
Merton’s quote tells me that we don’t have to know exactly how it will all work out, and we actually don’t even have to make a huge leap. We only need to keep walking in hope. The path really is there, as it has been all along.
I trust that. I hope as you move through your lives in the everyday moments and in the path changing moments of new direction, you can trust it, too.
There really is nothing to fear. Reach for me, and I’ll reach for you, and we can hold hands and explore those new paths together.
Everyone of a certain age has heard Don McLean’s song American Pie…and it is an iconic song. But others of his are amazing, and Crossroads is probably my favorite. These first two stanzas I love for the idea that whatever our choices have been in life, they make us who we are. And who we are is ok. (The last two stanzas are great as well for couples who share difficult paths with each other – but that is a different post.)
No, I didn’t pursue writing when I thought I would. I chose not to transfer schools and go to journalism school. And yes, my life might have changed if I had. Maybe, Doug and I would have married later, had our children later, and I would have started creative writing sooner….or been a doctor instead of a teacher and social worker…or….
All of this is to say that, in retrospect, I am happy with my choices, even the ones that look like detours. I have posted On The Road Less Taken by Frost, and I am sure part of who I am has both shaped and been shaped by my choices. But today what I am trying to say is a little different. It is: Relax, there are no wrong choices. There are only the choices you have already made and the choices you will make in the future. And all of them can lead to good, if that is where you want to go.
Our teen granddaughters are visiting and looking ahead toward high school for Catherine and college for Caroline. They are already talking about where they want to go and what they want to be as adults. Caroline is pretty focused on some area of medicine. Catherine is more interested in the tech world. They have so much that lies ahead of them, so many places to go, and people to be and become…and so many choices to take and learn from!
Nothing’s impossible I have found,
“You get old and you realize there are no answers, just stories.” Garrison Keillor
who says he is not retiring, just taking time off to write.
For me, listening to him was like being at a family gathering where my uncles traded stories of a time gone by. They would regale my cousins and me in the grand tradition of the storytelling that happened around the hearth in the days of “remember when” and “when I was a kid.” All of us would sit at their feet or lie on the floor on our bellies on the living room rug, open-mouthed, enraptured by their words.
One of the men in my writing group is a lot like Keillor. Dossey is an older, retired, former Maritime sailor who is spinning a yarn about a World War II submarine attack. Every time we meet, he begins by apologizing for serving up a “pig’s breakfast,” then he reminds us that he doesn’t know about grammar or writing. And yes, there’s a missing comma or two, and the occasional verb tense issue, but let me tell you he has captured the attention of every one of us with his riveting story, told in the unmistakable voice of a man who earned his life at sea. Dossey tells us he is “keeping a promise” to relate this tale that was told to him, but he spins it so realistically that all of us see it unfold before our eyes as if it were a movie, or we were characters within it watching from the beach. Now, that is writing!
To me, writing should be irresistible. It should defy the need to be defined by genre, be compelling enough that, though we may hear about things beyond our experience, the telling makes us feel a part of the story.
That is what real story telling is, I believe. Keillor in his aw, shucks, manner, the warm treacle of a town time forgot, Dossey in his mariner’s tale, and a few others know that.
I just hope he will remain Keillor. I think, while he might not see it, the answer to his yearning is his stories.
“Just give me the facts, ma’am, only the facts!” Joe Friday would intone as he questioned a witness on Dragnet. At least that’s what my family thought they heard as we gathered round the TV and watched Sgt. Friday speedily solve every crime. 
It turns out he never said it quite that way, but Joe certainly asked his questions in a pointed, no-nonsense manner. We all knew the world he lived in was filled with either or’s, goods or bads, fact or fiction and the program showed it to us in bold relief, as stark in contrast as the black and white of our TV screen.
