In Praise of Elephants

                                            Oh, mountain of wrinkles with haunting eloquent eyes,

                                            You thunder over plains raising dust, parting tall grasses,

                                            Laughing at hopping gazelles.

                                            Lovely gray one delicately raising your trunk to pluck dew

                                            Laden leaves in the morning sun or to gently hold a tiny calf.

                                            You nurture and soothe with a quiet humming.

                                            Your dignity and grace mark you as surely as the tree trunk 

                                            Legs you stand upon.  You teach two-legs the meaning of 

                                            Beauty as you dance to the wind's song and wave hello/goodbye

                                            With your ears.

                                            In the steadfast look of your gentle eyes you reveal a full heart

                                            You comfort the sick, the old, the orphan with compassion.

                                            You mourn death and rejoice in birth gathering as sisters to

                                            nurse one another.

                                            In the moonlit night such a full silence you keep, so many things

                                            Unspoken, tokens of a hidden life.

                                           

A Special Gift

 Yesterday I spent the entire day at a workshop on Healing Racism.  I am more in touch with my own prejudices today.  I have learned prejudice is "an emotional commitment to ignorance."  Too true!  When I look back on my life, I see this was how I operated.  I was ignorant of so much and afraid to question either myself or anyone else.  It was the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr that tore away my self imposed blinders. I do not blame my Father for this legacy of racial prejudice anymore than I blame him for my fair skin.  His attitude was a product of ignorance and fear too.  What I focus on instead is the amazing grace that has freed me. I did nothing to deserve this gift it was freely given.

My unbinding began the day Dr. King died on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in downtown Memphis. I was 23 years old, married and pregnant with my second child.  Having been raised in a home where a person of color was either a maid or an "uppity nigger",  the latter when they tried to claim their seats at the banquet of American Justice.  

My parents were not bad people despite their views on racism.  My Mother more than once voiced her compassion edged with shame over the living conditions she saw, but for her it never matured into something more as far as I know.  Perhaps had she lived longer it would have, but she died in 1967.  Time could well have made a difference for her as it did for me.  As for my Dad, he definitely changed with the years.  For instance, he had a woman named "Peaches" who worked for him.  When he found out that she was married (but separated from a recently deceased Railroad worked) and her sister-in-law was taking her benefits in her place.  He immediately went to work and procured justice for her which enabled her to retire with a much needed and deserved pension.

It is with an intense feeling of shame that I admit the depths of my prejudice against black people.  Like some angry little child who closed her eyes to the truth and then places her fingers in her ears so as to not hear the truth - even humming to drown out the reality around her.  I did that - drowning out the children murdered and young men and women set upon by police dogs for peacefully protesting against racial inequality. I chose not to know, not to understand, but there came a day when I could no longer ignore the cries of humanity.  There came in that time and place a moment of truth and grace for me.  I was standing in a neighbor's living room watching the scenes of chaos and violence on television.  Four or five other young white women surrounded me with their children and babies.  A voice behind me said, "It was his own fault! If he hadn't been there, it wouldn't have happened."

How can I find words to describe what happened to me in that moment?  It was a if lightening had struck me, peeling away all the years of prejudice and self-imposed ignorance.  I was naked before my God knowing deep within myself that something was wrong, terribly wrong.  I knew that if a man believed so strongly in something as to lay down his life for it, I had to look, really look, at what he was saying in this sacrifice.  Just as it was with Jesus Christ.  I could no longer accept what I had been taught about the differences between blacks and whites.  At that moment, I admitted I didn't know anything anymore.  Then I was born again into someone completely different.

I am grateful, forever grateful for the unbinding love Dr. King gave me and others like me.  Because of Dr. King, I have been gifted with love and understanding, forgiveness and acceptance from the very people I wronged so deeply.  African American men and women have embraced me with a graciousness wither to unknown.  I have been befriended and enriched by their love and laughter.  I have shared my hopes and dreams, my sorrows and tears with them and they with me.  I have seen myself reflected in their eyes.  I know Our Heavenly Father loves us one and all.  

I would like to end with a poem:

"He drew a circle to shut me out.  Heretic, Rebel, a thing to flout, but love and I had wit to win, we drew a circle to draw him in."

I am in Dr. King!  I'm in!

 

                                       

                                                                                  Pray for us

                The place I have known God's loving presence the best is in St Patrick Church.  It is here, on hallowed ground, that I knew for the first time that God loved me deeply and personally.  I saw and felt it from the people around me and each time I received Jesus in Holy Communion.

Years ago, a small group of friends would gather in the chapel at St Patrick to pray for our community as it passed through a difficult time. This was when the chapel was behind a partition from the main church before restoration of the church as it is today.  In the great silence of that place, I sensed the true meaning of the Communion of Saints.  I felt the loving presence of those men and women who had worshipped there throughout it's many years, including my own forbearers.  I felt them praying with us for our church family.  The joys and tears of their lives blended to pour a blessing on all who follow in their footsteps.  In the loving presence of the God who created and loved us into being, I knew in the core of my being whose child I was and who was calling me to be one with Him through the ages of eternity.  I recognized that this loving Parent/God would sustain me and our community in all our trials.

