For Love of a Child

     Two years ago when my first grandchild was born I was told I would love him more than my child. "Just you wait," they, the grandmothers said. "You'll see how that little one will capture your heart and fill you with an indescribable feeling." "A falling in love again feeling," said one. "An immeasurable joy," said the other. "Deliriously intoxicating," said another. "A sweet surrender," said yet another. "It's a different love," they all chimed in.
     Last month, my second grandchild was born, and once again I was reminded by faithful friends that grandchildren are loved more than one's own.
    
     Here, I beg to differ.Yes, each of my friends is right in her measure of the immeasurable feelings, but I cannot love my grandchildren more than my own child/children. To the contrary, the love for my child has reached newer depths and higher grounds with an intensity that echoes into the grandchild. I see my child in tender awe at the moment of entering into the inescapable divine fellowship of creating and nurturing, and it is at that moment that I realize that my love for my child radiates through her, gains energy with her love, and spreads with perfection into her child, my grandchild.  When I see the faith in my child's eye, the love in her touch, the tender hope in her attitude and her weary sleepless gaze as she prays with infant in hand, I am reminded of the child of yesterday, my child, a radiant reality of today looking upon and caring for her own child, my grandchild, I am full circle. I am wholesome. Do not misunderstand. I love my grandchildren.They, like all children embody the innocence of life with their trusting embrace filled with wonderment and unspoiled by the hard skepticism of the world, a naivete which we all desire.

     Yes, I love my grandchildren for they serve as reminders of how precious my children and all children are, and how holy the sacrament of childhood is ... something we are often in danger of losing, especially when interacting with our now adult offspring. Often, as young parents in our youth, we do not have the wisdom we require at the time of need to set our priorities in order. Youth do not want to have wisdom. Youth gather knowledge, pass the experiences, cherish hopes, which, as a rule, can only later be fulfilled. We struggle, we worry and only later, in hindsight, have an understanding of our hurdles and their validity in the course of our lives. Hence the older I grow, the more I begin to love the wisdom revealed to me by life. I recall the words of the bishop ("What is Love?" May 6, 2010 blog) who said, "The more 'love of life' wisdom increases, egoism and expectation of gaining something from our wisdom decreases."

     Most of us gain wisdom, understanding, patience, and the love to be wonderful parents after our parenting years are over. By the time our children produce the grandchildren, we reach the wisdom of God's perfect love engaging mind, body and soul in unity, (at least I hope we do!). We reach a tolerance that forgets differences as we sit and play on hands and knees; we acquire a patience that rebuilds houses of blocks as they purposely topple to the floor for the hundredth time; we genuinely acquire a vision that sees the world as a splendid place with brave knights and dragons and 'buzz light years' and fairies and x-men and Lego's and trucks and tractors that build and destroy only to rebuild over and over again...all reaching toward the sky and beyond.
Wisdom and the years help remind me that a child's laughter is the light of life. That wiping noses and pouring juice into "sippy" cups, though mindless, is profoundly important. That what once appeared as a life sentence to a young parent with milk stains on my shoulder, now seems to be a jail breaking, liberating experience with jelly stains on my knees. The genuineness of being comfortable with ones childish self breaks out, and what seemed important at the time has gained in wisdom and seems unimportant now.  All the struggles and "what ifs" vanish at the sight of my child's love for her child. I am reminded that my child, my adult child, is the "cute, adorable, naughty, lovable, play with me, splish-splash bathing, chocolate eating, just because" child. I am overflowing with the sweet nectar of love that echoes with squeals and laughter from my child and her children.
What were the words my friends used?  Ah, yes. Deliriously intoxicating. A sweet surrender.

This I humbly speak...with a love for all children

New York, Mission Accomplished

It was hot. It was muggy. It was August and I was in New York City on a mission. The morning started early with map in hand and a determined objective to walk from the hotel in lower Manhattan through the easily marked streets and avenues of the city toward the Financial District to the site where the twin towers had once stood.
At first I walked and crossed streets like a good citizen waiting obediently for the pedestrian light to turn green before hurling myself swiftly onto the busy intersections. It wasn’t until after five blocks into my “mission” that I stopped at a street corner and realized that I was the only one waiting for the green light, making it very obvious that I was the outsider. So at the next light, I followed the New Yorkers and crossed the streets pretty much the way people cross streets in busy cities around the globe….without regard for the crosswalk sign, look left, right and left and if all clear, just cross.

