Back yard drama/Rodin/WTF...

My back yard abuts a freshwater marsh. It is undermined by the former presence of woodchucks, also an abandoned septic system and the decaying under root systems of former weeping willows. To walk about my yard is to sometimes sink, falter and turn ones ankle or try to sidestep divots larger than a golfer's swing could envisage.

Imagine my surprise to look out onto my yard from my rear deck and see some "pre-historic"  creature trying to ascertain its whereabouts! Two divots of prior years had merged into a semi-mini-sinkhole like distribution of dirt with a turtle like creature saying WTF - where am I and how did I get here? This non petite creature appeared to have a shell of at least 18 inches by 12 inches and that is a conservative estimate from this left wing politico!

It seemed very disorientated. From the hole to a circular rendezvous and back again it was in an attempted safe behavior mode - at least that what I assumed. Water was a little far from its position and what the hell was it doing below the surface of my yard anyway? It all seemed so Japanese horror film-ish....you know like Rodin emerging from the mountain.....

I observed this for about an hour before heading into the city for a dental appointment. Arriving home at dusk - the soil disturbance was evident - but the perpetrator had disappeared  for the present. What will the morrow bring? Will my yard be the safe place it has always been? Are turtles - even large ones - herbivores and thus a danger to my new vegetable garden?

I just don't know. I sense an invasion, possible danger - as I said this is one big turtle. And its time to mow the lawn! Trying to pin this into my spiritual life, I ask what is the Spirit asking of me and what response is in order? How does one rescue a creature and lead it to water? What if I just do nothing?

Approaching midnight - so I guess I will wait for the dawn and do due diligence after sunrise,
after all - I do not have a working flashlight!




R

Egrets and Episcopalians.........really?

A shadow? Yes,
A glimpse of Easter White? I think.
Ah......The wings fully opened, spread upward
a frame in time fully frozen as the angelic, winged
beauty hovers in time and
lowers itself into the murky waters and marsh mud
that is just at the edge of my yard.

Breathing silently I observe. Then a second one
repeats this process.
The pair gazes both about them and at one another.
In an innate harmony, they communicate.
Their quest for food  is fully present.
But, too, they preen - making sure their plumage
is just so, as the breezes bluster about them.

I see their necks bending to and fro as if chatting
about the events of the day,
A motion that is perfect in its synergy.
A dance.
A liturgy of being.
Both compassionate and caring and entirely present.

The next quest is of hunting for food.
Their movements  so stoic, yet amorously awkward.
Feet prying up from the mud,
these spindle-like legs keeping balance and forward progression.

Angular agressions to pick the lucious morsels they seek.
Beauty in motion, purpose personified.

A pause.
They pose.
They seem to be speaking in the great quiet of this space.
Perhaps an exchange of gossip?

More grooming and more connection to their
ubiquitous envirenment.

A sudden rustle, a small panic ridden moment.
Wings spread and flap.
The slow rise from the marsh,
And they are gone -
for now,
Hopefully to return when ready to begin
all this again.

Am I speaking of Egrets
or Episcopalians?

Hmmmm,
I do wonder..........

Roots - Where are my faith roots and who are the people who populate my journey?

 A very lengthly title, but perhaps descriptive in its own way. It is useful to look
back at one's life to see how one becomes a self, to contemplate on those whose
tug has journeyed you forward into something outside of the self you perceive and
often do not fully know. It is this question that brings about this post. I want to
acknowledge some of those people that have helped or quietly assisted my journey.
Of course there are many - so I will concentrate on only a few, apologies to those
not named in advance.

How did I become  a person on a journey of faith?  I must look at early influences
and also those that pushed me aside. A faith journey must include both or there
can be no steps forward or backward.

I remember sitting next to my Mom. While others were mumbling their prayer
responses, Mom had  clarion, well enunciated responses. It made me both proud
and also attentive to the words. Earlier she had been a Sunday school teacher and
assistant in the formation process of young people's learning experience about their
faith. Dad was quiet, present and that is all I remember. He had come from a family
with various folks who had position in the church. His great uncle was an educator
and was headmaster for a boys' prep school before and during the Civil War near
Hagerstown Maryland, then on to Trinity College in Hartford as president and then
after only a year was called to be the first Bishop of the newly formed Diocese of
Western Pennsylvania, Dad's great grandfather has been an Episcopal priest in Ohio.
And the were a few others called to be clergy.

Mom's family had a few circuit preachers, also in Pennsylvania, in the Methodist tradition.
So church was important in my predessors' lives. Mom's Dad was a reader and studier
of faith, always trying to find the faith tradition that spoke to him. He died a Unitarian.
His wife remained unchurched at her death. My Dad's family was relentlessly Episcopalian.
So here I am - a cradle Episcopalian. I had a long desert time from college years until
I came to Gloucester in 1980. Friends and needs drew me back to try to find a place in
some faith tradition. The Episcopal church had changed a great deal and I felt at home
in a good way when I first traversed the great red doors and here I am today. I am and will
always be working on the whys, hows, and impossibilities of our faith. And I know that that
is OK and just part of the journey.

