Does my Road to Damascus Runs Through Pawtucket??

For the past  couple of years I have been struggling with two seeming contradictory situations: 
1. I have been beset with health and physical mobility problems that made  me able to do less and  less
2.I have become convinced that the  most necessary task of the  rest of my  life is to discover how I  can best respond to God's love and how I can   show forth  my own increasing awareness of the divinity that is with in me and every human being. 
So that with diminished  physical powers  I am   trying to find a way to explore and  expand my  God-given spiritual powers. This paradox is a hard one to explain and also  seems to me to demand some kind of  dedication and devotion. I am  especially moved by how many times Jesus gives his newly chosen apostles just one simple direction :FOLLOW ME.  I don't see what the path of my following would  be. I do see clearly that for  Jesus it was a path that lead him to Golgotha and I have seen the increase of my own suffering but it  is not comparable to that of the Savior.
I am uneasy even expressing these ideas.  When I feel a little better I start imagining myself undertaking and completing some pilgrimage or taking up some form of active  work of mercy--visiting the imprisoned,  helping the homeless. But I am unable to do much  except send  limited charitable  donations to  support the good works of others.
So what can I do? What is  the path that I am to seek out and follow when I can barely walk at  all?  I am reminded of Milton's pignant question in the sonnet on his  blindness 
"Does  God exact day-labor light denied?"
Here is the entire sonnet:

When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodg'd with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide,
"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies: "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts: who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed
And post o'er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait." 

John Milton

The poet  finds an answer to his question and expresses it in the final six lines:

 "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts: who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed
And post o'er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait." 

What are the implications of  that answer that Patience gives in the poem for my  life and my limits? So God  does not need me to do anything?  I need to adjust my attitude  to bear  my mild  yoke.  That is literally the rub for me.

That means that what is right before me--the daily  inconvenient, pain ridden, boring  routine of rising and  trying to maintain this household that consists of a  person-me- who can do very little, and a person --my husband-- with dementia and memory loss who can do many things but no longer knows how.  That is the meal the Lord has set before me  and that the poet George Herbert tells us is a LOVE FEAST?

286. Love

LOVE bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning	5
If I lack'd anything.
'A guest,' I answer'd, 'worthy to be here:'
Love said, 'You shall be he.'
'I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,
I cannot look on Thee.'	10
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
'Who made the eyes but I?'
'Truth, Lord; but I have marr'd them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.'
'And know you not,' says Love, 'Who bore the blame?'	15
'My dear, then I will serve.'
'You must sit down,' says Love, 'and taste my meat.'
So I did sit and eat.  I CANNOT LOOK ON THEE Where do I go from here?

Creativity as universal human trait

I have never agreed with people who say that we cannot learn or teach the creative arts.  since I believe that creativity is  part of every human experience, I cannot  support the idea that there are only a few creative  souls. We all have  the creative spark--the fact is that  our society does much to dampen our creative enthusiasm .  Sometimes teachers are guilty of  discouraging  students by telling them that they have no talents. To borrow a phrase  that Pope Francis has used in another context--WHO AM I TO JUDGE.
We all have talents --the job of teachers is to help  those who  are in their  classes to discover their  talents and nurture them.  Self-expression is not meant only for the best--it is  for everyone.  Remember in the New Testament  the story of the talents--Jesus speaks most against the  person who buries his talent in a field--That is the  only wrong thing to do with talent--to bury it and not use what you have been given.  by God or by Nature or just your unique DNA expressing itself.  You pick your belief --but it all adds up to the fact that you are the keeper of your talents.  USE THEM UP..

SMUDGED

It seems I am  often  starting this blog over. Like me it is flailing trying to figure out what  I should or can be in a  circumstance where my choices are coming up against my physical limitations.
I just re-read Tennyson's poem abour  Odysseus  setting out again in old age I will post a portion it here:

Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
’Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. 

He says that though much is taken much abides.  This emphasis on  what we have left in life is important to me.  It is the attitude I am trying to take to  consider  again the great value of my husband who has dementia.  Much has been taken from him,  but there is still something wonderful left and that seems to be the core of his goodness and simplicity and  fidelity.

That does not mean that I am  not still  annoyed with his repetitive questions and  lack of memory, but I  stop myself and  admire the ways he still trys to contribute. He is always trying to make things better. This trait has been in the forefront for 44 years of marriage.  When I focus on all that we still ahve, I feel a steadying  hand in mine and  a deep sense that all will be well.

This Ash Wednesday I recall  the meaning of that dark smudge  on the foreheads --it is the mark of our mortality--the source of all our anxiety.  But also it is a reminder that we believe in One who took on human  form and endured the most extreme aspects of human pain  to show us that  Death  cannot extinguish the soul. Death shall have no Dominion.

ACT OLD LATER

When ever I look up and see it dangling on the wall, I laugh.  When my grand daughter visited  with her mother, my wonderful daughter-in-law Charlotte, we went to a few galleries and little gift shops in Charlestown.  I saw the sign--act old later-- and picked it up for a while, and then she surprised me by buying it for me.  It is good advice.  I can' t always  follow it because I am  feeling so  stiff and sore with my  herniated discs and my  inability to walk  pain free.

