2021.10.31 HALLOWEEN WONDERMENTS

Whatever Hallowed Eve is, it’s at least a time to have fun, to dress up in funny or scary costumes, to say BOO, to eat mountains of Candy Corn (a horrifyingly bad candy), and most of all to laugh with and at ourselves. As the poet says, so it goes. 

HALLOWED EVENING

Do the beloved dead

come back

this night

to sit in their favorite

easy chairs

and breathe in

the earthly fragrances

they once knew

  so well?

Do we believe

that heaven is so 

ailing

that the beloved dead

would not be 

infinitely happy

there and would need

a trip back to earth

to fill their hearts?

Best allow

the commercial

takeover of this night

to erase all thoughts

of this bizarre idea,

and to enjoy the dark.

Best just open the door

and hand out candy

to kids in costumes. 

by Carole Jean Smith, poet, Watertown MA., Into The Wild

As well we should!—because, according to Western Christian tradition, the next day, November 1, is declared Holy: All Saints Day, all Hallows Day, as in “Hallowed be thy name.”  It is a day to honor all saints who are deemed to have attained heaven. Silly, right? Because who knows who is in heaven?  Sainthood is not about points for good deeds or for martyrdom, a vocation to which few are called. It is safe to assume that it is God’s gracious loving desire that everyone be heavenbound. If you want to know who a saint is, look in the mirror—and grin! 

WHO COOKS FOR YOU?

  

I call this critter a hooting owl fish. She, or he, was photographed by David Doubilet and Jennifer Hayes in Night Life for National Graphic Magazine (10/21) in the darkest night-depths of the sea.  “The only way to know which way is up is to watch which direction the bubbles are going,” Doubilet says.

HINENI   (Hebrew for "Here I am"  pron. hee-NAY-nee)  

 

Here is the latest discovery in fossildom. Years ago, with a friend at a museum of natural history, looking at fossils, my friend announced: “There are no fossils.” I did not pursue her certitude, because I knew I would get a lecture on “creationism”—the idea that God created everything fully formed, that is, no room for evolutionary processes. But this little crab defies that notion. I call her/it/them/who knows “Buster in Yellow.” They are a fossil encased in hard plastic. She says: “hineni”.

CONVERSATION WITH A WASP

In a piece by Paul Hond, Columbia Alumni/ae Magazine, Fall, 2021, he quotes Michelle Ashkin, ’04 alumna: “Then a strange thing happened. My mother and I were looking at a wasp. It cocked its head, and my mother and I just stood there. Did you see that? We moved, and the wasp followed our movement. My mother and I looked at each other, and it was an ‘aha moment’ for both of us. This is a being. This being sees us, or sees something—recognizes it, and is aware of it. How in the world were we going to kill it? We couldn’t—it became a being, not a disposable, not ‘oh, we can kill it because there are hundreds more outside. So we found a cup, captured it and let it go.' ”   

I used to do the same for ants in the city of Cambridge. Then I’d unfasten the screen and put it on the window sill where it froze until it felt safe enough to bug off on its own.  Lady bugs —family signs of new life—get to stay in residence. 

We are human beings. All Creation is shared Being. So be it. 

THE MISSING TREE

She is bent but not broken. He is weary but not tired. 

They are old and alive, missing every tiny life, animate or inanimate, 

that ever was, or is, or is to be—without regret. 

WISDOM

“Lord increase my bewilderment.” That is the entirety of this Sufi Muslim prayer. 

“Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”  Jesus, according to King James.Mt. 6:36

“Let go and let God.” Twelve Step Recovery (AA et. al.) slogan wisdom.

CRACKED CLARITY CONFUSED  

I’m going out

without a jacket

or a hat, only a mockingbird

for directions.          

Carole Jean Smith, Into the Wild. Poems in praise of the beauty of our imperiled world. 

©Lyn G. Brakeman, 2021

 

2017.05.21 The Way It Is—Words of Wisdom

     Wisdom, to me, is the fruit of much well-digested life experience combined with intellectual knowledge, the kind that comes with “school”. 

    The dictionary defines wisdom as “the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgment”. Pretty close, but I called the “good judgment” part, well-digested.

    A popular aphorism of Benjamin Franklin advises:"Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.”  For some strange reason this advice wasn’t meant for women. :0)

    The Bible calls Wisdom divine and names her Sophia (in Greek), a feminine name because Wisdom is portrayed in biblical Wisdom literature as a woman, her shadowy counterpart named Folly.

    In the Book of Proverbs, it is written that Wisdom as a child was present with God from the beginning when God created the world. Then again in Proverbs (1ff), a much-neglected yet often taken literally and over-quoted, book, it is written (paraphrased):
    “Wisdom has build her house. She has set her table. . . .  She calls: ‘Come, eat of my bread, and drink of the wine I have mixed. Lay aside immaturity. Live, and walk in the way of insight.’”  

A biblical scholar once proffered this as a good invitation to the table of Holy Communion. We took him up on the idea and used it in a former parish.

"Groves of redwoods . . .are often compared to the naves of great cathedrals: the silence; the green, filtered, numinous light. A single banyan, each with its multitude of trunks, is like a temple or mosque—a living colonnade. But the metaphor should be the other way around. The cathedrals and mosques emulate the trees. The trees are innately holy."  Colin Tudge, "The Secret of Trees"



Socrates, a wise thinker in ancient times, said. “Wisdom begins in wonder.” If I were delivering a  commencement I would use this wisdom, elaborate very little and dismiss the grads with this advice: Whatever you do, always remember to wonder—and too, allow yourself to be wonderstruck.


American Poet Laureate, William Stafford (1914-1993) offers a recipe for daily life wisdom.

There’s a straw you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the straw.

Personal wisdom: Whatever comes your way in life is an opportunity to enhance or impede the flow of divine Love. That's ministry. That’s my “straw.”

Madame Owl sits among trees, observes, and wonders.