Through the Months

January ~ If There is Heaven I’m Going

When Ron died I thought of Lila, a member of the Cloverdale Church for many years. As she was dying in a nursing home I was leaning close to her face and holding her hand when I gently asked her, "Lila, are you going to heaven?" As one of the most faithful women I had ever known I wanted to be open to her answer after her long ordeal in the institution and her agonizing approach to death.

"If there is heaven I'm going," she said, "And if there isn't heaven I don't need it." I was stunned by the stark and simple faithfulness of her statement. She had stepped so close to God that she left the dogma and teachings of Christianity behind her and knew that whatever happened she would be O.K. On the brink of her own death she knew that she didn't need to do anything or believe anything because God was in charge of taking care of her.

After my shock and anger about Ron's death I settled into relief remembering that death is as simple as what Lila taught me. God is going to handle the next step I take regardless of my theology, all will be well.

While I took the Christmas decorations down after Epiphany I listened to Aretha Franklin singing hymns. I thought of Ron again when she sang her incredible version of "God Will Take Care of You." As I begin the New Year I remember it really is simple for all of us left behind, and for Ron, God will take care of you.

February ~ Remembering Roses

Long rays of warmth collect and spill silver
Threads of scent pulling me to dawn’s garden.

I slipper out to see what magic indigo
Night has brought moon kissed petals.

Never disappointing you curl and summon holding
Dew like expectant lips, offering unconditional

Hew and a throaty feast of yellow stamin to break my
Fast and feed my hunger.  Abundant floribunda

I offer you a thorny grab at dayspring’s billowy hem
If I may only touch you with my eyes and breath again.

But you stand bare and rooted against sodden mulch
From depth and darkness gathering unfoldment

To heal my winter heart.

(1/30/96)

March ~ Garbage Bags in Taipei 

They outline the edges of living
Like colorful beetles in mating
Season humping fecundly in piles.

Receptacles for sticky echoes of joy
Plastic rice bowls, disposable chopsticks
Small bites never taken of gifts from the sea.

A deceptive counterpane for the cityscape of
Taipei where a people's gentle heart is not revealed
Just this garbage, an urban lining for suffering and love.

(The 1996 Garbage Strike)

April ~ A Small Red Fox

A small red fox often trots into my garden and takes a nap in the rose bed, just in time to enjoy the late morning sun. He stretches out on the redwood chips under the small bright green rose leaves and I spy on him through the kitchen window. He seems to doze a bit with his head and nose resting elegantly along the stone ledge of the planter box. And yet, he has ears that are never still, awake and turning towards the neighbor’s barking dog, twitching and attuned even to the sound of wind in the feathers of a back yard blue jay, his ears never sleep.

I can feel the exhaustion in his compact body, the effort of stalking, surprising and springing upon his prey in the night. I can even imagine the satisfaction he enjoys from the feeling of live, warm flesh landing in his stomach to nourish his glistening auburn and black coat and his shiny wet nose. One night I woke up to the death squeals of some rodent or other and anguished with the terror in that nocturnal sound. And then, just the other night, surely it was a member of the blue jay family that lives in the hedge that screamed as he gnashed it to death.

And so, as I gaze upon the beauty and mystery of this wild visitor blessing my suburban terrace, I count the cost of what is required to sustain his majestic trotting through our neighborhood. And just so, as his ears snap to attention and he jumps up and dashes for the fence, I count the cost of what is required to support my wild and precious life. Multiplied by 5 billion of me, I bow and thank our magnificent Mother, and finish drinking my tea.

May ~Motherhood

Where’s the fanfare?
Where’s the chocolate cake?
The trumpets and “Hurrah!”
The badges, pendants, trophies
Stars and plaques engraved?

Where’s congratulations?
High honors for a job well done?
A parade on my birthday?
A diploma or degree?
When the violins?

A piece written just for me?
The honorary luncheon?
The corsage? Blue ribbons?
My name in lights?
Or just plain “Thanks.”

They never told me selfless
Love could feel so
Selfless.

