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What lies beneath the leaves

The works of the Lord are sublime; those who delight in them are right to fix their eyes on them. ~ Psalm 111:2

For all the years I have had milkweed growing in my garden, I had only ever seen the Monarch caterpillars that feed on its leaves or the beautiful orange-and-black butterflies that the larvae become. 

The in-between stage when the black-and-white-and-yellow caterpillars attach themselves to a leaf or stem, later shedding their skin for a chrysalis from which the butterfly emerges, had eluded me.  

A Monarch caterpillar on a Common Milkweed.

Always, it seemed, the caterpillars would disappear to begin the pupa stage and complete their reproductive cycle. But late in August of last year, my habit of looking into the garden to see what delights might be worth fixing my eyes on led me to a Monarch caterpillar in the “J” position. This meant it had spun a silk pad and hooked its tail end into it before dropping into the shape of a “J.” Later, it would shed its skin to reveal a chrysalis. This caterpillar had chosen the branch of a Jewelweed – not exactly the most sturdy plant in my garden – and, sure enough, when I looked again a few hours later, an apple-green chrysalis was hanging from the branch. 

A Monarch’s chrysalis hanging seemingly precariously from a Jewelweed branch.

Of course, I immediately began checking the Jewelweed whenever I was outside, making sure the chrysalis was still there and eager to observe any changes that would indicate the life cycle was progressing. When a storm passed through, I even propped up the Jewelweed with a branch to make sure the chrysalis would have sufficient support. My frequent inspections were rewarded when on Day 13, I noticed the chrysalis had started to turn translucent, revealing the folded wings of butterfly inside. By the next day, the chrysalis appeared to be even darker, and when next I checked, a butterfly had emerged and was clinging to the empty clear casing. What a delight it was to see it flitting about the garden and joining the other Monarchs that were around. 

A Monarch butterfly, fresh from its now-empty chrysalis.

Then, two days later, on a morning inspection of the garden, I saw another Monarch caterpillar in the “J” position, this one under a milkweed leaf. By 3 o’clock that afternoon, a chrysalis was in its place. Happily, I resumed my frequent inspections and by Day 15, noticed the chrysalis had started to turn translucent. It wasn’t until Day 19, however, that it had darkened.

The chrysalis appears black just before the butterfly is ready to emerge.

On Day 20, I had to leave the house early in the morning and by the time I returned around 9, the butterfly was out of the chrysalis, but still clinging to it, its wings looking somewhat crinkled. Within 30 minutes or so, the wings had straightened and the butterfly was moving and cleaving to a leaf. I later saw it had flown to a Fallopia near the milkweed. It was still there the next morning, but after that, I didn’t see it again. 

The second Monarch rests on a Fallopia after leaving the chrysalis.

That these sightings were a gift was driven home to me this year when, despite faithful inspections of my garden, I saw only Monarch butterflies, a few caterpillars (none in the “J” position), and one empty chrysalis on a Nasturtium, a plant I had checked daily, but never thought to inspect more thoroughly for such a find.

A surprise late-season find: an empty chrysalis in a potted Nasturtium.

Nonetheless, I took in many other enchanting sights: bees poking their heads and sometimes their whole bodies into Jewelweed blooms, wasps and bees on Nodding Onion blossoms, two other Monarch butterflies I discovered trapped in webbing and was able to free (one with the help of my husband) and then watch fly away, and Black Swallowtail caterpillars feasting on parsley before they crawled off to complete their own reproductive cycle.

A Black Swallowtail caterpillar feasting on the garden parsley.

And so, even as the landscape of the garden changes with the onset of fall and winter, I will remember these precious finds and continue to delight in what I see outside — for the works of the divine hand in any season are truly sublime and, as the psalmist says, it is right to fix our eyes on them.

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A prescription for poetry

In Jane Austen’s novel Persuasion, Anne Elliot prescribes a greater dose of prose for a young navy lieutenant who has been grieving the loss of his fiancée by drowning himself in melancholy poems. 

For myself and my fellow Northerners, though, I’m writing the reverse prescription – more poetry in a season that grows alarmingly prosaic in the winter months. Although taking refuge in a volume of written poems might be one way to do this, I’m thinking more about something I read in The Forgotten Language, a new book by Father Michael Rennier.  In it, Father Rennier writes about recovering the poetry of the Catholic Mass, which he says is “the perfection of the Church’s poetic skill,” and he introduces his subject by sharing his great love of poetry but also his belief that “poetics is the art of living.” 

