Lent, Day Seven: The Relinquished Life

No one is ever united with Jesus Christ until he is willing to relinquish not sin only,

but his whole way of looking at things.

To be born from above of the Spirit of God means that we must let go before we lay hold,

and in the first stages it is the relinquishing of all pretense.

What our Lord wants us to present to him is not goodness,

not honesty,

not endeavor,

but real, solid sin;

that is all he can take from us.

And what does he give in exchange for our sin?

Real, solid righteousness.

But we must relinquish all pretense of being anything,

all claim of being worthy of God's consideration.

Then the Spirit of God will show us what further there is to relinquish.

There will have to be the relinquishing of my claim to my right to myself in every phase.

Am I willing to relinquish my hold on all I possess,

my hold on my affections,

and on everything,

and to be identified with the death of Jesus Christ?

There is always a sharp, painful disillusionment to go through before we do relinquish.

When one really sees himself as the Lord sees him,

it is not the abominable sins of the flesh that shock him,

but the awful nature of the pride of his own heart against Jesus Christ.

When he sees himself in the light of the Lord,

the shame and the horror and the desperate conviction come home.

If you are up against the question of relinquishing,

go through the crisis,

relinquish all,

and God will make you fit for all He requires of you. . . . 

These words (Galatians 2:20) mean the breaking of my own independence with my own hand

and surrendering to the supremacy of the Lord Jesus.

No on can do this for me, I must do it myself.

God may bring me up to the point three hundred and sixty-five times a year,

but he cannot put me through it.

It means breaking the husk of my individual independence of God,

and the emancipating of my personality into oneness with himself,

not for my own sake,

but for absolute loyalty to Jesus.

There is no possibility of dispute when once I am there.

Very few of us know anything about loyalty to Christ--"For my sake."

It is that which makes the iron saint.

~ excerpted from Oswald Chambers,

in Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter

~photo from Spring Hill College Jesuit Cemetery, Mobile, Alabama

Lent, Day Five

This is the room I stayed in a few years ago in a convent/guest house in Assisi. I was reminded of it tonight while watching the beautiful film Into Great Silence, a documentary about the life of Carthusian monks of the Grande Chartreuse monastery in the French Alps. My little room was modernized, albeit small and simple. (You can see that my suitcase would not even allow the cabinet door to close....and what you see is the entire room, from the doorway.)

The Grande Chartreuse monastery rooms looked a bit more like this one, however, which is from a Franciscan monastery in Fiesole, above Florence, Italy. (These rooms are no longer used, as it  has become a museum.)

Lent is here. For those who choose to participate, it is a very special time. I have a couple of friends who have confided to me, thinking they are strange for saying it, that Lent is one of their favorite times of the year--and are happy to hear me say, "Mine, too." I don't know how it will go, but I hope to share more thoughts on Lent over the next few weeks. I won't be joining a monastery, but I do hope to focus this time on more intentional spiritual discipline, as my life is in great need of that, having been spread far and wide the past year or more.

If you haven't seen Into Great Silence, I would encourage you to find it, set aside three hours, and watch it. Be sure to watch it all the way to the end. And don't watch it when you are tired, as it does require energy and focus. (It features a lot of silence--beautiful, calm, transcendent silence.) I hope if you do, it will help you focus on growing your spirit, whether you "do" Lent or not.

One of the themes you can't help but hear in the film is that giving up self, losing one's life out of love for God, ultimately leads to beauty and profound gratitude.

Spiritual energy, spiritual activity, spiritual eloquence. . .do not come from ecstasy

but from a humbly grateful heart.

Forgiveness of sins is what the gospel is all about.

Forgiveness of sins is what Christ's death upon the cross is all about.

The purpose of Lent is to arouse. To arouse the sense of sin. To arouse a sense of guilt for sin.

To arouse the humble contrition for the guilt of sin that makes forgiveness possible.

To arouse the sense of gratitude for the forgiveness of sins.

To arouse or to motivate the works of love and the work for justice that one does

out of gratitude for the forgiveness of one's sins.

Lent is not a tediously long brooding over sin.

Lent is a journey that could be called an upward descent,

but I prefer to call it a downward ascent.

It ends before the cross,

where we stand in the white light of a new beginning.

