~ Close to the Root ~

Everyday Peacemaking ~ What Are Your Terms For Peace?

2011-12-13T06:10:00.000-08:00

THE PEACE OF WILD THINGS

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

~ Wendell Berry

The Winter Holidays are upon us, and as I finally return to my small writing cubby here, renewed for the task of sharing ideas, visions, hopes and dreams for a better world with my loyal (and patient) readers, I am aware that this is a difficult time of year for many people; our culture embraces an ideal of happy family gatherings overladen with abundant food and good cheer but the reality for many is very different, and not at all in keeping with the advertised claims of "Home for the Holidays" and a "Holly Jolly Christmas". For many people, ongoing conflicts with partners, family and friends generate a very potent and vexing emotional dissonance; a painful sense of disappointment and anxiety that often escalates and sometimes, explodes, during the carefully cultivated family gatherings designed to celebrate familial and community love and connection. Our holidays are too often burdened with high expectations of felt closeness and shared warmth and the disappointment when conflict erupts is often deeply painful; people suffer more depression and anxiety during the "Holiday Season" than at any other time of year. Perhaps, then, spending some time thinking and meditating on the source of conflict in combination with bringing our expectations into line with reality a bit, with an eye towards creating, and celebrating, peace, is as good a way as any to spend some of the time in the weeks ahead of our gathered celebrations.
I've spent many years studying and practicing what I call "Everyday Peacemaking" or "Peacemaking 101"-- developing both an interior spiritual practice centered in nonviolence and intentionality about peacemaking, and a direct process for dealing with the inevitable conflicts that arise in every relationship. I offer the process I've used to good effect as a gift to my community of readers, to those who've continued to follow my writing here, sending me emails and notes of encouragement to carry on and with gratitude and a hope and belief that peace is possible, I offer my basic "Peace Primer" in the hopes that it will help you to resolve conflicts with others, and make a more peaceful holiday season seem a bit more possible.

Everyday Peacemaking and Conflict Resolution:

Conflict, supported by a firm commitment to nonviolence and handled well, is an opportunity for growth, greater closeness and intimacy with another person. Every time you are able to resolve a conflict with someone, you learn something that will help you understand yourself and others better and the daily practice of the skills of peacemaking are a concrete and visible way to do what Gandhi suggested and "Be the change you want to see in the world."

Try to see the conflict as a problem for you to solve with the other person, not as something that requires a winner and a loser; view the conflict with an open curiosity that allows you to probe and ask questions of it, to stay present and available for what it wants to teach you. Stay focused on the issues, and not on your views and opinions about the person. Instead of focusing on who is right or wrong, ask the other person what she feels she needs. Tell her what you need and ask her if she can see a way for both of you to get what you want in this situation. If she is angry, ask "How can I be made right with you?"or"What are your terms for peace?" Aim for a "win-win" solution in which both parties get what they want, or enough of what they want to be able to support the agreement. This requires a willingness to compromise and a lot of creativity; there are often more possibilities available than those that immediately present themselves; stay present and available for what might come up! When you have reached an agreement both can support, make sure you follow through and do what you said you would do; there is no quicker or surer path to further conflict than failing to keep agreements made in good faith with another person.

It is possible to express your feelings and point of view strongly and assertively without being unkind or mean-spirited. Tell the other person how you feel without projecting your own ideas about what they're feeling or thinking--state your own feelings or ideas clearly and allow the other person to do the same ie " I believe...." or "When you said this, I felt..." is far more effective, and respectful, than saying "You think I'm crazy..." or "I know that you did this just to make me angry!" which are deeply disrespectful assertions that generate defensiveness and shut down dialogue, closing the door on open communication. Each person gets to define themselves and their views while the other listens and responds attentively to what is actually said, and not to your own storyline about what you think they said, or meant. Avoid blaming and accusation, further projections of judgment that don't further the peace process. Name-calling, threats, ultimatums and the like only escalate the conflict. Anyone can fight. It takes no intelligence or special skill to insult, blast, strike or belittle another person. Character, courage, patience and intelligence are required to deal with conflict in nonviolent ways and make no mistake--attacking someone verbally, or threatening them in any way, whether physically, emotionally or spiritually, is a form of violence.

Remember that everyone has feelings and a point of view; give the other person the benefit of the doubt. Assume that an attitude of good will exists between you. Believe that they want to work this out with you as much as you do with them. Sincerely acknowledge the other person's feelings so that they know you are paying attention and that you care about how they feel. A lot of anger can be diffused by validating the other persons' feelings and position and the other person will be more interested in what you have to say if you respond with something like "I can see that this is really important to you" or "I hear that you feel very strongly about this". Avoid interrupting to disagree; don't cut the other person off. If you feel you've missed a point, or if emotions seem to be escalating and confusion is seeping into the dialogue, take a deep, centering breath and ask for a ten minute break. Spend that time breathing calmly and reviewing the conversation so far, perhaps checking in with your own emotional responses and seeing if other questions or concerns are forming for you. When you return to the conversation, offer a quick review, as you understand it, of the other persons main points and concerns. If you are unsure whether you have understood the other persons' position, try paraphrasing it back to them ie. "Am I hearing you say......?". Keep doing this until you both agree on what is actually being said.

Stay connected to the relationship you have with the person you are in conflict with. Some of our relationships with people will be more inherently conflict-prone than others--estranged spouses/life partners, parents and teenage children, in laws and extended family--remember that this person is important in your life, for whatever reason, and there is a relationship or connection that is worth preserving, even within the midst of long term difficulties, estrangement or separation. In the case of parents who are no longer living together as a couple, it is crucial that the practice of daily peacemaking and conflict resolution be modeled to children; not only will it make the journey of co-parenting children easier for the parents, but the children will have the security and peace of seeing their parents working together in healthy and life-giving ways, even if the family structure is changing, or has changed.

During all conversations, then, periodically look at that person with unconditional regard, love and respect and remember why you are in relationship with this person, what the relationship is, and what your genuine hopes are for it. Remember that you won't be angry forever; you will calm down and feel more in tune with this person again IF you stay in the moment and with the conflict until you can find that common ground; it's almost always there if you both keep walking around with each other and testing the dirt under your feet! Again, this applies to any connection between people, in any circumstance. While it's easier to see the value in this particular step when it's between a committed couple, say, or parents and children, or friends; it also works well with co workers or people in church or other intentional communities where there are bonds of affection and shared purpose.

If you don't seem to be getting anywhere with resolving the conflict, ask the other person if they would be willing to ask a third party to intervene and help sort things out. Try to find someone who is a good listener, who will help both parties come to a peaceful resolution as opposed to taking sides. The person you choose need not be a "professional" but should have a commitment to nonviolent conflict resolution, the basic peacemaking skills outlined here and the ability to remain detached from the conflict such that they can hear and respond to each person, defuse moments of intense emotion, knowing then, when to call for a break in the action, some centered breathing and help with reframing and rephrasing what is said so that understanding is enhanced, and the goal of peaceful resolution of issues kept at the forefront of the conversation. Most people have someone in their lives who is viewed as a wise, stable, peaceful and skilled communicator and facilitator who can fill this role. If not, there are professional peacemakers out there in the form of mediation services, dispute resolution consultants and some therapists and counselors who are skilled in peacemaking and can work with you towards your goals.

Once a basic agreement has been reached, and the two people (or sides) have made a preliminary peace, we move on to forgiveness and restoration; a separate and necessary process involving the following three elements:

1) Recognizing that an injustice has occurred: We acknowledge that someone has been directly, and personally harmed by something we have done to them; intentionally or not.

2) Restoring equity in the relationship: Equity is restored as the one who has caused harm makes restitution, or an amend, to the injured party. In response, the one who was harmed extends grace and forgiveness to the person who harmed them. Only the people involved in the offense can decide how much grace, and how much restitution will be required to restore equity. The two people, or sides, will have to work this out, sometimes with the help of an intermediary ( as above ) but, in many circumstances, if the earlier steps to resolving the conflict have been worked through successfully; an easy restoration to relationship and community will be made. This step must happen in person, one to one, whenever possible.

3) Clarifying future intentions: This means that the one who has caused harm explains in specific terms what she will do to ensure that she will not cause similar harm in the future. Only those involved can make this determination and both will know when they have reached a point of satisfaction with this agreement.

Once people who have become alienated from one another complete these steps and agree that they have successfully accomplished their resolution, and if they are able to keep their agreements with oneanother, they will learn, in time, to trust one another again.

I have found, throughout my life, that applying these basic principles has helped me, most of the time, to work through the relationship difficulties I've encountered in all the places in my life where I find people--in short, everywhere! I am, as we all are, imperfect and sometimes hopelessly flawed and have had many a failure even when I've carefully applied these steps to the best of my ability. The integrity of it is found in having made the effort and through embracing sufficient humility to accept our part in something, to do our best to make things right and in gracefully letting go when our best just won't get the job done that day. Sometimes, we have to try, and try again, but, most people, like us, really do want to be loved, cared for and affirmed; sometimes, we just have to be very patient, with ourselves and others. Conflict resolution done right is not a quick fix!

But are there situations where these steps won't work? Well, yes. Nothing is perfect. There are particular issues which will prove almost insurmountable obstacles to resolving a conflict and, when they present themselves, and it has been determined that one, or more, exists and can't be remedied, there is nothing to do but acknowledge the inability to work towards a peaceful solution, forgive yourself, and the other person, for that inability, and move on. The following is a list I found through the Episcopal Peace Fellowship some years ago that I would attach to the ideas already outlined, and they've proven to be pretty reliable indicators of a genuine point of departure where further effort is likely to be ineffective:

When there is insufficient tolerance of differences between people or groups, or they do not trust each other.

When there is unhealthy fear of authority figures.

When they do not sufficiently understand one another's position.

When disagreements are viewed as disloyalty, disrespect, or personal rejection.

When people give up too quickly; deciding that there is no use in communicating further, often because they are in some kind of emotional or psychic pain, or feel threatened in some way.

When people are judgemental ie. when they make judgments about the other person's motives, character, or sincerity.

Presuming the other is unintelligent, incompetent, or in some other way, easily dismissed or invalidated.

Dishonesty; withholding relevant information, lying, triangulation (involving third parties in an attempt to gain support for, or avoid taking responsibility for, one's own issues. This creates an enormous burden for those who become the "third corner" of the triangle. More anger, disruption and distortion usually follow) and other forms of refusing accountability or of being unwilling to explore the issues honestly and openly.

So these are the basics! I hope that this outline feels helpful to you; I would love to hear your feedback and suggestions from your own experiences, successful and failed, of peacemaking. I wish all of you the joy and blessings of the season and peace in our time in the New Year.
~ Dona Nobis Pacem

Writing A Path From The Center by "Living the Questions"

2011-05-02T06:19:00.000-07:00

"...have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answers. "

~ Rainer Maria Rilke, 1903, in "Letters to a Young Poet"

We are all familiar with this quote from the poet, Rilke, from a collection of letters he wrote to a young friend of his, an aspiring poet, who had gotten it into his head that he had to know what he was about in life, know what he was doing and who he was, before anything of value could be accomplished with his writing. Rilke was a loner, a social misfit and a wanderer; he found it difficult to stay in one place, to hold a job, to maintain a home, or a relationship. He lacked the ability to read social cues and had minimal tolerance for interpersonal machinations, yet his observations and insight on the human condition are precise, clear and evoke a sense of intense focus and devotion--he could read people and society, and his intellectual prowess made it imperative that he set his soul-readings to poetry. He offered, through his writing, a path from the Center of his being towards that of the reader and within the context of his art, crafted a profound "word medicine" that could heal people, give them guidance and shine light on the next step of their journey. It is a mistake to conclude that Rilke, who today probably would have been diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, or placed somewhere on the ubiquitous "Autism Spectrum" lacked the capacity for intimacy when his poetry goes straight to the interior of the heart in ways that can only be accessed by intimacy. Rilke's long familiarity with solitude and silence conferred upon him a deep wisdom about the nature and needs of the human person; his self-awareness, consciousness and intimacy with his own interior world enabled him to write poetry stunning in its ability to speak to our various conditions and to offer healing and peace, but not by providing answers to our questions; he encourages us, instead, to "love the questions themselves" and to wait patiently for our lives to speak. We have to write a path from the Center of our lives if we are to find our answers.

The internet and social networking culture seduces us with the idea that information and answers are synonymous. It further persuades us that asking questions, seeking answers, can be accomplished in whole, or at least in very large part, this afternoon...at the latest.

So many people spend hours and hours of precious, unrepeatable time scouring forums and polling their online friends for answers to the difficulties of life and those who spend the most time doing this seem to be the most unhappy and desperate in their desire for someone else to tell them what to do...how to be...where to go for more...answers. Our culture enables and encourages this kind of anxiety-provoking and superficial social discourse because planting seeds of doubt, fear and anxiety creates a market. People who are afraid that their lives won't hold up under the scrutiny of others, are easy prey to be marketed to in all kinds of ways. Those who live, not from their own Center, but through the eyes of others, become victims of their own projection that somewhere, someone "out there" has the answers to questions that can only be found "in here". Happy, satisfied people who are willing to live out the questions of their lives by seeing, in the quotidian mysteries, our daily life and work, that the answers unfold organically, in their own way, fail the "market test" every time.

When I first began writing here, I was in the midst of transition--I had lost two of my children in the previous 7 years and had another born with a serious disability. I was leaving my childbearing years, being then in my late 40's, had three teenage and young adult children going through their own growing pains, and I was leaving a way of working and being in the world that had defined and informed my life for many years. I was responding to a deep calling, a leading towards a very different life that was, at the same time, beckoning to me like a homecoming; I was being called inward and towards more depth and focus. I was intensely craving solitude, silence and contemplative action in the world, through my writing and new work involving sacred listening to others, giving them the space to tell their own stories and find their own path within the 'true self' that was intended for every person. And yes, dear Rilke, some answers have come through living out those questions but they can, of course, only be partial answers...I am still living, and loving, the questions. As another favorite writer, Isak Dineson, once said, "God made the world round so that we could not see too far down the road" in this, she echoes and reinforces Rilke--we can only live the questions, embrace them, love them, and with humility accept and live with the partial answers as they present themselves.

And now I am 51. My life has sorted itself out and I am living, imperfectly of course, the quiet, simple and creative life I had been trying to give an affirmative answer to for several years. I have lovingly let go of many people in my life over this time, knowing that I was simply not able, or no longer willing, to give them the time and energy they needed from me. I embraced fully a simple truth given me long ago by a very wise woman friend and mentor--"Compassion is mandatory, personal involvement isn't"-- I finally accepted the truth that being loving isn't measured by how willing I am to allow others personal dramas to invade my life and disturb my peace. I cannot give to others with the kind of spacious love I need to offer when I am being drained by relationships with people whose lives are chaotic and who are living out what Psychologist Carl Jung called "Shadow" in unconscious ways. These patterns are not always easy to see when they are taking up space in your life, but one of the many gifts of embracing solitude, quiet and simplicity is that those people and situations that are noisy and disruptive to our peace become very apparent indeed. I've cultivated some new friendships, blending them with deepened and rejuvenated long-term relationships into a community of loving, "learning partners" who are supportive, authentic, genuine and life-giving. I, like Rilke, am a solitary social misfit who prefers quiet and the "Peace of Wild Things" as in the poem by Farmer and Writer, Wendell Berry. I have more of myself to offer to the world; more love to give, more work to do, and a great and driving energy to do my part to leave a legacy of healing and wholeness behind when I take my leave of this world.

So, my writing going forward will not offer you any answers...but I will accompany you on the road of living the questions. My intention now is to "write a path from the Center" of my own life as I respond to the challenges and questions presented by a complex world mired in painful dilemmas and difficulties. I have also come to know other thinkers and writers who are my kin; those I've come to recognize as members of my extended "Tribe" and and as my soulmates and fellow sojourners and I will be introducing you to many of them.

Love and live the questions themselves. Pay attention to the "quotidian mysteries" of your own life. Trust and have faith that the answers will come and know that there will always be enough light shown to illuminate the next step. "God made the world round, so that we could not see too far down the road."

~ Peace and Courage.

Michelle

A Free Range Family ~ "...To Pay Attention, this is our endless and proper work." Mary Oliver

2010-11-29T09:08:00.001-08:00

Yes!No!

by Mary Oliver

How necessary it is to have opinions! I think the spotted trout

lilies are satisfied, standing a few inches above the earth.

I think serenity is not something you just find in the world,

like a plum tree, holding up its white petals.

The violets, along the river, are opening their blue faces, like

small, dark, lanterns.

The green mosses, being so many, are as good as brawny.

How important it is to walk along, not in haste but slowly,

looking at everything and calling out

Yes!No!

The swan, for all his pomp, his robes of glass and petals, wants

only to be allowed to live on the nameless pond. The catbrier

is without fault. The water thrushes, down among the sloppy

rocks, are going crazy with happiness. Imagination is better

than a sharp instrument. To pay attention, this is our endless

and proper work.

Long before I ever got serious about having children, I made the decision not to send them to school. I had never heard of "Homeschooling" at the time; I was truly surprised, delightedly so, when I discovered, in the mid-1980's, that there were other people around who were also keeping their kids out of institutions, having a decided preference to hand-rear their own young and I recall being rather amused that doing so had become a rarity. Between day-care and school, most parents' seemed destined to hardly ever see their kids and given all that I knew about what went into pregnancy and childbirth, it seemed like an awful lot of investment just to turn it over to someone else but I admit, at this late date, that my viewpoint was simple, and quite honestly, narrow. It was, in some ways, selfish; it was most certainly motivated by a set of false beliefs about the nature of parenting, and of children. I wanted to be with my kids and I didn't want to have to allot any of the responsibility for "how they turned out" to anyone else. I had a construct about parenting that I now understand to have been woefully inadequate but almost universal in its application: I believed that I would have an influence on my children that, if done right, would ensure that they would turn out to be remarkable and brilliant individuals. They would escape any of the family dysfunction I had inherited. There would be no risk of serious problems as long as I birthed at home, breastfed them for several years, kept a family bed and homeschooled/unschooled them. I believed this because I bought into most of the lies of the parenting literature available at the time; the same stuff is available now with different titles, but the storyline is as misleading as it ever was. The pernicious untruth at the core of it is that our children are "products"...of our parenting. Of their environment. Of the school system. Of the peer group. They are a product of everything that goes into them and all that happens around them and like any product, you get what you pay for! No one will tell you the deeper truth which is that there are hidden variables inherent to the individual soul of every child, every person, that might have more to do with manifesting a destiny than we can ever know and we interfere with those potentialities at their, and our, peril. We cling, as parents, to the illusion of control and that illusion, as any parent of teenagers will tell you, shrinks to a very thin veneer as time goes on. In any case, I went into my parenting believing all of this tommyrot and I was prepared, from conception to birth and on into their childhoods, to pay the price. Any price. Because the parallel track that runs alongside the idea that we can control how are kids turn out is that how they turn out means something about us, as people, as parents. All of that is just peachy so long as the kids "turn out" well. Everyone knows, everyone believes, that there is nothing worse or more shameful than having kids that don't "turn out". Kids aren't like pie crust; you can't just crimp a little around the edges where the cracks are and fill in the gaps with a little extra dough and no one will be the wiser. Everyone knows when your kids go bad. Everyone. Knows.

The fly in the ointment in this whole proposition turned out to be me. Me and my relentless questioning, probing and curiosity. When I embark on a new endeavor, I rarely, if ever, settle for what "everyone else says"; I never follow the pack, even within the communities with whom I am closely aligned. Why? Because I am a bit of a rebel, and a radical, believing in drawing to, and from, the essence of things, distilling everything into what is most important. I have always lived a "free range" life and at nearly 50 years old, I don't expect that to change ( I hope no one was holding their breath ) and I have no complaints about having done so. More central to the question, though, is the fact that I am trusting of other people, including children. It takes an awful lot for me to lose trust, or faith, in someone; I can count on one hand the number of times it has happened. I trust people. I believe in them. I believe that other people, including kids, are perfectly capable of knowing themselves and of learning and growing and changing and struggling and falling down and getting up again. I trust them to do all those things and so, when I had kids, I just decided to ignore all the books and advice, even all the stuff I learned from "alternative" and "crunchy" sources and live my life with my kids the way I wanted to. I wasn't going to send them to school. I believed then, and I believe now, in the "curriculum of family life" as Educator John Taylor Gatto calls it and I came to believe in a related idea ,offered up here by Writer, Farmer and Teacher, Wendell Berry from his book 'The Art of the Commonplace':

"I know that I am in dangerous territory, and so I had better be plain: what I have to say about marriage and household I mean to apply to men as much as to women. I do not believe that there is anything better to do than to make one's marriage and household, whether one is a man or a woman. I do not believe that "employment outside the home" is as valuable or satisfying as employment at home, for either men or women. It is clear to me from my experience as a teacher, for example, that children need an ordinary daily association with both parents. They need to see their parents at work; they need, at first, to play at the work they see their parents doing, and then they need to work with their parents. It does not matter so much this working together should be what is called "quality time," but it matters a great deal that the work done should have the dignity of economic value."

So, I came to believe that what children needed most was to be at home and out in the world supported by parents who were doing real work that mattered to them and that contributed to the needs and values of the household and larger community. I wanted my children alongside me while I worked with the "quotidian mysteries" at hand and I wanted them to learn the discipline and rewards of work for its' own sake, and to absorb the values of both parents not by being actively taught but by a kind of loving osmosis. We did not teach our children anything; we allowed them to learn through daily interaction with us, and with other loving and interested adults and children wherever we happened upon them; they learned by living real lives in community with others. We have been an active family, involved in many areas including a very liberal, urban Episcopal parish committed to social justice work and we have been, and continue to be, active volunteers for causes we believe in. Our whole family has volunteered yearly at a homeless shelter, and at the Gleaners food bank. For many years, my oldest two children were weekly volunteers at a local Nature Center. We have lived in the same diverse "inner ring" neighborhood for more than 20 years; our kids have grown up in the same old house they were born into and we have avoided making changes in "place" because we value stability and wanted our kids to have real roots in a community and a commitment to a sense of home.

We don't "start" homeschool every Fall. We don't "end" it in the late Spring or early Summer. We are always learning and growing. We are always reading, writing, working with numbers, planting something, watching changes in the seasons, traveling, spending time with our large extended "Tribe". We make art and music and we watch films and cable news. We all read the New York Times every day and we talk about what's going on in the world. Our kids have never been kept out of "adult" conversations and they've had the freedom to explore the neighborhood and our small downtown where they know, and are known by, every shopkeeper, coffeehouse college kid, baker and candlestick maker around. We've gone to the Farmer's Market every Saturday morning for over a decade, rarely missing the opportunity to chat with Peter, our favorite farmer, and with Jan, the antique lady, and all the other vendors, friends and neighbors we almost always run into while we're there.

If there is one thing I hoped to pass on to them it is the discipline of paying attention. I wanted to model, and encourage, the idea that paying close attention to what is happening at any given moment facilitates learning and growth. If I wanted my kids to learn how to behave appropriately in all situations, I had to first get their attention; I had to show them, by doing it myself, how to pay attention when someone else is talking and how to respond respectfully. I had to listen to them, and to other people, to show them how important it is to listen, and to attend to others. I had to help them stick with the projects they chose to do, even when bored, even when the project wasn't going well, so that they would know that it's important to pay attention to detail and to ignore impulsive actions based on the "feelings of the moment". I couldn't "teach" them these things, I had to show them in my own life and behavior. And showing them how to pay attention, and ensuring that they understood that this was key to everything else, and is the "endless and proper work" of parenting, and of living.

I trust myself and I trust my kids. When we are trusting and trusted, learning is unimpeded. We are able to stay out of our kids way and let them travel their own path to the "true self" or, even better, never lose it to begin with. Living a 'Free Range' life requires self-discipline and a commitment to building relationships of integrity and wholeness. I'm going to return to this topic of a "Free Range" life with children a couple more times and I hope my exploration of all the implications of making a choice for freedom will come into better focus for everyone, including me, for even as we live something out, being able to detach, from time to time, and reflect on what we're doing and why keeps everything balanced beneath our own "north star". Until next time then.

Peace and Courage ~

Michelle

Living Wild Peace

2010-11-26T12:10:00.000-08:00

"...I am a frayed and nibbled survivor in a fallen world, and I am getting along. I am aging and eaten and have done my share of eating too. I am not washed and beautiful, in control of a shining world in which everything fits, but instead am wondering awed about on a splintered wreck I've come to care for, whose gnawed trees breathe a delicate air, whose bloodied and scarred creatures are my dearest companions, and whose beauty bats and shines not in its imperfections but overwhelmingly in spite of them..." Annie Dillard

I spent most of my life on a search for peace--peace of mind, of heart, of purpose, of beauty, of love. Peace of everything. I created my idea of peace in my own image. I thought peace would be...peaceful. Quiet. Serene. Sweet. A shimmering little whisper of a thing that would barely intrude on my consciousness yet, would embrace everything that I am, or ever hoped to be, and I understood it to be something that one acquired by living peacefully and by doing peaceful things like meditating, yoga, prayer, good deeds. Well... I was wrong.

It turns out that peace is a wild thing...just like me. A nixie ( a mythical feminine spirit of sacred waters ). A wood sprite. A bandit. A little criminal. Peace is Wild.

Peace comes when the struggle for living authentically is fully engaged and passionately lived out. It comes when loving people becomes an expression of genuine intimacy and engagement and when the risk of loving is not measured against how safe and protected I need to be in relationship. Peace comes when we embrace the idea of justice and fully understand that there is no interior peace that can exclude the same for anyone else. Peace comes on little cat feet at the precise moment when we are convinced it has abandoned us altogether. Peace comes when we are living from, as Quaker mystic Thomas Kelly puts it, "that balanced, recreating Center which is our true home." It turns out that Peace lived wild is what makes us fully and completely human...at long last.

I started this blog three years ago and it truly seems like a lifetime gone by. I was struggling in a place of harsh resistence; not wanting to make a necessary trust fall into a life that was changing whether I wanted it to or not. It was through making the decision to step off the edge and take my humpty-dumpty fall that cracked open my fear-hardened heart and allowed me to see a way to live the rest of my life integrated and whole with the wild girl, the little criminal, fully loved, embraced and redeemed. I decided to live wild and to accept the peace, and the responsibility, that comes with it. I decided to opt for reality and the gifts of the present moment--graying hair, diminished eyesight, slower running, fewer but dearer relationships, focused work and a completely restored sense of creativity and energy that has, as a boundary, the understanding that I can't do everything but I can do what I am able to do with my whole heart.

"...I am a frayed and nibbled survivor in a fallen world, and I am getting along..." Being "frayed and nibbled" has a beauty to it that I could never have imagined, or desired, and with all of it has come not only that long coveted peace--all wild and spinny--but real joy. I'm having a grand time!

~ Til next time then,

Michelle

Time Out.....

2009-11-16T06:30:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone! As you've no doubt gathered, I'm having some trouble finding the time to finish my blog posts. I am back in classes and internship duties full time and, of course, have a family to tend to and my writing here and elsewhere has taken a bit of a hit for it. I will be completing the posts' I've begun drafting sometime soon but I'm not sure when. In the meantime, I'll leave up what is here and perhaps do some poetry, or short pieces again just to stay warmed up! I hope everyone is enjoying the beautiful Autumn we've had this year ( at least in the midwest ) as I have. I can't believe how the time has flown since summer; I am aghast at the realization that Advent, and the "Christmas Season" starts in just over two weeks. How is that possible? But there it is.

So, as our old friend Garrison Keillor says "Be well. Do good work. And keep in touch."

Michelle

Escaping from the Ghetto of Like-Minded People!~ Trust Yourself

2009-10-12T06:07:00.000-07:00

Dear Readers: I know that some of you were expecting a different post here; I have written a piece on what I call "Commonsense Parenting" and it probably has some good stuff in it but I'm also really struggling with offering up anything that seems to feed the beast of what writer and publisher Eric Utne calls "the ghetto of like-minded people" and that has led me to this post, first and foremost and then we'll see about the other one; maybe we don't need it.

On the last page of the current issue of the "Utne Reader", there is a listing of things that Utne hopes will manifest over the next 25 years. Among them I read this:

"Americans will put the brakes on the growing tendency to "amuse ourselves to death" with constant electronic entertainment (laptops, TV, video games, iPhones, etc.) Instead, we'll grow increasingly interested in the Other--people who are truly different from ourselves, not just those on the opposite side of the globe but the people living next door and across the street as well. We'll use social networking not to find people who are like us ( creating what I call ghettos of like-minded people), but to find people who are unlike us. And we'll invest the time getting to know them until we realize how similar and connected we are after all."

Reading this quote really brought me up short because, of course, I share these sentiments and I also feel increasingly skeptical and, frankly, bored with the prevalence of 'groupthink' in society and organizations. It can't be lost on too many people that we are a very polarized nation, so much so, that I recently heard CNN commentator David Gergen remark that he had become seriously concerned that "this country has become ungovernable." Now, if any of you know who David Gergen is, you know that this is not a guy prone to throwing out the dramatic one-liner--he's a very serious chap with impecable credentials and a quiet affect one could almost call flat. I was quite stunned by his comment and it has led to several weeks of thinking about the way we, as a country, have divided ourselves up into ever smaller, narrower cohort groups that increasingly seem to demand not just conformity but unanimity; it becomes very, very hard to disagree without being censured by the group, or dismissed altogether. Even within Churches, there is a line drawn between those parishes or congregations that are deemed "liberal" and those thought to be "conservative" and I don't recall ever hearing that kind of demarcation in a religious setting as a child or young adult; it's a very recent phenomenon.

I think that Eric Utne rightly terms these groupings of like-minded people "ghettos" because they become places where there is little creativity or energy beyond promoting the ethos of the group, or protecting it from "outside" attack. A large part of my work in the area of "Commonsense Birth and Parenting" is committed to encouraging women and parents to avoid online "communities" and forums devoted to very narrow issues that seem to attract devotees' who require strict adherence to a particular parenting idea or ideal, to the point where any deviation from the path to "perfect parenting" is ridiculed or criticized, often very cruelly, and people are NOT encouraged to think for themselves although there is always this interesting little codicil called "making your own choices" but it assumes a quite strict and limited hierarchy of possible choices with those falling outside the groups' norms viewed as "not choices" or, if chosen, made in abject ignorance ie. those who don't believe or do things a certain way "just don't get it" and the group is "better off not absorbing their negativity". Never mind that there are often good ideas to be found outside our limited internal palette of operating instructions and many, if not most of those, will come to us as a natural part of becoming real flesh and blood friends with someone. It comes of asking the neighbor for her thoughts, or a woman at Church, or in the grocery store or at work. It comes of being open to real people and to the continuity and trust that arises out of having to take them in fully, as whole persons, not as faceless, nameless "ideas" coming through a computer screen that can be taken in as emotional, intellectual or spiritual fast food, leaving the undigestible portions to be dumped into the "trash" with the touch of the keyboard.

Online forums and communities are often intolerant, biased, over-focused on a single aspect of concern or interest and offers up a lot of very, very questionable "data" and information as incontrovertible truth. They are the antithesis of independent thought while claiming to be places of "freedom" and "choice". They aren't. They're ghettos. They are places that shut down real dialogue and lead many, many young women and parents into a kind of frozen despair not to mention addiction to electronic communication which is becoming a very real and pernicious danger for a lot of people. Spending hours on a computer, roaming around the ether looking for a 'fix' of "advice" or "wisdom" or the "answer" when someone has a house with children in it and those children are being left to their own devices except to be screamed at when they interrupt mom or dad while they indulge their "addiction" is unhealthy to the core. It doesn't have to be porn addiction to be dangerous and degrading. Being addicted to approval, being addicted to the attention that comes from having an "online" personality that becomes popular or even controversial, can take a person down the path of addiction and with the same end result as every other addiction! There are people who become depressed or anxious when they aren't getting 'fed' by the computer, when someone isn't responding to their posts or comments. If you feel a little "empty" without a computer-generated "fix" take notice and put the whole thing on 'pause' until you figure out what the emptiness is really about, and what you really need to fill it; I can promise you that it isn't going to be filled here on the computer.

I don't want to be anyone's "answer" to life's problems. I don't want anyone to think of me as having their answer, at any rate. Your answers about how to live out your pregnancy, birth and raise your kids or anything else that's important to you is found only within your own heart and mind. You can read all the books and scan the computer looking for something that resonates with you but at the end of the day, you have to get back to the real work of living, loving and being with real people; your own family. Your mate. Your kids. The computer provides an easy escape from the stress while allowing us to believe we're doing something productive ie. we're "looking things up" or "researching our choices" or "getting information". What we're doing, most of the time, is just sitting there, staring at a flat screen and typing because we are afraid to live our real lives because something in them isn't working. Maybe the marriage isn't really working, or perhaps the choices you are making about raising your children aren't really true and good for you. Home schooling can often become a trap for parents', especially for mothers, if they are doing it out of some idea that "really good, really cool parents" home school. Or you use a particular home school curriculum because your friends do. Maybe you need to put your kids in school. Or, if they're in school, maybe you need to take them out. The point is, you won't find those answers online. You'll more than likely only find more confusion, or you'll find a group to do your thinking for you and then wonder why you are so depressed and feel as though you've 'sold out' to someone else's ideas.

