Small mercy

“The Lord repented, not because the people are innocent, but because they are small. His judgment is never final. There is always a dimension of God’s pervading affection where compassion prevails over justice, where mercy is a perpetual possibility.”

 

Abraham Heschel

The Prophets

In the middle of the grey, cold rainy weekend the sun broke through. The cedar tree in our little yard sparkled in the light. The drops glistened from branches in the sudden brightness.

My daughter, with her artist’s eye, and her deep instincts, went straight outside. She cane back in with images that were breathtaking. The beauty stopped me, and I found myself taking long, deep breaths.

It wasn’t just the angle of the shot that called o my spirit. It was the noticing. I could have kept going through the tasks of the weekend, briefly glancing up as the light changed. But she called me to stop, to look, to really see.

Mercy is a perpetual possibility…

The Advent Writings: holy ground

…tonight I took off my shoes….

Sitting by the tree, I was studying herbs. Latin names swirled with the lights as I reached into my memory bank for their common English counterparts. Spanish names danced through, adding color and spice. Classes, and mechanisms of action, layered with properties and contraindications. The course goes back to old Materia Medica material, looking at ancient patterns of use. This rivaled my long ago nursing school pharmacology class! Where in the world did the notion of herbalists as some sort of back woods witch come from?!

The course also invites a stretch, exploring intuition and delving into story. To be a healer, a person must be a student of their own story. You cannot go where you have not gone yourself.

We watched “The Nativity” this weekend. It is a beautiful rendition of what might have been, woven with the well known threads of the story in the ancient texts. It gives permission for my imagination to wonder. As this young man ran through the town, wouldn’t someone have whispered the name of a local healer; a midwife or an herbalist? Where were the wise women? Perhaps not, as birth in its raw and natural state is most often powerful and safe. But there have always been those who honed their gifts. And in a small town, like an inner city Neighborhood, those women are called. I have gone to a woman’s house, unknown to me, with herbs to soothe or a simple syrup to calm. I have held a woman’s hand, gazing deep into her eyes and swaying in the ancient dance; and later learned her name when words returned. Who came alongside in this holy night, in space set apart by the raw power coursing through her body?

The movie also touches on the scandal. Whispers, eyes averted, the presence of absence. These things happen in small towns. My story was hushed, silence protected at all costs. Conservative circles share similarity with small towns.

The old songbook says that the rocks themselves will cry out…. I know that is true. Our very cells, scientists now know, carry cellular memory. Trauma, in particular, imprints in a bath of catecholamines embedded in sensory markers. Until the time is right, and the story births…

After the flight in the night, the refugee years in another country, they returned. Did the whispers begin anew? Small towns have long memories. Particularly around a scandal….

In the glow of the tree, as the firelight danced, conversation flowed with another young man. Teenagers need silent spaces to talk. Then another teen came and plopped down, wanting to share her writing. I looked down, and caught the outline of my Danskos kicked off under the tree. Maybe for a reason….

Perhaps this too, was holy ground. A space, set apart on a Monday, for the herbs and the wondering, teenage talks and the smell of pine.

The Advent Writings: home

I have arrived.

I am home.

I am watching a documentary called “Walk with me”about a Buddhist monastery in France. This phrase from the wise teacher catches my attention.

When we first arrived in Portland, we needed to use GPS to go anywhere, even the post office. Afterward, I would use voice commands to say “Siri, go home“. Instead of mapping to our nearby basement apartment, I would look up to see a map that said “1001 miles to Home“. Tears came often, the hot stingy kind that never leak.

Sometimes I would talk to a friend, and inevitably the well-meaning question came. “Is it starting to feel like home?!” What in the world, my dad’s phrase, was not the one that came to mind, although the first word was the same. Swallowing my retort, I would say simply, “I think that will take awhile yet.” Forty years in the desert, literally, does not easily make this magical rain forest feel like home.

And so, as summer melted into the rains of fall, I began to play with this in my mind. What is home? Often my memories are sensory in nature, tied to smells and tastes, flickers of light or the feel of the sun burning into me. What if I tricked my kids, or even myself, on purpose?

I began to create ritual. As the days shortened, and the light changed, I would rise and light candles downstairs. I would start the fire (with the flip of a switch). I put warming oils on my palms, and breathed in the smell of ginger, or nutmeg, or cedar, or black pepper. I started the diffuser. I put on water for tea. I baked, almost daily. I made soups and stews so the house would smell good.

And somehow, imperceptibly, there were fleeting moments when it began to feel like home. Or, at least, to feel cozy.

And so I choose, this Advent, to embrace this space, the space between. I will choose to breathe in the smells, to savor the tastes. I will allow the loneliness to crash over me like a wave; and like a wave, recede.

Advent is about the waiting.

Advent is the space between.

Advent is breathing in the longing.

Advent is waiting for home.