Day 3 - response

Inside a tsunami raged

The crowd simply watched as I over flew into life

No one else

chose for me to continue

even when wounded and overwhelmed

No one else

made me a martyr

No one else

caused the envy of others lives

and choices to rage unchecked

My care must start with me.

Day 2 - Haiku for a friend

No one sees inner

journey of another

compassion needed

We used to wear black for a year after someone close died. 

Black as a reminder to ourselves and to all around us - the life here has died - life here is struggling to breath. 

We who grieve may look out onto the world but we can not see anything but grey tears and shards of regret.

I was so tired, so alone, so unsure - when I felt betrayed by another I over reacted - I wish I had had the wisdom to simply stay home and not try to act as if nothing was wrong. Let me wear black - let them wear black - let them wear their hearts for at least a year ... it would have been easier than the fear people showed when they could not be bothered to remember they walked with someone whose inner landscape was as brittle as the moon.

Day 1 - What is left when a hole is made

Forgiveness - Reconciliation - Confession
The empty hole is where it starts.
A path
A word
A forgotten ...
I can see the deep need only through the puzzle of what is missing
How to address a need that screams from its absence
                                     Shouts long low howls
                                     Nails on a chalk board
Seen only out of the corner of my eye
                                     late at night when fear alight

50 Days - 2014: Forgiveness

For the last three years in the spring, during a season called Eastertide, I have reflected through art on different theological issues. In 2011—Where do you find heaven? In 2012—Where do you see G-d* in the world? In 2013—What is a call to ministry? I wrestled with these traditional theological premises: afterlife, G-d, ministry, but with a twist. Instead of looking for answers in a far-away perfect, unattainable place, I asked myself, and often people around me, to engage these religious questions from an earthly perspective.

You see, Eastertide is a little known celebration in the Christian calendar, commemorating Jesus’s walking the earth for fifty days after his death. As I thought about this celebration, I wondered what Jesus, as a bodhisattva (an enlightened being of compassion), might give the world. Or, what indeed, each of us gives one another when called to expression of love.

The question I will pose for myself this year—What of forgiveness? From Easter to June 8, I will grapple, through art, with this question. I have already spent some time reflecting on the times I have missed, or simply not taken, opportunities to act out of love. I am going to wrestle with what it means to be forgiven for these and here is the human twist—I will, when possible by whatever means, ask for forgiveness from another and I will ask for forgiveness from myself. I will practice asking for compassion in part by learning to be compassionate. . . I am reminded of the beautiful Rumi poem, “out somewhere is a field beyond right doing and wrong doing, I will meet you there…”

I wonder if you might join me. If, on one or more of these days, you might engage this question for yourself in a creative way. If you might stop for a moment to reflect on forgiveness and self compassion. If you would like to share your holy wisdom as expressed in the arts, please let me know. I would gladly post your work as well. As always, peace.

Karen
(*I spell G-d with a dash to signify I cannot know the full meaning of that word.)

To a veteran

Hmm - skip to the end to read the thanks and then come back to read about freedom, but only if you want to.

I am utterly grateful to live in a country where unless I am a complete idiot (well even if I am a complete idiot) I can speak my mind and friends will generally laugh at my jokes, offer support if I am weary or listen if I get on a soap box about a myriad of injustices meted out to people I often do not even know. It is such an amazing gift this freedom to be human and humane that I do not even think about it much of the time. I have come to understand this freedom as part of my rights. Not rights protected by anything but as part of my rights as a person. This is actually an amazing statement. 

I do not think about my rights to the freedom of speech, of conscience, of choice, of compassion because I have had them most of my life. I have thought of my limits only as the limits imposed by my self - my lack of knowledge, will power, courage, social panache, candor, ... I have mistaken personal requirement for personal freedom. I have had the freedom to make that mistake because for many years we have spent the good will and energy of our youth on ensuring this freedom for many. 

Today I pause to say thanks. Thanks Rolf Hellman

War is terrible and its burden is the huge human cost it extracts for this freedom to be humane. Even while it is the measure of any society that it will fight for the hope that might spring forth from what is possible in freedom we must always be mindful, grateful, thankful to those who gave of their personal store of humanity to ensure this freedom for others.