I'll end here with what I will call a little "admonition": I'll continue to post things here for as long as anyone wants to read them but I won't write "advice" articles. You don't need my advice. You don't need my "wisdom". You have your own. I'll write about what I've done and how I've lived it out but that isn't meant to be prescriptive, and shouldn't be taken as anything but my writing about my life. If you do anything at all with my writing, my ideas, let it be in the area of leading you inward. I hope that every post will contain some word of encouragement to "go deeper" into your own inner knowing, your own lived reality. As Educator Parker Palmer says, "Let Your Life Speak" and don't live inside the "ghetto" of the like-minded. Ask the questions that move beyond labels and ideologies to where people really live. Get out there into the world and let go of needing to find people who "think like you do". It's the people who don't think like you do who stretch your boundaries and inspire your growth. A little bit of agreement with others gives us a temporary security; offers a cup of warm comfort on a hard day, but too much shuts us down and limits us into living very unchallenged lives. Remember the old Socratic dictum ~ "The unexamined life is not worth living". That means challenging your beliefs and asking questions from all sides, not just that which feeds your ego and do realize that ego is what is involved if you find yourself making decisions not on the best interests of your children and family,but on what allows you to "feel" a certain way about yourself as a parent and even more so if part of that 'feeling' involves feeling that you are, or will be, "better" than other parents. Be careful! You're heading down a slippery slope.

If you love and enjoy your children, you are a good parent. If you love and enjoy your own life and ideas, then relax and get on with it. Don't let this machine keep you from the hard work of sorting out life's mysteries and predicaments. A computer is a tool to be used wisely, but it's a very seductive tool that can start using you.

Now, shut me off, turn off the computer, stand and stretch, and go outside!

Michelle.

In the Good Old Summer Time ~ Just a Little Post Script before We all Dive into Autumn

2009-08-31T07:43:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! Over the next couple of weeks, I'll be reconfiguring this blog, making some changes in it's general appearance within the framework alloted by 'Blogger', adding some new and updated pictures of my family, or perhaps just some recent photos' of "Summer Places"; I haven't decided. My school/internship season started up again this week and so the busy months of Fall and Winter are fast approaching once again. My daughter Emma turned 18 yesterday so I am now the proud mother of two "adult" children! My oldest son, Stephen, will turn 21 in January and with Hugh almost 15, and Mary turning 8 in two weeks, I am rapidly approaching a very different season in my life. My mothering journey has been long and varied; I've experienced all of the normal, mundane and quotidian happenings and I've gone through some very unusual and difficult situations. There is not much about marriage and family life that I've not experienced in some way, and, I am happy to say, successfully worked through. Very little of what women's lives are about is lost on me, yet I still retain that greater sense of mystery, awe, and the deepest respect, towards what we, as women, are, and can be, even in a society that still fights us every step of the way. I've lived a very full life and I've done my best to live that life out loud; I've never tried to hide any of it, the good, the bad and the unbelievably ugly has always been right out there. I'm a private person, but I'm not secretive. I have always been willing to share whatever I could of my experiences within the boundaries of protecting my loved one's as much as possible from my failings, always hoping that something I had experienced and learned from could help someone else. As I move forward in my work, and part of that is my writing here, I hope to be able to continue an ever more honest, authentic and I hope, prophetic and visionary exploration not only of what "is" but of what can be, for ourselves and our world. I hope to become more courageous in my increasing concern for the poor and marginalized in our society; I hope I become a thorn in someone's side, a nagging headache, a pebble in the shoe and a genuine, big time pain in the ass for someone, for anyone, who could be helping others' but isn't. I hope, even more, that I can be given the grace of exhortation and encouragement, to those who have a heart for the poor but who, like me, have been timid, or uncertain that they had any gifts or abilities that could be of any use. I sat on the sidelines for a long time because I didn't think I had anything to offer; I was also a little too content to allow myself to believe that those "other" people with real do-gooder credentials were taking care of everything and I'd probably just be in the way...it was an easy excuse. All of us can do something. All of us, any of us, can work first to deepen our awareness of those who are too easily hidden, of those who have no voice, by listening to that powerful voice within us all that tells us, clearly, that we are all One and that we are our brothers' and sisters' keeper. We all know it and once we know something, we are accountable for the decisions we make about that knowledge; once we know, we have an obligation to act on behalf of those whose concerns are committed to our care. I hope that my writing here becomes more daring, more willing to make the effort to follow the Way wherever it leads me; I hope you'll all come along for the ride!

This summer was bountiful for me and for my family. As Benjamin and I have adjusted to this new way of being parents to grown up kids, we've also found a new life and spirit in our marriage; we are more of a 'couple' now than we were even as younger married people. We've really never been without babies and young children in our lives so this time of having long stretches available to be together as two people who love each other; being able to have more quality time to ourselves, more privacy, more and deeper conversation, has been a great blessing and a wonderful awakening for us. I think that many if not most long lasting marriages have these moments of realization that the "happy mistake", as I call it, that two people who were very different in personality and temperament, turned out to be the gift of a lifetime as we've found our grounding in shared values--our faith, our lifestyle, our core beliefs about the ultimate purpose of life--and within those shared values were the seeds planted and tended in the rich soil of experience that allowed us to stay together through tragedy and challenges, and to find a much deeper, more intimate and devoted love at what we hope is only the 'mid-way' point. We also know that we've been very, very lucky. It's a sweet season. We're having those meandering and wistful dialogues about the things we want to do when the kids are all grown and out of the house. We want to go to Europe together so that I can walk the Camino for my 60th birthday and visit my ancient roots in Scotland. We want to spend a long summer on an RV ( yeah, really ) traveling the country and seeing all our far away friends and meeting new people. We want to continue growing and improving our little urban homestead here, and we want to spend more time in the UP and in several places in the UP, not just our usual haunts. We are looking forward to our children's marriages and to grandchildren. It just all looks good out there to both of us and in the meantime, there's today, and tomorrow, and next week all to be lived fully and enjoyed. There are people to care for, and about. There is work to be done, not only that of making a living, but of doing all that can be done to make the world a better place for others.

The rejuvenation I've experienced this summer came at no small cost in hard work, time, energy and even money. I worked hard during my Retreat, praying and meditating on long-held attachments and relationships that needed to be released if my life was to have the room in it for new projects, deeper friendships and new life. I had to go through the painful process of saying good- bye, not only to worn out vocations and even some personal habits, but to people I've loved, being forced to admit that the relationships had, in truth, ended some time ago but had not been properly laid to rest. We've all been there, I think. You wake up one morning and realize that you haven't really talked with someone in a very long time; perhaps you still "stay in touch" but it no longer feels real? Yeah...those. Well, I had a couple of them hanging around and I finally surrendered to the reality that we had come to a place where we were talking past each other and weren't really connecting with any intimacy or real awareness of one another. We had become a "habit" but nothing more. I had made a few efforts, over the last year or so, to reanimate and anchor the relationships but no one can do that unilaterally and either my efforts weren't explicit enough, or simply weren't welcome. Either way, the conclusion I had to reach was that there was no real relationship left and that further energy in that direction was just taking away from relationships that were clearly leading me towards growth and more genuine closeness. I've been increasingly drawn to developing those friendships where I feel a sense of shared "mission"; the sense that we are committed to the same ideals and inspired by the same sense of need in the world. I very much need to locate myself within that circle of wise, caring and committed people if I am to learn to work less as a "lone wolf", which has always been my fallback position, my comfort zone, to work in collaboration with people and groups working hard to make important, indeed, critical, changes in our world. In the wake of making the effort to finally end those relationships that were draining energy away from both of us, I felt such an opening in my heart for new friendships that have already enriched my life in myriad ways and given me a sense of hope and vitality. I've also renewed some very old connections and that has been simply wonderful. The summer was rich, for me, not always easy or pleasant, but as I sit her on this last day of August, I'm very, very pleased with what the last 3 months have brought into my life. I don't think I've ever felt more grounded or peaceful overall, even within the context of my menopausal Crony-ness. I feel no need to 'change' anything, I just want to keep going...

So, I'll probably not get around to writing anything new, although maybe I'll find a poem for you all, until I can get my pictures in and the blog looking a little smartened up! Enjoy these last weeks of warmth and the plentiful harvest of a long summer season of growth and joy!

Peace,

Michelle.

This is Your Brain on Menopause...

2009-08-24T12:22:00.001-07:00

Hello everyone! I'm back from my final vacation of the year and beginning to look forward to Autumn. I know, I know... Summer hasn't even started in some parts of the country, including here in the Midwest which has endured ( or enjoyed, depending on your perspective ) one of the coldest summers' on record. Our week in the UP was notable for being quite warm until the tail end of the week when it began raining with temperatures in the 80's which then dropped precipitously down into the 50's by the time we left on Saturday morning. The shift in the weather mirrored my mood and mind set as I began the inevitable process of having to think forward a few short weeks when my final "Internship" year will begin, along with classes, and papers to write, and now, people to "listen" to as a Spiritual Director. I've been blessed by having already had people come to me for Direction; I am taking this as an affirmative nod from God, which I very much need right now. Almost every other aspect of my life has been in a state of rapid change for the last 4 years. First, I had to deal with the immediate grieving period after the death of my son and all the fall out that occurred in my marriage and family from that event. Then I made the decision to answer a vague "leading", to use the old Quaker term, to pursue training and certification as a Spiritual Director and to do Graduate work in Theology to top it all off. I stopped attending births as a Midwife and, as my last post more than amply suggested, came to find more questions than answers in how that vocation shaped me, and is shaping itself and how, or whether, I still fit in it anywhere. Most days, I don't feel an easy fit with anything. I wake up on one side of my life, and end the day on some other island of myself, in some other valley of feeling, thought or imagination. Inspiration comes and goes and mostly, I just watch it arrive and depart without stirring a step in either direction; I neither grab it and work with it, or do anything to stop it's leaving too soon. I am often indifferent in my relationships with people; even though I love my "tribe" as I always have, I often just can't muster the energy to invest in anyone too deeply. At the same time, I enjoy people much more, and far easier, than I ever have in my life. I am more easily amused and more content to just be in the moment with whomever I happen to be with and that's a great blessing to me. I hold on loose; what a trip! I am told by my wiser, older sisters' that this is Menopause; this is my brain, heart, and soul, on Menopause.

Menopause has also made me lazy. I don't get anything done on time, or at least I haven't done so this Summer. When I made the decision last year to essentially take the Summer off from any outside obligations, I meant it! The downside is that my Menopausal brain hasn't had much to focus on which has allowed it to just kind of shut down. I forget...everything. I have packages lying around within easy eye sight of where I am sitting that need to go to the post office and on to their new homes. I have two assignments due on Thursday evening for the start of my internship year and I haven't even considered getting to work on them. I will get everything done, just not very quickly. I'm not very happy with this aspect of my "Change". I am assuming that it won't be a permanent addition to my personality as it is very foreign to me but I think it's a necessary passage. During my Retreat earlier this Summer, I worked a lot on my long time issue with having an over-developed sense of responsibility. It's only been in the last couple of years, for instance, that I've taken a book to read on vacation that wasn't, in some way, a "text book". I've finally begun reading for pleasure again after a long, long time of not reading much of anything I couldn't validate as "necessary" to my continued intellectual, or spiritual, growth. Now, I did include a lot of really fine literature in that discipline but my focus was not on enjoying the reading, or taking in the story or characters--I read to feed my addiction to knowledge and understanding because not knowing, or not comprehending something in it's entirety felt very threatening to me. I had learned to fear "not knowing" and had bought into the idea that if something "bad" happened in my presence, it would be because I failed to "know" something. There were a lot of very good reasons why I came to believe this, but letting it go was a major part of my healing in the last few years and oh my goodness! am I glad to see it gone! I had no idea what bondage that had been for me until I set it down!

Sometime in the last year, I began reading poetry once again, and short stories and some new fiction and had the wonderful experience of recalling what it was like to be 9 or 10 and reading new books, or finding new words to wrap around a feeling or an experience. All of this has been very, very good stuff for me~it's also very good for my Menopausal brain because poetry, in particular, creates an emotional cadence, a heart connection, with what is being expressed that straight prose just doesn't do for me right now. I've had great luck settling my mind down by reading poetry, or Scripture, and through a lot of contemplative prayer and deep relaxation; these exercises seem to almost mystically realign my thinking and emotions so that I can wake up and make clearer decisions, be more present with people and with any luck, will even help me finally get my packages to the post office!

This next week, I'm going to re-configure this blog space a little bit. I have some wonderful photos' from my UP vacations places to share, and new pictures of my family and maybe I'll change the format around a bit. I think I'm able to write again folks'. I've managed to put something up here all Summer, and I'm happy I was able to do that but time away from this has helped me to settle into this final "phase" of growing into my Crone role over the next couple of years and I have plenty to say about a great many things so, stay tuned. I'll be up and running over the next few weeks and I hope to continue to hear from you all as I write it all down!

Peace,

Michelle.

The Language of Conversion: Midwifery, Health Care and Real Work

2009-08-11T21:14:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! The following post is very long; please be patient! I want to preface your reading of it by saying that this is not intended to be a resurgence of writing about Midwifery. I have no intention of writing on that topic with any regularity but these issues have been on my mind for a very long time and have blended into the core experience of this season of my life~reflection, remembrance, and ultimately, renewal. The mid-life passage for women, the experience of menopause, is more than a physical or biological process. It is, as herbalist and "Wise Woman" Susun Weed terms it, a "complete metamorphosis". In that spirit, then, comes a contemplation of Midwifery, and Health Care Reform and the way the two seem to parallel each other as I watch both unfold and dovetail in some very interesting ways. As is always true, for any writer, much here is autobiographical and personally iconic in the sense of being part of the interior reality of the person experiencing and observing. These are my thoughts alone, my heart, my mind, my ideas. They cannot, and should not be, attributed to any other individual or group. That said, pull up your chair, sit back and here 'tis:

In the Tuesday, August 11, 2009 New York Times, Maureen Dowd began her Editorial by quoting from the movie 'Fight Club' which, if you recall, starred Brad Pitt and earned itself a critical and pop culture following several years ago. She quotes the following as the "7th rule of fight club" which is that "the fight goes on as long as it has to". I have spent a considerable part of my summer watching the health care debate unfold and, as a Midwife, albeit one on a long sabbatical, or semi-retired, I've also watched Midwifery struggle to be included as a viable "Health Care Profession" in it's own right with varying degrees of success. What has held me somewhat captive, and brought me to the point of finally writing about how I view all of this, is most certainly seeing that "the fight goes on as long as it has to" exists alongside another maxim that seems to demand that both sides utilize the same tactics as the other while simultaneously denying that they're doing so! Both sides in the health care debate make ample use of both fear and distortion of facts to win adherents and I can't help but become frustrated and annoyed with it, especially given the fact that nothing seems to be changing; the fight just goes on...

I became a Midwife because nearly 30 years ago, I came across a book called 'Spiritual Midwifery' in the public library of the small, northern town I was living in. The book inspired in me, and in a generation of women, a vision of local, women-led and family centered maternity care that looked like the kind of healthy, community-based care we all wanted to see manifest in the world. I saw something in those stories of birth and the possibilities inherent in truly experiencing the process, as transformative and life altering; it gave me a sense of vocation and a desire to serve women and families that has remained with me my entire adult life.

I was in Nursing School, happy enough with my studies and very much wanting to be involved with women and birth but having seen and assisted with a series of very medically managed births as a student in the hospital, I really felt that I couldn't continue to participate in something that seemed inherently wrong; there was a quality of violence to all of it that seemed to have it's roots in something alien to what I thought birth was about. I raised goats and I had seen that animals give birth quite easily and I'd never seen a goat lady lie down on her back with her legs in the air in her efforts to birth her kid! I somehow understood that birth was something women just knew how to do and that it probably made sense to attend birthing women the same way you attend goat ladies: leave them be, let them get on with it, but be ready to help them if something really goes awry. So, time and a lot of study and training with different Midwives and Nurses and even a Physician or two all went on, and eventually, I was a Midwife. I knew I was a Midwife because women were asking me to attend them, were calling me with questions about birth, babies, breast feeding and almost everything else that comes up in a woman, and family's life and living and I was giving them the information, support and help they felt they needed. I had older, more experienced Midwives tell me I was "ready" and I had a few that didn't agree with that assessment, but ultimately, it came down to me and the families I served. I would never have said "yes" to anyone if I felt I wasn't qualified. This was back when we in the Midwifery community seemed to think that women themselves knew something about birth. We thought their knowledge was valid. It was a very organic process and one I trusted as implicitly as I trusted birth itself. That doesn't mean I trusted birth to always go well; as with all things in Nature, it has some wayward wildness built right into the process that one has to be prepared to deal with, and to me, the most important part of my training had to do with having very good assessment and emergency response capabilities and for that, my Nursing School education and training were invaluable and life-saving and I have to admit that the acquisition of those skills came to me entirely through Nursing, not through any of my Midwifery preceptors or training. It wasn't that emergency skills weren't considered important, but the available technology, in terms of resuscitation equipment, for instance, simply wasn't there or available in the home setting. We carried oxygen and were trained in CPR but that's what was available and, remarkably for those who now hold that home birth requires bigger guns, it worked pretty well! When I read 'Spiritual Midwifery' as a young woman, and then set out to learn how to become a Midwife, I truly believed that such a system of maternity care would be utterly transformative in the lives of women and communities! I was on fire with the "Gospel of Birth" and like all converts, I drove everyone crazy with my endless talk of birth and Midwifery; all conversational roads led to one or the other, in those days, and I'm sure I was a bit of a bore but, that's conversion for you! The beautiful thing is that we were having far more success at converting others to our thinking in the late 70's-80's than we have since the early 1990's and I think much of our relative inertia has to do with the fact that we've dropped the "transformational" talk about birth and traded it in for the talking points typically used by the "opposition". The tools and tactics being used to advance Midwifery as a profession are the same as those used by our perceived "enemy"--the AMA, or ACOG, or even ACNM-- all the big money, big lobby medical hard drivers who, with the insurance companies, create the monopoly over what we refer to so blandly as our "Health Care System". It sounds so benign; it sounds healthy doesn't it? But it isn't. And when we as Midwives use the same strategy of defamation, criticism, exaggeration and hyperbole, not to mention outright distortion of facts, we accomplish little and we invite more of the same.

We've taken to saying things like "Midwives are Specialists' in Normal Birth". I always thought that birthing women themselves were the rightful owners of that claim. We state that using Midwives "reduces" medical interventions and c-section rates and increases rates of breast-feeding. It's easy enough to "reduce" interventions that you simply never use at a home birth. Home birth, not the Midwife per se, reduces the need for intervention as a relaxed, happy, well-nourished and loved woman in labor doesn't need much more than support, and a quiet environment that allows her to do her work. Childbirth is something women do, not something Midwives do, beyond their own time as birthing women. Much of the reality of these claims has it's basis in the demographic we serve: largely white, middle-class women who have self-selected to pursue an alternative birth and parenting experience that includes midwifery or doula care, natural birth and breast feeding, baby-wearing and all the rest. None of the claims we're making can go beyond the home birth group which is still only 1-2% of the population in the United States! We regularly attack the medical profession for the evils they, and the rest of the medical-industrial complex foist off onto the American people yet we decry their attacks on Midwifery and accuse them of fomenting"turf wars" or of creating "monopoly" both of which certainly exist as part of the problem but we are not doing anything truly productive of being part of the solution by simply continuing to fire back with more of the same. Again, women and families are the people stuck in the middle of what is, let us be honest, a "turf war" all the way around; we are just as guilty as anyone else of wanting to claim territory, and make money, off the sacred ground of birth and family.

When I say "let us be honest", I am not trying to couch a criticism of anyone; I'm suggesting it as a starting point. We used to talk about "telling women the truth about birth" but we no longer seem to want to do that because the "truth" is, women don't routinely "need" Midwives to birth well, any more than they routinely require obstetrical help. Now, I think Midwifery brings with it far more than a set of skills, it brings something even more valuable to the life of a young birthing woman and family; relationship, knowledgeable companionship and support. The truth is, only in an emergency are anyone's clinical skills truly critical to the outcome of a birth from the standpoint of safety. The experience of the birth has everything to do with another set of skills and an orientation of character in the birth attendant, but the clinical skills that determine safe outcome, while requiring sufficient knowledge and practice to be used efficaciously, are, in the home setting, only rarely needed so, present and accounted for they must be, but beyond that, it's other more intangible qualities that make a Midwife a good, healing and appropriate attendant for a woman's birth.

Most of the births that I've attended have required me to do a whole lot of ...nothing. Nothing. I sat somewhere nearby, always attentive--mind, heart, hands and equipment always at the ready but I stayed away from the woman and family while they were doing their essential "real" and sacred work of ~ creating more family! Only rarely did I need to do any "labor support" or make any real suggestions. I did hours and hours of education and real "birth talk" during the months of prenatal care; by the time we arrived at the labor, the mother and her support people knew the drill, they were ready. I regularly checked the baby's heart- tones and performed other exams only as needed to affirm ongoing health and well-being in mother and baby. I monitored the environment, I kept things organized and focused. I maintained a calm, gentle and encouraging demeanor and helped out with whatever the woman needed to keep working--food, drink, a touch, a smile...I rubbed the dad's shoulders, and brought him a cup of coffee, or spelled him so he could take a break...I reassured the waiting grandmothers and other kids. When something truly needed to be done, when the rare complication occurred, I acted and did whatever was required to restore the situation to health and wholeness, including transporting to hospital if I felt it was necessary or desirable for that mother and baby at that time. It was humble, and very "real" work and I never asked it to be more than that. The woman gave birth, I assisted and helped out. Nothing more, nothing less. I don't need, or want, "insurance reimbursement" for those simple, homely tasks of loving service. I accepted payment from my clients in cash, or barter whenever it was something truly needed by me and my family. I worked for nothing, more than once. Midwifery is a life-work and a calling. It's not a business nor is it, when it involves home and family, truly a "Health Care Profession" as our current system defines the term. We are not "Specialists" in "normal birth". How can we be? We "let be". We support and assist. If we are practicing medicine in the home, then perhaps that requires something else, some other kind of Midwife, and some other kind of Midwifery and I have no quarrel with that view. But we are taking away, bit by bit, the cultural and lived norms of Midwifery that I've described and by borrowing from the language and cultural values of Medicine, such as "Specialists' in Normal Birth" and all the rest, we are implying that their system is superior and to be emulated.

Why do we believe that women can no longer be told the truth? Why are we trying to re-complicate birth in another direction? Money? Power? Status? What's the real reason we want to be regulated and licensed and certified and stamped? It's not because birth now requires something beyond what we were doing before. It certainly isn't because women have changed and I am sure that the essential nature of birth is what it always has been. We need some support from the medical community to ensure safety, that is true. We need back up for those rare complications requiring medical intervention. We need ready access to medical services when women need something outside the parameters of home care but a license and insurance money aren't necessarily going to bring those things to us and I'm not sure that ever more docile capitulation to the medical model, as evidenced by adopting their language and cultural norms does anything but lead to the idea that birth IS a "medical event" requiring more than support and back up from medicine. As we inch ever closer to the medical model in the way we talk about our work, we change the dialogue, we mute the crucial differences in our world view and culture. Language ALWAYS frames the debate and our attempt to utilize the language of those who we've identified as our oppressors, is backing us into a corner and more to the point, it not the transformative language of conversion.

I believe that women want to hear real language about real life; real talk about birth and babies and marriage and family life. I don't think we are going to "sell" them with "certification" and "licensure" or anything else beyond the simple title of "Midwife" and defining that in the clearest, most down-to-earth way possible. Calling ourselves "Specialists' in Normal Birth" just obscures the truth we've always held about about birth and women and robs and disempowers birthing women to have yet another set of care providers take away what is rightfully theirs. We must be very cautious about betraying the trust that women have placed in Midwifery for what may yet be proven to be ill-gotten gains. The entire enterprise risks becoming about something other than ensuring the dignity and authenticity of Midwifery as a form of service to women and families. Jesus spoke to people about conversion, about living life within a different value system and he used transformative language that still spoke to people as people. He talked about birth, and children, and planting seeds and raising crops. He talked about sheep, and goats! He rejected the codified, legal language of the Priestly class of Israel to inspire people from the mountain top with words that went to their hearts as people who wanted change and understood that the way forward was not to emulate the ways of the oppressor!

We are all looking at our "Health Care System" and watching the scream-fest-town-hall-so-called-debates on the same and wondering who will be included and who left out. Midwifery wants to be "in" but what will Midwifery lose in the process? What will birthing families lose? What might they gain if we just continued to talk in real, earthy and inspiring terms about the true nature of birth, women and families? What might the term "Health Care" come to mean if we all turned our backs on the current system, one that does nothing to promote true, lasting, sustainable health and well-being in people and communities to create something truly grass-roots and genuinely healing? What if a good, whole and local foods diet was "prescribed"? What if Yoga, Meditation and Contemplative Prayer, Psychotherapy, Spiritual Direction, regular "Retreats" and Massage were written on the little piece of paper we walk out with at the end of an appointment with a "Healer"? What if home birth, attended by whomever the parents' deem desirable, competent and needed, were a simple norm with medical backup provided as needed without all the other stuff attached to it? All of these actions would promote true, and long-lasting health to individuals and communities but who has the courage to stop the screaming, name-calling, baiting, and conflation of the arguments on all sides to get calm and quiet and truly prophetic with new, creative ideas?

"Health Care Reform" has to happen, and we have to make sure that everyone has access to needed care but who will then decide what kind of care is needed and which is simply more lucrative? No one on either side of the aisle is suggesting a complete overhaul of a system that doesn't actually promote or foster, "health". Both sides prefer to maintain much of the status quo; the dithering is all about who will pay for it, and who will hold the power and control in the end. The "system" will remain as it has for decades. I'm not convinced that any of this is "change we can believe in." I don't want to see Midwifery, in particular, "home birth" Midwifery co-opted into this "filthy, rotten system" as Dorothy Day would have put it. I want us to be far more proactive about speaking against the system as it is, with all it's built in failures and injustice and seek then to place Midwifery~as the holistic, healing, family-centered response to the needs of Mothers' and Families, of Women, that it is~at the center of a wholly new and truly healing "Health Care System".

Make no mistake, please, I love Midwifery and I love Midwives. I have never met more stalwart, courageous, generous, visionary women in all my life and I revere some of these women more than I can tell you; I am not in any way trying to obstruct anyone's plans or hopes. I do feel that Midwifery as I knew and practiced it has gone by the wayside. I no longer feel able to work freely as a Midwife, I feel constrained and limited by the political and legal wrangling around it all. I want to continue to be a Midwife...not as part of a large, impersonal "system" and not to receive reimbursement from what I consider to be unethical and immoral insurance companies; I want to be able to continue being a Midwife for those families who want my services so that we can work together to have a nice, family-centered birth in their homes. Plain and Simple. Nothing "Specialist" about it. I want women and families to take back ownership of birth, and family life. I do not want to be part of misleading women~again~ that someone else, anyone else, knows more about how to give birth normally than they already do. We, as Midwives, need to embrace our former claim as "Guardians of Normal Birth"; our own language, values and culture. Our way has a beauty and dignity and yes, a womanliness to it that the medical model can never enhance or duplicate. We need not be ashamed of who we are and we shouldn't be "hiding our light under a bushel." We are the Guardians of Normal Birth....Birthing Women are the Specialists.

Perhaps the "fight goes on as long as it has to" and it certainly seems that this fight will go on for some time to come but as battle after battle is pitched and the weapons are drawn, and both sides keep points, and plan strategy and throw out more criticism and more rebuttal and counter-criticism--who wins? And the truth - that women are the specialists of normal birth- is buried under the arguments and the war mentality and if they don't get that message, if they don't understand that they are the one's with the power and the choice then what happens to Midwifery doesn't matter. The language of conversion can generate enough hope and power to overturn an entire country, we just watched it happen in November of last year. Positive and life-altering rhetoric backed by facts and substantive, values-based debate is what changes minds and lives. We need to find our own language and our own way of framing Midwifery as a transformative social good because that's what brought most of us, Midwives and Mothers, into the fold in the first place.

Until next time...Michelle.

A Week Gone By and Lots to Show for It.

2009-07-30T18:58:00.000-07:00

I Stop Writing the Poem

by Tess Gallagher

to fold the clothes. No matter who lives

or who dies, I'm still a woman.

I'll always have plenty to do.

I bring the arms of his shirt

together. Nothing can stop

our tenderness. I'll get back

to the poem. I'll get back to being

a woman. But for now

there's a shirt, a giant shirt

in my hands, and somewhere a small girl

standing next to her mother

watching to see how it's done.

I had intended to complete a post I've been working on in bits and pieces for a couple of weeks now, but as the lovely little poem by Tess Gallagher articulates better than I can, I've been busy, and happily so, just hanging around the house, folding laundry, cleaning my kitchen, being with my kids, especially my youngest daughter, Mary, and letting everything else kind of wait around for me.

I'll get to putting up my other, possibly more interesting post next week sometime; I think we will all benefit from taking advantage of these last weeks of summer to stay outside enjoying the weather and perhaps beginning to think about the transition to Autumn just a few short weeks away. I'll be heading back to the UP mid-month for probably the last time this year; I hope to make a trip up there in October but this is always the moment when I have to sadly concede that I will very likely not see my "place" until next Spring, which is a long way off, and yet, the time flies and I know that it will seem but weeks until I am again writing that it's time to take the boys' to the Resort to put in the docks; but still...

So, in the weeks ahead, I'll be tending the home and family, enjoying these last weeks of being able to drink my coffee and read my New York Times on my front porch in the early morning. My husband will return to teaching after Labor Day, and so we are spending many more nights staying up late, hanging out together, taking long walks at sundown, or hanging around out by the pond, listening to the water, and the birds. The garden is still thriving and much left to harvest; we had fresh tomatoes in the salad tonight, and broccoli, and fresh basil in the lasagna. It's a good time of year to savor...

So, the poem will have to wait, the essays will lay around incomplete and begging for attention but, until the earth turns, and the leaves begin to change, I'll be living my life, loving my tribe, going back up north to hike around in the woods, sit in the sauna at midnight with my darling husband, go canoeing with my kids, and end this long season of warmth, growth, and so much learned open to the next season and all it has in store for us all.

Peace

Michelle.

The Wild Goose Always Speaks ~ Two Poems for my Funeral and Thoughts on "What We're Here For"

2009-07-24T12:12:00.001-07:00

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

This poem, and one that follows, are both part of my Funeral Service, whenever that happens to occur. I chose them both some time back, and this one, by a woman who perhaps best captures my sense of the world and our place in it, Mary Oliver, is my "benediction"; the final words given to those I have loved and whose lives I hoped I touched in some way that was meaningful for them; it is what I want them to believe, and to seek after, and to know is real and possible for them. During my Retreat a couple of weeks ago, Fr. Leo and I spent a fair amount of time discussing death, my death, in particular. If we accrue no other wisdom by the time we reach 50, one thing we now know for sure is that we are going to die. Death seems like an unhappy accident that happens to others up until we are about 35 when the gnawing chill of reality begins to tighten it's grip on us, when the first round of dissatisfied mid-life grumbling begins to escape our lips and wrap around our lives. By 50, we've moved through the worst of the midlife crisis, if we were going to have one at all, and we begin to accept...everything. We begin to accept the reality of our ultimate death, and we also begin to accept that we are who we are and that many, if not most, of the stated facts of our lives are not going to change much. That sounds like a rather grim and dark prognostication on the hoped for second-wind or post-menopausal zest that we are promised through advertisers who market these ideas to us hoping that we'll realize that such an exciting new realm of possibilities virtually screams for a makeover and new clothes plus a nip and tuck here and there~ maybe everywhere, now that we're really looking. If we have gained any other interior wisdom, we forgo the spruce up, or limit it to a kind of benevolent and selective maintenance, rather like getting more frequent oil changes past 100,000k on the car: we eat well ( or better ) and exercise more ( or some ) and if we're really smart, we smile a lot, dream well, and love with more depth, passion and ease than earlier. We take more genuine risks, knowing that the time is short for what matters most to us. For me, that always means people~my "tribe"; my darlings, those known, and unknown. They find me, I find them, we try to work it out and make it worth something. Those who know me well will tell you that I am not a cautious woman; I never have been. I take risks, sometimes major risks, some are, or could have been, dangerous, and I can only look to a loving God who has always protected me when my willingness to "rush in where Angels fear to tred" has posed more than a little emotional, or spiritual threat to me. I would always rather try than not try and even though sometimes, that ends up in what can only even generously be called disaster, it's also almost always worth it for the things that matter most to me. Fr. Leo asked me if I had planned my Funeral and I told him "yes...it's been in place for a long time now". I wrote it all down after my son Samuel died and I've revised a couple of small things since. Leo asked me to go further back, and then forward. He asked me to imagine my death-bed and my final hours: Who is there and why? How do I feel about each person: what do I want to tell them? Am I fearful, sad, peaceful or resistant? When the final few moments arrive, again, who, and why, my feelings, my sadness...

We then moved forward to my Funeral and the same kinds of questions with the addition of one: What do I hope people will say about me? What is my legacy? I told him that I hoped that people would say that I was a "True Midwife" in the sense that I was completely loving, present, available, honest, courageous and a wise and tender companion to them through their life journey. I hoped that didn't have to mean that I was always right, or always "nice" ( a term I hope no one ever uses to describe me; it's just too easy and usually means that one had qualities typically attributed to a door mat ) but that if I was "tough" or hard on someone, it was out of that ferocious and devoted love that knows that true healing and growth can only happen in the presence of both and that sometimes, it's all kind of messy and mucky; rarely "nice". I hope I gave everything I had and I hope I loved well; if I didn't then I will, without a doubt, be "in Hell" for eternity because that's the only way we arrive there; by failing to love.

He asked me then to imagine my body buried, and decomposing. To watch the entire slow process from within, to feel it, if I could, and to stay with those feelings. This was far more difficult for me because I couldn't do it "from within", probably because I believe, to the point of an automatic response, that I won't be "in" my body at that point, which presupposes an "I" that will be somewhere watching. The overwhelming feeling I had watching my body return to the elements was sadness. I was especially saddened at watching my hands fall away~I remembered how much work and pleasure they brought me, how many loving and passionate caresses given, how many meals made, how many laboring mothers' soothed, the babies caught, the children comforted and cared for, my piano...my hands.

