In these days of mid-December, as a soft rain falls in California, I remember the first snowfall in New England; how it blanketed the earth and muffled sound—and silence became a spacious and holy presence. As the winters progressed, however, and we shoveled snow and pulled soggy socks from our children’s feet, that dark stillness often brought depression. We forgot that it held promise, hid something deeper: new life gathering itself to be born.
We live in a dark time. Many of us have sought to help solve some of the immense difficulties confronting us, to learn the truth of each situation, and to grow in understanding. We’ve taken stands on countless issues and made the best decisions we knew how. But we are beginning to see that the kinds of solutions our cultures have to offer are blunt instruments—and we begin to realize we need more refined means of resolving our dilemmas.
Even as conflicts escalate the world over, we can lend the weight of our presence to a different kind of action. We are learning that it is possible to integrate a more subtle form of activism with social action, and that one can flow quite naturally out of the other. We’re discovering in groups of all kinds around the world that our lives are deeply joined; that we can participate at a level of sensibility that is complementary to problem solving and does not seek to make one side right and the other wrong. Entire groups are awakening to this truth as they dare to take the position that they do not know the answer. Instead, they choose to embrace opposing views, give focused attention to the silence, and trust. Then a common voice may arise.
This last week, the Indigenous Peoples of the World gathered in Fort Collins and Carbondale, CO at the same time the UN Climate Change Conference began in Copenhagen, the Parliament of World Religions in Melbourne, and the Nobel Prize was awarded in the hope of peace. There are many others of us gathering to support the healing of our greatest concerns. In any group in which you have more than a casual membership, I invite you to set aside conversation for a short time, postpone closure in your own mind, and listen in the silence for a new and creative response. After all, it is that time of year, and as nature has always shown us, it is out of darkness that light is born again.

Kendall T. Murphy - Ken-man to me - beloved friend and dear husband to my Chakra circle sister Sarita Chawla passed away last November 24, 2009. Ken was a strong supporter of the birth and field of Offerings. He and Sarita helped to fund our beginnings. He visited and participated in our blog space quite a bit, especially in the theme on  “Women & Politics”. He always searched, evoked, provided the holistic perspective in every conversation. We will miss his voice, but his spirit for inviting as many varied perspectives on any issue lives on in us. Fly high, Ken-man!

I feel Ken quite a lot. He flits in and out of my consciousness during the day for some reason. He was my mother’s age. Perhaps there is a connection here as my mother has recenty decided to get off the chemo merry-go-round, rejecting another round, and we’re going the rest of the way au natural. Deep in the Mystery, she seems at peace with this decision, has begun to reappear at the many civic functions she has always loved & been a part of, careful to not over extend her energy, though it is energizing for her to be so joyfully received back in their arms and to be in the juicy dialogues that take place. My sister and I sometimes go with her and she is just so, so loved!

And we are all working in our unique ways to let go of our attachment to how long she will stay with us in physical form. There is crying at times at the breakfast table, where we always gather to begin our day together, reviewing what everyone is up to that day, errands to run, a niece to pick up from school, or what was in the news (other than the local Philippine news, they watch CNN’s “Situation Room” every morning).

There will be soft silent tears streaming down my father’s cheeks, mostly when my mom hasn’t come down to join us yet. It’s our own private moments without her…

At times, we process the crying with her when she comes down. Or not.

We’ll be mopping up our faces dry and blowing into tissue, in mid-conversation about life and death kinds of things and one of them will get distracted by the banana they’re eating and the other follows and we’re off to a 20minute conversation journey through the season for ripe bananas and how hard or soft, sweet or tart, small or big they each want their banana to be, from whom they like to buy them from to how one patient/friend of my father always used to give them bananas to how this friend is doing these days and where his grandkids are living and who of us kids was his son or daughter’s classmate to how their business of really nice bathroom fixtures used to be close by. Sometimes, the conversation goes back to the question of how my mother wants to live the rest of her life, sometimes, it goes back to the bananas. Or coconuts. Or mangoes. Or the latest news on this or that presidential candidate or on the debate over the Church’s (Catholic) stand on abortion in the Healthcare Bill. My sister and I catch each other across the table silently sometimes, and we sigh, giggle, laugh.

Hope your table conversations are just as fun, poignant and sweet. I know Ken would have loved being at ours….probably has been at ours!

Hello Offerings!

A few days ago, I (and others) received an email from Teresa. I asked her if I could post it, and she said yes, and then she told me that it needs an introduction and some editing because that’s the kind of thing she always tells me.

