Tolerance

The newspapers today are filled with articles about the Indiana law which allows businesses to choose their customers, letting them refuse to serve some customers, thereby allowing discrimination on the grounds of religious freedom.  It's a law about the limits of tolerance, a new attack on gay-lesbian rights and as such has elicited a flurry of editorials, letters and op-ed pieces.  Discrimination is an ugly many-headed beast deeply embedded in the human psyche.  This controversy takes me back to the first church I served.  The congregation was bitterly divided on many issues.  There was a large group who were politically and religiously conservative knowing for sure who and what was all right and on the other side (they sat on opposite sides of the church - liberals on my left, conservatives on my right, really) there was a slightly smaller group of liberals believing in openness and tolerance.  I used to tell the church with a smile, they were very diverse when it came to opinions and their job was to learn to live with each other and tolerate each other's divergent beliefs.  Live and let live did not fly there.  Eventually after I left, they had a bitter, ugly fight about an Open and Affirming Policy.  This divided and destroyed the church as it was.  It was sad that rather than choose to live together and accept others different from themselves, they fought to the bitter end vote.  Wars have and are being fought in the name of this kind of divisive religion.  It comes down to having the ability to live with ambiguity and uncertainty and humility.  The origin of discrimination starts early, I think, with the development in the infant  brain.  At first the baby sees everyone as a part of itself and only when it's brain develops does it begin to recognize and discriminate between family and strangers: between us and them.   When we don't move beyond this simple point of view, we create enemies-them- and dump all sorts of dirty psychological detritus onto those pesky others who are different from us.  Jesus strongly disagreed with discrimination and accepted all the outcasts into his company-and by that powerfully taught us we are all one.  It's not a message that humanity has yet learned.  I think it's time we mature and follow Jesus' example.  In my opinion religions that foster discrimination are immature, needing to learn to accept others who are different.  It doesn't mean we have to be like others or even like them but we need to learn tolerance for other ways of being and sell the cake and flowers to gay couples, for goodness sake.

Holy Week

It's Holy Week, the week before Easter, the week the Christian church celebrates and remembers Jesus' final week of life, his death and his resurrection.  It's the biggest week in the life of the Church and now that I'm no longer in leadership, I am free to approach the week as I want, finding meaning where I see it.  Tradition, I think, is a good thing, connecting us to the past, to our ancestors in faith, but if that's all there is, then it can be tedious and lifeless.  Life is a present thing, filled with energy, ever-changing, growing, responding, adapting.  Wherever there is life, that is a holy place.  Jews know how to keep holy traditions alive.  This week is Passover, the ancient meal celebrating God's passing over the Jewish households in Egypt during one of the biblical plagues.  Families gather for the seder and though I've never been invited to one, I know it is a time of living tradition passed down through generations of Jews.  Christians have in large part given up the spiritual meat of Holy Week in favor of dyed eggs, jellybeans and chocolate bunnies.  This week, I want to be present for all the richness present in mytradition: the bittersweet Maundy Thursday meal of soup and bread (our remembrance of Jesus' last Passover meal), the pain of Good Friday, the faith-requiring in between time of Holy Saturday and the mysterious unreasonable joy of Easter resurrection.  Experiencing Holy Week reminds me of the richness of my life, gives me hope for all that is yet to come and helps me remember that all the parts and experiences of life are holy supported by love.

Ways of Love

As I leave E. Lansing to fly home, I've been thinking about the ways of love.  It's easier to describe than define.  Here there is an intimacy, the comfort of being just yourself and knowing that you are accepted and loved just as you are.  That's a big one.  There's a sense of being home.  I've been touched by the warmth of all the hugs I get.   The red cardinal whistling  at the top of the gray rain soaked tree evokes from me a love, a passion, for wild things.  I think the cardinal is moved to sing by the longer day length of spring days, not love.  But it is love I hear as Paul gently reads a chapter book to Sonja for an hour and a quarter last night.  Five year old Sonja keeps asking me why my mouth turns down.  That is a five year old telling the truth as she sees it.  One of my ordination vows was "to tell the truth with love" and that is hard to do.  Love is a razor-edged sword that makes us vulnerable.  Sometimes a granddaughter's mercurial behavior is trying but she's that way only at home where love makes it safe for her to let down her guard and express herself however she wants.  Why is it we hurt most often those we love?  I'd say hurts come because love makes us care deeply.  Love is generous and forgiving.  Love is accepting, but I don't know about bearing all things.  Love is patient and kind. Love is hearing the quiet voice of Erika telling Sonja a story to put her to sleep.  Love is shown in little ordinary ways.

