Porch Swing Stories

Grandma's Girl

2010-09-08T10:54:00.003-05:00

When I was a child I had a neighbor, Dr. Ouida Abbott, who listened to me when I talked. She chose to spend time with me. She taught me how to tie my shoes, make taffy, bake bread, crochet, tend a flower bed and to play cards. Because Dr. Abbott listened to my stories, I thought my stories were worth telling. Now that I am an adult, I have a need to share what Dr. Abbott gave to me so many years ago. I went to the county correctional center for women and asked for a group of twelve inmates. I wanted to hear their stories and to give each of them a chance to be heard. I wanted a circle of women to have the chance to be together and to learn how much it means to each of us when we tell our stories and have them received by people who choose to listen well.

We have fun together. We laugh, we cry and sometimes we sit together in silence, allowing a story to be present and uninterrupted even after the telling. I am amazed at the willingness of the class members to share from their lives and from their hearts. It seems like the stories have been waiting at the door, just looking for a chance to run outside. We meet together for 32 class sessions. We read a novel, journal and do in-class writing assignments. Each woman writes three stories that she polishes and prepares for the final performance. I bring in local professional actors who do a readers theater of the work submitted by the women. All of us feel so proud, so gifted, so grateful on the performance day.

Here is a story by Brenda, a member of my first class:

When I was five years old I slept with my grandma. I was always a grandma’s girl. She loved me. She took me places, held me in her lap. She was proud of me. One night the house caught on fire. I still remember that night like it was yesterday. My grandma opened the window, picked me up and put me outside. She told me to run; she was going to get my little brother and sister. A neighbor man grabbed me up and carried me across the street to his porch where I watched our house burning, burning. My house burnt down. The roof fell in on my grandma and my brother and sister. That’s the night I lost everything except my mama. The firefighters and ambulance drivers were holding my mama in the front yard. She was screaming, “My babies! My babies!” She was trying to go back in the house for them. I could hear my grandma screaming too.

Uh-huh.My grandma woke up in the night, lifted me up and saved my life. She cared more about my life than her own. I am a grandma’s girl. Always have been.

Dr. Abbott gave to me the gift of her time and her listening ear. It made such a difference for me. I have never enjoyed anything more than this experience of passing on to others what Dr. Abbott gave to me. We all have a sacred story to tell and we all have time enough for listening.

The Sacred Worth of Storytelling

2009-09-02T11:36:00.003-05:00

Here’s what I believe…Everybody deserves and requires the opportunity to tell his or her own story. The rest of us can help to make this world a better place by recognizing that it is our duty as decent human beings to listen respectfully and without judgment to the stories that people tell us.

I was born and raised in Gainesville, Florida in the fifties and sixties—at a time when many things in our culture were different. In my memory, it seems like we spent more time being together back then, looking at each other, telling stories and listening. There’s no way I can measure it, no evidence to hold up in court, but I think that face to face and voice to voice contact made us more sensitive to each other's needs, more compassionate toward people, animals and the earth itself. Our lives seemed to matter more because we knew the stories of each others' lives. I do not pretend to think that everything was perfect in the early years of my life. However, these days we have developed a way of life that avoids face to face connections. We get in steel boxes on wheels, lock the doors, turn up the music and drive fast from place to place. We go inside our homes through the closed garage, turn on our security system and the air-conditioner so we have no idea who or what is outside the walls. We go to our private spaces and stare at television or the computer screen. The stories that we hear are the stories of people we will never meet, people who will never know our names or have lunch with us. And I think that costs us, robs the entire community of something we really need. We need to hear the stories of the people around us in order to properly value the story of our own life. Our stories are connected.

Many of us were born and steeped in the Christian tradition, a tradition that emerged from the life of a storyteller who told stories to ordinary people on city streets, in wheat fields, on hillsides and sea coasts. Jesus shared his divine power through stories, holding a mirror up so people could see themselves in the beginnings, the middle and endings.

Unfortunately too many Christians today have forgotten how to respect the eternal and evolving life of a story. Too many Christians have boiled Jesus and his stories down until the pot is scorched and nothing is left but dried out creeds, heartless doctrines and dead disciplines. So people get the idea that Christianity is a set of rules, a wall to climb over, a way of life with guards stationed at every entrance. And we are alienated by the very tradition that came into being for the purpose of connecting us all to each other and to everything that is sacred.

Too many Christian leaders encourage people to fear one another, especially the neighbor who is different. If the story includes being from another sacred tradition it must be silenced or ignored. If the story is about being gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, it must be condemned. Today's church leaders teach us to fear each other. When religion betrays us that way there is a terrible disconnect --wider than the Mississippi River. Religion, when it is healthy, is about connecting people, animals, and the earth. All of it is sacred; every life has a story to tell. Every life comes from the Creator.

We live our lives in circular patterns. And every circle has a broken place. A longing. An unmet need. A broken heart. A dream lost and gone. That’s where the story begins. The wisdom is stored in that broken, wounded place. Our hope comes through believing that we can begin our own story all over again. Our hope comes through realizing that each of us is created and gifted with power and beauty. Every day we have the privilege of beginning a new and sacred story. Every day we have the privilege of listening to and valuing our neighbor's new and sacred story. This is resurrection. This is faith in Jesus Christ. He came to tell us his story and to listen us all into a more sacred, trusting connection. We’re here to be connected. We’re here to do the Creator’s work.

Be the good neighbor that your neighborhood needs today. Tell a story. Listen to a story. It is a holy and sacred human process that builds a safe community.

Rule 31 Listed Mediator

2009-05-13T11:05:00.007-05:00

I am proud to announce that the Tennessee Supreme Court's Alternative Dispute Resolution Commission has reviewed my qualifications and training and has approved me as a listed mediator. I invested in the training and experience because I believe we need to learn an alternative way to reach agreements. People need to learn a model for talking to each other, face-to-face, even when and especially when there is a disagreement on the table.

