Okay, Okay

This morning on the dog walk, we were on a narrow band that leads to a bay, that is shallow and deep in grass. It is the classic wetland. It is bottlenecked, and at the neck were eight Canada geese.

No sign of side arms, or shot-guns.

Never the less, I got the point.

Guarded.

I have never been so honked at in my life, even with my reputation as a slow driver.

Finally, I said, 'okay,okay.'

And left.

On the way home, a sax was vibrating a note in such a weighted, extended and passionate way, I simply said to myself, 'I think it is going to be that kind of day.'

A day that is moist and humid, crying intent.

I intend to go to the back porch, and start cutting the wood trim. If anyone calls or knocks at the door, I don't think I will answer it. I have had two warnings.

What I Am Reflecting On, This Lent

1. It is all good.

2. The undedrgraduates in my classes are smarter than I am, but hide it, by looking sleepy, and acting out in class.

3. I have not caused any trouble at school, so far. I came close to this last semester, with Chad.
Chad and I are in one class together. He is staying away from me, and I am staying away from him.

4. I am passing this semester, so far. It is harder than last semester...the passing.

5. My teachers are not showing that they dislike me or like me. However, I think they have noticed me. This tells me that they are either too busy to like me or dislike me, or that they haven't made up their mind yet. I want anonymity but I don't think this is in the cards, on the long haul.

6. Praying is a daily and on-going dialogue with the Divine. Thus, I am chattering away.

7. What I think might happen, with my family problems, is probably short-sighted, and not pertinent to what the Holy Spirit is doing pertinent to my family problems. Refer to #1.

8. T.T. Marie, the crippled Corgi, is sick of me walking three inches at a time, so she is now walking ahead of me. I find this very interesting. She is walking faster than I am.

9. We only get so many spring seasons.

10. Cranes call when they fly.

Another Day In Paradise: Postscript to Ann R.

Dear Ann,
It has been a very long time since we sat down and talked about the politics of the athletic department. You have been so sensitive about this, as I remake myself, you have probably wondered if I cared about you, and what has happened to you. I do and I have. And I have been on the prayer chain for you, big time, during your own transformation and healing process.
Last week, when our favorite megalomaniac hit the news with his resignation, several people called the house to get my feelings and take on it. My first reaction was, 'don't go there.' I am mentioning this as the result of walking three inches at a time with my crippled Corgi. That is what I am doing for Lent. It is a very physical discipline that represents boundary setting on my own desire and demand. And guess what? I didn't go there. I didn't open it up, and I didn't roll around in it, like the other dog, who likes dead fish. The result of this was not suffering hours of closing it up. And suffering the pain of reliving the 'Invisible Fence.' The 'Invisible Fence' is an electro-shocking product that keeps a dog in a yard. It works and it is brutal.
When I think of my old job, this is the image I have of it. Knowing where the boundaries have been set, and walking through them to do my job. Taking the electricity, taking the hit, refusing to stay in the yard. I like knowing this, that I would electrocute myself to do what I was supposed to do, and had to do. I never would have let myself down, nor let you down.

I didn't listen to the news on his resignation. I didn't read the papers. And I turned the T.V. off when it came on. Why? It is over. And within that simple assessment, I can honestly say I have made progress on letting it go.

Two nights ago, I saw an old friend for a dog walk. We haven't seen each other for two years. I told him what I was doing, and realized when I vocalized it, what it has taken to transform me and heal me. A total immersion in a spiritual environment, academic and physical...meaning the great outdoors. As we both know, I am not a Bible thumper, and if I was caught in church, I would probably be dead. I haven't talked about it much, and those who know I am in school are almost afraid to bring it up. They can't fathom what it is all about. Most people think I have flipped.

Three people know what it is all about.

You.

Don, a prison chaplain friend of mine who has met scarier.

And Hauser, whose enormous strength and confidence in me will go unspoken and undefined.

So this morning, I want to thank you. For being stalwart at a distance. I have needed that distance. There isn't a morning at the lake that I don't thank you. You are restrained in your insight where I like to speak my insight. You have taught me that. For your personal discipline when under fire. I have never seen you lose it when attacked and misunderstood. For your ability to distract with jokes and little stories when something is unfolding and you need time to get your head around it, and make decisions. You are deft. For your willingness to do what needs to be done, when the decision is vastly unpopular in the ranks. You have great strength, and a internal compass that works in all terrifying storms. You are a good person.

