Common Rebirth

This spring we planted a butterfly garden.  It was actually our daughter’s idea and she did all the research and planning to make sure we had the correct plants for our climate as well as the types of plants that would attract the types of butterflies she wanted.  She researched nectar plant for the butterflies and what plants would be needed to feed the caterpillars. This is her garden and rightfully so with all the work she has put into it.

She and I watched the garden all summer, anxiously anticipating the first sign of caterpillars.  All spring and summer we saw nothing, she would ask over and over when is my garden going to attract butterflies? Knowing very little about butterflies and their habits in coming to newly planted butterfly gardens, I did not have a good answer other than I don’t know we just have to keep watching.

Then the first part of the week, after an incredibly stressful and topsy-turvy weekend, I went out to the garden just to see if there were any caterpillars.  I was surprised to find our dill plants practically overflowing with caterpillars. With much excitement I called out my daughter to come see and her excitement was overflowing.

I have found myself reflecting on the arrival of these creatures right at the end of summer as we move into fall and a time of nature preparing to go dormant. When I think of caterpillars I think of butterflies and the rebirth that the caterpillar goes through to become a butterfly. 

As a Christian I equate the idea of rebirth with the season of Easter.  Having the beginning of rebirth stare me in the face in the middle of the common time of the liturgical calendar has caused me to pause. It has helped me to see that the possibility and process of rebirth is always there, no matter the season.  Just as the possibility of caterpillars and butterflies was there from the moment we planted the garden, we just had to be patient enough to wait for them.

I am also starting to realize that these moments of rebirth in the common seasons of our lives are not always large or earthshattering.  I am coming to recognize my current season of rebirth happening as I live into my commitment to creating Sabbath moments in every day of my life. 

Being mom of a child with multiple activities has me on the go.  Work as a chaplain can be intense and spirit draining, lay leadership at church comes with responsibilities of its own.  I enter into all these roles of my life willingly and with joy, but I am learning I have to take time for myself, for my relationship with God and my own souls rest.  I would love to have a day every week where I have no work to do, where I can dedicate the full day to soul rest.  In this season of life, it’s not always possible so I am learning to create Sabbath every day, the cell phone gets turned to silent by 8pm usually, I am learning to unplug from the world for a little bit each day.

It is with these small Sabbaths that I find my soul awakening to new understandings about myself. It is these small daily rebirths that build upon each other in the common time of life, creating newness or perhaps better yet a renewed self that shows up at an unexpected time, but yet just at the right time.  Just like our caterpillars, showing up right when we needed something to be excited about.

Roots

This particular contemplative reflection was inspired by the day I spent walking around Skagway, Alaska.  My Great Grandfather on my dad's side of the family spent time in Skagway before heading out on the Chilkoot Trail during the days of the Yukon Gold Rush.  We still have his diary of his days in the Yukon and I was able to read it before our trip to Alaska.  My day walking the ground he potentially could have walked got me reflecting on my own sense of rootedness and how it has developed.  

This poem seems a fitting way to end my journey back over my week in Alaska finding well established roots and creating some new ones as well.

Roots

Some have roots in place.

Some have roots in the passing of tales.

Both create a connection that draws one

Deep into a sense of belonging.

My roots come in the passing of tales.

These tales I pass on to my daughter,

Helping her to create her own roots.

These are more than stories.

They are the DNA of our family core values.

The DNA of

                     Hope

                     Faith

                     Strength

                     Risk

                     Tenacity

                     Family

It is these things that hold strong in my center.

That are my guides,

Even with out my awareness.

Having had my feet in the place of ancestors and history,

my awareness of my own rootedness dawns clearer and deeper.

With the awareness comes a settledness that I have not known before.

No more regret for rootedness of place.

Instead a prayer of thanksgiving for a rootedness that can go with me

Where ever life may take me.

A Joyful Gift

Some of the most play filled moments I have recently spent in my life was the hour I spent with a sled dog team while at a Summer Sled Dog camp in Juneau, Alaska. The dogs work hard, but more than that they love what they do. The joyful cacophony can be heard when they realize it is time to run and can only be fully appreciated in the hearing of it as they strain on their leads ready to run.  This poem is to celebrate the gift they gave me of their pure joy.

