Deep Gratitude!

We could hold my husband responsible for the rest of the story that is the basis for this blog entry, because he is the one who bought a go kart for the kids when our grandson, Adam, was only about four, but the truth is Adam was born loving to drive. As a toddler, he would sit on anyone’s lap and grab the steering wheel with glee, even though he was not going anywhere. Adam’s legs were too short for him to reach the pedals on that first go kart, so his dad put a block on the accelerator.  

Adam loved to get his Grandpa into the kart and drive full throttle.  John would feign terror and Adam would laugh so hard he was falling over as he circled their house round and round as fast as they could go.

Adam had only one speed—full throttle.

And full throttle is what Adam was driving the last race of the event there at Daytona International Raceway in Daytona, Florida. It was Friday, December 30, 2011, about one-third into the race. He was drafting in a group of four drivers, going over ninety miles per hour, when the guy right in front of him hit the brakes a bit early going into a turn. In an instant, Adam had to decide to either rear-end  that kart or hit his brakes. 

It is now five days after the event, but when I saw the video of the crash for the first time today, I am still totally overcome with deep gratitude.  

That turn was right in front of the stands where we were standing to view the race. Hearing his tires squealing, seeing his kart hitting the wall before sailing backwards, and then seeing him in the kart as it rolled over and over still seems surreal to me, but oh, my, how much worse the outcome might have been. 

Adam and his go kart getting picked up at race end!

Deep gratitude is the only way to describe those moments immediately following as we watched him climb from the wreckage. Deep gratitude that he was on his feet. Deep gratitude that no other driver hit his kart as it was there on the track. Deep gratitude that he suffered only minor injuries. And deep gratitude that he was able to talk about it…

I was immediately called to the tonglen meditation I have been practicing. If you are curious about the practice, you can read about it online. What I remember most was the immediate thought to get over myself and to breathe in any embarrassment, frustration, shock, and pain Adam was feeling. Then I thought about his grandpa, his mom, Doug (his step-dad and racing partner), his older brother, and his younger sister. We were all there and we had all seen the crash. 

I let myself feel my own pain. What if Adam had been permanently or severely injured, or even killed? Then I thought about families whose loved one did not survive. And I let myself feel the pain that others have felt. How does one find a sense of gratitude again?

At other times in my life I might have thought I have some sort of advice to offer. That is not the case at this moment. At this moment, I know nothing other than deep gratitude.

Graduation

This past week I had the honor of creating a photo board for our grandson, Adam, celebrating his graduation from high school. It had been a long day, and it was already late and I was tired, but soon I was energized walking down memory lane.

Awareness of every event as divine order was obvious as I saw with my own eyes infant growing into toddler, child developing into teen, and emerging as grown man. Photo after photo of Adam in the kitchen left me wondering just how much our destiny is revealing itself even at the tender age of two or four or ten.

When his older brother, Brad, saw the board, he smiled  a huge smile and said, "You packed it in!" That is true, and it was the perfect way to honor Adam.

Adam really began to find his place in the world when he started racing go-karts. His nickname was plowboy because he would run off the track. Imagine a kid who cannot even drive yet navigating around hair pin turns at 75 to 100 miles per hour. He was a great team member, helping the guys and benefiting from their experience. He won a championship! He flipped over and over going about 95 MPH on the Daytona track. He experienced the bitter and the sweet and learned from it all.

During his senior year, in addition to working part time at Publix while taking the culinary program at school, he has already been working as a volunteer fireman. He is a remarkable young man, that is for sure!

It was an incredibly busy week. Through it all, my heart kept thinking about how Adam's photo board is a symbol for all of us. 

We have moments we are exceedingly proud of. Some we are embarrassed by. Some we have long forgotten. Many of our moments of years gone by seem like just yesterday.

For each of us, our moments will come to an end. That has happened for Maya Angelou.

Here is one of her amazing poems that, in my heart, honors both of them.  

We, this people, on a small and lonely planet
Traveling through casual space
Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns
To a destination where all signs tell us
It is possible and imperative that we learn
A brave and startling truth

And when we come to it
To the day of peacemaking
When we release our fingers
From fists of hostility
And allow the pure air to cool our palms

When we come to it
When the curtain falls on the minstrel show of hate
And faces sooted with scorn are scrubbed clean
When battlefields and coliseum
No longer rake our unique and particular sons and daughters
Up with the bruised and bloody grass
To lie in identical plots in foreign soil

When the rapacious storming of the churches
The screaming racket in the temples have ceased
When the pennants are waving gaily
When the banners of the world tremble
Stoutly in the good, clean breeze

When we come to it
When we let the rifles fall from our shoulders
And children dress their dolls in flags of truce
When land mines of death have been removed
And the aged can walk into evenings of peace
When religious ritual is not perfumed
By the incense of burning flesh
And childhood dreams are not kicked awake
By nightmares of abuse

