Sunday, January 22, 2023

 

Some Thoughts for A Sunday in January

inosculation

noun

1        The union of two vessels of an animal body by openings into each other, so as to permit the passage of a fluid; anastomosis.

2        Hence Some analogous union or relation; a running together; junction: as, in botany, the inosculation of the veins of a leaf, or of a scion with the stock in grafting.

3        The junction or connection of vessels, channels, or passages, so that their contents pass from one to the other; union by mouths or ducts; anastomosis; intercommunication.

The Century Dictionary.

 This word, Inosculation, was new to me as my eyes came across it.  At least, I do not remember encountering it before.  The photograph that followed in the article[1] I was reading was so similar to one of my own, taken when my son and I were seriously trimming a greatly overgrown, out of control rhododendron in my yard. I had never seen a living connection like this between plants or trees.



The article by one of my favorite writers/collectors of meaningful ideas, Maria Popova, shared some thoughts from Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor and Noble Peace Prize laureate.  He was discussing the importance of our interconnectedness, person to person and with the Universe as a whole.  One such thought:

“I believe if people talk, and they talk sincerely, with the same respect that one owes to a close friend or to God, something will come out of that, something good. I would call it presence.   […] I would like my students to be presence whenever people need a human presence. […]  If there is a governing precept in my life, it is that: If somebody needs me, I must be there.”

Ms. Popova frames it this way:

“Whenever we quiet the voices of so-called civilization — the voices of selfing and hard-edged individualism — that sense of the interconnectedness of life and of lives becomes audible.”

So much is conjured in my mind when thinking and feeling  presence.  Through the years I have felt in and out of presence often.  In times of meditation and teaching and writing about being here now it has been easier and more natural to feel connected with others.  When I have felt overwhelmed by the constant barrage of information, mostly about how bad things are, I drifted out of presence and into to hubbub of just making it to the next opportunity to regain peace of mind and the remembrance of the many friends who have always been there for me.  I begin to recapture the connectedness felt when I was truly able to be there for others.

Maria Popova points out that the greatest challenge facing us all, however, is how to be with each other’s suffering. In consonance with the great Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh’s insight that “when you love someone, the best thing you can offer that person is your presence,” 

To all who have been there for me, thank you!  For those whose life I may have touched with presence, I am so grateful to have been there and to remain there inosculated in sharing the Life Force of All That Is!



Thursday, March 11, 2021

 

Thoughts

I wish that I could write as I think I once did.  At least I believe I wrote moderately well. 

My heart has much to say, but the part of me that put words and phrases together, the brain, does not perform its task quite as fluently these days. 

For the most part, since it is my heart that desires to speak, it usually centers on some aspect of love.  That feels like an irony for me.  I have a very deep sense of love and caring, yet I realize that I often do not let it show by the way I act.  Indeed, I realize a selfishness in my love.  It is too often, somewhat unconsciously, directed toward my own interests.  How I care for others is not diminished, yet because my actions often fall short of adequate expression, I feel I am in fact leaving them alone and uncared for.

These thoughts tumbled from my heart just now as I was reading Maria Popova’s latest post in her newsletter, “Brain Pickings.” The article shared thoughts from poet/philosopher David Whyte about friendship, love and heartbreak. [1] While most of us tend to view these as separate feelings, he brings them together as one pathway in life. Heartbreak seems the most devastating of the three elements.  So much pain oozes from it for those immersed in it.


Ms. Popova introduces Whyte’s thoughts thusly:

“Stripped of the unnecessary negative judgments we impose upon it, heartbreak is simply a fathometer for the depth of our desire — for a person, for an accomplishment, for belonging to the world and its various strata of satisfaction. Whyte captures this elegantly:”

Realizing its inescapable nature, we can see heartbreak not as the end of the road or the cessation of hope but as the close embrace of the essence of what we have wanted or are about to lose.

[…]

Heartbreak asks us not to look for an alternative path, because there is no alternative path. It is an introduction to what we love and have loved, an inescapable and often beautiful question, something and someone that has been with us all along, asking us to be ready for the ultimate letting go.

