Gratitude List:
1. Conversation with new friends from The Netherlands.
2. The singing this morning, and the story of Menno Simons in the stagecoach.
3. Belongingness. So often I position myself on the fringe–the happy fringe, to be sure. Still, sometimes I step right into the middle of the muddle and proclaim myself a part of it all. And that feels appropriate and oddly satisfying.
4. That little air conditioner.
5. Stroopwaffeln.
May we walk in Beauty!
I have been second-guessing myself a little. I decided to read Redwall to the boys, without remembering how violent it can get. It’s pretty intense stuff for bedtime reading. I love the peaceful realm of Redwall and Mossflower, but the warring bits are intense, and there’s that whole holy defense bit that makes me nervous in its approximation of a just war philosophy. On the other hand, for small children who are trying to learn to face their fears and anxieties, a tiny mouse facing up to a bully of a rat might be a good metaphor. This afternoon, One Small Boy said, “Hey Mom. If a Badguy came into our house, this is what I would do to it.” And he ran forward with a series of karate-like moves. He might bowl a Badguy over with pure cuteness, I’m thinking. Still, I found it interesting that Badguy is “it,” like a monster or a phantom, or a floating anxiety. I think we’ll keep reading the book, remembering to reflect on the way Matthias cares for his friends, on the Abbot’s refusal to mistreat even his enemies, on the way the mice work together.
Gratitude List:
1. Cool breeze
2. Constructing meaning
3. Reading with the boys
4. Getting to be the scholar
5. Zinnias
May we walk in Beauty!
Gratitude List:
1. A thoughtful, fun, and hard-working farm crew.
2. Ice cream at the Shoe House. We’ve lived within about five miles of it for 12 years, and today was the first time we stopped for ice cream.
3. Color
4. Carrots
5. Embracing change.
May we walk in Beauty!
This evening, we decided that the Math Gnomes are actually Element Gnomes, representing Earth, Air, Water and Fire, as well as the four operations. The Equals Gnome has always been the Queen of the Gnomes, so that remains her character. I was playing with a sixth gnome in a sort of shaggy green robe, and I decided to call her the Swamp Gnome, and in our Gnome Convocation this evening, the Swamp Gnome was responsible for the coming together of all the elements. I thought this was a brilliant way to represent the spirit at the center of the circle–Swamp Gnome, the eldest of the gnomes, brings them all together. My elder son, ever the thinker, was really uncomfortable with this: “Mom, there is no Fire in a swamp! Swamps are really a combination of Water and Earth.” I thought that the will-o’-the-wisp would qualify, but he said that will-o’-the-wisp is extremely rare, so it hardly gives Fire an equal place. He’s right, of course, so I said that perhaps the Fire part of the swamp is the life force in the plants and trees, but he thinks that’s the realm of Earth, and it is a strong argument. “And anyway,” he said, “You have the Queen over here, and she is really the center, the place where all the Elements come together.” When did he get so wise? And I am in awe, having spent part of my evening discussing the philosophy of the Deep Nature of Things with my son.
I feel a need of a caveat, just to make it clear: I do not always feel like a success at this parenting business. I yell and ignore and belittle and cave in way too often. That is one of the reasons moments like this one are so sweet–it reminds me that I can mess up regularly, but these people are going to grow into themselves despite my messy momming.
Oh, and there was this, too: He was actually playing on the iPod while the younger one and I were playing with the gnomes. My gnomes were having a meeting, and the Queen was checking in with each of her helpers. At one point, he stopped his game and looked over at me: “I think your gnomes are having a formal meeting, Mom, using formal language. They probably should not be using contractions.” Indeed. Ahem.
The Queen on her throne, the Four Elements.
Fred the Dragon captures the Queen.
All Aboard the Gnome Train, and Chicken and Mouse nests in tree.
Examen:
How did Mystery encounter you today?
In thoughtful conversation with a child on the nature of things.
What awakened you?
