Life in General

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A Recipe for Wisdom

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“I do not believe that sheer suffering teaches. If suffering alone taught, all the world would be wise, since everyone suffers. To suffering must be added mourning, understanding, patience, love, openness, and the willingness to remain vulnerable.” -Anne Morrow Lindbergh, A Gift from the Sea

If suffering alone did teach, we would be so very wise right now, wouldn’t we? For it feels as if this year gone by has delivered more than its fair share of suffering. 

My own world was rocked with suffering when my mother died in March. By late summer, I had lost count of all the people in my circle who also lost a parent this year. (At last count it was 22, and I think the final sum must be well over 30.) I lost a younger friend to cancer, and an even younger one to suicide. Not to mention a host of celebrities who died in 2016. 

Mending

“ Mend the parts of the world that are within your reach. Anything you do from the soulful self will help lighten the burdens of the world. You have no idea what the smallest word, the tiniest generosity, can cause to be set in motion.” --Clarissa Pinkola Estes

My dog Magic has a favorite stuffed toy named Baby that lived at my mom’s house for many years. Magic, like most dogs, loves to play tug-of-war with his toys. He like to grab them and shake them fiercely. He likes to chomp on them until he finds the hidden squeaker, and then squeak it incessantly. (He still does this, even though he’s now deaf as a stone.) 

Periodically, small rips and tears appear in Baby and his stuffing starts to spill out. My mom regularly stitched them up, and Baby has as many scars as prizefighter. Doesn’t matter to Magic - he goes right back to tugging, shaking, and chomping with abandon. And we go right on mending, because Baby is so important to Magic.

Let it Begin With Me

“Ultimately we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it toward others. And the more peace these is in us, the more peace there will also be in our troubled world.” -Etty Hillesum

 I came of age in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, a time of great social unrest in this nation. Peace was the word on every young person’s lips, mine included.  I was in my mid-teen’s during those years, just feeling my oats, using the written word to penetrate a lifelong shell of mild-mannered shyness.  As editor of our school paper, I called for student participation in the Moratorium, a nationwide walkout to protest the Vietnam War.  I encouraged my history teacher to assign letter writing to our elected officials in which we could express our views on civil rights, the Arab-Palestinian conflict, the War. Because I had always been a “good girl,” and had always stayed within the bounds of good grades and good behavior, my teachers were very generous with their support. 

In those years, I read the newspaper every day, watched the TV news with combinations of excitement and righteous indignation. I yearned to be one of those marching, carrying signs, making an outward statement. But my young age, my sheltered life, my innate introverted nature  - all of those things kept my emerging activism at bay. I spent several years in a state of perpetual inner agitation, relieved only by my incessant writing about it. 

 

 

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Soulstice

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It has been extraordinarily easy to forget that winter is nigh. Here in Michigan we’ve had a long string of unexpectedly mild autumn weeks. Two days ago - on the last day of November, - I walked the dogs wearing nothing heavier than a sweatshirt. I even left my gloves in the pocket of my jacket, something I rarely do after October because my hands are always extremely cold. 

A stern reminder of the impending season becomes abruptly evident about 4:00 every afternoon. Darkness falls, and it falls fast. At our house we are in utter blackness by 5:15. Headlights stream down the road as people wend their way home from work, many of them having left the house in the (dark!) hours of early morning. December brings increasingly shorter days as we race toward the winter solstice on December 21, the penultimate day when the hours of darkness exceed the hours of light. 

Simple Gifts

“Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday,” my friend M. wrote last night during an exchange of texts to wish each other a happy day. “I love what it represents."

And although I’m not one who generally loves holidays, if pressed to choose a “favorite” I might well pick Thanksgiving myself. Because how can you help but love what it represents? An opportunity to be grateful, to take a day and enjoy the simple pleasures of life  - eating, drinking, relaxing, sharing with family or friends - and focus on the good things in life.