I live in Memphis where people are shot, stabbed and attacked every day in various ways that destroy life. We do not know how to communicate our feelings and needs so we have given up on decent human exchanges. Our school systems educate us for years without ever mentioning to us that it will be necessary for us to recognize and connect with our own needs and feelings in order to succeed in the mature world. Because we have lost touch with ourselves we have lost compassion for others. In our current alienated state of existence we ride around from home to work in fast-paced moving metal boxes, guarding ourselves from anything resembling face-to-face human connections.

Memphis has a church or a place of worship on almost every corner. Rather than model how to reach out and connect with those who have a different perspective on things, the Church models for all of us the way to isolate, blame, humiliate and condemn those who ask questions or think differently. I don't think that's what Jesus had in mind when he called us to "Abide in my love." How will we ever obey his command to "love your enemies," when we can hardly tolerate being in the same room with people from a denomination other than our own? There is a better way to live together and I trust that the Church can learn something new.

While churches host one more pointless debate about whether or not a pregnant woman has the right to abort an unwanted pregnancy, hundreds of unsupervised and poorly parented children are joining gangs and carrying guns to school. They want to belong; they long to feel powerful in the eyes of someone. They wish somebody powerful would reach out and give them some protection and boundaries that will help them feel safe in a world gone crazy. The institutional Church has hardened its heart, closed its pocket-book and turned its back. Maybe the new president will do what needs to be done.

While churches meet and host costly gatherings around the world where well dressed clergy continue a debate on whether or not to ordain women, gay and lesbian people, most of the world is starving for a loaf of bread and a sip of clean water. Our leaders would do well to simply back up and look closely at Maslow's hierarchy of needs as a place to begin in the Church's reorganization of priorities.

The Church has lost its way as all of us have lost our way since we stopped respectfully passing the talking stick and listening to the voice of the other. We have forgotten how to treat one another with respect. We have kicked the Golden Rule to the side of the road and we think the story of the Good Samaritan is a fairy tale intended for people who live in a galaxy far, far away.

Emergent church leader Brian McLaren wonders when it was that the U.S. was a Christian nation. Was it when Americans wantonly killed native peoples, taking their lands and breaking promises to them? Was it during the era of slavery or segregation, which were justified on biblical grounds? Was it when the U.S. dropped the first nuclear bombs on civilian populations? Or was it when the nation plundered the environment and turned a blind eye to torture? "Was it earlier this week when I turned on the tv or radio and heard people scapegoating immigrants and gay people and Muslims?" (Washington Post "On Faith " blog, April 16/ The Christian Century, "Century Marks," May 19, 2009, p. 8)

I am no longer young but I can still learn new things. The Church also can be taught to reconsider and to adopt a new set of priorities. We can begin a new thing and enter into a more excellent way by sitting down at a table together, sharing a meal and then allowing our conversation to be mediated by a skilled person who longs to give love a chance in our face-to-face offerings.

Conflict is not bad; it is a signal that something needs to change. Mediation provides the opportunity for self determination. The mediated conversation is not about the past; it is not about being right or wrong. Mediation provides the opportunity for parties to see their own full humanity and to have the full humanity of the other respectfully reflected back across the table.

On the last night that Jesus lived among us as one of us, he sat down at a table and he broke bread. He blessed it and he gave it to his disciples, knowing that one of them had already taken action that would condemn Jesus to an unjustified public execution. "Do this every time you get together," he directed, "and remember me." We can put his broken body back together by speaking and listening respectfully at the same table. It's one loaf of bread and we all share it. We have seen the model and worshipped it. Now it is time to trust in the model we've been given.

A group calling themselves Memphis City Churches has adopted the strategy of distorting the definition of sexual orientation to malign attempts to pass a Shelby County Non-Discrimination Ordinance. People have organized themselves in the name of the Church to prevent other human beings from being protected by civil rights laws. We can do better than this.

Our differences are not justification for our alienation from one another. I would be honored to mediate the conversation and help us to move into the Kingdom of God on this earth. I will be doing what I can to offer my help. My life has been centered around the Church. It's really all I know. And I know it can be transformed and healed by a series of loving conversations with good food in front of us. I hope I get the chance to prove I am right about that.

Call me. I am ready to go to work.

Sacred Circles at the National Cathedral

2009-02-16T21:39:00.002-06:00

I just returned home from the Sacred Circles Conference at the National Cathedral in Washington DC. Please take a minute to check out www.sacred-circles.ning.com I was there with 1300 people who want to do more to make our way of life a compassionate way of life. We were Christian, Muslim, Secular Humanist, Hindu, Jew, Agnostic, Atheist, Buddhist and Pagan. Sacred Circles is a gathering for people who value and nurture their spiritual journey. My soul was fed by the speakers, by the workshops and by the friendships I made. I was inspired.
I love to learn. I am curious about the world around me and how I might plug into healthy processes of hope. Sacred Circles is an annual event, celebrating circles that welcome all people. It is a time to get together, acknowledge the gifts we bring and connect in peace and in joy. We shared truth from different traditions and learned new ways to give the gifts of tolerance, respect, and hope to the world around us. Sacred Circles is a place to be educated about pain and suffering in our world. It is also an opportunity to connect with people who plan ways to heal the hurts of the world.
It is not too late for you to get connected. Check out Karen Armstrong’s new initiative, www.charterforcompassion.org Together, we can do so much good for ourselves, for our neighbors and for the future of this universe. Now is the time to act with compassion.

Soul

2009-01-23T19:08:00.002-06:00

When I was a freshman in college and sitting in Biology 101, the instructor caught my wandering attention with a lecture about DNA. My heart began to pound with a notion that jumped into my head and popped out of my mouth before I considered how those words might sound. "Hey! Is that where our soul is? In the DNA?"

Dr. Lord stopped talking and looked up at the ceiling, studying water stains. "Soul," she scratched her chin, "to me, is a type of music."