After the commercial, we returned to a view of LA. Joe would state: “This is the city, Los Angeles, California, I work here. I carry a badge. It was Friday July 15th. It was sunny in Los Angeles; we were working Day Shift in the Robbery Division. The Captain was John Smith. My partner’s name is Bill Gannon. My name’s Friday.” Then, Joe would recite the facts of the crime, “We were working a series of hold-ups at Mom and Pop stores….”
P.R.I.S.M. (Probation, Rehabilitation, Intensive Services and Management) reflected the innovative approaches our Probation Commissioner, Mary Winter, and Law Enforcement in general attempted in Syracuse, New York. My oversight of PRISM involved not only responsibility for an integrated team of youth probation officers, county residential placement staff, and our non-profit’s social workers, but also made me a member of the management team for the Commissioner. I got closer to an insider’s view of law enforcement than the average person.
You see, these are also facts, but they are more than the facts of the crime Joe Friday went looking for. Poverty, family makeup (the presence of a father in the home), age of the mother at the birth of the child, histories of abuse and domestic violence, all played a role in teen offending.
At the same time, for the current generation of Sgt. Fridays in the best departments, their training addresses not only how to get to the facts needed for prosecution, but also how to de-escalate a conflict, how to negotiate, and how to build enough trust in a community that people will talk to police and give them the facts. You cannot do a great job enforcing the law if traffic stops are as ubiquitous and unjust and racially biased as they were in Ferguson, Missouri. Comprehensive training for 
We need to encourage politicians to create insightful, creative, and compassionate policies to address these complex issues. We need to encourage departments to weed out any bad apples. Sgt. Friday was a good guy. The overwhelming majority of officers are like him…and like my Uncle Eddie. Yet, we know that in every profession and walk of life there will be those who cannot do their job well, and we know that bad apples who carry guns cannot be tolerated. At the same time, every community should support their police departments who rely on community members to help deter crime and catch criminals.
I remember it like it was yesterday. My sister and I sat totally still in front of the TV. Mary Martin, playing Peter Pan, was asking for our help for Tinkerbell. She was desperately ill because of the lack of belief in fairies. Peter told us that if we clapped our hands, and let her know we did believe, maybe Tink’s light wouldn’t go out. I clapped until my hands hurt and her light got brighter. “Clap some more,” Peter said, “she’s getting better.” I thought my arms would fall off but I clapped until once again Tink could fly.
Several years ago, my daughter’s twins and I made a fairy and gnome garden. It started small. Grey had a house for gnomes. Ella had one for fairies. We knew if we gave them a place to come, they would find us. And they did! Then the fairies and gnomes brought presents and friends that magically appeared over night, every night of the twins’ visits.
The real elves, fairies, and gnomes added figurines of themselves, as well as rocks and birds and butterflies and frogs, sparkly rocks and solar lights. What started on one side of a crepe myrtle in our backyard grew until it almost surrounded the tree. They even created a party glade where Ella’s fairies and Grey’s gnomes could come to dance and sing together.
Whenever the twins would visit, the BlueBird of Happiness would come out and our magical friends would visit…until after their Labor Day visit when we tucked the houses and the figures away for the winter.
I’m not sure who has enjoyed the magic the most, the twins or me, but I do know who needed it more. The great thing about childhood is that you always carry fairy dust inside…ready at a moment’s notice to help your spirit fly. But grownups fill their pockets with bills, and to-do and grocery lists, with have to’s and must do’s. We weigh ourselves down with troubles and squeeze out all the room for magic…make it harder and harder to find…until little ones show us where it is, and little hands give it back to us.
Ella and Grey are ten now, so I can envision a time when they are off and busy with other things, when they, too, start to add more and more grown up activities into their lives, and have less and less room for visits from fairies and gnomes, frogs and bunnies, dragonflies and tiny birds and butterflies.
I hope for all of them that someday their own children and grandchildren will remind them of the magic they have shared with me, and they will remember our times together.