For some, this may seem a grizzly exercise; something ugly and how in the world is it spiritual? Well, the spirit is the animating force to all of it and love animates the spirit. Being in the present moment, dealing with what is right in front of us, taking a contemplative approach to everything, including our dying, death and physical decomposition is taking life in hand and accepting who we are. We are finite. We are limited. And what we are at center, at the core, is infinite and eternal. What animates us, what we are here for, is what lives after us. It might be our love and kindness, in my case, "quiet kindness" as a new friend put it with some drollness, or it might be our work, art, writing, ideas or just the fact that our being here in poverty, want, need and distress allowed others to manifest their purpose for being; it all works together and it all works for good if we let it.

So, when I have died, and the "Big, Musical, Bells and Smells, Episcopal Church Funeral" is ended, my body, now ashes, will be taken to my beloved Lake in the UP and given to my friend there, someone who, if he is indeed still living, will have been my friend his entire lifetime, or very nearly. A big fire will be lit just before midnight, there will be singing and dancing, poetry and prayers. Everyone will have a bottle of Guinness as "Communion" shared in love, and what is left of me will be walked out to the end of the dock, and with ashes and bottle of Guinness in hand--my friend there to share one more beer with me--he'll cut me loose, the Guinness poured out after and around me, and I'll fly away...

Before my 'tribe' disperses, in the quiet of dark night and soft wind and waves lapping the beach, one more poem, and here it is for all of you:

Fishing in the Keep of Silence by Linda Gregg

There is a hush now while the hills rise up

and God is going to sleep. He trusts the ship

of Heaven to take over and proceed beautifully

as he lies dreaming in the lap of the world.

He knows the owls will guard the sweetness

of the soul in their massive keep of silence,

looking out with eyes open or closed over

the length of Tomales Bay that the herons

conform to, whitely broad in flight, white

and slim and standing. God, who thinks about

poetry all the time, breathes happily as He

repeats to Himself: There are fish in the net,

lots of fish this time in the net of the heart.

Have a fine weekend, everyone. I'm still working through my Retreat experience, and the events of this past week, which were a bit on the "risky"side of the sort I wrote about here but it's all good. It all comes 'round right in the end.

Michelle.

A Poetical Summary of my Retreat~ The Three Goals by David Budbill

2009-07-14T16:07:00.000-07:00

The first goal is to see the thing itself

in and for itself, to see it simply and clearly

for what it is.

No symbolism please.

The second goal is to see each individual thing

as unified, as one, with all the other

ten thousand things.

In this regard, a little wine helps a lot.

The third goal is to grasp the first and the second goals,

to see the universal and the particular,

simultaneously.

Regarding this one, call me when you get it.

I returned home from my Retreat on Saturday morning and have been busy readjusting to being at home; catching up on my family, cooking for friends, getting the laundry done, tending the garden and beholding with wonder my now elegantly bold and strikingly healthy looking corn! I have had little time yet to think or more precisely to integrate the experience I had last week; it is almost beyond any words currently at my disposal. So, I went poem-hunting to find something that might bracket the experience with sufficient fluidity and precision to capture the essence of it; this one is pretty good. I was companioned by Fr. Leo Cachet S.J., a Jesuit Priest who spent most of the last 40 years serving in a small village near Kathmandu, Nepal. He studied with the wonderful Anthony De Mello S. J. and opened an Ashram or Spiritual Center in Nepal that served not only the Spiritual needs of the local community, but allowed Leo to become fully integrated with the community he served, a people he described as "just naturally 'Contemplatives in Action' which is largely the 'goal' of Ignatian Spirituality; to be able to serve God and others in a contemplative spirit; able to see and be with "what is" and see God/Divine Mystery in action within all of it. I knew in an intellectual way, as an idea, when I embarked on this path three years ago that it would change me in some way that I couldn't anticipate. I never dreamed that it would so deepen my sense of 'seeing and accepting' whatever it is I find in front of me, or alongside me, without having a goal, a destination, an outcome, in mind that I was sure was the "right one".

The "right" goal is the one that is part of Mystery and therefore, beyond our control, prediction, or ability to define.

In a couple more days, I will be able to say more about my Retreat experience; I'm not in a hurry to capture it, or to spend too much time "thinking" about it and thereby labeling it or boxing it up somehow. Fr. Leo told me a wonderful story about something he learned from the people in Nepal. They never tell their children what something "is". If the child sees a rose, a tree, a rock, a creature and asks "what is that", they are only answered by being told to "look closely". No word, label or file to sort the experience into. Fr. Leo told me that as soon as you tell a child what something "is" you destroy their ability to image it, to experience it as it is, and for itself. The people of Nepal educate their children experientially and only much later are things named and classified. The "object" of curiosity is experienced first as an image and kept in that realm until more concrete thinking is developed and needed.

And I thought I was so original as an "unschooling parent"! I was humbled; utterly confounded and humbled by simply listening to, and taking in the life experiences of this gentle, straightforward, jolly, intelligent man. He neither complimented nor criticized me; how often we expect either or both as our culture, our families, "train" us to listen for the external definitions of who we are, how we are. He blessed me by simply "taking me in". He took no measure of me; used no yardstick. I, in my turn, seemed to have been suddenly graced with the same gift of just "taking in". I didn't "think" about Fr. Leo. I didn't ponder him, or observe him as though he were under my psychic microscope; I saw clearly the need to give up that habit as one that, however lovingly intended, obscures my vision of the person in front of me and makes them something I am responsible for, or to, at a level beyond simple human companionship and love.

Carl Jung once said ( and I'm paraphrasing slightly here ) that is it "unlove that makes people unhealthy and only love can make them well".

I experienced an absolute acceptance and love that I've known only a few places in my life. I was given this gift of contemplative awareness of others by immersion, after years of praying and working toward it as a goal; it just came ~ pure gift just handed off. I learned from him, to my great relief, that I still have the capacity to be this for others; it's just gotten a bit rusty from misuse and poisoned by my wrong belief that it was somehow my "job" to fix things for people, to heal them, or make them well, or to make their lives hurt them less~as though anyone can ever do any of that, but I thought it was "on me" to try. There are many reasons why I came to believe that this level of responsibility was mine but in the act of being invited by this gentle guide to simply set those reasons down as one would a heavy rock picked up long ago and no longer needed...well, I dropped the rock! I dropped the rock and experienced an enormous peace and stillness within that I can't describe. I'm just grateful...

May all of you know peace and the simple joy of this time of "high summer". I'll write more about this in a day or two. In the meantime, enjoy the day!

Michelle.

On Retreat: 5 July 2009 - 11 July 2009

2009-07-04T20:43:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! I had hoped to find the time to write something or other after I returned from vacation last week and I may have time to leave you with another poem tomorrow afternoon but I will be gone on my annual summer Retreat at Manresa Jesuit Retreat House beginning tomorrow evening. My vacation was lovely, as always, although there were some significant snags and downturns, most notably that I didn't feel well the last half of the week and came home to news of deaths and health problems among friends and family members and that has taken up a significant amount of my energy throughout the last few days. I arrived home and immediately felt bombarded with bad news and so much of it of the sort that makes one feel so utterly helpless; someone has died, a young family is suffering, a family member has been diagnosed with cancer. It was a rather overwhelming homecoming and my desire to be present for people was somewhat thwarted by a rather odd, and for me, unusual fatigue that I can't seem to shake; I'm hoping that the next week of silence and quiet will take care of that particular issue. I'm looking forward to my Retreat for time to pray, reflect and regroup for the balance of the summer and allow me to begin thinking about and planning for all the work I have to do this Fall. Again, I hope to leave a poem tomorrow before I leave but if not, I'll be back in a week and hopefully I'll even have something to say.

Perhaps something tomorrow then. Peace to you all.

Michelle.

Post Script: 5 July 09, Sunday afternoon. I'll be leaving in just an hour or so and I haven't time to post a poem although I will recommend a "poetic" interlude to anyone who reads or has an opportunity to see the Sunday New York Times. In the travel section, there is a very nice piece about several well-known poets and the towns they've lived in, or written from, or about. Most notably, for me, is a very lengthy bit about Mary Oliver who, as many of you know, is a favorite of mine; her poetry has graced these pages more than once. I encourage you to take a look if you're interested in that sort of thing.

So, I'm off~more next week.

~To Be of Use~ by Marge Piercy

2009-06-19T18:30:00.000-07:00

The people I love the best

jump into work head first

without dallying in the shallows

and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.

They seem to become natives of that element,

the black sleek heads of seals

bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,

who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,

who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,

who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge

in the task, who go into the fields to harvest

and work in a row and pass the bags along,

who are not parlor generals and field deserters

but move in a common rhythm

when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.

Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.

But the thing worth doing well done

has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.

Greek amphoras for wine or oil,

Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums

but you know they were made to be used.

the pitcher cries for water to carry

and a person for work that is real.

Tomorrow morning I will be heading back to the U.P. with my family until next Saturday. I am, as always, eagerly anticipating my time there, looking forward to interacting anew within that context of primal familiarity that nevertheless enables me to be "Surprised by Joy", as C. S. Lewis put it, by water, air, fire, starlight, open space and connection with people I know as well as I know myself and yet, still finding Mystery. Every year, I arrive at the place, arrange our things in the same cottage, head down to the same beach and find the same chair and move it beneath the bluff. As I set my overloaded bag down on the sand and look out at the water and sky, I always take a deep breath and release an almost inaudible sigh of tender and profound relaxation, not from any lingering tension in my life, but because the place is my touchstone. My arrival on the beach, ready to spend precious time looking, breathing, reading, thinking and writing and enjoying my family and friends, is not only the high-water mark of my year; it's where my year starts. The cycle of my life, my sense of time passing, is marked by this yearly pilgrimage back to center; my center. On every square inch of the property, my family and childhood are mixed into the sand and air, the paint and varnish, the kitchen cupboards, the wood floors. I walk barefoot through the same grass and sand where I once followed my father to our boat in the cool, early morning to go fishing with him. I listen to the wooden docks creak beneath my feet as they always have, yet now, I can smile with the knowledge that my two boys' helped place these docks, participating in the yearly work that transforms a family home into a Resort for what are now several generations of families. Work that is real...

I learned long ago that in order for me to be complete; I have to do real work. As predisposed as I am to doing not much more than sitting still, watching the world, lost in close observation of something, or someone; finding the questions, seeing the hidden beauty, or fear; the longing, or passion...nosing around in the dark corners and rooting through cluttered up closets...I am lost without putting my hands to something; I have to engage my senses; my body. I have to knead bread, make soup, attend a laboring woman, love a person, sit with the dying, and the bereaved, plant and tend the garden, play my piano, sing, dance; mother my children. Someone once said that "work is love made visible" and while I don't like the slightly oozy sentimentality of the phrase, there is a simple truth in it; work is our Art. Finding our work is finding our peace and our joy!

It seems odd, then, I suppose, to be talking about work when I am about to head off on holiday! I'm officially "on vacation" as of 6 hours from now; why talk about work? Well, because part of my work is making this trip each year, and using it as I do; to fuel the fire, to tend my soul, to stay in touch with, and to build up, my interior reality; to stay real. To stay "close to the root".

Vincent Van Gogh once wrote to his brother, Theo, that "to know God, you must love many things". And so it is for me. To know God, and the True Self that is God-in-us, I have to love many things and in repeating this yearly ritual of recollection and renewal; I stay true to form; I come back home to the Garden...

And in the homestead garden, the corn is almost knee high; it will surely make it there by the 4th of July! My tomatoes and green peppers are healthy and thriving. The squash is threatening to take over, as it always does; I didn't plant any pumpkins this year; they're too greedy for space. The Kale and Broccoli are gorgeous and I have more Romaine than I know what to do with; I over-planted lettuce! If you're in the area and hankering for fresh salad greens, I have plenty! We've taken down some mulberry trees and moved our raspberries from one side of the yard to another and transplanted some of our Rose of Sharon to my mother-in law's yard; we've been busy and having a great time!

I hope those of you who read here regularly will come back and sit with this poem a couple of times this week; it's one I'll be working with in my own writing during this week away.

Words connected to Place and Spirit...Work that is Real.

Traveling Mercies!

Michelle

All Will Be Well and All Will Be Well and All Manner of Things Shall Be Well...~ Age Brings Perspective and Peace

2009-06-16T12:07:00.000-07:00

I've settled down with Facebook; I was enabled to reestablish ties with an old friend from High School to our mutual joy and benefit and while Facebook doesn't get all the credit, the timing was perfect! Through a sad set of circumstances ( a family death ) my old friend had to come into town and we were able to spend a long evening getting caught up on 30 years of life and living. It was a wonderful visit and I've spent not a little time thinking about both our conversation and it's intersection with several of my ongoing trains of thought of recent months. At one point in the conversation, we were both commenting on the fact that we have a fair number of friends who are considerably younger than we are; most in their 30's but some in their mid-late 20's. We made small talk about the more typical misalignments between our younger friends and ourselves in the form of popular culture; music, the embrace of and comfort level with technology, changes in communication style etc. What we didn't discuss at length, but I thought about a lot, was evident only as a current that ran through our mutually guided tour through the landscape of one another's lives. We spoke of death, divorce, losses large and small. Horrible situations and tragic circumstances. He has lost both parents' and a very close friend. My father and two sons have died plus a few friends, most recently one I've known for 30 years and whose death was both a shock and a heartbreak to me personally on several levels. I have a child with a disability and young adult kids, plus a teenager! I have a few health problems that are growing steadily more apparent and require more planning in my day to day life. We've both seen the ups and downs of marriage, family and parenting over many years. To most people under 40, say, this sounds like a perfect storm of impossible losses; very few younger people have seen much of death, disability, or tragedy. Some have, to be sure, and some have been through far worse than anything I've experienced, but on the average, most younger people have little aquaintance with real tragedy, loss or grief. It just hasn't happened to them yet! What they have experienced may seem overwhelming in the present moment, may seem insurmountable, even, but I'm always surprised at how rapidly perspective is gained once a truly irrevocable tragedy occurs, or they finally come face to face with death and the thunderous quiet it brings in it's wake; the disruption that occurs when someone beloved and cared for is really gone...gone to the other side; vanished from sight; lost to us. Our early losses are preparation for those more devastating manifestations that will surely come; we get some practice sessions with sorrow to be sure. I can only smile ruefully as I remember being absolutely out of my head when my cat was hit by a car when I was 22! I cried for days and couldn't eat or sleep. I had dark and frightening dreams and a very difficult time working, thinking or doing much of anything beyond sitting in my room, thinking about my poor little orange tabby and his sad fate! It was a tragedy for me, at the time. Someone I had been personally invested in, had cared for, fed, and watched grow from infancy, had died, but I responded with far more melodrama when that cat died than I did when either of my sons' died, for instance, by then, I had been through a few more passages with grief; I knew the drill. I knew what would help and what wouldn't but I was also just plain older; I was more accepting that life is like that; bad things happen and we go on the best we can.

What I noticed most about my conversation with my friend from long ago was the sense of peace we both have with life--with the good and bad, horrific and beautiful, tragic and sublime--by 50, you know that life is going to do with you what it will so it's best to just point yourself into the wind and cruise along with it; the dark days will come, and they will go and the sun will shine before the darkness settles in once again...by 50, you know that "all will be well" and you can relax; you can smile into the tragedies and difficult days with some equanimity because you know the transience of it; "this too shall pass". So often, when I am confronted with the dark days of younger friends, I want so much to be able to convince them that it will get better; that time does heal and that sometimes, there is meaning in what we're going through that can only be viewed from down the pike a bit. So often, I get the sense that my seeming unwillingness to get my own knickers in a twist about someone's present situation is viewed as not caring, or not "getting it" as I've so often heard. No...I do get it. I get it far more deeply than they could ever realize but I also "get" something they don't~~It will pass. Whether you do anything "about it", whether you put your whole heart, soul and all the family finances into fixing it, whether you decide to "suffer" with it, or just ride it out~~it will pass. There is no good way to give that gift of peace and contentment in the moment to another person unless they are very, very open to receiving it, unless they want it, until they know themselves that life is not just some absurd endurance test, something to "get through"; it's all something to embrace, it's all gift, even, perhaps especially, the really hard stuff. The gift is in our willingness to embrace the Mystery. I've been rebuffed, more than once, for telling people that peace and contentment, yes, even a happy and functional family life, are an inside job; it's from deep within that the external reality takes it's shape. We can't force it to happen from outside ourselves. The urge to flee, to escape, to not notice, to have someone "fix" it, or us, is powerful, especially in our culture. We don't accept the notion that most of what is wrong in our lives and with our families or marriages or any of the myriad areas of endeavor we find ourselves in is a lack of simple patience and a willingness to learn from what's happening, to accept ourselves and our circumstances as something to learn about, and from....then, only then, does changing what we find needs changing become possible and in my experience, it becomes easy, fairly effortless. We have to learn to sit still....sit in the dark, live with the pain, persevere and be patient with ourselves and others.

My friend and I have now raised children to young adulthood; we are happy with our children and the lives they're creating for themselves but I think we both see how little we had to do with it all, in the end. People are born with the ability to forge their own path, make their own way; children need love, freedom, privacy, respect and parents' who trust themselves, and life. As so many parents' are discovering, too much worry, anxiety and effort towards organizing and managing kids' lives is hurting the children, destroying marriages neglected by over-focus on parenting and creating a generation of kids who view themselves as their parents' "projects" and not as people in their own right. I've been very, very happy to read all the new articles and book reviews about this backlash against "over parenting" or "helicopter parenting" as it's sometimes called. In the world of childbirth that I inhabited for so long, I can only hope that the moment is now ripe to challenge the culture of "competitive childbirth" that has set so many women up for perceived failure when they aren't able to have, or don't care about, a particular type of childbirth experience so that women and families can truly take back childbirth, reminding the larger culture that all birth is sacred and that creating a market on the backs of vulnerable pregnant and new mothers that tells them that there is a "right way" and a "wrong way" to grow, birth and raise a child is what will truly allow "choice" to be a meaningful word for the the majority of women; I can't wait.

So, to all my young friends, even though I know you don't believe me, won't listen, and think I'm daft: We who are entering the second half of our hoped for century of living can tell you that whatever it is that is shaking you now, whatever it is that is causing you pain and suffering right now, whatever you've read, or been told is the new panacea for all your ills and problems~~ here's the Truth: Everything will be O.K. Everything will be fine; just wait. Just live it out. One step at a time. One day at a time. As the medieval mystic, Julian of Norwich said after her one nights' showing of spiritual reality~~"All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of thing shall be well."

I'll have a short post by Friday before heading up to the UP for vacation; my books and journals are packed and I am very ready to go sit on my beach. In the meantime, the garden is thriving, we're eating lettuce and I have tiny green peppers and little tomatoes coming along. My friend and I had a marvelous visit and have remained in regular contact on...yup...Facebook ( ha! ) and I'm having a very, very good, fruitful and peace-filled summer so far; a few speed bumps, some things having to be permanently laid to rest but all of that goes towards a larger sense of that deep and abiding peace that is truly our hearts' desire.

Later in the week then...

Michelle.

Aristotle once said, "He who is friend to all, is friend to none"...thoughts on Facebook and what Friendship means.

2009-06-12T12:21:00.001-07:00

Earlier this week, I fell prey to exactly the kind of foolishness I ordinarily eschew, that being increased interaction with technology. I signed up for Facebook....yeah, I know.

I did it for one simple and indefensible reason: people I love asked me to. Friends and family members have been encouraging me for some months to sign on so that I could better "keep in touch" and see their pictures ( I almost never show any of mine, I don't know how to put them up and I have too little interest in learning ) and share the day to day happenings and all that. The problem is, I absolutely never do "all that". I share almost nothing of my day to day life and I'm very happy with the privacy such self-imposed obscurity allows me. I don't like to talk about myself with strangers; I have a hard time writing blog posts that contain any personal content because I am suspicious of the notion that anyone can write "the truth" about themselves. The "truth" that most people write is actually only their immediate, emotional reaction or response to something; how they "feel" about it in the present moment. My understanding of "truth" is that it's something that requires a lot of reflection, a lot of thought and time and even then, I'm not sure it can be called "truth" in any objective way. I find myself cringing inwardly when someone says, or writes, "I'm just speaking my truth; sorry if it bothers you" primarily because I don't believe anyone who tells me that; what truth might be in that statement is found somewhere in it's secondary clause: they aren't actually "sorry" if it bothers you; they hope it does. They're counting on it. And therein we have the "lie" of telling the "truth". So....so.

The Facebook thing is very strange, I think. I signed up and within the hour, people I don't know personally were arriving in my email in-box asking to be my "friends". Now, my 50 year old sense of propriety and etiquette doesn't allow me to do what I guess everyone else does; just say "no". That would be rude, wouldn't it? That would be artless and cold and very definately not "friendly". I don't know how to do that. So I said "yes"....to everyone. I also suffered through the embarassed confusion of misunderstanding what it means when you get the "suggestion" of someone to be your friend; I thought that meant that they wanted me to be their friend, so I sent out "invitations" to folks' I am dead sure do NOT want to be my friend, on Facebook or anywhere else. My long-suffering husband and children have taken mercy on my abject ignorance and have now given me sufficient tutorial to avoid the worst faux pas' but I really have grave reservations about the whole thing.

Friendship as I have known, practiced and desired it means deep connection and a certain emotional, spiritual and yes, whenever possible, physical proximity; I like to see my friends, actually sit in a room looking at them, taking them in, listening to all that they're saying through words, yes, and through their eyes and body language. I like to share a meal and a bottle of wine, or a few dark and wonderful beers, and really be "with" them. The idea of someone on a computer being my "friend" in any way I can inhabit the word is on some other order of existence for me. I can appreciate email and Facebook and blogs as mechanisms to share oneself, or one's thoughts, ideas and interests with others, even those unknown, and to keep in touch with true friends who are far away but there is something wrong, something isolating and very false about the whole "Facebook" world. I don't think I've ever felt more lonely, or set apart, or lost then I did yesterday evening as I sat down and looked at my Facebook page and all the people and comments and "wall" writing and so forth and realized that I knew almost none of the people involved. I haven't yet had a chance to let most of my own friends and family know that I'm on Facebook; just one friend from High School, to whom I am very grateful because he responded to my request so quickly and with such welcoming warmth and hospitality; I felt a little more at home on my own Facebook page seeing him there!

I'm just too old for this stuff. I also take it too seriously, I know. I really get that most people just do this and have whatever fun they have with it but I don't do that about almost anything. Another friend of mine told me that he really likes that he can look up old friends from school, even Grammar School, and know where they are and what they're doing. How strange is it, though, and how perhaps again, false, that we would know more about someone 30 years on, about the fact that they are traveling away on vacation tonight, or having steak for dinner, when we didn't, and wouldn't, know either of those things, necessarily, when we lived up the street from them as children? There's something voyeuristic about it that makes me vaguely dizzy and squirmy and it begs the question I've asked often in my writing here: what is happening to our sense of privacy and mystery? From birth videos on YouTube ( an interesting article on that topic in the NYT's yesterday ) to people sharing the most intimate personal, even bodily, details and telling things about their children, or spouses or parents or friends, often by name...what does that mean to us? What do we lose, as a culture, as people, when we no longer maintain our local ties and relationships to the extent that we share more of ourselves with strangers in a virtual reality while increasingly avoiding the real risks, pleasures and depth of true, one-on-one connection and friendship? How many people imprison themselves in their homes, sitting at the computer for hours and hours and losing the very human skills of conversation and loving and devoted friendship? There is a lot of peace and security that comes of sticking it out with people, a real sense of accomplishment that comes from staying in the conversation and the relationship and working together to resolve the inevitable quarrels and conflicts of relationship in real time and face to face. Just as people so often never know the satisfaction of living in one community for a lifetime, becoming truly local to a place, culture and time, so too, many people never experience genuine, life long friendship and lose the perspective that historicity gives to anyone; staying connected to real people is important work.

So I don't think I like all this "virtual" stuff. I most certainly don't trust it.

I don't know what I'm going to do about Facebook. I'm hoping the current flurry of activity dies down some and that perhaps once I actually get people I know showing up I'll develop a better comfort level with it but I don't know; it may not be for me. I try to keep up, I really do. But that feeling of isolation and disconnection that I experienced while staring at my Facebook page cannot be my reaction alone; I think a lot of people feel this way, experience it in similar fashion. I know only that I want the term "friendship" to mean something far more valuable and hard won than simply signing on to a computerized social network that, from my scant observation, seems to take up an enormous amount of time and energy for the people most involved in it and that time, then, is not going to real relationships and connection with real people and I'm not sure we need more of that in the world....

Facebook......funny term isn't it? Facebook.

So...there. A little something extra from me this week!

Enjoy the weekend everyone.

Michelle.

More Gardening, More Thinking~ Keeping Things Simple

2009-06-09T07:13:00.000-07:00

Tuesday has rolled around again and this then, is my self-appointed day for doing weekly blog updates through the summer season; it's been such a busy week, it's hard to know where to start. I'm continuing to put plants and seeds into the garden. I'm trying a rough variation on the "Lasagna Gardening" method which is to say that I'm layering seeds in with seedlings and established plants and just letting them grow up alongside one another as they will; it's very like my parenting style, actually! The heirloom tomato plants and all my herbs are going in today; I still have various herbs out there from last year, most notably the Sage which not only wintered over beautifully but was green, full and gorgeous in March! Today, the basil, parsley and lavender are going in; I kept them sitting in the kitchen windowsill well beyond their health and happiness because I enjoy looking at them, and then I moved them outdoors to harden but they are uncomfortably snug in their pots now so it's past time to get them in the ground. Beyond that, I'm organizing my home and environs in preparation leaving town to head back to the UP in less than two weeks which involves, among other things, getting the summer clothes out and the winter clothes packed away and making sure that the summer yard work is caught up and things are capable of minimal effort on their behalf while we're gone. None of it is being done with terrifically good humor because I mostly want to stay outdoors and just hang out there! I've been out walking for over an hour every day though, and that allows me both the satisfaction of getting my exercise in ( no running for me right now, after 30 plus years due to a gamey knee over the last two years which isn't healing entirely; I can walk the 5 or 6 miles daily but running causes pain and then lay offs, not worth it ) plus being outside in the air and weather which allows me ample "thinking and wondering" time. I also take Mary on a walk or two every day for her Nature Study ( within the neighborhood, this is confined largely to interesting flowers, bugs on the ground, and birds, squirrels and chipmunks but she has a seemingly boundless interest in the daily, normal run of the world so she doesn't get bored with any of it; she always finds something new to notice about the same things! ) and today we're trying a new procedure which involves duct tape turned inside out around her wrist where she can "stick" little plants, sticks and interesting whatevers' that she finds making her discoveries into a bracelet easily observed and thought about later.

Reading through a short and lovely little book ('Journeys of Simplicity~Traveling Light' by Thomas Harndon) about fairly famous people who've been known to live very simple lives materially and found great inner freedom and richness doing so. I'm always interested in these stories and find them inspirational and encouraging to my own efforts to do the same. So in closing out this weeks post, I'll include the following little piece about someone whose life has been a source of admiration and conviction about how to live, love and serve people

for me for many years; Dorothy Day. She was an American journalist, devout Roman Catholic, stalwart pacifist, holy troublemaker and cofounder, with Peter Maurin, of the Catholic Worker movement:

"For fifty years, she lived among America's urban poor, usually in one of the "houses of hospitality" that she and Peter Maurin established to shelter and serve homeless people. She distrusted government and its programs and believed that Christian themselves should perform the works of mercy: feed the hungry, clothe the naked, give drink to the thristy, visit the imprisoned, care for the sick, bury the dead. Through her newspaper ( The Catholic Worker; I still get it and it's still, as it was during the Depression, only 1 cent per copy ) her books, and her sometimes solitary witness, Dorothy Day "comforted the afflicted and afflicted the comfortable." As a model of simplicity and detachment from "things", she had only the following in her room at the Catholic Worker house in Brooklyn, NY: Ascending up two flights of stairs, devoid of any luxury, one finds simple furniture, a couple of chairs, an old wardrobe and a cot. Next to the bed, a tiny statue of St. Joan of Arc wearing armor. A manual typewriter. Opera on the radio; Wagner. A shelf of well-thumbed books, the old favorites: the Bible, Tolstoy, Dickens, Desert Fathers, Bernanos, Silone, Dostoyevsky.

Dorothy Day and the Catholic Workers ate the plain and sometimes scant food they made available for the people who needed it, and they wore clothing that came from various second- hand sources, including funeral homes; the castoffs of those who had died. They worked tirelessly among the poor of the inner city and never wavered in their belief that it was their duty to challenge, as Dorothy put it "this filthy rotten system" that created such hardship, poverty, violence, war and hatred in the world.

I have a quote from her written on a slip of paper in my prayer book; it was taken from her autobiography, 'The Long Loneliness': "Love in action a harsh and dreadful thing compared to love in dreams." The implications of that idea, that love in action is difficult and challenging and not the stuff of romantic notions about the "feeling" of love, but that we speak our love through how we care for, and serve others; not just those closest to us, but those on the other side of the world, and the land, and the air we breathe, and the multitude of creatures we share the planet with. Love in action is hard work but it's the kind of love that brings wholeness and peace. Traveling light and simplifying our inner and outer lives helps us to carve out the necessary space for reflection and contemplation of the deeper realities and gives us clear vision. Dorothy Day worked for justice and peace and she is an ever-present reminder to me of what it means to be fully human and fully alive....and with that fine reminder of what is important and precious, out into the garden once again!

Have a great week, everyone!

Michelle.

The Weekly Round: Commentary on Lisa Belkin's Article in the New York Times Magazine, "The Collapse of the Perfect Parent."

2009-06-02T11:28:00.000-07:00

As I sat drinking my coffee on the porch Sunday afternoon, working my way through the New York Times, I finally picked up the weekly Magazine section, noted the cover photo/story of former President, Bill Clinton, promising to get back to it as I still love Bill, and began flipping through the pages. On page 19, my eyes landed on the title: "Let the Kid Be--could the era of overparenting be over?" by Lisa Belkin in which she also riffs on a new book being published currently in the UK called 'The Idle Parent: Why Less Means More When Raising Kids'. I almost wept with gratitude at the very existance of both; it's so heartening when the truth is finally revealed! The article goes on to discuss a fairly recent trend away from the "helicopter" or "hovering" parenting style that has been, in my view, the undoing of sane and good people who happen to have kids for most of the last 20 years! I couldn't help smiling inwardly as I recalled my own writing on this topic, and the confusion mixed with a blend of skeptical desire expressed to me as folks' have tried to make sense of my forthright declaration of myself as the quintessential "lazy parent" ~ an unschooling, relaxed, free, happy and eccentric mum who often didn't exactly know what my children were doing at any given moment because they were outside somewhere being kids. A few resolutely questioned the depth of my maternal commitment given that I confess to having prioritized my own needs, desires and even a few whims because I truly believe that self-care is the only honest way to care deeply and passionately for others; I cannot give from a depleted sense of my own life and living. I also truly believed that my job as a parent was not to ensure that my children had a "perfect"childhood, and every possible advantage in life, but to give them a safe and loving space in which to explore themselves and the world around them in freedom; to embrace their liberty and find their own truth. They weren't allowed to do "anything they wanted", in fact, we kept a pretty tight ship, organizationally speaking, and we have a quite strict code of discipline in terms of behavior but it was organized around our definition of "loving" behavior and peacemaking. I have always felt that children needed to assimilate fairly communitarian values so that they could understand, from a very early age, as soon as it's developmentally appropriate, that all behavior and decisions impact others, for good or ill, and that no one in a family--parent or child--has a right to behave in any way that negatively impacts other family members. Behavior or decisions that are hurtful, destructive or selfish require apology, amends and a genuine attempt to restore equity, and peace, to the relationships and thus, to the "community". Once that basic understanding is internalized--and that process takes time, patience and unrelenting repetition to become a truly interior value--creating an atmosphere of peace, cooperation and loving care and attention within the family, becomes fairly automatic.

Reading this article was interesting to me on several levels, not the least of which was the sense of relief I had that someone out there was actually thinking sensibly about these issues, and, of course, reaching conclusions in line with my own thinking ( and who doesn't like that? ) but more than that, I honestly believe that the emotional, physical, spiritual and financial cartwheels and torture that I have watched in utter bemusement over the last decade is wholly dysfunctional and unhealthy, as well as unsustainable. As women and parents devote enormous life energy into worrying about everything from how and where they give birth, breast or bottle, demand feeding or schedule, to day-care or not, homeschooling or not, or how to homeschool, or which private or public school, or how to ensure that their kid(s) makes the Ivy Leagues', they erode those precious years of parenting--of loving and living with the children of their hearts--waking up one day finally realizing that the time, and the children, have gone on. They're too often left with the sad realization that after pouring everything they've had into doing all of it "right", with being so over-focused on "outcome", they are left empty, sad, depressed and with a lot of life left to live and having to recreate something 'whole' out of a "self" that has no personal meaning to them. It's a very hard, uphill climb at that point and too often, it results in attempts to continue being over-involved with young adult children to everyone's dismay and unhappiness.

Children need to be children and adults need to be adults! There is nothing novel about that concept and it has, in fact, been the organizing principle of family life through most of human history. It's only been in the very recent past that the very term "parenting" has become a subject distinct from the idea of having a family; it has become an endeavor, and something that too many women, in particular, are building an entire identity and life around and then struggling with much the same question posed by women in the late 1950's-- "What is the problem that has no name?" Anyone out there ever read "The Feminine Mystique" back in the day? The problem is one of submerging all one's energies into one's reproductive and parenting roles and then not knowing how to reclaim a solid sense of self apart from that. Children suffer, as they always have, when parents use their children as their sole source of self-esteem and worth. Children then lack sufficient freedom and privacy to develop their own sense of these same, very necessary attributes of being whole and complete persons. It becomes a silent, but disabling, disorder or dysfunction that becomes a multi-generational reality.

