All is well, safely rest, God is nigh

I attended a memorial service yesterday for my oldest brother's father-in-law, who, like my own late father-in-law, had served in the Navy during World War II. Two members of the Navy Honor Guard were at Bob's memorial service to present his widow with an American flag. Before they did so, they played a recorded bugle call of "Taps." 

Before I knew it as "Taps" or knew anything of its association with military protocol and military funerals, I knew its melody as something my father sang every time he tucked me into bed as a small child. My mother would sing a children's song about springtime (I think it may have come from one of those Concord Song Book volumes that were ubiquitous in my childhood, at school and elsewhere).  My father would sing to the melody of Taps: "Day is done, gone the sun, from the lake, from the hills, from the sky, all is well, safely rest, God is nigh." After which he would recite the Lord's Prayer, and then a short list of blessings: "God bless Mummy and Daddy and Dicky and David and Jonny and Peggy and Sukie and everybody. Amen." Dicky was my "ghost brother," my parents' first child who died before I was born. It was both utterly ordinary and yet also a little disconcerting to hear the name of my dead brother recited right there in proper birth order along with the rest of us. 

Sitting in yesterday's memorial service, letting the melody of Taps wash over me while tears ran down my cheeks, I thought about my father at bedtime, so many bedtimes over so many years. Just how long this tradition was continued, I have no idea. And I thought of those basic seeds of religious faith handed on in that bedtime ritual: the Lord's Prayer, the asking of God to bless each member of my family, including the brother who had died, and the singing of that song: "All is well, safely rest, God is nigh." These days that's more than ample a declaration of faith for me. No fancy theology needed. Just the basics: All is well. God is nigh. And while we're at it, God bless everybody.

No Disguises

David is sometimes right; actually, David is often right, especially when it comes to my psyche's well-loved traps. After being married to me for 21 years, he can sniff out my favorite traps from quite a distance and warn me when he thinks I'm walking right into one. Sometimes I listen, and sometimes I don't. (And after all, he may want to spare me the agony of learning the hard way for the 99th time, but at some point I really do need to figure things out for myself, although God knows most of us need all the help we can get from people who love us!).

The most recent example in question concerns my writing and this blog. From time to time I make noises about wanting to write an honest, unvarnished account of the journey that brought me to renounce my ordination vows last April, after 24 years as an Episcopal priest, the only "professional identity" I've ever had. And David has said things like, "Why make it so big? why tell yourself you have to write a book? No one should write a book unless they absolutely MUST! Why don't you just start to write about it in your blog? Why make your blog one thing and your "book writing" another?"

Well, I have my days when I think he's absolutely right, and then I have my days when the public exposure side of a blog makes me a little bit queasy. I love the fact that on any given day, I might hear from SOMEONE who has read my blog and gives me quick feedback. It is wonderful to know that people are actually reading it and getting something out of it. But I also worry that if I started writing a truly honest account of my journey, I might start getting some negative feedback, might start shocking some people and losing my fledgeling readership, and that would convince me to stop writing. Or at least that even imagining that I could stir up some really negative feedback might make me less honest and bold in my writing. (Hmmm, sounds like a garden variety voice of fear, with maybe a little valorous discretion mixed in...)

I had a wee small breakthrough last week that is prompting me to just go ahead and blog it all anyway. I was rehearsing in my head the two most feared and anticipated criticisms I have of my writing (besides that it might be considered blasphemous, or something--but hey, what can they do to me? I'm not a priest any more!). I really really don't want people to think my writing is either BORING or SELF-INDULGENT. Especially the "self-indulgent" one...somehow that one really gets its claws into me. Partly because I know two or three people who have leveled that charge against Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love. (I found Under the Tuscan Sun to be kind of whiny and self-indulgent; I found Eat, Pray, Love to be honest. Maybe it's because one was fussing about a house in Tuscany--such a "problem"--and the other was talking about big internal issues in ways I found helpful.)

Back to my breakthrough: So I have these twin fears: that people will think my writing is "boring and/or self-indulgent" and that I might fail. And it occurred to me that if some people find Eat, Pray, Love to be self-indulgent and I liked Eat, Pray, Love (and clearly a lot of other people do too; more on that another time), then perhaps having my writing considered "self-indulgent" was not such a bad thing! Maybe it could even be seen as a hidden compliment! And boring? The surest way to be boring is not to tell the truth, to pretty things up too much. There are way, way, way too many pretty-sounding (and holy-sounding) books and blogs out there. The last thing I want to do is to write another!

