Canada Saga 2010 - August 28

"What is this life if, full of care,

 We have no time to stand and stare?...
 No time to see, in broad daylight,
 Streams full of stars, like skies at night." (William Henry Davies)

"The heart at rest sees a feast in everything." (Hindi proverb)


The morning's clouds unfold like a multi-colored quilt above the water and mountains, totally hiding the rising sun. A rainbow pool lies on the quilt, bleeding its colors sideways. Who knew grey could be so beautiful? I move a mere three feet over on the sand, and see a distant snow-covered peak on the mainland through a gap between Lasqueti and Texada Islands. As often as I come here to walk and sit, I've never seen it before. It seems to have appeared just for the morning, and I'm reminded how a simple shift of position, of heart, of thought, of reaction - or lack thereof - can create whole new worlds.

As I sit in stillness on the side of the shore, Nature is anything but. Seagulls scream, and drop clams onto the rocks for breakfast; waves crash, dragging ripples that pop-rock their way back to the ocean; crows caw warnings and morning talks to each other. But I find that with Nature making all the noise, I don't have to. So I sit and stare at a log planted on the beach by the outgoing tide, then realize, as it wobbles from side to side, the tide is coming IN, not going out. Five minutes later, it is awash and rocking again, and I realize I can't tell whether the tide is coming or going. My life feels like that sometimes.

In this strange ebb and flow of thought, I remember a CBC radio program I listened to recently, a presentation by scientists and physicists on the modern world. They were telling us that 96% of the world we live in is a dark hole of mystery. We live in the perceived reality of the remaining 4%. The peak I'm seeing for the first time has always been there - a mere shift in position and a clearing of hazy skies reveals the previously invisible. How often is our soul-vision so obscured with the haze of presumptions and assumptions and prejudices that we cannot see the magnificence of our daily peak experiences, and the Light in the souls around us? "In my soul," Rabia wrote, "there is a temple, a shrine, a mosque, a church - where I kneel." She echoes the word's of Scripture: "The Kingdom is within."

After my morning shore-side meditation of last week I returned home to discover that my garbage can cover was missing, a casualty, I assumed of a careless worker. Before I phoned the waste recovery company the next day, I noticed my sweet neighbor standing and staring at the worker's taking down a large tree on some property close by. "Look at them!" she exclaimed. "Look how high they are!" She was all smiles and wonder. So I stood with her for awhile, both of us watching, she making small sounds of surprise occasionally. And as we stood there, a light went on for me. I turned to her and asked, "Mickey, did you happen to pick up a garbage can cover yesterday?" "Oh NO!" she said, eyes wide. But I knew it was a silly question to ask of someone with Alzheimer's. Later, her niece returned the cover to me from Mickey's garage. And we both laughed. We laughed when Mickey, ever resourceful, decided to dry her laundry by draping it over the bushes and shrubs outside, rather than struggle with "that new dryer that's not easy like the old ones." But there are rules and regulations when you live in community, as her niece pointed out to her, and someone complained, seeing only skivvies and wet laundry where someone else might see humor and the endless creativity of the mind, even a mind lost in the confusion of Alzheimer's.

Some of my neighbors 'see' Mickey from their own life perspectives, none-too-kindly. If they would move 3 soul feet over, they might see her joy, hear her infectious laughter, feel her dearness. They might view the mountain peak of her life, visible beneath the blanket cloud of Alzheimer's, and wonder at the continuing spirit in her ability to be amazed at and in small moments of her day.

We have new technology introducing us to knowledge that would've been science fiction a generation ago. But knowledge is not wisdom, as the saying goes. Knowledge offers us information; wisdom clears our vision, and offers us the perspective of the heart. When we stand and stare, we give birth to extra-ordinary flashes of the soul that light our world with visions, and invite us to see and hear the Source within.

Michael knows how to sit and stare. "I'm ready," I'll say. And it is a testimony of faith in humanity that, even after 40+ years of this pattern in our relationship, he will get the keys and head for the door. Then I realize that the lights are on, the back door isn't locked, the food's been left on the counter, I really should probably use the bathroom one more time, and maybe I do need to bring a jacket after all, and where's the water bottle that I had put aside for the trip? None of this is pre-meditated. Some floodgate opens in my mind after I say those words, "I'm ready," and out pour all the little details of things left undone, that have to be tended before we can really leave. He sits and waits patiently, and quietly stares at a blank tv screen, or he puts the keys in the door lock and sits in the car, and waits. He is better at waiting than I am, perhaps because of all the opportunities he's been given to practice.

But we stand and wait for each other, really, in different ways and at differing levels. Not just Michael and I, not just in our relationship, but as people who genuinely understand that our paths are connected, that one country or culture or people in the world cannot suffer without everyone suffering. We stand and wait for each other, gathering unseen graces to carry us through those moments when the brightness that lives on in the world might otherwise be hidden by clouds of unfamiliarity, misunderstandings or assumptions that do not honor the kingdom within each.