So, yeah....Let the kids Be. Send them outside to play. Make yourself a cup of coffee and go sit and read for awhile. Spend time on your marriage/partnership and friendships. Be an example to your children of interdependence, community-building and peacemaking out in the world. Allow your children the freedom to become who they are; who they were created to be.

Beyond my musings about the State of Parenting in the Post-Modern World...nothing much. I had dinner last night with a friend I haven't seen in more than 13 years and had a wonderful time. The garden is growing although my lettuce is looking a bit brownish here and there. The weather continues to be a bit on the cold side for June but the intermittent rain is good for growing things. My interior world is experiencing the renewed inner healing I've needed and I'm having a great time overall.

Have a good week.

Michelle.

Reading Jean Vanier's 'Becoming Human'...

2009-05-28T15:17:00.000-07:00

"To live well is to observe in today's apparent order the tiny anomalies that are the seeds of change, the harbingers of the order of tomorrow. This means living in a state of a certain insecurity, in anguish and loneliness, which, at its best, can push us towards the new. Too much security and the refusal to evolve, to embrace change, leads to a kind of death. Too much insecurity, however, can also mean death. To be human is to create sufficient order so that we can move on into insecurity and seeming disorder. In this way, we discover the new."

I found this passage both timely and relevant to my time spent "sitting in the dark" and embracing the paradox that grieving IS living...don't ask me to explain that remark just yet but some of you will have an immediate, intuitive grasp of what I mean. In going deeper, in moving beyond my fear of actually feeling the cumulative losses and grief of recent years, I'm finding that I feel more alive, more connected to all that life is, and can be. There's a beautiful, steady hum of vitality and energy in each day that I'm recognizing, or owning, as mine. I've been experiencing steady relief from the sense of the day ahead being something that must be "faced" and more as an abundant, verdant sea of possibilities. It's truly wonderful to not wake up in the morning with the mantra "What cannot be cured, must be endured" attached to my view of life!

Jean Vanier is a French, Roman Catholic layman and founder of L'arche, an international network of communities for people with intellectual disabilities. He's done more than anyone I can think of to articulate a vision of humanity that has, at it's center, a concern for the common good that radically alters the way we do community, relationships...life. He believes that it is in embracing those who are "different", those regarded as weak, inferior or "other" that leads to a true personal and societal freedom; I agree! I've been reading this new revised edition of his 1998 book 'Becoming Human' and it's an absolute treasure! I'm also whetting my appetite to read the latest 'Number One Ladies Detective Agency' book by Alexander McColl Smith which I purchased some weeks ago and now have packed away in my book bag to take on vacation in three weeks; these are splendid little reads with a wonderful female protaganist named Precious Ramotswe, a "traditionally built" Botswana lady who became a Private Detective after her beloved Father's death because she "wanted to help people with their problems". The books were recently adapted to a new HBO special by the same name which is not to be missed! I've been reading the series since the late 1990's when they were first published and I look forward to each new installment; terrifically fun reads for women, in particular.

Beyond that, the Corn is now about a foot high, my Romaine is at the "baby lettuce" eating stage, the Pea vines are thickening with tiny blossoms making themselves ready and the garden looks green and lush after a couple of days of coolish temperatures and some very nice rain. I've been seeing and talking with good friends, transplanting herb and vegetable seedlings and staying still. It's a lovely endeavor, staying still ~ I highly recommend it!

And that's the update!

Enjoy!

Michelle.

When I return...A Cultivated Garden

2009-05-21T06:54:00.000-07:00

Dear you all! When I return to writing in this space, it will be to talk about the things that really surround and animate my life--my growing and changing little urban farm and all my farmer girl skills; those I'm good at and those I'm still learning. About being a now veteran homeschooling/unschooling parent who is also a committed life-long learner, having returned to school to pursue an M.A and Certification in Spiritual Direction. I want to write about the books I read; the authors and poets who move and sustain me and the life I live staying "Close to the Root" of Farm, Family and Community. I hope to learn some good photography skills from my older kids over the next weeks so that I can post more pictures and I'll be doing a lot more writing practice so hopefully, the words will begin to flower as well as the garden... I expect to use this summers "growing season" to good effect, with very fruitful outcomes. Voltaire ended his funny little novel 'Candide' by reminding us that ultimately, "we must cultivate our garden" and I've never wanted to be one of those folks' who won't take their own advice ( or Voltaire's ) so that's what I'm spending my time doing...digging in the soil, in all kinds of interesting ways. I'll try to write a few little progress notes this summer as a few have requested, or post some poetry or an idea or two; maybe a few prayers! Happy Memorial Day Everyone!

Michelle.

Spring Fling~ All the Things I love about this Time of Year

2009-05-14T21:42:00.001-07:00

Howsabout all of it! I love the weather--a little cool, a bit warm, hot, rainy, balmy then cold. I love the smell of things growing outside. I love that I can BE outside, often, wandering in the yard. Popping my seedlings into the garden. Checking on the Trilliums to see if they're still hanging around ( they are, by a thread, but still there and still pretty ) and Mary and I get to take our "wheelchair walks" around the neighborhood and into town, which she loves doing and longs for during the winter months; wheelchairs are not so good on snow! I keep thinking that someone ought to invent "snow tires" for wheelchairs ( my greatest regret in this life is my utter lack of mechanical ability or sense, for that matter. I can't even close up one of those gift boxes with tab A into slot B...I'm not kidding...ask my kids ) especially for young children with disabilities. It's hard on her being the only kid who can't just fly out the door and tumble into the snow. We find ways to make it work for her, though. A ready favorite every year is setting her up on the wooden sled while she helps Hugh build the big snowman we try to have every year at least once. Hugh is a snowman artist, let me tell you...these are not ordinary snowmen!

I love the dawning promise, for me, of the month of May. I know that my several trips to the UP are upon me as well as the trip out West during July to see Mary's Doc's there. I have come to love Hannibal Missouri. The home of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer? Yeah, you remember. Mark Twain was born and raised there and it's the most delightful little town, nestled on the banks of the Mississippi, tucked down in the bluff, the perfect American town to celebrate the 4th of July in; just perfect! They have a big fireworks display over the the great River itself and the town, even filled to the brim, doesn't "feel" full. You can easily find a place to drop your blanket and sit down and watch and there's a great view from anywhere! I even spent some time walking around town and still caught every gorgeous explosion over the water. Just a great place!

I love Spring and the new life all around; I just do. Through all the changes of my life, through this rather challenging midlife passage, I still find that my essence, my true self, remains unchanged in the way I respond to the blessings, beauty and preciousness of this life.

I'm heading back to the UP today to pick up our boys! They've been working hard and I had the most poetic, lovely post from my friend at the Resort this morning, telling me how well they had both worked, and how delightful all of it has been for him. That just made my heart sing; in fact, it made my day (thank you Jay). So, onwards and upwards.

Be a blessing to someone else today. Find the beauty in your life and let it spill over onto someone else who needs it. Encourage someone who is down and troubled. Try to see the good in everyone you meet. The time is short...we all need the shelter of each other.

Your Kneelingwoman.

Sitting in the Dark~ Learning to Live with Paradox

2009-05-07T06:04:00.000-07:00

During my Retreat over this last weekend, one of my fellow interns described this last year as one of "contradictions and paradox" and I found myself nodding in agreement and feeling a sense of relief that someone else had been able to so succinctly summarize my experience through their own. It's been a year of deep, abiding change. There are areas of my life that I've had to face and deal with. There are relationships that I have tried to hang onto, in spite of feeling for long stretches, that they weren't growing, or healthy. I've been on a very fast track academically, spiritually and emotionally; I've read more books, and written more papers and done more "stretching" in these areas than at any other time in my life that I can recall. The only "slow track" has been physical--my exercise routine took a real beating but I've rebounded there and in truth, the long break from hard work-outs and long runs was needed rest. The Retreat and time "Up North" were both relaxing, revitalizing and perplexing yet I found myself, by Tuesday afternoon, landing in a very dark place; dark for me, anyway. I was doing a lot of journaling and reflecting on the realization that I just don't have the energy I used to have for so many things. Primarily in the area of my relationships with others, I've noticed that I'm having to streamline; to prioritize those people and connections that are balanced and equally valued by both parties ( and if you're reading this, assume you are one of those; if you read my blog, you are a "contributor" so, rest easy as you read the rest of this ). I've learned so much through this internship about how to pay attention to the deepest desires and feelings in my own heart ( the better to help others hear them in theirs ) and how to really know when something is good for me, and helps make the world a better place, and when something is just draining away life energy and leaving me less available for other things that are more life affirming and productive in the sense of creating more love, joy, peace and hope.

A couple of times, during the last few days, someone would say something-- a comment would be made that was loaded to the brim with the kind of passive-aggressive side-swiping that I've learned to immediately mistrust and move away from, and I had to really notice my pulling away, and how that felt. In another instance, I had discovered that someone had lied to me, or misled me, about something important and then I had to face the fact that something had to be confronted, and changes had to occur in how I lived into that relationship, and that person. Learning to listen with the heart, and to listen deeply, means having to take responsibility for the decisions made in the wake of such findings. The paradox and contradiction, for me, lies in knowing that there are people and situations that are never going to be amenable to growth or change; some relationships have to be surrendered AND, sometimes, we have to surrender in the sense of letting go of whatever a relationship was in the past; the place where presumably, we think the relationship was "better" or "closer" and stay open to the possibilities in the future with that same person. Closing out, letting go, of what we thought we knew can lead to an expansion in that relationship. Sometimes it's our clinging, or theirs, to our shared history and way of being in relationship that prevents growth and healthy change. Endings are sometimes beginnings in disguise! And sometimes, they are just endings, but only by sitting in the dark, with the pain and uncertainty, without "doing" anything, can we hope to discern which, and then know how to proceed and that kind of patient waiting is hard work and an acquired skill because our culture teaches us to act, to do, to "make it happen" and to avoid quiet stillness and contemplation of events. We have to learn the art of sitting in the dark.

When we make the decision to just sit in the presence of our pain, or confusion, we spend a lot of time just staring at the immoveable object in front of us, contemplating only it's reality, it's presence, and not thinking about how maybe we really CAN move it; can make it go away. If we continue our sitting, we soon discover that isn't going anywhere and those feelings we all have of fear, sadness and darkness, have to be faced and lived with. I no longer have the ability to run away from things, to bury myself in busyness and the lack of contemplation. Once we know something, we no longer have the ability to NOT know. I have learned to sit with reality, to pray with it, to, as my Spiritual Director says "Name it, Claim it, Own it and Re-Aim it"...I have no desire to live otherwise but I am very aware that everything has a cost, and the cost of deep self-awareness is taking responsibility and owning the reality I've come to face. I want, and need, relationships that are truly loving, passionate, real, creative and life-affirming. I have many such, and I treasure each and every one. I feel the difference in my body and soul when I'm with these people and I never find myself wondering what else I could be doing with my time ( a pretty good barometer of being in a relationship that needs some looking into ) or looking past them into later that day, or week, when I'll be doing something else, with someone else. Who needs that? What's the purpose of staying in relationship with anyone you can't be fully present for?

I think we all know people who have friendships, or relationships, or even marriages, where there is no life, no energy. They plod along, complaining all the way about how the other person doesn't pull their weight, or about how disappointed they are in who the other person turned out to be. They say terrible things about people they claim to love and care for, or they subject these same people to petty, small minded criticisms about nonissues because they won't speak to the real problems, concerns or fears that they have. No one will take ownership of the relationship in the sense that they will step up to the plate and say "you know, this isn't really working for me". People live in fear that letting go of what they think they have, facing being alone, or having to start over, or of having to sit in the dark for awhile and they choose, instead, a half-life or relationships that are devoid of any genuine love, honesty, good will, and intentionality and lacking these, any integrity. There is beauty in truth. There is a profound peace that comes from telling the truth to ourselves and those we care about, and in making clear decisions about how, or if, we can be in relationship with them. There is also pain, yes, but nothing compared to the slow erosion, the nagging, aching pain that can consume us when we live for too long outside our truth.

So, that was my weekend! The Retreat was wonderful and full of light and insight. My time in the UP was equally infused with clarity and truth and of course, that special and always longed-for beauty that is the place itself. I'll be sitting in the dark for awhile; these things don't move along with any real speed~but I'll be thinking and writing as I go and hopefully, as the sun moves into it's upcoming Solstice position, the light will shine and the darkness will lift and there will be more to say. 'Til next time...

Your Kneelingwoman

Retreat and Following my North Star!

2009-05-01T10:56:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone~

This afternoon, I'll be leaving on my final "Working Retreat" for the internship year. I completed my classes this last week with my final exams and papers and with this particular 'ending' of what has been a profoundly fulfilling, and deeply moving year and process that I could not have imagined at it's start, I will have completed the academic portion of my education for Spiritual Direction. Next year is all "practicum" and learning about and working with various areas of more in-depth psychodynamics, family systems theory, grief and other counseling, and 12- step and other Recovery and Healing programs and models. We'll also do some "immersion" work in jail, hospice and hospital environments as well as more service work with homeless and other "at risk" people living on the margins. I've made new friends and found new paths towards strengthening old friendships and so many of my relationships have been brought into greater depth and intimacy that I can only stand humbled and grateful for the Graces given in these last 2 years. Tonight, I will share the long ride up to the Retreat Center with a couple of my sister interns where we'll have dinner together and then head to our first class followed by Mass in one of the small, intimate chapels and then a social time before bed. Tomorrow will be a full day of new learning, and of consolidating everything else we've worked with this year. We'll do "practice sessions" in Spiritual Direction and do a lot of praying for discernment and clarity about our future life in this beautiful work and ministry.

On Sunday, I'll be coming back home only briefly before heading up to the Resort in the UP for a few days in order to take my two sons' up there to begin the hard work of opening the Resort for the season~ putting in the wooden boat docks and cleaning cabins and generally tidying things up. I look forward to this moment in time all year. As soon as I leave here and am heading "North" on the interstate, my heart sings and I feel a homing instinct and a rush of quiet and peace that never fails to remind me that Spirit is everywhere and available to us in every area of our lives if we can just slow down, and notice it's presence. I've experienced this same feeling every year since my early childhood and it has never failed to somehow soften and ease any lingering discontent or disappointments of the year thus far~everything comes into perspective because these warm months of growth; of planting, traveling, reading, writing and relaxing with all those I love are the high point of the year for me.

I won't be home until late next week so there will be nothing new here to look at but hopefully, I'll come home with some new ideas and renewed energy and perhaps even a few pictures. Enjoy the week and Be at Peace.

Your Kneelingwoman

Miracle Drug~ Just Listen to Bono Sing for a minute... (It's the first song on my playlist for a reason! )

2009-04-20T21:43:00.000-07:00

Hello Dear One's ~ In the Spirit of trying to get some needed rest, I came on here with the intention to write something...wonderful. I wanted to write something that was heartening and spiritually uplifting as a way to work on my own healing while sharing something with all of you. I knew that clever, cogent and timely was beyond me and as I bumped around with this word and that phrase and tried not to allow discouragement to creep in, I realized that my mind is still too fatigued and flat-line to nimbly ride any words around. At that precise moment, I also really heard Bono's voice and that beautiful lyric that means so much to me and I just stopped, took my arthritic achy fingers off the keys and let go~I let the words wash over me and I relaxed, and I breathed and all things were made new:

I want to trip inside your head,

spend the day there,

To hear the things you haven't said,

See what you might see,

I want to hear you when you call,

Do you feel anything at all,

Want to see your thoughts take shape

and walk right out...

Freedom has a scent,

like the top of a newborn baby's head,

The songs are in your eyes,

I see them when you smile,

I've seen enough,

I'm not giving up, on a Miracle Drug....

Just sit and listen to the song; back it up if you need to. I've written a lot here about moments of wholeness, and about finding that "sacred ground of being" within something, or someone, that brings us back to center and allows us the simplest, most profound sense of being love in the world. There is, for each of us, something that helps us to remember who we are in God; who we are at the level of "true self"--transparent, authentic and responding to the world from that place. This song, for me, is just that. It's a point of spiritual departure, a wayside where I can stop and breathe and say "yes..this is it, this is how I see." This is what exists in my heart when I am sitting on my beloved beach up north, watching the water and reading poems and writing my heart out while drinking coffee and taking it all in! My holiest ( wholest ) moments happen then; I am who I am and I don't need to do or be anything more than that. We all have these little glimpses of what an old hippie friend of mine would have called "Human Be-ings". I am just a human be-ing sitting in the sand, scribbling away and trying to capture something of it while trying not to spoil the homely, quotidian perfection of it by noticing it too hard! I try to let the whole full picnic-basket of life just sit there with me; keeping me company on the beach...

I believe in a 'Miracle Drug' of human heart to human heart that makes all things new. I believe that when we offer ourselves to another, to listen to their precious stories, to "trip inside your head" and see what they might see...I think that connection heals people. I think it can heal the world and that's what I'm aiming for, nothing less than healing the world, or at least the part God gives me to care for. So, listen to the music, take it in; enjoy!

I'm going to take a few days off to rest and regroup. Have a lovely week!

Traveling Mercies~

Your Kneelingwoman

A Redux on the theme~More Deliberate Every Day ~ "Done With or Marked by Full Consciousness of the Nature and Effects; Intentional"

2009-04-14T19:27:00.000-07:00

No, you're not hallucinating.

There was a big, long post here earlier today. The more I sat with it and looked at it, the more I didn't like it--I do that sometimes. So, I decided to say something more succinct...

I realized that the most important thing I could say was already written in the "title" line: To be deliberate, conscious and aware in our thoughts, words and actions allows us to make the best use of our time and to be most present for those we love and care for. To be 'more deliberate every day' creates space and brings peace of mind. When we don't--when I don't-- my sense of peace erodes and fatigue and frustration take a toll on my health very quickly. I have Rheumatoid Arthritis and stress causes an almost immediate "inflammatory" response in my body; I've learned that avoiding Arthritis "flares" has everything to do with staying conscious, aware and clear about what I'm doing, why and with whom. Thankfully, I've learned to spot the signs quickly and have discovered that I really can't tolerate these kinds of situations for longer than about 10 minutes. Up until I was 25 years old, I lived with it for years on end so, only being able to deal with it for 10 minutes is a big improvement in my tolerance level--we shouldn't allow ourselves to be comfortable with a high tolerance for chaos and anxiety!

I've had a week or so of losing track of that simple, guiding principle that has always proven so reliable for me; I took on too many tasks without reflection and without taking measure of their cost in time and energy. I forgot that I'm only one person and that I'm not the only person who can serve, or care, or be there for someone. I don't have to say "yes" to every request and sometimes, a clear, honest and loving "no" is the healthiest and most loving response, especially when we realize that we won't be entirely available or present unless we are clear with ourselves about what we're agreeing to do. My 'mission' to encourage people toward a more contemplative and reflective lifestyle has everything to do with creating a more sane and loving world; it's the only thing I know of that truly makes a difference in day to day living, relationships and creating peace and justice in the world. We have to work our way towards our "true self", towards transparency and authenticity so that we are complete, whole people who can be genuinely loving and supportive with others, and work for the common good from a center that is strong, sturdy, resilient and connected with Spirit.

I don't need to give a blow by blow of my week. We've all had rough weeks and there is

absolutely nothing very unique about mine. It was "Holy Week" and I didn't spend it in a lot of awareness of that fact; I spent too little time in my 'prayer chair' and too much time running around doing "good works". I'm not happy with what was created out of that with the exception of landing in that place of good, solid truth where you can see your missteps, acknowledge and apologize to yourself and others if necessary, let go, and move on. Back to the basics...

More Deliberate Every Day....Awake and Aware.

Have a good week everyone.

Kneelingwoman

Easter Break ~ Finishing Up the Year

2009-04-13T10:14:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone and Happy Easter~

If you popped by here over the last few days, you noticed that I had something new coming along, ostensibly due to be posted before Easter. It didn't happen. The last 10 days have been so busy that I was unable to get to the computer for more than checking email here and there, and writing papers as I prepare to finish up this school and internship year.

This Spring marks the end of two years of very intense academic and formational education on my path towards becoming a Spiritual Director and Retreat Leader. I will have one more academic weekend Retreat and my usual 8 day Retreat this summer but in September, I will begin a final year of working as an intern before starting my practice. I will still have my M.A. to finish as a part-time student over the next couple of years but, I will have completed the core of what I started what seems such a long while ago. Starting out, I had nothing more than a vague sense of a 'calling' that has, thankfully, been confirmed both by interior discernment work and the work of my supervisors, lay and ordained, and instructors also working to ensure that I am, indeed, called to this work, and that I am prepared in every way possible to accept the joy, challenge and responsibility of this particular path. In the midst of it all, I've been raising my family, attending to my friendships, writing, cooking, gardening, and trying to also make a healthy and healing transition from one type of work to another and struggling with the grief and sadness of letting go, not only of a work I loved, but of an identity and way of living in the world that had become not only comfortable, but deeply enmeshed with my sense of self. It's been a hard patch, but there has been so much gained in the process. We grow through struggle and, if we stay with it and are faithful to our vision, we make progress not only towards goals, but in becoming stronger and more resilient people. We learn a little more about staying patient when progress is slow, and about our own limitations of time and energy. We learn to rest our confidence in things we can't necessarily see; we walk by faith! We have many, many moments of wondering what in the world we're doing, sometimes not able to recall what, exactly, we thought we were headed for. I've had moments of the deepest darkness; unsure of where to look, my confidence sometimes eroded by fatigue, weariness and doubt. I had only that original vision to hold onto, and to sustain my faith that I had been called to do something, and I knew that it wasn't my job to see how it would all work out in the end, but to be faithful to doing my part; even in the dark! My experience has been that God always shines at least enough light on the path so that I can see the next step, even if all the other steps remain somewhat obscured. The next step is enough for now.

Isn't so much of life that way? Isn't all of it that way? We get up each day and put one foot in front of the other and we do our best.

The next few weeks will continue to be busy at the same time that certain projects are completed while others start. I have my classes this week and a big "outreach" project to do at my Church. I am Co-Coordinator with another parishioner of the "Bag Lunch Program" responsible for collecting sufficient donations of money/food to make 400 bag lunches for our work in Ministry to the Homeless. In addition to collecting the needed supplies, we work with other volunteer help to make the lunches and then serve them; it's a big job but we love doing it! Next week, I'll be down one class but have a funeral concert to prepare for which will mean several hours of rehearsal time plus the actual concert. The garden is going in bit by bit. My husband's teaching year is drawing to a close and at the end of the month, we'll celebrate our wedding anniversary and then I'll be taking my boys to the Resort in the UP where they'll work for two weeks putting in the docks, cleaning cabins and generally getting things ready for another wonderful season up there! My oldest son has done this for several years now, and as he's increasingly busy with College and work, he's taking Hugh along to apprentice with him, to learn the ropes and take over the gig starting next year. A very important piece of our 'homeschooling' life has been experiential and cooperative; we want them doing good and creative work and helping each other learn and grow along the way. We've made every effort possible to expose our children to travel, and hands-on work opportunities, volunteer and paid, that would allow them to gain experience, broaden their sense of the world and the people in it, and learn valuable skills. The Resort in the UP has been a part of my family's life since 1949~my grandparents found the newly opened place while searching for a nice place for family vacations and fishing trips! I grew up there and I grow up a little bit more every year during my times there; it's sacred ground for me. My two oldest kids have already taken trips to Greece and the UK, respectively but I'm probably more pleased that my boys have been able to make this yearly 'working pilgrimage' to a place that holds so much in our collective family memory, than I am about the other trips they were able to take. The extra gift in it for me is that I get to go along and hang out, watching the work get done,read, write, walk in the woods, cook and just take it all in~it's my little mini-vacation every year and I've come to really value another form of 'Retreat' every Spring.

So, enjoy these next beautiful weeks of Spring, everyone. I'll try to write something else over the next few days or a week or so ( and I have a couple of drafts almost ready to post on the other two blogs ) but if the weather comes around and the flowers start popping I'll likely be spending more time outdoors than in so, it could be a while......

Peace~

Your Kneelingwoman

Contemplative Parenting ~ We Shall Never Pass this Way Again

2009-03-30T09:27:00.000-07:00

My three oldest children are now 20, 17 and 14. They are, essentially, young adults. I am daily reminded of the fact that not only are they increasingly independent and unique people in their own right, the ache in my heart tells me that they are no longer the tiny children they so recently were. I've truly enjoyed my children! I was never one to feel overwhelmed by parenting, perhaps because I didn't separate my parenting life from the rest of life; it was all part of a piece. It's not an exaggeration to say that my kids ran wild; they did, but in a good way! I didn't fuss over them and I encouraged a great deal of outdoor adventuring, tree climbing, reading and private time ~ for all of us! I loved watching them become themselves! I cared about my children as human persons and I was awed by the fact of them in my life. I didn't think of them as "mine" but as gifts from a recklessly generous God who gave them to me as a stewardship; a caretaker of precious human souls! I didn't have a possessive sense about them and that led to the happy circumstance that I didn't see them as extensions of me, or my husband, nor did I think that what they did, or didn't do, reflected on me. I wanted my children to be who they were and who God created them to be and to accomplish that, I thought I should mostly leave them be. They weren't discipline problems, in fact, they were really easy kids to raise! I expected them to be cooperative and willing to work for the common good and to be respectful of themselves and others, and they were. I taught them pretty old-fashioned values and manners, actually, because I thought that traditions of self-respect and consideration for others that had been passed on for generations probably had a greater chance of success than something "new" that hadn't stood the test of time and, being the admittedly lazy mother that I was, I preferred not to have to work at anything that a few ground-rules could make fairly easy for me. And it worked! Yes, of course there were "off days" and a few fits of willfulness but all in all, it was a quiet, peaceful and loving household in spite of some very dark and tragic times. I've enjoyed my mothering years to the full and my only regret is that it passed so, so swiftly!

So where does "contemplation" come into all of this? Everywhere...everywhere. What I loved most about parenting my young children, and what I still enjoy, as they arrive home each evening full of their respective days and activities, is just being in the presence of their goodness, generosity of spirit, youth, energy and hopefulness. I love feeling the "be-ing" of them and noticing the moment ~ living the moment in it's entirety. When they were babies and young children, I often paused just to listen to them, or to watch them. I can remember standing in the doorway between the kitchen and dining room while they were seated around the dining-room table reading, or making pictures, or coloring Easter Eggs and just breathing in the nearness, and dearness, of them. One of my most valued parenting "tools" was this simple "Contemplation of Mothering", a small spiritual discipline that finds it's greatest usefulness in those "horror show" moments when a child is sick, or screaming in frustration, or behaving in a way that exceeds our comfort zone! In those moments, I had to step back and watch in silence for a few moments, asking myself what I'm perhaps not seeing, not hearing or fearing, or what do I not want to be held accountable for? Am I afraid to BE the parent? So often, we are afraid to just say "no" and mean it. When my children were behaving in a way that was willfully disrespectful of self or others, an absolute, clean, clear and unequivocal "NO" was required; the standard bearer had to hold her ground and peacefully refuse to negotiate! Sometimes "No" is the most respectful and loving way to give of ourselves, and never is that more true than with our children. My practice of "contemplation" of my mothering and my life allowed me a lot of peace! The real gifts, though, have come later and been more profound than I ever expected.

The gift of "Contemplation of Mothering" is that we come to realize how quickly it all passes away. It teaches us the value of the present moment and all that lies within it, often unseen and unappreciated because we aren't willing to slow down and take a good, long look. When the children are grown and gone, we regret most of all what we intuitively know we missed, or overlooked, in our hurry to get onto the next thing, or with all the time we spent in anxious worry about...what? Do we even remember? We missed timeless moments of their being with us, alongside us, in our lives for those precious years of childhood. Our lives, our children's lives are a rapidly flowing current on a river that travels we know not where...

I cherish every recollection of those moments when I stopped to notice my children; when I stopped what seemed so necessary and pressing just to take them in....

My heart overflows with those millions of moments strung together over what is now a period of more than 20 years. I became a first-time mother at 30 and I am now in my 50th year! My oldest son is a grown man busy making those early adult choices that will form much of the next 20 years of his life. Still, when he comes home and sits down at our same old table in our same old house eating the same stew, or chili or bread I've made the same way over and over; he's at peace and I'm at peace watching him. I know that the day will soon arrive when my house is emptied of these three oldest children. In a few short years, our youngest child will be the only one left with her parents to live out the day to day routines and pleasures. I continue to spend my time as a parent in deep and ever more wonder-filled contemplation of the gifts my children have been to me. I hope that I have cared for them well; and that they will, in turn, live and grow to find their own practice of contemplation over children of their own.

Your Kneelingwoman

Moving Beyond Absurdity~ Listening Within

2009-03-23T08:02:00.000-07:00

"The spiritual life is a life in which we struggle to move from absurd living to obedient living. The word absurd includes the word 'surdis' which means 'deaf'. Absurd living is a way of life in which we remain deaf to the voice that speaks to us in our silence."

Henri J. Nouwen in 'Spiritual Direction'

Last night, as I was preparing for my internship class this week, I came upon this passage in Henri Nouwen's writings on Spiritual Direction, spending some time journaling about how appropriate this observation is for all of us, individually and corporately. Our lives and our culture are drowning in our inability to be still and quiet; to think and listen to our inner wisdom,what I know as the Holy Spirit and what others might call 'that still small voice within' or 'Mystery'. However we identify it, the inability to live contemplatively by taking time to allow a thought or an idea, or a potential response to a situation to be discerned peacefully; is destroying us. We see the evidence all around in the AIG scandal; the meltdown of our economy brought about by knee jerk reactions and greed. We see the panic and the public clamor for a solution to problems that have been years in the making and have, in truth, no simple or short term solution available. We have become so addicted to instant gratification and to living fast...how many of us don't become impatient and irritable when our computers seem "slow" to connect us to the internet, or our email isn't working properly for a few days ( my hand is high in the air )... and we have to admit that we've come to feel entitled to a fast fix for everything. How many of us are unthinkingly quick to sign up for reading an e-book or a synposis online instead of embracing the heft and craftsmanship of a book in hand? How often do we get in the car and drive a mile to a store instead of walking? How often do we avoid gardening, making bread, or soap, or helping a child learn to garden, clean, read or sew because it will take up so much time? And what do we do with that time once we've set it aside? What are we losing when we reflexively turn to the internet and strangers with a problem, instead of turning inward, to the source of our wisdom and strength; spending time in contemplation, prayer, meditation and journaling in order to find our deeper answers. How often to do we 'jump the gun' or believe that we have to "do" something, anything, in the face of a given situation, rather than wait and trust that there is a greater wisdom that always works for our good if we let it? If we can quiet our minds and hearts and center ourselves on checking "in" first, patiently waiting in trust until that deeper insight and more helpful course of action comes, we learn Faith and Peace. Learning to trust in this way generates a deep peace of mind that, once gained, we rarely want to part from! In my own life, I've found that my personal sense of peace is my barometer for whether something is "right" for me, or not. If I'm not at peace with something, or someone, then I still have more unpacking to do--more contemplation, prayer and inner healing. I deeply value my peace, and I work actively at maintaining it! It is the single, most important thing I've ever done for myself, and others!

Inside all of us is a fount of wisdom and strength that is accessible, authentic and reliable. It contains truth and is the only remedy for living an "absurd" life of spiritual and emotional 'deafness', as Nouwen put it. When we are unknown to ourselves, we can never be known or loved, by others. We can't offer a false self to the world, and then assume that what we are getting back is "the real deal". The great gift of the practice of Spiritual Direction is the development of a relationship of trust such that the person being mentored is allowed the safe and sacred space to explore themselves down to the core, to the essence of being. A person receiving good spiritual direction will, over time, become more and more willing to face the "false self" that has been built up over a lifetime, allowing it to be stripped away to reveal the truth and wholeness they were created for. When we arrive in that place, we are no longer held hostage to fear and anxiety, afraid of being "found out" because we are now in the presence of our original creation ~ the person we were intended to be. We are no longer confused, or uncertain about "how" to behave, think or decide, because it's all coming from our Center.

It's now the third week of Lent and my thoughts at this time always turn towards a deeper integration of these weeks of contemplation over the 'losses' represented by my failings, with the possibility of 'resurrection' right around the corner. The great gift of Lent is that we can yearly recount and become aware of, the many ways we've not lived true, the ways in which we've capitulated to the 'false self' which distorts reality and tempts us to all of those thoughts, feelings and behaviors that drive us further and further away from our Source of life and love, however we define it.

"Moving beyond absurdity" is, in most ways, the real goal of Lent. Learning to listen to our own hearts and to the God of our understanding who always lives there. Many people think of it as a time to think about our "sins" and indeed it is. Most associate it with "giving up" something, with fasting. But what sin means, literally, is to "miss the mark" and to behave in ways that are not born of Love. Our fasting, our "giving up" is to create space and emptiness, that we then seek to fill with prayer and "repentence" of our wrongdoing in the previous year. When we are called to "repentence" during Lent, it's helpful to understand that the original Greek word for repentence is 'metanoia', which means, "to turn around". During Lent, we are called, then, to "turn around" towards our deeper truth, to contemplate our inner reality and to ask where we have not loved, and where we might love better in the future. It's not rocket science, not even "Divine" rocket science. It's simple and honest and easy once we get past our fear of venturing into the unknown landscape of our souls! That's the hard part....

Courage.....courage. In these remaining weeks of Lent, even if you've never really thought of yourself as "observant", consider giving a little time to creating space in your life to slow down, to not "fill up" every moment with activity and restlessness and anxiety. Rest your mind in the idea that you were created for Love, and that there is more to your life than your circumstances. Spend 10 minutes a day reading something that inspires you, or causes you to have to think carefully about it's meaning. Take a long, quite walk daily and notice the world around you, the opening of Spring and "new life" all around. On Easter, think about how miraculous it is that every year, we start over, we spend time letting go of the darkness in the lengthening of days ( Lent ) that moves us into Spring.