I am still curious about the soul and where it might be located. My soul in particular. Souls are old, ancient in my imagination. When souls were invented there were no metal boxes on wheels that zoomed over paved highways at seventy-five miles per hour. Friends had to talk face to face; there was no cyber-space when souls came into being. Our souls are eternal. I'm curious about what my soul has to say to me, where my soul has been and what it has seen.

I have just happened upon two books that have made the time between birth and death seem so much more interesting. Michael A. Singer wrote The Untethered Soul: the journey beyond yourself. Attending to what I learned from this book has allowed me a new level of personal freedom. I came into this world with a limited number of days to do what I am able to do with the body I've been given to live in. My soul has been part of the journey. Before my lungs sucked in air, my soul was there. My soul is ever present and never changing. It observes and waits respectfully to be consulted, befriended.

The other book that has touched my soul is written by Caroline Myss, Entering the Castle: An Inner Path to God and Your Soul. Myss takes her reader by the hand and walks the reader through the rooms of the soul. This soul work adds a new dimension to life.

The best I can do is to encourage my friends to read both of these books. Your soul will thank you for it.

Nonviolent Communication

2009-01-19T14:31:00.002-06:00

I had the great pleasure and privilege of attending a nine day international training event with Marshall Rosenberg. He is the founder of the Nonviolent Communication movement. Check out the web-site www.cnvc.org Nonviolent Communication is a compassionate way of expressing ourselves and listening to the voices of others. NVC teaches us how to be present and authentic in the moment, how to respond rather than to react when we receive a difficult message, how to recognize our own and others' feelings and needs, how to make requests rather than demands, how to be truly grateful and how to honor the energy of anger without stealing peace from our relationships and the environment. During the training event, I made new friends from around the United States and around the world: France, Germany, the Netherlands, Wales, New Zealand, Australia, Switzerland. There were forty-eight participants in the program. We lived together at the Madonna Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where we enjoyed inspiring views of the Sandia Mountains and the Rio Grande River. We were well fed while we bonded, shared our gifts and enjoyed being truly alive together. I had opportunities to tell some of my favorite stories and the group was delighted to receive them. This, as always, delighted me in return! We engaged in role-play, taking turns being giraffes and jackals. We practiced, practiced, practiced the art of receiving difficult-to-receive messages with an open heart. We poured vessels of empathy on each other and learned how to give empathy to ourselves. We danced. We sang. We allowed each other to cry; tears were part of our communication. We laughed the kind of hearty laughter that knocks the dust off the walls. We made room for whatever came to life within us. The world is a better place for our efforts and our learning. I like to imagine all of us, back in our towns and our homes, listening with compassion to the people around us. This is the way to start a new year.

I will be offering spirituality retreats this year, offering stories and inviting others to share their stories. As a part of everything I do there will be compassionate communication. We have the power to make our worlds more peaceful.

I Won!

2008-09-29T07:25:00.004-05:00

My story, "Traps," has won Honorable Mention in the Memphis Magazine Fiction Competition!

For many years I have hungered to have my writing recognized in Memphis. I live in a city and a region where I am surrounded by creative writing talent. Chief among my desires has been the longing to be recognized as a winner in the Memphis Magazine Annual Fiction Competition. Toward that goal I have submitted four short stories over the years and twice aborted work on a piece of short fiction. Some stories just cannot get their clothes on and their hair combed in time for the deadline.

This past year I was more intentional about reading quality fiction, paying attention to style, syntax, tone, point of view and character development. I attended the Iowa Writer's Conference at the University of Iowa where I received pointed instruction on writing fiction. I also made a decision, one year ago, to begin thinking of myself as a writer. A woman, a mother, a partner, a friend. Sometimes a gardener and many times a dreamer. But most of all I have rounded a corner to a place where I see myself writing. There are so many stories to be written.

I am deeply honored by this recognition. The $500.00 prize will be a pleasure to receive. But most of all I am basking in the affirmation. My creative work matters. I am hugging myself with joy!

Pantum

2008-08-27T08:23:00.002-05:00

Mom quit eating,
Stopped opening her mouth for the spoon.
She's forgotten how to suck through a straw.
Her tongue is dry like beach sand.

Stopped opening her mouth for the spoon.
Should we tilt her head and pour food in?
Her tongue is dry like beach sand.
The air is taking over.

Should we tilt her head and pour food in?
Seems more like rape than nurture.
The air is taking over.
What's inside is the same as what's outside.

Seems more like rape than nurture
Forcing pureed fruits and vegetables in.
What's inside is the same as what's outside.
She's becoming one with the dust motes floating,
old hymns she has always sung.

Forcing pureed fruits, vegetables in
We rob her of the only power she has left.
She's becoming one with the dust motes floating,
old hymns she has always sung.

Let her go.
Like a melody on the sunbeams
that pave a highway through the window.
Let her go with the next refreshing breeze.

Sunday Morning in Plains, GA

2008-07-19T21:52:00.003-05:00

We had the honor and the privilege of meeting and spending some time with Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter. This is now and always will be a highmark moment in our life. By way of explanation as to how Anna, my partner, and I were able to have this good fortune, my brother is the president at Georgia Southwestern University in Americus, Georgia. In that position he has come to know and work with the Carters. The Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregivers is located on the campus of Georgia Southwestern. And the Carters value the school. So it was a family affair a few weeks ago when we visited my brother, Kendall and his wife, Connie. All of us went to Sunday school and worship at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains. President Carter teaches the adult Bible class during Sunday school. He is an excellent teacher. He is one of those teachers who cares deeply about the subject he's teaching. As a student I felt safe in his class, the way you feel when the teacher is both intelligent and gifted at teaching. President Carter has studied the Bible for so long and well that he feels right at home with the material. He has a genuine desire to make the Bible accessible to the student. He's interesting and makes the lesson relevant. I was so proud when he invited me to pray as the class began. Gave me a chance to share my own gift.