By way of introduction, let me say this. Teresa and I speak different languages. I think of it this way. If we were standing together in front of a tree - a Willow, maybe, or a gnarly old Oak - I’m liable to talk about its height, the sturdiness of its trunk, the way it leans slightly, respectful of (but not broken by) the wind. I’d probably talk about the leaves, the play of sunlight through the branches, the patterns of sun and shade on the ground, the root system that might well be as big as the tree itself.

Teresa would paint a much bigger picture, one that linked this tree to every other tree, and to the earth, and to the wind that has made it crooked, and to the life that has thrived all around it. In all likelihood, the tree would remind her of a story, a tree in Cebu under which people have, for ages, fallen in love - with books, or God, or each other - and somehow, in the course of her telling, I would see that the tree I thought was just a tree is really something far more magical, part of what links us all to each other and allows us to become, for each other, one giant, powerful root system.

This is the nature of my relationship with Teresa… One in which the language she teaches me makes me a better writer, editor and human. And here is the message I asked if I could post. Mostly UNedited. Because sometimes you have to let the tree grow wild.

Dear Ones,

Thank you. For the prayers, the lighting of candles and the pipe, the requests of your prayer circles, friends, church communities and clans, the stories of your own experiences, the poems, the healing affirmations, the masses, the offers, the expressions of hope and love and sadness and fear, the apologies for not knowing what to say, the gifts of music, healing juices & money, the silence. I have read, received, meditated on each, taking them all in…as have my parents, my siblings and their families, my Brad…and you. All part of the Great Field that is holding us.

This – yes, all this – THIS, too, is Grace. (“Grace is afoot”, Glenna said in our 3Witches-&-Brad skype call.)

I woke up this very early morning meditating on three mind-stilling, heart-opening lines.

“Sadly, many people go through life considering themselves either defective or special. In either case,
we miss a larger vision of life.”
~ From Cheryl & Emerson’s bookshelf, The Black Butterfly by Richard Moss

This part of living now - mine, my family’s and perhaps yours, too, as you walk this life with me - is part and parcel of the grand design, is it not? What did I/you expect? I asked for radical aliveness, to live the root, the essence, the close-to-the-bone of life. Of Life.

“I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only love. “
~ From Steph’s whispering to me of Mother Teresa’s words

I’m actually moving within this blessed space of hurt to love…embracing and loving it.

“FAITH and FEAR”
~ From the title of an email sent by Ro

Not Faith or Fear, but Faith and Fear. The terrain in which I walk these days is fettered with both.

Thank you for walking the walk with me.

I love you,
Teresa/Tressa

It started with this message: “I just changed over oxygen tanks for my father. My first time. A lot of dictations from both sides. Over time, this will be more graceful.” From there grew Offerings’ first-ever blog cluster of heartfelt sharings called “Stumbling into Grace”. In reading them, may you be graced.

My mantra today is “when I get there I’ll be grateful”. I sit cross-legged on a round black pillow, knees resting on a folded fleece blanket that covers a portion of the Alder wood floor beneath. I’m within an octagonal room; directly across from me is one of the corners of the room. To the right, is a wall dominated by four eight-foot high, rectangular windows. To the left is a similar set of three windows also framed in wood. I sit within a circle of ten other women attending a retreat at Aldermarsh, on Whidbey Island. I have been coming here for seven years as part of my spiritual practice in the discipline of Authentic Movement. We have just finished a round of movement and are sitting in silence.

My eyes wander outside the room to the familiar field, the short grass is a patchwork of browns, yellows and hints of green emerging as signs of spring. The field is framed by leafless hedges, which rise from the ground in hues of gray, turning pink and cranberry as their skeleton branches bud with new life. In the corner of the field, I see a newly planted Cedar sapling and my heart drops. Where is the circle of stones that used to be there? How could Joy, the owner of this island retreat, let someone disassemble that ancient Celtic landscape living right here on Whidbey?

Memories wash over me of walking amongst these stones. I see again what is no longer visible to my eye. Four large boulders mark the four directions of North, South, East and West. Three smaller rocks are spaced in between each of these boulders defining the rim of the circle. From each directional boulder a straight line of three spaced rocks extends to the center standing stone. This center stone is encircled, side by side with a dozen smaller stones. I see the many offerings: shells, pebbles, business cards, pendants, tea bag quotes and coins on and around the center stone. I will go later and pay my respects to this sacred ground.
My ancestral blood is fully Irish. I attribute my comfort in the misty gray weather of the Pacific Northwest to my Celtic heritage. I could never live in a climate with relentless sun; I am too fond of the weather mirroring my various moods.