(1996)

June ~ Ah, Paris

Summer movies, sports and summer reading are an enjoyable and essential part of summer fun. Woody Allen’s summer movie, Midnight in Paris, is a fanciful time-traveler’s romp that is hard not to enjoy if you are able to suspend belief and relax into simply being entertained. I’m not going to say another word in case you haven’t seen it, if not I recommend it either at the theatres or on DVD at home. Just for fun, let me add that the movie provided me with my only brush with greatness because one of the scenes passes by the very café and table where I sat with Ed and ate my birthday lunch on June 2^nd after attending mass at Notre Dame on Ascension Day!

Ah, Paris! Once safely home I enjoyed watching the final laps of the Tour de France on T.V. Sunday evening July 24^th.  Ariel shots of the Arc de Triumph, the Eiffel Tower and the Champs de Lessay kindled the romance and majesty of Paris yet again. It is the epitome of culture and history, magnificent architecture, fine art and gourmet food. It’s a cosmic hot spot that spans time and taste.

Then, I made a random pick at the bookstore and chose Isabel Allende’s novel, Island Beneath the Sea as my summer reading. It is a spellbinding story about the island of Haiti (then called Saint-Domingue), a French colony in the 1700’s during the time of Napoleon. During an 8 year period the island consumed the lives of almost 800,000 slaves to grow sugar cane and coffee, making France fabulously wealthy while thousands of humans were worked to death. It was cheaper to replace African slaves than to give them decent food and healthy working conditions.

Ah, Paris, much of your charm and beauty was built on the backs of slaves who died to create your opulence and style. Shame on us for loving you anyway Paris, even while we adore you social justice demands that we never forget.

(Summer 2011 - Pastoral Counseling Ministry FCCSR July Seer 2011)


July ~ On The Cottage Deck

Umbrella’d and fed well at your table
I gaze at you across geraniums
A thousand years of love crackling off striped canvas.

It seems that long since the
Fluted crust of mom’s apple pies and the
Sun dappled forest of our youth.
Now this hilltop summer is your poem
On wings of adagio and birdsong
Life makes sense here.
This cottage deck shimmers with forty years of keeping house
With sugar sand between your toes and brushing Christmas Cove
Off a surprising number of little feet too.
Tall and tan your name is “Nana” here
This summer poem wraps you in loveliness
And you are at home.
I rest into the strong parentheses of our
Balding and muscled husbands, the sun glinting on their golden hairy arms
Devoted and hopeful that
Our sisterhood is gentled now
The pointed memories like so many seeds
Carried away by tiny birds from the feeder.

(July 2011)

August ~ Rosemary Potatoes

I’ve never grown potatoes in my life but I harvested my potato patch today. It is really amazing and wonderful to dig food out of the dirt. I had one 7 foot row of potatoes at my community garden plot and I guess I got about 12 pounds of little yellow fleshed heirloom potatoes…plus one very large and ugly potato bug who had munched upon his share of the harvest. I threw the bug over the fence to his fate in the grass at the park next door.

It is a bit shocking to be close to retirement age and admit I have never dug food I have grown out of the dirt. Oh, I’ve had tomato patches and I’ve grown my share of behemoth zucchini. I even grew pumpkins one year when the children were young and we carved them for Halloween and then used them to make pumpkin pie. But overall, I’m guilty of being distanced from the source of my food.

I brought the potatoes into the kitchen in a plastic bag and put them down on the counter. The bag had a hole in it and so it got lots of dirt all over the kitchen counter. It looked odd to have black dirt on the kitchen counter. Mmmm, being in touch with the source of my food is messy.

The potatoes are small so I boiled them briefly and then sauted them with butter and fresh rosemary. Mmmm, fresh potatoes taste very different and much better than the clean ones I buy at the market. So, I’m evolving. Even though it can be messy and time consuming I have decided being a locavore* is good for my health and good for my soul.

 I wish I could cook you up a delicious batch of rosemary and butter potatoes fresh from my garden.

*Those who prefer to eat locally grown/produced food sometimes call themselves locavores or localvores.