He tells how his six children have taught him to “pay attention to the poetic shape of our lives” and paints a beautiful picture of his toddler lingering over a generic tree and then carrying a leaf dropped from its limbs in one hand while holding her father’s hand with the other as stones she has collected jingle in her pocket. 

A young fall visitor to our woods reflects Father Rennier’s story about his toddler’s leaf.

“I’ve missed so much in my need to talk and fuss, my arrogance and busyness,” Father Rennier  writes. “Now I make up for lost time. With my children, I look at airplanes in the sky. We look at mommy ducks and baby ducks, bird nests stuffed with mottled blue eggs, and fish flopping and shaking off drops of emerald-green water before we release them with a triumphant cry back into the lake. I love it all.”  

During an exceedingly gray, dull Midwestern winter that has offered us precious little to soothe the senses, I’ve taken to wandering about and searching for something lovely, snapping photos along the way, and finding solace in unexpected beauty.

My finds so far:

A nearly perfect dried Oak leaf that I retrieved and have been keeping in my office as a reminder that fall left me a remnant of her seasonal show,

patches of fungus artistically arranged on tree bark,

a dappled sheen on the pond that suggests fairies might have scattered dust on it overnight,

Common Milkweed pods spilling out their silky floss,

and the seedheads on Blue Vervain proving that, like elegant octogenarians possessed of good posture, they can still exude style in the winter of their lives. 

Father Rennier says his children have revealed to him that “creation is wildly rampant with God’s love, that it is gratuitously flung from His hand, shattering into shards of diamond. He is waiting for me and you, His little children, to look, to notice the sparkle under our feet and stoop to investigate.” 

Reading his book during long winter nights next to the wood stove has rekindled my own quest to look for the poetic and to be a child who notices and investigates, regardless of the season or the setting. Truly, the poetry of our lives is always there, waiting to be discovered. If you are in a gray place geographically or in your circumstances, maybe this would be a good time to dust off your poetic lens and look for something that speaks beauty into your soul. You might be surprised to find a strand of poetry right under your feet.

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Re-opening ‘One Thousand Gifts’

Sometimes, a book that comes my way doesn’t quite resonate at the time I open it and so I set it aside for another day – or month or year. One of those “another days” recently dawned for me when I revisited Ann Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts, a book chronicling the author’s journey out of darkness and into the light of gratitude.

When Gifts first was suggested by one of the women in a book group I was part of, I responded to it with a slight edge. After starting in, I went on to only skim the pages, grabbing a few nuggets here and there – enough, I thought, to participate in a book discussion. I couldn’t argue with the book’s premise of always looking for ways to give thanks, but Voskamp’s raw descriptions of the pain she had known and witnessed in others grated on me. For one, she had seen and lived the aftermath of her little sister being struck by a pickup truck: the blood, the lifeless body, and most of all the pain of her parents. All of it colored the rest of her days, even after she sought and found some solace in her Christian faith. I had witnessed a similar scene as a 9-year-old when my father was hit by a car the day before Christmas Eve. Although unlike Voskamp’s sister, he survived after a long recovery, the experience forever altered my child’s world and outlook, affecting me for years to come, especially at Christmas. I really wasn’t interested in immersing myself in that pain again through Voskamp’s lenses. Still, her idea of giving thanks seemed a good one and I suppose I have always tried since then to enumerate that for which I am grateful. It’s a healthy habit, after all – sort of like exercising. Not especially fun, but the right thing to do, and with the hope of benefit over the long term. 

So, when I received Voskamp’s book and a companion devotional as a birthday gift shortly after the book-group read, I expressed sincere gratitude because the books were lovely, and I sensed they held within them some future treasure to be unearthed. I left them on my desk, occasionally glancing at them and yet never feeling impelled to pick them up or give them away. 