Tears slowly well up in my eyes and silently spill over. It’s not only the absence of the stone circle that I cry for, eleven months ago today my father, Morgan Ryan, died. My tears take me back to March 24, 2006 to my bedroom, within my family home in Ballston Lake, New York. My bed has been replaced with a hospital bed where my father rests. The head of the bed tilts up at a forty-five degree angle. He looks so alone in the bed and the room is crowded with chairs where my mother, brother and sister sit surrounding him. I crawl on the bed to be near him. The right side of his mouth hangs open, a remnant of his most recent stroke. As I wipe the drool that escapes his slack mouth, I am grateful not to be looking at him straight on. From where I sit, his left side is relaxed, mouth closed, eyes closed. My heart is wide open as I watch his chest move up and down as his breath rasps in and out. I know he can’t see me; I wonder if he can hear me, feel me beside him? I offer my love anyway in words and kisses on his baby smooth cheeks and forehead. The wrinkles of his face have fallen away.

I feel blessed to be with him now having flown across the country to witness his dying. I watch his chest rise and fall as we retell stories of our childhood. I’m the first to notice no movement in his chest; we all fall silent. I hold my breath. Is that it? I breathe and notice his breath returns as well. We look around at each other’s faces, our eyes convey a sense of immensity our mouths are reluctant to utter. Slowly, we resume our story telling. This pattern of breath, pause, pause, breath continues. Each time the pauses elongate and his breaths become fewer. I feel him crossing over and I sing an Irish lullaby to him, Tura Lura Lu, the same song I sing each night for my son Connor as he drifts into dreamland. I imagine my father being met by his ancestors, I imagine him entering the ancient circle of stones, the sacred landscape of our ancestors. I marvel at how my voice finds the low and high notes with uncharacteristic ease. Just as the song is coming to an end, I am about to start the verse again and notice my father’s chest is still. The song and his life come to an end together. My tears now flowing freely leave speech and song behind me. We sit as a family together for another three hours, raising our glasses of scotch, sharing more stories, crying and laughing. I feel us growing closer as a family as we sit in circle around him.

The circle of women where I sit are arms length apart, it is time for us to move in closer to the center as we bring the morning session to a close. I scoot my butt on the pillow using my hands to push me along. The blanket slides with ease underneath me along the wooden floor. From where I sit now, looking past a women’s head through the set of three windows, I spy a quarter of the circle of stones. I sigh, understanding now the stone circle was there the whole time, just gone from my view. I am grateful it was only my disorientation to what I thought of as familiar landscape that obliterated the circle. The phrase “seen or unseen, bidden or unbidden, God is present” echoes like a refrain from a familiar song in me. What else is present, yet invisible to my current orientation?

In the last year, I have learned grief is like a rogue wave on an otherwise calm sea, rising up and overtaking anything in its path. One minute I am fine, the next moment I’m caught in its undertow. Today, I didn’t wake recalling the anniversary of my father’s death. Instead, I let the demands of the day dictate my next step. I didn’t start the first round of Authentic Movement with any sense of this current within me. Instead, I began eyes closed, painfully aware of a knot that lives inside my right shoulder blade. It hides behind the scapula where it is hard, if not impossible to reach and massage on my own. I stretch my arms back, arching so my shoulder blades touch. I reach my hands forward, palms pushing, back rounded but find no relief. I step back and discover I am at the window frame. I press my back against the wooden edge and lean into the spot, rounding my back. I push up and under my shoulder blade. The pain is mixed with pleasure as I feel some release. I am stunned by the image of my father in his Hanes t-shirt and boxers with his back angled against a door jam, rubbing left to right to scratch his back. He loved having his back scratched. I feel his presence and in the next moment, my eyes are filled with tears spilling over.

Has he been watching me up late at night at the kitchen table with my laptop drafting the business plan and budgets? It’s his business acumen that I have been calling on these last few months. I miss him. I wish I could call him for advice now that we finally have something in common with each other, besides our DNA. He started his own business and while he wasn’t very present or approachable as a father, he was very successful as an entrepreneur.

Would he understand how I am walking the edge of a new business model, balancing a traditional approach to strategy with listening to what is emerging in the moment and tuning with a larger mystery as guide to my actions? From his perspective now, can he see me in ways he never saw me while he was alive? Tears stream down my face not only for the loss of him, but for the loss of what I never experienced with him while he was alive. While I know he loved me the only way he knew how, by providing for me, I know the way I chose to live my life bewildered him. None of my attempts at conversation ever really led to any genuine understanding between us. Our relationship held no animosity, nor real intimacy, just a respectful distance. A distance I magnified by leaving New England and establishing my home on the opposite coast.

Now that the seen and unseen worlds separate us, can we bridge this distance with any kind of relationship? What if I asked for his advice now, even though he resides in the place of the ancestors? Could he really help me? Would I let him? Has he been helping, guiding me all along, unbidden? Am I open to a new relationship with him unfolding like the Cedar sapling, newly planted in the corner of the field? What if death can’t define the end of a relationship, what if our relationship can continue to grow and mature?

