happiness done right

There are two striking ideas in this poem which stand out to me. First...   "Loss is the great lesson." Perhaps... it would make more sense to say... "loss is a great teacher."  OK...so that is true, and  I have learned so much this past year about that and have so much more yet to learn. But I have also written so much about that...I don't feel like belaboring the point right now.

There is another teacher... the One who fills us with Light. I tell you, there are lessons everywhere when we humble ourselves and pay attention.

The thing I love about this poem is the verse  "Light is an invitation to happiness, and that happiness, when it's done right, is a kind of holiness..."  Yes, what a concept.  I try to remember that the fruit of the Spirit includes "joy" and that when our hearts are at peace there is such joy to be found in the daily experiences of life.  The really small minutia that is all over the place...allowing myself to be touched by the way a friend got so animated when talking to me the other day that a finger was being pointed in my face...I loved it...the way my cat, when really enjoying being pet, puts his face against mine and pushes against me... the incredible way it feels to be out for an early morning walk this time of year, the taste of pie and coffee, the urge and the act of generosity and kindness, the satisfaction of completing a task, the moment of tender compassion.  It is a type of holiness...  far different from the selfish and self-centered pleasure seeking that puts me at the center of the universe...it involve being awake and aware and thankful for all the many blessings that flow down and through our lives. Like this poem and like the poet, Mary Oliver... Incredible.  The harsh teacher named "loss" can't compete with the Teacher who loves.  I've learned from both.  Anyway, you get the idea...  Here's the poem...


Poppies

Mary Oliver

The poppies send up their
orange flares; swaying
in the wind, their congregations
are a levitation


of bright dust, of thin
and lacy leaves.
There isn't a place
in this world that doesn't


sooner or later drown
in the indigos of darkness,
but now, for a while,
the roughage


shines like a miracle
as it floats above everything
with its yellow hair.
Of course nothing stops the cold,


black, curved blade
from hooking forward—
of course
loss is the great lesson.


But I also say this: that light
is an invitation
to happiness,
and that happiness,


when it's done right,
is a kind of holiness,
palpable and redemptive.
Inside the bright fields,


touched by their rough and spongy gold,
I am washed and washed
in the river
of earthly delight—


and what are you going to do—
what can you do
about it—
deep, blue night?

consistency, persistence and devotion

I have been feeling a desire to move toward the development of a variety of disciplines in the next seasons of my life. I have lived for the most part in an  undisciplined manner, with brief interludes of disciplined effort.  Those interludes, as I look back, were the periods where my greatest growth, creativity and forward movement were accomplished. I know that is not true for everyone, and some are stifled by disciplined living.  I don't know why I move away so quickly from such reward.  Whether it be the discipline of early rising, the discipline of study, the discipline of practice, the discipline of a devotional time,  the discipline of writing, the discipline of play...I do not stay with it.  I visit for a brief season and then move away. Fortunately and amazingly, for me...I have achieved enough in those brief spurts that I have been able to get by, well..... even thrive... as a result of what happens in these seasons of growth.  

I think I want more. 

So...OK...this is quite a step...feeling a call to a more disciplined life, and a call to a more contemplative and devoted life, and a call to more of a sense of community and, finally, a call to a more surrendered  life...I have enrolled in a program to become a Benedictine Oblate.   Oddly, I am not Catholic, and the monastery which is sponsoring this Oblate program most certainly is.  But, I am under no pressure to become Catholic, in fact, I am encouraged to live and worship in a manner consistent with my own  denominational calling.  Truthfully, I have very little sense of any denominational identity. I have one primary sense of calling, and that is to the God of the Bible.   I'm just not really at home anywhere else, and every time I think I have found a place to call home, I can't seem to attach in a very deep or meaningful way. I'm sure the deficit lies within me.  So, I am not  in any way seeing this as any type of denominational shift or conversion... Catholicism is about the only denomination I have never considered... (nor could I see myself ever considering it...it's just too great a theological stretch...but then again, I have learned enough to never say never).   Yet, the monastic life ... ah...I am drawn... the reverence for God...yes, indeed.    I have never been comfortable being asked "what denomination are you?"  The most honest answer would be "none." On the other hand, I think of myself as a Jewish Buddhist Protestant Christian, with the emphasis on Christian... my heart belongs to Jesus...and it seems wherever I am in my journey, and however far my wandering may go, at the end of the day...beat up, beat down, lonely or misunderstood.. He is there to welcome me back into His loving and merciful embrace. Without condemnation!  I am so much better at not judging people for where they are in their spiritual journey...and for not letting myself take on the judgment of others. So, I have the Judaism of my ancestry and upbringing, and a crazy illicit attraction to  buddhism going on and on and on.  Always, though, my heart still belongs to Jesus.   I  feel a kinship with Benedictine spirituality, the contemplative lifestyle of Benedictine Monks and Nuns, and the concept of making one's life an offering to God. I need to study more of the Rule of Benedict before I see whether it shall become a part of the Rule of Steven... You know, I'm sure if the opportunity arose, I'd think I was called to be a Franciscan monk as well...just cause I love what I know of St. Francis.    Be that as it may, I am taking this step to see where it shall lead...
I wouldn't mind being a Nun in whatever order that Mother Theresa was part of... now that I think of it....now, now Steven...let's be real. 