I admire Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter. They are authentic and principled people. I appreciate the ways that they have used their faith and their power to make the world a better place.

We ate lunch with them at Mama's Kitchen in Plains. They are easy to be with, like good neighbors. There is nothing ostentatious about the Carters. Both Jimmy and Rosalynn had buttermilk to drink with their turnip greens, fried okra, sliced tomatoes and cornbread. They admire the woman who owns and operates Mama's Kitchen. Jimmy introduced us to her before we left the restaurant. She was snapping beans in the front room. It was clear that the Carters have enjoyed a long and mutual relationship with this successful business woman. Real people among real people.

The picture was made after dinner and outside Mama's Kitchen. Left to Right: Kendall Blanchard, Rosalynn Carter, Anna Neal, Elaine Blanchard and Connie Blanchard.

I'm grateful to my brother and his wife for making this happen. And I'm grateful to the Carters for sharing their time and wonderful spirits with us. It's reassuring to meet them. Meeting them created a notalgia in my heart for the days when I still trusted the people in politics and power.

Lessons in Value

2008-06-25T09:54:00.003-05:00

The magazine I had to have, made a trip across town to purchase it, remains unopened and unread. It is almost a year old now, wearing a thick jacket of dust and cat hair. The shirt I ordered, knowing I should be ashamed to be paying that kind of price for threads, has never been washed because I only wore it for an hour before I was convinced it made me look both old and fat. The self-help book that I knew would open doors to freedom, doors in my soul that had never been opened before, is under a stack of self-help books that cannot read themselves. The elliptical machine that I purchased with last year's income tax return was supposed to tighten my thighs and strengthen my abs. I would soon be sleek and sexy. But even a two thousand dollar piece of exercise equipment has no effect on my muscles unless I use it, actually turn it on and step into its paddles.

I remember, 1983, when I purchased my first new car. I had had used cars, cars that took me from home to work and away on vacation from time to time. But in 1983, I went to the lot and purchased a Nissan wagon, never owned by another. I expected to feel like a new born behind the wheel of this trouble-free vehicle. Some people might feel anxious about unpaid debts while I was in my new car. Some people might be crying over a marriage that should never have been while I was feeling the breeze from the open window in my deep blue Nissan wagon. Some people might be drinking and smoking themselves to death even as my new car purred into action each time I needed to go somewhere. But I was not some people anymore. I was a woman with a new car, a car without mechanical problems, a car nobody else had mistreated. I expected to feel the taste of slick success and to keep that taste forever in my mouth. I was in control and now my life would begin to matter. Yet, on the first day in the life of being not just some people, as I rushed late out the door with my crying child who was unhappy with her hair and her incomplete homework, I tripped on the driveway and suffered a grass stain on my dress pants. The husband I could not get away from, try as I might, was glued to the recliner and already smoking a joint. I thought I felt a bad cold creeping up the back of my throat as I slid into the driver's seat. Not much had changed. The new car seemed to mock me!I thought I saw a weird sneer on its dashboard. I was still the same some body among some people who hope to one day buy the thing that can save us from ourselves. Certainly not enough had changed with the purchase of my new car to make the monthly payment feel personally affirming. Writing the check and licking the envelope each month I remembered how little the car could do.

That was so long ago. I might have learned an important lesson even then and might have saved much money by now, socked back cash to use when I'm really old and weary of lessons I have difficulty learning right away. And yet, now that I am fifty-five, I notice how much I enjoy sitting by the window in the morning, just after I wake up, coffee cup in fist, and before I go to shower. I watch the morning doves land on the feeder, the flowers lifting their faces toward the warmth of the sun and I listen. I listen to the sounds of nothing in particular while I watch for anything at all. I breathe while I pet my little dog. I move my feet just a bit so everything that is me feels uninhibited, relaxed and open to receive. There's so much more in the morning than I ever knew when I was young and scared of being just a somebody among some people. The yard springs to life with butter flies, squirrels and sparrows. I am among them and connected, related even as I am related to my cousin Nancy who lives in Florida and goes out to the barn each morning to feed buckets of oats to her two alert and loyal horses. Money cannot buy the things I really need, the family and friends who color the background of my story, the answered prayers I celebrate and the times I've felt useful and free to need others, to be needed.

Still I know myself well enough to know that even tomorrow I might go rushing down the main road of town on my way to buy a thing that seems to promise new horizons for me, a fresh outlook, a deeper appreciation for who I am and what I can do while I am here. It might be a pair of shoes, a potted plant or a bracelet. It might be a gift for my daughter. At fifty-five I have learned it is best not to judge myself too harshly, not to expect that I will be more than some people in the neighborhood. We all catch glimpses of the glory and we all get stuck in the mud. From beginning to end. I look to the morning for refreshment and inspiration. Some morning I might wake up to find that I no longer need money or anything that it can buy.

Florida State Storytellers Camp

2008-04-05T11:53:00.002-05:00

I recently returned home from a week in Florida. I spent time with cousins in Jacksonville, reconnecting, and walking along the beach. Then I rented a car and drove further south where I visited another cousin, Nancy. She lives off the beaten track in Eustis where blue birds sit on her fence posts, horses add to the front yard scenery and adorable donkeys live in the pasture across the fence. I saw an eagle flying across a lake and landing on its nest in the top of a tall pine. I visited the home of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings in Cross Creek. And I took several hikes through nature centers: Lake Griffin Sate Park and Trout Lake Nature Center.

I attended the Florida Storytelling Camp and Conference while I was there. I heard some excellent stories, had a chance to tell a few stories and met some wonderful people. The storytellers in Florida seem well connected and deeply attached to the significance of sharing tales.

My personal favorite among the featured tellers was Michael Parent. So much pizzazz in his personality. He can tell a wonderful story, play musical instruments and juggle-- all at the same time! Great entertainment! Great sense of humor. Most impressive, he's just plain friendly.