I’m grateful we are in silence for the afternoon. As I leave Marsh house to walk back for lunch, my feet cross the short distance of grassy field to the freshly covered path of cedar chips that meanders through the Alder forest. The path’s golden color contrasts with the chocolate browns of fallen, decaying Alder leaves. The trees trunks all have patches of vibrant lime moss at the base of their trunks, their branches bare. I love that the walkway over the marsh continues the gentle curves of the path, no straight lines. My attention is drawn to a fallen tree in the marsh, completely blanketed in moss, as if it’s grown a green fur coat. I stop to stare into the dark waters and discover the reflections of the forests’ dendrite pattern of bare branches. The thinner treetops gently sway, while clouds move slowly past. It’s as if the tree trunks are bridges between the worlds of sky and ground. The mirror is breathtaking. I hear the phase within me, “as above so below.”

It started with this message: “I just changed over oxygen tanks for my father. My first time. A lot of dictations from both sides. Over time, this will be more graceful.” From there grew Offerings’ first-ever blog cluster of heartfelt sharings called “Stumbling into Grace”. In reading them, may you be graced.

Twitter.

I’ve avoided it, almost resented it because I feel like it’s just one more thing I can be distracted by (by which I can be distracted – okay, Ed Brush). I mean what do I care about the minutae of someone’s every day life?

And then there was this from my friend Judy’s blog – a twitter (tweet?) from a friend of hers:

“I just changed over oxygen tanks for my father. My first time. A lot of dictations from both sides. Over time, this will be more graceful.”

My heart slowed down when I read this, as if time itself had slowed down so the words could embed themselves in my heart, between its beats.

Over time, this will be more graceful.

It isn’t true that roles get reversed as a parent’s aging makes them dependent on you. You don’t become the parent and they the child. It’s just a new and confusing relationship, for both sides – a dance for which there is no choreographer. You make it up as you go along. You improvise.

I’m beginning to think that most of life is improvisation. Fred Astaire strove for perfection. Gregory Hines used his mistakes to take him to the next step.

I had to improvise a lot in my mother’s final years. She was fiercely independent, but depended on me, just as her mother was fiercely independent and depended on her. Your job is to lead the dance, but not seem like you are.

My mother died right in the middle of a misstep in our dance– a particularly graceless moment. And so I thought that grace would be forever denied me.

But, death ends a life, not a relationship and it’s up to the survivor to carry it on. That’s a paraphrase from the film “I Never Sang for my Father.”

My mother died three years ago this July. At first I felt kind of numb. But then the numbness wore off and I fell into a vortex of questioning – particularly wondering whether or not I had been a good enough daughter. Could I have done something to make the dance more graceful?

Finally, sometime over the last year the answer came to me in the form of forgiveness – no, there was nothing I, or she, could have done to make our final dance more graceful. There was no choreographer. Just the two of us finding our way through. It was up to me use the misstep to create a new dance – one I would have to dance solo.

I had to improvise. Work with what I had, not what I had hoped for. And trust that I had made my choices based on love, my love for her and myself. And assume that she had done the same. And then I had to forgive us both for not being perfect. Our dance was more like a Gregory Hines, than a Fred Astaire dance.

But I like Gregory Hines dances more than I do Fred Astaire’s. I think they had more life to them. In forgiveness, I found the grace I thought was not mine to have.

Over time, this will be more graceful.

Sometimes, great wisdom is found in the minutae of everyday living.

(Originally published as “Over time, this will be more graceful” on the Writing Shed blog.)

It started with this message: “I just changed over oxygen tanks for my father. My first time. A lot of dictations from both sides. Over time, this will be more graceful.” From there grew Offerings’ first-ever blog cluster of heartfelt sharings called “Stumbling into Grace”. In reading them, may you be graced.

I have read your blog (“The Veil is Slipping…Papa, Can I See You?” and can really empathize with the experience you are living.

As you know, Guy was a scientist, first educated as a clinical psychologist and then as an engineer. As a warm introvert, he had a gentle and yet strong presence at all times.  As his illness progressed and his care was moved in to hospice services, I remember how he responded to the young doctor and social worker who came to interview us.

When asked if he had a church preference, he replied that, while having been brought up as an Episcopalian, he had left organized religion and over many years had practised ‘zen sitting’.  In the way of sacred synchronicity which was part of our acknowledged and shared way of noting reality, the young medic replied that he understood as he, himself, was a zen practitioner.  Then the young man asked him how he was approaching this experience, and that was the moment when Guy said that ‘he had received the most exciting and compelling invitation to walk in awe and wonder in to the mystery.’