I am taking comfort in the seasonal transformation. The smell of grass and mud, the sounds of birds and wind. I slept last night, with all the windows and doors of my house open. When I went to bed, I decided to open the entire house to a sweet, sticky and fragrant air.

It is my hope that you are experiencing movement and God's presence as you experience your day, and reach for your goals.

Much love...and keep your faith in your healing path...you have meant more to me than I could ever express.

Linda

P.S. You are on my list. You went on my list a very long time ago.

Retired

I have an ear band that is part of my 'survival' gear.

It is a great blue color.

Other than that, I hate it.

It is fleece bound on the interior with a neo-premium rubber on the exterior.

It is absolutely wind proof, and probably every other kind of proof.

Across the last wicked month of winter, I gratefully applied it to my head.

If I couldn't find it quickly enough, in a jacket pocket, I was desolute.

When I found it, I was grateful.

But then I would apply it to my ears with the same reaction: 'I hate this thing.'

It works.

Unbelievably.

But it is tight, and makes my head feel like it is going to explode.

There was never a time that I didn't rip it off, and say, 'thank God.'

This ear band thing made me reflect on the love-hate aspect of life.

And it made me think about what it must be like for God to listen to me pray.

Reward

Last night, Professor Dunn beat on the podium.

He also threw his arms up and stormed into the seats, voice raised.

He told three jokes to make a point.

He looks like a cross between Mark Twain and Fred Astaire. He is always meticulously dressed, and his style reminds me of an off-set advisor in a 15th century court. He wears a bow tie, and a vest. His outfit was constructed with a soft turquoise, teal, and a quiet sea moss green. He is dapper, delicate, and understated.

All of this is enough to hold my interest. But beyond that, is his theology. He is fearless under a deft and sophisticated style. He is constructing the Christology he is presenting in a markedly clever and skilful way.

But then he blows, leaving crafty, shrewd, and artful behind.

"If you think The Christ came to earth to die and redeem you from your sins, you are NUTS!"

Following this, I caught Brahms' German Requiem on the way home. Which must be the reason I put a radio in my van.

Language and Free Fall

I have been thinking a lot about language, which is strange for me. I think this has to do with examining the question of humanity/divinity as it pertains to Jesus. I am deep in a take home exam where every fight that existed concerning this, was battled out over two centuries. I am to commit these divisions and their discernment to memory. I am actually fleeing this exam by writing on my blog.

In the 1930's, as Hitler crawled across Europe taking what he could, the intellectuals, artists, physicians, musicians and scientists fled. Many of them entered the United States on the east coast. Twenty years later, I believe some form or fashion of this iconic montage provided the base that produced the word, 'beatnik.' Add some black jazz and the word evolved to 'cat.'

As I struggle with DeFrancisco's autobiography assignment, I am faced with my personal and social experience of rejection. This awareness has been painful. In reflection, I know that it fuels my anger, and emotional reactions. It is why hope and faith are difficult for me. It has provided the foundational base from which most of my professional employment and my spiritual struggles have taken form. Over my life, I have interpreted my experience of rejection in a completely and totally personal manner. This morning I decided to say I have met some very weird and strange 'cats'.

It is mid-March in Iowa. We are a mid-migratory pause. The reason for this is the lake. This morning there were a thousand artic tern on a dark and churning water that was white-capping.

As well, cranes, egrets and oddly marked ducks.

In the sky, and on the water.

While I was thinking about language, I was watching flight. Height adjusted by tucking and angling the wings. Feathering. There is hardly a plop, a flop, a crash, or a missed calculation. Even at the last minute of a landing or a take off, adjustments are made.

Watching this gave me hope that I can change my personalization of rejection, and remember that the world is full of strange and weird 'cats'.

The Reason

we say, 'the ice is going out,' is because that is what it does. It goes out from the shoreline. In the new watery space, are the Canada geese. This morning, I was entertained by the ballet of the neck. This, and the vocalization, is what conveys the desire, the intent, and the seriousness of the communication. It isn't pretty and it isn't playing nice. It is informative, and lacks nothing in aggression, nor subtlety. 'My mate,' and 'My nesting space,' were the main topics this morning. Is it all taken like the proverbial water running off the back? Hardly. When the neck positioning and the squawking fail, the real fighting begins. I rather doubt that geese have much by way of teeth, but you wouldn't know this by watching an open mouth attack on another's neck or anything else...wings, butt, or back.

Which only brings me to the self-examination of my own Canada geese gene. After all, what is Lent for?

"The Ice is Going Out."

Which is Minnesotan phraselogy.

