God As Hummingbird

I read the Bible. I also read Jacob Glass and have gotten into the custom of throwing Native American Animal Medicine Cards (shockingly similar to Tarot cards but calling on the symbolism of animals, as the native tribes viewed their godliness.) Today I pulled the Hummingbird card for the second time in about a week. I have come to see that when I pull the same card over and over it means something. God is really clearing Her throat loudly, tapping Her toe and maybe even waving Her arms at me....
                                                                                


Hummingbird awakens the flowers, regenerates, and passes around the love. She can fly in all directions, upside down, backwards, even hover in mid-air. She is different from the other birds. Hummingbird conjurs love and opens the heart...brings others together, and instinctively seeks beauty, but She flies away hastily from discord, ugliness, and harshness. If She is caged or imprisoned, she will die. To embrace Hummingbird medicine, we are called (as I was this morning) to drop judgement, avoid the nasties, and be renewed by living. I got that, it applies to where I am in my life right now, so much so, I felt a little "ping" as the puzzle piece fell into place.

 You only have to tell me twice, I get it....Thank you God.

                                         

So, I read John 2:12-20 The Temple story. When Jesus went into the Temple he saw animals milling about, being sold, money changers, people conducting business. It was noisy and messy and smelly and probably pretty fun and colorful. It was not evil or mayhem. These people were not gangsters or even republicans... They were not killing each other, raping women, beating anyone up. It was just people going about their daily life, trying to prosper, progress, create some product. Survive, for goodness sake! It is what we all do, everyday, almost all day long. We try to bargain and be productive under our own will. Isn't that the sum total of most of our days? when I am anxious or lost (which now is a daily occurance), I try to get organized in my life. I clean, finish projects...I get busy. It seems to help...it is very filling like a big hamburger, yet it leaves an emptiness all around.

It is so empty and so full all at the same time.

Jesus was making a whip-lashing; temper-fit-throwing point of saying something more than just not to let the livestock shit in the church....and not because God wants purple curtains and a red velvet rope.....................

                        

And by the way, a Temple is not only a marble structure built to worship the divine; it is also a place on either side of my eyes.

                                      


He might have been saying something a little more subtle...whip and all....saying that life is noisy and humans are so busy and lost and scared and ant-like in our daily routines. We just are such an noisy, busy tribe......maybe not with bad intentions.....but we get so loud that we cannot hear......saying that SOMEPLACES are SACRED and they need to be.....

Chorded off
Reserved
Swept clean
Polished
Incented
Sanctified
Blessed and
Shoooshed......

They need to kept Holy.

Holy in the sense of open, clear, quiet, receptive, tender, serene, still, aware, expansive, limber, and ready.

                                                        A womb preparing for birth.

 Take off your shoes, said John the Baptist, we are all walking on Holy Ground, and this ground is between your temples.

Keeping a Holy state of mind invites the Hummingbird God to come; because she is a shy and elusive Little Girl. Her utterances are quiet and steady, like a hum, but terribly strong, energetic, and delicate. She is easily shooed away by the prattle of the human mind; by judgement, harshness, and most especially my own hysterical mind.



But God's humming wants to be heard. Wants to drink from me and pass the pollen on and regenerate the world.....

                                                   One hysterical woman at a time.

God wants to sip, spin, and hover all over us flowers and JESUS KNEW THAT. There are no exquisite Hummers at the Mall.
                                             
                                                   What a delicate, lovely God we have.



Jesus was trying to say (maybe) that the quiet presence of God may be easier to receive in a quiet, present mind, or in a quiet temple in a quiet place in the world. Mine is on my backporch, or pretty much any time I am outside looking up at the stars.

I want a quiet Temple, I want Hummingbird to come live with me. Jesus wants that for all of us.

My (Reluctant) Messiah

John 2:1

Jesus Changes Water Into Wine

2 On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, 2 and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding.3 When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.”

4 “Woman,[a] why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.”

5 His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

6 Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons.[b]

7 Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water”; so they filled them to the brim.

8 Then he told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.”

They did so, 9 and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside10 and said, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.”

11 What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

12 After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother and brothers and his disciples. There they stayed for a few days.

     

"MY HOUR HAS NOT YET COME"

     It occurred to me reading John 2:1- 2:11 this morning that Jesus was not all-knowing and all-seeing. He missed things. In that moment, there, enjoying the party, visiting with friends; relaxing maybe..... He doubted Himself. He doubted God. He was, at times, misguided in his feelings and instincts, just like me. How can this be? What a heretical thought.

