falling in the valley

Conversations lately have touched on parents, and how their dealing with stuff affects us. My daughter loves her husband's Italian ancestry. She had to learn, though, that the volume level at extended family gatherings is just how they roll. It doesn't mean the world is ending.

During her childhood, when Tim and I raised our voices, the world was ending.

Tim came from a more soft-spoken home than I did. When I was a kid, my lovebird parents quarreled every day, and then they enjoyed making up. But at that time divorces were starting to increase. Several of my friends whose grandparents mostly stayed married had parents who were splitting up. I became worried every day about my folks. No doubt a part of my attraction to Tim was his family's tenor of stability.

They let off steam via humor. I liked that. I wanted life to be calmer and quieter, and I played the role with Tim of the quiet wife who could take funny barbs and return them, like a sitcom family scene. At least, I played that role until it began to smother me, and then I started my own attacks my own way--underhanded, manipulative. Sooner or later, one or the other of us had enough and lobbed a few grenades, commencing the all-out skirmish. And then we had to recover.

Ah, people. Communicants in corrupt valleys of a fallen world. Near the very beginning, remember, the first son born murdered his younger brother. It's awful stuff, and I am part of it. The only real delusion, from my standpoint, is believing I can imagine a way out on my own.

I'm sorry, John Lennon. But life has taught me there is hope from someplace other than in my pea-sized brain. I think maybe you were singing more about following our true hearts, as members of humankind, than about sitting, sundered and seceded or whatever, and making up the latest, greatest plan to submit to congress or something.

Tim and I raised our children imperfectly. We still haven't come up with perfect solutions for living together, but now sometimes after I've hurt him I come to my senses, patter down the cold garage steps and bow, asking his forgiveness. This is what we practice at church, a tradition dating back to about humankind's mid-point.

A funny light appears in Tim's eye when I do that, as though he'll make a humorous comment. But instead he accepts my embrace. I flit off to kiss an icon in gratitude, usually the one with Jesus on his cross, arms outstretched to gather all those who wish to hug him in the whole wide world.

spring handwork, for head and heart

 The other day I noticed Blogger had made some new, free themes available. Goody! I tried a few, and this one you're looking at seemed to fit well what I'm doing.

Now I can make photos a larger size, without them spilling over the margins. Of course, I've had to go back and resize shots in older posts. It's been fun. How nice to receive something fun, while the rain keeps returning and singing all its old, dreary renditions.

Maybe my old posts are dreary, too, so I'm not begging anyone to go back and read them. But if you're bored and want to...I have edited several pieces of text, as well. Sometimes the heat of the moment kindles unnecessary flames. Things read better on a slow simmer, perhaps. Anyway, editing nearly always helps.

May you also receive glimpses of Spring in the textures and gardens you're tending.

Theosis

One of the huge questions I had upon studying the Orthodox Church, preparing to enter it with fear and trembling, was what this word "Theosis" meant. It sounded awful cultish.

Here the "Bible Answer Man" addresses this very word, quoting Augustine and others. Well said.

tender

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Tim and I drove 120 miles so I could hug two people. One is a family member. Aw, family...When there is pain, there is someone to hug you. I know, not everyone has this. My gratitude is tender and full for the blessing of being able to embrace family and to be embraced by them.

Sunday very early (for me), Tim and I went to church 120 miles away from our church and communed with some people we've met before. One of these, their church's priest, has been caring for his wife who is gravely ill with cancer. This dear man spoke of taking up our cross each day and following Christ.

Last summer at family camp, I watched this diminutive priest, in black robe and with curly locks flying, chase and be chased by his young son around their lakeside cabin. Other boys joined in, shouting, laughing. They raced through patches of bright sunlight beyond a dark stand of cedar and fir.

Though we talked about the cross at camp last summer, today in my hard heart I carried its rough reality.

After church, as we headed to our car, a man approached Tim and said he'd noticed our front passenger tire was low. Close inspection showed an embedded screw. Tim pulled a tiny compressor from our trunk and inflated the tire somewhat, while receiving directions to a Chevron station. I leaned on the car in bright sunshine, thankful for being stuck here briefly rather than on the shoulder of I-5. And grateful for my warm coat, still, because winter wasn't letting us off the hook yet. A few cars away, the priest whose wife is ill was saying goodbye to a visiting priest. In friendship, love, and pain the two men embraced. I waved when they saw me, wishing all at once to go say something and also not to intrude.

