spirituality, aging

Re-entry: Thoughts Post Road Trip

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The road is never long when the goal is time with a grandchild.

My husband and I volunteered to bring our granddaughter Maren home from her first year at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon. We were eager for a road trip–a change of pace and scenery–and the lure of having Maren all to ourselves between Portland and St Paul was just the incentive we needed.

What a treat to see her in her new habitat, meet some of her friends, and hear about her classes and activities, as well as plans for the next school year. Plus, we thrilled with the diversity of landscape between Minnesota and Oregon, and how fun to see bison and antelope and prairie dogs and Bighorn sheep in their natural settings. Oh, and the coyote that dashed across the road right in front of us!

Each of our families made the trek through the Badlands and to Mt Rushmore when we were in sixth grade, but this was the first time we had been to the Crazy Horse Monument with its amazing museum of Native American art. The creation of the monument, whose origin is a fascinating tale, will continue for decades to come. Put this on your “must visit” list.

We oohed and aahed our way through Portland neighborhoods, including the Japanese Garden, realizing how color starved we were, thanks to our reluctant spring in Minnesota.

A great trip, but oh how good it is to be home.

Travel As I Age

  • I enjoy traveling, but I admit I am not passionate about traveling. I loved the big trips we had in the past–Paris, London, Rome and Florence, Tanzania, along with the semester I spent in Thailand when I was a junior in college. How amazing it was to experience other cultures and to see so much of what I had read about –or knew nothing about, but I don’t yearn for big trips. I view those trips as a kind of bonus in my life.
  • I don’t like to pack, but I enjoy unpacking. Deciding what to take –how much, for what kind of occasions and weather and possibilities–flusters me. But emptying the suitcases, doing the laundry, finding places for any new treasures does not feel like a chore to me. I love the feeling of settling back in and becoming reacquainted with the routines of my everyday life.
  • I am just as content and interested in the close by, as the far away. And then after roaming for only a day, I can sleep in my own bed. (Would someone explain to me why hotel beds seem to be so high–I need a running jump or a stool to get myself up into bed and when I do the bedding is so heavy I can hardly move. And what about the lack of good lighting? Don’t other people read before they go to sleep? I’ll stop whining now!)
  • I repeat: I am just as content with the close by as the far away. I like being a tourist in my own town, my own state, and I’ve started making this summer’s list of places we can visit in a day or maybe two.
  • I prefer immersing myself in a place. When we went to France several years ago, we stayed in Paris for the whole two weeks and took day trips, returning to our apartment each evening. We wandered neighborhoods, as well as seeing the most important sights. I like getting a taste of what it might be like to live in that location. That can also mean returning to a location over and over again. For example, we never tire of returning to Door County, WI. We relish the familiar, as well as the new discoveries.
  • I appreciate the spaciousness of travel. How good it is to learn and experience new things, but travel also opens my eyes and my heart to myself. I return home with new insights, new ideas for teaching or writing or even how to rearrange the furniture. Travel is a not only a time to wander physically, but it is also a time that encourages day dreaming and imagining what it would be like to live someplace else. Travel is a time to visit the “what ifs” of the mind.

Let me be clear: We had a great trip, especially the time we had to be with Maren. No regrets, but I am just as happy to once again be home.

Travel as Pilgrimage

As I prepare for or begin a trip, I consider my intention. In this case, it was obvious; spend time with Maren and gain a clearer vision of her college life. The agenda was simple and loose, leaving room for flexibility and possibility.

Just as important, however, at the beginning of a trip is to consider what to leave behind, in order to open myself to something new or unknown. For me that meant taking a time out from writing posts for this blog and spending a minimum of time emailing or doing other online tasks. I left behind my “to do” lists, and that, dear friends, is not easy for me.

As I travel, I ask myself how can I be receptive to what is in front of me and offered to me? What do I give of myself? Are my eyes open? My heart? On this trip we saw so much poverty and homelessness, for example. At the same time we saw so much beauty.