Not, 'the ice is thinning,' or 'the ice is disappearing.'

Which brings me to a small reflection on how we carry ourselves from the language point instilled by our childhoods and early life experiences. No doubt, DeFrancisco's stance on emotions, reactions, and interpretations. Too bad, I don't have the complete list, in the easy to read, coded format, banded to my wrist like a professional football quarterback. That would make understanding myself too easy.

There are four or five hundred Artic tern standing on what is left of the lake ice. They are not doing much but vocalizing. I would not say singing or calling. That was done from the opposite environment, the trees. The red-winged blackbirds seemed competitive. Standing in the middle of it, I returned to Placido Domingo singing in the third act of Verdi's Ortello.

Yesterday, Saturday afternoon opera almost made me pull over to the side of the road to listen to a note that hung endlessly in the air.

This morning, when the ice cracked, a bong sounded that ended the tern's noise. Above the silence hung their last group sound. It floated in its own energy, to the sky above. In an instant and in an eternity, I was immersed in silence and a lingering, passing reality.
Then, every bird returned to the sound they were making, and it was as it was, before the ice cracked.

It is these moments I wait for. But I don't know why. Perhaps it is wishing for that feeling of exquisite tension that makes me feel God. Perhaps it is only a nano-second God that is available to us. An unexpected and direct eye contact, a crocus pushing through the bare side dirt along my house, a long and boring discourse by a neighbor that ends in a quick smile, an enthused tail wag in response to an investigative look on my part, an unusual phone call from an old friend needing assurance that I still am at my phone number. Perhaps these are moments strong enough to stop me from my worries and anxieties, if just for a second. Perhaps it is wanting more than feeling life is hop stepping it to the next series of tasks. Papers, books, and spring yard work.

Maybe, I am just wanting to know that God is there, paying attention to my prayer to feel connected.

And connecting me, in a nano-second.

It Is Hard To Have A Thrill

In a hot classroom, late in the day. Professor Dunn has been lecturing on the fourth century councils that clarified the humanity/divinity problem with Jesus. Who Dunn had become, over three weeks of this material, depressed me.

Last night, however, I had a speck of hope. He had just finished Anselm's theory of why Jesus came to earth. This theory is about redemption from the sin of disobedience, in the Garden of Eden.

In a flash, Dunn threw up his arms and jumped into the seats.

"What kind of crazy story is this?"

"And what kind of a God is this all about? One that is touchy, vengeful, punitive, self-inflated, egomanical?"

"Sorry, that is not my God."

Was there foam around his mouth?

Nearly.

Physican Know Thyself

I am sure DeFrancisco is working in this vein. I have had to select and write out a dysfunctional relationship within my family. Of course, pertinent to me. Probably the hardest part of the assignment is picking the one to write about.
I am just back from a quick trip to Minnesota which I took to lean on one of my brothers. Completely redundant, and pointless. In the assignment, I have to write about 'breakthrough.' Can I lead to 'breakthrough,' what would 'breakthrough' look like? What is my role in achieving 'breakthrough?' There is no 'breakthrough' so far. And it doesn't look like there will be.

This places me back to trying to find a way to enjoy my life, stay focused in my prayer and studies, and continue to grow and change in ways I can generate.

I am enjoying the burst of spring we are having, even though it is producing mud. The birds are trilling like there is no tomorrow. The ice is dark and punky. It is rotting. Still, an idiot was dragging a sled across it this morning, to ice fish. This is like my brother. Determined to test and provoke danger, and risk his own life in the obsessive pursuit of throwing in the towel.

I am going to avoid further exploration of my family relationships and write my paper on the ethical considerations pertinent to cloning. That should make something productive come of a day that finds me stymied and frustrated.

Don Schmidt

This morning I saw the two old people. I have been looking for them to reappear. I have seen them for three years, emerge from the strangest places. Once, I actually ran into them coming out of a thick undergrowth of thorns. So vicious, I would never have entered. But there they were, with their trash bags. I started noticing them the summer I lost, (quit), my job, and this notice was taken by the weird hats that they were wearing...sun hats, tied down with what looked like dish towels. From that day forward, I was looking for the daily combination of tied scarfs, baseball hats, brimmed straw, and ear muffs.
It took me awhile to figure out where they lived, and what they were doing. Their house is on the main drag through the reservoir. It is perfectly attended to. And their gardens, which line the highway, are colorful and expansive in design. They don't do a couple of zinnias.