“Can we do that?” questioned Soul.
She was so innocent, so guileless and transparent. “Of course we can, we’re in New York,” I said with a smug grin. “And besides, I don’t want people to know I’m a tourist. I want to blend in,” I continued as I followed a crowd of pedestrians.
“Well for starters, you might want to get rid of the map,” chirped Soul, whose childlike consciousness was to become my sole companion on this mission.
“Point well taken!” I heeded her advice. We mapped the route from here to there clearly in our minds, and confidently, I put away the map, feeling very much like I owned the city.

We walked for hours allowing ourselves to ‘color outside the lines,’ as it were. We were unstructured and it felt good. We passed through Times Square, then in front of the Empire State building, through the garment district and antique shops, across a section of Murray Hill to take a picture of the Armenian Consulate on 36th Street, then down to Chelsea, through Gramercy, Greenwich Village, and Soho, all the while ignoring street vendors who were selling umbrellas with catchy signs that amused me.      “$3 while it’s sunny. $5 when it wet and you’re sorry,” said the sign. I laughed. Sure, a few clouds had started to roll in but it didn’t look like rain.
“Don’t you think they know something we don’t?” nudged Soul. “Perhaps you should buy an umbrella.”
“Nah,” I said. “Besides, what’s the harm in a little water on our heads?”
Off we continued to Little Italy, then Chinatown and onto Tribeca before a thunderstorm rumbled in and burst open the skies above. Raindrops the size of pennies river danced their way on the streets as we entered Tribeca. We were soaked to the bone in our light summer dress and open toe sandals. Leaping long under eaves and canopies, if any, of store fronts and cafes, we too danced our way on pavements and into a small Greek restaurant whose name I cannot recall, and had a bite to eat. What I do recall are the bubbles of laughter that Soul and I shared as we waited for the downpour to cede and for us to resume our quest.

“Perhaps we should take the underground,” I suggested. I was tired, and the map I had folded and put away was beginning to feel like a two ton weight in the purse strapped across my chest.
“That’s so unlike you.” Soul was quick to reply. “We did that yesterday at Penn Station, and remember? You said people gathered there looked like pigeons waiting for their feed. And instead of dispersing at the sound of an approaching train, you said they huddled together and fed into open doors of subway trains. You said you didn’t want to be one of the masses. Yet this morning you wanted to fit in and not look like a tourist. Which is it?”
“Do you really listen to every word I say?” I asked somewhat annoyed but at the same time amused by her gait.
“There, see that,” said Soul, ignoring the question and pointing to a church across the street. “That’s where we should go. You can get some rest there.” Her eyes gleamed with new found energy.

Shadowed between tall buildings, the church appeared to be a sanctuary to my tired and aching feet and to a Soul that refused discouragement. We walked in. It was delicately beautiful and somber. It took but a moment for us to realize we had accidentally stumbled upon St. Paul’s, an old Episcopal church, which had served as a refuge for the policemen, firemen, rescue teams and the injured after the collapse of the twin towers.Miraculously, it had remained intact and undisturbed throughout the chaos of 9/11. The interior was full of memorabilia from the catastrophe. Letters and notes, personal belongings and objects, even prayers of love and gratitude graced the walls of the chapel. I was touched, but it was Soul who touched me more. “The irony is that some places become sacred shrines through the evil of mankind.” She looked like an injured child whose belief and trust in the goodness of mankind had been shattered by doubts. “The air is thick with sadness here,” she sighed and shook her head.
“The air is rich with kindness here,” I observed.
She looked at me, stunned. Her eyes, still gleaming, welled with tears. After a weighty pause, she asked, “How can you talk of kindness and goodness when evil is clearly dominant and more powerful?”
I placed my arm around her. “Of course, evil is powerful because it abides by no laws except the ideology to win fast.” I had captured Soul’s complete attention.
“You mean to tell me that good doesn’t share the same ideology to win!?” she challenged me.
"Oh yes it does,” I affirmed even more adamantly. “But good also abides by rules and laws, laws that are wonderfully strong and at the same time terribly fragile. In times of threat and crisis, we think that these laws weaken us through their limitations, but in reality, they are the strongbox that govern us, safeguard our values and ultimately crown a slow victory over evil.”
“That’s the problem, right there,” said Soul. “SLOW victory. By the time ‘good’ works its way through the rule of laws, the ideology of winning is so far into the future that it becomes moot to say ‘mission accomplished.’”
“Let’s hope not,” I smiled.
Our whispered words and soft footsteps echoed from the stone walls as we left the chapel and onward toward our “mission.” We made our way around the corner and in a sudden moment of reality, there it was, an immense block of empty space...a dug out of massive broken concrete that once formed the foundations to two towers that had graced the New York skyline and which now would be found only in history books that document the rise and fall of empires.

