If this be a kindly mist

If this be a kindly mist

Then I wish to surrender to it

Fall into its unclarity and darkness

As into a soft and giving sleep

But it must be Love:

It must love me like no other

And cause me to love in return

- To love the mist itself

And the shapes that rise in it,

Bodies softened,

Hard lines blurred

If this mist be Love

I wish to view all things in and through it

I wish never again to see clearly, boldly, singly

I wish never again to see the world divided, sorted, sifted

But joined, surrounded, lost in obscurity together

May the mist be thick enough to hide from me my own hands

Left from right, right from left

Good from bad, right from wrong

So that I can move unselfconscious

Unobserved and unnoticed

Should I feel myself tugged at by a hidden hand

Toyed with, pushed and pulled

Twisted round to face...

(What?)

Let me give in to the swirl, fold, whisper

And find myself taken in

Encircled, embraced and

Lost at last

What I learnt from Peggy

Yesterday I went to the funeral of a housebound elderly lady that I visited, who last week lost her battle with cancer after many years of other illness and of being attached to an oxygen line. Before this opening sentence fills your mind with clichés of a quiet, sweet old woman visited compassionately day and night by a saintly, selfless younger woman, let me burst your bubble and tell you that the reality was a lot more dappled and paints neither of us in a totally flattering light. But as reality is all we have and are, then maybe this picture is nonetheless worth painting – honestly, gratefully, and graciously – with an eye on all that I have gained and learned through this relationship. So, if such things can be boiled down (and they have to be somewhat for a blog!), here are four things I learned from Peggy:

1) I am not in the running for sainthood...

...Now this shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone reading this, and it surely is no surprise to me! And yet, when I got the chance to deliver a Christmas meal package and gift to Peggy for the first time a few years ago, I was picturing the sort of pleasant and unchallenging interchange that Amélie and I had with our nonagenarian neighbour in England – a sweet old lady who was easy to converse with and grateful for everything, never demanded more than I offered, and was always appropriate and delighted with Amélie. So when, on our first visit, Peggy responded with less than full enthusiasm about the gift I’d chosen her, I was perplexed and a little offended; she wasn’t rude, but she was ‘too honest’ and didn’t give back to me what I secretly thought she owed in gratitude. When, soon after my second visit, she began to call too regularly and ask for help, and to turn a little nasty if I said no, I was horrified, angered and terrified by turns. How could I extricate myself from this misguided commitment that was evidently heading towards disaster?! But it didn’t, and I didn’t try, and instead both of us gradually, painfully negotiated over time the ups and downs of the relationship: the humanity of conversation, laughter and surplus food exchanges; the occasional nasty name or slam of the phone being hung up on me; the gratifying moments of deepening friendship and needed help offered; the struggle to recognise manipulation, sift my own motives, prioritize, and know when to say yes or no; the little messages and gifts of candy sent to Amélie (or Crunchy, as Peggy called her, after the loud crunching of proffered Ganong mints that made Peggy laugh); and the window onto my own selfishness, smugness and hard-heartedness. Because Peggy was no saint, it was obvious that I wasn’t one either, and in the end this was a gift, and an invitation to be myself – as I am, and working towards being the best me possible.

2) All humans are a mixture of brokenness and tenderness

Much of Peggy’s life had been troubled, and the rejection and betrayal she had experienced clearly showed their heads from time to time; yet she was also affectionate and honest, curious and gruffly grateful, generous and shrewdly funny. She liked to call just to find out what I was up to and tell me how she was doing. She enjoyed teasing and recounting funny incidents. She loved the crooning of Elvis and Daniel O’Donnell, her wrestling shows and daytime soap operas, treats of microwave popcorn or frozen yoghurt, novels and crossword puzzles, people-watching and dog poo patrol out of the window, cuddly animals and any moving or talking toy. Most of all, Peggy loved each friend in her life in a very simple, childlike way, offering so much affection. And when she got mean she would usually call back again, after hours or days, and apologize – you can’t ask more than that. Once, when her call and request came on a busy day that saw me already feeling overstretched and a touch self-important, she responded to my “No” by calling me an ‘uppity b**ch’. I said a polite goodbye and put the phone down on her this time. Then I fumed and bristled and waited for her repentant call, until I felt convicted that my own manner and tone had actually been worthy of such a name this time, and so swallowed my pride and called to say sorry myself. And so my own tenderness showed through my brokenness, and we were simply humans together, each of us such a beautifully mixed bag.