 ~excerpted from Edna Hong,

in Bread and Wine: Readings for Lent and Easter,
crucifix from a small church in Vicenza, Italy, whose name I cannot recall,
cross below from Kristova Crkva in Zagreb, Croatia

Signs of Spring

I found my first daffodils of the year yesterday. Almost missed them, as they were tucked away in the woods, off the beaten path.

But I did see them. And my heart danced a little dance of hope. It has been a long, cold winter. Two winters in a row, really. I don't even remember the past spring. A blur of wintry storm and blazing summer heat fill my mind when I think of last year, even though I know the spring did come between the two.

In Narnia, the White Witch made winter last unnaturally long. Sometimes life is like that, and it seems the ice will never melt, the green will never come, there will be no more flowers.

But in Narnia Aslan came, and he made things right, and the ice did melt, and life resumed the way it was meant to be. The frozen came back to life.

And I've lived long enough now to trust that spring will always come. To trust that even though I may endure some very long winters (stretching me so that I come closer to understanding an eternity perspective, perhaps?), God keeps promises, and new life will always come, no matter how frozen or dark or lifeless I may feel inside.

As long as the earth endures,

    seedtime and harvest, cold and heat,

summer and winter, day and night,

    shall not cease.

~ Genesis 8:22

Let us know, let us press on to know the LORD; his appearing is as sure as the dawn; he will come to us like the showers, like the spring rains that water the earth.

~Hosea 6:3

. . . let no flower of spring pass us by.

~Wisdom 2:7

". . . and God himself will be with them;

he will wipe every tear from their eyes.

Death will be no more;

mourning and crying and pain will be no more,

for the first things have passed away."

And the one who was seated on the throne said, "See I am making all things new." Also he said, "Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true."

~Revelation 21:3b-5

Candlemas

It's dark and cold and wet outside. A good day for candles inside. And today is Candlemas, which, I've seen on calendars for some years but only recently learned refers to the day that Mary and Joseph took Jesus to the Temple, and Anna and Simeon testified to this Light coming into the world. As early as the latter part of the fourth century the church in Jerusalem was celebrating this day, according to a pilgrim who traveled there from Bordeaux, a woman named Egeria who kept a journal of her experience (that you can read here, if interested.)

In churches that celebrate the day, candles are an important part of the service, with every person in the procession carrying one, representing the Light of Christ entering the Temple.

Of course since electricity came along (and I'm not complaining), we have largely lost the sense of dependency on fire as a source of both heat and light. Candles are largely a decorative item for us. But how beautiful it must have been in the middle of winter in 380-something A.D., to go to church and see lots and lots of candles, even to carry one yourself, in a procession for the very purpose of remembering that the Light of God had come into the world as a human, and was spreading from person to person, lighting up the darkness.

Especially in the years after the fall of Rome, when the darkness must have seemed even darker than before, I wonder what it was like for people on this day and other special days--and of course every Sunday was a special day--as they tenaciously held onto their candles, whether literal or figurative, holding onto what they had been told, that Light had come into the darkness, that the darkness was not the final reality.

Most musical settings of Simeon's song use the older language, which I happen to believe is beautiful, having sung it many times.

Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant
depart in peace
according to Thy Word,
for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation
which Thou hast prepared
before the face of all people.
To be a Light to light on the Gentiles
And to be the glory of Thy people Israel.
Glory be to the Father
And to the Son
And to the Holy Ghost,
As it was the beginning,
Is now and ever shall be,
World without end. Amen.

+++++

Nunc Dimittis
by John Shephard (1515-1559)

(The photo is of candles in the cathedral of Milan, from my trip in 2008.)

Asparagus Dressed in Dew

I was standing at the counter, taking celery out of its bag to put it in a storage box. At some point between taking it in my hand and cutting the tips off, I had a flashback to life at an earlier point in time, a vivid sensory memory of asparagus growing in my daddy's garden and of seeing it in the earlier part of the morning while it was covered in dew.

It has been many years since those memories could have been made, but I remembered with great depth of feeling how beautiful it was, how I loved to get out there early enough to see the asparagus in the morning. How it seemed like an enchanted time and place to be there with it, to know that only now and here could that beauty be encountered. An hour earlier it would have been hidden in darkness. A half hour later it would be gone.

Sort of a funny thing, to come almost out of nowhere like that. Celery is green and long, so I suppose the connection makes some sense. But what is stranger to me is that I haven't seen asparagus growing for over thirty years, I couldn't even remember just what it looked like. Green and delicate were the impressions that came to mind--and feathery, airy. Someting about spider webs. And something like magical.

