Mystical Murmurs: My Interfaith Life

 My mother and grandmother loved the change of seasons, especially the arrival of fall after a long, humid Delaware summer. The minute the mercury fell into the 50s at night, out would come the blankets and comforters. The furnace would purr into life in the early, cool mornings.    Gran, who lived with us, would cut bouquets of pyracantha (which we called "firethorn") from the bush in the backyard and place them around the house. There was always one large bouquet on our hearth. It proclaimed the change of season in the heart of our home.  My mom even had different curtains for the cold season -- I think this was a thing in the 1950s and early 60s. I'd come home from school one day and -- presto! -- the whole house would be changed into winter garb. I wish I could say this is a tradition I've maintained. I'm lucky if I remember to wash all the linens, much less change them for seasonal ones.  And it wasn't autumn at our house until Mom called me into the yard

It’s a quiet night here on the porch. The sun will soon set (noticeably earlier every night now), and the birds are taking a last few nibbles.  Max is gone now. The treatment we hoped would work was not a success, and after hours of seeing his kidney values go in the wrong direction, we agreed with the vet that it was time to let him go.  It’s brutal. If you’re a pet lover, you know how bad it is. The grief just bursts you open. Breaks you. When I sit at my desk, the nearby armchair is empty now, for the first time in 14 years. It’s about all I can stand.  Grief is hard. Relentless, for a while. Grief reminds you of every loss you’ve ever endured. Other pets. Humans you also loved. The people affected (or killed) by Covid-19. Grief breaks all that open again. It’s a bad feeling, to say the least.  And yet.  Every loss, every breaking-open, presents a growing edge. Maybe we become more sensitive to others in their own grief. Maybe we are able to help.  We mourn, we heal, we move on. It’

Here I sit on the porch, watching two sparrows on the seed sock and listening to a gentle rain.  My best friend gave me the seed sock for my birthday,  since I’ve  been trying to lure the local goldfinches. I saw one up on the telephone wire the other day, observing with his little head tilted while the sparrows fed. He seemed approving, but did not commit. I saw him later at the other feeder, where the big birds go. Come on, buddy! I’m trying to feed you here! My 14-year-old dog, Max, stayed overnight at the local animal hospital, to receive treatment for his UTI. We hope the damage to his kidneys can be somewhat reversed. If it were plain-vanilla organ failure that afflicted him, we would have had to let him go. But an infection? I feel like I should fix that. Last night he was responding quite well. Below is the photo the hospital sent me after they admitted him.  He’s at the Mt. Laurel Animal Hospital. I have never found a more caring bunch than these folks. They have 50 vets, so t

 This little cutie-pie is my mother in law, Grace Sterling (nee Lloyd), when she was all of about 20 years old. When I met her, Grace had returned to nursing after a hiatus of many years. She worked in the nearby community hospital in Hamilton, New York, and was greatly loved there. In due time, she spent nearly 4 years in the skilled nursing wing, where she was lovingly cared for by nurses whose lives she had touched. She passed away with some of them by her side on December, 14, 2011, at the age of 86. Grace could do anything, or so it seemed to me. On a snowy night, with a doctor snowed in at his home, she delivered a baby with not much on her side except common sense and her own experience of two births. "Well, maybe just push a little," she told the mom, and then caught the baby as he made his exit. I found this story quite exciting, since I'd had c-sections myself and found the whole natural birth process quite mysterious (not to mention terrifying).  Grace could al

On August 1st, English villagers celebrated the feast of Lammas, in honor of the wheat harvest. The term “Lammas,” in fact, derives from the Old English phrase, “hlaf-maesse,” or “loaf-mass,” when a loaf baked from the newly harvested wheat was blessed at the local church. Lammas was also the occasion of country fairs, often held with the intent of hiring new laborers for the continuing harvest season.  Of course this celebration, like many others appropriated by Christianity, is much older. Lammas, known as Lughnasadh in the Wiccan/Pagan cycle — the Wheel of the Year — honors the Pagan god, Lugh, on the occasion of his marriage. It is the first of three sequential harvest festivals in this tradition: Mabon and Samhain are the others.  We shouldn’t fail to notice that Lammas is a “cross-quarter day,” lying equidistant between the summer solstice, known as Litha, and the autumnal equinox, known as Mahon. By the time Lammas rolls around, we are descending into the dark, the season of sho