3) God’s presence is a gift available to everyone

One of the things about Peggy that not many had the privilege of seeing was the way in which, when she occasionally asked to be prayed for, her sometimes tough exterior would soften, she would tear up and, afterwards, would place her hand on her heart and shyly say “Feels good, donnit?” It was special to see how sensitive she was to God’s presence, even though faith or religion were not things she gave much thought or time to. In this, too, she taught me: that however much I, or any of us, try to earn or hide from or strive after or quantify or rationalize God’s Presence, it is Pure Gift and available to all of us if we can present ourselves simply like the children we are, not pretending or trying to be anything but those mixed bags of brokenness and tenderness. I was able to say goodbye to Peggy the afternoon before she died; she was asleep and no longer aware of what was going on around her, but another friend and I got to hold her hands and pray for her one last time. The previous day, though, I called her in hospital to see how she was, and she sounded terrible, as if she could hardly breathe; she told me the nurses were with her, and that she was getting ready to go – “You know where, right?!” While some might call this naivety or wishful thinking on her part, I call it the Reality of God’s Love that she had struggled with much of her life and yet longed for, experienced, and somehow come to trust.

4)Love is an action not just an emotion

As someone who had voluntarily become estranged from all family members in the last years of her life, Peggy obviously felt even more keenly her connection with and need for others who cared for her and called on her. And a good few people stepped into those shoes in various ways, including a lady who took Peggy into her home for the last year, giving her a real home, companionship, care, and an amazing view from the sun room where she sat and watched the world, read or snoozed in her new reclining chair. Others, like me, just visited now and then, and helped in small ways like taking out the garbage, washing her hair, changing the time on her watch (Jeremy’s job every spring and fall!) or running other small errands. I swung between feeling, on my overstretched days, that I was being asked too much of, and feeling at other times that I wasn’t offering enough. What difference was I honestly making to her life? Could such simple actions really be called love or service? Peggy would often say “Love ya!” to me at the end of a phone call and I would either dodge replying in kind, or choose to say it back, feeling a little guilty that I didn’t FEEL more affectionate towards her. As time went on, though, I grew to understand that the amount of affection I felt towards her was really beside the point; as one human reaching out to another, and keeping on doing so through thick and thin, I WAS giving love. And Peggy herself received the simple fact of me ‘showing up’ as love - turns out even 'mixed bags' can do that! This is a sentiment that the minister echoed at the funeral: to be able to look back on Peggy’s life and see that she found a group of friends who cared for her and made her happy, who loved her even when it was hard, and who she loved, is really all that matters in the end. As I ended my last call with Peggy, I volunteered the “Love you!” for the first time myself, so that Peggy’s gravelly “Love ya!” in reply turned out to be the last words I heard her say.

Rachael's Breastplate! (I arise today...)

I arise today through quietness of morning, peace of forest, riches of sunrise.

I arise today through softness of mist, gentleness of dew, beauty of silver birches.

I arise today through stability of earth, sustenance of air, fluidity of water.

I arise today through presence of strangers, welcome of friends, absence of others.

I arise today through a mighty strength.

I arise today.

(Yes, credit due, of course, to St Patrick's Breastplate or The Deer's Cry, and to my early morning walk that inspired my last post. May you also be aware of the mighty strength by which you arise today, in whom you live and move and have your being.)

Surprise and Predictability

I was already reflecting on the nature of ‘surprise’ yesterday as I drove around running errands. Crossing the international border bridge and glancing over at Dover Hill Park on the banks of the St Croix, I remembered my husband’s tale this week of sharing lunch with a friend on the pizza restaurant deck overlooking the river, and being unexpectedly and hauntingly serenaded by a bagpipe player practising in the park across the river. That is the kind of un-engineered moment that comes to you as a gift and that you wouldn’t even think of planning! Perhaps most of the surprises in our lives are a little less unusual than this, and perhaps that’s why we often don’t even notice them. The stuff of our lives is created by the interlacing of predictable events, settings and people with those unanticipated strands brought into our days either by others or simply by Life itself. But we are so used to being cradled by the fabric made from predictability’s warp and serendipity’s weft that I think we often see it as all of a piece, and don’t fully notice the surprises or respond with the kind of wonder and gratitude that they deserve. It takes a kind of openness of heart, eyes and mind to ‘see’ and receive these gifts, and that openness sometimes gets lost in life’s stresses and strains.

