Poet, Author, Composer....
“Just Jesus” by Walter Wink
Just Jesus – by Walter Wink
The book I’m most recently talking about is Just Jesus—My Struggle To Become Human by Walter Wink. I knew Walter Wink and his wife June Keener-Wink and in fact did a five-day workshop with both of them in 1994 at Auburn Theological Seminary in New York City. Walter died in May of 2012, and this, his last book, was released in January of 2014.
I’ve read it twice and am not done with it yet. It has a hold on me. It’s written in 67 short vignettes, some as brief as part of a page, and some as long as seven pages. They stand alone and yet, as a collection they also stand together.
In my first reading, I read slowly, one vignette a day—partly because I wanted to think about it, and partly because I didn’t want it to come to an end. The different parts of his life shine through this book—Walter Wink as scholar and theologian; Walter Wink as peace and social activist; Walter Wink as human being; and Walter Wink as a person who is dying.
It feels to me as if he has left a manuscript for us to read that encourages me to keep trying to be an authentic human being and at the same time lets me know that there is grace abundant and I don’t need to pound every day senseless in trying.
Read it – see what he says to you.
Peace In Your Day
Peace in Your Day—–And Mine
I was on my way somewhere in the car and was at a stop sign. The light was red. I was going to go straight and the car facing me on the other side was going to turn left, so I had the right-of-way. The light changed, I started forward slowly, and she whipped in front of me.
I stopped and said out loud—”My turn, really,” then smiled at the rear of her car steaming down the road “Peace in your day.” I went forward and as I continued to smile to myself, I thought “And peace in my day, too.”
I thought it was a learning—to let the irritation roll off my back, and I also thought, “Oh, I can post this.”
A few weeks later I went to a meeting, and got majorly bent out of shape. I stewed for a couple of days, and then my story of “peace in your day” came floating back to me. And now I thought “Whew! How much easier it is to wish the peace with a stranger—than it is in the middle of a meeting with people I see again and again.”
AND how elusive the peace for myself then is. In the long run, it wasn’t an earth-shaking thing to be upset about, plus it wasn’t worth a few days of stewing. It’s a double learning. Sit there at the stoplight. As she turns in front of you, say the words—it really was my turn—and then follow it, follow it each time with: peace in your day. Do it at the stop light and do it in the meeting and do it in all those places where the reaction bubbles up.
Peace in your day. And peace in my day. Really!
Ash Wednesday—A Beginning
Ash Wednesday—A Beginning
Ash Wednesday this year is a special beginning. I have anticipated it for several weeks now, and it is here. Many in our church are using the book A Place at the Table—40 Days of Solidarity with the Poor by Chris Seay. Each day has a meditation, a prayer and a brief paragraph about some specific person in some specific part of the world. Already it is meaningful to me.
My plan for this Lent involves a different kind of fast. I will eat three meals a day—period. No snacking, nothing in between meals—just three meals a day. For a dedicated snacker, this is not easy. At the same time I am already aware that my three meals a day is much, much more than many people have. The person in the book that was highlighted today is from Uganda and her staple foods are corn, beans, and cassava. I realize how privileged I am when I say I will eat three meals a day.
(My three meals also include no dessert. That’s not so much a part of Lent as it is my post-cancer routine of stopping eating refined white sugar, maple syrup., etc. But that whole program can be part of another post.)
On my bedroom dresser I have a beautiful bowl filled with 2013’s Christmas cards. The other part of my plan involves taking one card each day and either calling that person or writing them a letter. I’m looking forward to that too.
So Lent has begun. I hope you have a plan too.
Lift Up Your Heart
369. Lift Up Your Heart
I had lunch this week with my friend Dan Bottorff. He told me parts of the following and then I asked him to write it out for this post.
Dan said: My story began with admonitions from my parents, “Stand up straight and put your shoulders back.” My brother actually had to wear a shoulder harness that required him to keep his shoulders back. “Slumping” was not well thought of in our family. In the military (I understand although I was never in the military) the drill sergeants’ command for attention includes, “Chest out, gut in!”
Both approaches designate one as a slouch and demand that one look better, e.g. “Take pride in your appearance.”