The breeze in the evening as the sun was setting out of Skunk Hollow. The cool of the day.
What nudged you forward?
The singing group kith+kin, whom I just now discovered when I was looking for a version of the song “The Cool of the Day.” Sublime.
Also, working in my classroom today.
What sits in your heart?
Satisfaction, delight, quiet care, tending the spirit, peacefulness.
Some deep sadness remains–there is always an undercurrent of deep sadness, no matter how content and joyful my own place is. Someone is always suffering. While I can keep that ocean of sadness outside the door most days, I know it is there, and some days it wants to be acknowledged.
What do you take deeper?
My children. Mothering. Preparing the space for my students.
What do you offer tomorrow?
Intention. I will be present to my moments.
May we walk in Beauty!
I have been refining my questions today, and thinking about this process. I have been reading about education in the last few weeks–about educating the intellect and the spirit and the emotions. I realize that when I phrase questions like, “What do you feel? What do you sense? What do you think?” I understand the surface meaning, but there’s a boxy feel to it. I feel like those questions will trap my words, somehow. I want to ask myself those questions, but they need to have a more fluid grace, an ability to slide and flow into many boxes. These might work better. I’m still connecting a bit to some of St. Ignatius’ questions, but sliding sideways into my own.
How have you been met by Mystery today?
Walking into the room of myself.
Exploring names for God.
What awakens you?
A golden finch flying across my path and upward into blue.
What sits in your heart?
The satisfaction and anxiety of holding vigil for people I love. Being a watcher.
Hope.
Reverence.
Frustration at the work it took to complete an assignment today–that can build in me compassion for my students in the coming year.
What nudges you forward?
Plans, projects, art.
How will you step into tomorrow?
I will write my goals for the rest of the summer, and include play and art on the list.
May we walk in Beauty!
Sometimes a new thing catches me on fire, and I just have to let it burn through me, so I can see the trail it leaves, follow the glowing embers. This poem by Mary Oliver–“Gratitude“–has taken hold of me. First, I had to copy it, using her questions, and then I had to create my own, while still adding my own regular 5-point gratitude list at the end. Tonight, more of my own questions.
And I am lifting my nose to sniff the air–there’s an aroma there of something lodged in my memory. Here it is: I have been feeling compelled to call this emerging process an Examen. I have been looking it up, and I think that perhaps it isn’t so far from the Examen of St. Ignatius. His process, according to the Loyola Press website, is to:
1. Become aware of the presence of God. (I like to call God the Mystery, or Love, or the Source, or Mama.)
2. Review the day with gratitude. (That’s the part I have been working on for the past three or four years. It has been transformative in ways I could not have predicted.)
3. Pay attention to your emotions. (Sometimes I stop at the second step. This is a good reminder. Also, I think I would add, Check in with your energy, because that is part of my practice, too.)
4. Choose one feature of the day and pray from it. (For me, the noticing is prayer, the gratitude is prayer. Still, I get what this is about: take one thing deeper. Oh, I do like that.)
5. Look toward tomorrow. (Bring the past and the present and the future together in this moment. How does the past [the work of #2] inform the present [#1, #3, #4]? And how can the past-imbued present inform the future [#5]?)
How is the Mystery present to you?
In silence. In the space between my breaths. In the night sounds of crickets and peepers.
What visions brought your spirit awake?
Three crows flying above the fields into morning.
A white heron flying over the city in the afternoon heat.
The hard work of preparing an essay.
What words awakened you?
“Prophetic listening,” transformation, kairos, dialectical hermeneutics
What awakened your senses?
Rice and peas, garlic, squash, long thin green beans, broccoli, and fat slices of pink tomato with coarse salt.
What does your heart say?
There is anxiety here for friends who are suffering.
Contentment, which is sometimes better than wild joy.
I am tired.
Anticipation.
New ideas flitting through the rooms of my brain excite and exhaust me.
What goes deeper?
I am one spider on this humming web,
surveying the movement from strand to strand.