     John tells us this is Christ's first miracle. He turned water to wine. This was not allegory or metaphor, this was a full-out, in-your-face, mind-blowing miracle. The real stuff. John wants us to understand that Jesus was not an imitator, a fad, a Johnny-Come-Lately traveling preacher.....Powerful, powerful stuff.

     But what I read today struck me as off-putting in a sense.

What preceded one of the most inexplicably amazing events in human history was a mistake; a miscalculation, by the Lord Jesus Christ. (Don't gasp, it's really ok). When his Momma told him there was no more wine and then badgered him to fix the problem, this is what he said, according to John, who, by the way, actually walked with Jesus and knew him personally:

"Dear Woman, why do you involve me? My time has not yet come."

     

     What does this tell me about Him? Did He have a different time line for revealing Himself? Was he enjoying a little buzz and didn't want to face the reality of his coming task? Was he scared and uncertain about what he was supposed to do, or was God being very quiet, as He sometimes is when I am in need? Did he doubt himself; was he annoyed at Mary's demands?

     Whatever His motive, it is seemingly clear that He did not intend or plan to perform a miracle that night. He gave into his Mother.

     This is what I love about Christ. He was not God, exactly. He was a man, but not exactly. He may have possessed the powers of God (as perhaps we all do, droned out by the buzzing of the bees in our worried minds), but He had a very human heart. A frail, uncertain, wistful, reluctant human heart......cloaked in a great Mind.

     Wrought with uncertainty, insecurity, a drop of weariness, even hesitance...doubt....He struggled to understand what God wanted Him to do. And sometimes he missed the mark....

     I am not horrified by this tenderness; this humanity; I am tremendously reassured.

    If precious, loving, courageous, lonely Jesus had moments of uncertainty and confusion (and the loneliness that plagues us in the silence of God), than perhaps my own delusions, miscalculations, and simple blunders are not so bad after all.

Contemplating The Lord's Prayer on Christmas Night

Ten years ago, I saw this "light pillar"  as I read the book of John from my little travel Bible in a cozy cabin in Colorado. I had never seen a light pillar, and had to do some research to find out that this is a natural phenomenon that requires clouds and special angles and....all that scientific stuff. This one seemed to appear in an unobstructed, cloudless sky at dawn.  I promise this photo is unedited and completely real. I can still feel the thunderous pumping of my heart as I gazed at this wonder through tear-filled eyes moments after reading the words...."In the beginning there was light....". This is one of the many reasons I believe in an omnipotent, love-struck, kind, approachable, humorous, delightful God. He gives me these moments as I rock along....like little bread crumbs on my meandering path through the woods of this grand life......

So tonight, alone in my little house and missing my recently scurried adult children with so much yearning that my chest literally aches, I began to think about the Lord's Prayer. I have always thought it interesting that Jesus was so specific about how to pray this prayer, even though He generally was very allegorical and metaphorical in his words. This time He said..."DO IT THIS WAY". So I went line and pondered what it meant to me...and this is what I came up with...

The Lord's Prayer                                         A Plea for Help from My Dad

Our Father, Who art in Heaven                           Dad, You smile and offer us a perfect world.
Hallowed be thy name                                       I SEE you and I am in AWE.
Thy Kingdom come                                           Love beyond imagining is within our touch, so
Thy will be done                                                Show us, teach us, give us this perfect love.
On Earth as it is in Heaven.                                Your love can change everything for us NOW.
Give us this day our daily  bread                         I’ll stop struggling to do it myself;  cause I can’t;
And forgive us our trespasses                            And I’ll stop trying to be perfect, cause I am not;
As we forgive those who trespass against us We'll love and forgive other struggling fools, and
And lead us not into temptation Calm and clear our silly, busy, human minds,
But deliver us from evil                                     So we can stop hurting ourselves and You.
For Thine is the Kingdom                                  Your Love is the solution to emptiness,
And the power                                                  And Your kind of Love is very strong.
And the glory                                                   When we finally come to You we will KNOW
For Ever and Ever, Amen.                                 Real happiness and unbelievable peace, Amen.

Jesus                                                                       A foolish girl visiting Colorado

Merry Christmas!