A Joyful Gift

Loud, joyful, ready.
Ready to run,
Ready to work.
Ready to take pure joy in their calling.

Eager to make a new friend,
A little girl a magnet for
the attention of sniffs and licks
and even a playful tackle.

Pure joy that is what I see.
That is what I hear.
Joy in the work of the pulling of the sled.
Joy in the freedom to run.
Joy in doing what they are made for.

I could take a lesson from them
In what it means to find pure joy
In a calling.

But for today I will simply accept their gift to me.
Of laughter.
Of play.
Of pure joy.

Renewal

Grandure and Majesty

Crisp air
              Pure
              Clean
              Cool.

Nature untouched and pure.
Cleansing me with it's beauty
The solitude feeding my soul.

I feel the grief and sadness of
Past weeks in this world
swirl away on the breeze.

I feel renewal floating into my soul.
Strong and Clean.
Much like the pure,
blue and white icebergs
floating by the ship.

These moments of solitude
helping to once again
prepare my soul to be
birthed stronger, restored.

Much like the strong, solitary glacier
That calves the iceberg-

Setting it free on it's own adventure.

The solitude will eventually set me free.
Back into the world -
But now I will be ready.

Stronger again.
Faith restored.
Whole once more.

As You Walked Away

The month of August I am going to be sharing with you my poetic reflections that came from my Sabbath time “unplugged.”  My soul burst forth blessing me with words that had been silent and missed for too long. I am sharing these words in hopes that at least some of them will bless you as the writing of them blessed me.

This first reflection comes from my experience watching my daughter walk away and join a group of boys at the youth activities on board ship. She walked away with out a backward glance or a good bye.  It was the first time she walked away into a group of boys.  She is not quite 9 and I know it was completely innocent kid friendship, but all my momma’s heart could see was those two boys with her in between them and her completely oblivious to her mom in the background.  My heart was not ready.

AS YOU WALKED AWAY

You have been my little girl for oh so long.

But today I saw a confident young lady 

beginning to blossom.

My Momma’s heart expands with pride and

constricts with a bit of panic at the same time.

I’m so not ready for this!

This next phase of your life.

But for now you are still in this place of in between

Not quite a little girl

But not fully a young lady.

You still will snuggle with me in public,

And be silly

Without a thought.

I’ll cherish this time for I know it will not last for long.

I know this because I watched you tonight walk away from me

And join that group of boys.

And as you did,

I saw you grow up just a bit more

Right before my eyes.

I barely even blinked.

I left quietly with a deep breath realizing

I’ll witness this moment of growing up

Right before my eyes

AGAIN and AGAIN.

And each time it will be hard.

And I will not be ready for it.

But I will gently blow my love and encouragement

like the wind,

Lifting your wings to help you soar.

Because as your Momma 

that is what my love for you calls me to do.

I Love You!

An "Off the Grid" Sabbath

I very recently got back from vacation, a wonderful vacation that enabled me to check an item off my bucket list. There were many things about it that was amazing, just being able to be away for a whole week and spending the time with my husband, daughter and parents to name a couple. But the most important part of the vacation for me was that I was completely unplugged.

We went on an Alaskan cruise and since I was too cheap to pay for international cell and data service for a week, it forced me to turn off the cell phone and tablet, back away from Facebook, emails and texting and essentially be unreachable for a week. It has probably been 15 years or more since I have been on a vacation like this. It really felt like going “old school” to pardon the phrase. And it was a blessing.

The blessing came from not being bombarded by words. I know that may seem strange coming from a blogger and writer, but I had become so weary of words coming at me from every side. I had become so weary of words that I had found by the first part of July that I could not even put together a decent short blog. So I took a break. But my breakthrough did not happen until I essentially turned off the world by turning off my cell phone.