It would seem that to love we are inviting heartbreak, this disappointment and frustration that comes when we feel unfulfilled, when we appear to lose what we once had.  How can we reconcile this apparent loss?  For me, my experience of loss is considering the “what ifs” of life.  What if I had only done this?  What if I had not acted this way? What if I had chosen differently? What if I loved regardless of eventual outcomes?

I have not yet answered the questions.  I am certain there are possible answers, solutions, ways to act.

What if I could write as I once did?

Sunday, October 21, 2018

Living Without Feeling


As I read an email newsletter centered on powerful writings by authors daring to deal with life's most complex issues, I could not help but think how important feelings are to being fully alive. [1]

Among several topics in the current article was one focused upon Elizabeth Gilbert writing about “Love, Loss, and How to Move Through Grief As Grief Moves Through You."  Who has not experienced grief at some point in their life?  Sometimes, many of us find ourselves re-experiencing moments of grief over a loss that occurred a long time ago.  This happened for me as I read along.  I first thought about my daughter, Jennifer, and her loss of her mother almost two years ago.  The pain still runs deep for her due to the closeness of their relationship.  My thoughts turned to the passing of my mother, an experience that is as clear to me in this moment as it was in 2002.

My mind found itself considering what life must be like for those who appear to have no feelings, people who seem to coast along living in the moment without regard to a history of connections or a future of discovery.  Several people I know, as far as I can tell, would fit this description.  They are not bad people because they do not seem to feel things as I do.  Yet I feel they have a different type of loss, a life not quite as colorful as it might be.  Understand, I am not saying that sadness is required for us to have color in our lives.  It is, however, important to realize the strengths and character that are built by our ability to face loss in such a way as to allow moving through it with grace and depth of meaning.  In short, if we are feeling loss it is because whatever, whoever has been “lost” was and is important to us.

In this article Joan Didion was quoted as saying, “Grief, when it comes, is nothing like we expect it to be." Gilbert reflects on the death of her partner, Rayya Elias . . . the love of her life.

“Grief… happens upon you, it’s bigger than you. There is a humility that you have to step into, where you surrender to being moved through the landscape of grief by grief itself. And it has its own timeframe, it has its own itinerary with you, it has its own power over you, and it will come when it comes. And when it comes, it’s a bow-down. It’s a carve-out. And it comes when it wants to, and it carves you out — it comes in the middle of the night, comes in the middle of the day, comes in the middle of a meeting, comes in the middle of a meal. It arrives — it’s this tremendously forceful arrival and it cannot be resisted without you suffering more… The posture that you take is you hit your knees in absolute humility and you let it rock you until it is done with you. And it will be done with you, eventually. And when it is done, it will leave. But to stiffen, to resist, and to fight it is to hurt yourself.”

When my father passed in 1981 the news arrived by telephone while my son and daughter and I were having dinner with a friend in Denver.  Loss comes in its own time.  There really is no being ready for it.  Perhaps that reason above all is why it is so important that we allow ourselves to be feeling individuals.  Feeling allows us to be resilient and able to bend in the winds of stress and change.

Gilbert continues, 

“There’s this tremendous psychological and spiritual challenge to relax in the awesome power of it until it has gone through you. Grief is a full-body experience. It takes over your entire body — it’s not a disease of the mind. It’s something that impacts you at the physical level… I feel that it has a tremendous relationship to love: First of all, as they say, it’s the price you pay for love. But, secondly, in the moments of my life when I have fallen in love, I have just as little power over it as I do in grief. There are certain things that happen to you as a human being that you cannot control or command, that will come to you at really inconvenient times, and where you have to bow in the human humility to the fact that there’s something running through you that’s bigger than you.”

Finally, a thought about people who may consider it a weakness to express feelings.  Dads used to teach their sons, “Men don’t cry.”  Hopefully, that is not being taught any longer.  Our emotions are not always accompanied by tears, but when they are, it may be that extra step we allow ourselves that frees us to relax into a more satisfying understanding of the love that embraces what appears to be lost.  Living without feeling is not really living at all.

I am always glad to receive my Sunday digest of “Brain Pickings,” edited by Maria Popova.  Each week there is something to take me more deeply into my understanding of self.  Check it out after reading the footnoted post. [2]

Sunday, September 2, 2018

CBS Sunday Morning, Again


This morning as I enjoyed my Sunday ritual I could not help but wonder how many times I have written something for this blog as a result of watching CBS Sunday Morning.  So, I opened the blog and used the search operation to find out.