Thank you Rolf Hellman and all of your cadre of friends and comrades. 

Thank you to your family who bore and even greater cost. 

Thank you to those you love who bare witness with you to this great treasure of freedom that we live within.

I can only imagine what my beloved Michaeline would write to you about thanks and pride but know that those intentions are added here to my own.

The edge of justice that you have sheltered still grows because of your service and your care.

Thank you now go and have a good time darn it

Karen Mooney 

(Meta & Susan's friend)

"The heart has reasons that reason does not understand" - Pascal

There is an odd clarity about a phone ringing in the middle of the night. Caught in the middle of a dream adrenaline wakes up the heart first. There is a stumbling realization that something urgent is happening to someone. For me there is a moment of fumbling for the phone, the light, a hand, some context my mind has not yet found its way to remembering. In the moment before the voice is heard and recognized, before I am drawn into what ever reality awaits, it is my heart that awakens and draws me forward into life. The clarity that exists in the moment of the ringing is not what or why or even how it is the simple knowledge that my presence is needed.

Over the years I have gotten the kind of calls you might expect in the middle of the night, a baby born, a hospital emergency, a mis-dialed number, and a traveler unable to calculate time differences in their excitement or boredom. All different situations but each one resulted in the same initial reaction, my heart filled with a response to life - I am here. I often forget until the middle of the night it is your heart that will call my heart to respond. It is your heart that I will remember and cherish. As words and memories and even language evade me it is your heart that holds onto mine.

As we move into this season of holiday's when so many greetings and gatherings occur I find my heart filled with gratitude for this community as a place to remember the kindness of a world where heart is more important than head. Thank you for reminding me and for allowing me to remember. I wish for you many precious moments, joy remembered in bittersweet times and safe travels to all who are leaving home to greet hearts far way.

As Fall

Ah fall, crunching sounds, musky smells, and leaves bursting forth into a brilliance of flame just outside my window. In the last weeks a feast for every sense has awakened with an almost gaudy flourish. I love this time of year. It is filled for me with wonder and the play of light. I can hardly believe that in the hurried tempo of life I have once again missed the opportunity to take a daily fall picture to catalogue this event. I want these pictures because I believe there is a deeper truth in this yearly event. A truth that I often wish I would remember for my own life throughout the year. Fall reminds me that as nature lets go it takes this last chance to expose all of its hidden colors and glory. The green chlorophyll that has dominated dies off and suddenly all the supportive elements shine through. In this display of letting go I can see that those supportive elements are just as brilliant.

There are things in my life that I know I have come to rely on simply working. Things to which I do not pay too much attention. I trust gmail to manage my calendar and email. I rest in long term friendships and familial connections. I even rely on the quick smiles and generous natures of those around me to engage. These are the reds, yellows, russets and orange that support my work in service to ministry. As a continual student, ministry is what I hope is the dominant green of my life, but fall reminds me that these other brilliance's must be tended, enjoyed and acknowledged for their support. This is a shout out to everyone who has supported me thus far along the road of life. It is also a fall like reminder to let the brilliant colors of life shine through.

Post 49: What is ministry

If call is to grapple with what I believe, to understand to whom I am responsible and to tug at what I serve than ministry must be defined.

Ministry at it's core, for me, is the willingness of a person to hold onto the hope, joy, creation, love, and the holy in the midst of life, everyday. Sometimes those moments are for yourself and the great whatever, sometimes they are for a gathering, sometimes they are held onto in the midst of a struggle to remember possibility when others are drowning in the fears of life, ... Holiness is what you are aware of and ministry is what you bring forward because of that awareness.

Day 48 - dreary before creation

I am tired of being clever - tired of trying to impress
What if I simply brought myself for today

A child of the holy I call g-d, no more and no less

Even though I am dreary before this stunning creation
I am still accepting, still remembering
     I am yours
     I am your creation
     I am your face becoming
     I am the edge of all that is and all that is yet to be

that seems like it could be enough.

Post 47: to be vulnerable

What does it mean to take risks? To be vulnerable and open to failure? Are there ways to measure this dance I make with my soul through this bending of time? What is gained or lost by not trying?

