Poet, Author, Composer....
Use the Braille Method
143. Use the Braille Method
A few days ago I mentioned a workshop I attended with Stephen Levine. One of the wonder-filled things he said is that when it comes to our own dying or someone else who is close to us dying we are all using the Braille Method—just feeling our way along and doing the best we can.
I believe that so much. And I also believe that we use the Braille Method through parts of our life. I know that when my children were in the public schools, for the very first time I was the mother with children in the public schools. When it came to handling things, I was going on instinct. I was making quick decisions and trying to figure out how best to support my child. And it was clearly the Braille Method.
Levine writes about this in his book “Meetings at the Edge, Dialogues with the Grieving and the Dying.” And he writes, “There are no maps and there is really no doing it right. We all just do the best we can. Just feeling our way along from instant to instant, discovering what the next teaching is, what the next need is, discovering the unknown from moment to moment.”
Writing about it makes me want to read the book again—and think about death and dying, and also think about life and living, and using the Braille Method.
In Vulnerability, Take Risks
142. In Vulnerability, Take Risks
I found when I was going to clown workshops that it wasn’t easy for me to be a clown. For one thing I got comparative, convinced that others were better clowns than I was. But also there’s something mysterious about becoming another being (even a clown being). There is something transforming and very risky about putting on the white face and seeing Ann disappear.
As I did this once at the nursing home, putting on the white-face makeup in front of residents, one woman with a look of aching on her face, said to me “Oh—could I get in there too?” All that was on my face was the white—a total white face. I looked in the mirror and then at her, and said, “Oh Martha, I can hardly be in here myself.”
In the beginning of the clown movement within many of the churches, there was a process of learning how to make-up and create your distinctive clown face, and then learn a few things like juggling, and then go out to a regular place in the community as a non-speaking clown and do kind, fun, and loving things. The following day after sharing about those experiences, the assignment was to go out into the community and do the same type of kind, fun, and loving things—just in regular clothes. Guess which was harder?
In the midst of the vulnerability, somehow you decide to take risks. And for me, that’s been true in so many instances. I have gone into a woman’s prison, I have sung solos, I have dared to preach in churches, I have led a dance group, I have gone into a bank with a puppet who looks alive. And in all those instances, I was nervous and vulnerable. I usually asked myself (and still do) —what’s the worst thing that can happen?— and if I can live with that, I just go ahead, take the risk, and do it.
We Are Each In Charge
141. We Are Each In Charge
I went to a one-day 1984 workshop with Stephen and Ondrea Levine outside of Boston and one of the things Stephen Levine said was how important ti was to let the person who is dying be in charge of what they want to do and to make decisions. (I actually think that’s important most of the time, whether you are dying or not.)
The side issue to that is to not impose what I think is best on someone else. The wonderful example that he gave was of a person in a hospital who has been visited over and over by a social worker who wants the person to talk, to come to terms with dying, to…just a whole list of things.
Finally the person is ready to leave the hospital to go home and the social worker rushes out, reluctant even then to let go and says “Just a minute, I want to help.” The person turned, looked directly at the social worker and says, “I want a ride home. Can you just give me that—just a ride home?”
That example is also in Levine’s book “How Can I Help?”
I remember visiting a woman in the hospital. She was a member of the church I went to, but I didn’t know her very well. I wanted to offer to do music therapy with her—she knew I was a music therapist, and as I stood beside her bed, I said, “Is there anything I can do?” She looked at me and said, “Next time you come, could you do my nails?”
We are each in charge and it feels to me like it is a good and healthy thing when we can continue to be in charge.
Five Short Chapters
140. Five Short Chapters
I’ve been going through those folders of things to do some day and here in the middle of the storm Sandy, with the lights out and candles lit, I found this. Don’t know where I got it. Just know that I have lived it.
—
Five Short Chapters
—
Chapter 1
I walk down the street.
There’s a big hole.
I don’t see it.
I fall in.
It takes me a long time to get out.
—
Chapter 2
I walk down the street.
There’s a big hole.
I see it.
And I still fall in.
It still takes me a long time to get out.
—
Chapter 3
I walk down the street.
There’s a big hole.
I see it.
And I still fall in.
I know where I am and I get out.
—
Chapter 4
I walk down the street.
There’s a big hole.
I see the hole.
I walk around it.
—
Chapter 5
I take another street.
Procrastination Prayer for Today
139. Procrastination Prayer for Today
I have won the first place prize so, so many days for procrastination. No matter how much you do it, you have got to come in second, because I’m in first. And this is my prayer:
—
God of now—
Help me today
to not procrastinate
to not delay
to not put off
—
I write hoping
that if I write it three ways
perhaps I’ll overcome it
—
Hope
Pray
Do
—
Amen.
—
© Copyright 2011 Ann Freeman Price
Saying Grace
138. Saying Grace
I’ve just published a book titled “50 Graces to Sing to tunes you know.” Half of them are written to old folk tunes (Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush, etc.) and half of them are written to old hymn tunes (Fairest Lord Jesus, etc.). This past weekend I babysat for two of my grandchildren (ages eleven and eight) and before each meal we took turns opening the book and singing the grace that was there.
Years ago Bishop Dale White of the United Methodist Church told me that at one point in his life he sometimes skipped grace, but once he started to travel around the world and saw the poverty and war and violence in which people lived, then—then he started being consistent with saying thanks before a meal.