I remember that when I was growing up in smalltown and rural Arkansas, I would sometimes think, as I helped weed the garden or pick its produce, about what I would grow in my garden when I grew up. I don't think it occurred to me then that I might not even have a garden, or that there were people who didn't. It was just, "What will I have in my garden someday?"

And I knew asparagus would have to be in it. Even though I also knew that Daddy said it never did very well and probably needed sandier soil or a cooler climate, or something like that. I remember thinking that it didn't matter at all to me whether or not the asparagus could be eaten. I wanted to grow it just so I could come in the mornings and see it in the pale light with the dew on it.

As I stood there stringing and chopping the celery that didn't go into the box, I thought these things, and I wondered if I were simply enchanted by the asparagus because of my youth and tendency toward romanticism, or if they would still strike as so beautiful. (Ha, I said "they…." in Italian, as with spaghetti, "asparagi" are plural….I once had a pizza in Sorrento, pizza agli asparagi….)

I wondered, could I possibly find pictures of asparagus with dew on them? Because I certainly have no way to take any such pictures.

I went to the search engine and entered "asparagus with dew"--and would you believe I found pictures. Even a blogpost. You can see it here, and I strongly encourage you to, especially if you have never seen dew on asparagus, or if you have and like me have not seen it again for many years.

Apparently I am not the only one to have marveled at this phenomenon. I'm sure this blogger and I are not alone, either. Anyone who has been out early enough to see it could hardly help noticing how beautiful it is.

Time prevents a long discussion on what beauty is, and how it comes to be that the world is so full of beauty, and that we human beings are cognizant of it, that we remember something for decades simply because it struck us with its beauty. I think these are fascinating things to think about. And important.

But for now I just encourage you to look at the pictures and enjoy the beauty of asparagus in dew.

(And I feel I should add re. the paragraph above, that I did not help my dad nearly as much as I should have in the garden!)

Poem to Start a New Week and to End the Christmas Season

I have no original thoughts. (Do any of us, really?) But today is the last day of Christmas and it is also Sunday, and this is a wonderful poem that relates to Incarnation and communion/Eucharist/Lord's Supper, and it has been in my mind all week, so I will share it here.

(The photo is from an old chapel on the grounds of Spring Hill College, in Mobile, Alabama.)


By George Herbert.

Love (III)

Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back
                              Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
                             From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning,
                             If I lacked any thing.

A guest, I answered, worthy to be here:
                             Love said, You shall be he.
I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear,
                             I cannot look on thee.
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply,
                             Who made the eyes but I?

Truth Lord, but I have marred them: let my shame
                             Go where it doth deserve.
And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame?
                             My dear, then I will serve.
You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat:
                             So I did sit and eat.

Poem to Start the New Year

On my "someday-maybe" list is to read a book of poetry by Czeslaw Milosz. I only heard of him a few years ago, but what I've heard makes me want to know more.

Found this poem today and thought how, even though the middle lines might be different for each of us and would be for me, we can probably all "amen" the first line. And be grateful that the last lines are also true. (Unless we've really, really been stupid and gotten famous for it somehow.)

He wrote this the same year he won the Nobel Prize for literature.

Here's to wise choices in the New Year!

Account

The history of my stupidity would fill many volumes.

Some would be devoted to acting against consciousness,

Like the flight of a moth which, had it known,

Would have tended nevertheless toward the candle’s flame.

Others would deal with ways to silence anxiety,

The little whisper which, though it is a warning, is ignored.

I would deal separately with satisfaction and pride,

The time when I was among their adherents

Who strut victoriously, unsuspecting.

But all of them would have one subject, desire,

If only my own—but no, not at all; alas,

I was driven because I wanted to be like others.

I was afraid of what was wild and indecent in me.

The history of my stupidity will not be written.

For one thing, it’s late. And the truth is laborious.

Day of the Wren

[This is a post I began writing last year on December 26 and never finished because I caught the flu and was miserable for ten days, and then life began again in full swing, and I never came back to it, though I've kept the photos of the wrens on my desktop all year.]

It's the day after Christmas.

Or you can think of it as the second day of Christmas.

I like the second option, because I like the church calendar and the possibility of extending such a beautiful celebration over a longer period of twelve days.

