Aloha!

As you may know, I’ve been writing several blogs in different topic areas.

http://lava-to-lilikoi.blogspot.com - about my “homesteading” efforts here in Hawai’i

http://talkstory-lucy.blogspot.com - inspirational posts taken from retreats and seminars I’ve given

http://lothlorien-lucy.blogspot.com - memoir-type material about living on my boat and more

I’ve also been posting to two blogs established by my brother at www.inkwatu.com.

http://cooking4only1or2.blogspot.com - ideas for quick and easy cooking when you are a single or double

http://siblingbooks.blogspot.com - reviews from the two of us on books we’ve read

In an effort to combine readers as well as my thoughts, I am taking a brief hiatus from this particular blog. I plan to merge several blogs into one in order to focus more and present you with a better product. Anything new I write will be on http://lava-to-lilikoi.blogspot.com from now on. Please check it out and subscribe! I don’t want to lose my readers.

Thanks for stopping by!

Aloha,

Lucy

The Little Battles

On this July Fourth, the 232nd birthday of our country, do we pause to think about what we really celebrate?

Usually, July 4 becomes a day to party. We grill too many burgers or steaks (unless you’re a vegetarian), or drink too much beer (if you’re a drinker), or eat too much watermelon and ice cream (that would be me). Then we look for a good place to watch the excitement in the sky.

I love the fireworks, even though they are a remembrance of a war. Our National Anthem glorifies the bombs that burst in the air and the rockets’ giving off a red glare. At least it was a war that won freedom for our country.

Our view of war is that of Major Battles, usually taking place "out there" somewhere. Sometimes we have those "in here" as well. You know what they are for you! It’s the Little Battles that consume most of our time and energy.

War makes victims of us all, whether they be big or little. The "battles" in our life are not an honorable pursuit and we fail to understand Shalom.

How we handle differences, diversity and conflicts (the Little Battles) has everything to do with our attitudes about war. We can say we are for peace, but not live in it! When my daily actions are made up of anger, my larger attitude will embrace war. When I constantly view my life in terms of winning or losing, as a victor or a victim, I will always have war.

On this Fourth of July, as we all eat our All-American hot dogs, potato salad and home-made ice cream, may we laugh with our neighbors, make new friends, and take life a little less seriously. And as we all watch the fireworks, perhaps we can think of each display as Stars of Peace.

What little battles do you and I overcome?

Would sacrificing our little battles enable us to gain the Freedom we celebrate on this day?

Summer Journey

In early spring of 1989 I made my first trip to the lands we call “Holy.” I traveled there again about 3 years later, and not again since. There were safety concerns on that first trip. We risked hi-jacks, bombs, crashes. Fear of terrorism makes travel more difficult still today.

We cannot escape risk. It is part of life, part of travel. Yet things we assume are safe are often the most risky, simply because they are part of our everyday life. Look at auto accidents, for example. And I live on an island with an active volcano! Just this past month we had sulfur dioxide levels high enough to put my village on evacuation warning!

A brochure designed to give comfort was offered on that first trip to Israel. It stated that 1 out of 75,000 bicyclists die, 1 out of 68,000 choke on food, 1 of 20,000 swimmers drown, 1 out of 600,000 die in air crashes, and one out of every two women will experience domestic violence in their lifetime.

On a mile for mile basis, we are 100 times more likely to crash in a car than in a plane. We were told how few fatal accidents take place in over 135 million air hours (or 1 per 978,000 hours in the air). We received letters of reassurance from those traveling Holy Lands at the time. It seemed safer than the streets of Los Angeles. I wasn’t worried.

The brochure added that we would have a better life expectancy if we lost 10 pounds – and I agree!

Now, almost twenty years later, things still are not resolved in the Middle East! I wonder if they ever will be?

I began both trips with prayerful contemplation, for they would be more than just a physical journey. I wanted them to be journeys of Spiritual Growth. I wanted my mind challenged, wanted to spend time in reflection, in self evaluation, in reassessing my life.

Once there, I walked where Jesus walked, followed him from the shores of Galilee to the Garden of Gethsemane - and beyond! When Jesus made the journey to Jerusalem, it was a journey toward death. He, too, faced risks even greater than mine in travel.

At thirty years of age, he left his father’s craft shop in Nazareth and went away by himself to be alone with God. For forty days in a mountain desert he had wild beasts for company while he discovered God’s purpose for his life.

Normally, we set aside the same forty days to pray and think during the season of Lent. But what do we do the rest of the year??

Today I’d like to look at Summer as another appropriate time for prayer and reflection. Summer is a season of vacation travel and movement. It also is a time of growth, not only of plants, but growth within.

There are many opportunities for growth, and we don’t always see them. In Summer, we can take time to see them more clearly, to see a new vision of what the world could be, to see our place in making that vision come true.

In the days of Summer, we can take time to look at life seriously, not with despair, but a sense of commitment to new priorities, and New Life!

What are your plans for Summer? Take time to plan your own spiritual journey to Jerusalem. Don’t just shove more activities into the same time slots. The goal is growth, not frustration. Let your Summer include sources of nourishment.