Now, in the midst of a dreary winter that has been far more frigid than recent ones, some sickness in our house, and the global stress that continues to strain all of our lives, I happened to notice those two books again. This time, I picked them up and took them downstairs to my reading chair. Although some of the content was familiar from my earlier perusal, I read with new eyes, likely absorbing Voskamp’s meaning for the first time. And as many of her readers have done before, I’ve begun my own list of 1,000 gifts. I’m not very far along, but I’m learning, as she did, to react to what happens with gratitude, naming the gifts of each day. Milkweed fluff blowing in the wind. Melting water forming ice marbles on the ground. Decaying tree stumps in the woods – nature’s sculpture. Bare trees casting their lacey pattern on the surface of a pond. Unexpected sunshine on a cloudy day. Fall’s floral remnants in the garden transformed into snowy puffs. And then those more difficult thanksgivings: the new vision and recalibration spawned by a time of trial, a neighbor’s illness bringing renewed appreciation of her presence in our lives, a nugget of awareness in the midst of difficulty that I may be contributing to my own misery. 

By continually turning her mind to thankfulness – Voskamp calls it Eucharisteo, Greek for “give thanks” – the writer of One Thousand Gifts found a new way of living and looking at life. Not that this is easy. She acknowledges that it is hard work to count even – and especially – the ugly as grace, transfiguring it into beauty with thanks. As Voskamp tells a sullen teen son, “We don’t have to change what we see. Only the way we see.” And this, she knows, is a discipline that requires practice.

Before she began her list, Voskamp knew well the biblical admonition to give thanks in all things (I Thessalonians 5:13). But she discovered there is a difference between a blanket thanks and one that lasers in on specific gifts. So she started small by learning to give thanks for one little thing, and watched the moments add up. As she did her perspective began to change. 

I’m starting small, too, and have a long way to go. But I appreciate Voskamp’s directions. And, as someone whose temperament tends more toward the melancholic than the sanguine, I like that she draws a distinction between what she is proposing and what we call being a Pollyanna. As she tells the brooding teen son, “You can’t positive-think your way out of negative feelings.”

In other words, you can’t just gloss over or ignore the darkness and cheerfully move on, as those of naturally sunny temperament seem able to do. Instead, if I’ve got this right, it’s about facing the darkness, looking into it and maybe even staring it down as we adjust our vision to find with inner eyes the glimmer of light in the shadows. 

As Voskamp writes so beautifully, “Faith is the seeing eyes that find the gauze to heaven torn through; that, slow to witness the silent weight, feel the gold glory bar heavy in palm, no matter the outer appearance.” 

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Witness to a resurrection

For weeks now, I have been witnessing a resurrection. This is no spectacle bursting forth in a blast of life and color, but a quiet emergence emanating slowly from muddy ground and matted leaves. 

The first shoots of the early wildflower Spring Beauty pierce the leaf cover.

It is the experience of spring granted to those of us who have endured a northern winter and eagerly watch for the first signs of seasonal change. They are everywhere and nowhere. A first glance at the landscape reveals nothing but brown matter, a tangle of bare branches. Then a sharp whistle from the Tufted Titmouse signals it is time to take another, deeper look. Yes, there is something to see. In the woods, wisps of foliage mark the start of what will become drifts of petite Spring Beauty blooms under the trees. In the garden, tips of Daffodil leaves poke upward through the mulch, and here and there, early blooming miniature Irises form the first drops of color. 

A miniature Iris is a welcome sight in an otherwise drab garden.
A Great-horned Owl peers from a nest used by the same species last year.

Other harbingers are returning buzzards soaring overhead as they “kettle” on favorable winds, a Great-horned Owl occupying a nest deeper in the woods, and the appearance near the bird feeders of a Fox Sparrow, an early bird heralding the start of spring migration. Each day seems to bring more evidence: a butterfly flitting past and coming to rest on a patch of tree bark, buds popping out of the stumps of an elderberry bush, followed by the furry catkins on the Pussy Willow, and the cry of “FEE-bee, FEE-bee” as an Eastern Phoebe arrives. 

Once this phenomenon starts, it seems there is no holding back. Almost overnight, Daffodil and Spring Beauty buds unfold and pop into sprays of blooms, a band of Kinglets makes an entrance, the sighting of a Gray Catbird is reported at a nearby marsh, and spring’s calendar reminds us to start watching for the next wildflowers – Dutchman’s Breeches, Swamp Buttercup, and Jack-in-the-Pulpit. 

Admittedly, these beginnings of spring may seem lacking in excitement or even interest to those who, in this digital age, require big, splashy visual displays and the stimulation of quick changes. Truly, it is the rare visitor to our little landscape who appreciates these incipient stages of spring and can savor a first bloom or a sprinkling of green surfacing from under the dull leaf cover.  