I ask that  you continue this tradition by praying for our church family as we pass through what must be a very difficult time for many of us. Ask a special blessing on our dear Father Dexter as he moves to another blessed church and for Father Robert, that he may find a loving home among us.

   

                                                                 THE SINGING STONES

In empty places without the mercy of water.

In long forgotten canyons and along dry mesa tops.

I have sought my soul among the lost and the dead,

who do not rest.

The wind carries a song that calls me back to 

firelight, smoke and memories.

Flesh that feels the approach of winter and

a heart that leaps with the joy of spring.

Voices raised in soft words, babble like water after rains.

Sweet sage & pine & scrubs scent the air.

To where do I wander? Can I find that moment, that day?

Come Great Spirit, lead me forward to that place to which you 

have drawn me.  To rocks that sing my name.  I have

heard them in dreams.

Across the great desert and through the dwellings of another people

Into the rock womb where I was formed, into the beginning

place I go, to find my place among the living or perhaps my rest

among these dead.  For seasons pass.  Wind, snow and then 

wailing winds in the canyons. Golden leaves, rabbit prints,

warmth of day, cold nights.

Sounds carry so far, chirping, night stars and moonlight

full of curious shadows, scents on the breeze,

bright sunsets and dawn light splitting the earth dark from light.

The rocks sing my name in this place. 

My soul forever thirsts 

for this beauty and weeps within me, like the

sounds of the flute echoing through the canyons.

Leading me to a cold kiva by a spruce tree, to rocks

there.  These rocks shaped my body then and sing 

my name now.

 

                                                              One Last Dream

I am awake.  I awoke at about 2:30 AM after another dream of my ex husband telling me he is leaving me, which I have relived in my dreams over and over since he left me after 27 years of marriage.  

Something about this dream was different.  He looked young and well.  Thin even as he was at twenty.  In my dream he had been gone a long time and I was angry when he finally came home.  I berated him for staying gone so long.  He told me he wanted out of our marriage.  After all, what good was he to me having no job?  I was suddenly distracted by a woman on television winning the lottery. Her husband had left her too and I called his attention to it as if it was relevant.  

Then, we talked and I told him I would miss him so much and asked didn't he love me anymore?  Where upon he replied, he would always love me and I saw in his eyes, it was true.  He took me warmly by the hand and smiled.  Then I remembered the Catholic Church had given us an annulment. It was true, but this happened 28 years ago.  I said, well, the Church had given us an annulment so I guess you are right to go, but I will miss you always and in truth, despite all the pain he caused me when we were married, I have missed the good man I knew in our earliest years together, for all these years since he left me.   

He is now 81 and in very serious condition in the hospital.  I am wondering if he has passed away this very night and he came to make peace and say goodbye.  If so, welfare and rest in peace.

I'll know in the morning.

 

 

                                                                TEARS

 Your face appears in passing dreams

                                          Bring thoughts of things long past.

                                          Why do I search the wide road along my sleeping way

                                          Hoping for glimpses of you?

 

What would I say to your passing form?

                                         For the years have ravished my inner storm.

                                          The tears of my youth have salted my soul

                                          Removing from sight the hoped for goal.

  

    There is nothing left of the joy I knew,

                                            All that remains is a sense of loss too true

                                            A bitter taste marks my sleep,

                                             All the unshared years soaked in tears. 

                   

                                            

 

                                         

                                                                The Oak

                                        Silent sentinel you stand with arms out stretched

                                        As if mindful of your Father's love.

                                        Deep drifts of winter whiteness are His garments

                                        Of innocence and April's promise is hidden within you.

                                        I place my hand upon your bark to touch the meaning

                                        Of the years.  Seedling to sapling and acorn to oak

                                        Generation upon generation bridged beneath your branches.

                                        Springs of fullness and falls of sorrow.  Each autumn 

                                         A blaze before the dying, each winter bleak branches

                                        Sighing before the wind.

                                        Yet, Spring's sweetness lives in the roots, unseen, 

                                        Unknow except by faith.  It is the same with me.

                                        Long the days of waiting and many the seasons 

                                        Of the soul.

                                        When burdened I will remember your full leafed arms

                                        Lifted to the Father and pray.

                                        When my soul is brittle and dry with pain, I'll

                                        Remember your autumn and seek the blaze of joy 

                                        And beauty within me.

                                    And should sorrow come to dwell, I'll think of you in  your

                                    Linen wrappings of winter and remember Spring.

                                    May you be a reminder of the life within me.

                                    April's promise of Resurrection in the sepulcher stillness

                                    Of my inner journey.