Now that I have returned, I need time to integrate what I’ve learned and experienced. What questions do I have about what I have seen? What else do I want to learn? How will this trip enhance my life and the way I live? I am in that stage now.

Note:

My next post, Thursday, May 12, I will share the list of books I bought at the bookstore mecca, Powells.

An Invitation

What kind of a traveler are you? What makes travel pleasurable for you? What role does travel play in who you are? I would love to know.

Book Report: On Juneteenth by Annette Gordon-Reed and My Thoughts About Retirement Reading

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NOTE: I am going to take a brief break from the blog. My plan is to begin posting again the week of May 9.

First, the weekly book report: On Juneteenth by Annette Gordon-Reed.

Part memoir, part history, part psychoanalysis of Texas, this slim volume enlightens the movement to make June 19, Juneteenth, a national holiday. On June 19th, 1865, in Galveston, Texas, the end of legalized slavery was announced–two years after The Emancipation Proclamation and two months after Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant.

Gordon-Reed grew up in Texas and in fact, she was the first Black child to attend an all- white school in her hometown, Conroe, Texas. Her story is compelling and offered me several new perspectives. For example, the Black high school near her home was Booker T. Washington High School, usually referred to in the community as “Booker T,” but when people outside the community called it Washington High School and assumed it was named for “George”

Another new thought: Gordon-Reed writes about the effect of integration on Black teachers. “The children were to be integrated, not the teaching staff…People who had been figures of authority were put in charge of dispensing books and doing other administrative tasks that took them away from contact with Black students, depriving those students of daily role models.” p. 51. Think of the longterm effects of that practice.

My family lived in Texas for two years, when I was in junior high school. My father was transferred there from New York and then transferred back to New York. During our brief time there I acquired a Texas accent and learned to address my teachers as “Sir” and “Ma’am”–both habits I lost quickly when we returned to Long Island. What I didn’t acquire was much real knowledge about Texas. I learned about the six flags that flew over Texas and about the Alamo and all the reasons Texas was great. I didn’t learn anything about the history of slavery in Texas.

When slavery in Texas was mentioned, it was presented as an unfortunate event that was to be acknowledged but quickly passed over. There was no sense of the institution’s centrality. Slavery was done. There was no point in dwelling on the past. Texas was all about the future, about what came next–the next cattle drive, the next oil well. the next space flight directed by NASA’s Mission Control in Houston.

pp. 27-28

In steps the historian. And we continue to learn and to gain insight about the implications of the past and what needs to happen now.

Now for Thoughts about Reading and Retirement.

After reading On Juneteenth, which I got at the library, I realized I have yet to read Gordon-Reed’s Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winning book The Hemingses of Monticello, An American Family (2008). Don’t scold me. Periodically, I take the book from the shelf of other miscellaneous, yet to be read nonfiction books and ask myself if this is the time. It’s a BIG BOOK, and I know when I read it, I will want to focus and fully immerse myself in it.

It’s the kind of book I think I will want to read when I retire, but I’m not planning to retire anytime soon.

Now here’s a confession. Sometimes when many around me tell me I must read a certain book OR when I hear or read too many reviews about a book, I lose interest in reading the book myself. Because of that, I know I have missed reading many books I would have loved. But it is not too late. There is always retirement whenever that happens or whenever the time is right for that specific book.

In the meantime I daydream about other books on my shelves I want to re-read or read for the first time.

An Invitation:

What books do you daydream about reading? What books did you miss when they were first published but interest you now? I would love to know.

Words of the Season

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NOTE: After my Book Report post on Thursday, April 21, I’m going to take a brief break. My plan is to begin posting again the week of May 9.

One of my Lenten practices in recent years has been to describe each day in a word or short phrase or to listen for a word that invites reflection. (I use a template from Praying in Color https://prayingincolor.com to record those words.)

The last word, the only word, the word at the center is Easter. How grateful I am to arrive there, to know this word, but at the same time It is good to reflect on the journey.