Redwood trees have always impressed me. From a seed no bigger in size than a tomato seed, they grow as tall as 35 story buildings. In fact, their height helps them survive in dry seasons as it helps them live on only the moisture they are able to extract from fog. Condensing the mist against their trucks, redwoods create fog drips that cool and roll down grooves in their bark flowing down the length of the tree to the roots that nurture it. Resistant to insects, able to withstand fires and floods, subject to no diseases, they endure for ages with no natural enemies but man.
SunnyFortuna.com tells us: “You would think that a 350-foot-tall tree would need deep roots, but that’s not the case at all with the Sequoia sempervirens. Redwood tree roots are very shallow, often only five or six feet deep. But they make up for it in width, sometimes extending up to 100 feet from the trunk. They thrive in thick groves, where the roots can intertwine and even fuse together. This gives them tremendous strength against the forces of nature. This way they can withstand high winds and raging floods.”
So, redwoods do not survive alone…ever. They form “tribes” or communities. Sometimes they grow so close to each other they merge at the base into one tree. The first thing they provide each other is strength and support: intertwining roots. Not deep, but wide, living in an embrace of others.
The merged roots also meet their needs for nurture. The entire system relies on their rooted connections.
It’s no wonder that redwoods have inspired the latest “organizational culture” model, a new Fish Philosophy, Who Moved My Cheese, Star Thrower, Open Source look at what creates success in corporate management. The sequoia “business” model guarantees enduring success and sustains massive growth….but only if the trees work as a team and support each other. The critical key to survival and growth is interdependence. (Right Sequoia tribe tree)
But I think this is a lesson that is applicable not just to business but to our own need for communities, individually and as nations. Like the redwoods, we cannot survive alone. People do need alone time, and space for individualism to be content and personally creative, but there are moments in a life that also needs friends and neighbors and groups of like-minded people. We need others to help us think past what we can alone, to help us solve life problems, to share their strength in our times of need. I would argue that this redwood kind of inter-reliance is needed for health, individual and collective, for us all to survive and thrive.
Even spiritually, as much as I value meditation time, walks at the ocean alone with “Intimations of Immorality” on my mind, I am refreshed by deep talks with others, friends and family. I need them to challenge my thought and nourish my spirit, and for me, as well, I need the comforting ritual, the remembered songs and prayers, the heart and mind community of a worshipping family of faith to nourish me.
I think when we and our world withdraw our roots…try to restrict them to me and mine, we make an egregious mistake. Withdrawing and distancing from others does not make us stronger. We hurt ourselves, limit that which can nurture us, open ourselves to injuries that can only be survived by connections. Isolationism and xenophobia fuel hatred and blame. They are failed strategies that lead more often to war than to the safety they promise.
In the face of Britain’s exit from the EU, where Populism and promises of renewed national strength spoke to many, I would warn them and those here in the US who echo the same arguments to take a look at what happens when loggers cut down redwoods. Not only are the trees they take killed, but the other redwoods that remain in the tribe often die. Without the missing trees to share water and nutrients, the remaining members becomes less healthy and sometimes cannot even survive.
Our world seems to scream at us that helping others hurts you, and standing alone is better than uniting together. Sometimes, while I do understand the fear of change and of the unknown, and the gut response to forces and politicians that inflame that fear, I wish I could get people to look up and out.
There are resources out there in the world still. They may not be mineral, or oil, as much as wind, sun, and PEOPLE.
More than thirty-five years ago, a friend tucked a folded parchment into a Christmas card. It was a letter written by a 16th Century monk, Fra Giovanni. I was inspired by it, so I kept it and took it with me everywhere.
Especially once I had responsibility for a large Family Service Department, when I was troubled, stressed, or stymied or when everything seemed to be going to pieces in life or at work, I would take it off the bulletin board and reread it. Depending on my state of mind one line or another would be just the advice I needed. Then, I would thumb tack it back up on the board until the next time.