So as I crossed the bridge yesterday I set myself to remembering recent surprises, some small but mysterious – like the glimpse of a fox sloping through the shadows as a friend and I stood and talked on the pier late one night – and others larger and more tragic: though I had visited the hospital to say goodbye the previous day, calling an elderly friend’s room yesterday morning to be greeted by a strange voice who didn’t know who she was told me that her life had finally slipped away during the night. Somehow, recalling these surprises big and small, is one of the actions that can help lift the veil of blindness from before our eyes and open our hearts to the wonder that always surrounds us. Once across the bridge, I went to pick up my parcel of books and ripped it apart to get at my Granny’s autobiography, which I had finally ordered (Through Mine Own Eyes: The Autobiography of a Natural Mystic, by Katharine Trevelyan, 1962), only to find that two of the reviews on the back cover were by C.S. Lewis and the Rev. J. B. Philips – now that was a surprise! A big enough surprise to push my reflections to the very forefront of my mind...

This morning early, then, as I crept out of the house to go the gym, found the car was blocked in (surprise!) and set out for a walk instead, I felt wide open to serendipity, a concept which my friend reflected on so beautifully here. I noticed that this sort of wide-openness makes me aware of even the smallest, unexpected things, turning them into cherished and heart-expanding gifts. The mist rising like smoke from the river and caught like a pink haze between the two strips of forest at Dover Hill. The sudden sweep of golden light as I stepped out of the woods onto the grass, the morning sun positioned for that one moment in time directly downriver so that the park’s pergola cast long shadows through the trees and up the hill. The screech of a bald eagle in the forest canopy above me (or it could have been a seagull, I suppose, but the sound did come from the tree I know the eagles live in!). Suddenly catching sight across the river of the sunroom where my old friend used to sit and watch the world, and realising she would never be there again. A glimpse into community camaraderie as the Friday farmers’ market set up their tables and awnings (and wood-fired pizza ovens!) beside the river in the chill morning air. Rounding the bend to see friends with which to exchange a friendly greeting jogging towards me. Passing the slim silver birches that I love and suddenly loving them so much that I wanted to be a tree-hugger and so slung my arms around them gratefully while looking down the translucent estuary. Walking home and seeing with new eyes the orange rosehips that I know will be deep red by the time we pick them for our Advent wreath, and the goldenrod blazing for a moment like torches (how can we dismiss them as a weed?!).

With a full heart, I took my breakfast out to the hammock at the bottom of the garden and was joined by the cat. We swung together for a while, silently watching the trees, the lawn, the house with its new trim and shutter colours slowly emerging and all the decorating paraphernalia spread about it... and then both of our sets of ears pricked up as a black cat slid out of the woods, sniffed the cans of paint, and proceeded to nimbly climb up the tall ladder against the house and explore the roof! I laughed out loud. And again when the cat hesitated to climb back down, started off uncertainly, but then fell over itself doing so when surprised by a painter! Off my own dear cat padded to confront this intruder, and off I went back up the garden to begin my day of warp and weft, mystery and predictability.

Prayer of a Wannabe Gardener

Creator God, Giver of Life,
I beseech you to help me not to kill all my plants.
Please give me eyes to see them on their dusty windowsills,
And help me to remember to water them regularly and consistently.
When I am rushing past and notice their wilting leaves,
Grant me the wisdom to stop and give a minute to their care.
I confess to you my false belief that they will somehow make it on their own,
And the shameful thought that I can just go and buy another one anyway.
Please renew my mind and, if possible, my hands - I'd like green fingers instead of a black thumb please.
Amen.


(Yes, it's that time of year again, and the same hopes and fear arise that inspired my 'Confessions of a Plantkiller' string of posts last year!)

Preparing a table

How many different tables did you sit around today? Who did you share a meal with? What did that mealtime mean to you, and to those with you?

Shared time around a table is one of the simple and often taken-for-granted blessings of life, bringing us not just nourishment and enjoyment of taste and texture, but also connection, communication, and celebration. For me today, each ‘table’ – both actual and metaphorical– that has been prepared for me, or that I have prepared, has revealed a unique aspect of what the gift of a mealtime can be...

A table of togetherness and communication: The breakfast table with Amélie was a time for me to love her by laying on delicious, nourishing food for her to enjoy – a whole-wheat maple cinnamon waffle with sea-salted butter, organic apple slices, fruit juice, and fair trade hot chocolate made with local raw milk. And while she ate and I pottered, we talked about both of our dreams that night, and she shared her excitement about the day, and her thoughts on life and chance and death and heaven. As we got ready to walk to church in the sun, she said what a nice time of talking it had been, and I agreed – we had communicated and reconnected.

