Sit With Me

Instead of going to Curves to work-out this morning as I usually do, I decided to walk in the conservancy. The prediction is for thunderstorms later today, making a walk later a possible problem. Besides, I felt pulled by birdsong. I was there early and only passed one huffing and puffing jogger as I strolled easily, stopping occasionally to pinpoint the locations of the tweets, chirps, trills and honks. I've noted this spring how I hear sandhills frequently, almost every time I walk out the front door, but only rarely see them. Maybe this morning.

The skies didn't reward me with sandhills, but instead with a red-tail hawk soaring, swooping, almost swooning in his love of the early morning softness. I pay attention to hawks. They are one of my totems. Hawks are messengers, visionaries, reminders of the bigger picture and the ability each of us has to look deeply within for the inner light that guides us. I pay attention to hawks, and this one chose a sky-path over the springs in the conservancy. I followed, realizing what I most needed to do this morning was to sit in my own silence and open to the spiritual practice of centering prayer.

Centering prayer is a contemplative practice of opening to God, consenting to God's presence within, finding repose and resting in God, and moving beyond thoughts, images, and emotions. Centering prayer requires intention and patience and practice. There is a reason spiritual practices are called just that!

I've walked to the springs before and stood at the railing, watching with fascination the bubbling from the bottom of the shallow water and the forming of spirals, temporary labyrinths. I told myself to bring my journal here and sit and wait and allow whatever needs to be expressed to come bubbling forth. The hawk told me to be here today. I sat on the bench, set the timer on my i-phone for 20 minutes, took a deep breath, closed my eyes and offered my intention to rest in God. Of course, many thoughts appeared. I am overloaded with thoughts, but I kept returning to the sacred word I have found as my touchstone for centering prayer. Again and again--and again--I return to the sacred word, resetting my intention to rest in God. Sooner than I expect, the harp music of my i-phone timer plays. The 20 minutes are up, and I head back towards home and my plan for the day.

Was it a "successful" time? Yes, because I practiced and accepted God's invitation to open, but was there a moment of experiencing union with God? No, not really. There have been moments during centering prayer or doing T'ai Chi or walking a labyrinth when I have felt God's presence almost tangibly, but the moment I recognize it, it is gone. That knowing is seductive and hard not to grasp greedily. Today, however, was much more about intention, following the hawk, and trusting that the space I create within myself through this practice allows healing to occur. I have no idea what the fruits will be, but Father Thomas Keating, the founder of the Centering Prayer Movement and author of Open Mind, Open Heart, The Contemplative Dimension of the Gospel says, "God is patient and waits for the right moment in which you are ready for the insight that will free you."

Oh, and by the way, as I turned toward home I spotted two sandhills retracing the hawks highway.

Spring Sorting

Yes, I am still sorting. Once is not enough apparently. Just as cleaning my closet of clothes that no longer fit my body, my lifestyle, or my imagination needs to be done periodically; sorting in the rest of my life is an ongoing process as well. Here is what I have learned during my most recent sorting process: Surprise! I am retired.

I didn't know that's what happened when we moved here from Ohio. I just assumed I would continue to do in some fashion what I was doing there--some spiritual direction, some teaching, some facilitating of groups. I didn't know I was retiring without the gold watch, the pension, the farewell tea for this year's class of retirees. I didn't set a retirement date and count the days till it arrived. But here I am, RETIRED, a by-product of moving here so my husband could accept a challenging and exciting position and so we could live closer to our Minnesota family. No regrets, but I am amazed at my cluelessness about what this would mean for me.

In fact, a friend expressed surprise that I didn't recognize this change in my life, since I am a person who seems to be in constant reflection. It wasn't that I resisted the word. I simply did not recognize the obvious. Instead, I have been trying all this time to find a pat phrase for the question, "What do you do?"

For the first year or so I tried answering by stating what I did in my former life. "When we lived in Ohio I had a small private practice in spiritual direction, and I worked part time for a support organization for those touched by cancer." It was awkward, but it worked for awhile. However, now I have been here for over two years and speaking with tongues of the past no longer works. Frankly, it's not even that I am asked that often (Shouldn't that in itself be another clue, along with the fact that the AARP magazine shows up in our mailbox?) and if I am asked, I can slip easily into a conversation about things I am doing and like to do without too much stumbling. I refer to participating in a writing group and a book group/class or volunteering in the bookstore at the arboretum or attending a centering prayer class at Holy Wisdom Monastery. "Did you know they have the greenest building in the US?," I say, and successfully change the focus of the conversation. Oh, and, of course, there are the grandkids to bring into the conversation.