Amid the deafening din of a city in motion, we were silenced, my Soul and I.
Our mission was acomplished.
This I humbly speak with faith in the rule of laws.

(A few hours prior, President Obama announced the capture and death of Osama Bin Laden whose organized attack on the twin towers claimed the lives of thousands of innocent civilians.)

Mother

(March 21, the first day of Spring and it was Mothers’ Day in the Middle East. Buds burst with bloom and trees unfolded their bright colors amid leaves of green. Birds nested, nature recycled life, and while the weather played havoc with March madness, the people of Lebanon and the Middle East celebrated new life and hope with Mother’s Day. It seems apropos. All things that remind us of hope, of life, of stability and belonging, of creation and procreation, are symbolized by and encompassed in the word Mother. Mother earth, mother nature, motherland, mother church, mother tongue, mother ship, mother board, mother of all inventions…mother.)


Mothers. Love them, or hate them. Look up to them or look down at them. Their loving hands caress gently or strike fervently. Cherish them or curse them. Emulate them or vow to become what they’re not. Idolize them or move away from them with disdain. Nurtured or neglected by them, no matter how we feel, no matter what our sentiment regarding our emotional and psychological well being, we owe who we are to our mothers.

As I reflect upon who I am today, a cyclorama of varied memories unfurl before me. Memories collected and stored– some precisely rendered and accurate while others grainy and modified by the caprices of time seem to ambush me with complexities of emotions. I thought it was easy to sum up my mother, but now as I face the reality of a life of a woman whose past strength has fed me, I have to remind myself that I cannot expect my mother to fight back with the same strength of her past. I come to realize that the complexities are mine and mine alone.

There were moments in the past where as a child I was unnerved by her sharp interrogative eyes that knew how to speak with a glare and bring out the difference between truth and fabrications. In my teens and youth I was angered by the strength of her fertile mind and charismatic verve. She proved her points and always came out triumphant. Then as a young woman I began to appreciate the debating bright mind that helped me to straighten the jagged edges in my life situations. Today, I am moved to tenderness when I see in her eyes a frightened look that almost immediately shifts into a world of her own. What was once precisely accurate in her reasoning now wafts intermittently between real time and years of memory that fail to connect.

Sitting before me is incarnate the wisdom of a woman, which, as I recall, she happily shared by example and through lessons that at the time seemed harsh, but in retrospect and over the years, appear well invested. She smiles…a beatific, pensive smile. Somewhere in that smile is a no nonsense woman who knew how to pull a family of over 70 relatives together, host dinners for business associates and still find time to volunteer her learned and intuitive skills among friends and benevolent organizations. She asks me, “What are you writing?” “Things I’ve learned from you,” I reply. She nods, and for a split moment, the interrogative eyes reappear. She taught well. She taught hard. She pushed for perfection to make up for her imperfections. She is human. She makes mistakes. She is counselor to many, consoler to even more, a worrier and a warrior, a cheer squad when needed, a philosopher in her own right, and an example of unconditional love in the form of perfect composure. She is mother.

“What are you writing?” she repeats again. Repetition, once used as a habit for instructing and absorbing facts and for demanding compliance is now simply a habit for loss of remembrance. I repeat, “Things I’ve learned from you.” There is a nostalgia in my voice, an almost sadness. “Like what?” she asks. Encouraged by her interest I start to ramble about how she taught me that the ultimate purpose in life is to be a convinced servant of humanity; to be able to give the best of oneself is a true and only gift that one can give to the world; that there is divinity in coincidences; that the valor of a person is measured by what he/she does behind closed doors; that when all is said and done, we are accountable to a higher authority; that to waste money is to disrespect its value; that there is no difference between rich and poor except in our perceptions and judgment; that there is a difference between pity and compassion; that nothing is worth doing if not done with a value of the virtues. “Do not use slander. Maintain the integrity of your soul,” she interjects. She is aglow with serenity and compassion. She is content.