Swan Lake

I'm just back from a performance of Swan Lake by Moscow City Ballet.  It had it all:  a 21 year old prince coming of age, an evil sorcerer, a jester and a bevy of swans who were really beautiful young women captured under the sorcerer's spell.  There was love, seduction, betrayal and dying lovers. Well, you don't go to ballet for the story.  Act 2 was sublime: 18 beautiful classic dancers in perfect unison as swans, a prince leaping high over the stage and Odetta ( the swan princess) on her toes for more time than seemed possible.   Odetta was so very thin with emaciated arms that looked very unhealthy which detracted from her beauty for me.  I imagine it is very hard to be the star ballerina.  The performance brought back childhood memories of when I saw Swan Lake with my Nana.  She used to take me to the ballet at the Los Angeles Philharmonic Auditorium.   I remember feeling very special and I loved my Nana very much.   I was 4 or 5 when we saw Swan Lake.  All I remember was crying uncontrollably when the swan princess turned back into a swan and died at the end of story.  It's hard for 5 year olds to appreciate tragedy.  I can't wait to relate the story to my granddaughters tomorrow morning.  I wonder if 70 years after me they'll appreciate the tragedy or just love the evil sorcerer?

First Day of Spring

Today is officially the first day of Spring.  We've had spring weather in Berkeley for a long time.  There,  the brown hills turn spring green with the winter rains and the plum trees so common on streets and in gardens bloom in early February marking the beginning of our giant wave of flowering that lasts months.  Here in Michigan, I've been looking for signs of Spring.  There's the mud of course, but I found thirteen beautiful white crocuses in my own front yard.  They were opened to the sun announcing for all to see, Spring is here.  Spring is such a hopeful time.  The increased light gently soothes our  winter blues away.  The warmer days encourages longer walks and garden work.  Children can play outside again.  For me it is a powerful metaphor that I found the crocuses blooming right in my own garden.  It has been said that everything we ever need is right close at hand if we look deeply and notice what's going on inside ourselves.  The biggest journey of our lifetime is the inward journey.  We don't need to travel the world or rush around seeking treasures,  because we already have them.   Here love is found in the small intimate ways: hugs and the way I am seamlessly incorporated into the routine as part of the family.  Every morning one of the girls comes over to make sure I'm up.  This morning Sonja banged on my door and rushed in in her bare feet (it was warmer this morning, in the high 30's).  Peace and joy come from inside.  What we need is close at hand not at all dependent on outer conditions.  The crocuses are blooming right in my own garden.  It's the first day of Spring.

In Shock

Yesterday morning we woke up early so I could catch the 7 AM BART train to San Francisco Airport where I caught a flight to Lansing, Michigan.  I came here to help out son Paul for a week while his wife Paula attends three back-to-back conferences for her work.  Paula told me on the phone the weather has warmed up and it was predicted to be warm for the rest of the week.  Stepping out of the airport, I realized warm is a relative term.  Coming into E. Lansing, I saw students walking about in shirt sleeves.  What were they thinking?  It was in the mid-to-low 20's.  The air sure felt cold to me, but my heart was warmed as I was greeted with big hugs from Erika and a tackle and a hug from Sonja.  After Paul got them in bed (while I grazed the lean pickings in the kitchen), he and I had a nice chat.  He outlined what I could do for him, mostly taking the girls to school, picking them up and cooking dinner.  This morning after a chilly walk with the girls to school, I came back and went back to bed.  My body is in shock, not only from the travelling (it always takes a day for my spirit to catch up with my body) but also from the cold.  I feel like a blooming tulip that got nipped by frost.  I am strongly struck by how very different California is than Michigan, especially in March.  The lakes here still have ice on them, even L. Michigan.  There are dirty piles of snow still lying around.  There is nothing green to be seen.  This is the first week the thermometer has been above freezing, so cold as it seems to me, there seems a possibility of Spring coming.

The Dinner Party

Last night we were invited to dinner at the home of a colleague of Bob's.  It turned out to be an old-fashioned dinner party like the kind we used to have.  Evenings like this stopped in the mid-eighties giving way to casual dining with big pots of spaghetti.   Last evening, appetizers of wine and tapende accompanied a long time of pleasant interesting conversations before the dinner.  Everyone seemed a beautiful person to me.  Then we were called to an elegantly set table with four tall silver candle sticks holding 14 inch long white candles burning brightly, beautiful flowered plates and a linen table cloth with large perfectly ironed heirloom linen napkins. The roast lamb and mushroom risotto were delicious and served with style.  But that wasn't all,  the food kept coming with three more courses.  I noticed each of us took smaller and smaller helpings.  Along the way we discovered all of us but one were native born Californians and that somehow seemed to set the magic tone for the evening giving us all a sense of being a part of a special community.  The party was a thing of beauty.  I come from a long line of women for whom creating fine dinner parties was a true profession.  It is a lost art these days.  I wonder from time to time what to do with my fancy dishes, fine table linens and silver flatware as none of our children are interested in it.   Inspired by by our host and hostess and the beautiful dinner party, maybe I'll dust off my table, bring out the dishes and revive this lost art of the dinner party.