So... there you are.  Though I often find myself seeking kindred spirits, as John Lennon said... "No one, I think, is in my tree."   Oh, well, I guess we are each and all on our own unique journey... may God find us all and bring us safely home!   (extra credit question...what Beatle song did I just quote?)

Say...I would do well to be "famous" for being nothing more than a gentle and loving soul and one who communed with God.... I have so far yet to travel!  Oy vez, it can be such a long journey! Full of tsuris!  I'll be writing more of my Oblate experience, I am sure...

onward!


  ~~~FAMOUS~~~ 

The river is famous to the fish.

The loud voice is famous to silence,
which knew it would inherit the earth
before anybody said so.

The cat sleeping on the fence is famous to the birds
watching him from the birdhouse.

The tear is famous, briefly, to the cheek.

The idea you carry close to your bosom
is famous to your bosom.

The boot is famous to the earth,
more famous than the dress shoe,
which is famous only to floors.

The bent photograph is famous to the one who carries it
and not at all famous to the one who is pictured.

I want to be famous to shuffling men
who smile while crossing streets,
sticky children in grocery lines,
famous as the one who smiled back.

I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous,
or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular,
but because it never forgot what it could do.

---Naomi Shihab Nye

come, autumn, I'm here!

If you google poems about Autumn, you will find a theme that runs through most every poem...the slow decline of life as it slinks toward dying.      It is very difficult to write about autumn without writing about dying.  Along with dying, autumn poems typically lament the loss of summer, the loss of youth, the moonlight (not the sunlight), and the coming of winter.

Well,  I love those poems, and I could post a dozen or so (maybe I will), but I don't share those sentiments this year. A year ago, my autumn was filled with pain and a good heaping dose of despair...I laid in bed and watched the leaves fall, and watched the acorns add up on my windowsill to coincide with the number of radiation treatments I had completed, and the sad nights got longer and longer. 

NOT THIS AUTUMN. I AM ALL ABOUT THIS AUTUMN.   Last autumn was the beginning of an autumn of despair and winter was a winter of desolation. But spring began a spring of healing and summer warmed my bones with a new hope.   I am embracing the brisk September days with relish.  And I say to winter...BRING IT ON...I'll be ready for you.  I absolutely love Autumn. I absolutely (almost completely) love being in this stage of life with all it's transitions.  And I'll respond to what I wrote in my last post about the best days being behind me ..."what a bunch of BS, steven, as is your sappy, self-pitying moody wimpiness...get over yourself"    I'll take what I have today and stack it up against my coming to life in my freshman year of college 1969, and it's easy to see that today will win hands down.   

Autumn...here I am, and I embrace the thought of walking with you for awhile.   It's good to be alive.  All this pain, these sad emotions, this lonely time or that, this unfulfilled dream, this ticking clock...it's all part of the drama...but listen, there is also a whisper which calls me to undeniable beauty and love and through the autumn wind I hear like never before the gentle call of the One who loves me.   And He fills my heart and the compassion and love I feel toward every broken and fragile being just overflows.   It runs so deep.    

Emily Dickenson... you were kind enough to at least mention the loveliness of Autumn, and even if it is true that for many it is  youth that we desperately try to cling to ( I guess, I must confess, at times I find myself amongst that camp)...well, phooey,  life's "declivity"(good word!)  is just this flesh... at least for today...my spirit is in ascension!!!!!!!!!  And cling to Him, and not my youth, shall I!!!

  Rock on!

As Summer into Autumn slips 
  Emily Dickinson

As Summer into Autumn slips
And yet we sooner say
"The Summer" than "the Autumn," lest
We turn the sun away,

And almost count it an Affront
The presence to concede
Of one however lovely, not
The one that we have loved --

So we evade the charge of Years
On one attempting shy
The Circumvention of the Shaft
Of Life's Declivity.

itchycoo park, flashbacks, panic

Here is one minute in my miserable mind at 11:23PM last night as I was trying to go to sleep:

The line... "it's all too beautiful"  pops into my head...  it's a line from a song, Itchykoo Park, a song recorded circa 1968...oh my, 40 some years ago.  (For those of you old enough to remember or care, the group who recorded the song, the Small Faces had an interesting pedigree...  the lead singer of the group left the Small Faces to form "Humble Pie" with Peter Frampton; he was replaced by none other than Rod Stewart, who, I believe, recorded with the group as "the Faces;" of course, then Rod Stewart went off to have his career. Their drummer went on to replace Keith Moon in the Who after Keith Moon's death.)

But I digress...  the line "it's all too beautiful" plays in my head from out of nowhere after 40 years... then comes the memory...  It's 1972 and I've ingested a tab of LSD and IT IS VERY,  VERY POTENT.  As I am prone to do, I wander off by myself around one in the morning, and I find myself sitting on the ground and looking down at a field somewhere on my college campus at the State University of New York at Albany.  I hear the song Itchycoo Park in my head; I'm hallucinating...and I have this instant "moment" where everything in the universe seems incredibly beautiful and perfect.  INCREDIBLY beautiful and perfect.   Did I mention INCREDIBLY BEAUTIFUL  and perfect.  Yes, totally INCREDIBLY BEAUTIFUL AND PERFECT. And then my 20 year old brain had this thought..."If I could stop time, I would live in this moment forever.  Nothing will ever be this perfect again."  Everything was just as it should be.  Every molecule of my being has this experience of the complete and total perfection of every thing in that one moment.  (By the way...I am NOT endorsing LSD...I had plenty more yucky, scary moments than I had moments like this; perhaps I'll write sometime about a horrific moment or two whilst under the influence of hallucinogens).   But that moment was undeniably one of those moments that made the whole LSD culture seem like a good idea...a Timothy Leary kind of moment.

But I digress....I am lying in my bed last night at 11:23PM, trying to get to sleep...the line "it's all too beautiful" plays in my head, and I remember the experience from 1972 sitting on that hill, LSD coursing through my brain, just as if it happened a few hours ago, and then.... I feel a wave of panic.....   you know, the sick feeling when your body dumps adrenaline in response to hearing a "crash" coming in the middle of the night because your cat knocked over a vase, or you are watching a creepy movie and it gets really quiet and a hand suddenly lurches out from the ground and grabs the innocent female, or you didn't hear the door open and someone walks up behind you and startles you... you know the feeling...

But I digress...I am lying in bed, hear the line from the song, have the "flashback" and then comes the wave of panic...and simultaneously comes this thought...  "the best days are all behind you... "
And that was the end of the minute.   But it took me a good hour and a half to regroup and get some sleep. I tell ya, if I forget that I am a child of God, I can really torment myself!

then there's this

When you've been through a trauma...there is a part of you inside that wants no reminders of what happened, and a part of you inside that keys on every slight reminder.  You can't seem to help it, and it suddenly seems like reminders are everywhere.   I swear, during cancer treatment, 50% of the commercials I saw on TV were about cancer... I could recite the cyberknife at St. Elizabeth's hospital commercial in my sleep  (... I have cancer, cancer doesn't have me...)  OK, maybe that thought worked for some people...   Patrick Swayze was dying, and it seemed there were more embedded messages about dying of cancer than there were clues on Abbey Road and Sgt Peppers that Paul McCartney was dead.

So...now I've changed blogs, I want to forget it, I promised myself I would...

and here I am still. I'm not apologizing for it, but it amazes me that I can't get through a day almost a year after treatment has been completed that I don't think about cancer.   So I guess that means I need to keep talking (writing) about it.

Here's a clip of Michael Douglas on Letterman this past week talking about being diagnosed with stage 4 throat cancer. I remember so well, the first week of treatment for my stage 4 throat cancer. I thought..."this isn't so bad, I can't believe I am going to need that feeding tube they put in my stomach..."  Getting the feeding tube wasn't fun, and I got an infection in my stomach, but my throat and the radiation and initial chemo...not so bad...   My heart goes out to him...  it sounds like he has a sense of what's going to come next... my oncologist and ENT warned me that I'll feel pretty "beat up."   I guess I had never been beat up before, so I didn't really  have a clue about what would follow in the next few months.  