When we come to it
Then we will confess that not the Pyramids
With their stones set in mysterious perfection
Nor the Gardens of Babylon
Hanging as eternal beauty
In our collective memory
Not the Grand Canyon
Kindled into delicious color
By Western sunsets

Nor the Danube, flowing its blue soul into Europe
Not the sacred peak of Mount Fuji
Stretching to the Rising Sun
Neither Father Amazon nor Mother Mississippi who, without favor,
Nurture all creatures in the depths and on the shores
These are not the only wonders of the world

When we come to it
We, this people, on this minuscule and kithless globe
Who reach daily for the bomb, the blade and the dagger
Yet who petition in the dark for tokens of peace
We, this people on this mote of matter
In whose mouths abide cankerous words
Which challenge our very existence
Yet out of those same mouths
Come songs of such exquisite sweetness
That the heart falters in its labor
And the body is quieted into awe

We, this people, on this small and drifting planet
Whose hands can strike with such abandon
That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living
Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness
That the haughty neck is happy to bow
And the proud back is glad to bend
Out of such chaos, of such contradiction
We learn that we are neither devils nor divines

When we come to it
We, this people, on this wayward, floating body
Created on this earth, of this earth
Have the power to fashion for this earth
A climate where every man and every woman
Can live freely without sanctimonious piety
Without crippling fear

When we come to it
We must confess that we are the possible
We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world
That is when, and only when
We come to it. 

Adam, savor your past, enjoy your present, and trust your future. 

You are the possible. 

You are the miraculous. 

You are the true wonder of this world.

Congratulations!

White-footed Deer Mouse

When you are aware that perspective creates experience, you really do choose to take a greater sense of responsibility for your life. What do you think of when you think of a mouse? Many people are very frightened of mice. Does that seem odd when you bring a rational mind to it? Have you ever heard of a mouse attacking a human? For sure, having mouse droppings in one's home is not sanitary and can present health risks. But, honestly, humans might be being influenced by a mammal much larger than we.

In A.D. 77, Pliny the Elder—Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, wrote that elephants are afraid of mice in an encyclopedic work, Naturalis Historia, which became a model for all other encyclopedias. MythBusters Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman have done experiments (thinking they would disprove Pliny) and shown in a Natural Geographic film that, indeed, elephants do run from mice.

Here is a comment on a blog about the showing of their conclusions:

I've seen this episode several times now, and my first thought when the elephant backed off from the mouse was not that it was afraid, but being cautious not to step on it. Elephants are intelligent and compassionate animals. I think if they come across a small, non threatening animal like a mouse, they will make every effort not to harm it.

So, here you are confronted with two very different opinions. One might give more weight to Adam and Jamie since they were the ones who saw the elephants. But, what if we cannot believe what we see with our own eyes? A lot of people obviously have at least a suspicion you should be suspicious about what you see and what you think. You will get about 260 million results to a search for the phrase, "Don't believe every thought that you think."

Native American lore is likely to put nature into context, meaning the suggestion to observe the behavior and message (called medicine) of the specific creature you encounter. In Animal-Speak: The Spiritual & Magical Powers of Creatures Great & Small (p.290), author Ted Andrews, says this about mouse:

When mouse shows up as a totem, it is either time to pay attention to details, or an indication that you cannot see the forest for the trees. You may be getting so locked into details that you forget the big picture. 

Mouse medicine can show you how to focus and pay attention to detail. It can show you how to attain the big things by working on the little things. Whenever mouse shows up there are lessons associated with attention.

This month I am working with attention by developing an expanded awareness of things that allow me to access what is sometimes called the "field of infinite possibilities." As part of the workshop series with Barbara Brodsky, I am doing an energy technique using colors and the chakras and aura. Once that "etheric field" has been accessed, the suggestion is to hold your highest intention in mind. From the Buddhist tradition you might intend (1) harm no one (2) may all sentient beings come to the end of suffering (3) may all experience peace. As a Christian, you can intend for each person to experience salvation and live in love.

A wonderful reminder for each of us to not be afraid of the little things in life comes from this baby white-footed deer mouse. We found  him stunned on the pavement and picked him up and moved to him to the safety of the foliage you see him on in the photo.They are strictly nocturnal and can become blinded by the sunlight. This guy was about the length of my little finger. Soon after we put him down, he burrowed himself down under the leaves. Ah... safety!

Being aware of both the details that we can attend to and the sense of meaning that comes from seeing the bigger picture does provide a greater sense of connection to the All That Is, doesn't it...

Blue Sky

As I was riding my bike around Saint James City, here on Pine Island, in South Florida, the sky was so blue it almost hurt my eyes. I started thinking about the idea that what we see is not “real” but there is a reason why things appear the way they do.