Obviously, I need to come to terms with the word "retired." I think there is intense pressure on my generation, even in our retirement, to do great things. "So what are you doing now that you are retired?" Golfing, sleeping late, and reading romance novels is not a good enough answer. We are expected, it seems, to respond with a passion, a dedication to a cause, a discovery of a new talent, or even commitment to a new career. Have you noticed how many books there are on the topic?. I have a few of them myself.

Leap! What Will We Do with the Rest of Our Lives? by Sara Davidson

Claiming Your Place at the Fire, Living the Second Half of Your Life on Purpose by Richard J. Leider and David A. Shapiro

The Third Chapter, Passion, Risk, and Adventure in the 25 Years After 50 by Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot (EEEK! I only have 13 more years before that book has no more relevance for me!)

Inventing the Rest of Our Lives, Women in Second Adulthood, What Matters, What Works, What's Next by Suzanne Braun Levine

Creating a Spiritual Retirement, A Guide to the Unseen Possibilities in Our Lives by Molly Strode.

I am tempted to answer the retirement question by saying, "My goal is to read all the books on retirement." I know there is good advice in these books, reflections that resonate with me, and spiritual practices that will enrich and enhance my life in the 60's and beyond and perhaps it is a good sign that I have these books on my shelf already. I'll go back and reread what I have underlined already.

What I am beginning to realize is that the filling up, the testing and trying, the believing that the next big thing is just around the corner has not been all that successful. I find myself stuck in what was, what is not, and too permeated with it all to just BE. I am not sure what that will look like, but I hope to ease from Spring Sorting to Summer Savoring.

Snow Day Sorting

Last week I gave myself a Snow Day. Granted, it was actually snowing--steadily, quietly all day--but going to both morning and afternoon activities would not have been a problem. However, the pull of an unscheduled day in my office was much stronger than attending the discussion about a book I only moderately enjoyed. And as much as I love the weekly writing group, I felt a more urgent tug to sit at my own desk. So I stayed home. Specifically, I stayed in my lower level office where I had recently "dressed" my harvest table desk with some of my vintage tablecloths and spread out writing tools and bits and pieces to inspire and invite me into reflection. Although this desk doesn't have the view I had from my office in our 1802 farmhouse, I love the feeling of being tucked under the house. On a snowy winter day I imagine myself in an igloo, a cave, an underground chamber. My own secret place.

I spent the day writing a book review for a volunteer newsletter, researching potential publishers for my collection of essays about grief and loss, jotting thoughts for the book's introduction, and brainstorming ideas for a new book about transitions and spiritual ways of living those changes. A productive and creative day. I mused on how much I could accomplish if I had more Snow Days. If I allowed myself more days like this one. If I protected more days to use in this way.

We have now lived here in Madison for a little over two years. During this time my priority has been to settle in, to find my loop of life, to create a life, a home, here. To do that I have explored and been open to a variety of opportunities. I've stretched my naturally introverted personality in order to meet people and find meaningful and stimulating activities. I am happy there are places where people know my name and greet me warmly. No small feat, when you move at this stage of your life.

During my Snow Day, however, I felt new ideas bubbling up in me. I churned with bouncing thoughts. I felt an eagerness swirling within me. As the snow twirled and whirled outside my windows, I heard inner murmurs, breathy urgings, "Stay here. Be here. Write here." A book I am reading about creating a spiritual retirement keeps repeating the refrain, "Now is the time...." Perhaps it is.

At this point the Snow Day became the Sorting Day, for my dance card is quite full, thank you very much. Louise deSalvo in Writing as a Way of Healing says, "To make time to write, we often have to choose to stop doing something else." What will it be? I'm not quite sure about that yet, but I am in the process of sorting through all the calendar items. I am assessing the pieces, scrutinizing my days and searching my heart, listening to what feels essential.

The sorting is not done, but I will be at my desk more often.