One of Jan Richardson’s Easter reflections in her book In Wisdom’s Path, Discovering the Sacred in Every Season is about words that have been meaningful in her life. She finds a list she made years ago: courage, comfort, dwell, and many others and decides to make a new list. She notes that many of the words on the old list reappear, but there are also new ones: threshold, voice, longing, labyrinth, shadow, passion and others. (p. 96)

What similarities are there between my 2022 and 2021 Lenten words? What can I learn by reviewing the words from these two years?

The first thing I notice is how much more restrained 2021 is than 2022. I enjoyed the coloring and doodling process this year, and I wonder if it isn’t time to resurrect some coloring books; an activity that has been relaxing in recent years.

My word for the year in 2021 was WORD, and my word for 2022 is RHYTHM. The focus for each word is reflected in each of these images, I think.

During this recent Lent I seemed to have been more aware of the movement of each day, often expressing that movement in my simple doodles, as well as the choice of words. For example, the first Lenten word this year was “let,” followed by “flow,”, “slow down,” and “exhale.” Other words reflect my awareness of the rhythm of my day, of my intentions. “Flow” appears again and “roam” is noted three times, but other words, “steps,” “easy,” “gather,” “flexible,” “wave,” and many others all indicate some kind of movement and rhythm. The movement of God in my life and the movement of God in my own being.

During Lent, 2021, I spent more time writing in my journal about the word for the day. Often I discovered the word for the day in someone else’s words. For example, early in the Lenten season I re-read The Way of Silence, Engaging the Sacred in Daily Life by Brother David Steindl-Rast and the days’s passage often revealed that day’s word. On February 20, the revealed word was “aliveness.”

If we could measure our aliveness surely it is the degree to which we are in touch with the Holy One as the inexhaustible fire in the midst of all things. p. 118.

In my journal entry I reflect on times I feel that aliveness.

        When I do things I love to do.
        When I am with people I love.
        When I read something that opens me.
        Sometimes when I am writing, and a word, a sentence feels just right.
        When I end a session with a spiritual direction client and sense they have gained insight into themselves or their relationship with God. 

A number of words in 2021 are related to the pandemic. "Relief" on the day we received our first vaccination and "rejoice" the day we received the second dose. Other words reflect a more solitary life--"cozy," "inhabit," "pray," "imagine,," "tucked in," and "safe."  The 2022 words feel more active, more indicative of a life not so confined. 

Some words are found in both years--"gift," 'listen," "gather," "host," and "space," but do they mean the same thing in both years? Further reflection is needed. In fact, I intend to sit more with both collections of words, for I know there are more insights to be uncovered. 

Perhaps, I will continue the practice of discovering my word for the day and note them on a calendar where I can see the relationships from one day to another and over time. In fact, I will start today.

Today's word is "meet.". Not only will I meet with my writing group, but as I listen to what they share and as I offer my work since our previous meeting time, I know I will meet new thoughts and perspectives. And I suspect I will meet the movement of God.

An Invitation:

What is your word for today? What words seem to keep appearing? I would love to know.

Holy Days

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These are Holy Days.

This week leads Christians through the remaining days of Lent to Easter Sunday, but first there is Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Vigil on Saturday. Jews are preparing for Passover. The eight-day festival begins at sundown on April 15 and ends at sundown on April 23. And Muslims are marking Ramadan the entire month of April, ending with the Feast of Fast-Breaking on Sunday, May 1.

Yes, these are Holy Days, in which those of us who practice one of these faith traditions reflect on the stories central to our beliefs, gather with our faith communities, and observe the customs of these days. For example, a recent tradition at our house is to add the palms we waved on Palm Sunday to the basket of forsythia on our front door as a reminder of these Holy Days.

Along with attending each of the planned services this week, I will also attend a Solidarity Around the Cross prayer service at the Ukrainian American Center in Minneapolis, sponsored by my congregation as one way to respond to the world’s suffering. But I will also continue with morning prayer and reflection time, holding these days in my heart and reflecting on their meaning for how I live my life.

These Holy Days ask me to be aware of and live fully each holy day.

Some days I manage that better than others. This reluctant spring has added to the challenge here in my part of the world, but I am trying to love what is, to see and feel the holiness of each day.