Your Kneelingwoman

"What is Truth" ~ The Role of Kindness and Respect in Telling our Stories

2009-03-19T08:23:00.001-07:00

There is an editorial article in today's Christian Science Monitor entitled "Bring Integrity to the Internet" that dovetailed nicely with some things I've been thinking about, and discussing with friends, that being the notion of how we talk about ourselves, and others, online, on our blogs; in public! The article is a cautionary tale about the potential for great, personal damage being done to people through the internet, blogs, and websites, observing that there is little to safeguard anyone from being exploited, or attacked, by their own writing coming back to haunt them! It really begs the question of what we are doing when we think we are writing about our personal and collective "Truth".

I spend a lot of my time thinking about the intersection of "truth" and "honesty" and how we use them in making decisions about our public discourse. Scan back to freshman year at University and Philosophy 101 where we learn that to seek truth is to seek after wisdom so, we assume that knowing truth, speaking truth, makes us wise. It's a good theory but the chasm between theory and lived reality is often vast and never more so than in our political, social and relational lives. The blogosphere is the perfect place to observe the finer points of how "telling our truth" can become bullying, passive-aggressive attack, grandstanding, lecturing, criticizing and just plain cussedness ( one of my grandma's old saws ). How often do we read (or write ) the following: "I'm just speaking my truth...I'm owning my reality by saying....I'm just being honest....I'm not trying to hurt anyone but....that's how I see it, sorry if that bothers anyone...." and on and on in that vein. We all do this, from time to time, and I'm as guilty as the next person; far too often, I lay claim to "just being honest" when in fact, I'm doing quite a few other things along with it, and the honesty part then becomes suspect in that context. We all do it and we all find our own, best excuses and rationales' for it, but do we get around to examining it, that's the question.

Sometimes we are just telling the "truth", but what is truth? Truth isn't just facts, and it's more than opinion, so what is it? Why does it matter so much to us as we write our blogs and state our various cases to the world? Who are we really speaking to? Ourselves? Someone out there whom we secretly wish we were brave enough to communicate with directly? Anyone at all who might listen? Is there any value, then, in "speaking our truth" and is it as unsullied by hidden agendas and oblique communication as we claim?

I think not. I think that blogs have the ability to communicate honestly, and to be horribly duplicitous. I think they are a chancy vehicle for personal communication such that I really believe that part of the etiquette of blogging ought to be some kind of self-examination, before posting, to ensure that we are not trying to manipulate people through our writing; not trying to state our case without having to be accountable for it. This is never easy because all writing for publication is intended to alter someone's position, or move them in a new direction and so involves some level of manipulation . "Truth", then, is a very tricky art form!

For "truth" to be true, it can't have any kind of "lie" in it! It's a very high art, and a discipline, to learn not to lie--even a little, tiny bit! Every lie we tell diminishes our humanity, and takes something away from the relationships between people. When we lie to someone, even about a small thing, it means that we don't trust them, or ourselves, with the truth! We lie because we believe that honesty is conditional, that it's something that we can only give to those we deem deserving of our trust, but honesty is a core virtue; we are honest because honesty has intrinsic value! Honesty that is real, that is genuine "truth" will never be unkind! It will never be criticism! Genuine, discerned, loving honesty has no whisper of cruelty, and no sharp edges! We all know the difference between the kind of loving confrontation that may well call us out on ourselves and our behavior, but still leaves us feeling intact and worthy, and those that masquerade as "I'm just being totally honest with you" that puts us on the point of a knife and seems determined to leave us mangled on the floor, undone and wounded. That isn't "honesty" and you should walk away from it as swiftly as you would someone who was about to take a shot at your jaw with a closed fist!

Whenever we determine to "speak our truth" we have to make sure that no one gets hurt!

Words are powerful and they linger. The internet and blogsphere are permanent records of thoughts, opinions and ideas and often, personal feelings, relationships and real, live people who can be deeply hurt by any carelessness in our writing about them, no matter how much we want to consider it merely "our truth". Careers, marriages and friendships have been destroyed because something is published thoughtlessly and comes into the wrong hands. We aren't spending enough time in public dialogue with each other about the etiquette involved in our writing, or about the integrity that needs to surround our highly enhanced ability to communicate more broadly and so immediately. Most importantly, we need to reassess what the boundaries are between our private and family lives, and what is truly appropriate to give away to "virtual strangers" which I think is an apt term, given that so few of us are truly familiar with most of the people who might read our words thrown out into the ether!

So, perhaps when you are writing for a blog, or a letter to an Editor, or thinking about having that tough conversation with a loved one; examine your heart, first. Really look at your motivations and question, deeply, what you are really trying to accomplish. Make sure that you protect those you love and care about because they are tender, and easily hurt, just as we are, and "doing unto others as we would be done by" is called the "Golden Rule" for a really good reason. Loving-kindness, even with those who oppose us, or with whom we are angry or estranged, is a cardinal virtue, and a central spiritual discipline. During these remaining weeks of Lent, take up the task of being kind, and of being aware of the power words have to encourage and build up, or to hurt, diminish and tear down; choose love! We are frail creatures who deeply need the shelter of each other.

Shalom,

Your Kneelingwoman

Transitions ~ Making Space for New Life

2009-03-15T17:18:00.000-07:00

I don't know how the world outside looks to all of you, this morning, but here in southeast Michigan, it's a gorgeous, early Spring day. The vary large elm tree just outside my bedroom window is laden with branches drooping from the effort of holding now-heavy buds....I love this time of year! My friend Debbie wrote me the other day and asked me about getting in my years' order of Maple Syrup from a Farm up in Northern Ontario and I spent a few contented moments enjoying all these yearly rituals of the "Season of Growth and New Life". Much of the last several weeks has gone into my continued contemplation of what I needed to do to engage my own energy, and move forward. I felt "stuck" in a long-time and much loved work that I hadn't yet learned how to surrender for a new path ( see the post below ) and I had become aware of a lingering sense of dis-ease over a few of my relationships and knew that I had to at least make an effort to clean them up so that "New Life" could have a chance of happening with them, too. I think we've all been in that place with people we dearly love when something has gone awry somewhere. At some point, feelings were hurt, or damage was done, and while the relationship looks "patched up" on the outside; both people are aware that the infrastructure is still wobbly. We know that there are places inside us that don't feel healed, or whole, with that person. We might find ourselves feeling unaccountably angry with them, recognizing that what we're feeling irritated about doesn't really have anything to do with it and the anger comes to remind us that something is yet to be cleaned up and made right. I know that in my own life, I often find myself reacting, or over-reacting, to something seemingly very small indeed and if I can stay aware, I soon realize that I have something left to work through. After that, the fact that they are eating their entree' with the salad fork doesn't bother me a bit!

Many things in life take on this same pattern as we struggle to make things right, to feel whole, and to find a way to live that engages the best of us, and our relationships, and gets everything humming along on "all 8 cylinders" as my Engineer dad used to say.

I reconnected with a dear friend over the last couple of weeks; a couple of them, actually. One is a former midwifery apprentice of mine; a beautiful and talented woman, a former Peace Corp volunteer, intrepid and courageous student of life and living, mother of three, and soon-to-be-Registered Nurse interested in both Hospice and Midwifery and the other, my best friend from high school--a wonderful man who probably did more to save my sanity and perhaps even my life, as a young woman, than he can possibly know. I'm in the slow, careful dance of getting to know them both again; we've all gone through a lot of changes yet it's been so wonderful to see how solid and reliable our connections with each other have remained. With both, there is a sense of no time having passed, of nothing essential having been lost through the years. It's a miracle and a blessing and I'm very, very grateful.

And I am making new friends, one of whom, Carol, who writes a wonderful blog of her own, (prayerplaypolitics.blogspot.com) has brought me up on charges of writing posts that are too long by half......and she's right. They have been too long, largely, I think, because of my indecision and continued struggle to move forward and to be peaceful and loving towards myself with the changes. I have had a lot of things to work through, this last year, and to struggle with, and unfortunately, I made the struggle all about wrestling things to the ground when what really needed to happen was for me to let go, stand back, and allow them to walk away. I've been the one holding on and maintaining the fight!

My Spiritual Director pointed out to me a couple of weeks ago that what she sees in me is a willingness and the ability to be "Radically Available" to others, and to the world and she invited me, well, no, she really put it to me in a way that I couldn't ignore ( smile ) that I need to spend time thinking and praying about how I am going to live that out and to get on with it. The world has so many needs, and people suffer such terrible losses and injustices. I don't feel anything like up to the task of tackling any of them and if I had to take on the burdens of the whole world, well, then of course, I would fail, as all of them are too much for any one person. But I want to engage with the things that are around me, that are brought to my awareness. I want to be able to act when I am called by those I love, or those in some need. I want to maintain my ability to be free and peaceful enough to not count the cost; to just move when the Spirit says move.

And that's today. With a nod of respect and gratitude to dear Carol....I'm going to make this post a little shorter ( I know, only a little, I'm working on it )...and head on out into the world and the week and see what there is for me to do.

Your Kneelingwoman

Texas Sheet Cake ! My Birthday Party is Tomorrow...

2009-03-07T17:12:00.001-08:00

Hi everyone ~ We're all on the mend, the virus seems to be giving up and heading back to wherever it is viruses go when they are done with you. Mary is still coughing and spending much of her time sleeping and doing short-term very quiet little activities like a bit of play-dough, some drawing, a few stories and then back to sleep. If any of you have had this same kind of illness this winter, you have my sympathy! The most unusual thing about it, from my perspective, is the fatigue. I've never been so exhausted from an infection of this sort.

But...tomorrow, we are having my postponed birthday dinner! I am roasting a turkey! Yup...Thanksgiving in March. It's what sounded good to everyone so, that's what we're having. The really amazing thing is the dessert! My husband, who does all of our "fun" baking--the birthday cakes, holiday cookies, amazing pies and pastries--is making something called a "Texas Sheet Cake" that I saw in a recent edition of Cook's Illustrated and thought it looked too astonishing to pass by! He just popped in here with the mixing bowl full of the "cake" batter which, to my mind, has the texture of, and tastes like, chocolate mousse! Even though it's Lent, and none of us are big "sweet" eaters, tomorrow is Sunday, the one day during the week that Lenten observances can be suspended without...consequence...and so, we are having my party. A good friend from the neighborhood is joining us for dinner, and perhaps some other family and friends last minute but mostly, it will be me and mine...my husband and kids, our dog and cat, our little old house and my 49 years and 4 days Birthday!

I did watch U2 on "Letterman" all week; what fun! They were phenomenally good. You can catch all the performances, ( if you're interested ) on YouTube by "googling" U2 on Letterman, or something like that, and there they are, just like magic! Other than that, I have accomplished exactly nothing all week. I did a little writing everyday. I looked out the back window at the bird feeder alot and on our first lovely warm (60 degrees plus ) and sunny day, I sat out on my front porch with a cup of coffee and a book and listened to the birds singing and even heard our local Woodpecker nattering away at the trees; just wonderful. It's always so good, after the long Winter months, to open a few windows on the first really warm day, do some housecleaning and sorting and putting away of the heaviest wool sweaters and beginning to wash some of the lighter-weight clothing ~ all those little things that begin to spell "Spring". I love the seasons; I don't think I could live anywhere that the changes didn't come every year. I enjoy the first snow, and the first really hot day of summer...it's just all fantastic if you ask me! Life is so, so beautiful....

I'll get back to writing something or other next week; I hope everyone is well and staying healthy! Don't let this virus catch you! If someone you know is suffering through it, wish them well...but stay away from them! Peace and Love!

Your Kneelingwoman

I'm Home....and Sick...and tomorrow's my BIRTHDAY!

2009-03-03T16:43:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone! Yes, we're back from St. Louis/Chicago and we had a lovely time! Mary's appointment with her Dr. there went very well; everyone is so pleased with how she's doing, growing, learning and thriving! Nice stuff to hear and see. We spent the first couple of days with our dear and darling friends in Chicago; I got to see my God-Girl and spend a little time with her and I was delighted to spend some significant "coffee-talk-time" with both of her parents which suits me to a T!

On the morning of the second day in Chicago, I realized, with great trepidation, that I was getting sick. So was Mary. So was Ben...

Achiness. Slight fever. Headache. VERY sore throat that finally resulted in my having no voice left at all; just a mousy little squeaky thing heralded by in-breaths of enormous pain in my chest and difficulty swallowing. I determined that we should head out to St. Louis as soon as possible on Sunday, rather than spend the day completely contaminating the house of this young family so, off we went...

We arrived in St. Louis safe and sound, checked into our hotel and turned on the telly. My husband, who was beginning to feel somewhat better, or chose a valiant pretense, went out for some take-out food to bring back for dinner but Mary was essentially down for the count for the balance of the evening and I wasn't much better! We all slept well, though, and got through yesterday including the Dr.'s appointment and then the 10 hour drive straight back through to Detroit. I had an appointment with my Spiritual Director this morning so, I got up for that and was feeling better, actually. Coffee and a good long talk with her plus some shared prayer and I was feeling almost like myself again....until I got home and realized that I had several papers due tomorrow night and none of them even started yet. So I spent the day sneezing, coughing and writing and now, I've had dinner and a long, hot bath and I'm going to watch cable t.v. news until my eyes glaze over and THEN I'm going to watch David Letterman because U2 is the "guest" band all week and because tomorrow is my BIRTHDAY! Yup....tomorrow I'll be 49 years old. Watching U2 is GOOD for me, not only because they are truly my favorite band, having grown up with them as I have but they are my peers, my age-mates: Bono will turn 49 in just 8 weeks and he's still cool, still cutting-edge ( no one jump in and contradict me here; I'm not in the mood....) and the new album being released tomorrow is thematically and musically still talking about transcendence and grace and love yet it's very much the lyrical and harmonic "reality" of those of us on the brink of turning North and heading into Eternity. We know it, by 50. The name of the album is "No Line on the Horizon" and well, you have to be 50 to come up with that title; we who are nearing 50 know exactly what that means. We know that we are no longer young, but we are learning to be Wise....

I'd prefer young.

No, not really, but I am beginning to understand what people mean when they say that "youth is wasted on the young". If I could combine my hard-won, "Wise Woman" ways and knowledge with the kind of physical and emotional energy I had at 25....Right. No one could stand me. It would be unbearable and draining.

So, it's better this way. A more gentle approach and fewer sharp edges is probably a good thing.

So, keep up the "Dance of Spring" everyone. Tomorrow I will begin the sojourn of my 50th year Earthside. Ya-Hoo!

I love you all!

Your Kneelingwoman

Weekend "Shout Out" to Friends and Family- I'm heading out to Chicago and St. Louis

2009-02-26T06:29:00.001-08:00

Hello everyone!

Obviously, I didn't get around to writing a new post on my current topic interest this week; too much catching up to do and my oldest two children were both down with the horrible flu that's going around. Stephen, (age 20) seems to be particularly hard hit with a fever, body aches, pounding head and dizziness into the bargain. Emma suffered a couple of days of a marauding headache and body aches plus some nausea but, she seems to have recovered. So far, everyone else has been spared! It's probably not a coincidence the two College students got sick as both have been burning the candle at ALL ends lately ( a gentle nudge from mom ) and not getting near enough sleep or nutritious food...

See...I am a regular mom!

At any rate, we are taking Mary to see her Dr.'s and Therapists in St. Louis this weekend with a stop over in Chicago to see my "adorables" there which include my God-daughter whose birth I also attended in Chicago a year and a half ago. We make this trip twice a year and if you haven't been to St. Louis I can tell you that it's a quite marvelous city, another of our great mid-western Phoenix stories; an urban renewal that actually took root and grew. We've visited many of the historical sites and museums but our specific goal for this trip is to visit Crown's Candy, which is known for, among other things, homemade ice cream and chocolate plus reputedly wonderful malted milk shakes and a BLT that includes more than a half-pound of Bacon (and as we are a Bacon loving family, this is a major draw and a curiosity that must be satisfied ) and we are told that they make really lovely solid chocolate Easter Bunnies so, with Lent now underway and the season of Easter approaching-- seems like a sure thing.

So, no big serious post this week. Instead, I decided to give a "shout out" to my friends and family who have heard next to nothing from me this last week and also to some "old" friends who've recently returned to my life, and for which I'm very grateful. It isn't too typical that people hear from "long lost" friends in triplicate but, I did this last week or two. I've had little to no time to even respond in detail to them this week and no time to do any of them justice before leaving, but, I sent them here to the blog and thought I should greet them personally! So, "hi" and "I'll be back in touch next week" to folks' who wrote, and folks' I should have been in touch with: Jennifer, Lynnett, Jamie, Teresa, Joy, Jenny, Carol and Patsy!

I pointed out to Mary yesterday that the official start of Spring is but three weeks away now. I'm not yet scanning the ground under the budding Forsythia tree for my array of Crocus beginning to come up but I expect to see a Robin around pretty soon and I heard our Woodpecker tapping away while sitting in the warmth of late afternoon sun on my front porch the other day. The old earth is turning and soon, it will be time for growth, renewal and the garden. Wonderful eh?

Oh...an FYI: "Kneelingwoman" blog isn't gone. I was trying to change the blog description and ended up inadvertently taking down the "gadget" that leads you to it on this page and haven't gotten back to that either but, it's still over there.

So, "Traveling Mercies" for us as we travel to St. Louis and be well, everyone!

Your Kneelingwoman

Another Retreat Weekend ~ "Disability World" Conversation Continues Next Week and Some Thoughts on Upcoming topics...

2009-02-20T06:52:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone! I had hoped to get the next "Disability" parenting related post up before this weekend but it isn't going to happen. I am leaving this afternoon for yet another "Working Retreat" with my internship group and instructors. I actually love these weekends but they are a tremendous lot of work and there is a lot of preparation that has to go into them as well so, I haven't had time to write anything else this week.

In addition to writing about parenting children with disabilities, I'm also writing about another of my concerns and interests over on my Kneelingwoman blog this next week: Perinatal Hospice. This is a relatively new concept in palliative care that is centered on meeting the needs of families caring for a pregnancy and infant diagnosed with a condition that is life-limiting. Having been through the process of being pregnant with, and giving birth to, an infant who is not going to live long, I am acutely aware of the pain and suffering involved and of the needs these families have. Working alongside a friend who is in charge of several of the area Hospice organizations, I am trying to put together a "Perinatal Hospice" Service that will combine the best aspects of Midwifery care, that being "Knowledgeable Companionship" and loving, compassionate presence in providing Childbirth Education, Birth attendance as a "Special Care Doula" and Postpartum Doula Care to the family which also includes skilled Bereavement and Grief care and support. The mothers who carry and give birth to these infants suffer more than I can tell you, especially given the fact that our culture's fear and anxiety about death is even more embedded and distorted than it's attitudes about birth! A woman pregnant with a dying infant is often extremely isolated as no one knows how to be with her, or how to deal with the pregnancy; it's very complicated and heartbreaking. Many people think of Perinatal Hospice as being politically aligned with the "pro life" or anti-abortion movement, comprised largely of parents who will not abort a pregnancy with a negative diagnosis for religious reasons but, most of the parents who choose to carry to term do so for one simple reason that perhaps goes to the heart of what true "religion" ( a word that means, literally, "what you are yoked to" ) is, or should be: love. These are parents who love their child, pure and simple.

I did not invent the concept of perinatal hospice, nor is my particular model new or original. There are a few groups and women around who offer similar services. What I hope will be "new" is that I am trying to create not only an on-call service of one-on-one care for these families, but I would like to set up specific training programs established for "Special-Care Doulas" that are comprehensive and include appropriate and sensitive private birth education, and postpartum support that lasts a minimum of a year and yes, is covered by private and public insurance. These are needed services and excellent examples of the kind of "simple, sustainable" alternatives in health care that I believe are possible, and desirable, and could also be expanded, as a model, to families with children born with various disabilities who also need skilled and knowledgeable, hands-on support. We ask too much of these families and the stress and exhaustion that can, and often do, occur take an enormous toll and represent genuine health risks to the parents and other children in the home.

Women need other women around the time of birth--that is the essence of "Authentic Midwifery" as I have known and practiced it and this essential quality surpasses political aspirations for a Profession and is more of an orientation of character and temperment than a job description. At the end of the day, it's all about the women and families and the Midwifery Model of Care need not be limited in scope to place or type of birth, or status of provider, or whether or not the "Profession" ever receives the validation of the medical community or the public at large. The relationship of Midwife, Mother and Child is Sacred, and that relationship cannot, and should not, lose what is at it's 'root', that being a radical love for the childbearing family in all it's complexity.

Until next week~~Every day, we are one step closer to Spring!

Your Kneelingwoman

Parenting "Out of the Box" ~ A Holistic Approach to "Special Needs" and Leaving "Disability World" Behind! Part 1--The Landing

2009-01-27T07:23:00.000-08:00

Our daughter, Mary, has spina bifida. ( This is a defect in the spinal cord that occurs very early in fetal development- by the 6th week. It literally means "split spine" and, depending on the type and severity, it results in various forms of paralysis, bowel and bladder problems, orthopedic issues and potentially, problems with every system in the body.) Mary is now 7 years old and the light of our lives and a beloved little friend to many. I think I can truly say, without leaning too hard on a tired cliche', that to know Mary, is to love Mary. She came fully loaded with this incredible ability to love and connect with, other people. She's most powerfully drawn to those who seem, in some way, marginalized, or forgotten. As a toddler, not more than three or so, she would routinely find her way to the person sitting alone in a room, and start a conversation. She's a very juicy kid; very awake and aware. To my mind, her disability counts as a great strength in that she seems to understand the limits of weakness; the fact that what seems to look like a disability may, in fact, prove to be the core of our strength and abilities in this world. I really think that's true of, and for her. Mary is a very "whole" person! To the world, though, and certainly to the various institutional systems and service providers; she not only "has" a disability, she "is" her medical diagnosis; she "is" spina bifida and all that entails for them.

When she was first born, we were ushered into the "system" in the most overwhelming way. While sitting in the NICU with our baby daughter, days after her two neurosurgeries: one to close her spine and the other to place a shunt in her brain to drain excess fluid; most kids with spina bifida also have hydrocephalus (water on the brain ) due to a defect in brain structure called the Chiari Malformation; her "future" as seen by her team of physicians, nurses and other health care providers, was laid out for us. We were told about the "Special" services we were entitled to by law, which included in-home physical and occupational therapy which would follow her into the school system to provide "services" there. We were given many brochures and business cards from wheelchair and orthotics vendors, suppliers of other kinds of medical supplies such as urinary catheters and diapering supplies. We were then told that her "clinic" visits and further testing would begin within a few days of our return home with her and given cards with dates and times on them. In the days that followed, we were given a fairly bleak prognosis for our daughter: she would certainly never walk, would probably, in fact, not be able to sit unaided, she would likely have multiple shunt failures requiring shunt revision surgeries. She would need braces, and special shoes, and a wheelchair. Because she has what is called a neurogenic bladder, meaning simply that the nerves controlling bladder function don't work, she would require catheterization multiple times daily to empty her bladder and to prevent kidney damage that would occur if retained urine backed up into her kidneys. Pretty scary stuff overall! I could clearly see that it was very important to these folks to convince us that they were needed! I could also see, just as clearly and with growing compassion, that this was not mere manipulation but genuine concern as many of the children do, in fact, develop multiple and potentially life-threatening problems with spina bifida. But Mary's bladder, for instance, was emptying on it's own. She also seemed to have some movement in her hips and upper legs. While I was required to correctly perform a bladder catheterization on my daughter before taking her home, and did so without challenge to anyone, I had already decided against catheterizing her until and unless, someone could prove to me that she was having problems with urinary retention and so far, no one had. In short, I didn't believe much of what they told me about my daughter's potential and I had no interest in a life devoted to service providers and I surely didn't want them in my home a few times a week. I took Mary home from the hospital and we decided that we were going to live a normal family life with our new daughter and our other kids and with that decision, we began to take our leave of "Disability World".

The great strength in all of this, for me, was having gone to Nursing school, followed by being a Midwife and a Homeschooling parent. Nursing school gave me a more sympathetic, but realistic, view of the medical system and their thinking while Midwifery had grounded me in "normal" and allowed me to see that not all "variations to normal" are complications or real problems. Homeschooling had taught me that children and families are their own best experts on what is good for them and had also given us a real strength about being creative and open in approaching problems, along with an easy acceptance of unconventional solutions. All of this helped a great deal with our determination to include Mary in a rich, and full life at home and within the various communities of which we are a part. I'm very aware, though, that many, many families do not feel confident, or able, enough, to question the system, let alone disregard or alter, the recommendations given them. It's very important, though, for families to know and understand that their child is, first and foremost, a child. It's very easy for parents of children with disabilities to sink slowly into thinking about the "problems" first, and the "whole child" second, if at all.

The entry into "Disability World" is insidious and can, and often does, take over the life of the family. Multiple visits to Physicians, Physical and Occupational therapists, trips to the orthotist for new braces, or upgrades and multiple hospitalizations for surgeries all loom large for many families. Not only does the family often lose sight of what a normal family life feels like; they often lose hope that it's even possible. In truth, the severity of a child's disability play a real role here. I do not want to diminish the impact that a seriously disabled child has on a family and I know that there is a real difference between a child like Mary, with a disabling condition that still allows her normal cognitive function, the ability to participate fully in family and community life and finds her in relatively robust health versus the impact, for instance, that our son Samuel had with an immanently life-threatening set of problems that did, indeed, require non-stop, round-the-clock care. I in no way want to convey a casual attitude towards children's medical problems and needs! Sometimes, there are no choices, and no roomier or more comfortable approaches. To these families, I offer my complete sympathy and prayers! I know your life, and I know how devastatingly hard it is.

Many disabilities, though, are very compatible with normal life and living if we can expand on our idea of "normal" just a bit! For a child like Mary, there have been a lot of options available for us to ensure that her life didn't become one long parade of people taking care of her in bits and pieces. The approach of "Disability World" focuses on the "problem" and builds everything around the idea that there is a "normal" form and function for the body so the focus becomes one of taking an "able bodied" norm and attempting to get the body to conform to it. So, for example, legs and feet are subjected to orthopedic surgeries and bracing ( even when the child is not expected to walk, or to walk well )and physical therapy is provided to improve mobility skills that they believe will not develop without it! Occupational therapy is designed to compensate for perceived lacks in the ability to navigate the normal tasks of daily living such as getting dressed, or using a pen to write with, or brushing teeth. Indeed, all of these tasks can be challenging to learn and therapies do provide needed help with these skills. But the basic orientation is that there is a "standard" of normal that must be met so, for example, some parents will spend literally years seeing an Occupational Therapist to teach a severely disabled child to eat with a spoon instead of being fed by a parent or other caretaker. The idea is that that this is more "normal", never mind that it may be completely unrealistic in a child with severe functional and cognitive disabilities that will always require a caregiver of some sort to assist with feeding. The "goal" becomes "Johnny will feed self using spoon". The only need here is that the child get fed; why does it matter how that happens? Because the "goal" is the "able bodied norm"! But whose goal is it, and whose yardstick for "normal"? The end result is often only a stressed out and worn- down caregiver ( usually the mother ) who will commit over an hour to each meal insisting that her child use the spoon, which she will often still have to help guide, or be wiping up food off the floor, instead of feeding the child, enjoying the interaction possible in those moments, and moving on to something more "real life". Which is more "normal"? If the mother also has other children to care for, or a job, how realistic is this, and how much unnecessary guilt is felt by parents when the goal isn't met year after year? What price paid in terms of parents and children both assuming failure at something that wasn't a reasonable goal to begin with? I recall talking with a mother at the spina bifida clinic who complained that her son had spent nearly 10 years going to weekly Physical Therapy designed to "prepare him to walk" and he still had not taken a single, independent step and used his wheelchair (happily, she was quick to add) all the time for mobility. She wondered out loud "who the therapy is for; us or them?" Good question and the beginning of parenting "out of the box" wisdom!

I found my ultimate salvation and encouragement in a woman named Cathy Snow. Cathy is a wonderful, and compassionate woman who wrote a book called "Disability is Natural" that I landed on during a random internet search using the keyword query, "natural, normal life possible with a disability?" which resulted in a several months long ( and still occasional ) correspondence with her and the purchase of her illuminating book. Cathy's son, Benjamin, was born with cerebral palsy and she experienced, first hand, the endless parade of services, attitudes and even, language, that distorts and disrupts the lives of disabled people and their families. She too, dutifully signed on to multiple therapies and programs all designed to "fit" her son into some kind of life; but not the life she dreamed of for him, or increasingly, the one he wanted for himself. When Benjamin was 6, he told his mother that he wanted to quit therapy and she went ahead and let him. She took him out of the school system and began homeschooling him and did a complete about-face in how she viewed disability, her son's life, and the potential in that life for him. In closing today, and before we go on to the next several "segments" of this topic over the next couple of weeks; I urge you to check out her website, www.disability is natural.com and, if you are interested or in need, order her book!

Till Next Time...

Kneelingwoman

Life Learning: Some Call it Homeschooling...for us, it's just life!

2009-01-16T17:11:00.000-08:00

When my husband Ben and I first met, we had a very brief, but prophetic conversation about exactly two subjects prefaced by his handing me a very small newspaper add cut out of the local paper offering 200 acres of land in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan "for sale" near Hancock, Michigan which, for those of you who don't know my beloved U.P is way, way up there and way, way west, to boot. Now, we had not yet had any conversation that would have clued him in that this might be a quite effective and appealing way into my little heart but, there it was! He assumed, based on several weeks observation and close listening ( alright, he'll admit to eavesdropping ) on my conversations with other people, that I would be charmed by such a show of insight and indeed I was! The second part of the conversation had to do with educating children. I rather clumsily announced, in between mouthfuls of my tuna sandwich, that I didn't think that school was good for children and that I thought I might just "homeschool" my kids. I fully expected this particular litmus test for compatibility to pretty much wipe out any future for the two of us ( as it had, frankly, for several other suitors, along with the general fact that I was, alright, still am, something of a handful ) but the earnest, gentle and genius-y young man in front of me heartily agreed that homeschooling was a great idea and he would be all for it! Sold!

As the marriage began and the babies arrived one after the other in pretty quick succession, the idea of "homeschooling" began to emerge as more of a lifestyle issue than one about education as a separate and distinct part of life. For both of us, and then for all of us, education became something that was assumed as a normal, everyday part of living. Homeschooling was still a relatively new concept and practice and for those of us starting out, there was no roadmap or agreed upon set of "how to's". As my husband and I reflected upon our own educational experiences, we realized that there were some fairly stark differences in our educational backgrounds that yet led to a dovetailing of attitudes and beliefs that ended up forming a very confluent idea about what constitutes "real" education. My husband was an 'A' student from the beginning, educated in private Catholic schools in Detroit and New York City, class valedictorian and graduated University in 3 years flat and found school and schoolwork easy and rather dull but found real learning on his own to be quite compelling and exciting. He hated the confinement and social pressures of school but was, and is, an exceptional and passionate life-long learner who thrives in the world of books, numbers, and the natural world. I was an A/B student, educated in small, almost rural community public schools. I was an early "music" prodigy ( someone said so ) studying piano by age 4 and 'voice' by my early teens. I was enamored of literature, writing and science and I loved music, of course, and literally lived alongside an inner soundtrack of harmony and poetry that allowed, if not encouraged, an interior life that nearly eclipsed any kind of social learning at all. I was horrifically shy and had a great deal of trouble reading social cues and understanding what I was supposed to be doing when in groups. I'm sure someone might well have slapped an "autistic spectrum" label on me at some point, had people been inclined to do such things then, but as I was a good student and also very sympathetic and empathic with people, when such was called for, I managed to kind of sleepwalk my way through the required 12 years of public school immersion and then went on to University with no particular problems.

Clearly, neither of us had an exceptionally "bad" time in school, but it was not something we found intersting, or necessary. We both concluded that our time would have been better, and more effectively spent, learning on our own and out in the world among real people who were doing real work instead of being "taught" second hand, what the world out there might be like. Both of us had experienced the joy, and exceptional thoroughness, of a determination to learn something we had chosen, and were passionate about, almost entirely on our own. I learned Midwifery in exactly this way. From the moment my "calling" to the work became clear to me, I began a rigorous and detailed study of medical textbooks and the few midwifery texts then available, took classes and tested myself and learned emergency skills well beyond anything I had learned in Nursing school! I found experienced practioners and got any hands - on experience I could get, wherever I could get it. My husband had similar experiences with "passion-led learning" and both of us had a genuine distaste for dilettantism so, we really knew that we needed to invest ourselves fully in our interests in order to maintain their integrity. Our homeschool "plan" for our own kids, then, evolved into nothing more formal than living daily life at home with us and out in the world interacting with others and noticing and making connections between things. They spent their days building relationships and being exposed to as much of the great art, literature, philosophy, history and political and social science as could be gained from reading books, watching films, talking to, and building friendships with, people who work in those fields. Most importantly, we encouraged a lot of privacy and time alone to learn who they were, and what they cared about, and how to go about building a life of meaning and purpose for themselves. Our house has always been truly "open" with a daily round of friends and family stopping by to talk, or to have coffee, or stay for dinner. We strongly believe in truly radical hospitality in the sense that we literally never turn anyone away from our home or family. All are welcome and as a result, I can honestly report that we have an abundant, and remarkably diverse "tribe" of people who come and go at will and have brought so much joy and love into our lives and have been an essential part of our children's "education".