And then it also occurred to me that if I'm simply setting out to write and to tell my story, then the only way to fail is NOT TO WRITE IT. I never said anything about writing a runaway best-seller that sits atop the New York Times list for weeks on end, although maybe that's not such a bad idea. I just said I want to write and to tell my story. 

And just so you know, that means I want to write it down, at least most of it, and I also hope to be able to speak it, in public, in a variety of venues. (After all, I do have 24 years of public speaking practice.) And I'd love for any and all ideas of where to do so as things unfold.

Here's to Happiness

OK. I'd like to begin the new year with a confession: about a month ago while browsing the website of Martha Beck, a best-selling author and life coach, I followed a link to a Martha Beck-certified coach who was offering free "Happiness Lessons" (www.takehappinesslessons.com ). In a playful and curious mood, I signed myself up, and eventually two of my old friends (whose names are my safe with me) signed up too. 

"Happiness lessons?" you may be asking yourself. "Has Sukie gone totally off her rocker?" (Or perhaps you're thinking, as the neighbors say of Mr. Plumbean in Daniel Pinkwater's book, The Big Orange Splot,  she has "popped her cork, flipped her wig, blown her stack, and dropped her stopper. . . gushed her mush, lost her marbles, and slipped her hawser.") Perhaps I'm overplaying this a bit, but I couldn't pass up a chance to quote Daniel Pinkwater.

What occurred to me as I signed up for "happiness lessons" was how truly against the grain of my upbringing  it was--that is, within the context of good old New England, Anglo-Saxon, stiff upper lip, always put others before yourself, being and doing good are more important than being happy ways of thinking and being. And that doesn't even begin to touch on some of the more painful contributions of the Judeo-Christian tradition in general and of Christian theology in particular to the topic of happiness and suffering. 

Let me say simply that it felt almost dangerous to consider taking happiness lessons, as if I might be putting my soul in mortal danger (even though that's more of a Roman Catholic sort of category than a Unitarian Universalist-turned-Episcopalian one). At the very least it seemed somehow borderline shameful, shadowy, a little bit "New Agey," flaky, and without doubt self-serving or self-centered or self-indulgent or some other self-word-combination. As if that's about as bad as bad can be! 

In an act of extreme courage (which is often hard to distinguish from craziness), I even put myself out there cyber-wise as the leader of a local "happiness hub," not having a clue what that might mean, but thinking it might gain me access to some kind of bonus lesson or something. What it did gain me was an inquiry from another area resident who turns out to be a master certified Martha Beck life coach--so I really did get "some kind of bonus lesson" in a form I never could have anticipated. More on that another time.

Not long after, I was continuing to read Martha Beck's book Finding your own North Star and came across the following paragraphs:

"I once gave a speech to a group of devoutly religious women in which I stated my belief that all God really wants from us is an unshakable commitment to our own happiness. I could tell the audience was shocked by this comment. After the speech, several women commented that I'd gone a bit too far, and one said I should be 'dragged away in chains.' These women seemed to share a religious belief that suffering is the way to paradise, while the road to Hell is paved with happy times.

"If you believe the same thing, I encourage you to put down this book and pick up one of those cute little whips with razors embedded in them, because you're not going to find any support for your world-view in these pages. I don't believe in suffering for its own sake. Enduring a thankless, painful life doesn't mean that you deserve happiness as a kind of recompense; it just means you're enduring a thankless, painful life. If I'm going to suffer, it better be for a damn good reason. It better yield me more joy than it costs. If not, I will do anything I can to avoid it, and I advise all my clients to do the same.

"This is a profound sacrifice for the martyrs among us."

Clearly this is a large topic, and one that I believe to be worth unraveling fully in due time. But for now, I want to state that I hereby declare, for 2009 and beyond, my own "unshakable commitment to my own happiness." To be committed to my own happiness means, among other things, that I am not expecting or passively hoping that someone else will take care of that for me. It means giving up trying to manipulate someone else into doing that, guilting someone else into doing that, or otherwise, through all sorts of well-tried, devious and indirect means, roping someone else (or Someone Else, e.g, "God") into being responsible for my happiness. 

And on the positive side, it means continuing to learn and to practice (and practice,  and practice, and practice again) paying attention to what's going on in my head and in my body. To afford my body some much overdue respect and honor and affection as my most trustworthy, God-given teller of the truth about what delights me and what drags me down; about when I need to rest, when to eat, when to get outside and breathe fresh air; when I need to be alone, and when to join the party; when I want to laugh, when to weep, when to dance, when to sing. And then to dare to follow its instructions! And usually that means noticing and then ignoring or hushing up a lot of prim, judging, fearful, cautious,  and sometimes downright nasty "voices" in my head telling me why I should do just the opposite.