When the hospice team left, Guy and I had a conversation and knew that we must have a conference with our daughters and immediately invited them to come. When we were together, Guy repeated to us the answer he had given.  He then asked us if we could support him, and I remember he said that hospice talks of six months and no doubt they could arrange more and more palliative ‘cocktails’ but knew this meant he would get up each morning and recognize himself less and less as he looked in to the mirror.   He then, again, asked us if we could support him if he continued ‘to walk in awe and wonder in to the mystery?’. I am sure we were unclear at one level as to what that meant, but, at the deep level of our collective meaning-making, we all knew that we wished to supportively accompany him.

Upon reflection, I know that I was with Guy as he became more feeble each morning he got up to wash and shave and look at himself in the mirror.  In about a month, Guy quietly said to me that we would need a nurse in the morning and I called the hospice nurse.   The next morning she examined Guy, came out and  said, “this gentleman has decided to leave today and children should be called to be with us.” I asked her to speak to our daughters Catherine and Barbara and they came within two hours.

Guy asked Catherine to sit on the bed and play to him her latest composition for the classical guitar: “The Family Dialogue”. He had asked her to write up the notated score and she brought it with her.  Gradually, as time went by, Guy’s ‘zen breathing’ took over and later in the afternoon he breathed his last deep breath.

We learned that one could decide to face that last step in to the mystery with awe and wonder, and realized that Guy had almost always approached his life in that way.  We learned that it is good to have a pattern of family dialogue that has been practised and can be called on as one’s loved ones take steps in to the mystery at any time in life and especially towards the end of the physical life as we know it.

We learned that calling this time in to conscious ceremony is important. When the nurse asked me to call my children, I also had a clan pipe-carrying sister with me and the sisters of my clan – the Fireweed Clan- were all called.   As a result, a sister was beating the heart beat of the earth drum quietly during those last hours of shared physical life. The house was cleansed with the smudging of smoke.   After Guy’s last breath, he was enfolded in a clan blanket and candles lit for a twenty four hour family time together.  We all recognize life itself as ceremony, and recognize that life itself is a profound gift of ceremony.

That evening, the Fireweed Clan gathered and a full pipe ceremony of thanksgiving for Guy’s life was held in the sitting room;  one Canadian sister spent the night with the above sky-and-star nations in order to ensure clear passage in to the greater mystery.

I hope, dear Teresa, that you know that this shared story comes to you with deep love.

It started with this message: “I just changed over oxygen tanks for my father. My first time. A lot of dictations from both sides. Over time, this will be more graceful.” From there grew Offerings’ first-ever blog cluster of heartfelt sharings called “Stumbling into Grace”. In reading them, may you be graced.

Oh what a story…….. I cried  reading through it,  to see  you go through all your emotions in this journey.

When my own parents were ill, I was very young and while I could understand what losing them meant, it was still with a selfish intent that I grieved their passing,  especially for my father who I adored completely. With my mother, it was more the work of letting her go for I saw she could not go on without my father.  Looking back, I can see that was no noble gesture on my part -my mother was like one of us, a child who needed to be cared for, so there was little loss of what I could have benefited from her.  It was an unkind thought, I realize, but this was what I saw of her then. When you are young, all you see in the world is what you can gain from it.

With my brother, Willy it was different. I could not have imagined that losing him was one I would bear most heavily. I mourn for him always and miss him terribly. We never had a close relationship; there was a gap of 8 years between us. It was not one that was strained, just distant.

After my parents passed,  he went on a tail spin, forever trying my patience with all the problems he brought home; from drugs, prison, to wandering in the streets. I was very angry. For years I felt being burdened by him.  Then he became ill.

One December I flew to Cebu with my in laws and saw Willy. Without intent or foreknowledge it just hit me, at that one moment that all I wanted to do was to be with him - really be with him. And so I stayed on and we spent a couple more days with him.

I tell you, Teresa, that moment just brought together all the past 44 years of my brother’s life and 36 of mine into a wonderful time together.  We did not talk to rehash the past , nor ask for forgiveness…we were just there together. And I believe this is what you are experiencing with your Dad. I went home to Manila and cried; I had regrets of time lost, and just the waste of energy of all the sermons I gave, in my attempts to set him right .

I always saw my brother and I in a journey together,  only I was on a boat- solid, dependable, it would protect me.  My brother on the other hand had foolishly decided he was better in the ocean.  I saw myself  shouting at him to paddle harder, frustrated at his weakness and the ridiculousness of choosing to be were he was,cursing him when he did not grasp the life saver I constantly threw to him. ….when what I should have done was jump in and be with him, even for a moment, to understand where he was. Not think of how slow this will get him to his destination, or worry whether he would make it or not . But, just to be there with him without care or worry.