January Morning

Saturday morning I set out early into the barely there mist. Quiet. Still. Had my neighborhood become a ghost town? Were we the only home still inhabited? I imagined the abductors saying, "Hey, did you get that green house? No, but Joe did." Only Joe didn't, and here we still are. Even the dog with the menacing growl, whose solid presence has forced me more than once to the other side of the block, does not appear. I am alone, walking past industrial waste piles of snow where discarded Christmas trees and browning garlands have been tossed, awaiting rescue by city trucks. Every year I tease I am going to sneak onto porches and pluck Christmas wreaths tired and well beyond their "Use by ..." deadlines. Do people not notice as they pick up the morning paper or answer the door to their children's friends how unwelcoming these wreaths look now that January is soon to be February? Perhaps I should start a business. For only $5 I will remove your wreath in a timely fashion. Pay in advance, of course.

In spite of this eccentric irritation, I happen to love winter, and in fact, winter is my favorite season. I catch myself even praying this year will be the longest, the worst winter ever. True, I sigh with others, "Yes, isn't it awful? Sick of it? Yes, me too," but I adjust the glasses on my nose, turn another page and reach for my mug of hot chocolate. I wrap myself in a shawl. I poke the fire. I turn on only enough light to see the book. I move slowly, but steadily through winter tasks. No drawer left unorganized. No letter or email unanswered. No goal unchallenged. No hope unaddressed. The refrain on my lips is "This year I will...,but on my own terms and without zeal or threat of punishment.

Winter's uncluttered, unlittered nature moves me patiently from day to day without surprise of color or blossom or smell of dirt or invitation to jump, to charge forward. Instead I stop. I rest. I delight in Sabbath time. I stretch slowly, deliberately, quietly, so as not to awaken any other bears in my cave.

I value the harvest of fall, the energy of spring, the secure lingering of summer, but even more I covet the lairs of winter, the hidden passages, the unlit corridors, the streamlined views, the bareness of the horizon. The action coldly stopped, frozen without conscious time. I've done what I can all those other days and months and now it is time to leave what is undone and to unwind the sweater till once more it is yarn. It is sheep. It is essence.

Ah, this is it. Winter is essence and offers the time to recall, to re-call my own essence.

Favorite Books of 2009

I have always kept lists of books to read, books to buy and give, and, of course, books read. True, there are still some reading days left in 2009, but in our Christmas letter sent to family and friends, I promised to post this year's list of "favorites" on my blog. Here it is:

Fiction

* In Hovering Flight - Joyce Hennefield

* War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy (My first reading was when I was in college. I loved it this time around so much more.)

* Two books by Pamela Carter Joern: The Floor of the Sky and The Plain Sense of Things

* American Wife - Curtis Sittenfeld (Smart and sexy and how much is true and when will the movie come out and who will play Laura Bush?)

* The House on Fortune Street - Margot Livesey

* The Piano Teacher - Janice Y. K. Lee

* The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society - Shaffer and Barrons (Awful title and wonderful book)

* The Space Between Us - Thrity Umrigar

* The mystery series by Susan Hill. Start with the first one, The Various Haunts of Men. (I decided August was mystery month and devoured this series. The latest has just been released.)

* Olive Kitteridge - Elizabeth Strout

* A Happy Marriage - Rafael Yglesias

* A Gate at the Stairs - Lorrie Moore (Madison writer and this book is on the NY Times best of the year list)

* Jhumpa Lahiri's two book of short stories: Unaccustomed Earth and Interpreter of Maladies. (Overcome your unwillingness to read short stories and read both of these.)

Nonfiction: I am reading far more nonfiction these days and along with books specifically related to spirituality, I am reading a number of books about nature.

* The Forever War - Dexter Filkins

* The Buddhist Path to Simplicity, Spiritual Practice for Everyday Life - Christina Feldman

* Beauty, The Invisible Embrace, Rediscovering the True Sources of Compassion, Serenity and Hope - John O'Donohue

* The Third Chapter, Passion, Risk and Adventure in the 25 Years after 50 - Sara Lawrence Lightfoot

* Seeking Peace, Chronicles of the Worst Buddhist in the World, Mary Pipher

* Listening Below the Noise, A Meditation on the Practice of Silence - Anne D. LeClaire

* The Morville Hours, The Story of a Garden - Katherine Swift

* Small Wonder - Barbara Kingsolver

* On Moving, A Writer's Meditation on New House, Old Haunts and Finding Home Again - Louise deSalvo

* Teaching Trees, Lesson from the Forest - Joan Maloof

* We Two, Victoria and Albert, Rulers, Partners, Rivals - Gillian Gill

* Facing the Lion, Being the Lion, Facing Inner Courage Where it Lives - Mark Nepo