We all weave and spin together,
no longer simply waiting for the Morai
to measure and cut, but being ourselves the spiders,
tending the web, minding the movement.
Where does this go tomorrow?
Tomorrow is a clearing day–
get things accomplished.
May we walk in Beauty!
Inner Examination, a la Mary Oliver’s “Gratitude”:
What brought you joy?
Community, family, hiking in the woods.
What did you learn?
That words of peace lose their meaning when the writer is violent.
What did you see?
Queen Anne’s lace, chicory, and day lilies.
What was your work?
To sing, to watch, to breathe, to pray, to walk, to play.
What was sublime?
The tender cod with oranges and tomatoes.
What did you appreciate?
Stories of earnestness, intention, and powerful dialogue.
What makes you anxious?
Time: I feel it racing by.
For what are you grateful?
1. Spiders: they remind me to hold my place in the web
2. Birdsong
3. Mulberry/Strawberry/Cranberry Juice smoothies
4. Sleep
5. Imaginings. . .
May we walk in Beauty!
Recently I read Mary Oliver’s poem “Gratitude.” I am going to use her format–though not intentionally as a poem–tonight for my own list. It pushes me beyond my standard five-part format. Perhaps I’ll keep working with this, maybe making up my own questions.
Gratitude:
What did you notice?
The tang of tomato and the crunch of green beans.
What did you hear?
The sweet chipping of the little rusty-capped sparrows.
The mockingbird, irrepressible, in the dead chestnut tree.
What did you admire?
The regal red of the cardinal.
What astonished you?
The ten spikes on the abdomen of the spiny orb weaver.
What would you like to see again?
The bright black eyes of the jumping spider, watching me.
What was most tender?
The half-smile on a small boy’s face as he wished me luck before a game.
What was most wonderful?
Being in the breezes.
May we walk in Beauty!
Gratitude List:
1. Magnolia trees in bloom. So elegant and queenly.
2. Mimosa trees in bloom. Mystical and faerie-kissed.
3. We think that was a great horned owl we saw flying by the pond.
4. Organizing!
5. Something perking on the back burner.
May we walk in Beauty!
“I believe that appreciation is a holy thing–that when we look for what’s best in a person we happen to be with at the moment, we’re doing what God does all the time. So in loving and appreciating our neighbor, we’re participating in something sacred.” ~~ Fred Rogers
In this story, there are two boys. Their Mama’s cousin came for a visit one day, and while she was there, she listened to them and she watched them and she noticed them. Not in that overwhelming way that some of us do sometimes, that actually draws more attention to the adult and makes the child anxious, but quietly and thoughtfully. Just aware of who they are.
The next week, when she had gone home, two boxes arrived in the mail, addressed to the boys. The cousin was giving them her old Lego blocks. Gearhead Boy received a special bagful of gears in his box, and Racecar Boy received racecars in his (“Look! You can make them crash together, and they come apart! And then you just put them back together again!) They felt noticed and known.
Isn’t that really what our Work is about? We’re here to notice each other, to let each other know that we see who they are. Sometimes it’s just a raise of the eyebrows in the middle of a conversation, and you know that person gets you, sees you. Sometimes it happens when someone asks you just the right question at the right moment, totally heart-open to listen to your truth. Sometimes it occur when someone says, “You have been working so hard at that task. That must be really important to you.”
In some Christian practices, people seek the Christ in each other, look for the living Incarnation of the Divine in those around them. Wouldn’t healing seep into all our crevices if we watched for the beauty and truth of the Great Mystery in each person we met? How might our perspectives on each other shift? How might our world change?
Gratitude List:
1. The Village. Noticing. Loving. Healing.
2. Corn on the cob
3. Summer Storm
4. Green beans
5. Pie R Shared. It is all gone now, but it helped to create the circle as completely as any equation. Pie R Best Shared.
May we Walk in Beauty! So much love, People! So much love.
Mockingbird Chronicles 