                                   

Fall into Texas

To fall into Texas Fall, fall into her with both feet. She isn't about grandiose colored leaves, such as the maple (except in a secret place called Lost Maples). She is not about blankets of color on the ground that must be sucked up and composted to get to the grass. She will not dazzle you with the first snow at Thanksgiving or allow you to wear those furry boots but for a few extra chilly days in February.  She comes with a first slight norther or a good rain storm from the Gulf.

Texas reserves her Autumn beauty for the hiker....the one who gets off the road and steps away from easy sight seeing and into a true cross-country slog, through brambles and poison ivy, and knee hi King Ranch grass....but Fall in Texas is marked by something unique....




Something interesting. She comes with a sigh of relief that the interminable heat of Summer has eased and the trees and grass can actually perk up a bit. The grass gets greener in the Fall here, more bright, as if to steal a moment of attention before the frost.




Leaves have color here, but you must look close at the poison oak you avoided all year; at the Sumac and Red bud that hide way across the hill and appear as gold mittens waving at you in the breeze. Tiny heart shaped red leaves hug the edge of savanna grass, ant trails around them. Spanish Oak perhaps are the most traditional color, but even they are gnarled and stunted by the drought and rocky soil from which they cling to life.



 Look for mushrooms  and lichens, cause they are rare except in the Fall....They appear suddenly after a rain and when the night temperature drops to goose-pimple levels.....

I can recommend this. Put on your dirty boots and some jeans. A big sweat shirt and bring you phone for pictures. It is best to be a little depressed or blue about something as you walk out of your door and into a Texas Fall. Begin there, and stay off the regular trails.

And remember that a slightly veiled beauty is the beauty-est.....

I wrote this a couple of years ago in the winter. Since it was 102 yesterday, it was a salve to go back and read some of what my mind was cooking with the air was cooler....

February 1, 2012 (dead of Winter, Texas style)

55 degrees and foggy-at least a dozen coyotes are howling and barking just across the river in the light of a full moon. Eerie and wonderful. I lay here wondering if my grandchildren who are still dancing around in heaven as we speak, will have the privilege of hearing these wild dogs in the wild Texas night?

I'll tell you, whoever you are that might be digging through the endless volumes I have written and have somehow lit upon this passage, I'll tell you this....

Sometimes the only door I can find is to write; to bear down into what laden my heart in bondage and just write.

Who the hell knows what any of this means; this one life; this brief flash that is MY life. Solomon had it SO right...."Nothing means anything". I have spent so many days trying to dig out the meaning of it all...find the root of the root and the core of the core. I have howled at life just like those dogs are baying. Tipped my head back and sent the heavens my screeching from the pit of my stomach and the bottom of my feet. Nosed around in the ground of it; brushed against every tree and rock that was my search for meaning. When meaning came, it was in a glimpse or a soft murmur; no trumpets or huge flashes of truth, but instead riddle after absurd, crazy riddle. Usually my only confirmation of having found another clue was a rush of odd knowing. A long exhale.

In the meantime life has happened; the years have fallen away like leaves in the wind.

If this were it, if I finished this last page and laid my old head down to die, what parts of my life would I gather up in my heart and pronounce significant? What memories would I take in my one-allowed carry on?

     A sunset on my bike on Arcadia Loop as I rode to get a coke and a bag of salted peanuts alone when I was 12.
     Swimming in the rapids below my house: floating there on my back, with only my nose above water, the swirls of water obscuring my vision.
     Dancing close under the stars and strands of lights swaying in the Texas summer breeze with a sweet cowboy.
     Holding Benjie, and later Bailey, and Ollie, and Henry when I was so lonely my very heart threatened to burst.
     Listening to Emmylou belt out TULSA QUEEN, feeling the chills run through me like an electric current.
     Every vista I saw when I topped a hill on a hike.

    

     That sudden pierce of wonder when I looked at a new piece of art and was again amazed that someone actually thought to do that!
     Holding my Master's Degree in my hand and rereading it so many times because I just couldn't believe I did it.
     The rhythmic sound of my scuba regulator, as I sucked cold, dry air into my lungs gliding in deep places.
     My husband's golden skin and perfect arms.
     How every single thing in my life changed the moment I held Chris for the first time.
     The little mole on his bald head.