Even more importantly unplugging from so many words bombarding me in a day actually helped me find my words again.  I found myself relishing in the moments found on my own, sitting on our balcony, writing page upon page in my journal. The contemplative writer and poet that had been silent for oh, so long burst forth again.

I began to experience the world in a way that I had almost forgotten how to do. I actually saw with eyes and heart as my daughter’s eyes got as big as saucers when she saw the cruise ship for the first time and experienced just how enormous it was. I felt my own inner child become practically giddy as I walked on the ship and realized my dream of cruising to Alaska; the state of my father’s birth and part of my own family history was coming to be.  And I was getting to share it with my family. I remembered how to play and dance as C dragged me down with her to where the line dancing was and I found it impossible to stand to the side and just watch her – so I danced! I remembered how to laugh at myself as I spent the week constantly turned around and getting lost on ship.  I joked that my internal GPS must have also gotten turned off when I turned off the phone.

This trip taught me to wonder and marvel once again.  Half way into the cruise, I got up very early in the morning, before 6 am. Long before my husband and child were up and met my Mom and Dad on deck. The ship was sailing into Endicott Arm, an amazing place of untouched creation.  In fact, cruise ships don’t normally get to go into Endicott Arm, but because our planed route was too dangerous as the glacier was calving (producing icebergs) we received the blessing of taking somewhat the unbeaten path. I looked out on the pure, untouched majesty of the wilderness and my breath was taken away. I whispered to my dad, “this is amazing.”

It was my dad’s reflection to me of his reaction as he watched me take my first look at the wilderness in front of me that gave me pause for thought.  He told me he was surprised by my response until he remembered that I had never seen anything like this before in my life. And in that moment I realized I was seeing and experiencing that moment as my daughter experiences much of her world – with awe and wonder and excitement of all things new and first experiences. In that moment I connected with my daughter's wonder at a wholly different level. And that connection came from my father as he shared his parental reaction with me.

And then I wondered when was the last time I had a completely new experience? Or how much have I missed lately because I have been so busy trying to capture a moment on camera, or because I “need” to respond to that one e-mail or text, or am going to check just one thing on Facebook and 10 minutes later…. How many opportunities have I missed to wonder and marvel at either for the first time or again?

I am hoping that the experience of last week is a bit of a reset for me. I hope that I can continue to be less tethered to my phone, to learn to unplug for a little bit each day. I hope to not fall into old habits of constantly being connected and instead to practice wonder, and play, and face-to-face conversation about everything and nothing. I hope to practice a bit of Sabbath every day.

I shall leave you with this as the Benediction and blessing to send you on your way:

Sail away from worry and care

Leave the world behind for a while.

Feel the breeze lift your burdens away,

The crisp salt air cleansing the soul,

Leaving room for remembering how….

                                    To play

                                    To dance

                                    To laugh

                                    To wonder

                                    To just be

The choice is yours

To be fully present to the restoration that

Can only come in completely

Stepping away into Sabbath time.

The Words Went On Vacation

Ok, it’s confession time.  I spend a fair amount of time in my life promoting self-care and keeping balance in life.  I’m sure I’ve even written about it at least once here at Chaplainhood.  But lately – like the whole last month of June it has felt like I have been going full out for the entire month.  I had way to many “irons in the fire” and did just too much just trying to survive the day, week, and month.  And now it is July 1 and I have no idea how it got here so fast.

I am tired, and every time I have sat down to write a post I get one or two sentences out and then the brain shuts down and refuses to put forth any more creativity. It seems that for now the words of my soul have decided to take a vacation. And I have finally stopped long enough to listen to the wisdom that comes in the silence of no words to write.

July is a tender month for me; it is the month of Hope’s death and each July I know I need to give an extra measure of grace to myself. And so once again I am extending a measure of grace in allowing the silence of my usual creative writing to just be what it is, silent. I have decided to let my creative writing take the vacation it has already gone on and will be taking the month of July off here at Chaplainhood.

I will be back at the writing thing again in early August with hope for a restored creative spirit. So in the mean time, May blessings surround you wherever your July journeys take you.