Hence it was with great delight a few days ago that I escorted two budding naturalists and their mother through a section of the woods and observed their enjoyment in being shown one of the first Spring Beauty blooms. Although it was a cloudy, windy, cold day and the bloom was closed, these sisters, ages 3 and 5, were visibly elated at the sight and even more so when, after walking a little farther, they found a Spring Cress bloom on their own. Their “Look, here’s another one!” moment was nothing short of exquisite. 

I feel that same joy of discovery every spring as I watch for a resurrection that is promised, but not assured until fully revealed. In the interim, each shoot of green, each small bud gives me faith in what I hope for and evidence for what cannot yet be seen.

After consulting our state guide to butterflies and skippers, I’m calling this an Eastern Comma butterfly.

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Hebrews 11:1. 

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A time to be quiet

“I think the devil has made it his business to monopolize on three elements: noise, hurry, crowds. If he can keep us hearing radios, gossip, conversation, or even sermons, he is happy. But he will not allow quietness.” 

Jim Elliot wrote this in a letter to his family in 1948 when television was still in an experimental phase and the idea of people carrying hand-held computers in their pockets was the stuff of science fiction.

Although he didn’t face the same kinds of daily assaults on personal peace that we do, Elliot was keenly aware of threats to the quiet he knew he needed. He was attempting to discern where God was calling him to serve as a missionary and he wanted to be able to hear the still, small voice that would direct him. 

Elliot’s journals and letters – excerpted in Shadow of the Almighty, the biography his widow, Elisabeth, wrote – tell how he refrained from most social activities during his years at a Christian college that he might keep focused on prayer, study, and reading. His writings are filled with references to both the Bible and literature and they reveal the mind of someone who could drink deeply of the riches of this world but who was centered on his goal and willing to limit his life to essentials that he might reach it. For instance, although he was drawn to Elisabeth, a fellow student, and confessed his love for her before her graduation, he made clear that his work among primitive peoples might require him to remain single. Indeed, it was several years before he discerned that God was giving him the go-ahead to marry her.

During these days when coronavirus restrictions and other circumstances have altered and limited our lives markedly from just a year ago, Jim Elliot’s full and purposeful life stands out as a template for what is truly essential. 

Amid the initial COVID-19 lockdowns, there was much talk of how people were returning to fundamentals. As we spent more time at home, parents were supposedly growing closer to their children and families were recognizing the benefits of scaled-back schedules. People seemingly were looking at their lives with an eye to what mattered most, sorting through activities, possessions, and relationships to determine what was really essential. 

As the first weeks of restrictions have stretched into a year, however, those noble aims have faded. Many of us are simply weary of the new routine that has been imposed on us and are longing for what used to be. Some have tried to snatch a little of what remains by booking a vacation or undertaking a remodeling project. Other hopeful souls are soldiering on toward the day when they anticipate things returning to “normal.” Yet, that day looms farther and farther away as we are warned of new strains of the virus and told that even with vaccinations, masking will be required well into 2022. Whatever peace we might have experienced during those first days of sheltering in has, for many, evaporated into irritation. 

Meanwhile, we are spending more time than ever on devices and screens where we chat with each other, attend classes, shop, work, and access entertainment. In this state of constant connection and stimulation, we are trying to make sense of what has happened, not through quiet reflection, but by plunging into the technology that did not go into lockdown and continues to swirl about us as we click on the latest links that shout “Read” and “Watch.”

It is no surprise then that many of us are on edge, annoyed, and even angry, whether interacting on social media or navigating the aisles of a store. Into all of this, I have heard the voice of Jim Elliot, who died when he was just 28, speaking quietly but firmly as he responded to the challenges of the culture in which he lived.

I suspect that if Elliot were around today he would be engaging in his own form of social distancing, detaching from many of the things we have come to consider essential. He would be the friend who wasn’t on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram, who still carried a flip phone — if he had a cell phone at all — and drove an old car. What mattered to him was his mission and what it was going to take to get there. Anything not essential to that purpose was superfluous. 

Even so, Elliot was far from dull. His journals reveal a life imbued with delight, particularly when he observed the natural world around him, and he was known for being something of a prankster. It is almost as if by letting go of nonessentials, he was able to enjoy the essentials more profoundly.

