Category Archives: observation

Meditation, observation

Beautiful View

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It’s been six days since the big move, and things are getting into some kind of shape in the new place. We have more boxes unpacked than full, and we’ve managed to cook a couple of meals in the new kitchen. Still, most of the spaces have boxes against the walls, and there are tables and other items clearly out of place because no place has been found for them. I’m happy with the progress in this moving process, but there isn’t a single room that is anything close to tidy or put together. The chaos isn’t large-scale, but it is pervasive.

When I need a break from the mess and toil of moving, I take a minute to look at something beautiful – two somethings, actually. The back porch view is the first:

Coming in or going out to the back porch, I pass the dining table. When Leslie dropped off flowers, she also left beauty that uplifts my spirit. It is the second:

Soon the rooms will be in good shape, and my days will return to their typical activities. I hope I don’t forget how a vase of flowers kindly given, and a few minutes outside transformed my days when I really needed it.

Meditation, observation

Temporary

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I spent the better part of two hours in the dentist chair today, getting a cracked tooth repaired and topped with a temporary crown; the permanent crown will replace the temporary one in another couple of weeks. But the molar is old, with more cracks than the one prompting today’s repair. The permanent crown is only as permanent as the tooth that wears it, and the tooth is far from permanent. In a matter of years, the tooth will fail, requiring a root canal or a full replacement. But for now, just a crown.

The dentist chair isn’t a favorite destination for most of us, but it’s a place to be reminded of some profound truths. Today’s truth: every living, breathing being, toothed or toothless, is a temporary resident in this cosmos. Milliseconds or thousands of years, time ends for all things. Even the cosmos itself. None of us are permanent residents in this state; all of us move through death into the next reality. That is a truth that abides.

But we don’t leave life empty-handed, even if we can’t take anything with us. The love we have, given and received, remains and stays with us – a ribbon connecting all things in all times to every other thing and the God who brought it all into being. It’s as sure a truth as any death, and it, too, abides.

Easter, Meditation, observation

Moving

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We pick up the keys to the new house today. Saturday is the moving day for the big things – bed, dresser, and bookcase. We have people helping us with those things. But the moving began some days back; boxes are packed with linens, clothes, books, and other things easily packed into the car. Mops and cleaners will go first, getting floors and shelves ready for filling. Plants and pictures will arrive well before the big furniture, set aside until everything is in its place. It’s a lot of work to move the smaller things over, but easy enough to do with a few boxes, a car, and a free hour or two.

Moving in small doses, taking stock of what needs to go and what can be let go of, is how I’ve gone from one life stage to another just as surely as the way to go from one house to another. Small things shift, preparing the space for moving the bigger things. Activities are put in a new context, adapting to a new configuration that gives structure to my inner life’s new home. It’s a way to welcome in a new stage, and a reminder that it’s time to ask for help with the big things I can’t get from one stage to another on my own.

Easter, Meditation, observation

Removal

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For twenty years, this tree has provided a shady place on hot summer days, a beautiful foliage display in Autumn, and a favorite vantage point for our cats to look for birds, mice, and moles. On the back side, it’s charred from just above the base to the first big split – a scar from a former neighbor’s thoughtless and reckless trash burning. Blizzards and Nor’easters have taken their toll, and weakened it to the point where it is a potential hazard to two houses, a garage, and the fence. An arborist is removing it today. I am sorry to lose this silent resident that has added so much to my life without much notice or appreciation on my part.

The beauty and impact of many living things are subtle, only coming to awareness when they are no longer present, or soon to be gone. Love and strength come in many forms, some bearing leaves if not audible voices. With gratitude for twenty years of hospitality, and regret for not offering them earlier and often, God be with you, kind neighbor.

life basics, Meditation, observation

Personal Appearances

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Personal items are boxed or tucked into drawers. The shades are pulled to the same length, toiletries and Kleenex boxes are next to the razors and toothbrushes in the bathroom closet. Cat bowls and scratching posts are in the basement next to the boot tray, and the cats are off site. Rooms are clean and tidy. Other than the books on the shelves and food in the cupboards, there are few traces of the people who live here. We have done our best to create a space where potential buyers can imagine themselves living because this house is for sale.

I am keenly aware of the particularity of the places I’ve called home, and how traces of my family are evident in almost every corner of every room – things we’ve chosen to put on the walls and tables because one or more of us find them beautiful or useful, things that say something about who we are and what we hold dear. Our personalities appear in them, making our home as unique to us as our neighbors’ homes are unique to them. And that is as it should be.