On Tuesday, Michael arrives back, and we resume our final weeks on the island. Time has flown by more quickly this summer, although it seems as if we say that each year. There is a palpable difference in the coolness of the air, and the increasingly earlier darkness of evening. My thoughts turn towards returning home to Louisiana to be with family and friends, towards the fall and the dark quiet rest of long winter nights. "Darkness deserves gratitude." Joan Chittister wrote. "It is the alleluia point at which we learn to understand that all growth does not take place in the sunlight." Even in the darkness, we sit and stare, we come to rest in the heart, open now, and feasting on all things.
YAY GOD

Canada Saga 2010 August 11

"I wish I could show you, When you are lonely or in darkness, The Astonishing Light Of your own Being!" Hafiz

 

For the first time in weeks, Michael and I took a long walk along the seashore yesterday. The tides have been high at the wrong times; our 'busy' schedules have been filled with daily doings; the smoke-filled skies from forest fires on the mainland had us indoors for a couple of days.  Whatever the reason or excuse, after blessed rains over the weekend and with a very low noon-day tide, we finally walked the beach bank with its largesse of sand dollars, searching for a white one for Grace(d) Alivia to give our ambling purpose.

 

As we walked, we realized it was slack tide - that brief moment when the tide is neither ebbing nor flowing, yet shifting.  Waters released from captivity high up on the sand rushed out to meet water rushing in from the ocean, and our feet were being washed by both.  Suddenly Kabir Helminski's beautiful quote about the spiritual journey washed over me, too:  "we are knee-deep in a river, searching for water."

 

We began our walk in cloudy weather, with occasional raindrops and a chill wind. The coastal islands and the panorama of the mountain mainlands were veiled, as they were last week when the sun lingered behind a hazy smoke-filled Eastern sky, delaying what would eventually be a spectacular blood-red sunrise.

 

On that beautiful morning, I knew the mountains were behind the smoke, and the sun was rising behind the clouds, and although they were hidden in the moment,  I knew they were there;  I did not believe they were there.  I have experienced the sight of their massive presence and golden light at daybreak.  On this morning, as on most mornings, I faced the invisible curving panorama of the coastal profile and, through the smokey haze, gave thanks for the gift of the unseen sun on this 'sunless' morning.

 

This, ultimately, is the Light of our spiritual faith.  We do walk by (and in) faith, not by sight.  This is the Light of faith of the terminal patient in prayer. 

This is the Light of faith of the grieving before their God. 

This is the Light of the faith of our friends, who held their 16 year old daughter's hand through her 10% chance of living 30 years ago, and now hold their grandchildren, born after her miraculous survival, and after she was told she could never have them. 

This is the Light of the faith of other friends who lost their 16 year old daughter to cancer around the same time, as they continue to worship and sing songs of praise in their Church choir.

This is the Light of the faith of the 16 year old girl who, "By The Grace of a Goodbye," gives her infant son up for adoption, finds him joyfully 40 years later, and writes the song that touches her audience with emotion and tears.

This is the Light of the faith of a friend who was in a near fatal car crash that killed his best friend, and went on years later to create Saints for Sinners medals, which have brought joy and solace and consolation to so many.

 

This is the Light of the faith of knowing only that we will never 'know,' because knowing is limited by the intellect, and faith lives beyond reason.  "No matter how individually brilliant this brain may be," the Episcopal priest, Cynthia Bourgeault writes, "it cannot exceed the limits of its operating system."  So we have been given other guideposts along the ways of faith, like tides and mountains and sunrises behind dark morning clouds, and the beauty of laughter - in joy and despite tragedy - and in our compassion and love for each other.  "Faith," Tagore writes, "is a bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark."

 

I always thought that when the heart breaks, it lets the Light of faith in.  But walking along the ocean, with its symphony soundtrack of breaking waves and shorebird song,  I wondered if maybe when the heart breaks, it lets the Light out, that original goodness that we are born with, the "Astonishing Light of our own being."  This Divine image somehow gets shrouded in smoky layers of defense and guardedness over the years.  Through the quaking of our intense grief, or immense joy, the heart is shaken open and radiance pours out from the Source.  Those in the depths of emotional turmoil or spiritual bliss are rarely aware of the chorus of grace they bring to the suffering world around them.

 

As we walked back to the car with our treasure of sand dollars, tall sea grasses bobbed and swayed,  adding a maestro's baton touch to this aria of reflection. I was reminded once again that we are, as Jacob Boehme said, "a string in the concert of God's joy." 

 

This morning we have cooler temps and bright blue skies, with the promise of  wonderful blueberries from our organic farming friend.  Michael's biking injuries are healing, and he has stopped accusing me of trying to cash in on his insurance policy. (He was tailgating - gasp of shock here - and when I encountered a sharp turn and braked suddenly, his bike skidded and he went down in the gravel, with brush burns as his war wounds.  This is, of course, my version.  In his version,  he stars as the hero who crashed rather than running into me, a charming story on its own.  Once again, our two stories converge into one truth: there was a crash, he was hurt, he thought of my well-being, and is now healing.)  He will be returning to Louisiana on Monday for two weeks of business, then back up here until we come home in October.  And although the moments seem to move slowly here with unhurried days,  the summer itself continues to speed by.  "When we go slower," Easwaran writes, "we are more patient - and when we are more patient, we have a choice in how we respond."

 

For the moment, we're responding by planning a whale-watching trip to the cooler realms up Island this weekend, when the temperatures and haze again threaten to encroach on Paradise. The eagle nest here is empty and the skies are quiet from the incessant pleadings of the eaglets for food during their last days before heading North with their parents.  The sun is rising a bit later and setting earlier now, as the wildflowers, though still in full-bloom, are beginning to tone down their riotous displays.  The cycle of the seasons prepares the earth for the harvest fruits of autumn, and the fallow of winter.  All is patient.  All is faith.  All is well.

YAY GOD