I am now praying for Michael Douglas...may God be with him, and may he recover and  get through this and thrive.    I want to see living proof all around me that people make it...I've met several, and interacted with a few survivors, including Ted Kooser (11 years and counting), but it can never be enough...there's that 20%...30%...40% depending on what research one is reading that don't make it.    There's the permanent damage to salivary glands and perhaps taste buds that are permanent reminders, the miscellaneous sore throats and minor neck pain that sends a shiver of fear up my spine... 

I live with gratitude and great appreciation of little delights and joys.  But there is this black dog barking in the distant background...sometimes I forget he's there, and sometimes, that's all I seem to hear... I guess he's always been there, I just never noticed him before...

Be well, Michael Douglas.  Thank you for asking Dave for a hug...

my thank yous

I had my birthday adventure #2 - I fell far short of my expectations in two ways.  First, I made a list of "thank you" recipients who had reached out to me while going through my cancer hell, and the number was closer to 50 than 100. The flood of cards, e-mails, calls, visits,  and blog comments I received in the past year was so powerful, it felt like 100 or so people, but alas, I am not as popular as I thought.  Unfortunately, none of the anonymous encouragers on my last blog responded with e-mails, so I couldn't thank any. It appears to me that very few followed me here to this blog.  I don't know if that's good or bad, but I have to be careful or else I'll start feeling this is some sort of performance issue that I am failing.  Anyway, with my list of 50, it took me most all day to write 30 thank you's.   So I am not yet done.  

What did I learn from my birthday adventure?   To properly appreciate the blessings received from others is a time consuming task.  Worthwhile, but time consuming.  A passing "thank you" is important, brief, and easy, but  a passing "thank you" doesn't reflect the weight of my gratitude.   People often respond with an awkward dismissal of a thank you ("you don't have to thank me...that's not necessary...it was nothing, etc.") but honestly, being more appreciative and grateful is something I need to do...it's something I want to change in myself. It's about living more consistently with my values...to live with a heart full of thanksgiving...and to openly express it.   

I have a ways to go in this, but my birthday adventure was meaningful and worth my time. 
And if anyone is reading this (expecially the one or two of you who have posted anonymous comments on this blog,  thank you for taking the time to follow, read, and post.  As was true with the "Deeper than Cancer" blog, the anonymous posts have been remarkable, encouraging and thought provoking. Just terrific...and much appreciated.  And thanks to others who read and do not post.  Thanks for taking time to read these ramblings. God bless you!

birthday adventure #2 - saying thanks

For those who haven't followed or read prior postings...I have decided to celebrate 12 birthdays over the course of a year, to "compensate" for the miserable birthday I had last year when the full brunt of radiation/chemotherapy was kicking my butt. I want to do 12 things out of the ordinary; an adventureon the fifth of each month as an extended "celebration."



To recap...


Birthday adventure #1 - A day of silence - I went to a Benedictine Monastery in Schuyler Nebraska, and spent 24 hours in silent reflection and meditation. A had a great (and meaningful) day...I so enjoyed it!


Birthday adventure #2 - Here is my plan for September 5. My goal...to say thanks to (at least) 100 people who supported and encouraged me through my cancer treatment. Where I have an address, I will send a card, where I just have an e-mail, I will send an e-mail...I am afraid there were so many anonymous posts of encouragement and thoughtfulness on my prior blog (deeper than cancer) that I will only be able to offer an anonymous virtual "thank you" to those readers who fall into that category. (hey...if you are one of those anonymous posters...you can e-mail me at steveblum77@gmail.com to "claim" your personal thank you...it would really make my day! please write me...you can even send me a blank e-mail with "poster" in the subject line so I can respond).  
 
How long will it take to send 100 thank you's...I have no idea, but I will try to get it done in a day...I will undoubtedly fall far short of expressing the fullness of my true appreciation.  I'm anxious to get started, but I will wait until Saturday.