Today, however, I was thinking about it being St. Stephen's Day to some people. John Michael Talbot wrote something about how the day of the first martyr follows right on the heels of the day of Jesus' incarnation. And how appropriate it is, because the birth of Jesus would be pointless without the death and resurrection of Jesus. Stephen didn't die because Jesus was born, but because Jesus lived a life and died a death that changed the cosmos and upset the status quo quite terribly--or wonderfully, depending on your perspective.

So, I was thinking about the death of Stephen, and reading a little about that led to my learning that in Ireland this is also called the Day of the Wren, for very strange and sad reasons. Apparently Irish legend says that a wren betrayed Stephen to those who then stoned him. This connects with an Irish legend about how a wren betrayed Irish soldiers to the Vikings around 750 A.D., on St. Stephen's Day. From this tradition then came the practice of killing wrens on this day with stones and even carrying them around the village tied to a stick to show them off.

A very strange and sad practice. Of course I'm sure that when the Vikings raided the Irish, that made for even more strange and sad experiences, and having a scapegoat of some sort may have helped the people with their grief in some way.

When I read this at first, part of me recoiled at the idea, and it almost made me not want to even write about St. Stephen's Day. What awful thoughts for the second day of Christmas.

But, actually, it fits well for what I have been thinking about quite a bit this Christmas. Our own Christmas plans were foiled by a blizzard, so we spent the day alone. Which was nice in some ways, but it meant a good deal of uncertainty, making a tough decision, and not being with family. In my mind, the words "alone" and Christmas" just don't belong in the same sentence, except for that one year when I was too sick to go to Grandmother's house and stayed home alone.

And Christmas always brings up the sadness of missing family who have died. (Especially in our family, as our grandparents' last name was Christmas.)

And we don't see family we used to be with every year, who cannot come for reasons related to distance, work schedules, other extended family, etc.

And this year I am thinking of clients who are going through difficult situations, for whom Christmas has probably been a very hard thing. And friends who have been in the hospital over Christmas.

And Christmas for me is always a sad reminder that we do not have children, or even a child; it brings up memories and feelings connected to that. Memories and feelings that manage to lie dormant most of the year rise up and intensify when so much emphasis is placed on children and families this time of year. Even though I don't watch TV, it's unavoidable, since most people send family photos rather than traditional Christmas cards anymore. Not a photo in a card, but a photo as a card, as if Christmas were simply about their family.

And for many people, myself not excluded, this holiday more than any other brings up difficuilt memories related to our own childhoods, partly because of the difficult experiences themselves and partly because of the crazy expectation our culture sets us up for us, that Christmas should somehow defy all the laws of ordinary life and be a wonderful day.

Kind of the way some people think of heaven. A priest friend of mine once asked, "What do people think? That when you die, God will give you a pill to swallow, and suddenly you will just get along with everyone and like them?" His point was that we must learn forgiveness and reconciliation in this life if we hope to enjoy the next life; it won't happen "abracadabra" style. It's part of what the process of sanctification is all about.

But our culture does seem to promote the idea that there is some magic about December 25 that will cause us to forget our struggles and for at least that one day feel some kind of extra special feeling or something that will make us generous and warm-hearted toward everyone, even if we're not ordinarily like that. And that somehow we will feel only lovely things on this day, as if somehow it will block out all the normal things we think and feel and struggle with. Parts of our culture seem to think that being with family will work this miracle. Others that getting some tangible object ("just what you wanted") will work the magic.

My suspicion, based on my own expeience and what I hear from others, is that just the opposite occurs, at least in our culture. Because there is so much emphasis placed on the day and all the expectations of it, not to mention that it often brings together families, and families are often the literal breeding ground of many people's most painful struggles, it is a day and a season that accentuates the pain, the sorrow, the sense of loss.

And of course no material object can bring joy or peace.

[And here is where I begin writing a  year later.]

And so, a year later, it is Christmas Day. And I am alone for Christmas, for the most part. At least in the way we think of things. Due to a vertebral disc that ruptured several years ago and a month-ago dental appointment that reignited the fiery pain of one of the affected nerves, I felt compelled to forego our planned trip to Croatia for Christmas. I simply could not bear the thought of the long trip over and back, plus luggage, dealing with this pain and not knowing if it would stay the same, get better, or possibly worsen. And the risk of doing something that might cause more damage loomed in my mind as a real possibility. (If being upside in a dentist's chair did this, what would happen if someone's luggage fell out of the overhead bin onto my neck?)