This morning, they had on sweatshirts, with hoods. And of course, their trash bags are recycled from the local grocery store. I recognized the bag. They have taken to the roads and ditches again. I am sure they are excited to find what does not belong there, and take care of removing it.

My neighbor behind me is seventy some years old. He is severely crippled due to an early childhood meningitis. He dropped out of school at seven, and his father threw him out of the house at twelve. He found a job washing dishes at the local Greyhound bus depot, and lived in the basement of a fume filled building. He went on with the people who had the lunch counter, to work in a carnival that they owned. He worked for the Dollingers for forty years and returned to the neighborhood and the family house when they sold their carnival to the city. He is taking care of his 92 year old mother. Yesterday, he wanted to go to K-Mart. I hate K-Mart, but agreed to take him. He has trouble walking, so he quickly grabbed a cart to steady himself. He talks very little. I would say he is a sparse communicator. He went immediately to the baby furniture section. I was completely mystified. After showing some frustration and going around and around several times in the high chairs and playpens, he picked up a box. "Lets go," he said, "I'm done."
He purchased a bed bumper. It is a guard secured by the mattress, to keep a child from falling out of the bed.

In the van, I said, "So what's the deal?"

"I can't have my mother falling out of bed."

The end. No other comments.

He has joined my list.

When Don Schmidt added his name to my name, I could not ascertain how I felt or what my reaction was. I did not feel childish. I didn't feel reduced. I didn't feel silly. I could not do 'the Linda thing' and jump to an immediate ascertation. I was touched in the place where analysis is difficult. Don Schmidt went on my list.

When I saw the two old people with their trash bags, the same thing happened.

When I looked at Del, sitting in my van, with his box on his knees, the same thing happened.

Something happened. But I am having difficulty articulating what it is.

But I have my list.

When You Are 5'9" Tall

Walking at the pace of three inches a step is a problem.

And I guess that is what Lent is all about.

Lent is a liturgical season in which a person struggles to improve, and get back with God.

Since I am struggling already, to improve my communication with God, improve my behavior, and change my ways, I thought I would make my Lent count by really sticking it to myself.

No not cigarettes, which I like to sneak into my life by borrowing them from my neighbor. No not candy, which I like to eat at 9:30 at night. Almond Joys. No not coffee, which fuels and softens my work and school life. No not daily mass, which would be simple, the church is two blocks away. No not anything that I have done before. I posted, awhile back, what it would be.

Walking at the same pace as my small, crippled dog. Three inches at a time. I do not have to measure her stride. I have witnessed this stride for six years.

I couldn't be more miserable, as of today. The sun is shining, no wind, and the walking paths are primo.

I did know that walking three inches at a time would be a problem for me. I do not like the pace. Obviously, it does not fit with the legs that God gave me. Nor the innate sense of challenge, or the wish to walk off emotional pain.

It does however, present opportunity.

I have implemented numerous stretching exercises, which take place as my body is still.

I have changed my breathing.

I have changed the inner demand for acceleration by consciously saying 'no.'

I am saying 'no' to myself.

And this is the center point of this discipline.

I have gotten up earlier, and I have dedicated more time to the walk.

I have stopped saying what I always say to T.T.Marie, the slow and crippled dog: 'Hurry Up!'

I have stopped looking two blocks back, yelling: 'Come on Re-Re!'

The walk now, is perfectly quiet. It is quiet because I have shut my mouth.

I have stopped 'going somewhere.'

When she stops to sit down, I stop.

I look at tree branches.

I watch water drip off twigs.

I look at my feet, and I thank my boots.

I peel off a layer, and tie it to my mid-section.

I look around me.

Today, I watched a blue bird, (not a blue jay), fly in front of my face. It is a very small bird cast in a blue color that you see NO WHERE. The color blue I want for every piece of clothing that I own, yet the color blue that can not be found anywhere in a store. Deeper than navy. And in some way, translucent.

Yesterday, I saw two eagles in a new nest.

I walk this trail regularly.

The nest was not there, three days ago.

A new nest is something significant. It means they are here to stay. They have decided to build a nest. They have selected their location.

They have made a decision, which I have witnessed.

One flew immediately. The other lingered in a scragglycircled patch of (newly) found twigs and branches. As we approached, three inches at a time, the second eagle took flight, almost above my head. I saw the colors of the feathers. I saw the pattern of the feathers. I saw the lumbering exit from the nest. The eagle burdened by its weight, dropped in elevation then stabilized to achieve height. It followed its mate, across the lake ice, to the other side...away from the crazy woman, and the crippled dog walking three inches at a time.