Sweeping up the floor I
look not at the brooms movement
But wonder at the swirl of dust caught in the light

Is that part of me or you
 or the plant on the shelf we always forget to water
The beauty of this spark reminding me of life and air

 I clean constantly not on one day
but throughout the week
On knees weeping with the weight of my overly fed body
I catch the hair in the corner

and wipe the stains of water from a mirror
Like tears, the drops formed from steam
Too much to release through the open door

It collects and reminds me of warmth and letting go
Does life always turn like this
Seeing in through the edges

Post 46: Where is the embodiment of our founding fathers intentions? - Furlough

Government Shut Down

For those people I know, and those I do not, who have been furloughed - life has happened to you. Someone else made a “decision” and your lives where changed. I am outraged and I am utterly perplexed by elected officials who are moving our country, my country, so far away from the intentions set by our founders. 

Here is how I see it:
The folks that have been furloughed are people who work for agencies that do not directly “protect” this country – instead they do the awesome work of ensuring that we remain moving toward the intentions set forth when this country was founded. These lofty goals – all are created equal all are endowed with the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness - like any goal must be lived. Intentions must be embodied into actions in order them to become real, and that often mean watching out for human activity. Making sure that we use nuclear power safely, ensuring that we take care to test drugs and food, that we safeguard the standards by which we run little things like the internet these are examples for me of how our government lives into the potential of those intentions. This does not mean the gov always gets it right but getting it right all the time is NOT THE POINT. I expect government to hold onto these ideals because I know business, with a focus toward profits, cannot. For a biblical reference – from a guy named Jesus, you cannot serve both wealth and god. G-d here is that intention to act justly, behave kindly, and live as if others matter. I think this is why the government shut down feels so raw to me. For two Friday's I spent time with people that have held onto the intentions of our founders for me. I feel bereft that they have been told they are not important and outraged that my government has implied that these truths that I believe in no longer mater. I want to say clearly, as an individual within this community, I hear you, I bear witness, I write letters and I vote.

If there is any help out there - send it to Washington DC to help these fine people remember why we have a government in the first place - to protect, yes, to protect the vision set forth so long ago by a groups of people willing to take risks to live their principles. By the way they did not get it right all the time either - but mistakes (even entrenched choices) did not stop them from trying to live the intentions they espoused.

Come on folks we are better than this - at least we were at one point.

Post 45: Cold winds blow

I have what is colloquially known as a bucket list, my list includes people who I would like to see in person, to be in the presence of, and places that I would like to see. One of those people is Zen Buddhist Master Thich Nhat Hanh. His words and voice follow me throughout many days. The gift of his reading poetry and words have helped me through times of both sorrow and anger.Live now, love this moment, practice compassion. The work to be present to this moment, no more - no less is work that I come back to in my spiritual journey, especially in this season. 

Every couple of years I look up where these people are or check to see if there are any opportunities to see them. As we prepared to go to Europe this summer I looked into the potentials for visiting Plum Village in France, Thich Nhat Hanh's residence as he continues his exile from Vietnam (a situation that just seems crazy to me). It felt a bit too far away from Paris for the trip. We were traveling through to Germany on a trip focused mostly on moving Genny and meeting her beloved's parents. 

This Sunday I awoke to learn that a north American tour was underway bringing Thich Nhat Hanh to the US. At the mid-point Krista Tippet was interviewing this luminary. Searching the web I quickly found that he was traveling from the east coast to California his last east coast stop had occurred two days ago - I had missed an opportunity. 

This lesson is so hard fought for - there is only so much time, only so many dollars, only so many books, songs, opportunities, there is only so much life that can be lived. Choices make a difference.

What I choose to do today will impact my life for good or ill. How do I remember that? How do I breath into the losses and celebrate the moments brought on by chance? Maybe it is not what I experience but how (thank you always Michael Scott Brooks for this image of the journey is not about the destination but about how we take the trip).

I may not see Thich Nhat Hanh in my life time. I may have just missed the opportunity. Instead I was meeting new people at a congregation for a ministerial internship. Instead I was trying out new recordings, joining a chorus that will be a source of fun, learning how to get to my new room, chanting, praying, walking, healing, being. Instead I was living a full life. I am sorry to have missed this moment but it does not mean I will not hold within my breath the truth that I learned from this teacher Compassion with myself breeds compassion for others - we are all of one body. 