At the end of the day today, as I said good night to my mother, I lost myself in a memory of moments when I had been a little girl. I recall waking up one night to see my mother’s silhouette in the bedroom. Her fingers intertwined gracefully around her clasped hands in a prayer position. In the near gloaming light that emanated from a framed image of the Virgin Mary and Child painted on glass which rested on a shelf in the bedroom, my mother was praying, reciting in an almost whisper. Upon seeing me awake and I having told her that I couldn’t sleep, she left the room and returned with a small apple which she handed to me to eat. She assured me that eating the apple would definitely bring sleep to my eyes. She then resumed her position and continued her prayers while I ate the apple. When both of us were done with our “tasks,” she approached my bed, and with a tender word, she kissed me and tucked me in again for the night. Whether it was the image of my mother praying, the soft whispering lull of the words, or the bites of the apple that immersed me into immediate slumber I shall never know, but I do know this… that till today an apple at night helps me sleep. The memory clings to me as comfortably as does the fit and warmth of a favorite old sweater.

Tonight, as I kissed my mother goodnight and pulled the blanket over her aging body, I said a short prayer and as I turned to walk out the door, I heard the soft whispering lull of her prayers. From my pocket, I pulled out a neatly wrapped apple and in the near gloaming light of the Beirut night skies, I bit into it.

This I humbly speak with memories that unfurl…..

A Walk In The Cemetery

I'd like to preempt this by saying that I am not a macabre person and I do not dwell in morbid thoughts.  I love life and the living, and I often go to noisy, crowded places to sit back and watch the world go by, connecting with the wonder of a present humanity so caught up in the mundane that its purpose and mortal presence is lost to all except to the observer. There is beauty around that speaks and images that disturb. These fuel my creativity. However, to feel alive and most connected when reaching for meaning to increase my self understanding, the most human, powerful and yet humbling experience for me is to go to the cemetery.
The cemetery need not be one where I have a connection to someone whose funeral I have attended, be it family or friend or acquaintance. I feel connected to all. I park my car randomly and walk over a carpet of well maintained green grass reading the names and dates of those buried in the area. Some are short lived lives, others long and longer.  There are mothers, fathers, sons and daughters, sisters, brothers, grandparents, aunts and uncles, the soldier, the doctor, the hero; all loving.  It is easy to observe the newly dead from those long buried. These are the headstones that are rubbed and polished to a gleam.  It is as if every stroke of polish by the living has brought with it a small measure of therapeutic comfort as memories mingle with grief. Many of them are young, too young, infants even. I take time to stop at each one to read their names and say a little prayer for those they've left behind in this world. What intrigues me are the ones whose last day on this earth spans decades into history and who do not have an obvious frequency of visitors, if any at all....Time diminishes the strokes of polish. Here, I linger a little longer.

My first impression of cemeteries was not one of rolling hills carpeted with a soft spread of green, a burst of color here and there and trees with their magnificently outstretched branches. No, I come from places where cemeteries are tight narrow plots confined between buildings, and church yards. Tombstones high and low, statues of all shapes and sizes marking graves of young and old casting long shadows in the twilight hour. These are cemeteries where the earth has moved and graves have shifted causing hazard to those who walk among them and who are not sure footed. To walk across and between the graves, one almost has to dance and skip from one marbled tomb to the other. But regardless of the maintenance of the place I love to walk the graveyards. My affinity for walking among the graves comes from when I was a child, and in my easily impressionable childhood brain, I read the poem "We Are Seven" by William Wordsworth. The narrator asks a little girl of perhaps 8 about her siblings.The girl explains that there are seven of them including two that are dead. The narrator tries in vain to persuade the little girl that her two deceased siblings cannot be counted among them because they are no longer alive.  "But they are dead, those two are dead! Their spirits are in heaven," he says. However, the child insists that these two be included in her count. She lives her life among them and they still exist, maybe not in a physical presence, but she feels she can sense them.
"And often after sunset, sir, When it is light and fair, I take my little porringer, And eat my supper there." She eats with them and plays among them. "Their graves are green, they may be seen." She insists. They are seven. The thought of that child possessing a sure instinct of immortality left an impression on me.  Just because the dead are not of this physical world doesn't mean they are not of the world. Their love lingers and mingles and strengthens. They just live in another form or state of reality.