September ~ God in a Yellow Kayak

As a competitive swimmer in my 50s, I realized that the stroke I had learned on my high school swim team no longer served me. My shoulders ached after workouts, and I didn't have the power I needed for open-water swim competitions. I needed to maximize my efficiency. My coach, Deann, a 42-year-old woman with five kids, was my inspiration. She herself was training to swim the Maui Channel, a grueling 24-mile swim in shark-infested open water. “If Deann can swim 24 miles,” I told myself, “I can swim a mile and a half.”

So, starting in May, Deann and I began to rebuild my stroke for the annual Alcatraz Sharkfest Swim held in September. Although swimming in San Francisco Bay from Alcatraz Island to Aquatic Park in San Francisco does not really hold the threat of sharks, the water is cold and treacherous, with ferocious currents. In fact, for decades the Federal Bureau of Prisons boasted that no prisoners could escape from Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary because they would have to cross these waters.

I had to unlearn the way I had been swimming for 40 years and replace it with a more efficient way to move through the water. The stroke Deann taught me was completely different, and it wasn’t easy to unlearn what I knew so well. I frequently reverted to my old habits unless I concentrated hard during each workout. I practiced my new stroke for four months, learning to recover from each stroke cycle with high elbows dragging my fingertips over the water and then slipping my hands in and pulling the water in an S curve under my torso. Using this new stroke felt very powerful.

On the day of the race, I jumped out of the ferry and dropped 12 feet into the frigid water. I was on my own, and it was up to me to swim against the current until the start horn blasted. The water was choppy and churning like a washing machine, with three-foot waves coming from every direction. Once the race started, I knew that if I kept my head down and pounded out my stroke cycles I would be okay. But whenever I stopped and looked around, I was filled with fear and uncertainty. Stopping was dangerous, and a couple of times I got smacked unawares by a wave and gulped brown, salty water. Younger swimmers kept passing me, and I couldn't gauge where I was or how far I was from the finish.

All of this might have defeated me except that Deann was there to pilot me in her yellow kayak. She yelled encouragement to me: "You're looking steady. Keep going." Then she would say, "Your stroke cycle was 20. This time I want you to extend it to 30." A couple of times, when I felt she wasn't close enough to me, I felt panic on the edge of my competence. But then I would hear, "There is calmer water ahead, Gayle, keep pulling!" She could see what I couldn't, and her vision calmed me and kept me going. I was the one in the middle of San Francisco Bay in unfriendly water, but Deann was there to guide and support me . . . she believed in me and I believed in her . . and because of our mutual trust, I made it. It was a sacred alliance and a holy covenant.

I give myself credit for being the one who finished the swim. It was my muscles and my disciplined morning workouts in the pool; it was my courage and my determination. And yet, I know beyond a doubt that I owe my success to my coach. Deann was there like my best friends are when I’m in need, like my therapist in my darkest hours, like my loving husband and family who believe in me when my faith in myself flags. I couldn't have done it without her. I’m grateful for the people in my life who believe in me and paddle their kayak just ahead of me in the turbulent waters of life so I can see enough to keep going. Like Deann, they are all God with skin on . . . and I love them.

October ~ The Poor You Will Always Have With You (Mark 14:7)

Within myself I found a settlement of mostly women and children who were destitute. Among them were the children of the farm workers who pick the grapes for California’s premium wines. I had first met their mother when she came to the church I served begging me for money because her children had not had fruit in three months. They lived across the street from the church in a ramshackle apartment that had holes in the floor, now they live inside me.

The internal settlement was behind a scrim, a pearly colored translucent curtain that keeps the occupants from view most of the time, well, all the time until this one day when I was looking around inside myself with the eyes of my heart and I happened upon them. There were more than hundreds of them. They were languishing, sitting around on rocks and in piles of dirt. I saw the children who live in the garbage dump in Tijuana under a mattress propped up with a four foot stick. The very children I had taught in the preschool program were there but they didn’t have the dirty broken toys we offered them when the van pulled up to the school. Well, it was hardly a school but boards hammered together that looked like a club house built by 12 year old boys. I only knew those Mexican children a week while I was there with a youth group from a wealthy suburban church in the USA. I was so surprised to find them with their beautiful smiles and their dirty little faces still living in my heart.