* Life List, A Woman's Quest for the World's Most Amazing Birds - Olivia Gentile (about Phoebe Snetsinger)

* This Year I Will...How to Finally Change a Habit, Keep a Resolution or Make a Dream Come True - M. J. Ryan

* Crow Planet, Essential Wisdom from the Urban Wilderness - Lynda Lynn Haupt

* Traveling with Pomegranates, A Mother-Daughter Story - Sue Monk Kidd and Ann Kidd Taylor

* The Seven Whispers - Christina Baldwin (One I return to periodically)

* Epicurean Simplicity - Stephanie Mills

* A Book of Silence - Sara Maitland

* Writing from the Center - Scott Russell Sanders

Perhaps in an upcoming blog posting I will offer a selection of favorite quotes from these books. Stay tuned. In the meantime there is Christmas and entry into the new year. I wish you joy and hope and a deepened awareness of how Spirit is moving in your life. And a new book or two--and even time to read them.

The Spiritual Practice of Cherry Walnut Bread

Four bread tins await. I have returned from a snowy walk to the grocery store to get eggs and butter. When the butter has come to room temperature, I will make cherry walnut bread, one of my Christmas traditions and spiritual practices.

The first year I made cherry walnut bread we were living in St Louis where Bruce was in his last year of medical school , and I was teaching high school English. I was pregnant with our first child, but I didn't know it yet. The recipe came from a magazine, an inserted booklet of quick bread recipes, and was actually for cherry PECAN bread, but walnuts fit our budget better. I can afford pecans now, but cherry walnut it shall remain. I think about baking in that tiny elf-sized apartment kitchen where the only counter space was about a foot long. Somehow good food still was created. I think about the friends to whom I gave bread that first year; many of whom have since died. I am grateful for all they gave to that newlywed and novice teacher.

I'm not much of a cookie baker, except for gingersnaps in the fall or snickerdoodles occasionally, so the bread became my Christmas baking trademark. I wonder if people who receive the bread think of it as Great Aunt Hilda's Fruit Cake that sits on the shelf all Christmas and finally is thrown out with the used wrapping paper and tinsel from the tree. Do they smile and say "thank you" and then hide it at the bottom of the bread drawer? Oh well, I love making it and in the making I encounter a newsreel of memories.

At first I used a pale blue deep pottery bowl from the 30's or 40's, but then I realized how expensive those bowls have become, so I thanked it for its faithful service and decided not to use it so casually, so regularly. Funny, other people only bring out the china and crystal for special occasions, but I relegated that old bowl to infrequent use and "saved" status. Instead, I bought "new" old bowls, not as precious--large yellow Pyrex bowls. Functional, as well as cheery looking, but I must admit I wondered the first time I used it, if the bread would taste the same. I guess it did. No one commented, unlike the year I had a new food processor and used it to chop the cherries. Such protests from the kids. The cherries were too finely chopped. Where were the chunks? I went back to chopping by hand with cherry juice running over and under the cutting board, leaving a red stain on the counter. Eventually I returned to using the old faded blue bowl--just for cherry walnut bread. I missed it and I thought it must have felt useless, put out to pasture. I've always believed in using what I have, enjoying it, so what got into me? It saddens me when I am antiquing and see vintage linens with the label still attached. "Never used," the price tag says. Why not? What happened? Did that special occasion never come?

Well, that's why hometending is a spiritual practice for me. I am reminded that every moment is a special occasion. Every moment is an opportunity to feel the presence. Every memory is a chance to whisper a blessing. I think about the people in my life who have received my offering. I smile and think about my son, who when he was quite young ate several jars of cherries and hid the empty jars behind the couch. Now grown and married, he is making the bread himself. I think about how I created a family cookbook for each of our children before they got married and, of course, the cherry walnut bread recipe is included. I remember the teachers to whom I gave a small loaf along with their Christmas gift, as a token thank you for the love and inspiration they gave our children, and the gatherings where I took a loaf as a hostess gift or the potlucks where a loaf of bread accompanied my salad or casserole. The loaves I make today will go to neighbors and also to Minnesota where we will drive tomorrow to spend Christmas . Perhaps Kate has made loaves herself, but I am the Mom and I need to bring the cherry walnut bread.

Nancy Agneberg's Cherry Walnut Bread

3/4 cup sugar

1 cup butter

2 eggs

Cream together sugar, butter, and eggs. Add alternately with 1 cup buttermilk, 2 cups flour, 1 tsp baking soda, 1/2 tsp vanilla, 1 jar chopped maraschino cherries, and 1/2 cup chopped walnuts.