Tim and I got in the car. He related our route to the service station and started the engine. I looked up to see the diminutive priest, wearing his black robe and a knitted hat, blessing our ailing tire. Climbing out, I thanked him and we embraced. I only know his wife through our daily prayers for her, but I have no doubt she is blessed and a blessing.

Before leaving town, we were able to see once more our family member who is suffering, and I could offer one last hug. Tenderness is an amazing something, softening the heart though it arrives out of the forest of intense pain, a darkened land, in search of sunshine.

process, planting

Right now there are four of us. Five, if you count Westley, who's usually curled in elderly repose by the front door. Our friend who swept the floor went back to live in his repaired car, and now residing upstairs is a man who for many years wrote online movie reviews. He's a soft-spoken reviewer, who quotes easily from the King James Bible and became an Orthodox catechumen last fall. He waits to move up on the list for senior housing.

Last Saturday Tim, the resident reviewer, and I wrote letters to our priest. We each read the others' finished products and saw that we were sending quite the variety of messages. Humor, concern, caring chastisement, and insignificant chatter (from yours truly) were all included. There remains time for more letter-writing, and for me this is helpful. Processing, processing. We all will continue to do so.

This Saturday we'll have a community meeting at church, led by a priest from Portland who is also a family therapist. This clergyman visited us in November for the same reason: to give anyone who'd like the chance to process in the group. Not all wish to do so, of course, and that's fine. For me it's essential. I must observe and listen to all, piping up when a question bubbles forth.

We heard officially from the diocese last weekend that we no longer have a priest. A new one will be found. I imagine this will take a while, seeing as there's no abundance of Orthodox clergy, and seeing as this parish will not be an easy one to assume after all that's happened.

We've been front page news for weeks. A street person came in during Sunday's Liturgy (a kindly guest priest presiding), and told a member that the word "out there" is we are a bad place.

I'm more grateful than ever for our bishop, Maxim. During his last visit, he asked us to pray for him. He's an intellectual and also deeply grounded in the reality of actual love which comes from God. He implored us to remember we do not hide from the difficult trials we face and go through, but also and of the same importance, we do not focus on them. God is our life. Tribulations are passing away.

The Orthodox take accusations of abuse (of any sort) seriously. Whenever a priest is accused, whether by a parishioner or other person, he is immediately suspended from his duties until the church authorities finish their investigation. The standard they strive to follow is one of love and forgiveness, freedom and accountability. They continue in recognition of process.

I process this week out in the permaculture garden which our son, James, planted and nurtured. Out there I have "tidied," clipping old dead shoots, observing new green growth. Fennel's licorice breath. Lupine's bright geometry. Per James' suggestion, I spread Dutch White Clover seeds over a bare patch of ground, overseeding so the slugs won't decimate tiny ones, the newest expressions of natural growing. We'll see how it looks by summer; right now I can't imagine what will actually happen.

a most difficult amen

When you care, you tend to lose sleep. More's the problem, you don't rest. There is a twist in your gullet pulling you sideways, a relentless tug.

And yet, this, the cost of caring, somehow is fair. It is meet and right, as they used to say.

Winter began for me in October; it's been really long, and the weather still drips a constant chill. But finally green and the dearest crimson unfurl on our flowering currant, just as they did last year.

The arrest and trial of my church's priest was more difficult, by a long shot, than any amount of time I've ever spent in surgery and recovery. The jury disagreed with my belief that our priest is innocent, and they definitely had the right to do so.

Our legal system does its very best. People moving daily within it, however, tend to disbelieve in the possibility of a good person. Especially in the chance there is a white male in his forties who loves and is faithful to his wife, while selflessly giving to others daily. It is extremely unfortunate that there are many examples who fit their disbelief.

I am very, very sad. Spring may just be taunting me. Spaceships may fall from orbit and never be repaired. Yet all these months my prayers, our prayers, have continuously sounded. This entering in and drawing near, while bell peals and mallet hammers, unfurls in beloved stillness, despite the storm of stress.

Three facets of this elemental quiet glimmered today in the realm of a greater reality, always present but rarely seen. They may have shown in the eyes of one convicted. But whether or not this is true, I believe they exist, because I have seen them: the impossible possibility of compassion, the actual nature of attentive, repentant prayer, and the immovable amen of forgiveness.