Ultimately, his laser focus on the mission field took him to the jungles of Ecuador, where he labored for nearly four years before he and four companions, Nate Saint, Roger Youderian, Pete Fleming, and Ed McCully, were killed by seven of the very men they had hoped to reach with the message of their faith. It was a death for which Elliot was prepared – for the Auca/Waodani tribe was known to have killed interlopers – but it was a price he was willing to pay. Well before he died, he wrote, “He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.”

Elliot’s life speaks loudly in this day when we are suffering the loss of what used to be and struggling to live without it. We can’t know for certain how Jim Elliot would have responded to similar circumstances. But because he was practiced at living with essentials, I think he might have minimized the kinds of losses we are experiencing and forged ahead with the work he believed he was called to do. First, though, he would have made space in his days for quiet.  

In the letter to his family excerpted above, Elliot continued, “Satan is quite aware of the power of silence. The voice of God, though persistent, is soft . . . Let us resist the devil in this by avoiding noise as much as we can, purposefully seeking to spend time alone, facing ourselves in the Word.” 

More than ever, with all that has happened in the last year, this is a time to be quiet,  to consider what has happened to us individually and corporately, and how we will use what freedom we still have to live.  St. Teresa of Avila once said, 
“ . . . We sometimes refuse what the Lord gives us, even though the gift might be the best one possible.” In that vein, it may be that this season, though not something any of us desired, is just what is needed for such a time as this.

Photos of book cover and Jim Eliot and Pete Fleming used with permission of the Elisabeth Elliot Foundation, where more information about the life and legacy of Jim and Elisabeth Elliot can be found.

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Consider the wildflowers

When I was asked on a recent survey to name some “best practices” for coping with the coronavirus restrictions, I was tempted to respond: “looking for wildflowers.”

Thanks to the initiative of “Mrs. D,” a teacher friend who would take her second-grade students on wildflower outings, I was introduced years ago to a pastime that has both delighted and occupied me for many springs. Mrs. D’s gift of an Audubon Field Guide to North American Wildflowers, now well-thumbed and filled with markers, taught me how to identify the flowers that have become the focus of one of my cherished spring rituals.

Spring Beauty

True to its name, Spring Beauty heralds the arrival of the season we long for all winter.

Trillium blooms come in a variety of different colors. This deep-hued one caught my eye.

Making these discoveries on my own, by studying the Audubon guide’s pictures and descriptions of leaves, petals, height, flowering time, habitat, and range, connected me to the flora of the woods in a way that deepened my observations.

This year, I have appreciated this annual diversion even more because it has redirected my thoughts from the fear and anxiety that swirl around us. Amazingly, it seemed, the wildflowers still came up this year, oblivious to any sense of danger or foreboding, and I happily joined them as they made their 2020 debut.

By the time our governor issued his first stay-at-home order March 23, I was noticing the emergence of the foliage of Spring Beauty, one of the earliest wildflowers to appear in the woods where I look for these end-of-winter harbingers. About two weeks later, I saw my first Spring Beauty bloom along with flowers on another early bloomer – Purple Cress.

After that, I knew it wouldn’t be long before I would be seeing Dutchman’s Breeches, Common Blue and Yellow Violets, Swamp Buttercup, Jack-in-the-Pulpit, Wild Oats, Trillium, Phlox, Mayapple, Wild Geranium, and Wild Ginger.

Jack-in-the-Pulpit has been abundant this year.

Swamp Buttercup is known for its glossy flowers.

Although the first sighting of one of these flowers is always exciting, there’s nothing like seeing a drift of them at their peak when they carpet the floor of the woods. The vision of this seasonal show in full flower is all the better when I have seen it emerge from the dreary brown leaves of March and unfold into something quietly spectacular in April and May.

Whether I glance or gaze at the display, I’m often reminded of that familiar verse from the Bible about the lilies of the field. “They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his glory was adorned like one of these.” Those words from the gospel of Luke are part of a passage telling us not to worry about our lives, what we will eat or drink, about our bodies, and what we will wear. It seems incredibly relevant for these days when so many of us have been and are worried about all those things and more because of the coronavirus. Spring’s wildflowers remind me each year that something incredibly beautiful in this world happens without my planning, my effort, my toil, or my worrying. This year, they are fulfilling that purpose to an even greater extent by prompting me to recall how the passage about the lilies ends: “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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We’re all QuietKeepers now

When I started this blog, living a more serene life was largely a choice involving a move to a more rural area and other intentional lifestyle changes. But thanks to the coronavirus and the imposition of stay-at-home orders, it looks like we’re all QuietKeepers now.

