Are You Safe?

 Many times, when my son calls, his first words are "Are you safe?"  He's teasing.  But, for much of my life I felt (because I was) "unsafe."  When I told this to my husband, David, he could not relate.  "What do you mean by 'safe?'" he would say.  But his upbringing, while nothing like mine, was equally as crazy. 

When I was raising my children the "unsafe" issue emerged often, but I was determined to raise strong, healthy, decision making, risk taking adults. 

Of course, I couldn't protect them from scary, tragic moments but I wanted them to have the tools to get through it.  

But there are worse things than feeling unsafe.  

Last week I read an ancient zen saying that moved me but I wasn't sure why.  I read it to a couple of people and it left them figuratively head scratching.  

But then, while I was walking around Lake Lily this morning , it came to me.  The Zen saying is the  polar opposite of of what I wanted for my children and for myself, and everyone else in my world.  But I see it around me all the time.  

Breaking the Jar

A man raised a baby swan in a glass jar, but as the bird grew it became stuck in the jar.  The man was caught now, for the only way to free the thing was to break the jar, killing the swan.        - Zen saying

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I'm a Wesleyan

In this uncertain time in history, I find myself, on a daily basis, dealing with two big questions.  

Who do I want to BE?  What do I want to DO?  As my friend told me this morning, "It ain't easy." 

I truly miss being able to get out and about,  I miss being able to lead groups of people, especially in the church.  Over the years I led many discussions 

 on the man, John Wesley,  who inspired the Methodist Movement.  

I used to tell women, "He was one of the greatest men who ever lived but you wouldn't want to marry him."  He was never home and didn't do small talk. 

We think we have big problems now, but Wesley was born in England in 1791.  This was a time when most of the Lords could barely sign their names and the common people had no education.  Three quarters of the children died before age 5.  The death rate exceeded the birth rate.  London was filthy and ill-lighted.  After dark, buckets of refuse were emptied from garret windows onto the streets below. 

And I have some problems with his mom, Susanna, even though she is beloved by most everyone who's heard of her.  But I try to give her a break because she was poor and had 19 children.  John was #15. 

So, what kind of theology did Wesley leave us folks who call ourselves United Methodists?  

Works of Piety and Works of Mercy.  Being and Doing.

The piety part would not surprise you.  Reading the Bible, praying, etc.  Except he did these things to the max.  Every day.  While riding a horse.

But the Works of Mercy are exceptional and not what most people would expect.  Here are a few:

Money.  No, he wasn't about giving away everything you have.  He was about being successful so that you can truly be a giver and not be a burden to others.  

"Gain all you can.  Save all you can.  Give all you can."

He wanted others to learn.  He valued the mind as God's most precious gift to us. So, in these days, when we wake up and hear the constant chatter of how this is the absolute worst time in history, I try to think about who I want to be today.  And what I want to do today.  

But it ain't easy.

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I'm Stll Curious

 

I haven't written a blog posting for a while.  Life keeps getting in the way.  The decade between ages 80 and 90 is filled with intrigue.  We have harrowing stories of near misses in terms of survival.  And, unfortunately, that's all some of us want to talk about.

But, one of the upsides of this decade is retaining an interest in each other's life stories.  Our whole, entire, life stories. 

Last week I visited with a friend who is moving away.  This very unassuming woman has had an amazing life filled with courage, sacrifice, defeat, victory,  and amazing accomplishments.   How do I know this?  Because we've been in groups over the years that have encouraged us to share our stories, including accomplishments and defeats and what we've learned.   And, just as important, listening to others. 

The picture above is a card she sent me after our visit. 

Everyone has a story, including, and especially, those of us who've lived for eight or so decades.

In the '70s I wrote a poem about a wife and mother who dumfounded others with her knowledge.  When asked how she knew all this she said "I used to be a professor at Georgetown University"  Why didn't her community know this?  They never asked!

Im still curious.  

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Nora Ephron

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 Nora Ephron was one of my favorite writers.  She was a journalist. She wrote screenplays like When Harry Met Sally and You've Go Mail.  And wrote books like the one pictured here.

A few weeks ago my friend Christie and I were discussing this book.  I wanted to share a story from it but couldn't find it in my bookcase.  The next week, Christie showed up with a copy.  

Ephron tells stories about herself and how neurotic and scatterbrained she can behave.  But I've loved rereading the book and barely remember her stories about how high maintenance we women can be.  Yesterday I read the longest chapter.  It's about her love affair with her ten year stay in her five bedroom apartment at the Apthorp, a luxury apartment/condo building in New York City.  Built in the early 1900s.

