Are you a caterpillar – or a butterfly?
“There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly.” Buckminster Fuller
“As a city girl, I didn’t have any experience with butterflies.” Then, one summer in a place called Koinonia Foundation in Baltimore, Maryland, I was drawn to butterflies forever.
Koinonia was a meditation center on 50 acres of grass covered fields punctuated by small running creeks and a large lake. This summer, its facilities were transformed into a summer camp for at risk city children, a dozen college students, two Catholic nuns in full habit, and a small army of “Jesus freaks”. Plus six young Yoga practitioners often stumbled upon in full meditation stances behind Koinonia trees.
The campers were more downtrodden than my ten year old sneakers. Each day, those of us generously called “staff” faced even more daunting challenges from kids who had known little love and no appreciation. Then we had a very special gift from nature.
My students were little ones– age eight to eleven. This day, we were reading the story of Huckleberry Finn aloud. We could hear the gurgling of a nearby creek. When we read about the hero’s raft, the children all begged to see the creek. So off we went, hoping the good Sisters wouldn’t catch us wading in a foot of water pretending we had a raft.
Suddenly, the little ones stopped moving, faces upturned to the top of a small flat area from which water flowed. “Look, look,” they pointed. A little boy had climbed up and stood frozen in fright. He was surrounded by dozens and dozens of swirling bright colored butterflies! “Shhhh, he was told. “Don’t be afraid; they won’t hurt you.”
Children and adults stood quietly, almost holding our breaths, living in the silent moment. Later, the children told the story about the “millions” of butterflies over and over. The camp began to change soon after. The children “gentled down.” They arrived eager to be there. There was more trust between counselors and campers. It was as if the metamorphosis experienced by butterflies – from tiny egg to caterpillar to hard case chrysalis to flying butterflies was being repeated in us. Our characters were being transformed.
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Nature, A Tree Hugger and You
“In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, and they’re still beautiful.” Author Alice Walker
I think we could all learn things from nature. For instance, while we sometimes demand perfection from ourselves, a rose bush doesn’t. There are two in front of my doorway. One is very crooked, bent far over and the blossoms all grow on one side. But no one minds walking to that side to see and smell the roses as they almost touch the ground.
In art, as in life, a mistake is often considered nature’s blessing. A painter I knew once had only a single peacock feather for a still life. He could afford nothing more, not even a bowl of fruit. He started to paint the peacock feather but he had only one very large canvas left in his barren studio. He had started a blue theme on it. Now he had no choice but to paint the peacock’s wavy feathers and a cream colored background over the blue. And because he only had one feather for a complete still life, he started to fill the entire huge canvas with its blues and purples and iridescent greens. One late afternoon, as sunlight faded and shadows reached the corners of his studio, he looked at his painting, saw a vague blue horizon on his canvas far in the distance behind his giant feather — and suddenly, the painting was finished for him. Later, it won first prize in an international show. However, the young man was so touched by its strange wild beauty that he refused to sell it. He kept it for himself; it hung in his home for years after.
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Etiquette is back in style, says Ms. Branden
“Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter what fork you use.” Emily Post
I once read that “good manners is the art of making those people easy with whom we converse. Whoever makes the fewest people uneasy is the best bred in the room.” The words made me cringe for that very evening; I had unnecessarily made someone feel uneasy in a big way for a very small reason.
I was on my way home; the food market was crowded and its clerks busy. Finally, I was left to finish my own transaction. When I arrived home, I couldn’t find some childrens’ cookies I had bought. I called the manager and told him I believed I had left them at the store. He suggested I return to the store or get them some other day.
Instead, I chose to make him feel uncomfortable. I said, “And who will pay for my gas for this extra round trip? . . . Then, “But all I have for my grandchildren are three chocolate kisses and I wanted to give them those cookies.” And finally, “Since your service is so poor, maybe I should just go to (their competitor).”
Minutes later, I turned to my kitchen trash can. Sitting on top was my package of cookies! It had fallen from a shopping bag while I unloaded several! I had no choice but to call back and confess my mistake. Yes, my face was very red. I had not only falsely accused his store of poor service; I had been the one who misplaced the cookies! When I said, “All I had was broccoli to give the children and it wasn’t even steamed. It was raw,” he had the good grace to laugh. He demonstrated that he has far better manners than I.
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Faith in Faith
“If you can’t have faith in what is held up to you for faith, you must find things to believe in yourself, for a life without faith in something is too narrow a space to live.” George E. Woodberry
Now that Mother Teresa’s talk of her lapses of faith in God – her Higher Power—is public knowledge, some see her struggle with faith as a reason to justify their own avoidance of any. That’s very sad for those who doubt the existence of a Higher Power yet relate to one are those who may have the greatest faith of all.