I realized this only when he had already been too weary and tired. But we both had a great and wonderful time. I imagine him now smiling down and reminiscing about it with the same fondness.  I will always have that final time with him in my heart and it has given me such joy to remember my brother - embracing both the good and bad times.

I pray this for you too.

In the home of my parents in Cebu, Philippines…7,700 miles away from my life in California. My father struggles to find ease and comfort after his last bout of congestive heart failure. He reaches for the oxygen for some help. Lightly touches his stomach, moaning a little at its queasy, nauseating feeling. All the various medications are playing havoc on his weakened system. His arms are thin and frail-looking. He sits, as if waiting for something…not sure what. My heart breaks open — again.

I had arrived four days ago with both great excitement and great trepidation. Eager to be of help, be a source of comfort, be the good serving daughter. They were excited too, and so happy I had come home to be with them at this time. I was relieved to see my father looking healthier than how I had imagined on the 16-hour flight over, given the reports about his weakening heart and his labored breathing and his challenged kidneys. And to see my mother holding up her own, feisty and active as ever.

Like a fresh wind coming through their bedroom, I set up overseas video Skype calls between my father and each of his other children, all still in the US and unable as yet to come. Papa would always put on a nice shirt before the camera would come on. And it was always a good time. My siblings would comment on how good he was looking. On good days he would tease and say, “Did you say I looked good, or that I was good-looking?” We would laugh and go on to talking about the surprising economic upturn in the Philippines and his theories on why that would be so or about the last match of the famous and beloved Filipino world welter weight boxing champion Manny Pacquiao. On not-so-good days, he would say, “I am hanging in here. Hanging on straws. I hope the stem cell research moves forward, now that Obama has lifted the ban on funding for this. It would very much help many of us with debilitating brain, heart, and spinal cord diseases.”  To this, we would squirm and both lightly and seriously say, “Let’s hope the straws become stems soon, Papa.” And we’d move on. Papa would always feel buoyed and energized by those calls. Sometimes, after, he’d be exhausted and go off to sleep.

But, as the days started to unfold slowly, in the quiet ticking of the hours of being with both of them, separately and together, I began to notice an uneasiness. It became heightened when I would help out with things like switching out an empty oxygen tank and replacing it with a full one, or handing out medications, and other seemingly simple things like this. Papa would give out detailed instructions and wanted every single thing to be just so. “No, not that way”, he’d instruct. “Move it to the left, a little bit more, a little bit more, no too much. No, that’s not right.” And my mother would respond with a tiredness and irritation in her voice…and then, I began to notice it in my reactions as well — though mostly unvoiced. An “Oh, what’s the use” or “I was right the first time” or “It always has to be your way” kind of pattern had begun to take on some life. It was an old pattern I’d grown up with and only knew too well. This was –ugh- not good…and I knew immediately that, left unattended, this would very quickly be an untenable situation…for all of us.

Then yesterday — I forget what had stimulated it – perhaps just sitting there flicking through one of my mom’s magazines, I looked up at my father sitting on the side of the bed. Quiet, hardly moving. Somehow, for the very first time since I got here, I REALLY, REALLY looked at him….looked and took in what was going on with him. His movements, his breathing, the way he bent his head. And, I realized that before that moment, I barely looked or touched him. I mean, yes I kissed and hugged him, but there was a layer of something — a bravado, a put-on-a-hopeful-face, a it’s going to be alright, or a feistiness – that though they were more pleasant than doom-&-gloom, they also shielded us from seeing what we needed to see. I had separated myself from both of them for fear of what I would learn about his condition and their life. I was afraid of how I’d feel or if I would crumble under the sadness of seeing them both in a state of need, depletion, perhaps fear. How would it feel if I truly let it all in? What if the veil were to slip away and I’d no longer be able to protect myself?

So, yesterday, sitting alone with Papa while Mama was upstairs in the attic, somehow, that guarded film of denial, fear, whatever, slipped off and I saw him and took him in — and my heart just broke open with love and compassion for him. For, no matter how difficult and domineering and controlling he has been and can be, he has also been and is so loving and generous and accepting of all of us, and while he used to be strong, fast, agile, he was now also weak, hurting, slow. It’s as if the whole past slipped away and just brought me to this present moment…and to the whole and beautiful being he is — gifts and flaws!

I knew the only way I could survive this time with them, and be of real service to them, is to let it all go. To come to this time and embrace it for the sacred and the Grace there is here. To listen deeply from my heart for the needs, the requests and move with deep gratitude for this chance to be of help in some way. To let Papa — and Mama, too — say EXACTLY how they’d like it to be and not argue with it or defend myself against it. To do so in as whole, complete and graceful (as I can muster) action.

