Pilgrimage

   Picture this: two fit 70 year olds climbing the Pyrenees, ten miles up and then three straight down, having eaten a roll for sustenance. The wife of the duo is now sitting in the woods at the side of the trail weeping like a crazed mental patient while the man is slumped beside. She is barely able to think but just knows her husband is embarrassed by her as others trod by. Then he turns and says: "I want my Mommy" and she bursts out laughing." The Camino, that 500 mile walk in Spain, is saved.

 After her hero passes she finds notes he made on other trips. One struck her, how he believed that we shouldn't be tourists but pilgrims. What does this mean? It meant a lot I think for John : it meant travelling with purpose, to find what service God wanted him to engage in. To make a difference on his trips to Ghana, Central America and South America. 

  I must need metaphors because I have clung to the thought that I am on a pilgrimage still with John but different. In the corner of this room are our two hiking sticks, Camino shells, his running shoes, sunflowers. This is where I pray each morning. It reminds me that if I could do 175 miles of that walk in Spain I can do this hard last few years left to me.

On this walk so far I have encountered many trail angels who have helped me keep going just like on the Camino.Like on the Camino, I have cried over small things, then dropping my soap in the shower, now, not being able to get the cartridge in my printer. The first line of Scott Peck's classic "The Road Less Traveled" is this: "Life is difficult." I don't think we expect that, do we.

 I will end, clinging to my metaphor, with something that happened on the trail: "Mass at the stunning Leon Cathedral. When the homily is given in Spanish I try to open my mind and see what appears. I keep getting the word "profound". Then the message became clearer. We are all profoundly significant in this life. We ALL matter so much to the world,  to our world."  We are all pilgrims. Amen.

 

 

A Darshan moment

 

  

So long ago. A moment of liberation. 

     Leaving Mass, annoyed. Prayers for the Viet Cong to convert? Really? When did prayers work, I thought ? What good has this faith done for any of my unhappy, drink sodden relatives including my family? Enough, I'll sleep in and find my own way. How many have gone down that road ?

   Then marriage to my love and Denver. "Please come to Denver in the Springtime." Yes, we will. "Hey, rowdy boy why don't you settle down, Denver ain't your kind of town." A baby girl in tow and then another child to be born there. Looking sadly down I70 towards home a thousand miles away. 

Pack up and west to California, land of beauty and all that is good. A lovely tri-plex, walks to the library with toddler's hands held, sandy beaches near by, nasturtium growing in the front, a garden. What more do you want ? Oh ,but want is who we are. There's a hole that no one ever talked about. Oh, maybe St. Augustine did. But how long has he been dust?

Then this happened, with everything I ever wanted surrounding me and in the quiet of a rented living room, I said this: "God, if you are there, help me. " Nothing happened but I felt better. 

  I have told this story before but I came across a word today that says what happened next so well. A week later I picked up a small book as a gift. The cover said something about love but when I started to read I was hooked. A story about a saint's statue never getting greasy after years in a kitchen piqued my interest. The essays were from another book that somehow I got my hands on despite no Amazon. "Quantity of a Hazelnut"

 It was darshan." It's a gift; it's like there's a moment in which the thing is ready to let you see it. In India, this is called darshan. Darshan means getting a view, .....as if the clouds blew away and you could finally see the Himalayas. They are letting you have their view, say the people of India, darshan. This comfortable, really deep way of getting a sense of something takes time. It doesn't show itself to you right away".(Gary Snider)

I blew the clouds away with an invitation, help me, whatever that means.

From then on for all these years sentences in a book would mean something, they would jump out. So many guides :Merton, CS Lewis, Fae Melania. The clouds were blowing away and I could finally see.

What a treasure to have found that metaphor.

The eagle, pain and confusion.- Postcard 7

  What an odd place! Underground, dusty, dark, with drawings on the walls, and yet here in this space I was given life enriching advice by an eagle.

A Kiva, used for meetings and prayer by Native Americans, was the setting for my writing group to write a story, anything the picture inspired. This was in 2020.

In my mind, I went down those ladder steps respectfully and quietly. I went with an open heart ready to hear just the wind if that was what was offered. I sat on a wooden bench and closed my eyes.

Soon, I saw an eagle overhead soaring but a bit erratically. Suddenly, I am flying with him and our eyes meet in sympathy. A Voice tells me this: "Many weeks ago a lightening and wind storm surged through here; the eagle was thrown in a thicket of briars. Caught by the thorns the eagle wrenched himself away tearing tendons in his left wing. He flew off in pain and confusion. He has been healing ever since.

"His eagle mind never once asked: why me or how did this happen, or when will I be better. He flew off and healed. One day at a time. Carry this eagle mind into the future and live."

Those were the exact words that I heard that August day. A road map for me it seemed ,though at the time I had no idea why I would need it. Then came the pain and confusion. However, the boundless, eternal, all knowing Creator saw and using my imagination handed me a gift.

My imagination is a blank page where the Creator can post truths by way of images and speech. I just have to step aside.

So I thank that God, the Native Americans, Meinrad Craighead whose story called Vessel inspired us that day and for the eagle who bore the message to me. A deep bow.

Don't wait for joy to come to you. Postcard 6

 

In a moment of grace, I was given to understand that the Camino walk we took together in 2013 would be a perfect metaphor for this hard journey of loss. One foot in front of the other, tears expected, friends along the way that made it easier.

I think of the young Scot I walked with for a bit who had put his pain avoiding,  40 dollar socks on a clothesline only to have them taken. Plus his banana. We wound up laughing.