So here's to happiness! My own, and yours, and to the increasing happiness of an increasing number of people around the planet. 

P.S. In case you're still really worried that "claiming happiness" is brazenly and unforgivably selfish,  or that a commitment to your own happiness will turn you into a self-centered brat with no thought for others, I have two suggestions. First, if the word "happiness" makes you flinch, (as I'm afraid I still do sometimes when I hear someone say, "the very purpose of our life is to seek happiness"), try substituting "contentment." Maybe contentment sounds like a deeper, more grounded, less happy-in-a-bouncy-kind-of-way state of being, and maybe that makes it a little easier for you to contemplate. Second, look at the Dalai Lama: he sure looks like a happy guy to me, and yet he is clearly anything but a self-centered brat lacking in compassion or concern for others. And he is the author of that conviction I alluded to above, "that the very purpose of life is to seek happiness." 

Well, how 'bout that! 

Happy 2009.

Snow on Snow

"Snow had fallen snow on snow, snow on snow..." the words from the carol "In the bleak mid-winter" are kind of stuck in my head these days. Fifteen inches on top of four inches on top of an ice coating on top of a dusting, or something like that. That's where things stand in our neighborhood. Yesterday I had to laugh at the car I had left in our driveway half cleared; it looked as if it were sporting a high mohawk when I returned.

I hate to admit it, but some days I forget to admire the beauty of the snow, when figuring out what to do with it all moves up on the priority list. The birds, meanwhile, seem grateful for our feeders and our bird bath heater, and we are rewarded with a large flock of juncos, lots of gold finches in their duller winter feathers, and the many black, white and grey (in various patterns and combinations) birds: chickadees, titmice, nuthatches, woodpeckers, and such. Today three blue jays dwarfed them all. 

And I am grateful for the wood stove: there's nothing like that radiant warmth. Add a cup of tea, a favorite Christmas CD, and maybe even the length of the sofa...a perfect way to spend an hour.

In memoriam, again

If it seems just a short time ago that I wrote here in memory of our cat, Calvin, that's because it was--less than three weeks ago. And here I am, writing a tribute to another family pet: this time our rabbit, Gandy. More formally known as Gandalf, and more fully as Gandalf the White. I remember when Gandy was a wee bunny, just over five years ago, when I took him to our vet for a first (and until this weekend, only) check up. From the exam room, I could hear the vet tech tell the vet herself what this bunny's name was when he had been carried back to be weighed. 

"Gandalf," the vet tech said. 

"Ohhh, Gandalf the White," the vet had said. And I smiled in approval that our vet (who has kids the age of ours) knew her Tolkien well enough to know the difference.

Gandy's first day at our house was in the midst of an early December blizzard. His last was the day after a mid-December ice storm. When we tucked that small bunny into his outdoor hutch for his first night alone, assured that outdoor living is what most rabbits are built for, we were nervous. He seemed so small and vulnerable. Bekah, not one to mince words, said: "That rabbit will be a block of ice by morning." He was fine.

This time we were not so fortunate. Rabbits are impervious to most pests and diseases, but they are, we now know, highly vulnerable to respiratory infection. We didn't catch the first signs of Gandy's infection until he was a rather limp and listless guy. And the Saturday night trip to the emergency vet wasn't enough to save him. He died some time in the night at our house. I had been pretty sure he wasn't going to make it when Anna and I put him in a specially prepared place for the night. The nearness of Calvin's death and my post-ice storm fatigue washed over me; "I just can't handle another animal death," I sobbed. Anna gave me a quiet hug to comfort me. (David was away; we were on our own.)

But this entry is intended to be a tribute to Gandy, handsome guy that he was, with long, silky, soft as you can imagine white hair. Rabbits are pretty quiet creatures. They don't vocalize much. No regular bark or meow or purr. Some rabbits speak with their percussive back feet, but Gandy wasn't much of a thumper. I've heard that if you cut too far when trimming a rabbit's claws or when cutting a mat of hair, they will scream an unforgettably horrible scream. I never heard Gandy scream.

I often worried that he was lonely or bored, since he spent a lot of time in his outdoor hutch, with occasional sojourns into the house, where he was generally quite well behaved (toilet training-wise). His only vice was an occasional chewed lamp cord, thankfully with no resulting electrocution. Only some ruined old lamps, lined up somewhere in our house waiting for repair. I hope he enjoyed the breezes and the birds, the seasons and the sunlight.