In yoga class my instructor frequently guided us to “lift up your hearts,” which entails expanding one’s chest and lifting it. The posture is remarkably similar to the previously described postures–stomach in and shoulders back, but the point is different. Lifting up one’s heart involves expanding one’s breathing capacity and emphasizes the seat of one’s intentions–the heart.
The communion liturgy invites us to “lift up your hearts,” with the response, “We lift them up to the Lord.” Here is the yoga invitation with an added dimension of relationship with divinity, “the Lord.” It is not a prideful stance with “puffed out chest,” but an invitation to affirm one’s self as one of the Lord’s own–loved, called, and present.
And now I add to Dan’s story: I went home Wednesday and throughout the rest of that day and continuing to other days, I found myself saying occasionally “Lift up your heart.” I change my posture, I breathe and smile, and most times it changes the mood of the moment.
So try it—Lift up your heart.
Yeah!
368. Yeah!
I recently had a return of breast cancer after ten years of remission. I scheduled surgery and had an interesting happening as I headed through the days before the actual surgery date.
During my first bout of cancer, I had determined to do a number of alternative things in addition to the medical model and one of them was to have a positive outlook. I felt that way the second time too.
But the reality was that I also recognized that things happen in surgery. Something can happen with the anesthesia. I probably don’t even know all the possibilities of things that can happen, but there just was a general recognition on my part that things happen and occasionally someone who goes in for surgery, dies there.
I didn’t obsess about this. I didn’t spent vast amounts of time on it. I just recognized within myself that it could in fact happen. I decided that if it did happen, well I have a strong faith and believe that it’s not so much a death as it is a transition and I could do that.
As the surgery date grew closer I also recognized the things that I had hoped to get caught up and didn’t, and if I died, what a mess that would be for my children. Oh well…what didn’t get done didn’t get done.
And then the date came. Since we had to be at the hospital at 7am, and were about an hour or so away, we booked a hotel that was seven minutes a way and two of my daughters and I spent the evening at the hotel. The morning of surgery dawned. And things began to click—you’re checked in, you had one procedure done, you get ready for the surgery itself, they call your daughters back in the room where you are waiting, there is a delay and you chit-chat for 45 minutes.
I told them, “As I leave on this stretcher I’m going to say ‘8—16—2.’” They said, “What does that mean?” And I said, “That’s my family—remember I love them—four children and their partners is the eight; sixteen grandchildren is the sixteen; and my former husband and his wife are the two.” They laughed.
The nurse came and said, “We’re ready.” I smiled at those daughters and said, “8—16—2.” They said, “O.K.” and off we went. I woke up in recovery and felt good. So good that as we left the recovery area, one daughter said, “Do you want to go home, or do you want to get some lunch” I said, “Let’s go to lunch.” And off we went.
I slept well that night and as I woke up the next morning and the sun came beaming through the window, I thought—YES! I may be ready to die, but this isn’t the time. I’ve got a new day!
Yeah!
A Day with Thich Nhat Hanh
A Day with Thich Nhat Hanh
Back in June when my daughter wondered what to get me for my birthday, her 9-year-old daughter said, “Get her something on her bucket list.” Donna said, “What’s on her bucket list?” The exuberant answer was, “SEE A PUFFIN.” Well, that was not to happen on this year’s birthday but it set Donna to thinking and she knew that seeing Thich Nhat Hanh was also on my bucket list.
September 1st she and I went to Blue Cliff Monastery in New York with two thousand other people who had the same thing on their bucket lists and I saw him. I experienced him. I felt him. You see, I knew that with my poor hearing, I would not hear him but that wasn’t my main thing. There are people I have read about, or read things they’ve written, and I just want to be in the same space—to experience them.
And I did that with Thich Nhat Hanh. Chairs were set up. We were almost at the time when he should appear and slowly I became aware that people who had been sitting were now standing with their hands folded in front of them as if in prayer but also in respect. More and more people stood. I did too. And then I saw him, coming toward the auditorium, walking slowly, three or four monks behind him.
Tears came to my eyes. He was what I knew he would be. He is 86 now and I am 80—and wonder of wonders we were in the same space. He talked for almost two hours, with interruptions for stretching and moving. I could not hear him, but it was o.k. because I didn’t expect to.