Butter loaf pan. Bake 325 degrees for 55-60 minutes.

A Grandmother's Reverie

The house is quiet. Startlingly quiet. Turning on the radio or my ipod won't help. Going out for a walk only means returning to a still house. Eventually, probably by morning, I will be used to the solitude once again, but for now I am straining to hear the echoes of young life. Our daughter Kate and our grandchildren Maren, almost 7, and Peter, 20 months, were here visiting for a long weekend, but now they are back home. To counter my melancholy, I turn to a journal entry written a week after Peter was born:

Kate and Mike left the house at 5:00 am for the scheduled C-section later that morning. Bruce and I got up to say goodbye and send them off with love. Maren, however, slept until about 7:30, and we had our usual cuddle time in bed. I brought her in bed with me when she was quite small, before she could walk, and soon that became our blessed morning routine. I wonder if that will be a Peter tradition, too, or if we will have something else that is our own.

Anyway, Mike called us at 8:30 with the great news. Peter had entered the world at 7:54, 7 pounds, 4 ounces; 19 1/2 inches long. Lots of blondish hair with maybe a tinge of red. Maren's nose. And healthy. Both Mom and Baby. Thank you, God. Soon we were at the hospital and Maren had the promised first look at him. Kate later said when Maren first saw him sprawled in his bassinet, legs frog style, arms flung out, fresh after his first bath, she laughed. Chuckled with delight. In that moment she became a loving big sister.

Bruce and I waited patiently in the family lounge, but soon Maren and Mike came and told us we could come meet him. The first time I saw Maren, who arrived five weeks early, but was the largest baby in the NICU, I thought “I know you.” I was overwhelmed by the continuity of life and the sense of connection. I recognized her and felt such deep love—love without fear. Love wrapped in joy. When I saw Peter that first time, I was blindsided with awe, an Old Testament kind of awe. Kate and Mike had been tested over and over again to have him, to bring him forth, and he responded to that persistence; to that desire. I felt unbounded gratitude for whatever role a gracious God played in the birth of this happy, healthy, beautiful boy. He is an unexpected treasure.

When I was pregnant with our second child, our son Geof, I wasn't sure I had enough love. Could I love more? Did I have enough love to go around, to give another baby what it deserved? But it all rushed in. Peter, too, signifies the abundance of love; the bigness of it. Maren would have been enough, but now there is also Peter, and we get to experience the bigness of loving all over again. With every person who came to see him and rejoice in his arrival and hold him and marvel at him, he was infused with more love and the unconscious awareness of the abundance of love; the goodness in life. His presence renewed our hope and increased our joy, but we also gave him these gifts, too. When he was awake-and very alert, he would look with such puzzled eyes, and I kept thinking about the unfathomable change he had just experienced--from the womb to the world. If ever I feel overwhelmed by change and transition (and I do!), I need to think about what each baby endures.

When I held Peter those first days, I talked to him softly, "Hello Peter. It's GrandNan, and I love you very much." With Maren's birth I was given the opportunity to create my GrandNan identity, to become GrandNan, but with Peter I am already GrandNan, a role I love.

A major part of that role while Peter was still in the hospital was to be with and take care of Maren, and I will treasure that time forever. She was great. She relished her new title of Big Sister. She shared the spotlight. She gave her heart to him. She adapted to the hospital environment easily and all the coming and going. She rarely fussed about anything, and she was my buddy. Such a good companion in all those trips between home and hospital. The last time we drove back home she sang Christmas carols in her sweet voice—knowing the majority of the words—not always easy ones either, as in "Hark the Herald Angels Sing." One time I had the car radio on, but quickly turned it off when I heard a terrible story about the beating death of a four year old. She had heard it, too. She is so completely loved—how could she possibly imagine a child not loved as she is?

The morning Kate, Mike, and Peter came home from the hospital, Maren made a "Welcome Home" sign and Valentines for them all. She even helped me clean. Then when Mom and Dad and new baby snuggled in the car seat, came in the back door, they became a family of four. It was time for me to ease out the door. Not easy, but necessary. Besides they were more than capable of handling whatever came up. All was as it should be.

New birth, new life, ongoing life. Love.

The house is still quiet, and I miss our dear ones, but I feel better. Much better.