By 1987, when I finished my MSW, my poor parchment had sticky layers of old, yellowed, tape on the corners and was punched through with holes. For my graduation, I commissioned an artist friend, Janet Greabell, to recreate it and frame it as graduation present for a friend who admired it and who was graduating with me. However, unknown to me, my husband, Doug, had Janet do a duplicate, so I could receive the same gift. The newly elegant framed version hung in my office in Syracuse until I left for a job here in North Carolina in 2007.
“There is nothing I can give you that you do not already have, but there is much that, while I cannot give it, you can take.
The gloom of the world is but a shadow, behind it but within reach is joy. 
Everything we call a trial, a sorrow, or a duty, the angel’s hand is there, the gift is there, and the wonder of an over-shadowing presence.
I admit it. I am overwhelmed by emotions I have been struggling with all week.
As a responder to the 9 11 attacks, spending the early weeks at Ground Zero working at an aid station on a girder that fell from the South Tower, I saw the results of terrorism up close and have paid a price for my help in consequences to my own health. But I also saw real heroes, not only in the first responders, but in ordinary people who rushed in to help, in peanut butter sandwiches packed by school children, in those who stood in solidarity with us with candles along our route into the disaster.
And as the aunt of an amazing young man who happens to be gay, as someone with a number of gay friends, and someone living in North Carolina seeing the intolerance of the HB2 struggle, I can see the connection between bigotry, irrational fear, and hate crimes. Part of my emotions come from hearing from friends shaken by this event, by the thought that they, too, could have been victims just because of who they love.
only one injured, though shot in the head, saved by his protective Kevlar helmet. I cannot speak words that match the deep thanksgiving that lives in my heart for the police, firefighters and first responders. Watching them at Ground Zero, I saw their heroism time and again.
John McGill who after managing to flee from The Pulse nightclub saw another man, injured and bleeding from multiple wounds, trying to run from the building. Stripping the shirt from his own back and taking off the victim’s shirt, he bound up Rodney Sumpter’s wounds. He then got the victim, a bartender at the club, to the police lines. He was asked to lay in a police car with Mr. Sumpter, and keep the bleeding man on top of him, compressing his wounds with his arms and his body until an ambulance could come. This “bear hug” saved Mr. Sumpter’s life.
And finally, on last night’s news I heard a story about Dr. Joshua Corsa a surgeon at the Orlando Regional Medical Center. His own words bring such a powerful perspective they need to shared. I hope you read them:
You see, as Mr. Rogers’ mother knew in the midst of horror and fear we should look for the helpers, the ordinary heroes. They are always there showing us the way.
I found two similar quotes this week by two pastors. The Moody quote was written during the Civil War (shaping I think the battlefield reference) and I found it in the church newsletter from my husband’s former church. When I looked it up, I found the quote by Barnhouse which seemed to echo Moody’s phrases.
“Joy is love exalted; peace is love in repose; long-suffering is love enduring; gentleness is love in society; goodness is love in action; faith is love on the battlefield; meekness is love in school; and temperance is love in training.” Dwight L. Moody 1837 – 1899 Massachusetts evangelist
“Love is the key. Joy is love singing. Peace is love resting. Patience is love enduring. Kindness is love’s truth. Goodness is love’s character. Faithfulness is love’s habit. Gentleness is love’s self-forgetfulness.” Donald Grey Barnhouse Presbyterian theologian 1895 – 1960
It is quiet at my house this week, peacefully quiet, too quiet. This week, I’ve lots of time for reading and reflection sitting on the back porch with coffee; smelling the first of the gardenia blooms, my mind can weave and spin thoughts into writing, listening to the restful sounds of the mourning doves.
What a contrast to last week! Then, it was the familiar chaos of a house filled with four adults, twin 10 year olds, and three fairly large dogs, tumbling over each other, this time amid rainy days and significant house repairs. As always when they visit, it was the laughter of children, sounds of video games, TV shows, dogs barking…family, this time with the addition of a circular saw and a sander!
I LOVE it when our family comes: Cooking for everyone, the leaves in the dining room table making it a spacious gathering place where we share meals and a prayer, the exuberance of grandkids running, swimming in the backyard pool, or reading a story with me, the joy of time together bringing memories of all the years we’ve shared.