A walk, a stroll through a cemetery, or if time permits, a sit down with those who are no longer of this world is comforting. The finest of people, the innocent, the guilty, the good, the rogue of rogues, all are buried within these walls and boundaries of the cemeteries.  But their worldly professions and adjectives that define them do not matter. Here, I find an absence of all human emotions except an infinite acceptance and a love that roams through and in between the space. An inexplicable peace reigns among the tombstones or headstones. It is peace that overflows through me with love from beyond. There Is something beyond the beyond. Something that connects me to the world behind what we see and feel and taste. I am neither provoked nor tested.  I have no fears, no doubts, no resentments. I am void of all human weakness of emotions. Only peace exists and a silent knowledge of a strengthening of kinship between souls centuries old and days young.  It is an implosive magnetic force of a love powered by those whose hearts beat with sorrow, joy, grief, peace, loss, triumph, ...and by those who have departed and whose loves  linger and float the atmosphere. A love supreme flows through me. It reigns. It Is, It just Is. And I am released of all entitlement to this world.
The experience of unity with All That Is brings me back to the truth...that none and nothing is greater than perfect love.  I am renewed with the experience and awareness of how precious every life on earth is and how much we are pulled by the need to do, more so, much more so than the need to be. My mortal years, like all who are privileged to breathe, are unknown and limited. Time is entrusted to me and the years lent are just that, lent to me.  I am struck by the power of connection by being fully there in the quiet unity of what Is--God's love linking my fingers with the soft caress of a love whispered from those no longer of this world.
A walk in the cemetery always changes me, and  always for the better.
This I humbly speak.

Words To Inspire and To Remind

We all have one. A drawer or a box where we throw in pieces of paper of clipped articles or quotes or notes to ourselves for further use at a later date.  Or at least I hope we all do, lest I be the "odd woman out."
As I was placing another piece of reflective thought in an already filled to capacity drawer, a wad of colorful paper of different shapes and sizes flew out of an envelope bursting at the seams with handwritten short lines intended to inspire. I picked up a bright pink paper folded in four. It rang a bell as I unfolded it. "Must be 4 ft or taller to enter through this door and enjoy the ride. Please keep your eyes open, your mind sharp, your words meaningful,  and buckle up to face the adventures of challenge. Smiles and laughter are permitted.  ENJOY THE RIDE." I remembered sixteen years ago having placed this sign early one morning on the threshold of the door leading to the garage through which members of my family would pass to greet the day at school or in work.
A bright yellow post-it note with "You can't have a positive life with a negative mind" took me back to dinner with a girlfriend whose negativity had compelled me to go to the restroom and write those words as a reminder to myself to not be such a drain on any one's soul as was she that night. That same night I came home to a household already in deep slumber, and in the darkness of the night I had pinned to the fridge "Most people are about as happy as they make their minds to be," a quote by Abraham Lincoln.  Attached to the post-it I found the quote.
I picked up a lined piece of paper with the picture of a realtor in the corner. His face was not anyone I knew. What caught my eye was the familiar blurry scribble of my handwriting that ran across the page and through his name and face.    It was a note to myself written on my way to a job assignment. I put on my glasses to discern the faded words penciled in a mad rush between stop and go traffic on the freeway. "Ask yourself if what you are doing today is getting you closer to where you want to be tomorrow." I suppose one could still use that to re channel priorities.
A few small pieces of paper signed "love mom"  and dated 1998 were paper clipped together.  I recalled the events that prompted these "words of wisdom" if you will.  Here was one  inspired by a teenage daughter whose diligence needed refueling. "Don't work for recognition, but do work worthy of recognition."  This  one was for a pre-adolescent boy whose perseverance was paralyzed by his fear of forging ahead. "If you don't practice, you have no right to dream!"  "And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more," was posted after a long night of discussion to encourage a man to take a leap of faith and expand his ventures.  Here was another that had stemmed from many a discussion of current political events to personal accountability. The conclusion was "The Four C's...Courage, Compassion, Conscience, and Character. How you choose to use and develop them is what makes you what or who you are."
This next one was not my handwriting. It was a beautiful script signed by a cousin who wrote "To learn how to stand up, you must first learn what it feels like to fall down." Here was another, and then another by family members while others jumped up at me through their vivid paper colors written by friends and guests.There were quotes about faith, about courage, love, life, truth, God, integrity, magic and even Santa. These were words of depth inspired by love,  through failures, successes,  hopes and despair, by births and death, by young and old. As I read each of them remembering the person and day and event that led to writing the note and taping it to the fridge, each told a story, and I realized that none could be considered obsolete and that all were as profoundly meaningful today as they were yesterday.  Life's question and answers, the philosophies that ensue remain constant and unchanging in a world where we seek calm within the often chaos.
I returned the scraps and notes with their words of inspiration and life reflections to the drawer. Before I closed the drawer I re read the most recent addition to the pile.
"Know a pity that is beyond myself,
One that cannot turn away and forget.
It rests in sorrow too deep to understand,
A heart wrenched in pain for the senseless loss of humanity." 