This is my calling, my meditation, my practice at this time. And I know I will stumble, my ego slipping back in place (it truly is quite dastardly and conniving, our egos), but I also know in a way I never have before, that whether I’m right or wrong or did it right or wrong or how good a help I am or not, IS NOT THE POINT. It’s what can I do and with how much love can I do it with to have them feel I’ve truly heard them, seen them, honor and respect their needs and wishes and move to act with grace and love. The least and only thing I can do is love them with all I can…and be glad for the opportunity to experience such a love.

For in the end - I bow to the wisdom of this - I’d rather be feeling the sadness and rawness of every moment I have, am, and will share with them than the deadening feeling of being safe, contained and strong…and apart. That night of the first day the veil started to slip, I crawled into bed, exhausted, and cried and cried myself to sleep. Woke up in the middle of the night and cried and cried again. My heart breaking — open. And it will break again and yet again. Its well is deep and vast.

Thank you, Papa and Mama, for this time.

Our society has been hurtling towards this economic crisis for a very long time. Everyone, at some level, has known about this eventuality. And yet, when it finally came crashing down around us, we still reacted with shock, dismay and fear. Slowly, as people are beginning to come out of the fog and confusion, many are realizing the unique and important opportunity before us to make some fundamentally critical shifts in the way we are….with everything, and with everyone. But, are we there? Are we ready to let it all go for something completely new? Or are we still too fearful — finding ourselves holding on tighter, making palliative remedies for the pain? How, as I asked my friends, is everything we’re doing still, in all, simply rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic?

This article came to us the other day. We invite your perspectives and a willingness to engage in open and thoughtful dialogue…mostly to the question of how ready are we for something completely new?

California Doesn’t Need to Borrow Billions from Washington — It Can Create Its Own Money
By Ellen Brown, AlterNet
Posted on May 27, 2009, Printed on May 27, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/140261/

“I understand that these cuts are very painful and they affect real lives. This is the harsh reality and the reality that we face. Sacramento is not Washington — we cannot print our own money. We can only spend what we have.”
- Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger quoted in Time, May 22, 2009

Christmas comes early, Governor. You can print your own money. Fiscally solvent North Dakota is doing it…and so can California. Now!

In a May 22 article in Time titled “Billions in the Red: Fiscal Reckoning in CA,” Juliet Williams reports that since California voters have now vetoed higher taxes and further state government borrowing, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has indicated that he intends to close the budget gap almost entirely through drastic spending cuts. The cutbacks could include laying off thousands of state workers and teachers, ending the state’s main welfare program for the poor, eliminating health coverage for about 1.5 million poor children, halting cash grants for about 77,000 college students, slashing money for state parks, and releasing thousands of prisoners before their sentences are finished. Schwarzenegger bemoaned the fact that the state could not print its own money but said it could only spend what it had.

But the state can create its own money. After all, banks do this every day. Certified, card-carrying bankers are allowed to do something nobody else can do: they can create “credit” with accounting entries on their books. As the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas explains on its website:

Banks actually create money when they lend it. Here’s how it works: Most of a bank’s loans are made to its own customers and are deposited in their checking accounts. Because the loan becomes a new deposit, just like a paycheck does, the bank…holds a small percentage of that new amount in reserve and again lends the remainder to someone else, repeating the money-creation process many times.

President Obama has also acknowledged that banks create money, through what he calls the “multiplier effect.” In a speech at Georgetown University on April 14, he said:

[A]lthough there are a lot of Americans who understandably think that government money would be better spent going directly to families and businesses instead of banks — “where’s our bailout?” they ask — the truth is that a dollar of capital in a bank can actually result in eight or ten dollars of loans to families and businesses, a multiplier effect that can ultimately lead to a faster pace of economic growth.

Money in a government-owned bank could give us the best of both worlds. We could have all the credit-generating advantages of private banks, without the baggage cluttering up the books of the Wall Street giants, including bad derivatives bets, unmarketable collateralized debt obligations, mark to market accounting issues, oversized CEO salaries and bonuses, and shareholders expecting a sizeable cut of the profits. A state could deposit its vast revenues in its own state-owned bank and proceed to fan them into eight to 10 times their face value in loans. Not only would it have its own credit machine, but it would control the loan terms. The state could lend at ?% interest to itself and to municipal governments, rolling the loans over as needed until the revenues had been generated to pay them off. According to Professor Margrit Kennedy in her 1995 book Interest and Inflation-free Money, interest composes, on average, fully half the cost of every public project. Cutting costs by 50% could make currently-unsustainable projects such as low-cost housing, alternative energy development, and infrastructure construction not only sustainable but actually profitable for the government.

