Mother’s Day 2025

          

There are many kinds of mothers, many kinds of children and many kinds of families.  There are special folks who become very much like substitute mothers. And of course there are grandmothers!  Where would be without them? This is the day set aside for remembering them all.

My mother, pictured above, born in 1902 lived one month short of 100 years. As a man now 90 years on the path of life, I have had my share of experiences to which I can attach memories of the good times, the growing pains and the effort I put into my relationship with my mom. One thing I believe I understand is that for all the influence she had on my development, who I am is not her responsibility. To the extent that I have been open to learning from my life as her son, it has been possible to meet many of her hopes and expectations for whom I would become. In the final analysis, however, the choices have been mine to make for the better or the worse.

I honor my mom with unconditional love, appreciation for her efforts to provide the best base for living that she could and even forgiveness for any assumed faults I believe she may have had.

I hope you can find a special place in your heart to honor the best your mother had to offer you. For some that may be difficult. For real growth, however, it is important to recognize what we can gain from her that aids us along our path. “Love one another” was not for the simple relationships. It is for all relationships.

 

Folding Clothes and Taking Naps

It seems strange that it takes some of us eighty-seven years to understand more fully what is important in life.

So often my “great insights (?)” come as I am folding clothes after my regular Sunday morning wash, or perhaps just I am drifting into the twilight of my daily nap. Sometimes they come deep in the night dreams (that seem so prescient at the time) but which, upon waking too often are gone!

No matter. What is important is that those insights come at all. The point is made whether remembered later or not. Frustration that sometimes follows comes as one might think they are more important (for others to share) than is actually true. Perhaps they really are only for my benefit.

I am a most fortunate living person. I have reached a certain age and still have enough of my faculties to recognize the importance of being alive. Fleeting memories reassure me that I have “been there, done that” in so many ways. I am so grateful! I have blessings beyond any that I have a right to experience. I can only suppose that somewhere along the path I have done a few things in a manner that has resulted in more good than ill.

So, I will keep “Folding Clothes and Taking Naps!” I am so grateful!

--Originally posted on Facebook, February 6, 2022

 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.

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[1]  https://www.themarginalian.org/2023/01/16/elie-wiesel-brothers-keeper/?mc_cid=c94bb3bf5f&mc_eid=b032a5ca74

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!

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[1]  https://www.themarginalian.org/2023/01/16/elie-wiesel-brothers-keeper/?mc_cid=c94bb3bf5f&mc_eid=b032a5ca74