Post 44: A reminder for me from Mella

October has begun - filled with reminders to take care. The earth is turning and the chill spills in the window with the scent of fallen leaves, my sweet take care. Anxiety wakes you with too much to do, to much to live, to much to take on, my sweet take care. Expectations to care for others before myself loom over my heart along with the anger that would inevitably invade my soul, my sweet take care.

What a gift to wake after a restless night to the realization that I can choose to live within the flames of doubt or the passionate fires of reaching toward my true and best self. Either way I will be changed but in one I will be scorched in the other transformed.

And then this gift from Pam - take care my sweet, take care.

Making space - PMR 10-1-13

for nothing
Making space
for breath
Making space
for simply being.
For hope,
for dreams,
for wild possibilities.
Trees nearby hum electrically
a symphony of knowing.
My heart knows the tune.
Will I sing along?
The cat rubs her chin on my fingers.
she's right.
This is why we are here.

Post 43: Poetry & Pros

It is hard to be alone in this world. Hard to wonder who will actually be there when the dust of some crisis settles. It is hard to wake up and ache, cry, push, gather hairs, throw up, stumble, laugh, rage, and simply breath all in the space of a minute. Being sick is hard for a day but when it lasts months and year it is boring and maniacal all at once. Being sick is never to be ignored, if you think you take it on - can just wait it will rear up at you again and again and again and again.

Cancer is like that. For me, as a watcher, I could only (I can only)
bring jokes, beauty, stories, news, love, compassion, patience
              - I can bear witness and make this promise
                        - you will not go through this dark night alone, no matter where you go I will be there.

Perhaps that is too little, but I have found that it is after all, the only thing I have to  offer another, my presence.

*************************

A thought for the window:
How does a hill come into being?
Did it start knowing it would join to another?
Did it know that it would be an angling of grass that children's feet find a curious challenge?

Did this hill start as a wave - as a mountain - as an after thought of G-d?
Did this hill name itself as it waited under corn / trees / rocks?
Did this hill dream of something bigger - something majestic - something meaningful?

Today it takes its place as the ground upon which the young to walk hand in hand.
Tripping on the sloop, catching the arm, smiling a giggled embarrassment,
just grateful for the open space to explore their love.

Could a hill or any of us ever wish for more than this?
To bear witness to budding love.
To offer the sheltering comfort of a place to land firmly.

Sep 2013

Post 42 - To be encircled

It looks like we have finally made it - the we being homosexuals: gays and lesbians - not queer people in general...yet. It looks as if there is a turning tide of acceptance, we are finally allowed to marry. The IRS says that we can file returns jointly, we can get benefits from social security, health care, sign a marriage license and the pope has even issued a lets get on with other work statement.

It might look as if we have made progress. Because indeed we have. (A shout out to all the people who worked so many hours on this issue of recognition.) Today I wonder though... what does it mean to support love? To really support love - not the mewing cuddly cute kind of love that fills a 7 year old girls school notebook. Not the kind of love that only says yes - but real love. Love that takes hard work and sets boundaries and has expectations and lives in the trenches of daily life. Love that is weak and fails, love that sits up all night laughing, love that drops a gold coin into the salvation army bucket anonymously - or gives something just as valuable from the coffers of the heart. Love that knows when to step in to save me from myself. Love that will not condone violence in any of its subtle forms.

How is real love supported? Now that we have "arrived," even though in some places it is still only a murmur, what will real love look like?

I wonder because when I came out I got into a relationship that was emotionally violent. I got stuck in a battle of wills about my self-worth and mostly I lost, eventually I got pretty angry, and sometimes I acted poorly. Eventually I stood up for myself and acted better but it took a few years. I got stuck and I have wondered what part being a lesbian played in all of that chaos. If I had been in a straight relationship would it have been any better? Would I have known that I was worth more than someone constantly shaming me? I don't actually think so. I think that there are plenty of people who battle in this field everyday. Couples/relationship between people who are "stuck" because power feels good and can not be claimed anywhere else but through the force of domination.