So, we have never been part of a "homeschool" group and have known only a few other homeschooling families over the years, mostly among my midwifery clientele'. I wasn't interested in finding "like minded" families per se. I wanted my children to interact with the great diversity of our society, and to inhabit a truly multi-cultural interaction with the world. I wanted them to seek understanding of, and respect for, different religious, political and social viewpoints and to spend time with people who are poor, homeless, and marginalized and, just as importantly, to get to know people who are wealthy, substantially powerful socially and politically, and to see, through all of that, that people are just people and there are needs and dreams everywhere, among everyone, that are particular to being human and that they can learn to help fill. I hoped they would find friends from across the spectrum of humanity and indeed, they have. It didn't occur to me to seek "support" for homeschooling my children any more than I had for anything else, like Midwifery and the number of other "nonconformities" I had embraced throughout my young adult life. Even had I wanted such a "social structure" for myself or my kids, it didn't exist when we started out. Most people didn't have home computers or access to the internet like we all do now, so if there were other people out there doing what we were attempting, we didn't really know about it. Over the last few years, as I've had opportunity to talk and interact with other "early" homeschoolers, I've found that we are remarkably similar in both approach and attitudes: we just wanted to allow our children to learn to navigate the world and it's wonders unhindered by the construct of what we knew as "school".

We made a lifestyle choice to live "close to the root" of home, family and community and to share our own passionate enthusiasm for learning and growing with our children and as a family. I continued to be very involved in the world and in my work as a midwife. My husband has done the same and we have both had various individual endeavors and adventures that went far towards keeping life and vibrancy in our home. We didn't feel constrained or tied down or limited by our choice to homeschool, and if we had, we probably would have gone ahead and put our kids in school because what we felt and still feel, is most important to the education of children is for them to live with adults who model a passionate engagement with learning, and growth that tells them that there is always something more to experience around the next corner or over that next hill and because of all of these things, we stopped thinking of ourselves as "homeschoolers" and adopted the term "life learning" as the most succinct description of our philosophy of education and our way of living. Except for a fairly clear cut math curriculum, we have used no particular "method" nor have we done much of anything except live life and, as many of you know, that life has not always been easy, or without tragedy, challenge and difficulty. I have little or no patience for sitting at a table all day with anyone so, we didn't do much of that. What explanations or "seat" work needed to be done was done pretty efficiently and quickly and we didn't worry or get anxious if someone wasn't learning "something" on cue, or at "grade level" and we were never unaware of those norms--as fate would have it, my husband is a schoolteacher, actually. He teaches secondary (middle and high school) math and has taught along the spectrum from private schools with kids who were destined, as he was, for the "Ivy Leagues" to an urban "Charter School" for kids who had already been ditched from the Detroit Public Schools (let that one sink in a minute) to his current position teaching at our local ( right up the street ) public "Alternative" High School for young people who have dropped out, or flunked out, and who now want to get their high school diploma. Across all demographics, he has seen kids who have lost their natural, inborn sense of wonder and curiosity. Whether rich, or poor, white or black, destined to live on the streets, or in a mansion one day; they've all lost the sense that learning and experience, and deep investment in the power and potential of their engagement with life, matters. My husbands persistent, and daily attempts to rouse their interest in what might 'be' around, and within them, is an exercise in futility and frustration yet, because of what he wants to be, and model, to his own wife and children and to the world around him, he presses on, hoping and believing that change is possible, and that faith in that possibility can make things happen.

As a family, we've never stopped learning, or growing. We've made changes and adjustments to various aspects of life as needed but what we've learned is most important is the simple act of showing up every day, doing our best, being always kind and compassionate to ourselves and others, and being open to what life has to teach us! Children are born curious and eager to learn. What we most need to do is stay out of their way and provide an open door to the world of ideas, people and experience and to provide and model the kind of peaceful, cooperative and loving interaction with all of it that leads children to trust and to feel safe exploring, interrogating and navigating the unfolding of their own lives.

Occasionally, someone will venture the inevitable, and understandable, comment and query: "Well.....that all sounds great but what do you do all day? How do you know that they're learning anything? What about college and a job someday? Does all of this interaction with the world teach them how to make a living?" Yes. Yes it does and more than that, it teaches them how to make a life........

My children have always understood, from watching the adults around them, that learning is a process and that nothing comes without a cost, whether in the investment of time and energy it takes to learn something deeply, or in the cost to one's sense of self, or one's integrity, when the rubrics of human interaction are breached and compassion is left out of an equation in relationships between people, or in simple dollars and cents. Everything we do is an investment of some sort. We have, as a family, lived a very simple life, materially, since the beginning. We are inveterate savers, scroungers, second-hand-thrift-store die hards and our children understood, from very early in life, that if they wanted something that was outside the "budget", they would have to earn, and save, their own money for it. They really took a lot of pleasure, and still do, in being "DIY" ( do it yourself ) people and our small, almost intentional community of eccentric, rather bohemian artists, musicians, writers, birthworkers, chiropractors and bakery owners' who make up our closest neighbors and friends, encouraged and participated in, our kids' many creative interests and pursuits as did their generous and equally creative grandparents and extended family! My children were routinely taken by us, and by all these wonderful people, on travels and outings around the country! We've always made every effort to explore the kids' interests with them, and to share our own, by taking them to historic sites, science, art and natural history museums and to some of our greatest cities--New York, Chicago, Toronto and elsewhere, and our oldest two have travelled to Greece and the U.K. by the age of 16 and both were required to earn a substantial amount of the money needed to make these adventures. My three oldest children have all worked various jobs for pay since around age 10. Stephen and Emma are both now in College ( Emma just started this week ) and both started "early" at age 17. Stephen has been on the Dean's List since his first term. Clearly, in spite of virtually no attention paid to "curriculum" or a strict code of studies, they managed to learn how to learn and have no trouble now doing academic work alongside their peers. And that's great. But what matters most to me is that they have had the freedom, as I wanted so much for them, to become their own, unique selves and to explore the world through their own initiative and to follow their own interests and learn, from successes and failures both, what it means to be human.

I don't pay much attention, even now, to the "homeschooling" world out there. As our youngest, Mary, is only 7 and has a disability, and doesn't have three siblings close in age, as my older kids did, to interact with, I have occasionally thought that perhaps some kind of "group" setting for her would be a good thing. My problem with "groups of like minded's" over the years has been that they tend to insulate rather than expose, members to any challenge or interaction with other ideas. I am sure, in fact, that if my church were not a very inclusive, diverse and open situation, I wouldn't be there, either. I have a real aversion to "club" mentality, I guess. I've realized that what I need to do is make more effort with her to get her out into the world to find her own "tribe" and to model the confidence that she can, and will, do just that. Children with disabilities often have a more difficult time, overall, making friends because their particular issues, be it mobility or developmental differences, sometimes result in a kind of marginalization ( more on this topic in my next post over at Kneelingwoman blog ) so, while Mary has many, many teenage and adult friends through her siblings and parents, she has fewer opportunities to find friends her own age but there are natural, community-based ways to help her with this and that's always been our first choice.

I encourage people to really think about "life learning" and all the potential it holds for families and children. Those of us who embraced this concept 25 years ago really just wanted to offer something more wholistic and real to our kids than what we had growing up. We weren't trying to be political or even make a big social statement. I just thought that kids growing up around real people who could share real work, big ideas and noble aspirations with them made more sense that locking them up in a room with other kids and one adult all day long to learn second hand life from text books and all the rules for being a cog in someone else's wheel. I wanted them to learn to cooperate and work and learn organically, circularly, wholistically and that, in a nutshell, is what life learning with the Wilbert's is all about!

Enjoy the weekend everyone!

Your Kneelingwoman

Merry Christmas Everyone!

2008-12-25T19:09:00.000-08:00

It's finally here! The 12 Days of Christmas are now begun; time to celebrate! We had a lovely day with good friends, Eric, Marilyn and Roxanne joining us for dinner late in the afternoon. The morning hours were spent opening presents and relaxing in the blessing of being a family. We spent, as we typically do, most of Christmas Eve at Church. Mary was a sheep in the Christmas Play at the early "Family" Mass and then I sang the beautiful Charpentier Messe de Minuit pour Noel ( Midnight Mass for Christmas Eve )at the late service with Orchestra and full "bells and smells" which will be meaningful to any of my Anglican/Episcopalian and Catholic readers! I spent the two hours between services rehearsing with the orchestra and choir and so that made for a long day but what a beautiful way to spend Christmas Eve. If you can find a nice recording of it, it's worth a listen. I'm going to try to see if I can find a YouTube of at least a portion of it for you to listen to and post it here for the "Season". Tomorrow my husband's brother and his family will be here from Boston for the next week or so; always a great time! So, much to look forward to. Blessings on all of you, enjoy the next few days of Christmas.......Peace.

Kneelingwoman.

"The Mall" ~ The Audacity of Hope Vs. Despair and Happy Birthday Hugh!

2008-12-22T12:15:00.000-08:00

Christmas is almost here; Advent nearly past. I have spent it contemplatively, reverently and with devotion to the "True Meaning" of this season of Holy expectancy. Until yesterday. Yesterday, my disciplined and tranquil structure was rudely interrupted with the reality that I have done absolutely no holiday shopping of note as yet. Advent had to take a temporary ( and I do emphasize "temporary" ) back seat to the necessities of the "Holiday Season". Yesterday, I had to make my one, yearly trip to "The Mall". I do it at almost the same time every year and every year I am shocked and dismayed at the fact that once again, I have to do something I hate more than almost anything. Sometime in the last few days before Christmas, without fail, I finally have to concede that there is something I need from such a place that I am not going to get anywhere else. My denial firmly engaged, I have put it off as long as I can and so, yesterday, Ben ( my husband ) and I decided that the time had come. I have a whole routine that must be followed to the detail regarding heading to "The Mall". First, I have to stop for coffee at my local, favorite coffeehouse where I will spend longer than I need to complaining to whichever of the darling coffeehouse kids' is working that "I have to head to 'The Mall'......and I hate it. I don't want to go. I will need every drop of this espresso to energize me for the trip and to sustain me whilst I'm there. I will need you to tell me that it won't be nearly as bad as I think it will. After I'm done there, I will need another cup of coffee and I will need you to listen to me tell you that it was AT LEAST as bad as I thought it was going to be and I will require your sympathy, including looking soulfully into my poor, sad eyes and nodding your head affirmatively all the while telling me that I don't have to do it again for a WHOLE YEAR and really, I probably just need a nice meal of take-out Chinese food and a bottle of dark beer and ALL WILL BE AS IT SHOULD BE once again." I will need all of that and I'll ask for it too! I HATE GOING TO 'THE MALL'!!!!

My more cheerful and willing "consumer" friends will tell me that I'm making a tempest in a teapot about this ( and they tell me that every year while making themselves a stiff drink because they have to listen to my annual recitation ) and that I should lighten up and just "go with it", meaning, I take it, that I should quit being such a frugal zealot and just go a little crazy at Christmas and spend, spend and spend. In truth, it isn't the spending so much that upsets me, it's the people. It's the fact that when I am at "The Mall" I find myself rapidly losing any confidence or hope for our civilization. I watch people who are already in debt spending more money that they don't have on cheesy, cheap and imported- from- China junk while equally plastic, electronic "Holiday" muzak streams through everyone's conciousness, as hundreds of little kids, many with runny noses and horrible, consumptive-sounding coughs stand in an endless, snaking line to sit on the lap of a Santa - suited person of undetermined moral rectitude while telling him what they "wantforchristmas" which has become the only point to the holiday for most of the population. Everyone around me seems to be eating or drinking something sprinkled or dipped or covered in whipped cream. None of them look healthy, or happy. Everyone has a sort of exhausted, depleted look about them. None of them seems to care at all that a miracle is happening in the midst of all this muddle; a Holy miracle and something that, if they could but even sit still for two minutes and listen for it, could change their lives. Thoreau said that "most men live lives of quiet desperation", this salient observation made while he was living alone on Walden Pond but, for me, this truth is most evident when I am walking numbly through "the Mall" three or so days before Christmas. I feel my vital energy sinking into the cement beneath my feet and my infrequently displayed bad temper rising as my poor husband, equally distressed and dispirited at finding himself in such a place, pulls his sulking and espresso-maddened wife along by the hand, trying to get through the ordeal as swiftly as possible and I watch this deflated multitude of humanity pass by me and all I want to do is kill someone with my bare hands! Merry Christmas!

Well.......we found the one thing we "needed" from "The Mall" and headed home. I had my dark beer (no Chinese food though; my poor attitude requiring some kind of penance, I decided to deprive myself of take-out ) and thought to watch some television news for awhile. On every cable news channel, I was confronted with still more human depravity and evidence that we are, as my father used to say ( about nearly everything ) "Going to Hell in a Handbasket". Amid what someone determined to be appropriately heartwrenching and funereal music, we see the running video stream of little Caylee Anthony, the Florida toddler murdered (probably) by her mother, Casey. Her Mother........

I saw Caylee Anthony's mother at the Mall......lots of them. Women in their very early 20's with a baby on one hip and a toddler being dragged along by the hand while the young mom talks on her cell phone and then screams at the toddler to "shut up....I can't hear" while jerking the child's arm roughly. I see them in the clothing stores, carelessly shoving little kids onto a row of seats while they try on party clothes and choose sexy underwear and spritzing perfume on wrists and all the while, the ubiquitous cell phone conversations go on and on, interspersed only with texting and impatient and angry retorts to whining, crying and tired little children who will be left, later, with unwilling grandparents, or a friend, to be "babysat" while mom goes out partying.

I don't think that anyone will find out that Casey Anthony, mother to a murdered child, suffers from some kind of particular personality disorder, or psychological pathology. I think that she is as sane as any of us. She suffers, in my opinion, only from the distracted, materialist and consumer lifestyle that shuns quiet, or solitude, or the building of relationships of the kind which foster intimacy, genuine friendship and support and that encourages fragmentation, disengagement and complete disconnect from other human beings; in short, she suffers from modern life. Modern life kills people. It kills relationships and creates shallow, self-serving relationships of convenience and whim. Casey Anthony, if found guilty of murdering her little daughter, will not understand why she did what she did. She will know, only, that she wanted to have fun and the "little snot head" as she called her, was in her way. Of all the young women I saw at the Mall yesterday, any one of them, I am convinced, could become the next Casey Anthony simply by having a bad few weeks where there is no babysitter, and the boyfriend turns out to be another loser, or her own mother lets her down and then she loses her cool job and how far is it to get to "this kid has got to go". At least twice yesterday, I overheard one of these young women say something to the effect of "I just can't HANDLE this anymore" in despair to someone on the other end of the cellphone. It isn't a big leap........

People are fascinated by these stories not because they believe that they "could never do something like that" but because they secretly fear that they could. So much neglect and abuse of children is a matter of degree. The news program showcased a young mother with a 3 year old little girl held on her hip, explaining to the journalist that, after all, her own little girl looks "so much like Caylee, and has so many of the same interests and activities, and ( sobbing ) I just look at my child and wonder how could someone DO that to a little girl like this ( nodding at her own toddler who is now watching her mothers face in fear, lip trembling, eyes tear filled ), to just murder your own child......". She never even looks into the face of her "own child". She doesn't notice her daughter's anxiety or fear. She doesn't have any awareness of the human person she was just seconds earlier using as a prop. She has brought a toddler to a murder scene to participate in something larger and more dramatic than her own life. She, like Casey Anthony, doesn't view her child as a person with rights or needs of her own. She sets her daughter down to wander as pictures of the murdered Caylee alongside this child are broadcast so that we, the viewing audience, can do our own comparisons about how similar they are and be drawn into the perverse and false pathos of a too common tragedy and shake our collective heads in silent condemnation of the horrible, "bad" mother who would do what we are so sure we never could!

The little girl wanders around, alone, looking frightened and uncertain while her mother continues to talk into the air with the video cameras rolling.........unaware of her own neglect, disconnection and lack of concern for her child's welfare as she sought to put the focus on herself and her own need for attention and self-affirmation by coming to the place where a little girl's skeletal remains had been scattered and letting her own child walk around on ground where Caylee Anthony had been buried in a plastic garbage bag!

Christmas celebrates the birth of the Christ child and all of us struggle with an interior sense of despair, at this time of year, because of the mockery our culture makes of this Holy time. We participate, in varying degrees, in this yearly excess and only rarely do we stop and watch and listen with our hearts to what has been happening around us. Everywhere are frustrated and angry young mothers' who are moments or days away from doing something to a child because they just don't have a clue what to aspire to in their lives and they have such deep needs that they can't name and can't meet.......they need mentors, and friends and someone wise and caring to open a door to a larger life to them. They don't need other women, other mothers, to use them only as counterpoint to their own sagging self-esteem, to comparison shop in the land of "Mommy Wars" and "Maternal Competition". Women and mothers need love, friendship and support. The "crime" of Casey Anthony, from a sociological and cultural perspective, is that she isn't unusual. She isn't all that rare. She's just one of millions who fall through the cracks, who give in to desperation, a shallow sense of priorities, and poor judgement. She's probably not a nice person; fine. I'm sure I wouldn't like her; ditto. But she's probably not insane, or truly evil. She's just young, angry and uncertain what, if anything, matters. And what does our culture tell her "matters"? Shopping. Spending. Getting things. Getting men. Getting what "I" want......

Going to "The Mall" is an annual torment for me primarily because it takes me outside my self-imposed serenity and peaceful co-existence with my wonderful family and extended "tribe". I am forced to really understand that things are not so lovely for everyone and there is a lot of work to do.

I hope that the balance of the Advent season is used by all of us to reflect on our cultures values and how we listen to the stories of others. Does our news media exist for us, or we for it? Is it enough to shake our heads in disapproval over the story of another mother who murders her child, or should we be asking hard questions and then putting our hands to the plow to do something positive to help women and families? Is our hope in our new President-elect that he will "make everything good for everyone" or that he will empower us to get creative and to think outside the box to look for solutions to problems ourselves? Is is really so audacious to hope that next year, next Christmas, the Christ-child will be born in our midst and we won't be so busy multi-tasking that we miss it? Is it possible that we can find a way to just sit in the quiet of our own hearts and offer up something that feels like peace to a very weary old world?

Over the next few days, find a few minutes alone and be grateful for all the blessings of this life and this year. Today is my son Hugh Edwin Wilbert's 14th birthday. After a very serious health threat early last year, he has spent this last year growing, thriving and "becoming" a lovely, funny young man of intention, giftedness and loving kindness. Happy Birthday Hugh.....enjoy the day!

More tomorrow.

Kneelingwoman

Advent Retreat ~ Thoughts and Feelings

2008-12-11T21:55:00.000-08:00

Hello Everyone! I'll be once again on "Retreat" , beginning tomorrow afternoon, until Sunday night. I'm looking forward to it and to spending time with this wonderful group of fellow "interns" and the marvelous, cagey, intelligent and aware Jesuit Priests who lead our group! As most of you know, I am not Jesuit, nor even Roman Catholic; I'm wholeheartedly Episcopalian/Anglican and very attached to my "roots" in that denomination. It has been an enormous pleasure and blessing to me to experience such an ecumenical and open educational and spiritual experience in a Jesuit community that is so accepting and loving. Our group is truly a miraculous and amazing bunch of people all trying to learn the art of "Holy Listening" with others. I've been profoundly moved and affected by this process and, with still more than a year and a half left to go; I expect to be still more drawn to a deeper sense of understanding and working with the "true self" and to helping others to find the same. It is in "living true" that we find our peace, and genuine happiness. I've found this whole process to be the most life-giving and affirming of anything I've done. A wonder, truly!

So, I will continue this process of becoming a Spiritual Director with yet another Retreat, and a challenging one at that: we will be focusing on the "Discernment of Spirits" which sounds very spooky but isn't at all; just complex!

On Monday, we will be observing the third anniversary of the death of our 10 month old son, Samuel. He was born 4 February 2005, and died on 15 December 2005. I am hoping to put something up to honor him; I'm considering posting my best picture of him, as none of you have ever seen him. There are only a few people, actually, who were graced to have known him and fewer yet who actually held him, touched him or spoke to him. They deserve special mention on Monday and they'll get it too!

I have found this particular anniversary to be the most difficult and sad so far. I don't know why. I've found myself in tears over small things, and I feel almost lonely, even though I am surrounded by family and friends who love me and who've already been sending their love and support via phone, e mail and invitations to dinner! I suppose that losing a child creates a space in one's heart that is somewhat unreachable? It isn't that I've any desire or need to shut others out. I'm very grateful for every remembrance from everyone! But there is a corner of my soul that is reserved for this loss, and others and finding myself enveloped within that place reminds me that we are, inescapably, alone in this world at particular moments and for specific reasons. It's not a bad thing; just hard.

Everyone asks me what I "learned" from Samuel ( and Paul and Mary ) and all I have to offer is some idea that love is the important and crucial measure of our lives--how willingly we love; how passionately and how hard we try, and keep trying, to touch the hearts and souls of those we profess to love. I know, too well, that I failed in so many ways, to love Samuel as I should have. I was nearly overcome by the difficulty, fear and stress of caring for such a fragile human being. But he and I had moments that were simply, completely "soul to soul". I have had a few of those moments in my life; with only a small handful of people and I treasure every, single one for the magic and depth that they brought into my life. In those few moments with Samuel; I experienced the completion and pain, of the deepest kind of love ~ that which knows that time is a thief and will take it's toll and none of us have a surplus to waste! We have such a brief time to be kind, loving, compassionate and tender ~ don't lose a minute! If there was any "lesson" in the experience of Samuel; that was it.

So, the Advent season moves apace. Enjoy the weekend and blessings and peace to you all.

Your Kneelingwoman.

St. Nicholas ~ Bishop of Myra and Protector of Children

2008-12-05T16:21:00.000-08:00

St. Nicholas was born in Lycia, in Asia Minor, somewhere in the early 4th century. He was to become Bishop of Myra and he had a reputation for being kind, loving and deeply devoted to children. Legend has it that he regularly roamed poverty stricken villages, leaving gifts of food and clothing on the doorsteps of families and small, hand-made toys and diversions for young children along with the necessities of daily life. Bishop Nicholas once listened patiently to the story of a merchant who was despairing over the fact that he had no proper dowry for his three daughters meaning that they would never be able to marry. Bishop Nicholas sought to remedy this sad state of affairs but he was a shy man and humble so, in the dark of night, he climbed up on the roof of the merchant's home and dropped three bags of gold down the chimney; one for each daughter. The story has it that the bags dropped into the girls stockings which were hung up to dry by the fire! Over the centuries, the story of St. Nicholas made it's way north and into the Netherlands where the Dutch, calling him "Santer Klaus" and elaborating on the idea of the Saint bringing gifts and food to deserving children, began celebrating his Patronal Feast, on December 6, by leaving children's shoes out of doors where the roaming Saint might fill them with treats and money. Later, in England, the idea of Father Christmas developed, reverting back to the idea of arriving via the chimney, carrying packages in a sack to be placed in stockings hung up on the mantle, or a shelf in the home. From the 19th century on, and especially after the publication of Clement C. Moore's epic poem, 'Twas the Night Before Christmas', our modern idea of Santa Clause developed from the long ago and loving action of a kind and holy man.

Tonight is St. Nicholas Eve and in our house, this is the night when the children's shoes are left out on the porch to await the arrival of St. Nicholas who will, it is expected, leave a Christmas ornament in one shoe, and some kind of "treat" in the other, for each of them. This ushers in the more festive part of the Advent season for our family as we have now set up our Creche, lights and the "Wooden Santa Shelf" under our living room window. I have collected various kinds of wooden Santas over the years; some are very much "Bishop Nicholas" replications in dark blue or green Bishop's robes, and some are quite Victorian looking; a few are modern and some are rather arts-and- crafts Santas', but all find a home, for a few weeks, on our window shelf, with Christmas lights over the window, surrounded with greenery. We've always tried to strike a balance between maintaining Advent as a separate season and ensuring that Christmas does not start, in our home, until December 25th but we are very happy and enthusiastic celebrants from the 25th until Epiphany, January 6th! I have always loved Advent and the contemplation of the incarnation and nativity of Jesus during this time; it's a quiet and lovely few weeks of peace, joy and contentment. I particularly love my candlelit little cabin of a house at this time of year; I love the way the light looks indoors, even during the daytime and especially when it has snowed heavily enough to alter the look of things inside and out.

Welcome, St. Nicholas, to our home! Thank you for your generosity and loving kindness. May we all seek to show the same to those we love and especially, to those who may have no one to care for them, or about them. Remember the frail and elderly neighbor, or the widow living alone. Remember the children in your town or city that may have need of a "Santer Klaus" to fill their shoes with food and money; for all those who live without "the necessities of life"; for those who are homeless. Remember that this time of anticipation of the birth of the Christ child is about making preparations for Light and Love coming into the world! Mother Teresa of Calcutta told us that "We can do no great things, only small things with great love." Do your own small things with generosity of heart and with all the love you can bring to it! The time is brief ~ Be kind to one another. Blessings and joy on your homes and families ~ Happy Saint Nicholas day to you all! Now, go and check your shoes!

Happy Thanksgiving and a Blessed start to Advent to all of you!

2008-11-27T09:33:00.001-08:00

I hope that everyone has a blessed day filled with love, joy, peace and Turkey or whatever your tribe has to celebrate this distinctly "American" holiday.

This weekend, for those of us who live by the Liturgical ( Church ) Calendar, marks the beginning of Advent, the four weeks before the Feast of Christmas. Many people know that Lent is a "penitential" season, meaning a time when we think about the ways we've "missed the mark" which is the literal translation, from the Greek, of the word "sin". Advent is also a penitential season, one easily forgotten by most people in the midst of the ho ho ho and the fa la la and the crazed shopping and spending but, in spite of all of that,perhaps because of it, I will spend it as I always do: Thinking about, and praying over, my shortcomings over the last year and trying to see clearly the places I can improve and make amends. I take these Spiritual Disciplines pretty seriously so, don't be surprised if my blog takes on the feel of the Confessional ( but don't count on it either, entertaining as that might prove to be ).

We are not a family who does the typical "consumer Christmas" holiday thing. Since early childhood, our children were allowed to make an "idea" list of 3 items for Christmas gifts as their "Santa" list. We filled in with smaller, "fun" things around the edges. We never let them watch commercial television when they were little, nor did we sit them down with catalogues full of the latest plastic destined for the land-fill. We've always had lovely Christmas holidays and we put a lot into the whole Advent season. We do the same things, in the same order, in the same 80 year old house, on the same street, year after year. This weekend we will set up our Creche' and put up our Christmas lights. We celebrate St. Nicholas Day on December 6 by setting the kids' shoes out on the front porch overnight. In the morning, there is, in each shoe, a few chocolate bells, or stars and, in the other, a new Christmas ornament or decoration for their collections. We've done this for many years now. My idea was that they would each have a small treasure box of Christmas ornaments and decorations of their own to take with them when they leave home. Now that we are fast approaching that season in our lives with Stephen nearly 20 and Emma 17 and both in College; it's taking on a slightly different, and somewhat poignant symbolism for me. We do a lot of Christmas baking most years during the 4 weeks, and we have an Advent wreath on the dining room table, with the candles marking the weeks, and special readings to do with that. We get our Christmas Tree the last weekend before Christmas. Hugh's birthday is December 22 so, we have that celebration in the midst of everything else as well. Stephen's birthday is January 9 so, we leave the tree up from roughly the 20th until the 10th of January. This works well for us in keeping Advent and Christmas properly separated with the boys' birthdays making quite nice bookends between Christmas and Epiphany. Christmas doesn't officially begin until the 25th and we do no truly "Christmasy" things until then but we celebrate daily, with special activities and visits and gifts and food, for the entire traditional "12 days" of Christmas culminating with our Epiphany (12th night ) Party on January 6 each year. It's a good time, a Holy time and one I always look forward to. We also have to observe the passing of our son Samuel on December 15th each year for the last few, so, appropriately, in a way, we are brought to a genuine awareness of how birth and death are always part of life, no matter what the time or season of the year. As much sadness as Samuel's death brought, I have learned to appreciate and even, enjoy, the way the season of Advent and Christmas serves to remind me of very profound and deep truths, each year. It is all blessing and gift, truly. We are all miracles of creation and so blessed to be here, still living and loving, for another year ~

Remember those who have no food today, and remember those who live in peril and surrounded by violence......remember the victims of the terrorist attack in Mumbai, India over these last few days, and give thanks for those who devote their lives to protecting us, keeping us safe, keeping us informed and working to create a more peaceful and just world--our soldiers, our journalists, our Peace Corps Volunteers and all those who serve in the Red Cross and other global aid agencies! Our police and fire departments; our homeless shelters and food banks. Be thankful! If you are reading this at your home computer, cup of coffee or beer in hand ~ you have plenty.....remember those who don't.

Your Kneelingwoman

Post Election Day Euphoria and New Topics Coming Along!

2008-11-11T05:28:00.001-08:00

Hi everyone! I'll be writing something or other pretty soon but wanted to get on and commend everyone for the voting day turnout! We all showed up in record numbers for this election and the results are something to be proud of. I'm obviously gratified that Barack Obama and Joe Biden have been elected and nothing I could say, or describe, would do anything more than parallel the election night experiences of so many around the world; it was a wonderful evening and I haven't stopped feeling aglow since then.

I've been very busy and not on the computer much except when writing the endless stream of papers that are my current lot. I find that I have no real appetite for sitting her after spending several hours writing. I've been drawn to being outdoors as much as possible; the weather has been so perfectly Autumnal; crisp, even cold, with a bit of snow on the ground yesterday morning. I took a very long walk last night in the cold air and followed the moon around a bit; really great stuff.

Nothing else to report but lots of ideas to write about as soon as I can get to it. In the wake of Sarah Palin's return to Alaska ( as I bask in the reality that I won't have to put up with her attempts to be the "special needs" VP ) I find myself wanting to finally talk a little about what she, and many, refer to as "Special-Needs Parenting". It's not a term I like, and I avoid using it generally so, I'm going to try to lay out what living with a child who has a disability is all about, in the way we've experienced it, but what I have to say is overwhelmingly positive. I rarely discuss my kids in a public forum like this; I really respect that they are whole, human persons with a right to privacy and to telling their own stories so, you aren't going to get a terribly personal documentary and you won't get any complaints from me about "special needs"either, although there is a reality to it that is somewhat more challenging than living with kids who don't have these problems. If anything, what I want to attempt is to talk about how it IS different but also, how very much the same it really is. I want to dispel some "myths" that exist about parenting children who have particular issues or problems and offer some encouragement for people who are living alongside these same issues in their lives. I want to perhaps help people to understand that we aren't "special" parents and our kids aren't looking for, or needing, special "attention". They, and we, just want to be regular folks' and be treated that way. The real challenge of living with disabilities is that it is sometimes much harder on other people outside looking in, than it is for us living alongside it and within it. Does that make sense? It will.

Next time then. "President Obama".....can we even believe it? Wonderful!

Kneelingwoman

Go Vote!

2008-11-04T05:59:00.001-08:00

Hi everyone- It's finally Election Day. My husbands' school is our local voting precinct and he came home for a few minutes this morning to tell me that the place was bursting at the seams with voters by 7:00 a.m. this morning! Absolutely unprecedented numbers; isn't that something to be proud of and to enjoy sharing with our friends, families and neighbors? It's a great day in America.

I'm leaving shortly to go get coffee in town and then over to stand in line with my community. I hope you'll all be doing the same. The Bush Years are behind us!

Kneelingwoman

The Retreatant Returns !

2008-10-27T20:37:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! This is just a quick "hello" after a few days away. I spent Friday, Saturday and most of Sunday on Retreat again.......

My internship in spiritual direction requires regular "retreat" times but this one was very special; an experience I'm still unpacking. I spent the weekend involved in a very intensive sharing process with 5 other women in our group wherein we explored, in detail, our various personal, spiritual/emotional growth journeys and where and how we've found God present throughout those experiences. As many of you know, I have lived through some profoundly challenging and painful difficulties in my life but I know now, in a more wonder-filled way, that most people are faced with enormous and devastating losses and I heard stories from these amazing women that made me realize that we are, truly, "all One" in the sense of being human and having lives that are filled with joys and sorrows.

One highlight of the weekend involved getting lost in the woods and then on a golf-course with one of the women in my group; a woman I now feel a true sisterhood with. She lives in the Northern part of our State which served to immediately bond us--we share a love for Northern Michigan, women and babies ( she's been a Nurse, Social Worker, and worked in Hospice for many years ) men and our Elders; a lover of people, animals, nature and God. We connected powerfully with each other way back at the beginning of the internship; I was just so taken with her energy ( she's 24 years older than I and "just getting started" ) intelligence, spirit and beauty. She drives over 3 hours, from Northern Michigan, to get to our classes and retreats! She also built, by hand, over a lengthy period of time, a stone labrynth on her property which I will soon have the honor of going to see, and walk on! So, during what was meant to be a 'short break' from our group work, she and I decided to hit the hiking trails and just lost all track of time as we shared, more deeply, our respective stories. We finally realized that we were going to be late getting back to our "group" for the next go-round and on the heels of that realization, also knew that we were hopelessly lost. I actually quite like getting lost; she was less sure that lost was a good idea! We eventually found our landmarks and made it back to the group, late indeed, but still able to fill in the blanks, somewhat "winging it" on the next question that we were to contemplate and answer.

I'll have much more to share about my weekend but, it was the kind of thing that I truly think everyone could benefit from and I truly hope that part of my "next step" will be in finding a way to create this kind of opportunity for women in my neck of the woods although I'll probably insist on taking them 'into the wild' of the UP to do most of the spiritual/emotional heavy lifting because there just is no better place in the world than that sacred ground surrounded by water and the ancient spirits that have inhabited the place for generations! It's been so heartening and moving to begin seeing how this great risk I took, a couple of years ago, to let go of the familiar and the safe, and to see how far I could grow towards a more expansive idea of love and service, is now beginning to take shape. I am seeing the formation of the future I envisioned for myself and my "tribe"........it's like being suddenly enabled to take a very deep breath and realize that some part of a "vision quest" is now behind me and that I've moved in the direction I had chosen--towards authenticity and deeper connection with myself and others. Nice..........

