People Are Endearing 2: The Bouquet

As I lay in the hospital bed that morning, I looked at the bouquet of beautiful mixed flowers.  They seemed to me like a bouquet that someone would go out into the field and pick—a big, generous bouquet of soft, quiet, enveloping beauty.  But besides this enveloping beauty, there was a immense quiet intent about the bouquet. It was intent for well-being.  This sincere and intense desire for well-being permeated the flowers and radiated out to me, around me, throughout the room. The nurses felt it too.  They didn’t say anything to me about it.  As they came in to check on me, they paused for a slight moment by the bouquet before caring for me.  Even more heart-felt (and interestingly enough I was in the hospital because of my heart) was I could feel whose intent it was.  The person’s heart-felt deep desire for my well­-being was evident and I realized it was this person’s prayer for me that I was feeling.  I was touched emotionally, spiritually, and physically by it.  I realized I had never experienced a personal prayer this way before.  The experience was humbling and created a sense of awe and deep love and appreciation for this person.  I was permanently changed by this act of love and transformed in a way I cannot yet express.

An Exercise In Reframing

If you read one of my earlier posts, you will recognize the prayer that I have reframed below. The original really resonated with me, but as I reread it, I realized I wanted it to try rewriting it in a more positive, affirmative way.  See my attempt to do so below.


Buddhist Vow

Knowing how deeply our lives intertwine,
We vow to protect life.

Knowing how deeply our lives intertwine,
We vow to be mindful of all that we have.

Knowing how deeply our lives intertwine,
We vow to see God within all.

Knowing how deeply our lives intertwine,
We vow to speak truthfully.

Knowing how deeply our lives intertwine,
We  vow to lovingly take care of our body and mind.

Knowing how deeply our lives intertwine,
We vow to focus on the present.

Knowing how deeply our lives intertwine,
We vow to honor and appreciate every living thing and all that we have.

Knowing how deeply our lives intertwine,
We vow to respect all life.

Knowing how deeply our lives intertwine,
We vow to live truth as we know it.

People are endearing 1

From time to time, I write little reflections about people in my life who I find endearing.  Below is one of those reflections.

The one who reminds me of a once upon a time coach

It isn’t his attitude or even his mannerisms that make me think of him as a once upon a time coach.  It is the way he dresses.  Easy to wear comfortable slip on pants, polo shirt with a light jacket over it is his daily wear.  Tennis shoes are his shoes of choice.  I don’t remember ever seeing him in anything else.

He carries his books, papers, and things under his arms like a young school boy.  The only time I see him is when he makes his rounds between classes and professional development events he feels he has time to attend.  He pops into my office for just a second to say hi and touch base.  “Any meetings coming up Jo?” he asks.  I remind him of whatever he has committed to whether it is the book discussion group, faculty development committee, Conversations on Student Learning.  He likes professional development and tells me so on a regular basis.  He tells me about how together I am and how I always keep up on the cutting edge stuff, how great a meeting I run.  He tells me regularly and often enough that it embarrasses me.  He is sincere in his declarations.

I think he admires in me what he wishes he could become more of, more organized, more read, more efficient.  His office is a study of piles.  There are piles of papers, files, and books around the parameter of the room.  There are smaller piles of papers on top of his desk.  Nothing appears organized but he says he knows where things are.  He may but my eyes and my brain asks, “How?”

He talks about the same things in most situations.  He shares how he likes to read book reviews before he decides to purchase and read a book.  He wants a variety of people’s perspectives on a book and to see what the majority of reviewers have to say.  He’d rather not reinvent the wheel in work but find a best practice model to follow or adapt.  As the years of teaching experience build, he becomes softer and gives his students more chances to get their assignments completed.

He is a sweet man and very predictable.

Morning Reflection 3-21-11

Being awake since 4:38 a.m. this morning and not able to go back to sleep, I have been reminded of how wonderful the early morning hours are.  The air is cool and refreshing.  The birds are waking up and singing their songs.  It brings to mind one morning when my youngest daughter was very small (around 5 years old) and I was getting her ready for the day.  The birds were singing and we both noticed them.  I made the comment, “I wonder what those birds are saying.”  Without missing a beat she responded in with an easy and matter of fact tone, “Well their telling us how happy they are!”  The answer was obvious to her

.