Saying My Name

I would not call myself a religious person. I am laughing as I write this. I received twelve years of traditional Catholic education which contributed to my curriculum at the rate of one religion class per day.
Multiplied by twelve years, I think 'religion' class added up to three thousand or more hours, by the time I was seventeen. Most of this, biblically based. All of it is inside of me. And shows itself when I least expect it.

Several entries ago, I put forward my Lenten plan of walking three inches at a time, with my small, crippled dog. Since I decided this, we have been blasted out of the universe with weather that has fit perfectly to this pace. Wind that has nearly blown my sturdy 200 pound carcass off my equally study winter boots. Ice and rain that has frozen over the spectacles. Snow that has come and gone, come and gone, true to threatening unpredictablity and dedicated to proving to be irradicable. After soft months, winter knowing full well that time is short, has made up her reputation.
For me, I have gone where the hills have cut off the wind. For her, I have gone down into the valley cuts where she can slide the hill.

These places now hear my name.

When I page the old testament, one characteristic of the writing stands out to me. The names of thousands of people can be found. They are listed. Many of these names I can not pronounce. Some I recognize as having made it to the current day, to be baptized on an innocent child.

Linked to something or someone, names.

Whether survival, whether player, whether battle, whether genesis of life, whether judge, whether tribe, whether son, daughter or friend, the names are there.

In my reading, I say their names.

In doing so, merge with strength, resilency, hope, struggle, lesson, fight, vision, wisdom, power, force, vehemence, courage, vigour, and resolution.

I am saying my name in the woods now.

I am calling it out, speaking it with strength, rolling it over a dip and a cut.

I am saying my name over the lake ice.

I am speaking my name from a high point.

I am yelling my name from a low crux of hollow.

I am doing exactly what I have been taught to do by an endless progression of teaching nuns: say your name, list your name, join your name to these names.

At approximately 8:30 am this morning, I yelled my name across an ice broken forest. Before the last vibration echoed silent, I heard back from an unknown location, high above me:

"Don Schmidt."

Kaufman: Here Is A Response

"God did not ask us to follow Him because He needed our help, but because He knew that loving Him would make us whole."

St. Irenaus

Kaufman Pisses Me Off

Kaufman is the Mennonite theologian that I have been studying.

"...true faith in God is not living with a conviction that our heavenly father is taking care of us. It is, rather, acknowledging and accepting the ultimate mystery of things and, precisely in the face of that mystery, going out like Abraham, (Hebrews 11:8), not knowing where we are going, but nevertheless moving forward creatively and with confidence--in the serendipitous creativity that has brought our trajectory and us into being, has continued to sustain the human project within the web of life that surrounds us and nurtures us, and has given us a measure of hope for that project here on planet Earth. Since we now see that we are to love and give ourselves and our lives not only to our human neighbors and enemies, but also to the wider orders of life in which we find ourselves, this perspective deepens and widens the radicality of the Christian ethic, and thus the radicality of Christian faith."

Buddha

"Approach the light that you carry within you, and you will need no shelter."

Buddha

I think the operative word here is "approach."

Last week, I put down the quest as a result of my disappointment, confusion, and net assessment of my failures. I did art. I planted seeds in my flats. Flowers for the front yard. After all, it is supposedly March. I cut 45 degree angles for a complex piece of molding. I went back to the side porch with the trowel and joint compound. I read. I watched T.V. And I walked in the worst weather we have had in six years. I would like to interpret this quote strictly in terms of the weather, and give my soul a break.

I wrote the last entry because my game book is obviously not God's game book. And that leads the most stupid of all people back to prayer and faith.

I am sitting here at the computer looking out of two windows. The wind is fierce, and making the snow swirl. Two people have just passed, walking their dogs. They are doing what I will be doing. Dressing and going out with my dogs. This is 'put one foot in front of the other,' approach to life when life is painful.

On top of my homework, I am dealing with two of my siblings. I thought I had the game book but have given that up, the day we lost our electric power, and I went to bed for twelve hours. This is why I am mad at God, and sick of trying to ascertain the path. I am sick of one of my brothers, and sick of one of my sisters. I am sick of them both.

In my ethics class, we are reading the statements of those who have influenced the development of ethical decision making, and ethical behavior. I was very surprised to find this quote, which is a framing quote for Catholic health care directives:

"We are not the owners of our lives."

My favorite line to all of life right now is, 'well, okay.'

So besides coming up with prayer and faith, I am speaking my favorite line:

"Well, okay."