For example, the reason the sky looks so blue is because as light move through the atmosphere, very little of the red, orange, and yellow light (longer wavelengths) is affected by it. Much more of the light with shorter wavelengths is absorbed by the gas molecules. Thus, blue light fills the sky, and some of it reaches my eyes, and the sky looks blue.

As I was riding and having these profound scientific ponderings, I began to hear a little jingle in my head. “If the sky is not blue, then who am I, and what are you?” I went automatically to a book I have written that is not yet been published. 

This drawing is by Meredith Bede Aldrich.

 Where Moon Go?

A look at

life and death

and other natural things

through a child’s eyes…

Did you ever wonder where someone

goes when he or she dies?

I did.

When my Daddy died, I wanted to know where he was and if

he was OK where he was.

I wanted to know what was REAL….

At first I did not know what it meant when I would hear a voice talking to me from inside my head as the moon slid behind a cloud or a tree or a building.

I would hear.

 “Where am I now?

It looks like I am gone,

but I am here….”

Even when what is real is very, very big

—like the moon—

false beliefs can be hard to change.

But where do people go when they die?

Adam said,

“It is like I am me and

I am inside this house.

(He pointed to his chest when he said this.)

When I die,

I leave the house

(He pointed to his chest again.)

but I am still me.”

But what is he?

And what am I?

And where do people go when they die?

Every living thing is made up of atoms.

(Not Adam!)

And energy cannot be created or destroyed.

If you're asking where it all came from in the first place,

that's a first class unanswered question.

Brad said when people die they live inside your heart.

It is like you can really talk to them inside your mind.

Go ahead. Ask a question.

And you will see that it is just like they really can answer you.

So, even though we might not know for sure where people go when they die, you can know for sure that part of them is right here where you are.

Because the moon has not gone anywhere.

It is still right where it was.

Even when we cannot see it.

The End

And

A New Beginning

Two Worlds

Years ago, I opened a sermon with this illustration: Three guys have been stranded on a desert island for a very long time when one of them finds a magic lantern containing a genie. The genie grants them each one wish. The first guy wishes he was off the island and back home─and poof!, he is back home. The second guy wishes the same thing─and poof!, he is gone too. The third guy says, "I'm lonely. I wish my friends were back here with me."

It is really important to keep our wits about us when we are making our wishes, isn’t it….

One of the things about wishing is that it can come as a result of not being present with or appreciative of what currently is. I have been very aware of that the past few weeks as we were preparing to leave Pine Island and come home to Michigan, especially given that the home we had been wintering in for the past three years would no longer be available to us next season.

As a child, feeling homesick was a very common emotion, and I can bump into that feeling even as an adult, so I made a conscious choice to do my best to stay present. I wanted to neither feel grief about letting go of a space that had been very nurturing to me, nor to long for another place that is filled with people that I love.

Wrapping my days with this intention, I organized my departure well enough to enjoy nature visits with Nancy, a friend I share both Michigan and Florida with. Nature seemed to respond to my intention in spades! 

Visiting one of the nearby eagle nests, Nancy and I were treated to soaring eagle chick, not once, but twice! And the day before my departure, she and I had the most amazing dolphin sighting. 

Our encounter was so prolonged, and unusual even in a setting where dolphins are common, I looked up the symbolic meaning of dolphin. Please honor the author by checking out the link for yourself, and enjoy this wonderful summary: 

Christian symbolism conveys the dolphin as an aspect of Christ. Dolphins seen in Christian art are symbolic of resurrection. Some artists utilize the protective, stabilizing, compassionate demeanor of the dolphin as a message of wellbeing to the pure of heart. 

Some artistic renditions speak of dolphins transporting the spirits of the faithful to Christ's side upon leaving their physical bodies. 

This dolphin meaning is mimicked in ancient Greece where legend tells us the dolphin was responsible for carrying the souls of the dead to the Islands of the Blessed.

• Playfulness
• Transcendence
• Gentleness
• Harmony
• Intelligence
• Contentment
• Friendship
• Community
• Resurrection
• Generosity
• Power

The following evening, as we had left Florida and were heading north, we walked to a small restaurant near the hotel we were staying for the night. As I walked the short block, I was having cellular memory of other times and places I had walked to dinner. It was so clear that dolphin meaning was working:

This is a key understanding because the dolphin meaning is connected with themes of duality. It has to do with the dolphin being both fish and mammal. It is both of the water, and an air breather. Ergo, dolphin symbolism talks to us about "being in two worlds at once."

As I bid farewell to Florida and hello to Michigan via some delicious days with Stacey and Doug and Brad and Christina and Adam and Courtney in Tennessee, I say thank you to two worlds. There is great love for all!