One of my favorite memories of Gandy happened one summer not long after the movie "Because of Winn Dixie" had come out. Bekah had two friends over, and a whopping summer thunderstorm came through. One of us brought Gandy in from his hutch, and he was hopping around the living room, along with dog Digory, cats Calvin and Lily, and maybe Anna's two guinea pigs, Chuckles and Eddie. It was just like the scene in "Winn Dixie" in the pet store (in the movie, the pet store clerk was played by Dave Matthews) with all the animals out of their cages, mixing and mingling and making their own kind of music. 

So, with two animal losses in less than three weeks, I feel a bit scoured out. As if forces are in motion telling us to simplify and let go. A Zen haiku comes to mind: 

Barn's burned down--

now I can see the moon. 

Farewell, Gandy. Maybe we'll plant parsley over your burial place.

Wild and Crazy Wins the Day

The zebra print leggings nudged me as I was deciding what to wear today. And the words "wild and crazy" nudged me too. I bought the leggings about twenty-two years ago when I was still a new priest in Concord, Massachusetts. A woman from the Netherlands came to visit my boss's family, I think, and she sported some zebra leggings that I loved. So I gave her some money so that she could send me some from Europe when she got back there, which she did. I thought at the time that it would be good to spice up my days-off wardrobe, and I do remember I wore them once to the New England Flower Show with the rector's wife(!). I was exceedingly self-conscious and tense the whole time. I think I may have worn them once or twice more in public before they took up residence in the bottom drawer of my bureau. That is, until my teenaged daughters (and even a friend now and then) decided that they were good for certain occasions, Halloween among them.

Seeing them this morning (I had actually worn them to bed last night), I thought, "Perfect. I think dressing wild and crazy is what I need to do today." And putting them on, my bearing and my outlook perked up considerably! This was going to be fun; I just knew it. And I quickly decided to put together some truly outlandish combination of clothing, things that really don't "go". I found myself remembering many many years ago, as perhaps a sixth grader, having my mother and my sister react to my chosen outfit on some school days when I came downstairs for breakfast, suggesting that perhaps my stripes and plaids weren't really meant to be worn together. I can't imagine I went very far outside the lines. But today I had the pleasure of putting together a wacky wardrobe and then wearing it in public. Even Anna tolerated being with me in one store (and chose to stay in the car at the next, though she swears that wasn't the reason!). And Anna has willingly taken my photo with her camera.

I so much enjoyed wearing my zebra leggings with Anna's polka dotted rubber boots, topped by my multi-colored handmade sweater with six different buttons (buttons by Lacey Goodrich, sweater by me), and two mismatched earrings in the style of my beloved friend Sarah, that I may just have to do it again soon. I may even wear the leggings every day between now and Christmas. I think they may be magic leggings after all.

And it just may be that dressing wild and crazy, or doing something else a bit outlandish with the potential for being thought unseemly for a fifty-four year-old, strengthens one's "core muscles" of joy, delight, and happiness. 

Winged Things

Last weekend I was passing through our backyard doing some long-delayed yard clean up when one of those sudden "bird invasions" happened. Chickadees, titmice, white breasted nuthatches, downy woodpeckers, and goldfinches started arriving at our feeders, darting here and there, back and forth, in a flurry of winged activity. I stood still, hoping I wouldn't scare any of them away, even though I was barely three feet from one of our biggest feeders. The fluttering and ruffling of wings of these rather small birds was loud in my ears, like a soft rapid drumming. It was exciting simply to stand and watch while the brief frenzy lasted. 

Yesterday I was among much bigger birds, and not nearly as close, on our local beach just after sunset when the Canada geese come "home" for the night in the shallow, protected salt water cove. They spend their winter days at the golf course. Really! I know it sounds silly, but I honestly think that's where they go, heading off in the mornings for a day of recreation. Actually, I'm sure some of them go to farm lands and some to the golf course, then back to the seaside for their overnights.

Some days, about twenty or so minutes after sunset, their raucous arrival is audible inside our house even with windows and doors closed. To be outside when the geese come in is even better. To be on the beach and hear the whistle of their wing beats (if they're not honking too much) and then the chhhhh sound as they land in the water is the best of all. Sometimes I try running along side them just for the heck of it; they're fast. 

I've noticed that sometimes a skein of geese will start to unravel as the geese near their destination, the formation no longer important. Sometimes the individuals start toppling and tipping as they come down. It looks as if maybe they're just having fun, veering to one side then another; or maybe it's a way of slowing down. And then they settle in, with greetings exchanged between the newcomers and those already floating somewhere in the dark.