I wonder because I do not want this kind of "real love" for anyone and I fear that the strength that being a lesbian, an outsider, gave me will not be available now to a scared 20 something just finding where they fit in the world. Being a lesbian brought me into a poor relationship, but it also gave me the tools I needed to get out. As a lesbian I had an edge, I could simply not speak about my primary relationship in my corporate life so that I could thrive there. It gave me a community to escape to once the relationship fell apart. It gave me the language of the oppressed that helped me to frame my experience so that I could push away from it. It gave me the strength of an outsider to choose the lone path. I heard a commentator say something like - well now the GL community can have screwed up marriages just like the rest of us with abuse and divorce and lovelessness. NO NO NO I do not want us to go screaming into that night.

Still while there is strength to overcome that can be found in the wild areas of our lives this is not the only kind of strength - indeed this strength may not be as sustainable as the strength gained in community. I wonder about this in relationship to real love because I also believe that being seen gives us the ability in community to call one another to our best selves. That being affirmed means that my life is open for the conversation that comes from observation and insight. Within a community I can grasp more possibilities about how relationships can sustain life beyond my own vision. Within community I allow my life, my choices, my actions, my interaction, perhaps even my beliefs can be examined. Ah and now the specter of judgement sneaks in, real love might demand of me this as well to withstand judgment to allow for those moments when conversation can lead to transformation.

It is confusing this love. Real love might demand that I draw on both of these things, from my strength forged in isolation and in community. Understanding that I receive something different from both. Affirming that both are needed. Accepting the insight that real love will mean that the conversation will allow for judgment but can also allow for celebration. Acceptance will not wipeout the potential for abuse but instead will demand a different set of tools to eradicate its specter.

Real love. In this place I realize that no matter what the choices I have only one person that I can hold accountable for my actions and that is myself. I have only one life that I can save and that is my own. BUT if I choose to bring that love into the light of a community the accountability can be filled by the grace of compassion, the actions held by the wonder of gratitude and maybe even forgiveness. Real love demands this of me - that I live as an individual responsible to myself and as a communal being accountable to my world.

Post 41 - Atonement

As we come to the end of the Jewish high holy days, I find myself thinking about life within the context of atonement and redemption.

What does it mean to "sin?" 

I believe that as Unitarian Universalist's (UU) we wrestle with this concept of sin as brokenness - in particular brokenness around relationship and commitments. In the broadest sense commitments are made and acted upon daily. I have made commitments to myself, family, community, the earth and Gd. I live within the expectations of laws and rules set forth by my communities. Sometimes those commitments are made in very public ways like within the context of a child dedications or union. I have found myself wondering about how the commitments broken within the context of these relationships might be acknowledged and mended within a community of UU faith?

The task of Yom Kippur (as I understand it) is, of course, atonement (at one ment - as some say). To ask for forgiveness as the year begins so that the course of the year can begin a new. I do ask this out of judgment having many things to atone for myself: forgiveness of broken promises, forgiveness for dishonesty, forgiveness for selfishness... but I find it curious that this holiday offers this opportunity. Interesting that the practices of faith call me to tasks that I might otherwise leave alone.

Post 40 - Let your memory be for a blessing MAC 1947-2008

August 12, 2013

Today an amazing and powerful woman would have been 65. Michaeline Chvatal lost her battle to breast cancer almost five and a half years ago. Let her memory be as a blessing.

Let her life shine in the hope that a cure might still be found. Let the reminder of her passion for community give me, give the world, the courage to reach out, even if I do not know what to do. Always in my heart I remember you and will always strive to be the person you saw.

Post 39 - home

Home. Why do so many of the really the complicated things end up being such short words. Love, fear, Gd, faith... they escape my mouth so quickly my mind has little to no time to reflect on what I might be saying. I hate my weight. I love my dog. I fear global weirding. I seek justice. I serve. All of these are true and they are complicated by life and love and experience. 

Today home is about a re-entry to the practice of liberal religion within Unitarian Universalism. This place is home, not only because I want to be here, but because I have been formed to belong here as I belong nowhere else in this life. Here I find others who join in questions and doubt. Here I find people passionate enough about justice to ask how they need to change. Here I find people seeking ways to engage the world they live within to know it and be known within it. Here I find people struggling to be open to the ambiguous nature of faith. Not everyone, not everyone ever day, but always there is a spark.

