Awake and Aware

“It is not good for the man to be alone" -- Genesis 2:18. I believe this means that no human is meant to live completely without other humans. Teenagers seem, like toddlers, to think they are more powerful than they are. Only a strong circle of sober, strong adults can keep them within the bounds of our values.

There is nothing as challenging in life as bringing teenagers into adulthood. In areas where we didn't make it,  it is impossible to lead our children there. This is why children need a network of caring adults, with shared family goals, to help them go through life. Sadly, many children are torn apart by competing, seemingly irreconcilable differences in family values.

I have heard so many parents say that all they want is for their children to be "happy." I have always wanted for my children to be compassionate, responsible citizens. This desire has often kept any of us from feeling "happy" for long periods of time. I have been willing to live with this, but it has been difficult on my marriages and other relationships. When Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy?

I see as a tragedy that too many of us give up on our children's souls in order to have what we call "peace" in our homes. We figure that if we can't beat our children and the world at keeping our children from spiritual harm, we'll simply enjoy the ease of joining them. We drug ourselves and our children and begin on a slippery slope that can lead to the deaths of our souls. Death is, after all, the ultimate "peace," or is it?

When our souls die, our bodies are actually in agony, constantly hungry, for we know not what. It is for a place of peace inside of ourselves and our circle. But if the circle is broken, where can we go to rest? There are so many children broken beyond repair because they have no safe circle to run to and call, "home."


The greatest sin seems to be those who enter those safe circles pretending to be protectors, when in fact, they are predators and people who want to be our children's playmates instead of partners in parenting. Where can a child go from there, especially when maintenance of the circle becomes more important than the child? Drugged parents are not paying attention. Circles of family and of faith are excellent hunting grounds for "virgin" victims. We must all stay awake and aware. Our time to play is after they move away.


With very strong leadership and consistent boundaries, teenagers can feel safe enough to throw themselves against the walls of our love and know that they will be protected from evil, both inside their own heads and from those outside our circles. The important thing is that we have a strong committed circle in which they can act out their crazies. No amount of drugs can make them feel as secure as faithful family circle can.



I have lost so many to drugs long before their bodies died. The pain of looking into the eyes of a loved one and seeing nothing is almost unbearable. Where does the soul go? It seems into hell because those who seek "happiness" in constant "euphoria," whether through drugs or other forms of blocking the senses can no longer handle anything outside of their own "euphoric" states. Even religious ecstasy is wrong when entered into at the expense of the children in our care.

Heaven (The kingdom of "God") on earth is in the sure, loving eyes and hands of others, never completely in our own heads, hearts, or souls, no matter with whom or how hard we pray.

Little Boy Joy

As I sat alternately staring at the
Computer screen and the harbor,
I was writing about our sacred Sunday
When the phone disturbed my mind's order.

It was the man of whom I wrote,
Inviting me to join him for lunch.
He didn't say he missed me,
But I had that strong hunch.

He said he'd give me a tour
Of the progress on the boat.
He'd finished a big project,
And he surely wanted  to gloat.

I do enjoy his little boy joy
In things at which he succeeds.
I think that pure joy is something
That our world now sorely needs.

He confessed as we walked to lunch,
That he had been in withdrawals.
Afterglow is an important step
When our hearts and souls are full.

Why are so many, mostly adults,
Reluctant to express elation,.
Except in those areas that
Don't affect their own situations?

Adults seem able to celebrate openly
The scores of their sports team
And the exploits of celebrities.
Joy in their own lives, rarely seen

We hear about failures and crimes.
We hear about the virtues of humility.
What about the celebration
When we are all that we can be?

Post-Motherhood Marriage

The Spirit was never enough for humans, no matter what some believe;
If "God" thought "God" was enough, there would have never been Eve.
Each of us spends our lives looking for complementary human touch;
There is nothing on earth that we intrinsically crave so much.

The problem comes in when our innocence has been destroyed
By those who find the needs of others as reason to be annoyed.
Even if these people, long-ago, had their innocence perverted,
This is not a justification to have, human compassion, deserted.

Sometimes we have to strip our lives down to the naked truths;
My husband and have never had fresh soil in which to take root.
When we met, I had children, and was soon to be a grandmother.
We never had a time when we could truly forsake all others.

I guess this phrase in scripture refers to sexual infidelity;
From other commitments, to build a marriage, we must break free.
Those who continue to prioritize their families of origin,
Against their own marriages, often commit grievous sin.

Once we are grown, ready to create our own families,
It takes a great deal of focus to create who WE will be.
Those who continue to cling desperately to rules from their pasts
Will have a more difficult time making their own families last.

My husband has been most gracious as I affected a "do over".
I'm quite sure that I was a better granny than a mother.
All the children for whom he put aside his own desires
Have let us know, forcefully, their need for us has expired.