I won’t say I was surprised by the result—six identifiable articles--but it was interesting to see the results.  The subjects triggered by the program are varied as you might expect, but as with the blog itself, they usually covered something in the human-interest field.  Occasionally, some tragedy drew my need to respond.  Listed below are the articles I have written for the blog along with a current comment and URL for the original article.

Failure To Ask

October 3, 2010

Desperation and despair leading to suicide, especially among teens and young adults, led to writing this article.  Unfortunately, the same emotional elements active in 2010 are still largely unresolved.  The story of Rutgers University freshman, Tyler Clementi, triggered a swift and widespread reaction in many media outlets.  It is tragic that today we are facing a similar breakdown in civility leading to divisiveness and outright hateful bigotry.  This, for me, is laid largely at the feet of the person currently occupying the oval office.


Just A Regular Sunday

June 2, 2013

I wrote this shortly after moving from my apartment in Beaverton to a manufactured home community in Dallas, Oregon an historic small town farming community.  Since living here I have realized how it is changing.  It will always be a rural community, but housing projects in development are abundant.  Being just fifteen miles from Salem it is a “bedroom” community within easy reach of employment opportunities, many government related, since Salem is the State Capitol.  A somewhat sad note has to do with the fact that the hometown high school mascot is “The Dragons,” an unfortunate reference to the early days of the Ku Klux Klan in the area.  Yes, Oregon has a history of racism that at one time prevented black folks from moving into the state.


Today Is A Good Day To Be Alive

June 28, 2015

A morning walk following my CBS viewing brought me to a new “friend” and a recaptured sense of being alive.  Maybe you will catch the spirit of life as well.


It Won’t Be the Same Anymore

September 25, 2016

This article was a reflection upon 22 years of Charles Osgood hosting the morning program.  I could remember most of the celebrated stories since I had watched this program since its inception many years ago.  Jane Pauley became the new host and the quality of programming has continued to be a delight.


It Wouldn’t Be Sunday Morning Without CBS

July 9, 2017

Here I recount one of my daily walks, usually along the Rickreal Creek path.  This path wanders through the city of Dallas following the creek.  There are brief areas where the path development is not yet constructed.  My walk is along a more recently finished stretch.  At the end of the article are a number of photos.  Enjoy!



Living For the Day

July 29, 2018

A worthwhile word of advice for us all.  Live today!  Live it with joy and a positive, hopeful vision of what can be.  Since writing this I have noticed the gentleman I referred to every day continuing his walk through the community—sometimes twice during the day.  He is wracking up multiple miles.  I wonder if his credit card is giving him advantage miles!



Sunday, July 29, 2018

Living For the Day


I live in a manufactured home community for those aged 55+.  I have been impressed, especially in the last year, how many residents take regular walks.  Apparently, those who have been advocating for daily exercise of some type—anything that gets you moving off the couch—have had an effect.  It is sinking in and folks are taking better care of themselves.

As I was observing my ritual of watching CBS Sunday Morning on TV I caught out of the corner of my eye a diminutive senior going by with his wheeled walker.  I thought to myself, “good for you!” and went back to watching my program.  A few minutes later he came by again.  A few more minutes later there he was on his third round.  I felt like going out and congratulating him.  Finally, I watched as he passed for the fourth and apparently the final time of the day.

I finished my program and got ready for my own morning walk, this time an hour long and about three miles.  Some days are easier than others now.  Lower leg muscles and hip joints sometimes protest the effort.  Still, arriving back home I always feel better and during gardening days, I usually head right out to work there for a while.

Increasingly, I am aware that I really am living for the day!   Even with a pretty regular routine without a lot of variation, every day is special.  I have found that as I believe that and look for simple things that make each day a little different, a little more precious, a wonderful feeling of satisfaction sweeps over me.  I have mentioned in articles before that I give thanks every day for how fortunate I am.  Some of you, who read my occasional rants on Facebook, might question how I can say I am grateful for my life.  I can only answer that by suggesting you give it a try. Enjoy a sunrise or sunset.  Imagine cloud shapes as you did as a child.  Enjoy your immediate surroundings with appreciation for what made them possible. 

Live for the day.