Recently, I had reason to look back at my own relationship with my Higher Power. I remembered those days as a single mother with a sick child when challenges seemed insurmountable. I remember my conversations with God then: “Listen God, I’m not asking for a miracle. I said I’d do this and I will, but You need to send me the strength to do all this.” I also remember my screaming arguments with God. “Hey you up there. You’d better have a star in heaven for me for all this stuff You’re asking of me.” And sometimes, shaking my fist in His general direction, I would shout, “Okay, I’ve had enough. Get Yourself down here and do something to help right now.”
I was convinced I had no faith in this Higher Power. After all, I was screaming at Him, wasn’t I? But after reading about Mother Teresa’s feelings of abandonment, I had what’s been called an “electric light over my head” moment. I may have been as mad as a drunken hornet while I struggled but I spoke to Him. And I did it on a regular basis. Seesh, I thought yesterday, I had a lot of faith. P.S. I still yell at Him sometimes and I still believe He hears me.
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Joy to the World . . . and then some
“I do it for the joy it brings, cause I’m a joyful girl.’Cause the world owes us nothing, we owe each other the world.” Ani Difranco, American Singer, Song Writer, and Guitarist.
Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary says that joy is inspired by success, good fortune; or is a state of happiness. It also says joy is a source or cause of delight. That’s such a nice juicy happy word – delight. To me, it means laughter, happiness, giggles, hugs, and all kinds of loving things.
Some people have the gift of knowing they are happy – even delighted – at the moment they are experiencing that emotion. I envy them. Most of us look back and remember happy moments and that helps us recognize that We’ve had them. Some people are so busy looking for them they miss those moments. But some others – like the folks I met in Athens, Greece one year — have those moments nailed. They know they are happy exactly at the same moment that they are happy.
I once watched a Greek man I knew order dinner. He had worked hard all day, through his afternoon siesta, and on to ten p.m. when most Greeks finish working. Yet here he sat, totally relaxed, reading the menu aloud with joy. He was enjoying himself so much one would think it was a national holiday. He ordered food for his table like a potentate gathering up special bits for his favorite wife. It was so in the moment and so charming. Small wonder Zorba the Greek was so appealing and so believable.
I learned in Greece that living in the present moment is part of the path to joy.
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Dream Girls — and Boys
“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” C.S. Lewis
The mailman came and the mailman went. She walked to the lobby mailboxes and inserted her key into her apartment’s box. The letter in it was very fat, stuffed to its utmost, and this is how she knew she had not been rejected.
“They always send a one page, “Sorry but No Thanks” letter when they reject you,” she thought as she hefted the heavy envelope in her two hands. Still . . .
She didn’t have the patience to take the letter to her apartment before opening it. And so it was that the woman’s neighbors heard her screams. Out they poured from every door near the apartment lobby, fearing their city neighbor had been molested in some way.
Are you alright, Susan, they asked, one after the other. She waved the open letter at them. “No, no, I’m alright,” she gasped. “I’m fine. I’m better than fine.” She hugged the letter to her heart.
Well, then, what? they asked in chorus.
And that’s how her neighbors, young and old, male and female, learned that in another month, at age 62, their elderly neighbor would become the oldest graduate student in the nearby university. (She graduated in 1996.)
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What! You say you have no talent? Bah, humbug!
“Use what talents you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best.” Henry Van Dyke
Most religions have a concept of how we each received the talents and skills we have received. My favorite is this: As we stepped through the door to our parents and our lives on earth, each of us is handed a surprise package wrapped in red sunlight tied with star ribbons. The packages are filled with talents and skills, each tailored especially to each baby.
Some babies get a talent for reading; another for music; still another, a talent for numbers. Some of us may get a talent for friendships; another for learning; perhaps still another for understanding what they see and hear. We all get something. Each of us gets our unique combination of talents. Some talents may be blazingly apparent; others may be smaller but just as valuable. Using your talents hones them, makes them grow, shapes them.
No matter what talent you have been given, use it in every way possible. As author Henri-Fredrick Amiel said, “Work while you have the light. You are responsible for the talent that has been entrusted to you.” My family priest says we are the stewards of our gifts.
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Love makes the world go around and around
“The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in.” Morrie Schwartz
From the words of the Apostle Paul to Snoopy the Dog, love is said to be the most important essence in our lives. Even physicians and psychiatrists write weighty tomes of how love – given and taken – influences our mental and physical health. Love’s even be proven to affect our longevity.