The Other Side

Ok, I was impatient when I said the tulips had no flowers.  Now most of them do and the garden is getting lovely, at least on the surface.  Under the soil, the moles are still digging their tunnels, scouring the earth for grubs, worms and other tasty critters.  Their presence makes me feel hopeless as there seems no way to get rid of them.   Some years ago in a fit of landscaping, I had the whole garden dug up and screen cages put in, to keep the moles out.  But they just hopped over the screen and enjoyed the soft new dirt.  Today was one of those gray days, the other side of sunshine, when things just seemed to go wrong and hard as I've tried, I can't force my mood to change.  Yoga and exercise eased the tension, but didn't change the color of the day.  I guess some days dont' shine.  I am trying to just breathe and live one moment to the next.   And I know the sun will come out.

Sheep Ranch

California is very beautiful just now, green green hills, fields of yellow mustard, occasional hillsides of purple lupine, flowering fruit trees looking like young girls dressed in pink or white fancy dresses and blue blue skies.  The temperatures have been in the high 60's.  We spent the weekend at Sheep Ranch in the Sierra foothills visiting dear long time friends, Nancy and Larry.  We spent time sitting on the porch watching the world pass by in quiet comfort of friendship.  In wonder, we watched the many hummingbirds aggressively buzz each other and volley for space at the feeders.  There was a shy pair of bluebirds inspecting the round bluebird real estate in the yard.  We went on walks, stopping by to visit the town cemetery (a lovely old rural place) where we were surprised to find not one but two graves that looked mysteriously like zombies arose from them in recent days or more realistically like sinkholes had appeared.  Today we drove south to the Stanislaus River and strolled down a fisherman's path by giant Ponderosa pines and patches of bear mat (aka mountain misery).   Bob spotted a dipper, doing its thing bobbing up and down.  I loved the piney smells, the beautiful lichens and the wonderful rushing mountain water.  But there is nothing like spending time with good friends.  It is balm to my spirit and soul.  I am grateful for this special weekend.

A Happy Hope-filled Day

What a happy hope-filled garden day I had today!  There hasn't been a spare moment since John arrived late morning to graft four different kinds of apples on Arne's apple tree.  Arne said this is what he'd most like for his birthday.   The apple tree will easily live another fifty years and when I think about the five kinds of apples the tree will bear, it makes me smile deeply.  John had been highly recommended by my new garden lady and I was impressed with his knowledge about grafting and his evident love for trees.  We first chose the varieties to be grafted:  Gravenstein, Honey Crisp, Pink Lady and a "child's little flavorful apple whose name I forget.  Then he chose the south-facing  limbs on which to graft.  Then he sawed off the limb, leaving a smooth flat surface where he cut vertical slits, wedging out a thin piece.  Next he shaved the bark off the scions to be grafted, but only on one side,  He inserted the thin pointed scion into the slit on the tree and voila, a graft.  He made thirteen grafts on four different limbs with four different kinds of apples.  After wrapping up the grafts in Press and Seal plastic wrap, then wrapping a tough masking tape around them, they were protected from dessication.  For further protection, brown paper lunch bags were put over the grafts.  Then in a month, they should be growing and able to be out in the world.  Next year, we might expect fruit.  What a hopeful activity this was.  And then gardening with my "angel" gardener who cleaned up the garden, pruning four more trees.  She's a treasure.  To top off this positive day, I met with a former boss of Arne's who works with people writing their memoirs.  It was an inspiring and helpful session.  What a wonderful day it has been, filled with positive hopeful activities.

Potential

Years ago when Arne was young, he found a sprouting apple seed in a Golden Delicious apple he was eating.  Being the kind of child he was, one that noticed little things and tended them, he planted the seed and tended it until it was big enough to go in the ground.  Now, more than twenty five years later, we have a mature apple tree that gives us many apples every year, apples for us to eat and to make applesauce, apple pies and apple cakes.  His little daughter, Elsa, climbs the tree with great joy each time she visits us.  There's  nothing like the view from the top of dad's apple tree.  Last week, I found a sprouting apple seed in a Gala apple I was eating.  I planted it and it is just now pushing up its plucky greening cotyledons up into the sun light.  I am thinking this morning about the seed and the apple tree as metaphors for life.  We come up with little ideas that can grow and support us, giving us pleasure as well as nourishment.  How do we tend and protect the tender ideas so they can grow strong?  I think everything in life starts with ideas, seeds, that grow---the Bible talks about seeds planted in good nurturing soil and bad rocky soil and about weeds that grow choking out the good seeds.  In this phase of my life, what seeds do I want to protect and nurture?  What trees do I want to plant so that when I'm gone they will be there to nourish and give pleasure to those who follow me?