     Feeling Mackenzie move inside me for the first time, then move in synchrony with me for 5 more months. The utter synchrony of us.
     The absolute selfish hunger I felt when Ian and I had our days alone together, little fists full of feathers, rocks, and other magical treasures. His deep sleepy hugs.
      Being a Mother and a wife.
     Those moments doing therapy when I knew YOU were leading me, compelling me to speak, or be silent.
      Moments of seeing change.
    



       Birds       
      Really seeing them.



     Kayaking.
     Music. And the sharing of it with other mystics; feeling the truth of GOD in it.
     Em-my soul companion, sister, friend.
     Thinking a new thought and marinating in the vast notions of science, philosophy and literature.     
     Falling in love again and again with authors, poets, artists and rebels.
    Poetry that always pierced me with the knowledge of eternal humanity.
     Pitching my head back in laughter with Irene, Sandra, Sonny, Nita, and my kids.
     Feeling focused when I am creating.
    



     Loving someone, felling that moment of being loved too.

    

Dear God,

I've been moving around this planet for 56 years; an ant among ants, one little cell in the body Earth; a single part and player....your child.

Last week, I went to the hospital and had my uterus removed; They just went in there with Star Wars robotic arms and evicted her. It was such an odd and inhospitable thing for a hospital to do; yet it had to be.

I woke up at 4am the morning of the surgery, heavy with the realization of it. Steeped in wondering and a little worry, I went to the bathroom and stood naked in front of the mirror one more time. I took a good long time and was fairly transfixed by the honest accounting. There she was, my  sweet, old body; better preserved than some, a lot more worn than many, I suspect. Gravity was evident, but I still had some brazen tan lines and if I squinted, I didn't look as old as all that....

There she was....my soul's vessel,  vehicle,  cup. I thought as I looked, "This will be the last few hours I will move whole and un-blemished," without a mark from the the "living" which has been done.

Not true though.

I began to see it. My C section scar-where Chris came wriggling and stretching into the world. It looked like a small "eternally knowing" smile. Looking on that scar, I was transported back to the moment they laid him in my shaking arms and I fell in love with him. It seems to say to me now, "See? wasn't having that boy a great idea?"

A broken fingertip from carrying cardboard boxes full of Lunchables up the stairs on Mackenzie's 5th grade field trip; I remember my finger throbbed all night, which allowed me to sit up in bed and notice how exquisitely beautiful she was as she laid there next to me in that hotel room, caramel-colored hair splayed across her pillow....

Little white scars on my shins that have always looked like tiny minnows underwater. Many times perch have tried to nibble them as I snorkeled. These were proudly attained when my brother Sonny and I played "Chicken" involving sharpened bamboo spears, and one still unsettling incident with a Black Cat firecracker and a coke bottle.

He also broke my nose when I was 11, which doesn't show, but is great fun to remind him of every time we drink together.....

And there is the grand scar on my knee from the day when a skinny 8 year old girl thought it would be interesting to try to shave her legs with Dad's wood plane. I didn't have a speck of hair on my legs, so I have no idea why I wanted to do that.

All of these little tattoos are snapshots of a life lived. All are moments of love and remembrance. All are precious to me. In that naked-in-front-of-the-mirror moment I was reminded by you, God, that I do love my body. It is a great and wondrously-made thing. She has run me 1000's of miles up and down my ranch road by now, past cows and coyotes and rabbits and cedar trees; carried me all about the world, to God-knows-where-all with so many people that I love so well.

She has been a trooper. A good soldier.

I love this particular body; it suits me. I am tall,  allowing me to throw back my shoulders brazenly, when in reality, I was withering with grief and uncertainty inside from some life tragedy.

I have strong legs and hips, which means I was good for having three beautiful babies....and my boobs are not too big.....a blessing and curse, I guess.

Thank you God for these old hands that have so often held another's;
touched babies' cheeks;
held paintbrushes;
examined trees and rocks, puppies and books;
seashells and insects;

For my eyes that have gazed upwards at cathedrals and art;
mountains and comets;
Looked down lovingly on tear-stained cheeks, and 4th grade essays;
They've seen so many, many beautiful things,
and keenly spotted a sticker that needed to be removed from a little pink foot.






I appreciate my ears, by the way.
As  Kurt Vonnegut said, " Music is all the proof I need of a loving God."
But also because I can hear the sighs of my dogs, and even the almost inaudible nuances of
love, pain, fear, and joy in the people I love.





And thank you God for my mind;
for the ceaseless wondering and thinking I have done.......