But how do we ensure that we get our share of love or at least enough to sustain us?
To get a friend, one must be a friend. To get love, we must be able to give love.
During college, I spent summers teaching at Adirondack Mountain summer camps. One camp had a tradition I learned to love. It was called “Peanut Pal Week.” It went like this: Late one evening, camp counselors cracked open peanut shells, put a slip of paper with a camper’s name on it in each shell ( after eating the peanut inside) and glued the shell shut. The next morning, each camper took a peanut shell.
They cracked open the shell, learned their Peanut Pal’s name, told no one, and spent the following week doing secret kindnesses for their Peanut Pal. My Pal sent me an extra dessert (theirs) one evening. Another time, my Pal had a group sing for me outside my cabin. All sorts of loving little things were done for each camper that week . . . and of course, everyone tried to guess who their secret Peanut Pal was.
On the final evening of that week, we had a camp party. Each Peanut Pal dressed like their Peanut Pal. Mine was a huge surprise to me! A very shy 13 year old wore my camp uniform ( with appropriate bosom padding), wore super-large eyeglasses perched on his freckled nose, and wore a sign on his back that said, :”Can you guess who I am?” Of course, I felt great affection for this youngster remembering all the effort he had put into my Peanut Pal experience.
You needn’t wear a sign to show that you can be loving to others. Just forget yourself and be a Peanut Pal for awhile.
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Happiness is where you find it
“The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet.” James Oppenheim
Once upon a time, some years ago, a musical group my family knew called The Harmoniacs took me with them to a veterans’ hospital in Orange, New Jersey. This hospital was not just any veterans’ hospital. It specialized in treating war wounded military who were amputees and paraplegics. I was sixteen and a singing student. The male Harmoniacs’ female singer canceled her appearance at the last minute. Desperate, the Harmoniacs asked my guardians if I could accompany them to sing for the veterans.
At the hospital, we moved from ward to ward, entertaining very badly wounded men. One young man of 20 lay flat on a bed, unable to move any part of his body but his eyes. As I stood near him singing, I could see he was listening intently. His eyes followed me. My heart was breaking as I smiled and sang. He’s not much older than I am, I thought. I tried to imagine his life and it was unimaginable to me.
Soon after, as we moved through a long hallway, a door slammed open and laughter and shouts greeted us. “Watch out, we’re coming through,” shouted one man in a wheelchair. “Keep going, don’t stop. We’re winning,” shouted another man as he slam-bam wheeled down the hallway, followed by a rag tag group of other men in wheelchairs. We quickly flattened against the wall. The guys were having a wheelchair race!
I was incredibly impressed with their courage. But mostly, I was forever touched by their ability to find happiness under their wheelchair wheels in the midst of such great losses. And yes, their startling humor and sense of fun makes me feel, even now when I remember them — as I do often because of our involvement in Iraq’s civil war, ashamed of my own occasional binge of self pity.
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Patience IS a virtue
“Learn the art of patience. [It] creates confidence, decisiveness, and a rational outlook, which eventually leads to success.” Brian Adams
Did you ever notice how some folks drive as if they are the only ones on the road and everyone else is deliberately in their way? And that being the case, they have the patience of a mosquito on speed. Not considering anyone in their path or near it, they tail gate until you see the color of their eyes, zip onto entry ramps without warning — or blinker lights – and act as if they are in Trump’s helicopter high above the peasants. Have you also ever noticed that it is these same “shall be nameless” folks of all ages and genders who then wear out their middle finger as they endanger everyone else?
That, my friends is big time IMPATIENCE.
Not being on speaking terms with patience causes small and large problems in our lives and in others’ lives. On the other hand, patience can and does prepare us for the larger problems in life and helps us see the best ways to handle them.
As U.S. actor and Comedienne Gilda Radner said before her tragic death, “Some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it without knowing what’s going to happen next.” In short, being alive takes patience.
Meditation for the Day
“How poor are they who have no patience! What wound did ever heal but by degrees.” William Shakespeare
Action for the Day
For one week, I will teach myself patience. That means I will expect delays in my routines – a longer line at the motor vehicle department than expected, a doctor whose office is short of staff and therefore moving more slowly. A longer line at the market. Whatever. I will keep a magazine or book or something else I’ve been wanting to read with me. [The long market line is a good time to poke through those tabloids I swear I don’t read. Hey no one’s perfect!]Then when impatience rears its foolish head, I’ll pop open my emergency patience package and dig in. Time will pass; my stress level will zoom to zero. I will look good, feel good and maybe even lead the masses.