More soon!

Your Kneelingwoman

Mesko Rants! You'll need to turn down my music and listen up; this is great stuff!

2008-10-21T14:14:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! The following YouTube is connected to yesterday's post. I made reference to my good friend and neighbor, Eric Mesko, who will be "hosting" the Election Night Art opening and party at Tangent Gallery here in Detroit. These political "Rants" are Eric's political performance art and great fun! This video was done last month, September 20, 2008, at a show at Zeitgeist Gallery that also featured the political artwork of my almost 14 year old son, Hugh. The rant is timely, and very worth listening to! If you look carefully, you can actually catch a couple glimpses of me to the far right near the stage and about midway through, you will see Mary wheeling herself across the stage, in front of Eric, to get to her sister, Emma, with a group of friends standing over by the door! It's great fun, great politics and I'm very happy to have an opportunity to promote the lifework of my friends!

Enjoy!

Your Kneelingwoman

The Peaceful Transition of Power ~ Let's Not Feed the Beast

2008-10-19T11:50:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone ~ As the last couple of weeks of this political campaign wind down, I've been realizing that perhaps it's time to start to encourage a sense of calm; a deliberate "take-a-deep-breath and a long exhale" and just let go a little bit........

I really want Barack Obama to win this election and to say that I will be bitterly disappointed if it doesn't happen is an understatement of significant proportion but there is something I want more, if possible, than a clear win, a mandate, for Barack Obama. I want a country that's willing, on November 5, 2008, to set it down, to give it up and to begin, immediately, the kind of healing process, forgiveness if necessary, needed to ensure a peaceful transition of power from one Presidential administration to another.

We have seen, over the last few weeks, the increasingly negative and angry tone, especially, in my view, in the McCain camp. As I wrote in my last post, there has been a willingness, on the part of Senator McCain and Sarah Palin, to encourage fear by casting racial, ethnic and religious aspersions on Barack Obama, fanning the flames of xenophobic rage and violence. It's a very combustible mix out there and I am uneasy. The political, social and economic conditions conspire to create a toxic and unstable environment where, I fear, such rabble rousing could have catastrophic and tragic results and I'll go ahead and say it: yes, I fear violence, and I fear an attack on Senator Obama. With each passing day, I find myself holding my breath and praying, frequently, for the safety of that young man and his family and, I confess, I have a cold, dark knot in the center of my chest that keeps tightening.....

The Republican campaign has offered nothing by way of repudiation of these attacks beyond the feeble and whiny disclaimer offered by Senator McCain during the last debate and that was not enough for me. I maintain that the only appropriate response to even a single incident of someone at one of his rallies, shouting, when Barack's name was mentioned, "Kill him" is a press-conference making clear that he does not endorse violence or threats of violence, in any way, shape or form, but I expect that to happen about the same time those lipstick-wearing pigs get up and start flying.......

So, what to do? Is this a year when we should, perhaps, choose to be very intentional and deliberate about how we spend election night? Should we not consider gathering together with our friends and neighbors, in a bipartisan and openly hospitable way, to share food, drink and courage as the night unfolds and to make sure, when the results come in, that we are not only prepared to celebrate our "win" but to immediately make peace with our losses, and to help others do the same? Can we not begin, straight away, to work together for the common good by offering a bit of solace and encouragement to the "losing" side? If, on election night, we see the signs of potential violence or a will to violence, can we step up and do our part to make peace?

I will be attending an Art Show opening on election night at the Tangent Gallery in Detroit. The show is entitled "The Last Days of Plan 9 from Washington" and the work is by artist ( and my good friend and neighbor ) Eric Mesko. The opening reception begins at 6:00 p.m. - ? and there will be multiple t.v. screens up and running the election results. Eric is also a political performance artist and will doing one of his "Mesko Rants" stand up routines ( something I have been privilaged, on many occasions, to have running wild in my own dining room ) which are outrageous, funny, brilliant and far too accurate takes on the current political and social issues of our times. We'll be hoping, praying (in our own unique, multicultural, gender-neutral, liberal and very politically correct ways ) singing, and drinking and eating and drinking and depending on the outcome........drinking. Actually, either way, I expect some serious drinking--either the champagne bottles are opening in celebration or we start sobbing into the whisky......I will be prepared, in advance, for either eventuality!

We will, in any case, happy or sad, drunk or sober, be doing our collective best to stay open and to begin the process of turning swords into plowshares.......turning the results of this election, no matter what it is, into something good.

I would urge everyone to make some kind of effort to make this election night something beyond the usual round of electoral vote tallies and shouting at the t.v. screen. Get together with folks and sing the old political protest songs; haul out the guitars and the beer and sing the music of our American story from the beginning---sing "yankee doodle" and "When This Cruel War is Over" and "It's a Long Way to Tippararee" and move on to Woody Guthrie and the dust bowl years and on to the '60's' and Civil Rights and Vietnam and sing "Imagine" and "Blowin' in the Wind". At the end of the night, after the results come in, gather everyone around and head out into the streets and sing "This Land is Your Land" Springsteen-style; one acoustic guitar and with great conviction for the words ( and if you have never heard his version, YouTube it....perfect ).

I don't want to feed the beast. I don't want to encourage any more hatred and mistrust. If John McCain wins this election, I'll give it my all to support him. I'll do everything I can to give him the benefit of the doubt and I'll try to move on.......but I hope he's driven back to the Senate in a landslide victory for Barack!

Peace, everyone! And if you're in the area around Election Day, look us all up at the Tangent Gallery 715 E. Milwaukee Street, Detroit, Michigan. The doors open at 6 P.M. and all are welcome!

Your Kneelingwoman

The Audacity of Moral Courage ~ Let's See Which Candidate Shows the "Christian" Values here, eh?

2008-10-11T13:02:00.000-07:00

I'm about to do something I rarely do; I'm going to do a one-off writing--no edit, no smarten it up later.....

Why?

Because I have been watching and listening to so much political news lately, nearly addicted, at this point, to MSNBC, CNN and NPR and I am not just baffled, not just wondering about it all, not merely curious, not intellectually challenged to see if I can beat all in a game of "stump the politicians"; I am angry and horrified at what passes for social and political dialogue in this country and I am outraged at the idea that a Vice Presidential Candidate of a major political party can smile in the face of a death threat! To what am I referring? I am referring to the political rally held early this last week, when Sarah Palin, after telling a cheering crowd that Barack Obama "pals around with terrorists", reacted to someone yelling out in that crowd "KILL HIM"........with a wan, but oh-so-smug little smile. A smile.......A SMILE! She smiled at the idea that someone was so inspired by her reckless and dangerous hate mongering that they felt that the best remedy for the possibility of a country led by such a person......is murder!

J0hn McCain, to his credit, seems to have been convicted by some combination of tanking poll numbers and perhaps, just perhaps, his own conscience, enough to gently rebuff an elderly woman at one of his rallies who earnestly told him that she doesn't trust "Obama...because he's an Arab" First nodding affirmatively, he then softly told her "No...no,no,no ma'am, he's not.....he's a decent family man, a fellow citizen with whom I happen to strongly disagree in this campaign". Later, he told another crowd that they "need not fear a President Obama" said softly, while looking down, without eye contact, and with a distinctly sad, and frankly, quite beaten, expression on his face. Fine.....bully for him. If he has managed to once again value his personal integrity over his ambition and overweening pride; great! But what of "That One"? That running mate of his? Where is her integrity? Where are her "Christian" values of mercy, generosity of spirit, open-hearted acceptance and love for neighbor? Back in Alaska?

Sarah Palin is a Pentecostal Christian; which means that she believes that she is empowered by the Holy Spirit to works OF the Spirit. So, lets unpack that shall we? Open your Bibles ( o.k. o.k....borrow one, or look this up online ) and lets take a look.....

St. Paul's epistle ( letter ) to the Galatians, Chapter 5 verses 16-26. Paul is talking about living the "life of the Spirit" and trying to explain to folks' what that life looks like. In the first section, roughly verses 16-21, he first tells people what it ISN'T, in other words, if you see these things happening, you, or the person you might be wondering about, is NOT living "in the Spirit". And what are some of those things? ".....strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissentions factions, envy....." Hmmm. Who does THAT sound like? Do you think that lying about someone, telling an already seething crowd of equally insecure human beings, that a fellow citizen is, in fact, a terrorist, which, by the way, also makes him a traitor to his country, is somewhat angry? Does it not foment dissent and factions? Is there not some envy going on here, as Sarah Palin contemplates the increasingly likely prospect of heading home to Alaska without her VP hat? When Sarah Palin smiles in the face of a death threat, does that not encourage strife? Do we not all understand, in our own hearts, that she could not, indeed would not, be enabled to say these things, even think them, if her interior landscape were not rife with the same? Give it a moments' pause........

On the flip side; what are the "fruits of the Spirit" as St. Paul calls them--the outward and visible signs that someone is, in fact, infused with the Holy Spirit and living in that light? What does such a one project out into the world? ".....love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control." St. Paul ends his discourse on this topic ( in later verses in Chapter 6 ) with the following: "If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, competing against one another, envying one another.......so let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up. So then, whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all...."

Now, my point in giving this little Bible study is not religious, although it is perhaps about a kind of spiritual orientation that needs to be examined, given that both candidates, in fact, all 4 candidates, are believing, practicing, Christians ( as am I and as are many of you ). Is it not fair to examine their claims by ordering them along the traditionally accepted yardstick of the faith? Have we not seen, in excess, the "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness and generosity, faithfulness and self-control" amply, almost heroically, maintained by Barack Obama and Joe Biden? Is Joe Biden not, verbosity and occasional blundering aside, one of the best men standing? Have we not seen his generous heart, his patience (o.k....maybe patience is a bit of a stretch) but certainly, love, joy, kindness, and all the rest? In abundance? Yes, I think we have.

And of John McCain? Love? hmmm. I'm sure he loves his wife and family, he loves his country, I do believe that. But joy, peace, patience? Self-control? I think not so much.

And Sarah Palin, the most evangelical and ferociously religious of the lot........"KILL HIM".....she smiles. You decide.

No, she won't kill babies in the womb, or let anyone else do it if she can sway the Supreme Court her way. But she'll happily send her own son, and your son or daughter, and mine, to fight and kill in a war of no purpose; a war we were conned into and a war we will be paying on, in life, limb and treasure, for many years....she's o.k. with the mass death of innocents for the purpose of maintaining oil wells in the region.

She's o.k. with abusing her power and allowing her "First Dude" manchild of a husband to run wild in the Governor's office, threatening her subordinates with their jobs if they don't help him get rid of the cruddy ex-brother in law State Cop.

Sarah Palin is fine with excoriating a good man's reputation and hurting his wife and children, so that she can maneuver her way into a position of power and influence ( God help us ) in Washington. Sarah Palin's religous zealotry is remarkable only for it's singularity and short-sighted ignorance; has she once, through all of this, sought, in prayer, God's heart looking into her heart? Has she every wondered whether the distortion of God's dream for the world that she's promoting has any basis in the Scriptures she finds infallible?

Oh.....and then there's me, isn't there. My own heart is convicted because I too, am living something not of the Spirit here. I am promoting faction, anger, strife. And I know that I don't want to project those things, or live in them. The difference is, I do know. And a more important distinction is, I am also a Christian, and St. Paul, in the same set of passages, tells me this: "My friends, if another believer is caught in a transgression, you who have received the Spirit should restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness." So, while I may not be at my most "gentle" in my approach here, I am observing my Christian duty in leading Sarah Palin back from the brink of hell fire......And my ultimate aim is to "work for the good of all" and to manifest those "fruits of the Spirit" because I do believe that they are a pretty good barometer for our own lives, and for evaluating where other people are at in their lives. I don't want anything to happen to Sarah Palin or John McCain and I would never sit idly by while listening to anyone threaten violence towards either of them. I would never think to countenance any harm coming to anyone.....and neither would any of you.

The audacity of moral outrage has to have at it's center a willingness to act upon, and an unshakeable belief in, a higher order of things; there are some lines we do not cross-- we do not listen to threats of violence and simply shrug......or smile. We say "NO.....No.No.No!" Peace, brothers and sisters, peace and love are the ways to a new world.

I want Sarah Palin and John McCain to buy air-time on all the major networks and all the cable networks, and frontpage, above the fold, in the New York Times, Washington Post, L.A. Times and every other major paper around the country and do one thing: Apologize. Apologize and make very, very clear that neither of you, ever, support even the idea, the very suggestion, of violence as a way to do politics in America! Not ever.......Never. Tell the American people, tell the World that is watching us so closely, that it is wrong to smile in the face of a threat to another person's life, or security of person. Tell us that you understand the responsibility you have to set a standard of behavior and discourse, in our political contests and communal life; be examples of Christian Values, REAL Christian values--the core values of every major religious belief system in the world-- and show us that you know that the Fruit of the Spirit is Love.

Your Kneelingwoman

Word Girl ~ Something New is Coming Soon

2008-10-08T08:58:00.000-07:00

I have no idea what, just yet, but something......

How is everyone doing? Is anyone reading anything right now that they want to tell me about? That may be the orientation of my next post--what I'm reading right now, and why. I actually have one book, in particular, that I know I will want to recommend but I have to finish it first. I love to hear about books and people's reactions to books so, fire away. In any case, I'll have something else to say pretty soon. I'm enjoying this lovely Fall weather we're having here in the Midwest. Last year was a very poor "color" year for some reason; this year promises to be a beauty. I was in Toronto last weekend and the color there was already quite spectacular, albeit still spotty. I hope to get up north some time in the next couple of weeks to see things at their "peak" so, there is that to look forward to. In the meantime, I've somehow managed to hurt my ribs. I noticed it first after lifting Mary from chair to wheelchair a few days ago ( a necessary task that is getting very hard for me to do; any ideas or advice from any of my "special needs"parents out there would be most welcome: I do know good body mechanics etc. it's just that Mary is now over 60 lbs ( and I'm not much bigger, not even double ) and it's become a "lift" no matter how much I strive to engage my legs and not my back. So, if anyone knows something I don't, please share! At any rate, the pain in my ribs is quite eye opening; it actually hurts to breathe at this point so, I may end up calling a Doctor but, it does improve with rest, and no lifting, so, we'll see. It is, however, crimping my writing style as sitting here for long periods causes an uneasy "ache" to develop in my upper back/rib cage and as I have multiple papers due each week, I have been devoting my writing time to those.

Keep me posted everyone. I'll be writing something or other shortly. Again, what are you reading and what do/did you like about it?

Your Kneelingwoman.

That Vice-Presidency to Nowhere? Thanks...but No Thanks!

2008-09-20T11:07:00.000-07:00

Thomas Jefferson, in justifying the necessity of public education by the obligation of citizens to be critical of their government, said, in summary: "for nothing can keep it right but their own vigilant and distrustful superintendence." Kentucky Farmer and Writer Wendell Berry adds " An inescapable requirement of true patriotism ..... is a vigilant distrust of any determinative power, elected or unelected, that may preside over it ".

I am not a person to promote fear, or the idea of fear, as a motivational force. My own experience of fear, whether psychic or physical, is that it obscures reality and severely limits our perceived range of options. It erodes our ability to think clearly, or to consider the potential assets and liabilities of the choices before us. In fear, we grab at any semblance of certainty; anything that seems to present something solid to stand on. When consumed by the panic that fear engenders, we become rigid in our determination to survive, and desperate in our pursuit of whatever will allow us to live another day. So I don't think employing or encouraging fear is a kindness when people are out on the edge, feeling threatened and vulnerable. It's certainly not the way to run a country: so someone explain to me why in the world John McCain thought the way to get us to vote for him was to scare us to death with the idea of Sarah Palin as Vice President!

Sarah Palin, a first term Governor of Alaska, is manifestly unqualified to be Vice President, and potentially, President, of the United States. Her lack of qualifications is not, in my view, predicated on the paucity of more obvious credentials alone. The more troubling aspect about the choice of Sarah Palin is that it is only possible in a country where the level of civil discourse is distorted and reduced to the point of meaninglessness. Does it make a difference that so many in this country turn to People Magazine, or local television news, to get information on the candidates for public office? Does it not matter that so many seemingly fail to understand that there is a difference between choosing an American Idol and an American President? What does it mean when we abdicate our civic responsibility to hold our government accountable to the public trust? What does it mean when we view John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as merely political, of no consequence; a benign ploy in an attempt to win an election and that fact used only as fodder for late night television comedy?

David Brooks, a Conservative writer with the New York Times notes, in a recent editorial, that the narrow question of whether Sarah Palin is qualified for the office to which she aspires is not the point. The deeper questions, and the dialogue we need to have to construct an answer, center on "what are the qualities the country needs in a leader, and what are the ultimate sources of wisdom?"

All of the debate swirling around Sarah Palin centers on tertiary issues. We have a very unfortunate tendency, in this country, to choose fragmentation over integration. We tear a thing apart, divide an issue ( or a person ) up into bullet-point subtexts: We are women, so we first recognize Sarah Palin as a woman but then we slice and dice into "what kind of woman?" "what does she believe about women?""is she MY kind of woman?" We look for surface affinities, but fail to examine the more complex ideologies suggested by the slogans and presentation. Pro life? Well, whose life? What kind of life? Does she speak for my views on this issue? Most importantly, does she speak for the common good, or only for the good of her Party, and those who share her values? Sarah Palin is anti-abortion, not pro-life; she supports the death penalty! She clearly believes that there are some lives that human judgement can condemn to death with impunity. What, then, does the term "pro-life" really mean? What do we think it should mean? She says she will be an "advocate for special needs families" and she parades her infant son with Down Syndrome as her personal flagship announcing her level of experience and empathy for those who live with, and raise, children with developmental disabilities. But what kind of advocate does she propose to be? Do we know? Do we care? Or is the poster proclamation enough for us?

I am a woman who has given birth to three infants with "developmental disabilities" and two have died. My daughter lives with a severely disabling condition and I have been traveling this path for nearly a decade, beginning with the birth and death of my son, Paul. My familiarity and experience level with the realities of "special needs" parenting is such that I understand that there are issues and difficulties Sarah Palin has not had time to even consider. She does not yet know what her sons needs may be, or her own, as life moves along. She simply does not have the depth of experience, nor has she had the time, to contemplate the issues which effective advocacy requires. She will, in all likelihood, yet need an "advocate" herself! I would rest easier if she gave any indication of recognizing that there might be something she doesn't know about all of this, and expressing a little humility; perhaps offer to be simply an "Empathic Presence in the White House". Effective advocacy, like effective governance, requires an experienced grasp of the issues, not just enthusiastic willingness and a bully pulpit! It is precisely this kind of uninformed, determined and obstinate certitude and lack of reflection, that has guided the last 8 years in this country! We do not need another person who "doesn't blink". We do not need another ideologue with knee-jerk decisiveness who cannot be contributed to by the voices of history and experience yet adheres to a religious world view that has the Divine Mystery whispering in her ear that she is sure to get that pipeline she asked for, and the Iraq War is part of "the plan". We do not need another leader who lacks wisdom, or discernment and, as David Brooks illustrates in his aforementioned editorial, these are the qualities wrought by experience. No, not defined as years in governance, or years in the legislature alone but that which requires prudence, defined as "the ability to grasp the unique patterns of a specific situation and to absorb the vast flow of information and still discern the essential currents of events--the things that go together and the things that will never go together. It is the ability to engage in complex deliberations and feel which arguments have the most weight."

A prudent leader can draw from a vast repository of experiences, events, and lessons from one's own personal history and the study of history. A prudent leader intelligently applies those lessons to the situation(s) at hand and makes judgements about what is essential, and what is not ~ what must be done, and what must not.

Sarah Palin is not a prudent person. She has placed herself on a fast-track towards power with nary a moment spent to view her life, or her experience, with an eye towards wisdom gained, or to notice what may have been lost along the way. It is not enough to bolster one's personal ideology or religious viewpoint with personal action: the birth of a child with disabilities may be proof of symmetry between one's stated views and one's actions. It is not proof of the objective rightness of those views which can then be projected onto others with the arrogant certainty exhibited by Gov. Palin. I too, have chosen to give birth to children with, in two cases, lethal diagnoses. I chose to live out my spiritual conviction that the womb is sacred; and that the life therein, is inviolate. But I remain adamantly pro- choice! I treasure and affirm the choice I made to bear my children, and live out, alongside them, whatever their lives were to be. But I chose. I was free to choose. I would never deny another woman her own right to make an her own free choice, uncoerced by the personal convictions of others. I understand that not every woman in my circumstances would make the choice I did and I understand the many reasons why they might not. During my pregnancy with my son, Samuel, I considered every choice available, and on many occasions, both before, and after, his birth, I wondered, and agonized, over whether I had made the right one. Giving birth to Samuel, and living with his many painful difficulties; was very hard on me, and on my family and friends. No decision is made individually; every choice impacts the communities and relationships we are a part of. Samuel brought immeasurable gifts into my life but I treasure most the wisdom gained by that experience which led to a deeper generosity of spirit and more openness to honoring the free choice of every woman, and family. I learned that certainty is a vapor, not to be trusted without testing; never without a courageous and naked diving into the cold water of hard questions. I could never, in good concience, tell another woman what she must do in such circumstances. To quote Barack Obama "it's above my pay grade!".

We allow at our peril, a marginal valuing of ideas, or a willingness to accept easy explanations, slogans and sound-bites instead of doing the hard work that nuanced thinking and consideration require. Our questions need to go to the heart of our ideas about leadership and the qualities leadership requires. Questions without substance are like "lipstick on a pig" ~ they're still questions, but they are a long "Bridge to Nowhere"..........

Why does it matter whether Sarah Palin understands, or can define, the Bush Doctrine? Why isn't being able to "see Russia from some places in Alaska" not just something to cringe at, or ridicule ( laughing through our tears of frustration )?

Lack of foresight perhaps? Would not most of you, in anticipation of an interview on a national stage where foreign policy and national security would be likely topics of inquiry, ask yourself at least one, primary question: What has been the central doctrine of our foreign policy during the current administration and what do I need to know about that? Would not most of us anticipate such a question? Is it not then shocking, and very troubling to watch, in our collective minds eye, the double-take, the "blink", followed by the stumbling attempts to dodge the pressing reality of ignorance we all saw on the face of Sarah Palin? Would any of us so clumsily blunder through a legitimate questioning about the connection between geographical proximity and political insight by giggling insipidly and answering only by echoing the question: "Well, Charlie, you know, you can see parts of Russia from some places in Alaska".

Are any of you "blinking" yet?

At the end of the day; none of this is about Sarah Palin is it? The ultimate tragedy of Sarah Palin is that she's just another exploited woman; pimped out by the McCain campaign under the stage direction of Karl Rove to attract those of our gender who look everywhere for empathic connection but do not understand that someone who is "just like me" may well know how to cut your hair, or babysit your kids but be dismally unqualified to be leader of the free world! I don't need someone like me ~ a complex little bundle of difficulties, moved to tears by words and music and my "tribe" with their darling hearts and wild lives, mother of 4, one in a wheelchair, menopausal, crony and confounded, wise....yes, but not always prudent ~ to be President of the United States. My experience suits me for the life of a Mystic, Poet, or Shaman; but not President. I have no talent for navigating international conflict, or world commerce. I don't want someone who places the nebulous term "hockey mom" at the top of their resume' and assumes that such will be viewed as an asset! I want someone with the right experience, supported by the capacity to use that experience wisely.

I want someone who has a passport that has been used and who has developed a respectful regard for other peoples and cultures. I want someone who is knowledgeable about economics, history, political science, anthropology, and religion. Someone with the ability to think through issues with caution, and take action with a full awareness, and appreciation, of potential consequences and collateral damage! I want someone who regards the right for anyone to "choose" what happens to their bodies as an issue of personal privacy ordained by natural right, and held in place by Constitutional Law.

Sarah Palin is not the point of anything. Her presence on the national scene needs to be taken seriously and we should be asking ourselves, and John McCain, what is meant by "Country First" when he so clearly placed his own self interest, and personal ambition, in place of our nations best interest and safety. By choosing Sarah Palin as his running mate, he demurred on the promise of his integrity and degraded the idea of public service as the noblest endeavor by infusing it with cynicism in the idea that only fragmented, and simplistic issues matter to the electorate. Women want only someone with similar reproductive organs and men care only for beauty, not competence, not genuine ability or expertise. His false and raging populism is a mere prop for covering despair, lack of purpose, and shortsightedness.

Sarah Palin may yet rise to exceed our current understanding of her but, we all need be cautious--and prudent--about how we examine and integrate the rest of the information offered to us. I am not willing to have Sarah Palin lead me "Into the Wild"; it is clear to me that she is not the experienced guide I need. Beyond our criticism of her mothering, her religion, or her idealogy, we have to get to the bottom of our own confusion about what we think matters to us. We have to refuse to be bought out by anyone's offer of "Hope" or "Straight Talk".

Sarah Palin is a temporary distraction from a commitment to living a deeper search for truth. We must not be deterred and we must not allow politics to obscure our ability to remember that we own this process: we are the government by the people, of the people, and for the people. If we would not be a country "Going Nowhere", we must build a sense of civic responsibilty and a higher level of discourse into our politics. We need to expect great things from great people who have proven themselves exemplars of the qualities we have collectively determined to be those of proven value and effectiveness. To determine those qualities, we have to make inspired and substantive conversations happen and work to enable every citizen to contribute, and every person to participate in the process.

Sarah Palin is not the point....do not trust your government.....do not trust me.....do not trust the media, or the think tanks.....do your own thinking, read great books, ask deeper questions, talk with your neighbors, grow your own food, publish your own ideas, make art, use your voice.....VOTE!!!!!!

Your Kneelingwoman

****The first song on my playlist is "Miracle Drug" by U2. It's a song of hope, strength and belief that we can solve problems; that we can transcend our individual concerns and views to solve issues that often seem to confound us. It is a song I live by; it is thematic, for me. It is how I share myself with those I love most deeply, knowing, as I do, that it is the love in our hearts, given to heal and build up, that is the "miracle drug" we need to have in our world. Do give it a real listen; it's a sweet space to occupy for a few minutes!

The Sarah Palin blog post ~ Tomorrow, Saturday, September 20, 2008/ 5:00 p.m. I promise!

2008-09-19T18:52:00.000-07:00

Hi faithful and patient blogwatchers! The above statement is absolutely and completely reliable information! I have the post finished, except for the title and a couple of details. I am truly sorry that this has been so prolonged; I am also terrified that it is going to disappoint, given the enormous build up with no pay off! I did my best.......

But the delay has, I think, resulted in what I hope will stand, on it's own, as a representation of how I believe our national leaders' should be evaluated, and chosen. I believe in the process of reflection and contemplation, of deep and well-informed consideration of variables and of the need for caution in the face of the potential for unintended consequences. I am for prudence, and wisdom and for the utilization of knowledge as a way of connecting ideas with values and allowing that confluence to create a portrait of leadership, and yes, leadership we can believe in; hope we can trust in.

I have moved past gender issues, as knee-jerk reactions; without excluding them. I hope I have found a way past my irritation, and my over-willingness to critique another woman only on the basis of my own experience and values. I hope I have allowed her to emerge as a person with potentials, and liabilities; strengths and weaknesses......I want a picture of Sarah Palin to emerge that evokes a sense of truth, accompanied by an unvarnished willingness to give ample lattitude and openness to possibility. I hope I've achieved these ends with fairness, and due process.

I really hope I've nailed the idea that she is utterly the wrong person, at the wrong time, and I really hope I've made a case for sending her back to Alaska with a note pinned high on her satin shoulder-pads that says..

"This Vice -President to nowhere? "Thanks but no thanks!"

O.K. darlings....tomorrow. 5 p.m. Good night and Good luck!

Your Kneelingwoman.

And if you all could send some nice, strengthening energy and encouragement my way overnight; I would so appreciate it. The day I've had! One of those days that makes one wish one was dead! No....not that bad. But some good stuff coming my way, including giving me a call with a really good and funny story, or just an email with a smily face on it would be great! Tomorrow promises to be a much better day, but I still have to survive two more hours of this bummer! Love you all!

No....not yet. I'm waiting for the leaves to change.........

2008-09-15T16:55:00.001-07:00

Hi everyone! I am still writing my Sarah Palin post but I've accrued substantially more information as well as spent a great deal of time reflecting on my reactions to the phenomenon of Sarah Palin. Part of my delay is found nestled within my description of her as a phenomenon; I am trying to work myself back towards Sarah Palin as a woman, and most importantly, as a candidate for, potentially, the highest executive position in the country and arguably, in the world.

I don't want to trivialize or marginalize her, or what she represents. I don't want to minimize my very visceral reactions to her, nor do I want a clumsy attempt to wrap words around my gut feelings to end up presented as my "last word" on the subject, only to have to hit rewind and work it over with greater clarity. If nothing else, I want to make sure I get it right to my own satisfaction.

So, I'm still composting my experience of her, and that of the women I am closest too. We're all having powerful and almost life-altering ( well, mood altering anyway ) reactions to her but I think it's terribly important to move beyond reactivity and into reflection and wisdom ( here's hoping ).

I've also been very busy with my classes and internship responsibilities. I still have three kids at home and "unschooling" so, we've been busy reading, writing and settling into our typical autumnal routines and rituals as the equinox approaches! Both my girls had birthdays over the last two weeks: Emma is now 17 and Mary turned 7 on Saturday! We've had parties and dinners and cakes and ice cream and candles and balloons and great fun. Yesterday, I hosted an educational forum with Lisa Kane Low, CNM, PhD, of the University of Michigan at my Parish on behalf of our work on the Millenium Development Goals of the United Nations. I chose MDG #5 "Improving Maternal Health" as my project some 18 months ago when we first decided to commit to this work, and contacted Lisa some time back to see if she would come and talk with us about the work she is doing in Honduras on Safe Motherhood Issues. The forum was truly remarkable and the improved outcomes for mothers and babies in Honduras, due to the collaborative effort of Lisa's group of Midwives, Nurses and Students from U of M and the Public Health Ministry in Honduras, combined with a commitment to "simple, sustainable, health care" is inspiring and affirming. This is a great example of the kind of progress that can be accomplished by prioritizing the care of pregnant and birthing women in resource-challenged communities. Healthy mothers and babies are a goal to be worked towards everywhere. We should never forget that women are still dying in childbirth in disgracefully large numbers in the developing world. Small, simple things make an enormous difference to these outcomes! "Mothers for Others" will be doing a Christmas Birth Kit Drop to Lisa for the mothers of Honduras; anyone interested in donating a birth kit, or other supplies or other offerings, should contact me for details: Michelle@closetotheroot.com

So ~ I've been kind of swamped!

I do appreciate everyone's interest and comments about my prospective "Sarah Palin" post and I promise you it IS coming.

Enjoy the cooler and drier weather everyone; more soon.

Kneelingwoman

Politics as Usual ~ Sarah Palin is not my advocate for Special Needs Parenting!

2008-09-04T20:25:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! My title for the next blog post is written above; the post won't make it up for another day or two. I'm back in the classroom and heavily involved with my internship but, I've been keeping a close eye on the back to back political conventions and I've been thrown into a state of "shock and awe" by the elevation of Sarah Palin to the VP slot on the Republican ticket.

I am a Democrat~ I am absolutely in support of Barack Obama's candidacy. My first choice, during the primary season, was Joe Biden, now the VP candidate for the Democratic Party; a very fine choice, in my view. Joe Biden is a man of deep integrity, sharp wit and intelligence....but more on that later.

I am appalled; simply horrified, by the Republican Party platform, and I want to make clear that it in no way supports or protects, women or children.

Tomorrow, or the next day, I will write a post that will be as controversial and straight up as anything I've written here; some of you may find it offensive so, I decided to give you fair warning......I will be coming off the ropes and swinging hard.

See you all this weekend!

Your Kneelingwoman

Crones Don't Whine! (Even if this looks like a REALLY long post..Be Brave! Dive RIGHT in!...It only LOOKS long from outside )

2008-08-18T15:20:00.000-07:00

Hello eveyone! I have returned from my last vacation of the summer season; another trip to the UP although at a different location. I've spoken often of my "second home" at Birch Shores Resort, near Curtis, and it is, indeed, both a place of genuine respite and rejuvenation, and an heirloom, of sorts, to my family. My children are the fourth generation to have grown up on the shores of Big Manistique Lake and I'm very devoted to the place and the people there. We do, however, go to another Resort, further west, in Au Train, Michigan. It's located between Munising and Marquette ( if you are near a map and curious ) right on the shores of Lake Superior. My husbands family used to vacation on Lake Huron, on Sturgeon Point, every August since my husband was a baby. A few years ago, the folks' who owned the rental houses decided not to rent them anymore and the search began to find a new place on or near, one of the Great Lakes. My husband and his brother have a tradition of playing frisbee amidst very large waves and big gusts of watery wind; hence the necessity to be near a larger body of water. Well, you don't get any larger than Lake Superior! I found "Northwoods Resort" via internet search and it has turned out, after three seasons testing it out; to be just the right place for our vacation with my brother in law, Matt and his family, all of whom travel from the Boston, Massachusats area to be here in Michigan twice yearly. We were all able to get our fill of wind and waves and that, combined with canoeing, making a lot of popcorn and swimming in the smaller ( and generally more hospitable) Au Train Lake; left all of us happy campers ( so to speak ).

My individual pleasures were many: walking, running, reading and writing plus nightly time spent in their wonderful sauna with my husband followed by a short walk down to the Lake to cool off and sit under the start-spattered dark night watching the moon, talking and sitting in that companionable and sweet silence that long ( and happily ) married couples find so lovely to bask in! In all of this, I had a near perfect end to what has been a challenging, but very good, useful and growth-filled summer for me.