As I sit on the couch now listening to the birds chirping their morning songs, I am grateful for this gentle time of morning and the wonderful memory of my daughter’s beautiful perspective on morning birdsong. 

Morning Readings

This morning I read a couple pieces from a book called Woman Prayers: Prayers by Women from Throughout History and Around the World by Mary Ford-Grabowsky. Two of them in particular resonated with me and I thought I would share them.  See below.....but before you read them, may I suggest you read them slowly, allowing the words to sink deeply into your mind and heart.  Enjoy.

Buddhist Vow

Knowing how deeply our lives intertwine,

We vow not to kill.

Knowing how deeply our lives intertwine,

We vow to not take what is not given

Knowing how deeply our lives intertwine,

We vow to not engage in abusive relationships.

Knowing how deeply our lives intertwine,

We vow to not speak falsely or deceptively.

Knowing how deeply our lives intertwine,

We vow to not harm self or other through

poisonous thought or substance.

Knowing how deeply our lives intertwine,

We vow to not dwell on past errors.

Knowing how deeply our lives intertwine,

We vow to not possess any thing or form of life

selfishly.

Knowing how deeply our lives intertwine,

We vow to not harbor ill will toward any plant, animal, or

human being.

Knowing how deeply our lives intertwine,

We vow to not abuse the great truth of the Three

Treasures.*

                                                               ~Stephanie Kaza

*In Buddhism, the Three Treasures refer to the Buddha, the Dharma (teaching), and the sangha (community).

Moments of Real Grace

Sometimes, during my early-morning meditation, a place within me

opens and parts of myself let go that I did not even know were holding

on. In these moments I feel all the hard parts in my heart and body

yield to a great softness on my breath...

A great faith washes through me, a knowing that everything that needs 

to get done will get done.  My shoulders drop an inch, the small but

familiar ache in my chest eases, and the moment stretches.  There is 

enough; enough time, enough energy, enough of all that is needed.  A

great tenderness for myself and the world opens inside me, and I know

I belong to this time, to these people, to this earth, and to something

that is both within and larger than all of it, something that sustains and

holds us all.  I do not want to be anywhere else.  I am filled with commitment...

and compassion.

                                                                               ~Oriah Mountain Dreamer

The Kitchen Table of My Childhood

The Kitchen Table of My Childhood

The kitchen table of my childhood had a smooth, white Formica top with gold dots and wormy streaks,

edges faced with a ridged strip of steel and supported by narrowing tubular legs of shiny steel.

I didn’t take notice of the table as a child but as I entered my teenage years I developed a teenage aesthetic and thought it ugly and wished we had a pretty wood dining table like in the homes of my friends whose homes were larger and some had dining rooms.

But now in midlife my aesthetic has changed and when I see a table similar to the one of my childhood, I am nostalgically swept back to my childhood and I remember other things about the table. At the age of five when I got home from the half day of kindergarten, my mother would serve me either a bologna sandwich or peanut butter and jelly sandwich and sometimes soup for lunch at that table.  I was hungry by the time I got off the school bus from what I, as a five year old thought was a long bus ride and it tasted good and was comforting.

At the kitchen table of my childhood in my mind’s eye I see my brother and sisters sitting down for supper after school. Each day at the table, my mother asked us how our day went. My brother’s face would light up and his eyes would twinkle. Then he would share some mischievous event like the time he dragged a set of tire chains down the second floor hallway right in front of the assistant principal.  The principle asked him why he was dragging those tire chains down the hall and my brother (pausing to add suspense to his story) answered, “Well it’s easier than pushing them.”  Then he would throw back his head in laughter! 

Other images flood into my mind and I see Santa sitting at the kitchen table (it was really Peter, one of the older neighborhood kids visiting the younger kids in the neighborhood) picking up one of my younger sisters and carefully placing her on his knee.  He asked her if she had been a good girl this year and she looked at him wide-eyed and in awe but she didn’t answer him as she was really shy.

At the kitchen table of my childhood, I remember my bus driver sitting half-way slumped over the table.  My mother tended to him after he showed up at the door with a bloody nose and drunk after he hit my brother’s friend’s car parked on the side of the road in the front of our house, knocking the car upside down into our front yard.  My mother took from him the mostly empty whiskey bottle, called the police, cleaned his face of the blood, and made him some stout hot coffee in order to sober him up as much as she could before the police arrived. (He would have lost his job as bus driver if he got a DWI.)