For every time my head pitched back in laughter at something absurd and irreverent.

For my exceptional imagination and desire that has helped me (sometimes) lose (and always) rediscover You.

In front of this mirror naked, tummy pooching a little, my vanity does sting. Its easy to want my body whole, young, beautiful, unblemished again, but if life has taught me anything, it has taught me this.....there is always some better thing ahead.  You do seem to have given me a great conciliation prize. You have given me another person with whom to cross this new threshold.

I get to feel another set of arms around me besides my own strong ones; another voice in the dark when I am scared. My body rests a bit knowing finally there is someone else there who can share the load that living inevitably offers.

And on this thought I found I could rest a bit.

Mothers Day and the Big Bang

Since college, I have subscribed to Scientific American. I know why. This is a periodical that is not like other magazines, covering Quasars rather than quick meals....Dark Matter instead of dating tips. Don't be too impressed with me. It is not out of some elevated intellect or grasp of complex scientific systems although the layers and layers of mystery in science and astronomy have always been fascinating to me.

No, it is about my Mother.  With Mother's Day coming, I have been thinking about her, and about the dog-eared magazine that I keep near my bath tub for my morning soaks. It is about freedom and choice, and how we defy our own limits. It is about what she taught me.

Like the night sky, it is all about the vastness of things.

I just finished an article called "Cosmic Dawn" in the April 2014 edition. Remarkably, it seems that our lovely universe, which banged into existence 4.2 billion years ago in fire and light and incredible power....suddenly went completely dark after only 400,000 years.....but just briefly.

In other words, the Cosmos took a short nap; just closed her eyes and dozed off for a 100,000 million years. Scientifically speaking, things had to cool down enough for hydrogen atoms to be able to form...they are like ice cream cones...they don't thrive in heat. With the hydrogen ice cream cones came cool, misty, darkness.

It was the long breath before the plunge, as Gandalf said...just imagine all that heat and fury suddenly going silent, dark, still. The dragon went to sleep and stopped roaring.

Gradually little stars began to form that began gobbling up the hydrogen (reionize) and the birth of our Cosmos resumed. You know the rest of the story....and it is a wonderful story indeed. The biggness of the Universe, the time frames, the power and force of destructiveness of creation becomes the picture frame for how I live with the mystery of an unknowable-undefinable-ironically available Higher Power.


So, back to my Mother. She did not READ Cosmo; read about the Cosmos. Fist to the sky in defiance, she fed her brain these mysteries as if to say..."You cannot tell me what I can know." Of all her qualities, loveliness, femininity, dogged individualism and intellect, I loved this most about her. She didn't think like other women. She read Scientific American, Omni, and any technical journal I would throw her way during college. Once I gave her an article on Psychotherapy and Quantum theory. It would put a hyperactive boy on candy bars into a dead sleep; literally bore a person to death.

Not Mom. She called me sometime later so excited; asking all kinds of questions....intelligent, deeply insightful questions about it.

She never did that about a new casserole recipe.

I felt such a bond with her then; I was proud and I knew that we were both different from other women. I don't have many good memories about her teaching me how to cook. She never looked at my report card, or (God forbid) darkened the door of my school for any reason, in fact, she was DOA during most of my normal childhood moments..

She was not a PTA mom. She hated that shit.....

She did teach me something more important. She taught me about the nature of God.

She showed me that reading and pondering over these big, oddly satisfying ideas would always deliver me to the doorstep of God. God in the vastness of space; God the scientist, the mathematician, the dreamer of big things.

To me (and maybe to Mom) God is just saying...."SEE? Isn't this thing I am doing really cool? It's a puzzle!" Honestly, this is what I really think God is.....a giant, immensely intelligent, impossibly and wonderfully complex, ridiculously unknowable....but perhaps lonely power....yearning for us to see. Mom was a rebel about God....hated church..loved Christ....loathed typical shows of faith.....but was a staunch promoter of grasping God in the little things....bugs, birds, flowers.....night skies. Maybe God just needs us to get what is up, the clasp hands and join in the journey of wonder.

I think she was on to something with the way she was thinking.

So, Happy Mother's Day Momma. Thank you for the walks, for the talks; thank you for teaching me to rebel and to challenge what I think I should be. Thank you for never minding if a little girl, holding her hand on a walk down to the river, made endless stops to squat and watch a bug or tilt my little head backwards and gaze into the vastness of the night.......................

And see.