THANKS

Gratitude is 'in'. The topic is in most magazines almost weekly. There are books about and
journals supporting gratitude to be bought. Many a guru-ish person teaches the vibratory
benefit of gratitude.

I dig it. (That was fun to say--some ancient life as jazz musician appeared) So—I dig compassion on all its levels. As a kind of movement it makes me curious.

Most of my grandchildren don't say 'grace' but they do sing a gratefulness song that honors the Earth. 

I know others who express gratitude with their teeth clenched thinking of it as a cosmic positive thinking duty that will 'manifest' what they are wanting. 

And then there is my husband's kind of gratitude which is appreciation, capital A. We call him The Great Appreciator as he expounds on a building's beauty, a rock, a shadow, a flower.

The mystery begins to enter when stuck by the fact of being alive on this planet with moments of beauty and grandeur, we are awed and struck with the gift of it all.

I once went to a conference in Canada near Banfft. I arrived in the dark at night (and almost fainted when what I thought was a statue of an Elk moved toward me as I headed to my room. In the morning, I saw warning signs for randy Elk. Commonplace as in "let the Elk do their thing. Make room. Oh that we could be as tolerant for one another!) Anyway, I stepped from my room and looked up and there were the Canadian Rockies surrounding me. I fell to my knees. I didn't decide to fall. I fell to my knees holding my brief case. I was in awe and wonder and covered in gratitude. 

Hmmmm. All kinds of gratitude.  All needed.

Here's what ran through my mind this morning.
Gratitude as a practice has become a placeholder for God, the Divine, whatever uncorrupted word you want to use.

Once again, I speak from the middle. It's where I live in my faith continuum. Gratitude remains after the theologies of the world have squeezed the juice out of religion making it unpalatable. It's respectable. It feels right and good. Attach gratitude to humility and there is prayer. There is prayer. Thank Goodness for it. 

I sit here and laugh as I am grateful for gratitude. And I am. May the trend grow and evolve as we are.

LET ME INTRODUCE YOU TO JOHN O'DONOHUE

John O'Donohue is my go to for comfort of all kinds.
He was an Irish poet and author most famous for his book Anam Cara: A Book fo Celtic Wisdom
My favorite book of his is  To Bless the Space Between Us
It is a book of blessings that he wrote in fresh touching language.

Here is a smattering to start your week.

Blessing for:

Retirement
Have the courage for a new approach totem
Allow it to slow until you find freedom
To draw alongside the mystery you hold
And befriend your own beauty of soul

Breakup of Relationship
Love can seldom end clean
This is the time to be slow
Lie low to the wall
Until the bitter weather passes

Leadership
May you have a mind that loves frontiers
So that you can evoke the bright  fields
That lie beyond he view of the regular eye
May your have good friends 
To mirror your blind spots
May leadership be for you
A true adventure of growth

For One Who Is Exhausted
You have been forced to enter empty time
The desire that drove has relinquished
There is nothing to do now but rest
And patiently learn to receive the self
You have forsaken in the race of days.

An Offering
May I have the courage today
To live the life that I would love,
To postpone my dream no longer
But do at last what I came here for
And was my heart on fear no more

These are just snippets.
Check out this book.
It has a blessing and a comfort for all occasions, most rather unique like: For the Artist at the start of Day, 
For an addict, For Suffering, For Loneliness, For the Time of a Necessary Decision.

Try John O'Donahue. He lives on my bedside table

HOW ODD (OR NOT)

How odd that the Academy Awards had more love and connection or the kind we want to see and need to have than any political speech we saw and heard last year.

Then again, it's not odd. Art matters. Creating matters. 
Helping us see what we don't see.
Helping us feel what normally we would not

And guess what else encouraged me?
The ads
Love sells
Inclusion sells
Global love sells

These admirers and companies are not dumb
They are "on trend"
Hate is 
But love is attracting people.
That's the good news that is happening in response to world wide craziness.
Love has become a product.
And I'm just fine with that. May it become history's biggest fad (at first) and then like Kleenex become universal.

STRETCHY LOVE

I was at the first wedding of one of our five adult kids. The event was 
loaded with land mines. Former spouses my husband and I had avoided 
for years would be prominent.  We had just met the extended family our son was
going to join. There were people devoted to science who were evangelical Atheists 
and another crew of Fundamental Christians.
It was a lavish week-end event.  We enclosed in an campground with cabins all closely connected.