In the November/December 2012 issue of Spirituality Health Magazine, there is an article titled “A World of Grace,” and it talks about this ritual which exists in just about all religions and just about all over the world. I was especially moved by one that they list coming from Latin America. I’ve heard it elsewhere too and it goes: To those who have hunger, give bread. And to those who have bread, give the hunger for justice.”
The article also mentions that you can use the American Sign Language sign for Thank You—and you can do that wherever you are. Put your flat hand to your lips and then move your hand down until your palm is facing up—Thank You!
Your Standards
137. Your Standards
I have standards and sometimes they slow me down and occasionally they make me come to a complete halt. In my writing, I get stuck. I get stopped. I get trapped in mud, because of those crazy standards.
And so I was delighted a number of years ago to read “Early Morning—Remembering My Father” by Kim Stafford. I had long admired some of William Stafford’s poetry and so when I read this book by his son, I discovered that as he talked to writers or worked with writers, sometimes William Stafford said, “If you get stuck, lower your standards and keep going.”
I can do that.
Gathering the Saints
136. Gathering the Saints
Today is All Saints Day and I love the concept that on yesterday (All Hallows Eve) and I believe on today, there are more “thin” places and you can gather the saints of your life and be in touch with them.
Thich Naht Hanh in one of his many books writes about gathering those ancestors around you for prayer—introducing them to each other—and letting them join their energies with yours for praying.
Isn’t that a grand idea? I love the concept of calling out to Mother and Granny (her mother) and introducing Granny to Paul Abels (Mother already knows him), to gathering Roger Myers in with that group and he would love them each. I would call to Fran, my sister-in-law who died last year and say “Oh Fran, I have some folks I want you to know—you’re going to like them.” And then I can introduce my cousin, Norma, who died in 2003 and I would ask Norma, “Do you know what special friends your daughter Paula and I have become? Now I want you to meet a whole bunch of people I know and love.”
And they would all join with me in the prayer and energy of today. I will breathe easier and I will love more because of each of them.
Feeding Five Thousand
135. Feeding Five Thousand
I was re-reading a sermon I preached some years ago about the feeding of the five thousand. The scripture for that particular sermon was Matthew 14:13-21. And the verse that struck me then—and now was where Jesus says that the crowd doesn’t have to go away. And he says “You give them something to eat.” And the disciples say, “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.” And He said, “Bring them here to me.”
What strikes me is that so often I say “Well, I just have this…” or “You know I just have this bit of time here…” or “I can just do this one thing…” And I imagine Jesus continuing to say “Bring it here to me.”
All these excuses—all the putting down—all the evasions. I’m not being asked to be a rocket scientist. I’m being asked to bring what I have — to do the one thing — to give the amount of time I can give. Just that. And I don’t need to knock it—just offer it.
“October Mourning”
134. “October Mourning”
It’s the name of the new book by Leslea Newman—”October Mourning—A Song for Matthew Shepard.” Fourteen years ago, Matthew Shepard, a twenty-one-year old gay University of Wyoming student was beaten, tied to a fence, and left to die. Five days later Leslea Newman was the keynote speaker at the beginning of Gay Awareness Week at the university. She is an author of over sixty books for all ages, including the children’s classic, “Heather Has Two Mommies.” She has stayed in touch with the Matthew Shepard foundation and over a week ago I was privileged to hear her speak—and more than that, to meet with her and get a sense of her commitment to Erase Hate (which is what she wrote in the book I bought). Her presentation was titled “He Continues To Make a Difference: the Story of Matthew Shepard.”
There are subjects that I haven’t gotten into yet in these postings because they seem so huge and so intense—war and peace, the prison system itself, capital punishment, gay rights…. However, on the subject of gay rights, it’s much more than that. It’s recognizing the worth, the sacred worth, of each and every individual.
Years ago Paul Abels started me on this particular journey. He was the pastor at the Washington Square United Methodist Church in New York City in the Village—and he was my friend. He taught me that love is what matters and as I stood in his Greenwich Village apartment/parsonage at his union service with his partner Thom Hunt, I understood that it was love—the love that he respected in men and women, in men and men, in women and women—because it was love, and love is of God.
I have been embarrassed many times by the homophobic actions of the United Methodist Church but I continue to stay in the church, partly because of Paul. After his early retirement, and before his death in March of 1992, I asked him why he didn’t leave the church, and he answered, “Ann, the United Methodist Church may leave me, but I will not leave the United Methodist Church.” That is still true of many LGBT persons who continue to struggle within the church for recognition, for respect, for full inclusion—and while they stay, I can and will stay.
Matthew Shepard—Leslea Newman—Paul Abels—the United Methodist Church—they all end up being tied together as the struggle continues. And as surely as the moon travels across the sky, love and inclusion will win – every time.
I encourage you to get the book, “October Mourning—A Song for Matthew Shepard” by Leslea Newman. She has written poems which take you through the entire event. She writes them from the perspective of various objects—the fence he was tied to, the stars, the truck; and then from the perspective of various people—his mother, the officer of the court, the journalist; and in the end she writes a poem combining a Native American prayer, with lines from a psalm, from a Buddhist prayer, from the Jewish prayer of mourning, from the gospel of Matthew. And she weaves it all using various poetry forms and modeling after specific poems. In terms of erasing hate, the book itself is a good investment in love.
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Daybook of Personal Faith
Mama and Me