But, while reading, I remembered that she'd written a screen play about the couple of years she'd lived in Chicago prior to moving back to New York and into the Apthorp. The film was Heartburn.

So yesterday I watched Heartburn.  Made in 1986, it stars Meryl Streep as the Nora character, and Jack Nicholson as her short time husband, who was the Carl Bernstein character.  The movie is also loaded with other stars but it did not do well at the box-office.  I'm sure much of it is fiction but it depicts the Meryl Streep character as exactly the same Nora Ephron type person who wrote this book.   

As for me, I can honestly say I was never very "high maintenance." Till now.  

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Can't We All Get Along?

 Pope Francis was buried this past week, surrounded by thousands of people, including many of the world's leaders.  Apparently everyone behaved themselves. 

Back in 2015 Pope Francis visited the United States, an unusual thing for a pope to do.  We all embraced him and he embraced us.  My friend Nancy, who was ill, said she'd love to have the pope visit her and kiss her on the head but she would have a better chance if she was a baby. 

He kissed a lot of babies on the head. 

The next year, 2016, Pope Francis did something truly remarkable.

In the year 1054, a group of Catholics broke up with the church.  Like all bad breakups, the family suffered most, mostly due to lack of communication.  The breakout group was the beginning of the Orthodox Church.  This was known as the "Great Schism."

So, in 2016, our Pope Francis (the People's Pope,) after 962 years of not speaking to each other, invited Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, to meet in Cuba and forge a way forward.  This was called the Havana Declaration.  

They hugged and kissed (three times on the cheek) and then had a two hour-personal conversation.  They had a number of differences, just like us regular families do.  But they worked it out. 

I, myself, am neither Roman Catholic nor Russian Orthodox.  I'm a United Methodist.  John Wesley was the inspiration for the Methodist Church and he had similar ideas about how people who think differently about things - can also love each other. 

Though we cannot think alike, may we not love alike?  May we be of one heart, though we are not of one opinion?  Without all doubt, we may - John Wesley. 

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Pope Francis Died Today

 Like millions of others, I was (and always will be) a huge fan of Pope Francis.  I remembered, this morning, that I'd written a couple of blog posts about him along the way.  When I looked them up, to my surprise, I mentioned him in 14 postings.  

I've decided to repost six of them over the next few days, starting with the oldest.  

The following was written on December 16, 2013

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Last month a popular talk show host called Pope Francis a Marxist.  

Pope Francis was just voted Time Magazine's "Person of the Year."  While I'm not a Catholic, here are some of the names I like to call him:

Francis the Humble.  He chose his name to identify himself with one of the greatest but most humble saints of the church. 

Keeper of the Keys to the Kingdom of Heaven.  Again, I'm not a Catholic but I know this became his title when he inherited the throne of St. Peter.

The People's Pope.  Francis is wildly popular among Catholics around the world and has the approval of 58% of non Catholic Americans. 

Francis the Peacemaker.

Francis the Compassionate.   While he is holding the line on women's rights and gay rights, he's expressing compassion for all of us.   His most famous recent quote:  "Who am I to judge?"

While Pope Francis is most definitely not a Marxist, he was, as a young man, a nightclub bouncer.  This may help him as time moves on. 


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Me and TB

 Best selling author, John Green, is famous, in part, for his young adult novels, like "The Fault is in Our Stars," a tear-jerker about two teenage cancer patients. And now his brand new book, "Everything is Tuberculosis," is out.  

In it he's asking us to care about tuberculosis.  Why should we care?  Few of us folks in first world countries get TB these days, and even if we do, it's now curable.

So, again, why should I care?  

I've shared my TB story a couple of times in this blog.  My mother and her two brothers all had TB.  She was diagnosed when I was a pre-schooler and my brother, Paul, was a toddler.  She was shipped of to a sanitarium where she existed for seven or so years, until she finally drowned as her lungs filled with her own blood.  By the way, my brother, Paul, was named after his Uncle Paul, who too, died  with TB. 

 Years ago we, as a society, had a strange fascination with TB. Many of our most creative people had it, like all the Bronte' family, D H Lawrence, Thoreau and Doc Holliday.  But, back then, we called it "consumption" and romanticized it.  

But that was then and this is now.  So why should I care about this disease that still kills over a million people a year, more than any other infectious disease?  

How can we help others when we're having the bejeebers scared out of us every single day by just watching the news?  

I think, in part, Green is using tuberculosis as a metaphor.  And it's timely.  We're in the season of Lent, a time of deep introspection for many of us. 

Some folks I don't know, and some I love more than life itself, are suffering  Not from TB, but from other cruelties.  It's an honor to suffer with them.  I will stand with them as long as I'm here. 

For me, today, Everything IS Tuberculosis.

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