Freckles

July 13, 2009

Conduct your blooming in the noise and the whip of the whirlwind. It's the last time we'll be here. And although there is much work to be done and I'll try my best to do it, I still believe in chocolate cake and sunshine. Gwendolyn Brooks

'Tis a gift to be simple. 'Tis a gift to be free. Elder Joseph

Rumi, when dancing, was called to prayer, and he answered, "I am already praying."

In the perfume shop show window was a large jar of freckle salve, and beside the jar was a sign, which read: DO YOU SUFFER FROM FRECKLES?
"What does the sign say?" ask Pippi Longstocking. She couldn't read very well because she didn't want to go to school as other children did.
"It says, 'Do you suffer from freckles?'" said Annika.
"Does it indeed?" said Pippi thoughtfully. "Well, a civil question deserves a civil answer. Let's go in."
She opened the door and entered the shop, closely followed by Tommy and Annika. An elderly lady stood back of the counter. Pippi went right up to her. "No!" she said decidedly.
"What is it you want?" asked the lady.
"No," said Pippi once more.
"I don't understand what you mean," said the lady.
"No, I don't suffer from freckles," said Pippi.
Then the lady understood, but she took one look at Pippi and burst out, "But, my dear child, your whole face is covered with freckles!"
"I know it," said Pippi, "but I don't suffer from them. I love them. Good morning."
She turned to leave, but when she got to the door she looked back and cried, "But if you should happen to get in any salve that gives people more freckles, then you can send me seven or eight jars."
(Pippi Goes on Board, Astrid Lindgren)

When Ellen Meloy's younger brother painted Jesus' face purple as a youngster in Sunday School, he learned three lessons quickly: one, there are a few Sunday School teachers who need more roughage in their diet. Two, freckles of any kind are frowned upon. And three, Jesus can never be purple.

So sometime, at a young age, we create filters that tell us how to pick and choose.
This is sacred, that is secular.
This is beautiful, that is ugly.
This is valuable, that is worthless.
This is meaningful or useful, that is wasteful or lavish.
This is spiritual, that is purple (and therefore definitely not spiritual).

It is a way of compartmentalizing life. In an odd way, we rob ourselves (putting our mind through the paces, "Am I supposed to be enjoying this?"). It operates like some kind of governor on our capacity to experience delight.

We, like Pipi, are invited to live in split world.

In the world of golf, we get too technical. So focused on what is "correct," we forget to "just swing." And, in the words of Bagger Vance, we lose "the true authentic swing in all of us."

In the world of gardening, we see only the glaring blunders. They cannot be enjoyed until they are fixed.
It reminds me of the story about a man so proud of his garden. He showed a friend, "See, look at my garden!"
The friend stood incredulous, "But there are no flowers, no plants."
"Oh," the man responded, "but of course there aren't any. But look! There are no weeds!"

Yes, we eliminate the freckles. And we also remove what is unique or original or passionate or zealous or sacred or questioning or inimitable or idiosyncratic or authentic or particular or unorthodox or even heretical.

Pipi can be our teacher today. We need only the permission to see.
--Freckles can be beauty marks.
--Ordinary days and events and conversations, are containers of grace. What Huston Smith called "grace notes."
--The best things in life are nearest: Breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of right just before you. Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life's plain, common work as it comes, certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things in life. (Robert Louis Stevenson)

Henry David Thoreau understood this. An entry from May, 1852, "Evening. Moon not up. The dream frog's is such a sound as you can make with a quill on water, a bubbling sound. There goes a shooting star down towards the horizon, like a rocket, appearing to describe a curve. The water sleeps with stars in its bosom."

The air around our Island is humid today. That is very unusual. Last night, almost sticky hot. (A Seattle person complaining of heat is a lot like a cruise passenger complaining about the limited supply of cake at the midnight buffet, both grumbles falling on deaf ears.) All day thunder rumbles through our sky. And although it is early afternoon, the light is end-of-day, the kind that renders everything and all colors more substantial, lasting and eternal. The Clematis scrambling over the archway that enters our food garden is in bloom. Stops you in your tracks. The flowers, a majestic, ceremonial, regal---you guessed it---life-giving PURPLE.

Let yourself get shaken up. What are you willing to give up to ensure your own unfolding, and the unfolding of what is holy in your life? Where you stumble, here is your treasure. Joseph Campbell

Yesterday was the birthday of Henry David Thoreau, born 1817. "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."

Poems / Prayers

Rose Garden, Summer Solstice
Everyone here believes that the roses
are blooming only for them, there where the air
by the formal beds is layered with the scent
of roses. From deep in their flushed and darkening hearts
pour odors of lemons and pepper, apricots, honey,
vanilla and myrrh and musk and semen, apples and quince,
raspberries and wine and ocean, the faint
scent of blood and the fragrance of death and the breath
of the life we are living now, in this place
where the roses are blooming for each of us, alone.
Carolyn Miller (Light, Moving. © Sixteen Rivers Press, 2009)

Praying
It doesn't have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch
a few words together and don't try
to make them elaborate, this isn't
a contest but the doorway
into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.
Mary Oliver

Here is our prayer.
Simple Gifts
'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free,
'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
When true simplicity is gain'd,
To bow and to bend we shan't be asham'd,
To turn, turn will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning we come out right.
Elder Joseph (Shaker community in Alfred, Maine, 1848)

News and Notes

Josh Groben's Thankful
www.youtube.Groben

Photographer Jim Crotty presents "Simple Gifts," set to the classic Shaker traditional performed by Yo-Yo Ma and Alison Krauss.
www.youtube.simple/photos

Young girl playing the piano, 'Tis a gift to be simple.
www.youtube.piano

Listen to a sunrise.
www.youtube.sunrise

Marilyn Horne singing "Simple Gifts" by Aaron Copland; Carnegie Hall Centennial Gala, 1991
www.youtube.Horne

Look for Terry's new book,
The Power of Pause: becoming more by doing less,
available soon.
loyolapress.terryhershey

Sabbath Moments:
To See God In All Things

Born To Dance:
Live life fully from the inside out

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