This is day #134 of the Long Sorrow. I call it the Long Sorrow not because I have been deprived of my precious routine and activities, but because so very, very many have been deprived of their precious lives. And because many more people are now dying, and will die, largely because Donald Trump and his Republican cronies do not care.  My husband and I are older now, with  those famous "underlying conditions," so we began quarantining on the 12th of March, and we have not really stopped.  I have groceries delivered, and have ventured out, gingerly, to a few places, mainly to buy bedding plants. I did have minor surgery on the 1st of July. Oddly, I felt safer in the hospital than anywhere else, except at home. My husband is playing tennis again (outside only, and with great caution).  I am enjoying my garden and my front porch, and I'm very grateful that winter is a long way off.  Church is open again, with many rules and restrictions, but not many have chosen to attend in

OK, no I didn't! But I think you knew that. I hope you are all having a wondrously creative time in lockdown. Knitting up a storm, learning the piano, finally learning how to make a roux , n'est-ce pas?  I had all sorts of plans too, now that my favorite activities -- hanging out with friends, volunteering as a chaplain, church, choir, tai chi classes, and eating out -- have all gone down the tubes. I was going to redesign my front garden.  I did spread mulch and plant a few new things, but the result is much the same as last year. I was going to add a spiritual direction page to this blog, hoping to drum up clients from the spiritually fluid and/or the spiritual-but-not-religious crowd. I was going to weed my library in order to assemble a donation for the local public library (which is, of course, closed right now).  I thought I might learn an easy instrument, since using the vocal cords for singing seems to be way, way off in the distance.  I have c

Above is a picture of my pisanki, highly-decorated Easter eggs given me by a dear friend. They appear in my dining room at the beginning of Lent every year, and never fail to grace my Easter table. I dyed some hard-boiled eggs as well, but it would not be Easter without the pisanki, those reminders of spring and resurrection.  Aside from the pisanki, nothing about Easter was normal, and I feel I turned into an Easter Grinch. Church, of course, was online. I’m getting adjusted to that, but my laptop kept notifying me that my internet connection was unstable. We had many attendees, which may have been a factor. In any case, audio and video kept freezing for me, especially during the sermon, which was unfortunate. I needed a few words of hope and glory! Grinch grumbling on my end occurred.  At dinner, there were only three of us this year. Our son’s girlfriend had been invited, but she is quarantined up in Bergen County, one of our New Jersey hotspots. Our daughter, her fiancé, and his ki

Last week, I joined a small meditation group hosted every weekday at noon by a friend with whom I went to seminary.  Meditation is always a good thing, but it seemed to me that I needed discipline and accountability with my meditation practice right now (since it tends to be spotty under normal circumstances).  The first week, the sessions were devoted to tonglen , a type of meditation involving breathing in the suffering of others, then breathing out compassion. It's more complicated than that, probably, but that is how we boiled it down for our own purposes. It can lead to a feeling of heaviness and sadness, but also to a sense of having added, even if by a tiny fraction, to the amount of compassionate, healing energy in the world. Since I'm not an essential worker, it gave me something purposeful to do right now, besides cowering in my house.  If you're interested, a resource is listed below. Yesterday, we tried something different: chanting with Amma.  If y

So here we are, locked down and shut in, waiting and praying for the first wave of coronavirus to pass. As a kid swimming in the Atlantic, I learned early how to dive under the breaking wave, to avoid feeling its force, emerging beyond it safe and sound. That’s the point of sheltering in place, too: avoiding the virus, letting it pass by like the angel of death on Passover. I mind this enclosure much less than I expected to. As an introvert, I should not have been surprised. My husband and son are working from home, but I still have ample time on my own. There are so many things I could be doing around the house. I’ve done none of them. I can't seem to move. As a hospice chaplain and vigil volunteer, I think I’m grieving for people I don’t know. Working with dying people and their families, I know how important the gathering of loved ones can be to a patient’s peaceful transition. Family members telling funny stories, praying together, watching those last breaths: these a