Although I’ve heard many positive reactions from people who are finding some enjoyment in more scaled-down lives, there have been plenty of negative ones related to boredom, isolation, and depression setting in. In offering my thoughts here, I should be clear that my own immersion into quietude has not been free of struggle and at times a longing for more activity and interaction with others. This was especially true at first when I missed my former proximity to an interstate highway along with the stimulation of the newsroom where I had spent most of my career. But even after I had mostly adjusted and began to write this blog, another change presented new challenges.

December sunset

For the last five years, my husband and I have had to limit our travel to attend to his elderly parents, both of whom have since died – the last in December. During that season of caregiving, as we were experiencing a mode of “sheltering in,” most of our friends and other family members were vacationing and “enjoying life,” often sharing with us their photos, experiences, plans, and delights.

As this pattern continued, my husband often said, “If we don’t learn anything from this and we don’t make changes in our lives as a result, then we will have lost an opportunity.” Those words helped me eventually to stop yearning for the way things used to be and get on with what needed to be done, staying alert to what I could draw from the experience. Although it still could be difficult watching friends and family breeze through lives that seemed ruled by fun, I found that by cooperating with my circumstances and duties, I began to change.

Now that restricted movement and enforced isolation are upon all of us, I can say that, although I haven’t welcomed these new circumstances, I was at least somewhat prepared for them by what I had gleaned from the last few years.

As I pondered my own situation during that period, I recalled something a woman who had known many a lean season once told me about how she sought to “live large,” even in reduced circumstances. Because she had an eye for beauty and was determined to make room in her life for it, she had a way of making a simple meal seem elegant in the way she prepared and served it. In her hands, a modest home or wardrobe could appear stylish because of a few well-chosen accents. Her way was inspiring, not because she filled her life with stuff and activity, but because she created space for what was truly valuable to her and so lived with an attitude of abundance.

I began to think about ways to follow her lead interiorly in the midst of boundaries that had been pulled in, plans that had been postponed, and dreams that were starting to fade. And so I no longer lived for the day when I would be free to do this or that, but chose to look for and enjoy what was already around me. Sometimes, it would be something as simple as allowing a constellation in the night sky to illuminate the inner darkness that awakened me in the wee hours. Or, letting the song and sight of a Dickcissel cheer me on a spring walk. In winter, while traversing a desolate landscape, I could feel heartened by a Northern Harrier coursing over a field in its hunt for food. And, at the close of a day filled with missteps and mishaps, I could sense that all was well for the moment in a sunset of brilliant color infused by light.

Dickcissel singing

Then, I read this in Interior Freedom by Jacques Philippe: “ . . . even in the most unfavorable outward circumstances we possess within ourselves a space of freedom that nobody can take away . . . without this discovery we will always be restricted in some way, and will never taste true happiness.”

Philippe offers as “a witness for our times” Etty Hillesum, who died at Auschwitz in 1943. In the diary she began keeping when the Nazis were systematically stripping Jews in the Netherlands of their exterior freedoms, Hillesum could write of “enjoying the broad sweep of the sky at the edge of the city, breathing in the fresh, unrationed air.” While acknowledging the reality of persecution and its effects, she insisted, “They can’t do anything to us, they really can’t. They can harass us, they can rob us of our material goods, of our freedom of movement, but we ourselves forfeit our greatest assets by our misguided compliance. By our feelings of being persecuted, humiliated, oppressed. By our own hatred.” Because Hillesum believed she had the power to determine her reactions to her circumstances, she could say, “I find life beautiful, and I feel free. The sky within me is as wide as the one stretching above my head.”

For Philippe – as for Hillesum – God is the source and guarantee of the inner freedom we all can possess if we learn to let it unfold. “. . . Then, even though many things may well cause us to suffer,” Philippe writes, “nothing will really be able to oppress or crush us.”

This is clearly a difficult time in our nation and our world and many are suffering from even more than limitations on our freedom. But during these days, I’d like to think that we will not just get through them, as one state official suggested, by “snuggling up to Netflix,” but that we will seize the opportunity to “live large” amid the restrictions and find true freedom within them. If we do that, perhaps when and if this period of sheltering-in ends, we will have discovered a new way to live – one that reflects what truly matters.

