Simply Sacred

Growing up, I was a Catholic kid. I received infant baptism into the church and my First Holy Communion after my first act of Confession. All of these rituals required a priest.

As I have grown I have often asked myself why parents can't hold a dedication ceremony in their own homes at which time they swear all present into a community of people who will lay down their own lives to raise the child in the way he or she should go. We would have to define laying down one's life, as very few of us will ever be asked to stand between a child and a bullet. But we are daily challenged not to lead our children to sin with our own examples.

In watching the lives of truly righteous people, I would respectfully suggest that it is much more difficult to live in a righteous manner than to allow oneself to be killed for what one espouses but doesn't necessarily live. It is we that should be dedicated at the dedication ceremonies, not the innocent infant. Only in this way can we stop handing our children our legacies of the sins of the fathers and mothers.

As for communion, our family meals should all be acts of gratitude for the gifts of the Creation and the lives that are dedicated to nourishing and protecting us. Some have a tradition of acknowledging "The Unseen Guest" at their tables, referring to the Spirit of Jesus. The Native Americans had rituals for honoring the food and the Spirit that provided the food. Kosher laws provide for respectful homage to the gifts of creation. Somehow, it seems to me that our giving over the full power of the Eucharist to a person performing a ritual among a group of strangers is not what makes communion holy.

We have lost the culture of family meals at which we honor The Creator, creation, and the providers of the labors of love that go into the nourishment of the vessels of our souls. Never do I feel more like I'm experiencing Holy Communion than when I am at the table of our dear friends where we always begin the meal with a blessing that ends with, "And bless the cook."

Having been a cook my whole life, I feel that he really does understand the efforts I expend to feed them my best blessing. The last time we were with them at their table, he was rather taken aback when I retorted, "and bless the people who earned the money to buy the meal."

My parents and grandparents spent untold amounts of energy providing for our meals. We would go to church and experience the sacred in that communion, but we were never taught that communion can happen in every loving home, and does in many every day.

Parental Protection

At what age should a child be free of the womb?
It seems that many are freed too soon.
As seeds must sprout in the shade of a tree
To grow roots that are strong enough to be set free,
So must children be protected by parents
Until they claim their own unique presence.
Then they can face the drought and the storm
With community that helps protect them from harm.

Our duty as parents is to nurture strong seeds,
Providing, not their wants, but their needs.
Some will grow to be oaks that won't bend;
These are the ones who surely need friends.
Others will be willows that wait with calm grace
For those that seek a restful place.
All of them need time to develop strong roots
To produce humanity's most nourishing fruits.

A Child's Smile

Faith and innocence is the greatest gift,
And when our hearts to darkness shift,
Our lives are so often set adrift.
We do not have to teach children
About the disappointments yet to come;
We can hope that they will avoid some.
Only tell them what they need to know;
In time their own experience will grow.
They don't have to reap what others sow.

I want to grow old gracefully
Watching children flit around me,
And coming to rest upon my knee.
I want to watch them sing and dance,
As their eyes twinkle with the romance,
That all things new are worth a chance.
My greatest wish is that each child
Will always have reasons to smile.
This makes earth heaven for a little while.

Oceans of Emotions

In this season of so much raw emotion
I'm trying to avoid all the commotion.
Will many may wonder if they did something amiss
If there are no boxes of Christmas gifts?
I love the hellos, but hate the good-byes;
I am always left with tears in my eyes.
I tried for years to get used to them,
But my tears always upset our friends.
It seems to be true that both pain and mirth
Leave lasting impressions upon the earth.

Instead of crying, I can make myself laugh,
But even this, it seems, is a gaffe.
When I scream, people run for cover,
And look to hide behind their mothers.
But if I'm their mother, it's safe to say,
They simply want me to go away.
I've taken to avoiding the people and the pain
This way, from emoting, I can refrain.
But avoiding pain shuts out good memories;
And what is life if we don't have these?

We Were Too Close

My best friend from seventh grade sent this:
“We don’t see things as THEY are. We see things as WE are.”

Psychologists call it projection when we put our thoughts and feelings into the minds and hearts of others, believing that the other feels and thinks as we do. I believe this is also the basis of compassion, but can lead to what is called enmeshment where we can't tell where we end and the other begins.

I have almost destroyed myself and others with my attempts to have people see others and themselves as I see them.

There was a 1970 song by Melanie Safka with this verse:
"We were so close, there was no room
We bled inside each other's wounds
We all had caught the same disease
And we all sang the songs of peace."

As parents, good friends, and as marriage partners, it is important to know when to bond and when to allow each other our own space. This is not always easy to do, especially when we know that compassion is the only way to live a loving life.

My daughter and I used to call each other for what she jokingly called "mortal support." I am blessed, as is she, by a circle of friends that will join us in the three-legged relay race of life so that we don't have to be totally dependent on the "mortal support" coming only from each other. This is what community is about: those with whom we will bond and then let go as needed, trusting that we will each keep up the our parts on the path to the finish line of life.

I like to share my visions of life and the people I love through my rose-colored glasses, but I have to stop tying so many legs to my own, and dragging them along with me. It is true that we are all children of The Universe (that which is called God, Allah, Yahweh, etc.) but we are not all children of each other; that is why there are dads, moms, neighborhoods, church congregations, clubs, and families.

In my walk in life it has been hard to see
That I am not you and you are not me.
We each have our strengths and weaknesses too;
Neither of us holds the absolute truth.
I will share with you what you ask,
Be it thoughts or be it tasks.
And then I will go back to my space
Where you will always have a welcoming place.

The Gardens We're Given

We are each given a personal garden to tend.
There are some who have spouses and/or children,
And this is where their gardens end.
There are others who are asked to manage many
As teachers, doctors, trainers, or nurses,
And those who serve the people managers,
Helping them survive leadership's curses.

But every one of us must carefully define
The boundaries of our responsibilities,
Of the lives and gardens that are mine,
Based on who we and they were meant to be.
Only then will our gardens bear good fruit,
As we prune away the dead wood, we'll see
That our missions in life will follow suit.

I Blog Because...

"In order to live, man must act; in order to act, he must make choices; in order to make choices, he must define a code of values; in order to define a code of values, he must know what he is and where he is – i.e. he must know his own nature (including his means of knowledge) and the nature of the universe in which he acts – i.e. he needs metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, which means: philosophy. He cannot escape from this need; his only alternative is whether the philosophy guiding him is to be chosen by his mind or by chance."

Ayn Rand, "Philosophy, who needs it?".

The purest definition of the word philosophy seems to be "The love of thinking." To think without a context is decidedly daydreaming, but to think within too close a context is purely prejudice.

To have a degree in philosophy does not mean that one has the love of thinking; it simply means that one has been exposed to many manners of thought. I have often been accused of being a philosopher by those much more educated than I. I was even told by one of my physicians that I should take up tennis instead of thinking. I tried, but my spasticity prohibited me from performing.

As I have aged, my body has left me few options outside of serious contemplation. The internet affords me options for study that I never even imagined when I was still a student. My association with many of wisdom and education has prepared me to discern with discrimination. I now feel as if I have much to offer in the way of words of wisdom, not gleaned only from my experience, but from my education at the knee of those who offered their knowledge to me. I have been both their Mary and their Martha, feeding their bodies and accepting the feeding of my soul.

I blog because I feel I have much to say, as a reporter, not as an expert. I invite all to offer their comments and critique, but, as I asked of my children, keep the comments respectful.