I have let friends know that we are setting new priorities;
Some have accused me of thinking only of ME.
This is probably true; for the first time since I was four,
I have all these choices. I have to choose which door.

My husband spends his days fulfilling his dreams
I have no primary responsibilities, it now seems.
I write because I feel a strong calling to do so;
It's for the pleasure of exchanging ideas, not my ego.

If I could have my fantasy life come completely true,
I'd live in the way that I've read some used to do:
Collecting a salon of philosophers, and artists,
I would then always have growth in our midst.

We would offer them fabulous food and libation,
In exchange for frequent access to their creations.
We would still enjoy a sacred day, for only us;
All the gifts of the past week, we could then discuss.

Parents who've lost touch with each other focusing on progeny
Have new access to adventures when their children break free.
How many of us give up, just when we can reclaim the fun
On which our combined journey through life was begun?

Another Sacred Sunday

The sky was a brilliant blue bouncing off the ripples in the harbor. Richard pointed out that the apparent navy blue of the water was in nice contrast to what he called the cerulean blue of the swimming pool that we look down on from our small balcony. As is our habit on Sunday mornings, we snuggle for a while, then get up and have coffee together, while chatting about anything and everything, from children and grandchildren to world affairs. We also like to make up fantasies about the families, furry and otherwise, that we observe from our rear window.

We were planning to take supper over to the home of a cardiologist friend who literally saved Richard's life in 2000. We always want to provide a special meal for him and his wife, a professional party planner (who was kind enough to provide me with deodorant, toothbrush, and a hairbrush when I began what we thought was Richard's death watch for ten days in ICU). The menu for this meal included Maker's Mark Old Fashioneds, pork tenderloin medallions with a tarragon cream sauce (so good I'd like to bathe in it), steamed fresh, buttered green beans almondine, mushroom risotto (which I chose because I love it but don't have the patience to make it), one of Richard's super tossed salads, and a blueberry-peach galette with fresh whipped cream.

I made him promise to let me assist, in order to free up the time for more snuggling and to go out to breakfast. After a leisurely breakfast at Waffle House, we joined forces in the kitchen, he as chef and I as his assistant (or was it the other way around?).  We cranked up the mood music and went to work. Oh! the slicing, dicing, grating and mincing that went on in that tiny kitchen: peaches, shallots, garlic, parsley, carrots, radishes, mushrooms, onions (red and yellow), peppers, and romaine. Precision, being right up Richard's alley, I am always happy to leave all of these tedious tasks to him.

The only problem was that this left little time for him to do any actual cooking. It fell to me to stir the pots. I don't know how many of you have ever made risotto, but stirring seems to be the most important ingredient: One hour of standing and stirring. Thank goodness I had Richard and wonderful music to keep me company.

Our cooking (and mood music) even brought out the poetic in him as he admitted that he thinks higher math and music can only come from the soul, as they both create something out of nothing. This led to a discussion of how Richard heard on NPR about a group of atheists who so missed the ritual, arts, and camaraderie of religion that they formed their own "church" of sorts. This philosophical discussion from a man who spends five days a week helping to refurbish a seventy-eight foot PT Boat at the National World War II Museum. Macho, macho man...

He is also the man who, before he was introduced to me twenty-three years ago, when told that I like to have discussions about the meaning of life, replied, "I'll show up fifteen minutes early and explain it to her."

Our friends live in a beautifully traditional Garden District home where his mother and father had reared their brood of six. The screened front porch sits atop a "daylight" above ground "basement". With the wonderful "feels like fall" weather, we enjoyed cocktails and appetizers as we breathed in the sounds and scents of Old New Orleans.We then moved inside for Sunday supper

Their home has original artwork everywhere you look, and the table is always beautifully attired for fabulous feasts. This day there was an exquisite ecru cotton crochet tablecloth that they brought back from Brugge, Belgium, and lovely Jazz playing in the background.

The meal was sincerely worth the effort put in. We loved watching and hearing the expressions of delight coming from both of these highly sophisticated palates, and the beautiful Hebrew blessing that our host asked upon us and our offering of fine food was the cherry on our Sacred Sunday.

Why Are We?

Why are we celebrating instead of worrying incessantly
When we reach sixty-five, and are, from our jobs, free?
We then live off the taxes paid by our children's generation;
This isn't what was envisioned as "Social Security" in our nation.

Not one of us wants to see the widowed, orphaned or disabled
Have to beg for a place at our society's abundant table.
We set up a tax-funded programs as a safety net for them,
Not a way out of work for differently-abled women and men.

What horrible abuses of our generosity and naivety
That generation after generation, on our payroll, stay.
These are people who have provided not even a fraction
Of what they will collect from the lobbyist's actions.

If there was a way I could end my life with dignity
So that my grandchildren would be, from my debt, free,
I would gladly give any years I have left to them,
Hoping they will do a better job than my generation.