Keeping calm in the storm we call news
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Keeping calm in the storm we call news

 

“Speculation is the enemy of calm.”

Those words spoken by Miss Deborah Jenkyns, a stalwart character in the British television series Cranford, seem incredibly relevant today.

Indeed, our media culture is fraught with “what ifs” as it unleashes a torrent of speculation at the smallest sneeze in the world of politics, national and world affairs, sports, and entertainment. News is no longer purely news, but analysis and conjecture repeated in a never-ending cycle that leaves us exhausted and frazzled, even as we continue to consume and even gorge ourselves on the content.

The realization that much of what we were seeing and hearing is little more than repetition and speculation, has led our household to reduce its consumption of what passes for news. Like people who change their diets to improve nutrition, we are limiting and altering our intake of information to include what we need to live.

First, we stopped our satellite TV service, and most recently, ended the satellite radio service in the car. We turn the TV on early in the morning long enough to catch a weather forecast and a smattering of local news, ignoring the plea from the network to stay tuned because “in times like these,” we need their morning news show more than ever. At other times, the TV is on only if there is something we have decided in advance to view. In the car, we still use the radio, but less often as we are beginning to enjoy silence as a pleasing alternative. Meanwhile, our Internet usage also has become more purpose-driven and less of an opportunity for recreational browsing. We still consume news, but more often from the radio and magazines, newspapers, and newsletters delivered by mail.

Although my husband instigated cutting ties with our satellite radio and TV providers — and I acquiesced somewhat reluctantly —  I am reaping the benefits of having closed these two portals as I experience increased quiet and reduced cerebral clutter. For me, a second influence in moving in this direction has been my exposure to the Carthusian monks and their austere lives of silence and solitude (See Cloisters amid the Clamor). When I had the opportunity several months ago to interview an author who wrote Report from Calabria about his stay at a Carthusian monastery in Italy, I was struck anew by how these monks manage to maintain a connection to the world without being overwhelmed by it. Though removed

from the kind of life most of us live, they know something of its events through the news imparted to them by their superior and through notes placed on message boards asking them to pray for certain needs. “So they’re not completely out of touch,” the author told me, “but they don’t get the bombardment of information or misinformation that we get.”

His choice of words certainly describes how many of us have come to feel about the onslaught of news that strafes our contemporary lives. There is so much information – and indeed, misinformation – coming from so many sources that we often feel battered by it because we simply cannot absorb or digest all that is available to us. Some of us have reacted by shutting out the news of the day and consuming only what entertains. Others get hooked on what seems to be news, checking myriad sources constantly and driving those around us – or on our email lists and Facebook and Twitter feeds – to distraction with our forwards, posts, and Tweets.

The Carthusians, it seems, have found a happy middle. That they manage to distill what is essential from the churning waters of “breaking news,” “live reports,” and social media gives me hope that we, too, can retain some sense of what is happening in our world without suffering shell shock. Just as they consume what is necessary for their life of prayer, so we can sift through the news and find what we most need to know for our lives.

More and more, that is what I am doing: sorting and sifting in a fashion that has become almost automatic, gleaning what I need to know and skimming over the interminable analysis and speculation, knowing it to be mostly unproductive. Before I listen, click, or watch, I am asking, “Do I really need to know this for my work and my obligations this day? Do I need to be alarmed or informed? Stimulated or prepared? Entertained and distracted or edified?”

Increasingly, the answers are taking me into a place of peace. My exposure to and consumption of news and media still far exceeds that of the monks at Calabria, but by eliminating some points of access and limiting entry into others, I am better able to digest what I do read, watch, or hear.

 

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When the best present is presence

The last of the 2017 Christmas gifts to be given has been delivered and the last of those received has been unwrapped.  In dealing with both, I’ve been reflecting on one of the sweetest Christmas offerings my father-in-law, who has dementia, received during this season of giving. It came from Dan, one of the “boys” from the old neighborhood – a kid who lived on the next block over, but hung out with Pops’ sons and was something of a fixture at their house.

Dan is one of the few people outside the family who has continued to visit Pops since he moved to a memory-care residence two years ago. Just before Christmas, he simply did what he does from time to time. He stopped by to say hello. Whenever Dan visits, Pops lights up and bellows a cheery, “What the heck are you doing here?” IMG_3700This is partly because Dan conjures up happy memories for a 92-year-old guy who doesn’t always remember what he did five minutes ago, but recalls the name or face of someone who has been kind to him, who remembers to thank him on Veterans Day for his Navy service, or who once fixed his leaky faucet.