Just before heading off on our holiday, one of my favorite "commentators" on this blog, "Cy", asked if I had ever read the book 'Crones Don't Whine~Concentrated Wisdom for Juicy Women' by the preeminent Jungian Psychotherapist ( and Crone ) Jean Shinoda Bolen M.D. and strongly suggested that I should ( a - hem ) read it. Well, I went straight out and special- ordered a copy from Borders and once I had it in hand, I read it in one sitting! It's always a delight to my mind when a book or an idea, often in combination, arrive at precisely the right time and in just the right package. I cannot thank "Cy" enough for nudging me, in her own, wonderful "crony" way, towards this book! Thank you, thank you! The book is a short but concise manifesto for menopausal and post menopausal would-be "wise women" which presents and outlines "13 Qualities of Crones"; essential footing for walking the path to wisdom.

While running an entire book past you is somewhat beyond my usual scope ( smile ), I will try to capture the essence of this marvelous work by laying out the basics. I have found that many of these qualities have emerged in my own life; some have been longtime companions; the traveling together made easier by the passage of time. Other qualities have been longer in coming to live comfortably with me; or, if I had them, they sometimes collapsed unused, or used inappropriately with fear of judgement or criticism when I was a young woman. It took me some time to find my feet, and my voice! I was well past 30 before I had learned that my strength, power and passion were positive attributes and could be used for good and shared with the world. Other qualities have come about with great struggle and long years of learning to know, understand and accept myself in wholeness by learning to take myself seriously ( but not too seriously ) and learning to enjoy the process instead of anxiously anticipating the destination and struggling to control it all!

The transition to maturity comes, I think, when we finally care more about ourselves as whole persons, than about projecting an acceptable image and that takes time and work. We also begin, finally, to truly love people for who they are and not what we think we want them to be; to appreciate their authentic, unique presence in our lives. We learn to prune and streamline our relationships and work; finding that we have only so much time and energy to devote to others and to the things we care about. Our compassion grows in tandem with our learning to love and forgive ourselves for whatever it is we think we didn't "do right" earlier in our lives. We realize, finally, that it doesn't matter. We learn to own and appreciate our essentially "wild" nature and to cultivate the parts of ourselves and our lives that we've neglected; or disowned. And we have to fight for it every step of the way! Our culture still doesn't quite know what to do with "wild women". We often don't know what to do with ourselves! We women have a hard time owning our power and learning to use it wisely, kindly and with compassion and clear intention. The "13 Qualities of Crones" create a fine construct for growth and change. I recommend that you read the book; even if you are a long way from your "Crone's Crowning" as herbalist Susun Weed puts it. If you are a woman; you need to read it! But here, for your beginning walk into wisdom; are the "13 Qualities of Crones". Enjoy!

1. Crones Don't Whine!

2. Crones are Juicy

3. Crones have Green Thumbs

4. Crones trust what they know in their bones

5. Crones meditate in their fashion

6. Crones Are Fierce About What Matters to Them

7. Crones Choose the Path with Heart

8. Crones Speak the Truth with Compassion

9. Crones listen to their Bodies

10. Crones Improvise

11. Crones Don't Grovel

12. Crones Laugh Together

13. Crones Savor the Good in Their Lives

The last chapter in the book is entitled "Musings" and contains what, to me, is a fine summation of the heart of this book. Quoting Angeles Arrien, anthropologist, author and Crone, the following are offered as essential qualties of learning to "Live Out Loud" as my friend Sparrow says:

1. Show up

2. Pay attention

3. Speak your truth, and

4. Don't be attached to outcome/ pray for best outcome.

I have found these ideas, in the main, to be the essential guiding principles of my life! I don't know if I have ever articulated them in this way; but I have found these to be my own best path towards living a life of meaning and clarity. I find that the last, especially, becomes essential as we age. It's very, very hard to not want something to turn out the way we want it to; telling someone to remain unattached to outcome can seem harsh; glaringly cold in the face of so much uncertainty in our lives. Yet, I've learned that it's truly the only way to fly.......

When my son Samuel was born so very ill; I learned, finally, to let go and to simply "pray for best outcome" without attachment to any belief that I could know what that "best outcome" actually might be. Samuel was very, very fragile and struggled mightily for every breath he drew. As a mother; my first instinct was to ensure his survival and God knows I worked 24/7, as did my darling husband, to keep him alive. Yet I also knew, with that same mothers' intuition; that death was, perhaps, the "best outcome" for Samuel. I believed, from the time we first knew, at 21 weeks gestation, that he was affected by the same disorder that had taken our infant son, Paul, several years earlier, that he would die. I knew it in my bones and through all those long weeks in the NICU, while Surgeons and Neonatologists and Genetics and Nurses worked and labored to figure out Samuel, I still knew that what Samuel wanted most was his freedom~he wanted to "Fly Away"*** When he died, at age 10 months, I learned that the best thing I could have done for him was exactly what I did: loved him, and trusted him to know when he was ready to go. My daily spiritual practice that included focused and prayerful awareness of the principle of remaining "unattached to outcome" had proven to be a wisdom-jewel of great value! There is a so much energy released and available to us when we realize that we are not in control and that most things, if not ALL things; are quite beyond our ability to control and that is NOT a bad thing! It's what interior freedom and peace of mind are made of. We really only have to do our part; handle our end. We can't do anyone else's part nor live their lives or make their decisions for them.

Many young women ( and men; but I think women struggle with this more) find "letting go" to be a very hard task! Especially when they want so desperately to believe that they can control people, events and situations and manipulate or force them to do what they want because they live in such horrifying and paralyzing fear of losing control or of being what they assume will be "hurt". They often believe that there MUST be a way to control people and events because, if there isn't; they are terrified. Often, it is only when life takes it's inevitable tumble towards chaos that they begin to grow wise and simply allow the pain and emptiness to wash over them and purge the need to contain experiences and people in mental safe havens! Somehow, we all find out, eventually, that it just doesn't work. We are forced to give in and give up and, if we "show up, pay attention, speak our truth, and stay unattached to outcome while praying for the best outcome" we take our first, wobbly steps towards being "Crones". We stop assigning responsibility for our feelings, lives and behavior, to others and we grow up. We also learn to truly trust people because we are no longer bestowing magical powers over our lives onto their shoulders! We start to have real friendships and our relationships become reservoirs of peace, strength, support, love and joy. We have to learn to be clear-eyed stewards of our lives and when we are young, and still physically and psychologically energetic enough to fight it off hand and fist--we struggle and we hurt-- but stick with it....stick with it. Walk it out, live it through.......the peace, courage, strength and wisdom come if we just keep showing up!

So, yes friends'; I'm back and in fine fettle, if I do say so myself. I have done a lot of work this summer; hard work. I've written pages and pages in my journal; gone on Retreat, worked with my Spiritual Director and spent time with loved family and friends. It's been a good year! I'm glad to be back with you all as we head into Fall and all the fresh anticipation the change in seasons brings with it. I hope you all had a great summer~till next time.......

Kneelingwoman

*** Samuel's "song" on my playlist is "I'll Fly Away" ~ I used to play it for him and hold him, dancing around our living room. He liked it.

Summertime, and the Living is Easy

2008-08-04T10:10:00.000-07:00

Hello Everyone ~ This will be a short post; just a note, really. After sitting with my "changes" to the blog over the last couple of weeks, I've decided to return to my original idea and format. My future writing will center on my current life and interests ( as in the description above ). I will no longer be writing on "Midwifery" or "Birth" related topics. I expect that some of my usual readers will no longer be much interested but, I don't feel that my most recent attempts to keep those topics running have been very successful, or comfortable for me. I continue to be involved with, and deeply concerned about, Maternal Health Issues, especially as it concerns women and families in the developing world where extreme poverty and disease are such factors and the "Mothers for Others" listings will remain and I will write on those topics from time to time.

My own lifestyle, over the last 30 years, has been an evolving process of working towards greater authenticity and simplicity in all things~~ in making a living, educating my children, growing spiritually towards a more intimate exchange with a Creator who is friend, companion and sustainer; rather than a granter of wishes ( the great Santa Clause in the Sky ) or a punitive and angry parent. I have so much to share about these, and other, issues and interests! Leaving Midwifery has been a deeply painful and lonely process. Several more "repeat" clients have called and been disappointed to hear of my retirement and a few new families, referred by my older clients; have also had to be told "no". Every time, the refusal gets more painful, not less. I am simply not willing to practice Midwifery in the borderlands anymore; not really legal but with no legal protections and increasing antagonism from the Medical Community. A number of people have written, over the last few months and asked me "why" or whether I would consider coming "out of retirement" and I haven't had much of a ready answer. It isn't all about the legalities although that is the major reason. Beyond that, I have no Midwifery "partner" and no prospects really; most young or apprenticing Midwives want to work with someone with a larger practice than I have, or would ever be willing to have. There was a time when I was doing the usual 4 or so births a month but, as my family grew, that became impossible to balance. I also thought that it was sending the wrong message. I truly want young women to value their short time as "mothers of babies and young children" and after I had Hugh, almost 14 years ago; I found that the "revolving door" method of mothering my kids was wearing very, very thin and I increasingly felt that I wasn't "walking the talk" with my clients. So, I cut back. I cut way back. My family life improved and, in many ways, I enjoyed my work more because I wasn't so torn but, I'm not the Midwife to work with if you're trying to get 100 births done in a couple of years! I had hoped, over the last few years; that I would find someone who wanted to build a truly "Family Centered" Midwifery practice, offering, in addition to homebirth services; some substantial Postpartum Care Services, and more Family Life Education which I spent several years preparing for but, it just hasn't happened so, when the legal issues began to loom ever larger, and more menancingly, I decided it was time to put down my fetoscope, so to speak. But it hasn't been easy and I don't minimize any of the pain it's brought along with it. It's very hard to let go of anything one has loved, and believed in, as much as I've loved and believed in, Midwifery and Homebirth.

I applaud and respect my sister Midwives who have determined to continue their practices in spite of it all but, while my older children are young adults or nearly so, my daughter Mary is only 6 and has a disability; I simply can't afford to take risks with my freedom or our finances anymore and working alone had become simply untenable for me; the work requires so much and I really need a partner; without one, it's just too much.

I had hoped that perhaps I could keep my "hand" in by writing about Midwifery and continuing to give away my knowledge and experience but, there doesn't seem to be much need for that and in all honesty, it has, in some way, only seemed to allow me a certain denial--that I am still a Midwife and that this is still my life. It isn't. And it's time to let it go.

I still have lots of cool stuff to write about and I hope some of you, at least, will continue reading here but, if not, I'm sure other folks' will find me in some roundabouts way and be able to enjoy some of what I can offer.

Enjoy the rest of the summer and I hope to continue to see some of you around these parts!

Kneelingwoman

The Babymoon ~ Health and Healing for Postpartum Women and Families.

2008-07-18T17:08:00.000-07:00

****A housekeeping note: I have created a new blog site ( at left ) where I will regularly post any information/advice I make referenced to in the presenting essay. I thought it would be less taxing and time consuming if anyone who just wanted "help" could pop over there and take what they need! I hope you all find this useful and user friendly. Please give me any feedback on either and I'll adjust accordingly. Thanks.

The Babymoon.......those first 6 weeks following childbirth that are supposed to be some of the most wonder-filled and beautiful times of a woman and family's life. The baby has been born, mom and baby have been declared "healthy" and "normal" and whether the birth took place at home, in the hospital, was a "natural" birth or a cesarian section; everyone is recovering well, resting, eating and when not occupied with those things, in a state of blissed out rapture, taking in the sweet, unfolding perfection of the new baby and..........I hear many of you screaming already and heads hitting the screen!~~ The reality, for far too many women and families, is that the first few days and weeks postpartum bear no resemblance to the above scenario and worse still; the portrayal of something called a "Babymoon" has been one more set up, for too many women, for disappointment in their own, unique, once in a lifetime birth of this child, at this time, into this particular family. It is, indeed, a precious and wonderful time but it requires some serious planning and a lot of support to create a "Babymoon" that is healing, joyous, relaxing, restful, recuperative and realistic. It requires, also, that we think more deeply about the needs of the Childbearing Family during the "4th Trimester" which, in my view, is the more appropriate time frame for early, postpartum healing with a normal, vaginal birth. If a woman has had a c section; she is recovering from major, abdominal surgery and will require, at a minimum, the allowance of at least 12-16 weeks before resuming her usual activities and work load. Not all women will, of course, require this much time; many will need more! What matters is that we honor the woman's process and give her what she needs to recover and heal.

Our western culture places enormous importance on self-sufficiency and a quick return to "normal" functioning and ability. It is not only in childbirth that this is true; witness how many people sustaining the death of a loved one, the death of a baby or child or an earlier pregnancy loss, are told after some arbitrary number of weeks or months that they should be "over" it by now. We no longer view simple, human situations such as pregnancy and birth, or loss and bereavement as "normal" events which still require particular "boundaries" and rituals to support the transition back to living one's life and we have trouble accepting that there is no return to "normal"; at least not the "normal" one knew before the event. There is a new life to work into; new ways of thinking and dealing with things.....it takes time and the kind of compassionate, sustained, and practical support that women and families used to be able to count on back when people lived in smaller, preindustrial communities, were well known to one another, and family lived near by; now has to be intentionally created, rather than expected. At any time in history where women have lived far away from natural support systems; maternal and infant mortality has been higher and there has been greater incidence of depression, anxiety, infanticide and child abuse. One has only to read some of the extant diaries of women on the American Frontier during the 19th century to be quite convinced of the differences apparent in the quality of life of women who lived near "town" and those who were miles away from any, other women or families.

Childbearing women need support and, in particular, they need the support of other women. They need practical, hands on help with the activities of daily life in a family--the cooking, cleaning, childcare, shopping, laundry. As women, they also need the empathy and support of another, hopefully experienced, woman to give them the physical and emotional support they need. Someone to "rule the roost" for a few weeks; creating a safe space around the mother so that she can get to know her newborn, adapt to her postpregnant body and psyche and not be taxed with demand from the outside; including the demands of older children, other family and friends who, while probably well- meaning, may require too much of the mothers focus and energy at a delicate and tender time. (we need an army of Postpartum Doula's, paid for by health insurance; for every, single woman and family) I'm not trying to imply that the mother should not be responsive to her older children but, the children need to have someone else around to "tend" to them so that mom's time with them can be moments of relaxed interaction; reading a story, watching a movie together, talking about and getting to know the new baby. Too often, the father of the family ends up doing double, or triple duty and has no time to be "postpartum" himself, or to bond with the baby or help shape the emotional transition of his older children and mate. It's just hard; much harder than it needs to be or ought to be. A culture that doesn't even validate the first 40 days after the birth of a child; creating a protected and cared- for space for a woman to heal and grow into her new role; has a lot of explaining to do! A society is best evaluated by the care it takes of it's most vulnerable members--Mothers and babies, children, the sick and frail, the elderly, the homeless, the mentally ill--we have a long way to go before we can lay claim to doing the best job possible for these precious human beings.

We can't just wait for the world to change, however, we have to start in our own communities and, birthing families need more education prenatally, to prepare for postpartum realities so that they can make plans based on a realistic assessment of needs; and plan for worst-case scenarios.

In my Midwifery practice, I placed special emphasis on postpartum planning; often to the irritation and dismay of my client parents' who, understandably, saw the birth as the culminating event and didn't really see how what happened afterwards could be that important. I must admit that mostly, it was first time parents, sometimes second time, who had the most difficulty with the idea of planning for after the baby. By the time a woman is having her third, or more, child....she knows. She knows.

I have a document in my parent booklet entitled "Cooperative Guidelines for Pregnancy and Birth" that I designed as a chart outlining the entire care cycle through the 6 week checkup. I also routinely did a 3 month check "in" by phone, following up with a home visit if there seemed to be any issues for the mom or family. At the top of the chart, I wrote: "The following checklist is designed to facilitate communication between us as we plan for your birth and early parenting. It is basically a working reminder of all essential details that need to be attended to during pregnancy, birth and postpartum. I hope you will find it helpful. Please post conspicuously and refer to it often. Thank you. " One of the things that indicated to me that the parents were taking responsibility for their birth or were assuming that "someone else" was supposed to do it all for them, was whether or not the list got posted anywhere, or whether it stayed in their folder, or was lost at some point. There was a heavy correlation between things going well, or falling apart, based on their response to this one, simple request! At the beginning of the second trimester, one of the listed talking points is "Choosing your Postpartum Doula Circle ~ Planning for Postpartum and the Fourth Trimester." During this discussion, I would ask the mom/parents, to spend some time thinking about someone in their community to designate as "Postpartum Doula" or to hire one. If neither was an available option for them; I fulfilled the role. The Doula thus chosen, would take charge of contacting a list of family and friends and creating a work chart for all the esssential details of the family's needs and daily life for 6 weeks and that there was a contingency agreement that at least 3 people be willing to offer extended support in the event of a complicated birth or c section. Once the agreements were made; the Doula would be responsible for staying in contact with everyone and seeing to it that everyone had a listing of names/contact information and assigned times and "jobs" for each person. This immediately freed the birthing family from the discomfort of having to "ask" for their helpers to show up after the birth; that became the responsibility of the Doula and this "circle" of helpers really responded well to this approach! I never had anyone balk or fail to do what they had promised. The difficulties, I found, were when things were not well planned in advance; and people felt that they were being put on the spot after the fact. The great thing about the advance planning is that it allows people to work in their "comfort zone" and also, sad but true; to decline to help to a third party without undue guilt; no small thing. Sometimes, family especially, will offer to help, or say that they will when asked but if they are uncomfortable in the situation; they will probably be "no shows". There is no point "judging" that fact or in analyzing what's "wrong" with family or close friends who "neglect" a new mother. Usually, they truly want to be helpful but don't know how. I've more than once been pleasantly surprised when a previously unwilling family member has called me and said "Well.....I don't know quite what I can do but, do you think they might like someone to wash all their windows???" It's too sweet. And by golly, they show up and wash those windows until they sparkle! Sometimes, we just have to give people the clear idea that anything they can do; will help a great deal.

My goal for the families in my care was always a complete return to maternal health and family wellness; as defined by them, in a time frame that seemed appropriate for them. The only way those parameters can be determined is by listening to the Mother! Input from the mate and other family members is valuable but, mom is the one who must be made right with her experience and new life! As the old adage has it, "If mama ain't happy; aint nobody happy". No truer words were ever spoken!

As noted earlier; my general guidelines for postpartum planning and healing, as well as my extended notes on healing from cesarian surgery, are found by popping over to my other blog listed at top, left. I will list, in outline form, all the information useful to both that I've used and worked with over the years. If you have any questions that fall outside of "comments" or you would like some private council; please feel free to email me at Michelle@closetotheroot.com

Your Kneelingwoman

Return from Paradise!

2008-06-30T09:12:00.001-07:00

Hello everyone; I'm back! We had a wonderful time in the Upper Peninsula. The weather was quite lovely; not too hot with just enough in the way of thunderstorms and wind to make it interesting and something to marvel at; I love weather of all kinds. I spent most of my time as I always do; sitting on the beach; thinking, reading and writing. Our cabin at the Resort is situated on the the bluff, overlooking the beach area which is perfect for letting Mary play in the sand and talk with everyone who passes by. As she is unable to walk; she quite happily stays put and lets the world come to her; and it does! She is quick to make a new friend and shows a lot of curiosity and interest in what might be going on around her so, she's fun to talk to and be with. My older kids spend their time reading (Emma ), fishing off the docks (the boys') and eating. My husband is very fond of a particular brand of ice cream treats that we are only able to find in the UP so, the first full day there requires a trip to town to buy a great deal of ice cream; all of which is consumed by the time we leave! There are lots of long walks and, for me, time spent just looking at the Lake and breathing the air. I am truly most "myself" and most content, when just sitting there taking it all in every year. Most evenings find a group down by the fire : drinking beer, talking and generally living it up. I tend to partake fully of these opportunities; the night sky is so dark and shot full of stars that going to bed too early for the light show seems a waste of a week. The downside of that is the great difficulty I have getting to bed before sunrise upon my return home! I'm wound back to around 1:00 a.m. now so, another few days and I should be back on my usual schedule! I also really enjoy the people there and the family that owns the Resort is second in my heart only to my own family; they are part of my extended tribe, probably through several lifetimes if you know what I mean. The week always passes too quickly for me but, I was happy to return home and get back to my garden and house, neighbors and friends and all of you.

I can't leave the topic of the Resort; truly my second home and my spiritual power center without truly "plugging" them: If you are located anywhere in the midwest ( or perhaps even beyond; I understand that people still come from all over the U.S. to vacation there ) and especially if you have children; this is a wonderful place to vacation. The Upper Peninsula of Michigan is, hands down, one of the most beautiful, pristine, wild and spiritually powerful areas of the country! The Resort is situated on Big Manistique Lake, near Curtis, Michigan. The family, "The Bitely's" are the warmest, kindest, most easy-going, relaxed, bright and witty bunch you would every want to meet! The oldest son of the current stewards, Jay, is the absolute embodiment of the place: he walks around with the entire piece of land and water investing every inch of his body! He's great with the kids; they all love him and climb all over him! The activities for family are just the kind of relaxed, "retro" thing we of a certain age ( 40 plus ) remember from our own childhoods; indeed, my own was spent vacationing in this very spot, with this same family. Lots of sand, water, bonfires, marshmallows, and "truck rides" every evening for the kids! Really great stuff. If you're interested: Birch Shores Resort N10080 County Rd. 135 McMillan, Michigan 49853 Phone: 906 586 3771

Emma and I are looking for an hour or two to post all my contact information for maternal health groups and organizations as well as my play list ( yup....you'll soon get to read to music ) but I wanted to sign in and say "hello" and wish everyone a happy slightly belated Solstice! I hope all of you are enjoying some fine and seasonable weather and lovely times with family and friends. More in a day or so!

Your Kneelingwoman

Resignation........

2008-06-19T16:10:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone: As you all know, I've written two posts, back to back, on the topic of organizing on behalf of women who live in extreme poverty and who, as a consequence, suffer an outrageously elevated risk of dying during pregnancy or childbirth; as do their infants and young children. The numbers are staggering and the disparity between the excesses of obstetrics in the West and the paucity of even the most basic care in the developing world is, quite simply, beyond dismaying.....it is disgraceful.

I had hoped for a quite supportive and enthusiastic response, and indeed, some of you have written with open hearts and minds to the topic and the possibility of somehow engaging this issue with action. I'm very grateful and appreciative of those who took the time to write and comment so positively.

However.......

I have continued ( in spite of a clear request that such correspondence be sent directly as comment to my blog ) to be regaled with criticism after criticism, via e mail, several with an e mail address seemingly trumped up for the occasion ( as my attempts to respond have bounced back as "undeliverable" ) and much of it apparently pulled from the air; to my suggestions, ideas and aspirations.

Most of it seems to conclude that I am somehow a traitor and betrayer of the "ideals" of homebirth midwifery or midwifery in general; as I seem to no longer support the idea of women's "choices" in childbirth. I am told that women "deserve" the choice to birth at home with midwives or unassisted if that is their choice; that my writing implies that it is neither important, relevant or worthwhile to continue to advocate for those choices. Well.......here's the deal:

In one way; you're right. I don't think anyone "deserves" anything just because they happen to want it. I also happen to believe that what all women "deserve" if anything; is safety and security of person during their childbearing years! I am not willing to support any idea, any longer, that finds it o.k. to marginalize, in fact, completely ignore, women who are suffering the way so many of those women suffer, and die, as they try to give birth. No ~ "choice" in that sense is not, or is no longer; important to me.

I have heard from a few of the same folks' who wrote to criticize my ideas about midwifery education; who apparently feel that the status quo is working so well that there is no need to consider changing anything; and it would be nice if that were true, but it isn't true. Midwifery and homebirth are not growing and are not "succeeding" in the way that I've heard they're "going to" for the last 25 years! We are caring for the same 1% of women we've been caring for and the lack of progress have very much to do with having an educational process that the vast majority of American women ( not to mention the health care industry ) cannot, and probably will not, ever validate! The devil is always in the details and until we manage to figure out how to safely attend births without every needing a hospital or Physician or Surgeon.....we will be expected to fit into that system in some reliable, relevant way! Sorry....but that's what I've seen and heard over and over, and over and over from Physicians, Nurses, Nurse-Midwives and Health Care Attorneys through the years. I understand, and have always understood, the grass roots nature of homebirth midwifery; it is what attracted me to it in the first place 30 years ago! But 30 years ago, the difference between the level of technology applied to birth by Obstetrics and Midwives was much closer than it is today. When I was in Nursing school, and went through OB; we were still using a fetoscope to get heart- tones! There was a doppler on the floor but it was only used when someone couldn't hear with the fetoscope! Monitoring during labor was intermittent and done "by hand". Prenatal ultrasound was used rarely; only when someone suspected a problem. There was a lot of pain medication used but the epidural wasn't around; a spinal might be used occasionally for pain, more likely for surgery only, so, labor support from a young nursing student was welcome and helped a lot! In short, birth in the hospital had some significant drawbacks for women and babies but, we weren't fighting a 30% c section rate, 90% epidural rate and the inductions and all the rest. We were doing pretty much what the Physicians were doing; we were just doing it at home! I lived in Northern Michigan at the time and the Doctors weren't all that put out about homebirth or "lay" midwifery; just more goofy hippies doing their thing! Obviously, times have changed and attitudes have changed as well, but not for the better. The difference between what homebirth midwives do now, and what is happening in Obstetrics for most women creates an even more potent cognitive dissonance for most women--midwifery, for the mainstream mom; looks primitive and scary and an education by 'apprenticeship' and 'self study' doesn't exactly breed a high level of confidence in average mom. It is isn't that the "education" itself is insufficient; it's the packaging! I'm a homeschooling parent; I know that "education" and "schooling" are not synonymous. I know that my own many years of self-designed study and endless testing and quizzing of myself to ensure that I knew....well, everything ( I hoped ) that I could need to know within my sphere of action ( at home, with laboring mom ) and then some; enabled me to provide good, safe, wholistic care for a long time. I worked very hard to learn what I needed to learn and I questioned every other "expert"--Doctor, Nurse, Midwife--I ran across to learn more. I think we all ( midwives ) do this because we are so passionate about this work; we care about the women. But, our educational "packaging" just doesn't work for people who found theirs wrapped up in the ribbon of the University system and who never even considered any other option and folks; that's most of the country, and most of the world! So, yes, I still feel we need to make some alterations if we want to grow a midwifery that is independent, direct entry and part of the "system" that is available to all birthing women!

I never wanted to be anything other than a homebirth midwife; I didn't do it for money, I did it for love and I think that's true of most midwives my age and older. We were called into it at a different time and with different expectations. Some of my elders have embraced more credentialing, more insurance reimbursement, more money, more everything.....others have retired. I have retired, in frustration and with the hope of doing something for women who have no "choices" and no real hope of improving their state if someone doesn't make them a priority and reach out. My retirement from midwifery was, and is, premature and not what I planned, or wanted. I deeply loved my work; it is the only work I ever wanted to do and my passion for women, babies and families has been the song in my heart all of my adult life! It is very difficult for me to find something else that comes close to that; this is a very hard time for me; a good time, a happy time, a growth time, but challenging and with a fair share of heartache. I have not yet known a day, since I "retired" my practice, that I have not cried over the loss. It is a death for me; a death of something near and dear and irreplaceable. The idea that people who don't know me; would write to me and tell me that "apparently", I never really cared about the women who needed me or I wouldn't be saying these things" Or " If you feel so strongly about maternity care; why are you bailing on midwifery?" "Just bored? Need something that "looks" better on your resume'?" Yeah. Really. Pretty intense and quite painful, I can assure you all.

The fact is, midwifery in the home cannot be maximally safe without proper medical backup. I have one physician I have been able to count on, over the years, to help my clients and me, when needed. He will soon retire and even he has a harder time, now, justifying helping out a homebirth midwife. The legal situation in Michigan has become a darker shade of the "gray"than the one we all lived so comfortably with for so long and more women seem to embrace the idea that all risks in birth are iatrogenic ( caused by medical/midwifery interference ) and, in my experience, take more "risks" and reject more vigorously, any idea that there are things that must be done to ensure a safe and good birth; like monitor the pregnancy to make sure things are remaining within a normal, low risk range. To many of them, there is no "range" of normal anymore; everything is O.K. I've had women tell me that the fact that they smoke ( just a little ) during pregnancy isn't really risky! Uh huh....O.K. So, I feel like a bit of a dinosaur.....and a bit lost from time to time.

I turned my attention to these other issues in maternity care because they were placed in front of me by God? Providence? Holy Spirit? Call it what you will. I saw that it was something else for me to wrap my heart and mind around; to tackle and to work with and, during the last few months, this blog, and so many of you; made me believe that there was a group energy happening that might find a way; even a small but lovely way; to help.

I can't help but believe that mothers and midwives in the U.S. are the proper group to address this and that this is the right time but, I am told, that we have too many problems in midwifery here; that we aren't making the strides we need to here and how can I suggest that women a world away are more important than women in my own country........all of this begins to have the same feeling that I imagine Michelle Obama experienced when her patriotism was questioned after she said that she was "proud of her country for the first time in her adult life". Out of context. Blown out of proportion.

I am not talking about "midwifery" per se. I'm talking about Mothers....working for other mothers. Some might be midwives or might have worked with midwives and so, have a sense for the maternal depth and caring that most midwives bring to their work; that I brought to mine. I was not, am not, writing here to promote, protect or defend, midwifery. I am here writing about women, mothers, children, family, marriage, community; all the things that make up a life ( read the "mission" statement at that top of my blog; midwifery is not named as a part of it ). I think everyone "deserves" to be allowed to aspire to a whole and good life; I think that is a birthrite; the choice of birth attendant and place is a luxury. We may not recognize it as such, here in the U.S. where there is a Starbucks on every corner and an OB or a Midwife in most communities ( but not all; and that too is something none of us should be satisfied to live with ). Basic safety must come first for all women; freedom from a very realistic fear of death and disability in childbearing. That comes first; "choice" comes later.

I am not naive. I understand how the world works and I am too closely affiliated with people who've worked on the front lines of various social justice initiatives, here and abroad, for many, many years, to believe that there are easy fixes. Some feel, and I understand, that what we do here for ourselves, doesn't impact anyone across continents; but it does. The U.S uses more of the world's resources, many times over, than any other country on the planet. As one of my kind readers' pointed out in her comment; if we were willing to begin advocating that the excesses in our Obstetrical system be down sized to the simple, sustainable health care that community midwifery provides so beautifully ( and that I have advocated over and over on this blog ) there would be more of those resources to reallocate elsewhere; it is more easily said than done, I know, but actually, such redistribution is not only possible; it is exactly what many groups and organizations are doing right now, to help millions.

I want to insert, here, that I am truly sorry if some of you have felt that my writing on this topic has been some kind of "guilt trip"; an egregious attempt to hijack your favorable response to my writing for some purpose beyond what you, perhaps, read a blog for. That wasn't my intention. It is not possible for me to completely segregate the great loss I feel in giving up my practice with my desire, and need, to fill the void left behind. Even though I am in school, learning a new work, and interning as a spiritual director--all good things and all fulfilling-- I miss the simple joy of attending my families and I ache over the hurt feelings left in the wake of my realization that I couldn't continue attending births. I had to turn away long time clients; people I dearly love. Most were understanding, compassionate; they even continue to call and touch base to see how I'm doing--some were angry and hurt and felt rejected and abandoned and that is a pain and a burden I find harder to carry each day. So, perhaps, I do feel a too large need to find a "larger" space to fill; a greater need to take my attention and energy to convince myself that the surrender of this large part of my heart was somehow, worth it. Perhaps that's it. I'll keep thinking about it.......

I read a lot of blogs; I read spiritual blogs and political blogs and midwifery blogs and I read Dr. Amy.....everyone has valid insights and viewpoints but the one thing that jumps out at me and baffles me, frankly, is the anger. Everyone is so angry....so willing to criticize, sometimes, no, often, with enormous cruelty and abrasiveness. There is name calling and character assasination......what's the objective anyway? If people are writing to change the world ( and that's why I write; ultimately, it's kind of why anyone writes ) then why not utilize the kind of time tested, true and effective methods of persuasion? Why not make one's case with kindness and respect for the "guest" on one's blog? What is the point of chasing someone away when your stated goal is to educate and inform?

Did any of you pay any attention to the death and subsequent funeral services of Tim Russert? The NBC Washington Bureau Chief and Moderator of that eminent bastion of public civil discourse; Meet the Press? He was a hero of mine; I admired him and looked to him, week after week, for many years, to know what was happening politically and socially and at the highest levels of our conversations on national policy. His integrity, in interviewing his guests; his fairness and kindness were what made him an effective change agent and mediator for our debates and dialogues; why should any of us aspire to anything less?

When people write me emails that seek not just to dissuade me from a particular path, but to ascribe all manner of ugly and unfounded motivation to my words and potential actions; it shames us all.

I don't know, at this point, how or when I'll continue this blog. I may take it down altogether. I may just change the subject. I'm willing, and more than willing, to use my time and energies on good and great enterprises and on the valued and wonderful conversations I've had here but, I am not willing to invite the cross examination of people who do not know me, or do not know what my motives are and yet who feel at liberty to malign me, my friends, my ideas and even those who read my blog regularly and supportively; out of their own fears, anxieties and misdirected anger.

So....just so you know: If you are a regular reader here and want to e mail me; please use the blogger name I know in the Re: so that I will open and read it; otherwise, the rest of you should just save your energy because I'm not planning to read any more ugly stuff!

I'm going on vacation this next week; I'll make a decision while I'm away about continueing here, or not. I hope you all enjoy the summery weather ( and I hope any of you living where the weather has been so dangerous and difficult are finally seeing some relief ) and please know that my respect and affection for you all is unabated and I continue to hope that we will find a common conversation that works well for all of us on this blog. Peace.