I remember the Saturday evening meals with family friends.  It was the same family each Saturday. They had six children and mom would cook a huge meal for them.  The children would eat ravenously and then run from the table and play with me and my younger sisters making a terrible mess of the entire house.  The adults would stay in the kitchen, clear the table and play cards often until the wee hours of the morning.  The children would fall asleep on the living floor usually around ten o’clock.  It wasn’t until I was older did my mom share with me that the nights they came to supper was often the only decent meal they had all week because their dad was a chiropractor and back then not many folks would go to chiropractors because they were yet accepted as legitimate physicians.  He often couldn’t make enough money to keep enough food on the table for such a large family.

The kitchen table of my childhood was where I learned to sew.  At first, I learned to sew simple garments and with each garment completed, my mother would give me more complex sewing projects to complete.  As I tried putting in my first zipper (and ripping it out three times) I became frustrated when on the fourth try once again the sewing line wavered.  My father who was cooking a steak for a late supper after fishing that evening, walked over and tried to tell me how to do it.  I had never seen him sew anything my entire life and I snapped at him for the first time in my life.  He looked at me surprised (my sisters and brother never talked back to him), took a drink of his beer, turned around and went back to the stove to check on his steak. He didn’t say another word on the subject.  I counted myself lucky he did not react to my snapping at him.

One of my favorite memories of a common scene at the kitchen table was when a couple of the neighborhood moms  would come over in the afternoons to drink coffee, smoke cigarettes (it was the only time I saw my mom smoke), and talk about everything under the sun.  No topic was prohibited. One of those neighborhood chats took place late one afternoon and my mom and the neighbors were discussing all kinds of topics including reincarnation.  I had to practice my shorthand for my high school shorthand class and had to write several pages of shorthand from a conversation or TV show.  My mom and neighbors were so animated in their discussion about reincarnation that I decided to write down in shorthand what they said.  When I turned it in to my shorthand teacher, I watched her read the homework assignments as we were completed an in-class activity.  She got to my assignment, started reading it and as she read, her expression changed from bored to curious to one of wide-eyed surprise. She looked over at me, was startled to see I was watching her and quickly looked away.  She never did say a word to me about what I wrote.

As I thought about all those experiences at the kitchen table of my childhood, I realized the importance of that spot in the family home. I experienced and observed family bonding, care and compassion, childhood awe, creativity and growth, as well as friendship and community.  That table may have not appealed to my sense of aesthetics, but it helped to shape and mold me, my family, friends, and community. I hope that at the kitchen table of my children’s lives, they had the same type of growing and molding experiences. What did you learn from your experiences at the kitchen (or dining room) table of your childhood? 

Family history can be found and preserved in a number of places. One of these places is in old family cookbooks. I want to ask you not to forget the old family cookbooks and the little bits of history that can be a comfort to many in unexpected times. It is fun to discover new recipes on the internet, however, often there is much richer and nourishing tidbits found when turning to a family cookbook.

This reflection was stirred by a piece written by Rhona McAdam entitled The Boston School of Cooking Cookbook. I have shared it below. Enjoy!

The Boston School of Cooking Cookbook

This is my mother's cookbook, its spine loose

with age, the fabric bare of colour at the seams

and weak, so it must be held tenderly, the way

my mother knows, easing into its pages

with her disobedient-knuckled hands.

This book is my mother's; she navigates

its mysteries with indifferent skill,

reads the runes of food stains,

the faded trail of silverfish

who ate their random way over words;

she has the eye to decipher the tastes

of another time, scrawled

in the margins, invoking the power

of other kitchens, the fit of old aprons,

the shape of a family

swallowed into other lives.

This book's pages, furred with use,

fade to brown. Its leaves have pressed

my mother's memories in perfect squares, the things

she needs concealed from time,

things she likes to come upon by chance:

household tips and obituaries, invitations

to weddings.  My first poem is in there, and the card

someone made for mother's day. Sentiment

among the weeds of recipes she clipped 

in more ambitious days

that crowd, untasted, between the even rows

of meals we chewed our way through

but never knew the names of, all those years'

worth of peeled vegetables and trimmed meat,

a lifetime's preparation vanished

into our waiting mouths.