A table of friendship and familiarity: The early morning ‘Celtic liturgy’ service that we participate in begins with freshly brewed fair trade coffee and something home-baked – usually by gifted and open-handed Carol, today some yummy cinnamon raisin scones – laid out on the café counter for anyone to grab before they sit down at one of the tables. It is a casual, relaxed meeting with friends over a bite to eat, before we enjoy the familiarity of a home-grown liturgy that is meaningful to us as individuals and as a community, with time to read aloud the lectionary readings for the day and share our thoughts, and later our prayers. In words from the liturgy, the blessing of this time is in both its ‘mystery and predictability’.

A table of forgiveness and mercy: And then, each week as part of this gathering, we are invited by the liturgy to: “Come to this table, you who have much faith, and you who would like to have more; you who have been here often, and you who have not been for a long time; you who have tried to follow Jesus, and you who have failed. Come; it is Christ who invited us to meet him here.” We then pass the bread and wine to each other, and I was struck this morning by the fact that I was passed the elements by someone who I know has needed to extend forgiveness to me recently, and that I in turn passed it on to Jeremy, whose love for me must constantly be expressed in forgiveness and mercy, and to whom I too extend these gifts of love. A little later, we read part of St. Patrick’s prayer, the Deer’s Cry or Breastplate, and I was moved again by the affirmation that Christ is on my left and my right – embodied in these two with whom I exchange forgiveness – and by the prayer that Christ “be in the heart of each to whom I speak, in the mouth of each who speaks unto me.” Though I often wish the prayer affirmed Christ’s presence in MY heart and mouth, I see the profound truth hidden in the fact that Christ is always found in the ‘other’, if I have eyes to see.

A table of blessing and family: The children were leading the later, ‘family’ service today, and Amélie and I had been asked to give out the bread and wine along with other parent-child teams (two communion tables in one morning!). I felt richly blessed and privileged to be alongside my daughter as she solemnly offered the plate of bread to each person with the carefully memorized words “The body of Christ broken for you”, and as I then offered the ‘wine’. Many who came to the table we ‘prepared’ were families, children, and I was thankful for the mysterious and inexplicable yet also very concrete and simple nature of this sacrament – it is a table at which we are all welcome.

A table of celebration and laughter: It felt like the first day of spring today – finally, a warm weekend! – and we decided to enjoy an impromptu picnic with friends in the sun in St Andrews, a local seaside town where we could lay out all our offerings of French bread and chicken, hummus and olives, grapes and chips (aka crisps!) on a picnic blanket overlooking the glistening ocean, share stories and jokes, laugh, and celebrate together the blessings of friendship, humanity, good food and sunshine.

A table of generosity and beauty: The next table that was prepared for me was something of a surprise – a little side table (that Amélie laboured over setting up for me in the garden as I snoozed in the hot car!) bedecked with pretty cloth and flower vase, in order to beautify my first hammock experience of the year. It was a heartfelt, thoughtful act of generosity, much like the card and flowers she spent ALL her money on for me yesterday, and so as I swung in the hammock I was basking in this spontaneous and undeserved love, as much as in the sun. With her, more than with anyone else in this world, I am constantly aware of my shortcomings and failures, and so her tenderness and generosity towards me undoes me. It is mercy and grace poured into my cup and overflowing. I have shared so many table-times with my family – some happy, and some miserable, angry or stressful – but still we gather to meet and eat together every day, demonstrating our ongoing love and mercy towards each other as we are. I remember an idea from Dallas Willard in The Divine Conspiracy, that the Bible’s talk of compassion or mercy (both from God to us and from us to each other, especially those closest to us) would best be translated by the word pity, the point being that it is something we don’t like to admit our need of, a word we might even be insulted by, but is in fact something we DESPERATELY need. We are all so wounded (and wounding) that only pity makes life and love possible for us. So, today, I feel pitied, and I drink it in like a cup of cold water in a desertland.

A table of sharing and connection: My last table of the day was a weekly potluck meal with friends, made possible by the sacrificial and joyful hospitality of Grace and Mat. The food is always wonderful and varied, the atmosphere is comfortable and happy, good conversations take place, connections are renewed or created, and there is usually at least one song – and sometimes lots! – playing on the radio Classic Countdown (from 1975 today!) that prompts over half the room to stand up in the kitchen and boogie! The sharing of the food at such a gathering – each offering unique and often complementary to the other parts – mirrors the best of what a mealtime can be, as each person shares the truth and gift of who they are, and receives in turn the gift of the other.

“Christ beside me, on my left and my right.”

So, dear friends and readers and fellow journeyers on the path of ‘Learning to Savour’ all that life offers, I would love to hear (if you are in fact there, and have read this far!) about a recent meal of yours and what it meant to you – either in the simple enjoyment of some great food, or in the gift of those you shared it with. This will have to take the place, for now, of sharing a REAL meal together! Please share...