The postcard to the right was from a place called "Hospital Del Alma",  Soul Hospital. A small room with an open door that anyone could enter and listen to quiet music, drink tea and escape the hardship for awhile. I wrote: " Old wooden beams, a candle flickers in a purple glass, a voice chants. In front of me is an old oak table and chairs. A monk is in the garden talking to two pilgrims. Something about this place says I can do the Camino." Something about that hard walk tells me I can do this one.

There was also a poster on the wall of the front room that talks of shadow chasing, that we rush through the Camino as we do our lives. Oh yes, we do. And how we worry. I remember another elderly walker who said:" Next time I won't worry every minute whether I can do this is not." Another metaphor. What do we miss seeing as we foresee a disaster that never happens?

Our writing group walked the labyrinth again this week and I was given a guidance that had to come from Beyond." You must make joy, which is why you are here. Don't wait for it to come to you." And I write my postcard stories and feel joy. I grab a fistful of leaves, throw them in the air and I feel joy. 

So to the wind blown monk who provided this special respite in Castrojeriz, Spain, I thank you for all that I gained by walking through your door, perching in the garden, and just being with the God who must inspire your works.

And to anyone who reads this, I pray you find your Hospital del Alma today where you can just be, savor your breath and this one of a kind day...and maybe post a picture to show it.

The Monk Who Lost His Faith-postcard 5

   

How did this amazing connection begin? 

It was a Fall day in Kentucky in the 70s when John and I watched our little kids tumble down a hill at the monastery. Such a joyful scene. We had come to the Monastery of Gethsemane, me being a huge Thomas Merton fan. He had passed a few years before but I wanted to be where he once was.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw a crew cut haired man in denim jeans and shirt coming up a path. We waved. He came over with a big smile and we began to chat. It soon became apparent that something was amiss. I guess it was when he said: "I don't know what I am doing here." It seems our new friend, impressed by the amount of stars and galaxies, had come to an emptiness where belief had once been.

 We invited him to dinner, he came one Thanksgiving and was most kind not to mention the turkey, vastly undercooked, was bleeding. His first meat in twenty years. Poor monk.

We moved back to Georgia but wrote back and forth. He married and moved to Florida. I recall our first Christmas card exchange; mine was filled with angels and shepherds, his was a Christmas flower bordered in black. Once I sent a letter chiding him and his idol Carl Sagan for their hubris in being sure there was no Creator of this vast incredible universe. Pretty bold on my part.

The letters became less frequent but one day I received the above drawing of his monastery and written on the back was this:

"Strange piteous futile thing

wherefore should any set thee love apart

Of all man's clotted clay the dingiest clot

Alack thou knowest not how little worthy of love thou art

What wilt thou find to love ignoble thee

Save Me save only Me."..."The Hound of Heaven" by Francis Thompson

  And I knew that the Hound had finally chased and worn my monk down; that he had turned to embraced the One Who loved him. We will meet again.

Two Kindnesses on Skye-Postcard 4

 

  Scotland is magic. Despite the rain and cold, it captured my heart. 

We arrived in Aberdeen in September of 2010 tired but excited .We wandered the streets enjoying gardens and churches then fell into bed exhausted. Immediately, I had this dream:

The lady across the street arrived with a white statue of Mary that she received as a gift. She is so excited .I am doing yoga stretches on the floor and trying to keep an eye on my grey and white cat to be sure he doesn't get out. Short dream but so vivid I wrote it in my journal.

Four days later, after Inverness, Culloden, and the Highlands, we arrived at the Isle of Skye to another lovely B and B with a view of the firth out the window.

 John decided to hike north to a ruin visible from the town and I sat in a small park, bundled against the wind, reading "Braveheart." A young lad from Glasgow passed and was sure to tell me that the book wasn't true and we laughed. "Maybe, but its a great story", I told him. As we communed, a fluffy cat came from nowhere and jumped on the bench, then my lap. For the next hour we warmed each other. This had never happened to me before and I fell in love with that creature and so appreciated his warmth. 

Alas, the dismal rain started again and I had to leave my furry friend to go inside. As I sat at the dining table, writing and enjoying the watery view, the Grandmother of the house came in. She didn't hand me a throw blanket, but with a smile she tenderly put it around my shoulders.

So I offer my prayers of thanksgiving for the health that John and I had to enable this trip, the kindness of the sweet Scot grandma, the warmth of the fluffy cat who joined us the next day at the bus stop and left only when we got on. He who was by the way, grey and white. 

 

 

The Circle Dream- Postcard 3

   

This one was short and sweet and it has been tucked in my mind's pocket for years. 

It was a dream. There is a happy circle of people, mostly women; we are  dancing to and fro with the Lord in our midst. We are so joyous and wanting to be nowhere else at this minute, just here , dancing. All of a sudden, I feel the Lord take my left hand and attach it to the person's hand on His left as He eases His way backward out of the circle. I am stunned, what's happening here? "Where are You going?"   He says: "I am leaving and now, you lead the circle". Of course it is not the same but we keep dancing. 

It was so real that it seemed like a short documentary but its meaning? I never figured that out til..

In 2015, with no credentials and a lot of cheek, I started a writing group at my church. I loved writing, the doing , the way it revealed what I thought when I hadn't a clue-the magic. Who will come?  

We are twelve and have been meeting for 9 years. Lives have changed, books written, trips to the wetlands and the labyrinth. We have met our God in the words we share. We write stories inspired by art, postcards and many other oddities. 

Where the Creator is there is no time and the Almighty knew what was coming for me as did my husband in some mystical way. The circle has been the way He has kept me balanced. The love and care of my writing group cannot be described. Constant. Sensitive. Patient. Loving. They have held my hand through every minute of my loss.

We don't dance but Christ is in our midst and it's a wonder.