HEART TENDERIZER

I'm having a delayed reaction to the Charleston travesty.

You know what I hate?  I hate that the shooter was welcomed into the church and participated in prayer with the people he shot.

Do you know what I love? I love that the shooter was welcomed into and participated in prayer with the people he shot.

I am a member of the Portland, Maine A.M.E Green Memorial Zion church.
I was welcomed in without question. I am welcomed in with my faith questions and dilemmas. I am gifted with the joy and love of this intimate mostly Black
church.  I am gifted with the unity of spirit in this church that goes oh-so-far beyond our individual differences, with color perhaps the least of the differences.

I know exactly who was killed as I see it through my churches eye. I see who it would have been in my AME church.
And still, my church had its prayer group the following Wednesday.
And still, it chooses to love again and again. And not easily. Not easily.

I have a bi-racial, cross-racial granddaughter.  She loves as naturally as she laughs and cries. She is two years old. 

I have had my trust broken many times and quite recently.
I'm glad I choose to trust. 
Betrayal can cause a tough heart.
Or it causes the heart to expand beyond self-love into a more universal compassion.

My heart is tender this week.  
Tender enough to believe will create more love than hate.
Tender enough to honor the Charleston Emmanuel A.M.E. church as it welcomed the stranger.
Tender enough to want to protect the innocent.
Tender enough to weep.

AWAY—AS IN NO COMPUTERLAND.

So enjoy a word break from me.
There are sooooo many words these days.
Cleanse your palate.
Back on the 29th of June.

What would happen if you limited your self to 300 words a day?

WHAT WOULD CHANGE FOR YOU?

If you never looked in a mirror again?

If you never saw another advertisement?

If you could never have duplicates of anything in your house?

If you knew everyone you interacted with was trustworthy?

If you would forgive the one person in the world you don't want to forgive?

If you spoke your truth to the one person you are furious with?

If you everyone had a set limit for "enough" but an infinity of choice within it?

If your realized that each moment is  perfect just like all the sages say it is?

If you thanked each regret for the lesson learned?

If you accepted that you are not wildly special?

If you thought enjoyment was your job.

Just thinking out loud!

BIG ADMISSION: I FORGET ABOUT NATURE

I have run away from home for a long week-end in Rangeley, Maine at our "camp". 
This is my third day here and I haven't left the house.
Now, I did need retreat.
BUT, I am surrounded by extraordinary "nature" that I can literally ENTER by taking 15 steps out of the back door of the house.
At home-home, I can be IN the ocean in ten minutes.
And I forget to do it.
I'm not propelled to be "in" nature. (Do not say this out loud in Maine)
I don't need to climb it, hike it, camp in it or any other exertion- necessary thing.
Don't get me wrong. I want it there. I love being surrounded by beauty.
Coffee is best by a stream.
A book is most enjoyable under a huge Virgin forest tree.
Being contemplative is best done on pine needles.
Looking at deer while eating oatmeal is perfection.
I write this sitting under an apple tree in order to have an Internet signal.
It's not laziness, actually.
I grew up in a steel city--Gary, Indiana. Nature was a pocket backyard.
A Bridal Wreath bush was my wildness.
My adult kids tackle nature, revel in nature, hunger for the wild.
I forget that wildness is there for my taking even while close to it.
Another habit to change.

ELIZABETH BARRET BROWNING OR DOROTHY PARKER?

I thought of both of these ladies today. 

I stepped off the world this week-end and just read and read and read.
I made coffee every once in a while, I murmured responses to my husband while not listening and put in a load of laundry periodically to assuage my guilt.
(I always resented a phrase used at my work in food retailing--"non-productive time" which was how training and learning and communicating were classified!!)
I would classify my week-end as incredibly productive in measures of
life satisfaction, desire to learn more, pleasure per hour, health restoration
and general good stuff and well-being.

Back to Liz and Dotty!
They had their individual problems, ill health and alcoholism respectively.
But here's what they had that I envied today:

Neither ran a household.
Liz was sickly.  Dotty lived in a hotel.
Both spent their time exactly as they chose.
Reading and writing and to hell with all else.
Both were feminists in work and action albeit in very different ways.
Both hung out with contemporary colleagues on a regular basis focused on common work.
Elizabeth had a very lovely true love and lived with him in Italy til her death.
And Dorothy was a "dame"--brash and funny and bold.

And they wrote well.