I challenge myself to know, really know, the fullness of the words, “Every day is a gift.” Yes, regardless of the temperature, the precipitation, road conditions, or lingering brown landscape. I can continue to become more of the person I was created to be no matter the season, and I feel an eagerness to discover the holy days of this particular spring. In what ways will I be enticed to grow? How will I nurture others and myself? Where will I notice the movement of God?

Settle to be fully present to yourself, to whatever is, to God…dwell, and absorb and be–Give thanks.

from Christos Center meditation, 3/14/22

May these Holy Days be holy days in your life. May each day to come be a holy day.

An Invitation:

What might you do to be more aware of each day as a holy day? I would love to know.

I spotted these Lego vignettes of Holy Week in the Sunday School classroom where the writing group I facilitate meets each week. Holy Play!

Book Report: March Round-Up

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This was a 12 book month–maybe because March was more like a lion than a lamb. Reading was definitely the cozy thing to do on snowy and cold days.

Fiction: Seven Books

  • My favorite this month was A Town Called Solace (2021) by Mary Lawson. One of my favorite books of 2021 was her first book Crow Lake, and this month I have already read another in her backlist. In my book journal notes I wrote, “If I wrote fiction, I would like to write a book like this.” The characters in her books, which are set in northern Canada, are real, flawed, vulnerable, and likable, sometimes lovable. Clara is eight years old and worried about her older sister who has run away. She is also worried about her neighbor Mrs Orchard who is in the hospital. At least that is what she is told. Clara takes care of Moses, her neighbor’s cat, but how to do that when she realizes someone else is living in the house?
  • I also loved The Floor of the Sky (2006) by Pamela Carter Joern. Lila, age 16, is pregnant and comes to live on her grandmother Toby’s ranch in the Sandhills of Nebraska. Toby is in danger of losing the ranch to back taxes –her backstory is revealed slowly, gently, and lovingly. Like the characters in the Lawson book, these characters entered my heart.
  • Another one of my favorite books in 2021 was This Is Happiness by Niall Williams, and now I am exploring his backlist. This past month I read Four Letters of Love (1997). Also set in Ireland, this is a story of two families. The father in one wants to devote his life to painting and the father in the other writes poetry and as a prize in a writing contest is given a painting by the other man. This is the story, as many novels are, of love and loss and discernment, but also miracles. Here is an example of one beautifully written passage (p.209):

The priest shushed them, and waved them hopelessly back towards the gate. He was a quiet man who sought quietness, and was suddenly alarmed at what landed in his parish. Panic prickled in his lower stomach like a bag of needles. It was the kind of thing you wished on your worst enemy this: miracles. Let the bishop have them, give them to Galway, but not here. Why were they always happening in out-of-the-way rural places? God! His shaven jaw stung in the salt wind and he rued the new blades he had bought at O’Gormans.

  • Jacqueline Winspear’s newest in her Maisie Dobbs series was published in March, and I didn’t hesitate to get my copy of A Sunlit Weapon. Maisie Dobbs is a psychologist and private investigator in post WWI London. This latest book is set during WWII and we get fuller views of Maisie with her American husband and their adopted daughter. While I don’t anticipate re-reading these books as I have done with the Louise Penney books, each one is a good read. I recommend reading them in order. The first book in the series is Maisie Dobbs (2003).
  • I enjoyed both Marjorie Morningstar (1955) by Herman Wouk, which I found in a Little Free Library, and The Bastard of Istanbul (2007) by Elif Shafak. (I will probably read Shafak’s The Forty Rules of Love at some point.) I did not particularly enjoy The Camomile Lawn (1984) by Mary Wesley and am not sure why I didn’t set it aside without finishing. It is set in the early years of WWII in England and focuses on a decadent and sometimes abusive family. Some nice writing, but I won’t be reading more by this author.