There's something about people who tell stories. We have come to recognize that "the story" is so much more than entertainment. As storytellers we are nurse, therapist, archivist, pastor, prophet, teacher, environmentalist, anthropologist and artist. As important as that seems, we are insignificant without someone to receive our stories, an audience to listen with imagination.

Being away from home inspires my imagination. Seeing family and remembering old times together is reassuring. Making new friends and connecting with new places increases my sense of personal power. I am still growing, learning, becoming more.
But the very best part of any travel tale is the moment I return home and find that all is well. My place on the earth remains.

"Uncounted," The Documentary

2008-02-12T22:38:00.002-06:00

If you have not yet seen "Uncounted," please find a way to do so. Your vote is supposed to count and you expect it to count toward the candidate you support. But the voting machines are not reliable and they can be manipulated. They have been manipulated. Our democracy depends on the fair process of elections. This is not paranoid ranting. See the film. Then call your state and federal representatives. Insist that a paper ballot be available for each one of our votes in November.

www.UncountedTheMovie.com

Religion and Violence

2008-01-27T19:58:00.000-06:00

I attended the Trinity Institute Conference on Religion and Violence last week. The speakers were all informative and interesting.(James Cone, Susannah Heschel, James Carroll and Tariq Ramadan) I left the conference aware that each one of us can contribute to the peace process-- or we can add to the rigid walls that divide us from our neighbors and feed the hungry powers that destroy us. It does not require an academic degree, ordination or religious affiliation to make a difference for the sake of goodness. We each come from the womb--perfectly alive and willing to embrace and be embraced by the love that got us all together in the first place. It takes training for us to truly believe we are better or worse, more deserving of good things or less deserving of good things, than the person next door or across the ocean. Adequate religious training and a transcendant faith return us to the place where we know that all people are created in the image of God and all people deserve to live in peace and prosperity.

Aging Healthcare System

2007-12-31T11:03:00.000-06:00

It is New Year's Eve. And I have time to blog-- some might call it ranting. I invite you to blog along and rant away with me in the fresh new days ahead.

Every Monday the daily paper runs a special section devoted to lifestyles and human interest, "Health and Fitness." A calendar is routinely included and community organizations, businesses and visiting conferences can post an announcement under "Fitness Events" or "Health Events." Today's calendar includes an announcement listed under "Health Events," and titled: "Look Great in 2008" I feel compelled to take a stand on this matter today. I am a registered nurse and I have strong feelings about the responsibility of the health care industry to truly care for the health of people.

The announcement is an invitation to drive out where our city's money lives (and practices medicine) around Wolf River Boulevard. We can attend a free seminar led by a plastic surgeon and the owner of a laser surgery center, a spa. These two well paid professionals will freely tell us about surgical and nonsurgical options for a more youthful appearance. In order for these two professionals to be paid, we first have to buy into their value system. It would seem they value their increasingly high income. And, it would seem, they prefer that we do our part, as pitiful aging schmucks, to keep gravity from pulling down our jowls and gluteal regions. It is a masterful exercise in illusions and conartistry. Let's be clear... neither health nor fitness are accurate headings for this posted announcement. It's a chance to take advantage of the fact that some of us are afraid of looking like ourselves.

For twenty five years I worked as a registered nurse. I took care of human beings in acute care settings. For ten years I listened to people who came to treatment because addictions had taken over the best part of their lives. For three years I bathed and turned people who had experienced severe head trauma. For three years I assisted five gastroenterologists in a practice where people made appointments to talk about and be treated for gut pain and dysfunction. I gave medicine to inpatient psychiatric people for two years. The most healing part of their treatment plan was the listening, sitting down and taking time to hear their stories and the stories told by their family members. I worked for a year in a weight-loss clinic. Here I saw first-hand how fear can be exploited for profit. I worked for two years on a stroke rehab unit and learned to highly respect the physical therapists and their practice. I worked for three years on a neurosurgery unit where life threatening tumors and blood clots were removed from the brains of people who got better, some for the rest of their lives and some for a while. Some surgery is miraculous in its capacity to improve the quality of life. I worked for one year as a hospice nurse, visiting and listening to people who were dying at home with their familiar things, their friends and family close by. That's when I went to seminary and earned my degree; then went to a Clinical Pastoral Education Program in a hospital to learn more about myself and how I can help people who suffer.

Here's my point: People rarely see how valuable they are in their own family and community. We rarely understand how much power we have to heal ourselves and each other. (Imagine for a minute what our world might be like if the medical profession focused on empowering human beings rather than holding power over us in our paper gowns as if we were children and they our benevolent fathers.) We are trained from birth to discount the value of our own gifts, to long for what we do not have, to envy those who fit the silver-screen standard for physical perfection. We want to belong to the popular crowd in school. We want to drive the expensive vehicle and make a statement in the car-pool line up. We shop, shop, shop in an effort to purchase that one glorious item off the shelf that will assure us of our worthiness. I am in the same soup pot as the rest of my neighbors and friends and family. I lived with an eating disorder for eighteen years, vomiting up every bite that dared to cling to my stomach walls in an effort to stay thin and acceptable to the God of Great Beauty. I had to weigh one hundred pounds or less in order to qualify for the air it would take to breathe my next breath.(For two years I ate lettuce only and for sixteen years I ate cookies and cakes with pie and ice-cream-- then vomited.) I did not die but it was not because I didn't try to kill myself for the sake of staying thin. I know the cost of buying into the illusions and conartistry that pads the pockets of advertisers, designers, retailers, and unscrupulous health care providers. As human beings, we have the power to look in the mirror and see what great effort has gone into our existence. We are each a storehouse of possibility and hope. Each one of us is creative, gifted with treasures to invent new ways to make life better for ourselves and the next generation.