But Dan’s visits also bring joy because he has the right idea about giving to people like Pops. When he shows up, he does so with empty hands and a full heart. He seems to know intuitively that his presence and his time are the best things he has to offer, and the reception he gets says it’s so.

During the Christmas season, various veterans and church groups left several one-size-fits-all gifts in Pops’ room – a basket of toiletries with a small crocheted afghan, a Poinsettia, and a box with treats and a small religious statue. These were thoughtful gestures and welcome, comforting signs that Pops has not been forgotten. But when I see him respond to someone like Dan, I know that often the best gifts we can give a person in Pops’ circumstances are not necessarily material things, but time and quiet care.

Just as Pops has been giving us lessons through this dementia journey on how to be, he has been teaching us to let go of our ideas about gifts and learn a new form of generosity. Sadly, we can no longer give him the restaurant gift certificates and other material things that delighted him in years past, but we can reach inside ourselves and pull out our patient attentiveness and reassurance.

Sometimes, that doesn’t seem sufficient, and frankly, it can be a little unsettling. We wonder, “Can it really be enough?” Dan would say yes. When he visits Pops, he says, he leaves with as much as – or more than – he gave, knowing he gladdened a heart with the best present of all – his presence.

 

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Peace at an early age

Our journey into silence has begun. Last week as a school, we began to cultivate silence in our Morning Prayer service.

When I read this message from the principal of a local church school, I was admittedly intrigued. That someone would be seeking to foster silence in fidgety young charges seemed a noble undertaking, if not a challenge.

After all, don’t we as a culture deal with the high energy levels of the young by trying to channel them into activity, preferably the sound-inducing kind? Isn’t that why we have roving mascots, big screens, and music and cheers blasting from speakers at family-friendly sporting events? In homes, schools, restaurants, and even libraries, aren’t we supposed to keep kids busy and engaged with sound, animated images, or anything that will occupy them?

P1060534In the classrooms of St. Boniface School in the small rural community of Oak Harbor, Ohio, there is plenty going on to absorb young minds, but principal Millie Greggila also knows that her students require periods of peace. So, while they are learning to tally sums, read and spell words, and master the fundamentals of music or science, they are acquiring the ability to calm themselves and remain quiet.

As part of their religious education, the students at St. Boniface meet in the parish church adjoining their school for prayer each morning. But during the liturgical seasons of Advent and Lent, both of which are times of reflection, Greggila incorporates brief periods of silence. Advent, she says, is an especially good time for this because, with Christmas in the air, the children’s thoughts are everywhere. “It’s Christmas and they’re excited.” Yet, Advent is seen as a time of waiting and during it, Greggila tries to create an atmosphere in which the students can learn to be quiet and find some peace.

A need for peace might strike us as unnecessary in little ones whose angelic faces seem to betray no anxiety, but Greggila knows they have concerns that are as important to them as those shouldered by their parents and teachers. When she asks them to pray out loud for specific needs, for example, she hears their worries about what matters most to them – often their angst about a dog or cat, friends who are absent from school, tests, or parents and grandparents. “I can always tell which ones listen to the news, because they pray for whatever calamity has befallen the world, especially those things that frighten them the most.”

Greggila’s hope is that she can show her students how to still themselves and place their worries in the hands of God.

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“We talk about how we have the power to slow ourselves down,” she said, adding that it’s easy to forget children don’t necessarily come by this naturally and need to be taught. She tells the students, for instance, that sometimes it is not necessary to talk so that they know to enter and leave the church in silence, and once inside, to remain quiet.

When it is time to pray, Greggila begins by leading the students in several spoken prayers, followed by a reading from the Bible. She then asks them to close their eyes, slow down, and breathe, reflecting in silence on what they’ve heard and thinking about those who might be helped by their prayers. Or, she might suggest that they think about ways they should love or a way in which they have not shown love. She also urges them to mentally place anything that is bothering them on the altar to be given to God. And then she allows the silence to seep in, the quiet to take over.

Because St. Boniface is a grammar school and the children are young, Greggila keeps the periods of silence short, but she sees them as a beginning. “Especially now, kids just don’t get ‘quiet time’ – unless they’re in trouble. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if they could find some peace on their own? It’s really a matter of showing them how.”