A reminder of the lives lost in Tucson, AZ shooting.

This I humbly speak...

Life in Question

Why? Why can't I eat it? Why shouldn't I touch that? Can you carry me? Will it hurt? Are we there yet? Do we have to go home? Do I have to eat that? Am I a good girl momma? Can I have a dog? When will I grow up? Why does it hurt? Will the tooth fairy come? Will you tuck me in? Are you praying momma? Where does Santa live? Why is Buster sick? Is it tomorrow yet? Can I keep the cat? Do I have to get up? Do I have to go to school? Where's dada? Why won't you read "The Monster at the End of The Book" again? Why is momma crying? Are you guys getting a divorce? Do you love me? Why can't I play? Why did granny die? Will I die? Where did she go? Will God send her back? It's not fair, is it? Do I have to take out the trash? Why should I worry about starving children in Africa? Do I have to go to church again? Why can't I wear makeup? Are you sad, dada? Can I spend the night at Sara's? Tracy's mom lets her, so why won't you? What homework? Why doesn't he call? Did he call? Will he kiss me? Am I in love? Can I go to the prom? Am I too fat? Does he love me, does he love me not? God, why do I hurt so much? Can I borrow the car? Why do I have to be back by 11? Can't I stay later? Why? Don't you trust me? It's never fair, is it? Why won't my parents understand me? What if I don't want to go to College? Can I be an actress? A lawyer!? What if I want to be a doctor? What if I'm not good enough? Please God, will I get in? Is my room the guest room now? Why do we have to go to war for peace? Can't we put an end to world hunger instead? Why's life so hard? Why didn't you tell me it was this tough? Can you send me some money? Why are you crying? Aren't you proud I made it? When will I start earning real money? Is this true love? How will I know he's the one? Will you marry me? Who said marriage is all bliss? Who said raising children is a piece of cake? How was your day honey? Why didn't they tell me it was this tough? Do you know how much I love you kid? God, why can't I get a good night's sleep? Were you a good boy? Where does it hurt? Lets see, what did Santa bring you? Did you brush your teeth? Did you say your prayers? You hid your sister where? Why can't they just grow up? Which of you didn't let the dog out? Can't you just take the trash out for once without being asked? Why are you sad? How was your day? Why do you want the car keys? Oh God, will you keep them safe? Is this what my parents went through? What makes you think you're fat? What are you afraid of? Do you know how beautifully handsome you are? Can you believe they're out of high school? When did they grow up so fast? Do we convert his room into the guest room? What do you mean another semester? Do you know how much it costs to send you to college? Why am I crying? Did you get the job? Do you know how proud of you I am? Did you call your dad? Are you eating right? Isn't it pitiful that we're still at war, and world hunger is on the rise? Did you hear about Sara's cancer? Did she have to die so young? Life's not always fair, is it? When do I meet this love of yours? Son, is she good to you? Have you set the date? Do I look fat in this dress? Daughter, will you be at church this Sunday? Dada, can I help you with that? Momma, didn't you hear me? Will you and dada visit us this year? Kids, did you thank your grandparents for the gift? Do you miss your grandpa as much as I do? Why do I feel like an orphan without my parents around? When is our next church meeting? Did you sign up to volunteer for the cause? Have you seen my glasses? Why am I starting to feel old? Really? I'm going to be a grandma? Isn't my grandchild the cutest? Who knew being a grandparent would be this rewarding? Why don't you put some socks on those little feet? Won't he catch a cold like that? Do you want me to baby-sit? You want me to read "The Monster at the End of the Book"? Again!? Did you brush your teeth? Did you say your prayers? Do you know how much I love you? Isn't life wonderful? What did I do to earn such joy? Did you call the doctor? Why am I tired? Why do my joints hurt? Did my best friend have to die so soon? God, why does it hurt so much? Why are we still at war? When is the next church meeting? How are the grand kids? Did they get the birthday card I sent them? Did they get their graduation gifts I sent them? Where did you say you were going for Christmas this year? Will I see you soon? Did the kids call? Did anyone call? Is it time for dinner? Why do I have to stay up till 9 p.m.? Why can't I go to bed earlier? God, why can't I get a good night's sleep? Do I have to get up in the morning? Was it only yesterday? Do I have to swallow those pills? Why am I crying? What did I spend my time on? With whom did I spend my time? God, I don't remember...was I a good person? Why can't I stay a little longer? Do they know I love them? Do I have to go? Why? Please God, will you carry me? Did I make it God? Am I home yet?