Nonfiction: Five Books

  • I have already written a review of Spirit Car, Journey to a Dakota Past (2006) by Diane Wilson https://livingonlifeslabyrinth.com/2022/03/24/book-report-spirit-car-journey-to-a-dakota-past-by-diane-wilson-2006/ and highly recommend it.
  • If you are in a discernment process of any kind, I also highly recommend Decision Making and Spiritual Discernment, The Sacred Art of Finding Your Way (2010) by Nancy Bieber. I have used this book more than once and am so glad it is still on my shelf and once again, it was just the help I needed.
  • The Making of an Old Soul, Aging as the Fulfillment of Life’s Promise (2021) by Carol Orsborn is a slim book, but packed with wisdom. She maintains the “purpose of life may be to clarify our essence,” and the book illuminates how awakening to that essence is possible to our final page. Previously, I appreciated a book she co-authored with Robert L. Weber, The Spirituality of Age, A Seeker’s Guide to Growing Older (2015).
  • Not as high on my recommended list are two other books read in March. The Salt Path (2018) by Raynor Winn and Soul Therapy, The Art and Craft of Caring Conversation (2021) by Thomas Moore. The Salt Path is the true story of Winn and her husband Moth who undertake a 630 mile walk in the UK. They are homeless and broke, and this is a brave, but not always wise decision, especially since husband Moth has serious health issues. The story is important, but the writing was not always strong. I have loved earlier books by Moore, including The Re-Enchantment of Everyday Life and Care of the Soul, but this most recent book is not his strongest. I like the notion, however, that therapy is really care of the soul, and I like this quote:

…you are the servant and secretary, not the one who heals and saves. You are the priest and minister, but not the cause of success. Your job is to assist at the healing but not do the work first hand. Sometimes I think of my job as that of sacristan. I keep the temple clean and well-supplied.

An Invitation:

What did you read in March and what do you recommend? I would love to know.

What Is Life-Enhancing?

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I’m not sure what is life-enhancing about this April view of our side garden, which we call “Paris,” except knowing that it is there. It is waiting for the days when I will sit there in the morning with my devotion materials or enjoy my lunch there while reading a good book.

In the meantime I am aware of so much in my life that is life-enhancing. In fact, that is an on-going conversation with myself, and I suspect God is eavesdropping and accepting my musings as prayer.

So here’s my top of the head list or should I say close to the surface of my heart list?.

  • Facilitating the weekly writing group at my church. Not only do I love being with the group, sitting in, silence and then writing, listening, and sharing together, but creating the writing prompt and selecting readings for the day adds to my life, my being.
  • Meeting with my spiritual direction clients. What a privilege to accompany each one of them on their own spiritual journeys. I sit in prayer both before and after our meeting times and hold them close.
  • Starting my day with meditation and devotion time. Some days it is hard to leave this quiet and enriching time and move into the rest of the day, and other times I feel almost propelled with purpose and deeper awareness of next steps.
  • Attending Sunday morning worship and adult forum. I am an introvert, a contemplative content in my solitude, but more and more I realize the importance of community and how that opens me to the movement of God.
  • Being in the presence of my personal library. During my devotion time this morning I read a reference in a Lenten devotion by Jan Richardson to a small book of prayers, All Desires Known by Janet Morely. Much to my delight, I realized I own that book and then spent some time browsing its pages. Spacious time for reading, of course, enhances my life in so many ways.
  • Tending our home. Yes, sometimes that is a chore, for who likes to clean the bathroom! Hometending most of the time, however, feeds my creativity, clears space for new thoughts, ideas, and plans, and opens my heart to hospitality.

Of course, this list must include both the planned and the spontaneous times with family and friends and the days my husband and I roam, driving country roads and exploring small towns. Writing posts for this blog is also on this list and receiving your comments. (Thank you, dear readers!)

One more thought: As I listed what enhances my life, I wondered how this list differs from a gratitude list. Perhaps they are the same, but here’s what occurs to me now. Being aware of what enhances my life opens me to the rhythm of each day and helps me discern my priorities and how to best use my energy. It’s sort of like a “to do” list, a Spiritual To Do List.

