Watch Out for the Gremlins!

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 2 Comments

clash
Here is a little bit of a thought experiment I am doing on myself: My mother gave me this visually delicious bouquet of lisianthus yesterday.  I put it on the table with my bowl of prayer stones.  I’ve made my peace with orange/pink combinations and learned to really savor the complexity.  Instead of this image being jarring, I find it full of energy and life. Still, I hesitated to post it because I have a feeling that it’s sort of socially unacceptable.  Funny, isn’t it?  Even posting a photo of a pink flower on an orange backdrop makes some little gremlin in the back of my head start to chatter about being judged.  Those are the sorts of gremlins I am trying to weed out–they pop up in the strangest of situations.

Gremlins like this can be pretty insidious, and we don’t always know we are responding to them. This was a fairly innocuous one–easy to identify and easy to quash, but it’s not always that way. Powerful little critters, they weasel into the subconscious workings of the brain, and jump out to convince us that we look really ridiculous or that everyone is going to think that comment just now was completely stupid.  They get really insidious because they start working the other way, too.  They make us care so much about what other people are thinking of us, that we start to judge other people on their crazy criteria.

Part of learning to be whole, learning to be awake, part of walking toward wisdom, is to name the gremlins along with the blessings.  This one that I am looking at is a petty little fiend, and I am a little embarrassed to show him to you, but there he is.  (Next one’ll be a she, I promise. I think she might even be hiding within these parentheses.)  Now to pull out my magic wand and banish socialus awkwardus. . .at least for the time being.

Isn’t that pink flower on an orange background just sort of invigorating?

Gratitude List:
1. Lisianthus
2. The ongoing discussion yesterday, about despair/hope, about holding the furious opposites together, about paradox.
3. My parents, and their continuing dedication to engaging the hard questions, to inviting new conversation.
4. The poets.  All of them, always.  Today: Rilke and Rumi and Oriah Mountain Dreamer.
5. A fresh week.  A clean page.  A shining moment of sunshine.  I can make anything of it that I choose.

May we walk in Beauty!

Interlocking Prayers

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Ent
I want the strength and comfort of this tree these days.  She is one of the ent-folk, I am sure of that, with a gnarled and twisted trunk and veils of leaves.

Oh, Turkey! Friends, we have such a big bowl of hurt to hold these days.
It helps if we all hold it together, I think.
Interlock our prayers like fingers, like bright threads.
This one for Turkey,
this for Nice,
that for your friend who is caught in a cycle of despair,
this for my friend who is waiting for her new heart,
for our cousins and companions who are anxious and worried
as they tend to their loved ones who are ill,
for those who lead us in the fight against racism every day,
for Baghdad, for Bangladesh, for Istanbul again.
For those baby birds who are fledging.
I will add some bright stones that I found in the bean patch today,
some feathers that found me on my walk,
the bright yellow faces of toadflax.
Will you add your rainbow, your twinkling eyes, your hopeful smile?

Gratitude List:
1. (What has awakened you?) Keeping my heart focused on the Noticing, in inner and outer worlds.  Also, laughter.
2. (How have you encountered Mystery?) In the calling of the young red-tail–the cycle of life always continues.
3. (What has given you cause for wonder?) Watching children create ideas in their heads and then make them with their hands.
4. (What has nudged you forward?) The constancy of work to be done, in many different places.  Learning to juggle the work.
5. (What do you offer the day?) More holding, more noticing, more listening.  Laughter.  I will find laughter in the day.  Also, twinkling eyes–I will seek out twinkles.

May we walk in Beauty!

Walking and Striving

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lisianthus
Lisianthus–I think I have posted it before, but I love this flower in my parents’ garden.

Gratitude List:
1. Goldfinches (yes, they were on here recently)–Usually when I imagine that I can fly, I am a hawk or an eagle, sailing high with a long view. Or a crow, battling winds with a fierce wildness.  But were I a goldfinch, I would dance down sunbeams on my imaginary roller coaster–up and up, then coast, up again, and coast–golden in the sun’s golden.  And sing for joy.
2. My nieces and nephews.  They just keep being wonderful people.  Two of them visited yesterday, and we had a great conversation, hearing about their recent travels.  I love these people.
3. Morning walk.  It does make it harder to get up.  I do not like to exert myself in the mornings.  I like to wake up slowly.  But this old dog needs to try some new tricks, and I like the walking, and the being done walking.
4. Organizing.  Yesterday I went through the boxes and bags of files that I brought home to use or recycle as I get ready for fall classes.  One step closer. . .  I am beginning to get excited about the next season of school.  (But I am still planning to thoroughly enjoy the next few weeks of waking up after 6 and not having a scheduled day.)
5. Striving.  I think I am sort of good enough at many of the things that I do, and enthusiasm perhaps goes a long way toward making thing work out okay–but I have a lot of tweaks and improvements to make in many areas of my life.  I am glad that I don’t have to be perfect, that I get to keep trying, to keep trying to fix things up and do better.  As the journey itself is the destination, the striving–not the perfecting–is the work.