This I humbly speak... with no more questions.

Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread

Thanksgiving Day is a day nationally dedicated to prayer, praise and gratitude. It is a day of faith that dedicates us to something bigger and more important than ourselves and our possessions. It is a day where the truth in the words of the Lord's Prayers, "Give us this day our daily bread," comes to life. Truth as old and simple as this came to life for me on a Thanksgiving Day some 10 years ago.

Years ago, when my children were children, we made it a family tradition to volunteer for Thanksgiving at the local Salvation Army of Pomona and Ontario. We each took on responsibilities based on our strengths or abilities. My husband loved to wear an apron and serve the public, (although, for the life of me, I could never get him to do that at home!) My daughter held infants or looked after them while their mothers ate. My son enjoyed greeting people and waiting at tables. I helped cook, serve or manage the kitchen.
During one of those years of service, there was a little girl, impeccably dressed, who had come with her mother to volunteer. She must have been no older than eight or nine. Her mother must have brought her there for the same reason that I used to bring my children at that young age. To teach them that with their own good fortune came the responsibility to give back to the world. To encourage them to become more spontaneous in giving and sharing and caring and reaching out to their fellow men and neighbors. To be grateful for whatever they had.


The Captain, who ran the operation of the Salvation Army, said a prayer of thanks for the food to be received, and the the din of a lively dining room came to life among 200 guests with the hustle and bustle of volunteers who went back and forth eagerly serving plates of food. The aroma of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, candied yams, green beans and fresh oven baked buttered rolls was so intoxicating as it wafted from the kitchen into the service area and the dining room that it whet the appetites of all who attended, guests and hosts alike. It was too inviting especially for the little girl who had helped serve some hot rolls and who now stood next to her mother while guests were eating. Suddenly, she turned to her mother and, in a voice clearly audible, she blurted, "Momma, I wish we were poor also, so I could eat some of this food."
For a brief moment, silence reigned. I sensed the mother's embarassment. She didn't know quite what to say. At that moment a solemn laborer at the table looked up from his plate. You could tell life had knocked him around. But I remember vividly, his worn face lit up with a truth as old and simple as, "Oh child, you don't have to be poor to receive this gift...just blessed. Join us."
This tired man, despite the hardship in his life, had shown us the meaning of "give us this day our daily bread." The value of such a prayer is to remind us that regardless of our life situation, receiving the food that we eat is as much a gift as it is an earned reward. It is a reminder of our daily dependence on the graciousness of God. And especially today, when our hearts are more focused on the gratuitous blessings of family gatherings, let us become more spontaneous in our daily recognition of the divine goodness in our lives.
Have a wonderful and contented Thanksgiving, today and everyday.

This I humbly speak, with a content heart.