I will think about that a bit more, but in the meantime, I wait the day when time in “Paris” enhances my day once again.

An Invitation:

What enhances your life? I would love to know.

Book Report: Books by Jan Richardson

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Jan Richardson is one of my “go-to” writers. Her books of prayers and blessings and reflections sustain and enrich me. Enlighten and open me.

On these Lenten mornings I read and re-read and sit with the blessings for the Lenten season in Circle of Grace, A Book of Blessings for the Season (2015), as I have for many previous Lenten times. This year the book falls open almost automatically to page 117:

Next you must trust
that this blessing knows 
where it is going,
that it understands
the ways of the dark
that it is wise
to seasons
and to times.

As I move through a period of discernment, these words reassure me and lift me and lead me towards whatever is next. Easter is coming--beyond what seems dark. 

Two other books accompany me during the seasons of the church year: In Wisdom's Path, Discovering the Sacred in Every Season (2000) and Night Visions, Searching the Shadows of Advent and Christmas (1998).

Both of these books are beautifully illustrated by Richardson as well.

On the first page in the section on Lent in the book In Wisdom’s Path Richardson writes:

The season begins with ashes and invites us into a time of stripping away all that distracts us from recognizing the God who dwells at our core. Reminding us that we are ashes and dust, God beckons us during Lent to consider what is elemental and essential in our lives…we find the building blocks for creating anew.

p. 53.

Each year when I read those words it is as if for the first time, as if I have never considered those thoughts, and at the same time, they feel so familiar and touch what I have always knows. Richardson has that ability in both her writing and her art work. That is also true as she guides the reader through each week of Advent in Night Vision with themes of “Darkness,” “Desire,” “Preparing a Space,” “Hope,” and then on to themes of “Birthing,” “Welcoming,” and “Thresholds” for Christmas and Epiphany. I know that season seems far off as we continue the rounds of Lent, but I suggest you add this book to your devotion plans for later in the year.

Two other books highlight the spiritual journeys of women.

Sacred Journeys, A Woman’s Book of Daily Prayer (1996) also follows the liturgical year, and each week includes an invocation, biblical text, context of the scripture, daily readings, questions for reflection, a meditation, and a blessing. Along with her own words, Richards quotes women from across the ages, a rich diversity of voices. One Lent many years ago a friend and I each read the daily devotions in this book and then emailed our comments to one another–what a meaningful Lenten journey that was.

The other book specifically focuses on women, In the Sanctuary of Women, A Companion for Reflection and Prayer (2010. Each chapter highlights a wise woman of the past, including Eve, Brigid, the Desert Mothers, and Hildegard of Bingen. I knew something about each of those women, but not about Harriet Powers, the subject of a chapter called “The Mysteries of Making.”

Powers grew up in slavery and when she become emancipated, she and her husband purchased a farm in Georgia. She worked as a seamstress and created quilts. Two of her quilts, known as Bible quilts created using appliqué techniques, have survived and speak to her creative gifts and her love of God.

A dear friend gave me this treasured book and inscribed it to me:

May you always keep the vision to recognize the door that is yours, courage to walk through it, and when you’ve gathered the wisdom that is yours in that room, move on and find another door.

I think Richardson would applaud this sentiment.

Finally, two books are the result of deep grief in Richardson’s life: The Cure for Sorrow, A Book of Blessings for Times of Grief (2016) and Sparrow, A Book of Life and Death and Life (2020). Richardson’s husband and creative partner, the singer/songwriter Garrison Doles died unexpectedly after a routine surgery, and she did what she knew how to do: she wrote blessings; blessings not always easy to read, such as “Blessing for My First Day as a Widow.” But she also wrote blessings of solace and hope.

When I was asked to speak at a friend’s memoir gathering, I read the blessing, “Where Your Song Begins Again,” which includes these words:

Let it be
that you will make your home
in the chamber 
of our heart

where your story
does not cease,
where your words
take flesh anew, 
where your song
begins again.