Finding those treasures within ourselves can take time and sometimes therapy-- but rarely if ever-- does it take surgery. Most often the treasure is discovered after our muscles have weakened, our bones have become less sturdy and our vision is not as keen as it once was. Aging is not a disease. Aging is a privilege and a significant part of our human development. Aging adds value to our communities. It is a crime to distract human beings from the real and honorable experience of aging with grace and dignity. As if we didn't pay our dues in high school to the prom king and queen debacle. It is a crime to imply that forcing skin and bones to look like they did years ago has anything to do with health care. The universities that train our doctors know better. Doctors are educated in institutions of higher learning, not in some day long seminar for shysters. Graduates from medical schools ought to be the ones in the front lines, teaching people the value of life itself. Evidence based practice teaches that people grow wiser with age and they can take better care of themselves in their wisdom years if the health care professinals provide good life sustaining education. Not cosmetic surgery that tells the person, "You would still be a woman if you just looked more like Julia Roberts." Or else, "I could still call you a man if you looked something like Brad Pitt." Good healthcare education would prepare people to expect their skin to sag at a time in their lives when wisdom prevails. At a time in their lives when they have the most to give the rest of us.

We are beautiful. We always were. We always will be. We are creatures created in the image of God. That means Perfect Love lives in us and longs to be shared. No plastic surgeon can touch that or improve upon it. But it can grow sweeter and stronger with age-- if we do not lose our way by focusing on the little folds of skin around our eyes instead of the great vision that swells from our soul.

In his book, The Force of Character: The Lasting Life, John Hillman says that our later years confirm and fulfill our character. "In Japan, bowing the upper body is not simply a mannered postural greeting, a show of deference. It is also a practice that builds the ancestor into one's framework. Old people are supposed to be bent over like stalks of ripe rice. Our culture [unfortunately] sees only osteoporosis. We see the body, but not its instruction. Or we get one bare message only: We're heading for the grave."
page 68

I feel sick when I hear of doctors taking advantage of people's misinformed fears. Look great in 2008? Let's look like ourselves and share from the best within us. Our bodies do sag with age. We change. We grow older as the years come and go. It is a good thing to look our age. It informs the youngsters, lets them know who they should turn to when they need things like truth, justice and hope.

A Sunny Tradition

2007-12-22T11:47:00.000-06:00

When it is cold and gray outside, I enjoy warmer memories as I sit bundled up in a huge housecoat with furry houseslippers on my feet.

I was raised about an hour's drive from St Augustine and the beach-- which is where our family went to celebrate birthdays, Labor Day and Memorial Day. Grandma and Grandpa, aunts and uncles, cousins galore...we all converged on the beach with glad shouts, racing to be the first one to touch the salty water. Mama looked beautiful in her black bathing suit with her hair free and wild in the wind. Cousins chased us up and down the endless expanse of sand. We ate sandwiches with grit in every bite as if the grit were a special ingredient to mark the occasion. Those holidays seem close to heaven in my memory.

Is there anything better than a day at the beach? The tide came in. The tide went out. The waves reminded us all day long that everything changes, in and out, in and out. Our castles were washed away and we enjoyed watching them fall, dissolving, as much as we had enjoyed building them. We all wore festive sun-burn by the end of the day since this was prior to the time when we started packing sun block protection in our beach bags. We knew it was time to go home when we felt that tight cold feeling on our shoulders, when our cheeks were sizzling.

I remember riding home in the back of our station wagon, stacked like a log among my brothers as we alternately slept and stared out at the night sky above us. We always woke up for a treat at the Dairy Queen. Mama and Daddy sang in the front seat. If there were troubles in our lives, they were set aside for the day.

If I cannot go to Florida today, the next best thing is to take a trip into my memories and relax into its warmth. I had no idea back then, digging a hole with a brightly colored plastic shovel, how special those moments were. How rare. I wonder what I will be doing this holiday season that will one day show up in my warmest and favorite memories.

Encouragement

2007-12-17T12:09:00.000-06:00

Most people who know me also know that I love to watch birds. One of the great joys of a road trip is seeing a hawk perched in the branches of a tree or soaring high over a field. On a recent trip with my brother, we saw an osprey high up in a dead tree. At first glance, we thought it was an eagle. As I write in my study at home, I watch flocks of sparrows in our back yard. The finches have moved on for now. They'll return when the sunflowers bloom. Birds inspire me. Their beauty increases my sense of gratitude.

A few years ago when I was working as a chaplain at Methodist Hospital in Memphis, I was out on an emergency call in the middle of the night. A heart attack had suddenly claimed the life of a beloved husband and father. The family and friends were in shock as I helped them make phone calls, sip from trembling cups of coffee and cry on each other's shoulders. We stood in a circle for prayer before I walked outside to breathe the 4 a.m. air and stretch my sleepy muscles. I was heading back to the on-call room, hoping to get at least one full hour of sleep before day light.

Through the cool darkness I heard honking, Canadian geese flew in formation over my head. Wisps of clouds surrounded their flight as they moved, a single unit, across the sky. Geese fly in a formation that confronts the force of an oncoming wind. The leader has to exert the most energy as her/his beak cuts into a wall of wind. The others follow. No one goose is expected to lead all the time. That demanding duty is rotated regularly as geese migrate. All the geese honk their voices as an encouragement for the one who leads, calling to the one who is working the hardest as they travel together. Encouraging the leader is as significant as being the leader. The flock moves forward as one unit. The goal is to survive.

I found myself crying, standing alone on the sidewalk outside the hospital. I cried for hardships that wild animals endure in this world. I cried for the family who had just begun to process their tragedy and loss. But I also recognized the taste of sweetness in my tears...in the family's response to one another. Their hugs, comforting words and shared memories would hold each friend and family member, encourage them as they moved forward through the next few days and weeks. Just as the geese honk to let the leader know s/he is not working alone, not beating those great wings against the air for nothing. We are all in this life together. If we're going to make it, we'll make it by flying together as one surviving group, moving toward the fulfillment of our community's highest vision.