If all this seems too radical and unprecedented to venture into, consider that one state has had its own bank for 90 years; and it has not only escaped the credit crunch but is doing remarkably well…

The Innovative Bank of North Dakota

Only three of 50 states are now solvent, meaning they have the revenues to meet their state budgets; and one of them is North Dakota. It is an unlikely candidate for the distinction. It is a sparsely populated state of fewer than 700,000 people, largely located in isolated farming communities afflicted with cold weather. Yet since 2000, the state’s GNP has grown 56%, personal income has grown 43%, and wages have grown 34%. The state not only has no funding issues, but this year it actually has a budget surplus of $1.2 billion, the largest it has ever had.

North Dakota boasts the only state-owned bank in the nation. The Bank of North Dakota (BND) was established by the state legislature in 1919 specifically to free farmers and small businessmen from the clutches of out-of-state bankers and railroad men. The bank’s stated mission is to deliver sound financial services that promote agriculture, commerce and industry in North Dakota. By law, the state must deposit all its funds in the bank, which pays a competitive interest rate to the state treasurer. The state rather than the FDIC guarantees the bank’s deposits, which are plowed back into the state in the form of loans. The bank’s return on equity is about 25%, and it pays a hefty dividend to the state, which is expected to exceed $60 million this year. In the last decade, the BND has turned back a third of a trillion dollars to the state’s general fund, offsetting taxes. The former president of the BND is now the state’s governor.

The BND avoids rivalry with private banks by partnering with them. Most lending is originated by a local bank. The BND then comes in to participate in the loan, share risk, and buy down the interest rate. The BND provides a secondary market for real estate loans, which it buys from local banks. Its residential loan portfolio is now $500 billion to $600 billion. Guarantees are also provided for entrepreneurial startups, and the BND has ample money to lend to students (over 184,000 outstanding loans). It purchases municipal bonds from public institutions, and it backs loans made to new farmers at 1% interest. The BND also has a well-funded disaster loan program, which helps explain how Fargo, when struck by a disastrous flood recently, managed to avoid the devastation suffered by New Orleans in similar circumstances.

North Dakota has also managed to avoid the credit freeze, through the simple expedient of creating its own credit. It has led the nation in establishing state economic sovereignty. In California and other states, workers and factories are sitting idle because the private credit system has failed. An injection of new money from a system of publicly-owned banks on the model of the Bank of North Dakota could thaw the credit freeze and bring spring to the markets once again.

Ellen Brown developed her research skills as an attorney practicing civil litigation in Los Angeles. In Web of Debt, her latest book, she turns those skills to an analysis of the Federal Reserve and “the money trust.”
© 2009 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/140261/

Recently I read Judith Rich’s HuffPo post, Elizabeth Edwards And Us: Lessons in Resilience. It is a follow-up to an earlier post in which she decided to make a 100-day plan, taking one step each day toward a creative goal. (A great idea, I’ve been doing it too.) Unfortunately, a week or so into her 100 days, she’s been diagnosed with breast cancer.  Apparently, she has the best possible kind of cancer (is that the weirdest phrase ever, or what?), it’s been caught early and it is “very treatable.” Still, no matter what course of treatment she opts for, a serious wrench has been thrown into her 100-day plan.

In her (honest and eloquent) post, Judith writes, “There are the plans we make for our lives and then there’s life’s plan for us.” I really like that – it both encourages the conscious pursuit of our goals and dreams and acknowledges the reality that life rarely unfolds according to our best laid plans. She also says that she believes her cancer (like all things) is happening for a reason, and that she will let it teach her what she has to learn. I like that, too because she is brave and positive and that will serve her well on the road ahead.

BUT…

I don’t believe everything happens for a reason. I know that’s a popular notion. People like to say it.  I guess it’s comforting to hear it, but I don’t believe it. I believe we often make our own luck, invite our own misfortunes. I believe there are little choices we make every day that shape who we are and how we move through the world (see yesterday’s post), and that a lot of what we fall victim to is of our own (often unintentional) design.

And then there’s the rest of it. Life’s randomness. I believe in coincidence and dumb luck. I believe bad things happen to good people, and sometimes good things happen for no better reason than because someone stood in the right place at the right time. In California, where I live, if you look at pictures after an earthquake, you see the randomness of disaster – a house lying in ruins beside a house unscathed.

I think Judith Rich will come through her cancer changed, stronger. I think she will learn what cancer has to teach her, not because there’s a reason for the illness, but because she is an amazing woman. And, I guess, if that’s what happens, she will have created the reason she needs… So maybe it’s all semantics in the end.

Enough of what I think. What do you think? Does everything happen for a reason?

(Originally posted on Zebra Sounds, 5/8/09.)