There were others I didn’t know except from photographs where some part of me must have snatched them up to keep. The refugees from the Sudan still had dust on their feet from the desolation of the refugee camps. The poverty of Central America still clung heavily to the children who are hungry because of the bananas I eat on my morning cereal. There were women hanging their heads, exhausted, because they have to carry water miles every day so their families can survive. There were women with blood tricking down the inside of their legs who had barely survived the rape camps of war. I saw men who were thin as skeletons, holding their heads in their hands in postures of complete defeat. I don’t know where they were from but they were broken and hopeless.

Some of the people in the settlement were fearful and cowered when they saw me. They were afraid I might torture them because of what they believe. There was a group of people suffering from natural disasters, huddled together eternally dripping with the water of the killing tsunamis and the destroying hurricanes. I saw men with black bags over their heads, their hands tied behind their backs, and I could feel terror radiating in invisible shock waves from the core energy of their hearts.

There were thousands of them like this, behind the beautiful pearly scrim inside me. And as I looked, dumfounded, upon the masses I was struck by the silence. I did not hear moaning or cursing or calls for help. It wasn’t Dante’s Inferno.There were no sobs, no wailing or cries of anguish. They did not hold my gaze with hateful or loving eyes. They were just present to themselves with the truth of their own experience. They were not there to teach me a lesson or to hold me accountable, to blame or to punish. They were not there to demand justice or to exact atonement from me for my part in their suffering. They weren’t ranting, posturing or holding a position. They didn’t want to relate to me as if they were elected officials sent to represent the cause of global suffering.  They had no cause, they only had suffering.

My parts were not happy with this settlement of grinding poverty within me. My savior part wanted to make it better for every wretched soul and do some version of, well, saving the world. My defender was busy making the case that none of this was my fault and preparing to present the case to my judge who was sure to blame me. My “don’t look” protector was rushing towards the scrim to pull the edges together so none of us had to see the tragedies for another minute longer. The Judge, of course, was getting ready to pronounce judgment on my greedy First World consumption pointing out the contents of my freezer, the price of my face cream and the fact that my car is a Honda and not a Prius. All my child parts needed comforting because they didn’t understand any thing about the settlement. For them it was like a scary movie.

My therapist part who likes to make psychological sense of emotional upset said, “Yes, this is a cultural introject created by educating yourself as a radicalized, conscious, liberal theologian. It came in from outside you and these suffering people are not parts of YOU.” My pastor part dedicated my breath to the suffering as prayer without ceasing as commanded by the Bible. After all, we are told that, “the poor will always be with you” and here I was finding the truth of that statement.  My cynical part said, “You might as well pull that scrim and never look behind it again because this suffering is the work of fucked up greedy men who run the corporations that run the world and there is nothing you can ever do about it.”

I have a conscientious part who works hard to be worthy and good. She showed me a video of my composting bin where we put all of the green kitchen waste. She reminded me that when we took the “Global Footprint Quiz” we were proud to learn that we recycle over 60% of household waste. She reminded me that we never do recreational shopping, we boycott Wal-Mart and we seldom eat red meat. “We aren’t perfect but we try to be good”, she said.

I have an angry part that started to rant. What the hell are we supposed to do? We didn’t ask to be born into the wealthiest nation on earth in the 20^th-21^st centuries of human domination of the earth. What are we supposed to do, act like god and carry the burden of the whole fucking universe on our back? You want to continue to live in voluntary poverty like we did all those years you worked for the church when we couldn’t afford to buy ice cream for the children when we went to the park to play? You think that is going to help the children of Darfur if you deny yourself and deprive your children? Now you can afford to buy a new dress if you want one and you don’t have to keep wearing the ones you bought 15 years ago. They look like crap, frankly. Get over yourself and just shut up and live the life that is given to you.