I am so tired of blowing the horn of consequences
To those who make societal control pretenses.
I now hide behind my home's walls and make pleas
That we will, one day, magical thinking cease.

Each of our actions, including our own speech,
Has long-lasting consequences, perhaps to teach?
It matters not whether we are sober or inebriated,
Our behaviors are that by which our values are rated.

How can we continue to collect on others' sacrifice,
Though we have ample resources, to our needs suffice?
The fallacy of the unregulated stock market is plain to me:
Bankruptcy of the vulnerable, so the rich continue to be.

Don't get me wrong, I am considered part of the rich;
My access to perverse power has long made me itch.
I have given away much of our jointly held resources;
My desire for justice has led to lively discourses.

A whistle blower must have the contacts to infiltrate,
To have the information and terms with which to relate.
I am sickened by what I have gathered from non-profits;
There are many on whom the shoe of corruption fits.

All who want justice in our deeply divided nation
Must unite against our church/state ideation.
A corporation that, by definition, is a sovereign  entity
Shouldn't have privileges from which citizens are free.

I am so tired of the visions and platforms of politicians
Pretending they care about our spiritual convictions.
Only the individual person, not a corporation, has a soul;
Democracy, as its purpose, seeks to include the whole.

I'm not sure that, under a republic, our nation should stay;
I believe that this system has seen its best days.
Because we exempt "our" representatives from our laws,
Our consequences, as citizens, give them little pause.

We go along to get along, believing we have no power,
But rational voices on the internet can grow by the hour.
I'd like to see more about what others truly believe,
Not religious and political messages, by others conceived.

How do we apply our beliefs to our own families?
How do we benefit from caring communities?
What benefits do we each derive from paying tax?
What are we willing, as humans, to give back?

Our country and religions build in protections
We continue to want to age past all projections.
Who is willing to give up some of their own life
To secure, for the next generation, less strife.?

Forgiveness and Forgetfulness

Starting over can be a most wonderful thing,
But there is always some loss that this brings.
Some have started over way too many times;
In long-term relationships there are many crimes.

It may be time now to go on without many
Of those with whom, resolution, there can't be any.
Having been told too many times to forgive,
Without any changes in the way others live.

Forgiveness is accomplished rather easily;
Reconciling relationships remains the mystery.
Sometimes those you struggled with all your life
Will continue to, in your soul, create much strife.

It is sad in many cases, no matter how hard you both try,
You can only forgive each other and then say good-bye.
Relationships are based on equal vulnerability;
Without this, reconciliation will never be.

Somehow, we seem to have lost belief in The Great;

Scripture shows that this seals a generation’s fate.

We do not have to all call Greatness by the same name,

As long as we all, by our actions, True Greatness claim.

Greatness isn’t measured by earthly riches or power;

It is measured by our every action during every hour.

Too many turn to arrogance and hubris for respect

Because, we as a civilization, continue to virtue reject.

When will we wake up and realize that all history

Is written also to warn us of what we don’t want to be?

When we are faced with that about which we are unsure,

All but what our ancestors did seems to become a blur.

We seem not to trace very far to see what happened then,

And continue to repeat the mistakes of our past humans.

Can we stop for a moment and stop following blindly

People who dictate to us rules from which they are free?

Religious history seems to have begun with a belief in

Incredible mystery and the power in all of creation.

Somewhere along the line, some said they understood;

This hasn’t yet led humankind into doing good.

Let each search for our own visions of balance and harmony,

Rather than competing about whether “God” is he or she.

And let us look for leaders in our sisters and brothers

Who lead with respect for, and interest in, all others.

Sadness and The Spirit

It is a sad fact of relationships that what gives one peace gives another pain;
This sometimes means that we cannot share goals and our lives again.
It does not necessarily mean that either of us did anything wrong;
It may simply mean that our Spirits dance and sing to different songs.

Areas in which one feels comfortable, another simply cannot dwell.
Stories that one doesn't want to hear, another feels compelled to tell.
Things that one savors may seem too foreign to fit another comfortably,
And events in one's life that another person cannot bear to see.

Although our souls will always and each contain something of each other
It takes comfort with each other's boundaries to feel as sisters and brothers
As long as we are locked into a mindset that won't consider change,
We will always consider each others ways foreign, wrong, or strange.

Close observation of the way people behave in business and family
Seems to be the very best way to know their true boundaries.
When we are in groups of our own kind, we all pretend to be the same,
But operating in the world of others, we show the values that we claim.

Sometimes we celebrate that people we love are happy together,
Even though we may grieve because we're not birds of a feather.
If the way a dear friend lives is a source of spiritual distress,
The discomfort both friends feel cannot always be redressed.

We are never at  the very same place on the same spiritual path.
Sometimes it may be one's time to cry when another needs to laugh.
We cannot grab others around their necks and make them see with us,
But the power of love can give us peace, if in the process, we will trust.