May we walk in Beauty!

Hello, Toadflax!

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psychedelicrainbow
The other night when I was desperately trying to take a photo of the rainbow that would come even close to portraying the bright colors, I went through every funky filter on my phone.  This one came out really odd, but I like the psychedelic feel of it.  It’s kind of like a poem–it might not capture the physical reality of the moment, but the strangeness of the impression actually creates more the magical mood of the moment than the blander regular photos.

I have begun walking in the mornings.  I almost hesitate to say it, because it’s only been three days, hardly long enough to call it a habit.

Gratitude List:
1. Birdsong.  Swallows chittering.  Crow barking out directions. Sweet chirrup of goldfinch. A flock of swallows circled above the soybean field up near Mt. Pisgah Road, and one in particular sang a cheep-cheep, cheep-cheep, cheep-cheep.  Then it would swoop low, look me in the face, and say CHEEP-cheep right by my ear.  I find it amazing that something so tiny would take on a creature so much larger than itself.
2. Sun on flower faces.  There’s a yellow snapdragony-looking beauty that I have been calling butter-and-eggs.  Apparently that is actually one of its common names.  I must have pulled it out of deep memory.  Its Latin name is linaria vulgaris, and it is also known as Common Toadflax.  I love that so much, that we have a local plant called Toadflax.  Pleased to meet you, new friend.  Also, Queen Anne’s Lace veils the road edges, and the blue eye of chicory is everywhere.  Little patches of St. John’s Wort peek out from the poison oak.  The yellow bladders of jewelweed flowers are beginning to appear.
3. Cool breezes on the skin at the beginning of another hot day.  Warm sun on my face.
4. The scent of milkweed.  Milkweed a-buzz with pollinators, sending its aroma down the little breezes into the hollow.
5. Cold water infused with lemon, mint and basil.

May we walk in Beauty!

May You Have Rainbows

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Rainbow

It was one of the brightest rainbows I think I have ever seen, but a cell phone photo just can’t do it justice.  There was a second rainbow in the space of this photo, and the deeper band of gray between them.

Gratitude List:
1. Yesterday’s shining double rainbow
2. The way mist gathers in the pockets of trees in the hillsides
3. St. John’s Wort.  I found some wild patches of it along my street, and on this morning’s walk, I dug some up to bring home for my garden.
4. Lemon, Mint, and Basil infused water
5. The Weaving that we all are doing, not always aware as we place our threads how we are intertwining our stories and prayers together.

May we walk in Beauty!  Much love.  And rainbows.

My Candidate

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josiah for president
Finally, a candidate I can really support!

Gratitude List:
1. Co-thinking discussions.  I love conversations in which the unstated premise is that you are taking the information or idea offered by the other/s and building upon it or re-interpreting it in your words, then leaving your piece out there for someone else to mold and shape and build upon.  I always feel like I come away from such conversation with a deeper understanding of the world than I went in.
2. Just doing the tourist thing.  We spent yesterday morning with friends being tourists in Lancaster County.  Despite the “touristiness,” it was fun to watch people and to consider what about this place makes people want to come here.  I love Lancaster County.
3. Those phoebe babies getting ready to fledge from the forebay rafters.  Nobody can look madder than a baby bird.
4. Moving into the next stage of summer.  There was the finishing up and recovery time, and then the relax a bit and play time.  Now comes the get down to business time.  It’s true that the second year of teaching in a new place is easier than the first.  It is also true that the difference can be sort of minimal.  But now, preparing for my third year, I feel much more energized for the preparations.  I can see the planning all mapped out in my head much more clearly, as opposed to simply hopefully.
5. We are not alone.  The world gets so heavy sometimes, but it’s at the heavy times that you can look around you and see all the people who are stepping out to the front to get the Work done. Sure, there’s a lot of fluffy and ranty clamor that distracts, but keep your eyes and ears open.  They’re there, stepping into the fray, holding people, presenting clear and thoughtful ideas, loving their neighbors and the world.  Often, they’re keeping their mouths shut, though sometimes they are the ones writing cogent and articulate pieces that help to shape the conversation.  Listen and watch.  The Workers are out there.

May we walk in Beauty!

Dear Friends

/ Beth Weaver-Kreider / 2 Comments

I love this tree

Dear friends, dear friends,
Can I tell you how I feel?
You have given me such blessing.
I love you so.
(Sing to the old tune of “Soul Cake”)

Try this:
Sit in a circle at dusk with people you love.
Let it be when the swifts are flying.
Let there be a catbird with a whiskery voice in a spruce tree.
Speak your stories into the bowl of the space between you:
stories like a rich meal, the bitter, the savory, the sweet.
Let it get dark.  The darkness will listen, too.
You can hear people listening when you speak in the dark.
You may light a candle if you have a candle.
Laugh together.  Cry.
Let there be occasional questions,
occasional grunts, occasional exclamations of oh-I-hear-that!
Make a meal of the stories before you,
and eat your fill. Be nourished.
Be together in your stories.
Know that all these stories are your story, too.
Let there be a benediction,
words sung or spoken into the full dark,
accompanied by the chittering of bats,
good words to keep you always
in this circle where you belong.