Clearing all the living spaces so that new people can imagine calling this house home is a lot of work, but I’m happy to do it. It’s time for other people to hang their own pictures on these walls and set their chairs on the back porch. Removing things that get in the way of their coming is, in its own way, is the best welcome I can offer.

[Photo by David Fredrickson]

Biblical Reflection, Meditation, observation, Uncategorized

Incoming

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The wisps of cloud dipping down mark its edge. There’s a soft rustling and a faint brush of moist air. It’s rare in this part of the world – a visible wall of rain moving down the mountain toward me.

These few words and this image are the best way I can offer an experience of it, but it isn’t something easy to recognize from a photo or description. They might help you recognize what they indicate sometime in the future, or bring to mind an experience you’ve already had of rain coming in. They may draw you in to the experience, past or yet to be.

Sometimes, I think that’s what scripture is – humanity’s best attempt to share an experience of God in word and image. If you’ve already had the experience, they will draw you back into it. If your experience is yet to come, they’ll guarantee you know it when it arrives…

Easter, Meditation, observation

Chairs

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While out on the beach there are two empty chairs that say more than the people who ever sit there.

Jimmy Buffett, Lone Palm, Fruitcakes; UMG recordings, 1994

They’re nothing special – you can pick them up in any hardware store. But without them, would I stay still long enough to notice the big, beautiful world just outside my door? Without a second chair, how would I catch a glimpse of the inner life of the friends, neighbors, and family members who grace my life with their presence?

In Jimmy Buffett’s song, I figured that the empty chairs represented missed opportunities – no one ever sat there. But it could just as easily mean that the chairs themselves speak to what time and vantage point offer us every day: a shared glimpse of the inner and outer worlds we inhabit.

A view, a loving other, and an awareness of their value. For these valuable things, I thank you, God.

Easter, Meditation, observation

Life on Schedule

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This morning, I was pruning back the branches of a spindly shrub, then taking the dead branches back to the brush pile. Walking back to the house, I saw this bit of green poking through the dirt.

The chives I divided from my plant in Wareham had emerged, pushing back the crumbly dirt and last year’s leafy leftovers. I’d started looking for it well over a week ago. The irises, lilies, and daffodils were coming up, but no chives; because chives usually appear earlier than the flowers, I assumed that it hadn’t made it through the winter. Yet, here they were, several inches in length, healthy and happy in this new place. With barely any attention, they will be here for years to come, adding flavor to food and beauty to the yard.

Life has its own timing, and doesn’t limit itself to my schedule or expectations. I may plant, tend, and harvest, but the plants are following their own inner logic and timeline. There’s something wonderful about that – and it’s good to be reminded that life has its own terms.

If I could remember that truth when it comes to all life, including people, I’d be a whole lot closer to wisdom and graciousness.

Lent, Lent2023, Meditation, observation

The Greatest Mystery

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And what is this that we call love?

Tell me, what is this mystic secret hiding behind the semblance of our lives,

And living in the heart of our existence?

What is this vast release coming as a cause to all effects, and as an effect unto all causes?

What is this quickening that gathers death and life and from them creates a dream

more strange than life, and deeper far than death?

[Kahlil Gibran, Prose Poems, (Andrew Ghareeb, trans.); New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1934, pp.5-6]

At the end of this Lenten journey, almost at the feast/betrayal/death, how can I not wonder at the vastness of God’s love and the dreadful depth of human fear that would kill it rather than embrace it?

Lent, Lent2023, Meditation, observation

Walking the Walk

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An almost-healed ankle sprain has me walking a bit slower than usual, and taking advantage of the many benches Manchester’s downtown offers. That’s how I ended up in this spot on Saturday, seated on one stone bench and facing another – a pause between the bookstore and the woodworkers’ shop. What has hindered my activities for weeks has also opened spaces in going from one item on my to-do list (Easter cards) to the next one (box for organizing). Had I not needed to stop, I wouldn’t have noticed the beautiful curve of the walkway I was soon to take.

The curve itself is an example of functional beauty, but it also offers something in its curvature: a change of perspective for anyone who walks it. What a lovely way to be reminded of the world that lies between point A and point B – and what a grace it is to spend time in the in-between part of the journey.

Letting go of what doesn’t matter: The frustration of moving slower than usual.

Loving what does: The beauty that a slower pace and curved path offer.