Soul swelled with compassion for the global suffering and for all my parts trying to reconcile what it means to live in First World opulence while 80% of the world has less, much less. Compassion has no answers, no wise counsel, and no salve to make it better. Compassion holds what IS with profound understanding, allowing it to just be.  And sometimes Compassion actually has density or a kind of valence that fills out the Soul into a round and pearly Presence. That’s what happened inside my heart and within the entire body, a redolent, luminescent fullness. And then I saw the scrim again. I saw it inside me; a pearly, fluttering, compassionate shield to help my system titrate global suffering so I don’t buckle under the weight of unspeakable and unbearable sorrow.

That’s what happened and my heart sang, “How does the creature say Grace? How does the creature say Thanks?”*

* Hymn: “God of the Sparrow God of the Whale” Carl F. Schalk 1983

 
November ~ Love Over Ideology: Thanksgiving in America

We love Thanksgiving in our family. In fact, Thanksgiving is a favorite American holiday for many people. Always falling on a Thursday it promises a long weekend and everything seems to slow down a bit. In November the holiday celebrates the completed harvest so the weather is chilly but not yet frigid. It can be a cozy day focused on gratitude and giving thanks without a lot of external secular pressures. It is a people or family day and people who love and care about each other come together for fun and connection. It revolves around a feast so the focus is sharing food. A-hem, Oh yes, the food.

It was on a Thanksgiving when the full force of the politics of food first hit me as yet another polarizing experience in the American family. By “politics of food” I don’t mean government farm subsidies. I mean the food fashions that make one eating style healthier, holier or more politically correct than another. They are numerous:

There is macrobiotic in which only raw food is eaten.
There is Vegan in which no meat, dairy or eggs are eaten.
There is vegetarian in which no flesh is eaten but dairy and eggs are eaten.
There is vegetarian in which nothing with eyes is eaten.
There is low food-chain carnivore in which no red meat is eaten but fish and chicken are O.K.
There is the compassionate carnivore in which no baby animals are eaten (read lamb and veal and probably rabbits because they are so cute).
There is Kosher in which the animal of the flesh eaten must be slaughtered in a particular way (and many varieties of Kosher within the designation Kosher).
Then there is the semi-discriminating carnivore that will eat anything as long as it is organic.
Then there is oblivious omnivore that eats the way everyone over the age of 50 grew up eating. (That would be an oblivavore?)

I beg forbearance if I have left out a category.

These various eating styles and food plans come out of an individual’s ethics, religion or humane sensibilities. For the most part they are choices that help us make a statement about what we value and what we believe. After all, “You are what you eat!” But before tucking in to the Thanksgiving feast there is much more sensitivity about food that must be considered.

We may not forget people who will actually become ill if they eat certain foods. Those who suffer with lactose intolerance must be considered. On Thanksgiving we can’t put milk in the mashed potatoes or serve a pumpkin pie because many lactose intolerant people will suffer for days with bloating and other unmentionable symptoms if they eat dairy. I am among them and I suffer if I’m not careful. Then, there are those who must eat a gluten free diet or they suffer with headaches, bloating and worse if they have celiac disease. This is a serious condition and both the lactose and the gluten sensitivities have developed from people being over exposed to cow dairy products and wheat based foods.

But, let’s get back to Thanksgiving dinner and the question of what to serve, how to cook it and the sensitivity and political correctness of eating together in a diverse group with people who have different needs and beliefs.

I’ll never forget the Thanksgiving dinner when I proudly put the turkey on the dinning room table and realized quickly that I had committed an offense. For my vegan daughter and her friend it was bad enough to have smelled a turkey cooking all day, but to have to look at the roasted, dead carcass sitting in front of them was more than they could handle. Their eyeballs rolled around in their heads and I got the message that I needed to quickly remove the offending dead animal so the meal could continue, albeit with less gusto than we had shared in years past. Every non vegan at the table felt implicitly judged because, through the eyes of the vegans, we were going to eat disgusting turkey cadaver. And the vegans, well, they felt badly too as they picked through piles of green bean casserole and salad, feeling unmet or unseen without a proper protein dish prepared especially for them. It was a tough year. However, the good news is that I was sensitized that year and Thanksgiving has gotten better every year since. I learned later that the vegans had been sensitized also.