Great Gift Givers

2007-12-14T12:32:00.000-06:00

So here it is the season of giving and I am so aware of the really great gift givers in my life. My daughter is able to come up with exceptionally perfect things. I am thinking of the book she made for me several years ago, a collection of pictures and written memories...a history of our relationship. Immediately, it was one of my favorite things.

My brother, Stanley, recently gifted me with a surprise that brought tears to my eyes and became another highly cherished item. The gift came by Fed Ex after a camping trip we took together at the end of this past summer.

It was my idea to go camping. I love the sound of bird song when I wake up in a sleeping bag, separated from the earth and the furry creatures only by the canvas walls of a tent. I love the smell of bacon frying over a fire outside. I like the taste of coffee from a tin cup. I like the outdoor feeling that insists there is no place I have to be, no task that must be done other than to sit, eat, drink, and appreciate the beauty of nature. I am where I belong-- wearing flannel and seated by a fire.

My brother is the perfect camping companion. He is strong. He has a pick up truck big enough to hold everything we needed and some stuff I just wanted to bring along. He is very informed about the outside world and the creatures who live there. These are essential qualities for a camping friend. Stanley is good natured when putting down tent stakes, dragging branches to the camp site for firewood and unloading heavy coolers of ice and food. He saw to it that we had a crackling fire for our three days and nights in the woods. He brought a row boat. And he enjoys aimless, quiet hikes in the woods as much as I do.

It had recently rained when we arrived at our destination. We made sandwiches and sat under a pavilion to eat. We told each other stories, reminding each other of our childhood days and our turbulent teenage struggles. Before I finished my sandwich I realized what a treasure this camping trip was going to be.

We rowed Stanley's boat out on the lake and saw a beaver hard at work in the water. A great blue heron stood like a tree at the water's edge and waited for food to swim by his motionless feet. We saw a river rat swimming through a cove thick with lily pads. We walked in the woods and startled raccoons who ran to get out of our way. We saw so many deer we lost count. We drove over to a buffalo sanctuary and stared at the great beasts in the field, imagining what life was like when Native Americans depended on them for so many daily necessities. A gray fox visited our campsite each evening just after darkness settled in outside the light of our fire.

We both collected rocks and pieces of drift wood, art pieces from nature to add to the beauty of our back yards at home. One particular piece of drift wood caught our attention at the same time. It was lovely, about a foot long and four inches wide. The water had carved a circular pattern in its center. The piece spoke to me of peacefulness and connections. I wanted it. But Stanley insisted that it belonged to him. "You may have seen it first, but I picked it up." The matter was settled.

Neither one of us wanted the camping trip to end. We packed up and Stanley drove slowly out of the forest and toward civilization. We stopped to eat one more meal outside-- at a roadside picnic area. Funny. The two of us shared the same bedroom until I was eleven years old. He is only one year older than I am. In so many ways we are like twins. Much is said between us without a word being spoken.

We returned to our homes, our partners and our work lives. A few days went by. I heard the Fed Ex truck squeal to a stop out front. A package was dropped on the porch. It was from Stanley. What had I left in his truck? I opened the package and gasped at what I saw. It was the lovely piece of drift wood, the piece I had tried to claim. Stanley had taken it home and had carved into it images of the great blue heron, the buffalo and the little gray fox. They stared out at me from the piece of smooth wood in my hand. Peaceful connections, memory keepers, straight from our natural surroundings.

There are some great gift givers in my life. People who know how to give gifts that connect the most significant dots. Makes me glad to be alive. And makes me more aware, looking around to see what I might give that would mean as much for someone I love.

Life is teaching me so many important lessons these days

2007-11-29T14:51:00.000-06:00

I decorated my mother's room at the nursing home for the holidays. I hung a colorful wreath on the wall. I put a small rosemary tree on her bedside table and decorated that with a string of red and gold ribbon. I made a holiday scene on the corkboard at the head of her bed. I sang "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" as I moved about with my decorating process. (I am not known for my singing talent but unfortunately for those who spend the most time around me-- I love to sing!) It looked like Mom was interested in my activities. She raised her eyebrows, indicating curiosity.

Putting up decorations in Mom's room is clearly more for my appreciation and for the enjoyment of the staff who care for Mom than it is for her pleasure. But this is the season for increased joy and generosity. I hope that our experience of the festive environment can be translated into something Mom experiences as warm and delightful.

I am reminded of my shopping trip back in the summer when I went to Target looking for a birthday gift for Mom. I started to cry right there in the store. The sadness came from realizing there was nothing I could find that she would enjoy. Macular degeneration has taken her sight. Her movements are random and spastic so she is no longer able to reach for or hold anything with intention. If she can hear-- her responses to sounds are not consistent. Most of the time it would seem she is deaf. I ended up purchasing a soft green blanket for her birthday and I think she enjoys it. I know that I enjoy pulling it up around her shoulders.

But there is a positive side to the sadness in this experience. While the store offers almost nothing that my mother can enjoy, there is much that my mother can still enjoy. What she now enjoys and appreciates is more valuable than those things we can get at the store. Money can not buy human attention and touch. It's just not for sale-- even at Target.

Life is teaching me so many important lessons these days. I am learning so much from my relationship with my mother. In spite of her disease and her dementia, she has much to give. The privilege of being with her these days has made me aware of the value of human compassion. Our relationship has shown me how to nurture and develop my own source of compassion.

This is the gift my mother is giving me for Christmas this year. She didn't spend a dime on it.

Happy Thanksgiving

2007-11-22T14:49:00.000-06:00

Happy Thanksgiving! It is gray, cold and wet here in Tennessee-- just as it should be for Thanksgiving Day. The colors of the leaves seem more beautiful against a gloomy background. And the turkey tastes better after a brisk walk through chilly air.

My mother is in her bed at the nursing home. She always appears comfortable these days. Like an infant in a crib, she lies in her bed and entertains herself with kicking and reaching, making noises and smacking her lips.