Their visits mean watching my grandson play chess with Doug, listening to the latest installment of a story Ella is writing, sharing iced coffee and quiet discussions of loved ones with our daughter, showering blessings and kisses on the bald head of the man who grew into my heart (though not beneath it) as a genuine son, and life filling up with children’s kisses, cuddles and hugs, and the endless rubbing of puppy dog ears.
Our family days always fly and I spend them bustling about from one task to another. This time was exceptionally busy as Jay was contracted to do repairs to the manse. Of course, given the age of the house (build in the 1890s) and some work done poorly in the past, he discovered some unforeseen issues, and given the days of rain, this required some inventive strategies and several people’s help, especially our daughter pitching in.
Last week, amid all the craziness, was love exalted, the pure joy of being together. Yet, as always, before we knew it the dogs and family were packed, tumbling out of our everyday, and pulling out of the driveway heading home to work and school. I always cry as I wave and wave in farewell.
I think that is why finding the quotes I read struck me so. Joy is love exalted, so clear to me in the fullness of life last week. Peace is love in repose…love at rest, quiet like now, but still there. Yes, love really is the key and it is always present just in different expressions, peace and calm merely the flip-side of celebration, the steady presence underneath everything that supports the joyous energy of the exaltation. But, ever and always, the same love.
Today is our wedding anniversary. Doug and I have always spoken of our love as being like an ocean between us, the connection always there with ebbs and high tides, with storms and gentle waves washing over us. Our wedding was the first big, joyous celebration and the beginning of all this love, this huge ocean that started with a life-nourishing trickle of caring, built with streams of passion and shared beliefs, grew with our children, their spouses and their children, and became boundless…and eternal. Love never-failing.
It’s always an adventure when something sets me to thinking. This past week several separate strands of thought braided themselves together to lead to this post.
The Second thought-producing occurrence last week: There is a blogger I have come to feel a connection to, in addition to liking her blog. She seems a kindred soul, someone who shares similar sensibilities, activities, sense of humor, and even many life experiences with me. Just before I read Jodie’s post with the question about “blog friends,” I had suggested to her that she felt like a friend. I did worry if I was being inappropriate or invading her space. The trouble with a virtual friendship is that there are no facial clues, no spacial nuances, that say, “Hey, want to meet me at the coffee shop, talk for a while, and see if we can be friends?” or conversely, cues that say, “back up, you’re moving too far too fast.”
Ironically, though I have blogged for years, I only recently explored other’s blogs deeply. I used to like posts, but now I comment on them, “talk” back and forth. In life, while I think I’m personable, I do not tend to reveal my deeper self very readily. Yet, while I still have a number of “secrets,” I have shared myself through my writing at levels I don’t always. I’m not sure why. Perhaps, it’s that a blog is a bit like a diary that other people sometimes find and enjoy. I suspect that is part of it, but that there’s more. I think that blogging connects us to communities of like-minded people. Also, it makes me ask, can you really like people’s writing without growing to like them?
That brings me to the third thing that provoked thought last week; I read a New York Times review of Sebastian Junger’s new book which I quoted above. He really made me think about our need for connection, for relationships of meaning. His book, which I know I’ll buy, is largely about the intense bonding characteristic of military platoons and how veterans struggle when they return to civilian life where this kind of bond is largely absent.
The fourth thing that led to this post was a (real live, face to face) conversation with a friend. I brought up the questions to her…can you be friends with people you never see? What is a friend?
So where does this all end up? Two last quotes: “There are some people who make you laugh a little harder, smile a little bigger, and live a little better.” and “True friends don’t live next door, they live in the heart.”
In fact, they are like life. They bring people together. Sometimes, that will be like those people we meet and never see again, other times the result will be fond acquaintances we connect with occasionally, and lastly, the select few will become friends, real friends, who coalesce around shared interests, similar ideas, and comparable values.
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