Ahh, the next year we gathered as usual and ate the food with gusto. In addition to special vegetarian dishes we had a platter of Tofurkey or flavored tofu in the shape of turkey drumsticks. We also had a platter of sliced turkey carefully carved in the kitchen out of sight. All of the tension around rigid food preferences was gone, on both sides of the table, and it was an experience of love overcoming ideology. We all felt satisfied by much more than a delicious dinner.

Placing love over ideology and a desire for connection and human kindness within disagreements seems to happen less and less frequently here in the USA. Our November 2012 election exemplified how polarization and taking sides can be mean spirited and beside the point. Believing differently than another person inflames hatred and demonization. If you are “Blue” (Democrat) and the person across the table is “Red” (Republican) the ensuing conversation can ruin a dinner party.

In fact, that happened at my birthday party on a non-election year. A very progressive friend was seated at the same table as my very conservative neighbor and I wasn’t there to referee. I’m told they really got into it and it ruined the meal for the other six guests at the table.

Politics is not the only issue that inflames passions. Alas, we all know about what can happen when religious beliefs are challenged. History is rife with examples of how religious differences make people murderously irrational. “If you don’t believe in the love of God the way I do I’m going to fucking kill you.” And they did, and they do.

For many years I have found all of this unbearable. In truth, clinging to rigid preferences is the work of inner parts of ourselves that believe they have to be right and agreed with or they will be annihilated, which is why they are willing to annihilate others, or try to, who disagree with them. Rather than becoming interested and curious about the other person’s point of view, these parts get scared and believe they have to defend themselves to the, well, death. Scared parts override sensible parts by saying, “Never mind, I have to make this point to prove we are right or something very bad will happen!”

About seventeen years ago I had to put my desire for open hearted acceptance of diverse political and religious positions to the test after my divorce from a man with whom I agreed about almost every political issue. We had developed our political opinions together from a young age and so we were very compatible Progressives. I had to ask myself, “In a new relationship could love overcome ideology for me so that I could enjoy the company of someone who believes differently than I do?”  Where were my limits for that statement? It was a values clarification exercise:

What ultimately defines me?
Is it my beliefs and strongly held opinions that define me or something else?
Which beliefs define me?
What parts of me need to be agreed with?
What happens to my inner parts when my beliefs are challenged?
Am I uncomfortable or dismissive or hostile towards people who disagree with me?
What is the difference between tolerance and respect for a person with a different belief?

I could go on and on with the questions raised by this issue but I have settled it for the time being. I have found in my experience that love can overcome political ideology and religious beliefs. I have found I can love people who break the law. I have found I can love those who eat Tofurkey. I have learned that my love follows my attention and if I attend to something, like another person and their point of view, I can usually love them. I have learned this in my counseling practice, from the members of the churches I have served, from my children and from my husband.   

Every year at Thanksgiving for thirteen years I have offered generous thanks for my second husband whose vote I have cancelled out at almost every election on most topics. Have I learned about love over ideology? You bet I have and it’s a lot harder than serving Tofurkey. Thanks be to God and please pass the gravy! 

(5-24-12)

December ~ Illuminated Snow I

Come now be content, you said,
I will come back to you
I swear I will.

I will eat meat with you
And shoe into moonless
Icy nights toward a place
That may exist.

I am not afraid, not fearless
But held in tact by the
Movement of your lips.

From my once and former
Life I watch you thrust and
Glide across the snowscapes
Of my heart

Like frozen fog in forest
Time I await you in
Illuminated snow.

(1-12-96)

Copyright © 2013 Gayle Madison

Comments

[Alex]

Great work, Mom! Congrats on the new column. I loved the one about the politics of food. Boy we have come a long way, haven't we? I love you!!