I want to do more than I can do. RE-READ that --it is madness-- that is a path to frustration and finally despair.
But now I ask myself another question.  Am I doing all that I can do?   I have decided to concentrate on what I can do--which is reading and writing.  I am doing both more systematically and more on a daily basis.
I finally  put a collection of poems together for  a volume called DEMENTIA:THIS UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY.  I  expect that it will be in print soon.  I decided to be real about my resources and to  finally do what I can do  and keep pushing on that frontier.  
I can write and publish.
What about in the physical realm--I can swim--let's try it every day.  It is my one pain free  movement--let's take it to the limit--one more time.

Making a Garden

Making a garden when you cannot dig a hole is  a difficult feat.

Last weekend I got inspired by the Tax holiday and decided to buy some plant material  from garden outlets in nearby Massachusetts.
I drove over to the Home Depot with my neighbor--who also cannot dig much.  And we scouted the  garden shop.  My conclusion was that there were not enough trees and the prices were still too high.  Then I was inspired to cruise over to the garden  area of the nearby KMART,  and I could see that they were offering some real bargains.  So when it began to pour down rain,we headed home and resolved to return the next day.

And we did--I bought 10 plants--mostly trees and some shrubs.  My neighbor also  bought a few items.  We jammed them into the trunk of my old Volvo--it has a kind of hidden capacity to carry  large items --when I   push down the back seats and extend the trunk space to include the rear passenger seat.  So all the trees   were crowded into the trunk, and we were able to close the  trunk and carry our prizes safely home.

My next test was to determine how I would get the plants into the ground. My husband is older than I am and has no affinity for gardening.  But I  broke the job down into three events, and said surely we could dig  3 or  4  holes each day and get the  plants into the ground.
I cannot tell you what a battle raged and how often I  had to  implore him to try to make the hole just a little bigger.
Now they are all in their new spots.  It  looks like a garden from hell because they sit in the  midst of weeds and long grass.
My next move will be to buy many  bags of mulch and compost to encourage  growth and  protect them from the  changes of the winter season.
I wonder how many of these  cut-rate trees and shrubs will take  hold and thrive,  and how many will perish. But then again--I ask that question of just about everything these days.  It has all become so precarious and uncertain--and I know that we are  all perishing. But before we go, let's do what we can do.

I used to think that I could control and make things happen--now I see that was an illusion too,

Making those skeletons dance--Anna's Way

WHAT ANNA TAUGHT ME

Because my mother, Anna's older sister, Margaret was the constant reader, writer and thinker in our family I thought that she was my most active life teacher. After all in constant consultation with her brother Joe who was a Christian Brother and taught school all his life, she was always reading to me and taking me to libraries and encouraging me to prize my mind as she prized hers—they cannot take your education away, she often told me. My mother sort of knew that "they" would try to take anything else one had. gathered on life's precarious journey.

Anna, on the other hand, only read the newspaper and style and fashion magazines. Her favorite activities were Shopping, Bingo. Gambling and experimenting with make up and ironing new clothes. She was vain and gossipy and mocking and very funny. What did she have to teach me?

It turns out that she taught very valuable lessons in three areas—loyalty, vanity, and show business.

Let's face the music and dance.--That was her unspoken but constantly enacted performance.

Anna taught me the value of putting on a show. She taught me the heroism of cheerful, uncomplaining show boating.

Many days it would get very difficult to amuse my two sisters who had Down syndrome and were extremely active and restless. When my mother had exhausted all of her and my resources—play store with them, Norma, play hide and go seek. Read to them. She would pull out the last and unfailing stop--

Time to put on a show.

And depending on the time of year and what holiday season we were near we would begin practicing the Carols, or the love songs or the patriotic airs or Irish favorites. Then Margaret would take up her top hat and cane and I would act as Master of Ceremonies.

We would wait until Anna came home from her day job at the Corning Glass Works. And when she came through the door on the second floor on Englewood Avenue—she would see the costumes and the drum, and after a day inspecting glass from a hot furnace, she wold take her turn and do her set pieces—a sailor's hornpipe and a kind of modified can can. We would all join in the uproar and applause and bows--we had made it through another day.
 Years later when my mentor quoted Bernard Shaw's remark--”We all have skeletons in our closet, the trick is to make them dance,” I got it instantly-- wept and laughed copiously—that advice went straight to my heart—with Anna we certainly had made them dance.

Yes, Anna taught me the value of putting on a show. the heroism of cheerful, uncomplaining show boating.

Burnout and Care giving

Talk to me abut care giving and I will tell you that it eats you up from the inside out. Relentless, it never ends and it never lets you forget it. Like a kind of negative being in love—thinking about the person you are taking care of is the default position for your soul. You know how when the electricity goes off all the clocks go to 12 o’clock. Well all the clocks of me now reset at Anna and Yash. I wake up in the morning and I listen for them in the house. Then I go and check on them it’s 5am so I try to go back to bed. But I can’t sleep because I am running the things to do for each, doctor appointment, new prescription to drop off and later pick up.

How about talking to me about love

Cause I don‘t know how to talk about it anymore. This is where love has brought me, but I am not  feeling it as love. It doesn’t sound like love and it does not act like love,  it is indifferent and oblivious, and takes it all for granted.

Don’t talk to me about love because I know now where that leads. It feels like a way of getting to use people and say this is what you should do if you really love me. Take care of me from dawn to dawn and then get up and do it again.

Talk to me about burn out because I fear that is where I am going with this. Finally one tires of talking and  I just want to sleep and see what dreams produce or what comforts can be extracted from oblivion.