So, except for that Christmas mentioned above when I stayed home sick, this is the most literally alone I've been on Christmas Day. And, sadly, the people I was going to have dinner with have a sick family member--came down with fever and aches just yesterday, bless his heart-- so I'm not going to do that.

And, yes, all those thoughts and feelings are there under the surface, just as real as the things on the surface. We still never had a child, will never have grandchildren. Won't have big extended-family gatherings, unless it's with part of the rest of the family.

And there is still all the pain associated with family that was always there. The pain that I don't go into on a public blog, because it isn't mine alone and therefore isn't up for grabs to share in a public forum. The people who know me best know. It's been one painful year, more pain than I thought human hearts could bear, even though I thought naively that last year had stretched our hearts as far as they could go.

Still the loss. I always miss Grandmother, and life with grandparents generally, more around holidays. Her birthday, Granddaddy's death, and Thanksgiving all in November. Then Christmas with its reminders of memories directly related to it, and just that their last name was Christmas. And then she died in January. There's no getting around it or away from it, no getting over it; you just go through it, and buy lots of Kleenex this time of year, and it's not just because of colds.

So this morning, when I knew that the dinner plans were off, and maybe it had something to do with music playing in the background, too, all the thoughts and feelings set in. The thoughts you rarely talk about except with very close friends, or with a therapist. Thoughts that I believe the ancient desert fathers were right to associate with demons, and that I've heard Richard Schwartz (founder of Internal Family Systems theory) might say come from "critters"--they sense a weak spot and move in and try to take over.

I was allowing the tears and resisting the thoughts, the combination that generally works best, and still feeling very alone in the struggle, when I noticed movement outside the front window, among the ivy that grows on the wall there. It distracted me because something about it was different. I've seen squirrels play around out there. And chipmunks, but they don't venture so high. So I went to the window and continued to watch as ivy poked out here and there, and it seemed something was flitting around behind it.

Eventually I clearly saw a tiny bird, and then another, and if they were not Carolina wrens, they were something very similar. They were too quick for me to get a good picture of, and I really didn't want to spend my energy on getting a picture. I just wanted to watch them, because they felt like messengers, and I wanted to hear the message.

I have been reminding my clients that the real point of Christmas is, "Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us."

I've been reminding people and reminding myself, whatever we are facing during this Christmas season, God is with us in it.

I even met someone recently named Emmanuel, and we talked about what a beautiful name he had for this time of year.

God is with us. In the loneliness, in the family messes, in the unfulfilled dreams, in the not even knowing what to dream for. In the physical pain. He's with the poor and the sad and the broken, and  with the rich who are also often sad and broken. He knows and cares about every sparrow that falls, and we can trust that He knows what is going on in our lives, that He cares, and He will, along with the Kleenex, help us through it.

And here, just as the avalanche of dark thoughts and emotions, and the overarching thought, "You are alone," which makes all the other so much harder to bear, began its crashing cascade into my mind/heart/depths, here these little birds flew into our ivy, birds I've never seen there before, and took my mind to better places, truer places.

"Immanuel. . . .God with us."

"Thou art moved

and moved in infinite love by all things:

the need of a sparrow, even this moves Thee;

and what we scarcely see,

a human sigh,

this moves Thee, O Infinite Love!" (Kierkegaard)

"For this day paradise is unlocked, the curse is taken away, sin is removed, error driven out, truth has been brought back, the speech of kindliness diffused and spread on every side--a heavenly way of life has been implanted on the earth, angels communicate with men without fear, and we now hold speech with angels. . . . Why is this? Because God is now on earth, and man in heaven; on every side all things commingle." (St. John Chrysostom, from my earlier morning reading)

I can't prove that these little birds were "angels," messengers, sent at just the right time. I wouldn't say they were angels in the biblical sense of particular creatures that look a certain way. But in the sense of being messengers of good news, I think they were.  In the same sermon Chrysostom wrote regarding the Incarnation, "And ask not how; for where God wills, the order of nature yields." A theology professor friend of mine once said, when I had had somewhat similar experiences with hawks and an owl, "Why would God not use birds to communicate to you if He knows you pay attention to birds and will notice them?"