Gratitude List:
1. Circles
2. Swifts and bats
3. Children obsessed with the game that they have created between them.
4. Stories.  All of them.  Holding them together. The inspiration of stories.
5. Circles.  Did I say circles?

Much love.  May we walk in Beauty.  May we walk in Love.
May we live in the center of our stories

Almost Paradise

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almost paradise

What a gift it is to have lifetime friends, people you can sit with and say, “Remember when you said. . .?  Remember what she did. . .?  Remember how he used to always. . .?”

People you can look in the eye and see not only a reflection of who you are in this moment, but also a reflection of who you have been–a year ago, five, ten, twenty.

People who know too much about you, who remember you before you settled adulthood’s masks into place, and they still love you, love you more for who you’ve been and who you’ve become.

People you can look at and see the butterfly of the now, but in whom can you identify the caterpillar of the past–and you love the butterfly, and the caterpillar, too.

People who know just which questions to ask.

People who help you live in this moment–with their laughter, their thoughtful eyes, their conversation.  People who draw you into the realm of memory.  People who help you envision the future.  People who help you to live in all those layers at once.

Gratitude List:
1. Living in those layers of time (past, present, future) with people I love and trust
2. People who know my warts and rough edges and love me anyway
3. The way the next generation at reunions also gathers with ease and comfort, enjoying each other
4. Peaches and ice cream
5. Crisp, cool mornings

May we walk in Beauty!

Livin’ in an Amish Paradise

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Amishparadise
Spending the weekend with college friends at the Amish Paradise Vacation Home in Leacock, PA.  I feel like a tourist in my own territory.  It’s like we’re all one family gathered at Grandma’s house for the weekend, only there’s no common Grandma.

Gratitude List:
1. (What do you hear?) A rooster singing morning matins. Chickadee.  Cars out on 30.  Whoosh of an early morning biker.
2. (What is satisfying?) Sitting around the dining room table like we used to do, how the conversation just gets going, the serious ideas, the laughter, the kids.
3. (What do you see?) Coppery leaves of maple, shining green eyes of my early morning companion.
4. (Where does hope reside?) In re-framing the conversations.  In holding willfully and fiercely to hopes and ideals and dreams of what-may-be.
5. (What are the words for the day?) Memory, laughter, love, children, conversation, listening, friendship, family.

May we walk in Beauty!

Black Lives Matter

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blm1 blm2

It was heartening to see so many people gathered for the vigil in Lancaster yesterday.  I couldn’t hear the speakers very well–my ears have trouble sorting sound–but I caught bits and pieces, and I could see that people were deeply moved by the speeches.  Afterward, a young black woman stood up on one of the benches and gave an incredibly powerful performance of poem.  I was glad to see colleagues and students there, as well as many folks from Mennonite churches and the local peace and justice organizations.

Black Lives Matter
Don’t let that threaten you.
That doesn’t mean that yours doesn’t, too.
It’s a way of saying that black people should get an equal portion of protection and peace at this great big banquet table.

It means that a traffic stop should be a traffic stop.  Routine.  “Oh yeah, Officer, I forgot to put my inspection sticker on there.  I’ll do it as soon as I get home.”  And a “There you go, Son–just a warning this time, but you go home and fix it up right now, or next time I’ll have to give you a fine.”

Not a broken-tail-light, I’m afraid you’re going to shoot me, so the demon of terror-of-young-black-men pulls my trigger and kills you in front of your lover and a child.

When that has become the routine, it’s time for some big words on a page, easy to read, easy to speak, easy to call out at a rally:  Black Lives Matter.

Of course yours matters, too.  That’s a given. We know that all lives do.
Let’s just focus on keeping the black lives alive for a while, okay?
Then when it looks like all lives truly DO matter here,
then we’ll go back to saying that all of them do.
When it’s true.

Gratitude List:
1. Communities rallying to say to stand up for Black Lives.  Please don’t let the momentum stop here, don’t let Philando Castile and Alton Sterling become quiet footnotes.  Say their names.  Believe so deeply that all lives matter that you can walk with those whose lives are threatened and anxious because of the color of their skin.  Black Lives Matter.
2. Good conversation with a dear friend.
3.  Looking forward to several days with my college friends.  They ground me and help me to re-situate myself in the long timeline.
4. The way the light shone over the ridge as I was driving home last evening.  The sparkle on the fields.  A different sort of evening sparkle than we get in the hollow.
5. Exploring semantic implications.  Words.  Meanings.

May we walk in Beauty!