I Miss The Sounds

I read the other day, that the most dominant memories that seem to persist are smell and odor linked. Second comes sound. Strange as it may seem, for most of us it is our noses that have such a hold on our memories. The familiar aroma of baked bread, the scent of perfume or suntan lotion, the smell of coffee or herbs, the musty odor of a damp room or even the reek of rotten food...all have the power to retrieve a detailed picture of past times and either whet the palate and stimulate the appetite or repulse the body causing shudders up and down the spine. But, for me, equally important are certain sounds that evoke not just a memory but a yearning for the familiar, like a song or melody, a sound that reminds me where my roots were planted by a humanity whose differing beliefs have been under attack for many years but have not been defeated. I came to know these sounds of differing beliefs as a child raised in the Middle East and abroad.
I grew up to appreciate the vibrations of bells ringing from the belfry of churches during the long summer months of my childhood in Lebanon or schooling in England. Bells that beckon arrivals and departures, births and funerals, weddings, baptisms and a call to prayer. I miss the bells. I grew up to appreciate the echoes of praise by Imams bellowing from high atop the minarets and over flat roof tops during the hot drawn days in the deserts of Kuwait. I miss the Adham or "call to prayer." I grew up to appreciate the resonating sound of chimes and gongs from neighbors' homes leading their Buddhist friends into the early hours of meditation. I miss the gongs that beckon. I grew up to recognize the sounds that raised our consciousness into an internal state of refuge beyond our mundane concerns of day to day life. For these are the sounds that publicly call the populace to prayer and meditation reminding us to take a moment away from our quest for daily bread and reach within ourselves. In a world that is constantly moving at a pace that allows little time for personal introspection, I miss the daily sounds that act as a beacon for the vines of my soul, sounds that take me back to the roots of my upbringing. These are the sounds that bring forth a familiar calm, a feeling of mysterious connectedness linking me to others despite our vast differences in the complexities of our daily lives. These are the sounds that connect me to the solemn laborer with his bent back and to the woman with her gnarled hands; to the taxi driver who, in passing a church, automatically makes the sign of the cross while his fare in the back seat, twirls a string of blue worry beads between his forefinger and thumb; to the shopkeeper who takes a moment to recite verses of praise while listening to the cantor from a synagogue. I miss these sounds.
Like smells that unfold memories, the ability of sound to induce meditative states is a well known practice of thousands of years to Hindu and Buddhist, Christian and Muslim, Jewish or Shinto cultures which uses rhythmic chanting, drums, chimes, gongs, bells and repetitive verse to awaken the consciousness and revitalize the knowledge and need of prayer. In our quest for our daily bread we are often numbed by the outside world. We run to meetings, we run to leave, we buy, we sell, we negotiate and deal. As working people we have become careless with our religion, and we seem to have cut God out of our lives. And though we live in a country that allows for freedom of worship without public imposition of bells and chimes and Adham, I truly wonder whether the non exposure to sounds that remind us to respect the other man's time of worship is doing us more of a disservice by promoting a further lack of tolerance and understanding of the differing beliefs.
In our constantly moving modern world, we need some grounding. Life as we know it often catches us in a web of circular mazes. But for that brief moment when we hear the sounds that remind us to breathe... the tintinnabulation of bells, the Adham of the Imam, cantors in temples or the resonance of the gongs...it is our chance to slow down or even stop to listen, regardless of whether the bells call me or her or him to prayer. At that moment and ever so briefly, we are all being refreshed and become vessels of God.
Find that particular sound in your daily lives that will prompt you to take a moment to meditate and reflect, and for that brief moment you and I will remove ourselves from the web that robs us of our ties with God and we will find ourselves together gaining strength in our pursuit of the mundane.

This I humbly speak...

I Believe in the Basic Goodness of Man

I inadvertently posted on my blog an article written for a literary magazine. Thanks to all who brought it to my attention. Here is the actual article written for the blog.

I have faith in the basic goodness of man. I am well aware that the conflict of good and bad merge, and it is often hard to distinguish beauty and virtue and kindness and laughter from all ugliness and wickedness and hurtfulness and sadness. But I accept the imperfections of the world (not because it was created imperfect, but was made imperfect by man's complexity of behaviour) and despite man's faults, I have faith that his virtues outweigh his failings. Kindness is at the heart of my belief that people are basically good. It is the vehicle through which, in the larger struggle of good and bad, we rely on to sustain hope. Time after time, it is through kindness that we rise above trying circumstances, putting others before ourselves. Earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes and hurricanes, mudslides, rock slides, fires and floods, famine, medical aid, vaccines, shelter, illness and death...our spontaneous impulse is to lend a hand sending ripples that bring us back to that place of instinctive goodness which is deeply rooted in us from birth...a place from where we sometimes drift away until we are reminded by some misfortune or crisis to return to.
I believe that there is more good than bad in this world, despite the negative outlook of radio talk show hosts and reports in the news of wrong doings and crime. For every report of a crime, there are thousands of decent, kind and honest individuals whose good deeds do not make the news but whose goodness softens hearts. I believe there are more people in this world who wish to create than there are those who wish to destroy. Take a look around. There are tens of thousands of volunteers in every fork and bend of our lives who spend countless hours doing their level best without thanks or glory to create, to shelter, to aid, to build, to strengthen a system in a world they believe in. For each single person who refuses to feed a hungry, there are hundreds who open their doors and invite the needy to a meal. There is ready charity all around. I believe that humanity has more people who are willing to work to find solutions with the promise of hope than those who sit back and shrug their shoulders in careless negligence often giving rise to fear. Doing good becomes a struggle we all face as we acknowledge that life is painful and difficult at times. I also know that the ability to take in the beauty and goodness that surrounds me is a grace to be recognized as fortunate as the goodness itself. Goodness is soft and subtle. It can sometimes go unnoticed because it is often hidden in the beauty we take for granted. When recognized and acknowledged, it permeates whatever it comes in contact with and reminds us of our basic impulse, our natural beginnings, and of what goodness could be and should be. After all, what is the measure of a society if not how well it treats the less fortunate among its members? We become the person who behaves spontaneously with grateful goodness, thus transforming a sometimes confused and discouraged world into one strung together with obvious goodness, the mirror of compassion.

This I humbly speak...