They certainly came at just the right time. And reminded me of just what I needed to know. And reminded me of these pictures on my desktop, and this blogpost that I never finished. And the rest of my day was different because of it. With the reminder that God was right here, right now, my mind was able to resist the dark thoughts and feelings and think more clearly. I remembered that some other friends had talked about maybe getting together later in the day. I remembered someone else who might also be alone this day. I made some calls. We wound up having a gathering time of four people who couldn't be with family this year. We were not alone.

The story is that St. Francis preached to the birds--which I've read was actually a metaphor for preaching to the poor. But it's also true that he loved animals and paid a lot of attention to them. And he was the one who started the tradition of the nativity scene, using real animals to bring to life the poem.

O great mystery,

and wonderful sacrament,

that animals should see the new-born Lord,

lying in a manger!

Blessed is the Virgin whose womb

was worthy to bear

Christ the Lord.

Alleluia!

Angel or not, on Christmas Day this year, the little bird in the picture, along with his friend, preached to me. Christ the Lord, Immanuel. God with us. Alleluia!



La Nebbia

I remember foggy mornings in Arkansas. Not a whole lot, but it seems like sometimes when we went to school early, there would be fog in the valleys of the very hill-and-valley terrain between home and school. I always thought it was beautiful and mysterious.

And I really remember fog in northern Italy. Where they had to put special reflective paint and markers all along the roads for miles, because the fog was responsible for multiple deaths when drivers simply could not see well enough to realize another car was coming right at them. And then more cars could not see the accident ahead, and it would just start a pile-up.  So the markers were indications of how slow one ought to drive. (If you can see three markers, you can go x kilometers per hour, but if you can see only two, better slow to x km, and so on.)

Of course Venice in the fog was like a dream. Beautiful, mysterious, other-worldly. (And could get your clothes wet, too.)

Back in an earlier job setting, I worked with a group of people who struggled with various life situations. We would start each meeting with a check in. Rate your general mood with a number, and rate your general "brain fog" with a number. Brain fog became a frequent topic of our conversation. Because when you're depressed, not sleeping well, feeling confused and close to hopeless about your future, thinking clearly does not come easily.

Thus, brain fog.

I find that this year of my life has brought a lot of brain fog. Which is funny, because I am working on a doctorate now, so of course I have to think clearly enough to do that work. But the stress of that along with other significant stressors have made for a year with almost no consistent routine (and brains thrive on routine), along with the sorts of chemicals that stress pumps into the brain that further foggify it.

(The computer is telling me that "foggify" is not a word. It doesn't know that Gerard Manley Hopkins is my blog's patron saint, obviously, and I shall use words as I choose.)

Anyway, I went for a walk a while back (one of the routines I lost this month with some severely cold weather coinciding with a moderately severe nerve condition that makes being cold something to avoid at all costs for now.), and it was a gorgeously foggy morning.

Beautiful, mysterious, and like brain fog, made it very hard to see clearly.

And the "sacred bench," as I've come to think of it, just struck me as so beautiful.

Perhaps because it is on land surrounded by water, it showed up more clearly than most of the rest of the park. There was less fog where it was.

And even though I was there alone, the bench was a symbol to me of what had helped get me through the brain fog of this past year, and that of many other times in my life. It's the people who will sit down with you and just be there to talk and listen and share and care. That loving care helps clear the fog, brings light into the mind, makes it possible to remember the fog is temporary. The mind will return to its normal functioning.

Richard Stivers has written a fascinating book called Shades of Loneliness, in which he ponders the likelihood that our disconnected society (largely related to technologization) is at the root of much of mental illness. I think he is largely right in what he has written. If more people had sacred benches on which to sit, or people to walk with in the park, I feel sure we'd have less need for the kind of work I do.

I'm thankful for the people who walk and sit with me and help clear the fog from my brain from time to time--sometimes it takes more than once a day.

"Nebbia" is Italian for fog. Where our "nebulous" comes from. And just as fog can be yucky, like brain fog, it can also be beautiful. So I picked a nebulous title for it.

For another foggy post with more photos and a poem with much sadder sentiments, see "Im Nebel."

White and Light

Amazing to me, to have such blooms at the end of November. It seemed a little miracle of beauty in the kitchen window of our gracious hostess.

And the light coming onto them and through them intensified the miracle.

And so I had to take a picture.

Just to remember.

I love what light does.