Be kind

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."  Plato

 I've been thinking about how powerful human kindness can be.


Being kind, seeing the frailty and need in another human being and responding from the heart... is always such a beautiful transaction.

Just be kind.  

It is a most noble pursuit... Can you imagine how blessed I am to be able to make a living sharing kindness and encouragement in the face of the struggles and pain of others; I am given so many opportunities to respond with kindness. I sit in my office and they come... and I am always richer (I don't mean financially, don't be such a skeptic!)... richer for my meager efforts to meet my clients with kindness.

No big profound thoughts; I was just thinking about this on my morning walk...

He has told you, O man, what is good:
and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?
Micah 6:8
  
Kindness.

sometimes when the night is dying

wow...that sounds heavy...but it doesn't have to be that way...

One of the many joys of this time of year is being able to go for a morning walk while it is still dark out without having to get up too early.  Walking while the sun comes up on a brisk autumn day....ahh.... Soon, turning the clocks back makes that more difficult, as does the colder weather.  But, I have enjoyed a few good autumn morning walks...I try these days to revel in these little joys.

There is something of beauty and mystery to capture all the time... sometimes when the night is dying...the morning is being born.   Yes?   The leaves, the leaves.   How many memories I can associate with falling leaves...burning them on the street ( a bygone era), diving into huge piles of them, watching my dog run through them, raking for hours and hours, usung tarps, leaf catchers, armloads, fighting losing battles with gusts of wind.

OK, music lovers... what song does this line come from?  Don't cheat...

"Sometimes when the night is dying, I take me out and I wander around..."

one year check... closer to fine!

Yesterday, another milestone. My one year post-cancer treatment exam with my ENT and oncologist.  In both cases, I got a thumbs-up!  No sign of cancer.   They did a chest X-Ray...the assistant said that cancer can often pop up in the lungs (metasticize is the better word) after disappearing from the primary site....well, I am glad I didn't have that awareness going into yesterday as it would have been one more thing to stress about.     Sometimes, knowledge=anxiety.   I know that formula...unfortunately, I have googled Michael Douglas and have found some doctors that are quoted as saying that "his type of cancer" (i.e. my type of cancer!)   has a much lower survival rate than the percentages quoted in the media. (Crap, I hate those guys! I'd rather leave this in God's hands.)  Anyway...Chest X-Ray...thumbs up! 

The blood test came back good as well... well, OK...not perfect...my thyroid is a bit "underperforming"  not an unusual side effect of chemo and radiation. After all this education and psychology expertise,  I still discover I have some performance issues.  So, today I start on a little pill to help in that regard.  It's not necessarily forever, just rather for the rest of my life. Big deal, big deal.   Good insurance.  Maybe I'll get an energy boost as well!  

One more stat...my weight...I've put back about 10 pounds of the 30 I lost a year ago going through treatment.   I am happy to stay right there...I weigh what I weighed when I was 29, and I am about to turn 59.  I'll stay there happily, or, if I gain another 10 pounds, I'll weigh 150 and be happy there as well.  I no longer feel or look "guant."  I can walk miles and miles, and I often do.  All things considered, I am so healthy relative to where I was a year ago, that I can almost forget how close to death I actually was.  Stage four throat cancer is no place to be.

So...my mood is lifted by the good reports.  But there are still the occasional visits to the desert...to the place of incredible and total aloneness that became so vast during my treatment that I had times I thought I was literally drowning in my physical and emotional pain.    And, paradoxically, I am drawn back there.  Not to the darkness, but to the light that is present in that solitude. I have this awareness that the answer for me waits there...and I am closer to finding it. I know, I know the "answer"...I am just seeking a deeper union with Him, I guess. And for me, it is in that place of solitude that I encounter God.  That is the place where all the distractions melt away.  That may be the place He calls me to.  

So...I am not giddy, but I am "closer to fine."
Hey, I just can't help loving this song.  I can listen to it 100 times and not get tired of it.  Sure, I don't exactly agree with all the conclusions, but oh, how I love this song...a gem!       How is this possible?  It is just too good.  (How bout these lines... "I wrapped my fear around me like a blanket; I sailed my ship of safety till I sank it."  I know, I know, it's so good! )

birthday adventure #3 - a walk around the lake

"Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around the lake."
 ----------Wallace Stevens

Note to self: ...Stop  giving yourself such pressure over these birthdays...  Just because I am not jumping out of airplanes or hopping freight trains doesn't mean it's not an adventure.  It's supposed to be fun, not pressure!

Yesterday, I had a small adventure...to celebrate (monthly) birthday #3 of 12 for me. (next month is my "real"  birthday).

First, and most important...I took the day off.   Second, I spent the better part of the morning reading something for enjoyment.  Third, I took a friend to lunch.  Fourth, I took a leisurely hour stroll by myself around a lake on a nearly perfect afternoon.  AND...I had a great insight while on my walk... I mean,  a hugely important insight. It had to do with a very powerful dream I had one night in 2005 and still remember vividly.   And then, in the evening, I met with my meditation group for a pleasant hour of meditation and conversation.

The weather is glorious...enough to quote Joni Mitchell...   "...the sun poured in like butterscotch, and stuck to all my senses."   Nice.

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.