He led a mindfulness walk and I watched because my 80-year-old back was obviously not in as good a shape as his 86-year-old back. Even that, watching it, was what I knew it would be. On each side of him, he held the hand of a child and he walked, calmly, with mindfulness.
He spreads peace – by being peace. I’m glad I was there.
A Year In A Minute
365. A Year in a Minute
Almost a month ago I wrote about the length of a minute—and how it’s longer than you think. It may be true also of days and years. Today marks the end of my posting every day for a year. It doesn’t seem that long ago when I started. And yet there were times when I was saying to myself, “How long is this going to go on? And what in the world will I post for today?” But it did go on and my 80th year has passed. I have posted my stories, my songs, my poems, my opinions, and it has been richness for me, remembering them all.
And surprise! Here’s another day and the beginning of more—the start to my 81st year. The shift was seamless and one more day is wonder-filled. Nothing is the end and nothing is the beginning – it just is!
—
there was an old woman
who lived in her space
and skittered through clouds
to just look around
she laughed at convention
and cried at the war
and saved little stories to
explain her one life
A Friend and Fear
364. A Friend and Fear
I had lunch with a friend this week and we talked about one of my fears. And then there was a moment of silence and he asked, “How does your faith in God fit with your fear?” I think I brushed the question off, but it stayed with me anyway. I wasn’t looking for a trite answer. Instead, my self seemed to turn the question over and over, having it pop up as I drove somewhere, finding it among the pages of a book I was reading, and seeing it emerge from the soapy dish water as I washed the cups and bowls from the day. “How does your faith in God fit with your fear?”
It’s interesting to me that on that lunch day, with that friend, talking about my fear affected my fear. It made it less. Even the question of faith and God made it less. My faith has been an often-changing thing but also an absolutely-constant reality. When I was two I stood in front of the church and sang, “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so, Little ones to him belong, They are weak but he is strong. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. The Bible tells me so.” And that recitation—typing those words—reading them aloud as I type—that makes the fear less too.
There’s a song in the Faith We Sing hymnal titled “Grace Alone.” It’s one of my favorites because it reminds me each time I sing it or read it through what the truth is. You see when I have a powerful day and I get a lot done; or when I have a day when I create a song or a poem and it is so exciting; or when I have a day when my relationships with daughters and my son, or with grandchildren are all crackling with closeness and wonder; most of the time I take credit for that. And the song reminds me that it is grace—it is God working in me—that helps those times to happen.
And I’m thinking right now that God and grace are with me all the time and when the fear takes over, part of the answer for me is to take a deep yoga breath and feel the God, feel the grace, and know that never am I alone. The chorus of the song says, “Grace alone which God supplies, strength unknown God will provide. Christ in us, our cornerstone; we will go forth in grace alone.”
So—how does your faith in God fit with your fear? I’ve got a good start now on answering that question.
Ha Long Bay
363. Ha Long Bay
I have three pictures of Ha Long Bay in Vietnam. One is a picture on rice paper, purchased in Hanoi. One is an embroidery picture, made and sold by the woman who cooked a six-course dinner on a small boat for us as we toured through parts of Ha Long Bay. And the third is the photo I took there. Ha Long Bay is in the Gulf of Tonkin and it includes some 1,600 islands and islets with amazing limestone pillars.
The picture I took is the one that brings back to me the mystery of this bay. Sometimes there was a hush as we moved silently, threading through the islands. I look at these pictures daily and lately they have had a connection for me of the mystery of death and of my own dying. I don’t anticipate that happening soon but as I approach my 80th birthday, it’s at least on a corner of the screen.
I do not see darkness or foreboding. As I look at the photo I see mystery and the beauty of it all. I see slipping around one of those islands where you can’t see me and my boat anymore but you know that I’m just around the corner.
I don’t know details about death. But I have beliefs about death. I think the spirit goes on. I sat with my Mother when she died. It’s not frightening. It’s gentle. It is purely a transition. And it’s going to be o.k.
Ha Long Bay tells me that and I trust.
New Release!!
Daybook of Personal Faith
Mama and Me