Sparrow, which explores the first few years after Gary’s death, is written in more of a narrative style and includes journal entries. The title is based on the sparrow imagery in Psalm 84, “Even the sparrow finds a home…” This line inspired one of Gary’s songs, “I Will Be a Sparrow.” The book is the honest, compelling and often raw exploration of the key question in her life without her loved one, “Who am I, when the person who saw and knew me best in all the world is gone from this world?” I am grateful I have not lost that person, but I have had my own losses and with each one I am aware of the need to address anew, “Who am I now?”

How grateful I am for Richardson’s grace and wisdom and her companionship on my own journey.

Richardson’s website is https://www.janrichardson.com/books. You can buy her books and art prints, as well as access her blog and occasional retreats on this site.

An Invitation:

What books accompany you on your spiritual journey? I would love to know.

Daily Encounters: Soul Work in the World

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Who knew that a trip to the grocery store would restore my soul?

Most Thursday mornings I do the week’s grocery shopping. I shop early when there are few people, and I can move through the aisles quickly and easily and not experience long lines at the check-out counter. That has worked well for me during this long COVID interim.

The cashier always asks if I have found everything on my list, and most days I can say “yes.” Occasionally, however, I have replied that I needed to substitute for a favorite brand or had to adjust my planned menu, but I always added, “No problem. I have no reason to complain about anything.” The cashier always seems grateful for my positive response.

What I could add most weeks is that I found more than what was on my list.

Sometimes in the aisles I find connection and a sense of community. I find warmth and pleasant openness.

An example. One of the carry-out workers, who has worked in the store for years and who happens to be mentally challenged, eagerly told a man working in the produce section about his favorite team in the state high school basketball tournament. He knew what he was talking about, and the produce worker responded with both respect and enthusiasm. After the conversation ended, I commented to the produce worker about the positive interaction and the meaningful atmosphere that creates. He brushed off my thanks and replied, “We are all responsible for one another.”

He restoreth my soul.

And then I realized a woman was standing behind me. It was clear she was waiting to add produce to her cart.

“I am so sorry,” I said, “for blocking your way.”

Instead of showing irritation or ignoring me, she said, “No need to apologize. I have all the time in the world.” We smiled at one another each time we encountered one another in other aisles.

She restoreth my soul.

I finished shopping and another carry-out person came to pack my groceries and he said, “I saw you come in and I wondered if I would pack for you.” We chatted all the way to the car or should I say, he chatted all the way to the car, and we both wished each other a good rest of the day. We both meant it.

He restoreth my soul.

I have to believe such encounters restore the world’s soul. And we need that.

An Invitation

When have you experienced soul restoring moments? I would love to know.

Book Report: Spirit Car, Journey to a Dakota Past by Diane Wilson (2006)

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On November 7, 1862, a four-mile train of mostly women and children was forced to march to the concentration camps at Fort Snelling. Many of our people died on this trip. The townspeople from Henderson, New Ulm, and Sleepy Eye threw bricks as they passed by, they threw stones, one woman even threw boiling water.

Some people ask why we need to remember this, why we can’t just let it go. The march has never been acknowledged for the tragic event that it was. It’s been covered up and forgotten. It’s time for the Dakota people to remember their ancestors, to grieve for their families who were part of this march. This used to be Dakota land. It was all taken away from us. When you allow these things to be covered up, that’s part of colonization.

p. 186, Wilson quoting Chris Mato Nunpa, professor of Indigenous Nations and Dakota Studies at Southwest Minnesota State University, Marshall, MN

Sometimes you don’t know what you don’t know.

We live just a few miles from Fort Snelling in St Paul, and I had no idea until a few years ago about this horrific forced march and how so many native peoples had been imprisoned there. Our congregation participated in a Sacred Sites tour and visited not only this area, but other nearby places sacred to the Dakota people. It was a sobering day, to say the least.