I found tears in my eyes last night as I told her that tomorrow would be Thanksgiving Day. I miss being with her on this holiday, being with her in her home on the hill outside Nashville where she baked the most excellent pies in all the world. She also made yeast rolls that had a touch of orange peel in them, a festive flavor. I've never had rolls like that anywhere else. I miss playing Anagrams and Scrabble with her. She beat me every time, hands down. But I'd like to have another chance to challenge her.

My mother is here with me but I miss her. Our relationship now is limited by what Alzheimer's has left behind. Holiday memories are sweet and powerful. I'm thankful today for the apparent comfort my mother experiences. She appears content and for that I am grateful to the nursing home staff and to the Love that surrounds us all.

I bought a fabulous pie, apple/caramel with pecans, at Fresh Market. And I feel certain that somebody at today's pot luck will provide great dinner rolls to be lathered in butter. I'll enjoy my meal, my friends and my memories-- knowing that so much of what I have to be grateful for today is because of the goodness in my Mother's heart and how she has shared that goodness with me.

Caregivers

2007-11-10T14:47:00.000-06:00

I just returned home from a trip to Americus, Georgia where I learned about the Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregivers. Because I am the primary caregiver for my mother who lives with Alzheimer's disease, I found the RCI to be a treasure. The institute is located on the campus of Georgia Southwestern University in Americus. www.rosalynncarter.org The purpose of the institute is to support caregivers and to provide help for those who care for family members in the home. I have been responsible for my mother's care for over four years. Each decision made along the way has come as part of an entirely new education process for me. In spite of the fact that I am a pastor and a registered nurse, I have felt unprepared for dealing with my mother's deteriorating condition and the costs...emotional, social, physical and financial. The RCI has given thought to all aspects of living with and caring for aging and ill family members. The program trains professionals to take leadership roles in communities: advocating for, teaching and providing support in the lives of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances.

I wonder about other people out there...middle aged working people who have found yourself responsible for the care of your mother and/ or father. I wonder what kinds of support you have found for your daily life. I wonder what lessons you have learned. I would like to start a conversation... so let me hear from you.

Book lovers are a particular breed of people

2007-10-13T14:44:00.000-05:00

So glad to see that somebody stopped by to chat! But I wasn't at home! Sorry to miss you.

Anna and I just got home from Nashville where I exhibited my book and advertised my new web site at the Southern Festival of Books at the Legislative Plaza.
I've recently joined the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. I volunteered at the SCBWI's booth at the festival. Nice group of people-- these children's writers and illustrators-- full of helpful information and lots of heart to heart encouragement for writing.

I met a woman yesterday named Patricia Wiles. She is lovely! Among other things, she has written a series (four books) for kids. The main character is a boy whose parents own and operate a funeral home. The books look so fun and I know kids would be intrigued by the whole notion of dead bodies and funerals!

I watched the crowd at the book festival and I realized that book lovers are a particular breed of people. I hope we never die out. While this web site, the internet and Word documents are so handy and helpful-- there's something so deeply satisfying about holding a book in my hands and turning the pages. Even the smell of books is pleasant to me. I collect books. I have this idea that the books on my shelf help to define me and enlarge me, even connect me to others and make my world more meaningful-- just by being in my home.

Thanks for stopping by!

The Benefits of Conversation

2007-10-10T09:30:00.000-05:00

I welcome you, first readers and posters to my new blog! I am so proud and excited to have a place to talk, to listen, to learn how other people are connecting to each other, building trust in hopeful communities-- whether in cyberspace or in actual neighborhoods with sidewalks, dogs and grass that still needs to be mowed.

I recommend a book I recently received as a gift and have found to be inspiring and informative...Social Intelligence: The Revolutionary New Science of Human Relationships written by Daniel Goleman. Years ago I read Scott Peck's Different Drum: Community Making and Peace. That book sparked my hunger for something more in our relationships at churches, neighborhoods and civic gatherings. Goleman's book has re-inspired me and given my hope a jump start. Quoting from his work: (Page 11) "Whenever we connect face to face (or voice to voice or skin to skin) with someone else, our social brains interlock." He says on page 5 "...we create one another."

We don't have to focus on terrorism and all that is unknown and frightening in our world. We can focus on meeting and knowing the people right next door. By way of this blog our neighborhood can be extended across miles, state lines and continents. We can meet and encourage each other to meet face to face with those who live within walking distance from our front doors. This is not something that I find easy to do. I will need support. It will cost me precious time in my demanding schedule. But my schedule holds empty and meaningless appointments if I do not value relationship building and trust in my community.

When I was a child, growing up in Gainesville, Florida, I lived two doors down First Avenue from the Haig's and their boarding house where people sat on ladder back chairs and cushion filled rockers in the morning and during the evening hours as the sun set and while supper digested in our bellies. Men whittled on pieces of cypress or pieces that fell from the pecan tree in the yard. Mrs. Haig did needle work. Children raced around catching fireflies in jars, searching for toads at the base of oak trees. Talk came and went with periods of comforting silence. It was not a perfect time in our nation's history. African Americans were giving their lives for the right to be recognized in churches, neighborhoods and civic gatherings as equals. But it was a time when we knew the faces of those who lived around us. We recognized the sound of their voices. And we had some idea of their routines and values. That kind of knowing provided a balance and a stability that we no longer enjoy. The ground beneath us has been tilled up and the seeds of trust have not been replanted.

Martin Buber, Jewish philosopher and existentialist, wrote I and Thou. In it he says (page 11) "All real living is meeting." He tells us that we can only become who we really are by being in true relationship with others-- meeting the real other and discovering the real self in the act of meeting.

I am hopeful that my web site, http://www.porchswingstories.com/, my Blog and my Podcast will re-inspire others to know your self, to meet your neighbors, to host a meeting, to read books that draw people together for talking and knowing who we are-- really are. I hope we find each other on this space and that we learn from each other. I hope we can create communities of trust. I'm willing to try. I give no guarantees. Only a desire to try and do something to drive away the feeling that we are no longer real and connected to each other.