Stuff ensued. I ended up having a massage next to my former husbands wife. No walls.
(California!) My massage guy kept asking why my muscles were so tight!! My husband had to use the bathroom and didn't want to go back to our cabin. He walks into what he thinks is our son's room and there taking naps is his ex-wife and husband. Everyone (as in everyone) called me by David's former wife's name because her's began with a 'J'.  People mistook my daughter to be my now husband's and his former wife's because she looked like that tribe. You get the idea.

So--It was my turn to speak at the Rehearsal dinner.  It was dusk, the swimming pool was filled with floating candles. The overly careful non-denominational, more like group therapist, officiant had tuned out, exhausted by everyone holding their breath to get through the evening.

And so I said, "It looks to me like we are in need of love that stretches. This couple unites us. They are loved by all of us. They can get pieces of love like a jig-saw puzzle they have to put together or we can stretch that love to include all of the differences of opinion, all the past hurts, all the political disagreements and be a large circle of love and support. AND  have a good time. May our kids pick the best from all of us and forgive the rest." What followed was the largest group sigh I have ever heard and the party began.

We need that kind of stretchy love now. You don't love and then stretch. That's easy. We have to stretch into love before we actually love and understand that it hurts like any other stretch and makes us sore after---and stronger. 

 (PS--my outfit  was prettier than any other ex-wife there!!)

"WE ARE THE IN-BETWEENS!!!"

I sometimes wonder why I am sharing a book about what I don't know.
Even when I try to classify it for sale, it gets weird.
If I would classify it as 'Happy Agnostic or Atheist' it would probably sell well
If I could call it Christian, the market would be very big. 
Hmmmm.
Can't

I was at Portland's Art Museum today (celebrating 33 years of marriage) and went to the book store there. I began to talk to the woman at the counter and told her the title of my book.
People usually glaze over until they hear the word 'ambivalent' and then they light up.
Well this woman did and said "Oh good, a book for us. We are the in-betweens." And she took down information about how to buy the book on Amazon.

When I got home I checked Amazon to see if the new version of the book was being shown.  I saw that Amazon was selling used books of mine when I haven't sold enough for their to be used books!! So I Googled it and found a review sanfranciscobookreview.com/product/i-pray-anyway-devotions-for-the-ambivalent/ that was encouraging about 
the book and the sharing of my ups and downs and hope.   

We in the middle are not nuts. In fact we need more middle in general. More Middle Class,
 more middle of the road opinions, more of the Middle Path as they say in Buddhism.  Hooray for us.

Unpublished Reflection #?

How odd to be a sure voice
Of not knowing
My public uncertainty comforts
In this time
Of the absolutely sure
Strident rigid knowing

Doubt is
Like the center of calm
In a perfect storm

CLARITY FROM THE MUDDLE OF THE MESSY MIDDLE

I wrote I PRAY ANYWAY for me. I wanted to hear what I was thinking and feeling. I didn't write it to publish (that came later). I didnt' write it for a specific reader. Sooooo bassackwards if I want to sell some books or have some good come from writing it. Soooooo wrong from a marketing point of view. I had no point of view.

Well, one is beginning to emerge and it is the MESSY MIDDLE of spiritual yearning and exploration with no answers only glimmers of faith that come and go--or glow and fade!

Once I am interested in something I read and, boy, have I! (I'll make a list of some of the reading for another blog.)  Picture a continuum. At the left end you have what are called the Literalists and at the other end there are the Atheists. This applies across all religions. The Literalists bang into science and refuse it. The Atheists bang into belief and refuse it. I've read lots in both categories either disproving one another or sticking a big toe into the other's territory.

I live in the MESSY MIDDLE. That is my market segment. We need a voice. We can pray anyway.
We can live boldly with our search and yearning for spiritual clarity. We can know there will never be perfect clarity. We realize that those at both ends of the spectrum have doubts about their position that occasionally come out and surprise us. We in the MESSY MIDDLE want to pray--anyway--not with apology but with the optimum faith shown in the word ANYWAY.

Here is the reflection that triggered my writing. (It's so fun to be surprised and to learn from my own writing.)

# 86
Right now
I am ambivalent about my ambivalence
It's tiresome
Embarrassing
Maybe cowardly
But it would be a lie to resolve it
Toward pure doubt
Or pure faith
The messy middle
Is my experience

I TRUST THIS LEADER FOR RINGING TRUE

Thank goodness for the Pope
Thank goodness for this Pope
He gives Christianity a new credence
He gets it
He models it
He makes it desireable
Radiant love
Natural humility
Compassion from his pores
Caring always for the other
Willing to shoulder the unfortunate
Unwilling to judge
The power of being it
Not talking about it
While leading in a contentious world
One more  person on the love side