Spirit Car, Journey to a Dakota Past by Diane Wilson, who wrote one of my favorite novels of 2021, The Seed Keepers, is the record of Wilson’s journey to discover her own history and the story of her ancestors. It is a complicated story, although the writing is clear and beautiful. The story is complicated because so much has been hidden and distorted, and repressed. Wilson’s father was Swedish-American and her mother of Dakota heritage. Her mother and sisters had been sent to a boarding school on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota and were rarely able to return home. Imagine the trauma involved in that? Wilson’s great-great grandmother, Rosalie Marpiya Mase or Iron Cloud, was married to a French fur trader, and Wilson explores how mixed marriages were part of the strategy to take over native culture and lands.

In December, 1862, 38 Dakota men were hanged in Mankato, MN, in view of an estimated 4,000 spectators. Just imagine. Here’s where I am in the ongoing process of learning what I don’t know. When I was in the sixth grade, I lived in Mankato. At that time the social studies focus during the sixth grade was Minnesota history. Did we learn about the hanging? Did we learn about the forced march or why that happened? Did we learn anything about the land our school was built on? Nothing. Not one thing.

This book is part of my ongoing education, and I hope it will be part of yours.

Eventually, ambitious dairy farmers chopped down the forests, sold the timber to build houses for settlers, and paved the old trails. But was the past so very far away? Beneath the pavement, there remained the imprint of moccasins and the tracks of wagon wheels. They never really disappear, they simply became invisible to our eyes.

p. 203

An Invitation

Are you reading anything to fill in the blanks of your own education? I would love to know.

I Have No Ideas!

/ nagneberg48 / 6 Comments

Most Monday mornings I write my post for Tuesday. I may even write the Thursday post and prepare for the writing group I facilitate on Thursday mornings. That leaves room during the rest of the week to meet with my spiritual direction clients and any other zoom or in-person events.

A good plan, but what happens when I have no idea what to write!

Usually, during the previous week, I jot notes to myself that could develop into a blog post. This past week? Nothing! Or going to church will spark a thought. Sunday, even though the sermon and service and the adult forum were each inspiring and thought-provoking, nothing percolated for my weekly writing. Surely, I told myself, when I went to bed Sunday night, I will wake-up Monday morning with an ah-ha moment. Nothing!!!

What to do?

Well, do what you always do, Nancy. Begin the day with morning meditation. I read the Lenten reading for the day, I Samuel 3. God calls to Samuel, not once, but three times, and Samuel doesn’t recognize the Lord’s voice. Hmmmm. How many times, I wonder, have I failed to hear?

What is it I need to hear right now?

My husband calls a “good morning” up to the garret and leaves to meet a friend for breakfast. I take my shower and dress and make a quick grocery list. Friends are returning home today after being in a warmer climate for almost two months. I plan to fix them an easy supper and drop it off when I hear they have returned. I send a quick prayer for “traveling mercies,” and think about how good it will be to see them again.

I decide to empty the dishwasher. Normally, my husband does that, but I am happy to do it today–a delaying tactic before I face the empty screen. Sunday evening a group of friends gathered here for potluck supper, and the dishwasher was packed. As I empty it, I think how wonderful it was to be together after a long COVID interim. We laughed and told stories, some we have told before and will probably tell again. We asked for prayers for loved ones and shared moments of grace. I confess that earlier in the day as I set the table, I wondered if we would be able to ease into one another’s company once again. No worries, for we reveled in our friendship and connection.

Still delaying going to my desk, I walk into the snug where the two chairs we found last week at an antique shop look as if they have always been there. I need to find the right cushions, but no rush, and that will be a fun search.

Bruce put the old chairs out on the curb with free signs and almost immediately the young boys next door dashed out asking it they could have them. Bruce said yes, IF it was ok with their parents. Apparently, that answer was “No,” but in less than an hour I saw four young people loading them into a SUV, and they were gone. I imagined the new owners coming to a screeching halt in front of our house when they spotted the chairs. “Yea, these are just what we need! I thought about all the books read in those chairs and prayed the new owners will find comfort and ease in them, too.

Finally, I sat at my desk. No more delays. I whispered a quick prayer, “What should I write, Lord?”

I begin to write.

An Invitation

When have you not known what it is you are to do next or say or even write? How have you responded? I would love to know.