These are but words that lead me to try to state what I do believe at this moment in
time. A few years back I wrote a Credo as an exercise for a seminar group I was involved
with and I feel it is still valid as to what I believe just now:

A Credo

 

I believe in God, creator of all that is, seen and unseen,

known and not yet known, perceived and not yet

perceived.

 

I believe that a man named Jesus lived in this good

creation. He was a revolutionary in his time and called

all into an accounting. Because of his truth and action,

he was perceived as a revelation of God in human

life. His life presence was so strong that death could

not separate him from the remembrance of his

followers.

 

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the unseen working of God

in creation. Like God, the Spirit is always creating and present in human time, engaging and acting in,

with and through us.

 

I believe that God revealed to us through Jesus, the

Christ, our human potential to fully love, forgive and

redeem humanity through relationship and community.

 

Thus in death, we see life; in birth, we see hope and possibility; in relationship, we see love as transformer

and creator.

 

Amen.

                                                                                              R O Britton

 

 

12-14-12

My stomach is disfunctional, My tear ducts are in overdrive, My mind can't
dispel images it thinks it can see. I am profoundly saddened and yet...somewhere
in my inner core there is a dim light of hope in the midst of this overwhelming
darkness. Its light dims and still there is an effort - immense in its being - compelling
itself forward. Then it fades, only to reimerge and try again.

Deep within my being is a wish for healing - not so much for myself, but for those
at the center of the Newtown experience. I am only an observer from afar. I am
someone who has travelled through that landscape on the way to somewhere
else. The geography is in my soul. I once lived near when I was very young. So it
feels close in an unexpected way. Is it the horror or something more immediate?

Whatever occurred there, it is here with me where I live and experience my
being. I, with an unexpected reluctance, attended a holiday concert in which
my god daughter and her siblings participated. I was full of apprehension to
enter an auditorium for this performance. The image of horror from so many
mass shootings was too near. I feared for the children and those of us attending.
I had "nighmares" last night and almost did not attend.

Then I said to myself  - NO - I will not let our terrorists at home keep
me disengaged from being with those I love, trying to create a celebration
for the holidays that bring some much love and happyness to everyone.

Music could be my healer, well, one of them - it usually is. So I dared
myself forward into the night. Beauty gave its gift to me. A small step taken.

But I can not let go of my mind's images and the sadness I feel for all
those so traumaticly affected.

So I ponder, I am forced into prayer - hoping to give all I feel to God
and feel some comfort and a desire to move on with hope surrounded
by people whom I love and who love me.

Life is......oh well - perhaps I just need more time to sit in the muddle.



R

Frustration

We have survived a critical election. Why are we spawning attacks on people who have
 contirbuted so much to our well being as a nation?  Are we saying that pants before
country are more important? What of the years of commitment and loyalty? What are we
so willing to throw away and why? I am not too French, but I am willing to question the
why of it all.

What is co-opting our reality? What sense of morality interupts our ability to see beyond
the trees and experience the forest? And why do we feel it so easy to dispose of those
whose majority contributions have been significant to our movement as a nation to a
better and safer place.

I just don't get  it. What do we achieve in the in the swamps of self indulgent non critical
thinking?

I am awash.....

I look for the hope without feeling its possibilities.

I am in the mire.

Where are you?

R

"dying""

I've been thinking a lot about it lately. This morning as I lie awake
in the pre-dawn moments before the light begins to shed its glow into
my room, I had a newer realisation about dying.

My Mom is rapidly approaching her 98th birthday and I have become
aware of a change in her being. She is physically well and in a religious
way - spiritually all right, but her spirit of continuing is flagging. Something
is becoming different. And like most offspring, I am probably late in
noticing this apparent change. We see what we want to see only too often.
There is an ebbing of life and involvement in the present and certainly
the future that is quite different.

This is most likely very normal, but it is disarming to this care-giver and
son. The question arises - how do I work with this? And in recognizing this,
how do I find a newer way of being supporting that is different from that
which I am already doing? Letting go and letting just be is very difficult.
We seek to seem always in control, but we are never in control. It is an illusion
that makes it all seem somehow easier,

How much do we look way ahead to our own latter days and moments? And
how will we - if aware - contend with it all? And who will be at hand to
help and guide us through that uncontrollable time?

It is a paradox.....And one I am just beginning to acknowledge and seek
meaning and response.


R

Olympics Opening Ceremony

What is it about this gathering of nations every four years that captivates
us so?  Is it our inner hope that we can come together and celebrate a
oneness amidst our differences in the pureness of competition? So much
is put forward in the name of nationalism, but it seems to me that this is put
aside by the individual participants who see something greater in this
competition, Is there a message we choose not to see?

I am in awe of the parade of participants marching in such joy behind their
flag of nation. It is not about the hope of winning but only the chance of
participation and representing the homeland. So often we miss this in
the miasma of the expectation of national accomplishment. In this we
miss the reason for such games.

If we lose the promise and reason for gathering for this event, then we lose
the hope and wonder of this kind of gathering. Perhaps we need to  put aside
the winning and re-look at why we come together to do this in the first
place.

I will hold this in the center of my thoughts as I tune into the competitions.


R.