Such small words I use like home. I forgot that home is a place I seek, a welcome I recognize, a sense of belonging I cherish. Home is a smile, a smell, a word, a gesture, home is being known in the cacophony of all that is, all that was, all that yet might be.

Still I worry a bit (this may just be me). What the heck does one do when you have made your way away and back and away and back and away and back again. Can I say that I am back for good? Perhaps not, and maybe that is not the point. I can say I understand now that this is where I belong even if my courage has not gained its place yet in my heart to say no to an oppressor or to comfort. This is where I belong even if I long sometimes for the glittery sustenance and resource of belonging to the majority. This is where I belong even if my curiosity takes me somewhere to explore.  Even in this wondering away I affirm my belonging here among the seekers. While I may wonder what I missed and question if the journey away filled my heart enough to make it worth the suspicion I fear when I return? I have been salted with this gift of an explorers heart.

Post 38 - Cancer SUCKS

She stepped up to the microphone, cleared her throat, peered out at the audience (who responded with chair shifting and anticipatory laughter), put down her book, adjusted the mic, and she promptly turned around to take a drink. Seriously. Sneaking a look up at all of us, her fellow choir members, with a crookedy knowing smile, she turned. We were hers. They were hers and she knew it. It was a moment of sheer impossible audacity. She could have read the phone book and people would have sat at the end of their seat, would have leaned in rapt attention, we would have let go and laughed. It was beautiful.

My friend Meta is a stitch and a person for whom i hold deep love. When she let me, and her other 73 good friends, know she had cancer I knew I would shaved my head to be with her. "You are not going any where I can't go" I replied when she opened the door that evening. While obviously tinged with false bravado it was/is the only act of faith I can concretely give her from 600 miles away. Meta had been through cancer before, she was in our home when my beloved partner Mike died. So it is important to me that we both know that hers is not the same story. 

What is it like to sit this image of a comedian who has audiences waiting for her words next to the image of courage that cancer demands of you. Cancer sucks, not only for the obvious reasons - like, oh yeah death or dismemberment - cancer sucks because it invades every pore of your life. The very dust of your home becomes ladened with fear that did not exist a moment before. What are the numbers this week, what do they mean, how do we get them to change. The sun shining through the trees suddenly seen from your bed in the middle of the day. The hushed voices, the people all saying things will be OK, the books that once gave you comfort are too heavy, the food that filled you and made you feel whole tastes like a bad penny. So many things change. You also get to live for a brief and honest moment when it is clear - every moment - clear what matters.

My friend Meta amazes me. OK that seem obvious. I have come to expect to be amazed by people who are moving courageously through life - but Meta does this "thing" in the same way that she delivered that speech. Meta laughs, she lets other people laugh, she takes her time, she is audacious - she will not let cancer define who she is. Just like my Mike, Meta seems to say with her very life - cancer may claim more than I ever want - but it will NOT claim the me of me that is me to my core. Meta will now be someone who has survived cancer, but that will not always be the thing with which she leads a conversation. Because of this, when she reaches for the mic and turns and smiles I will not think solely of her as someone who once lost her hair to survive.

OK cancer sucks, and it is a reality that we live with. This week my friend is tired. So if you pray - I am going to ask you to pray. Pray that she sees her balding head as beautiful, pray that she claims her way (not mine not yours), pray that food tastes good, pray that her bones carry her, pray that the walk to her friends is not too long, pray that she laughs, and finally pray what you know she might need.

That night with the microphone, well later, sitting around in the after glow, I asked her about that thing she did to make people laugh and wait and lean in, that thing that she does so well. Meta said that she has learned that she can take her time. That people will wait to laugh, to be together, to be seen, acknowledged, drawn out, drawn upon, and will wait because ultimately we trust. 

Hmm a microphone might be the best teacher for how to sit with cancer - who knew.

Post 37 - Into the Myst

I look for the portal, in my well ordered closet
             to another place.
I can see the beauty there,
      sense the wild opportunity.
      feel the sun filtered by life.
But the portal is is guarded by the excesses of my life - things - ideas - order - wealth

Like a sumo wrestler the guard waits confident the weight of all that is will hold me.

If I turn around and walk out a door
      is there another way
      guarded only by a fog of uncertainty?

Do not pause to think too long, move, Get Out.

- Karen