Take time to meditate on the meaning of family, the meaning of friendships, on the meaning of a Christ-like life. The spiritual journey for each of us is unique. It’s not a smooth journey, yet we can discover new meanings in life.

Let your Summer journey be one of being on a rich and beautiful road of Oneness. Let this Summer be for you a season of movement, of spiritual travel. As you study and meditate, you will learn more about God’s will for your life.

Begin this journey by thinking of the goal you want to reach. It may be a goal of renewal of your faith, or maybe of deeper love, of new commitment.

This Spiritual Journey requires forty days. Mark it on your calendar and plan how you can spend those days. Tolkien says “Not all who wander are lost.” The goal of our Pilgrimage is to be transformed from within, not to think of ourselves as lost!

So let Summer begin. Start your journey!

The Stones Cry Out!

Stones – or rocks – have an interesting background. Many myths talk about the petra genetrix, or the Motherstone, that births heroes and saviors. The stony deserts of the Middle East have been called the "Gardens of Allah.”

On a recent trip through the Cotswold region of England, I was impressed with the mythology (and longevity) of the Rollright Stones. The picture above shows a circle of knights with their king. For some of the mythology, read http://www.cotswolds.info/blogs/rollright-stones.shtml.

Stones often stand for those things in our life that are barren or are obstacles, and yet those “stones” are transformed into sources of our rebirth, our strength and stability. There is an immense potential and power for good that is unleashed from what most would discard.

I am reminded of scripture that talks about the stone the builders rejected becoming the cornerstone of something greater. There is a basic thread throughout ancient manuscripts saying that which is considered worthless, is actually valuable.

My home in Hawai`i is on an acre of a particular type of lava rock known as a’a, a lumpy, rocky substance that blew out of the depths of our volcano. I have no problem calling my “pile of rocks” (in which very little grows) a "garden." (I wrote about gardening in this pile of rocks in April http://talkstory-lucy.blogspot.com/2008/04/gardener-within.html). But there are many nutrients in the seemingly useless lava that somehow nourishes my plants.

One weighty scripture says that if we are kept quiet, if we are not allowed to speak, even the stones will cry out! Women are being persecuted, minimalized, and stoned in other parts of the world when they do what I take for granted!

It is time for us to cry out for basic human rights. The rocks in my garden were tossed out by Madam Pele, our Volcano Goddess. I like to think she demonstrated outrage.

When we feel the least valuable, when we feel our voice is not heard, when others cannot speak for themselves, we must become transformed, reclaim our strengths, and cry out!

Winds of Life

I spent five years living on my 37’ sloop and learned a lot about tides, currents, winds. For more about my life as a "live-aboard," see my other blog (http://lothlorien-lucy.blogspot.com/). But you don't have to be an ocean-going sailor to recognize the various winds that blow through your life.

First, there are harsh, storm winds that blow through our lives from time to time. We might lose someone close to us, or we might be faced with feeding the five thousand. Unless we isolate ourselves from the rest of the world, we will always be involved with a wide spectrum of humanity - of many personalities. Our individuals families, our work situations, our schools and churches, are all microcosms of that macrocosm we call LIFE - a miniature of the larger universe.

There will always be the stormy winds. It's learning how to reef the sails, how to angle across the huge swells that could cause disaster if not handled with expertise. And it is the stormy wind that will ultimately carry you in the direction of your goals.

Then there are the soft, gentle winds that soothe our souls, nurture our wounds, bring moments of peace to reassure us during the storms. Those are the winds we long for. It’s my own favorite kind of wind, just sauntering across the water. But those are not always the winds that carry us forward quickly. We need to be more than a "fair weather sailor" to stay afloat. We need the commitment that sticks with us, especially when the storms hit and threaten our existence.

The changing winds - the winds of change, are the ones that seem to be the most threatening, the most risky. I'm the kind of sailor who would much rather sail with steady winds I can count on. That's one reason I prefer ocean sailing to lake sailing. That hard stuff around the edges of a lake make fluky winds.

Years ago, I went sailing with a friend in her smaller boat, on Lake Pleasant outside of Phoenix. We ended up going in a complete circle just trying to keep the wind in our sails (an interesting metaphor in itself)! It was frustrating beyond belief!

But changing winds also keep us on our toes, keep us from being too complacent, allow us to use our skills and talents to push toward the goal.

No sailing metaphor would be complete without speaking of the doldrums -- those times when the winds simply seem to stop! All of us have experienced those times of life when the wind has gone out of our sails completely! Nothing we do seems to get us going again. In fact, sometimes we don't even want to get going! So what do we do?

We get angry, we look for reasons why the wind isn't blowing, we blame God for no wind, we blame someone else for the lack of wind, or we blame ourselves that we can't get moving again. One of the most difficult things for me to remember when I get into the doldrums, is that they don't last forever! So I allow that to become the time when I can catch up on neglected tasks on board.

And of course, there is the wind of the Holy Spirit. That Holy Wind playfully lifts our kites of hope and carries the seeds of creativity. That is the wind that refreshes us with spring rain, that twirls the windmills we fight, that sings to us and delights us with sea-spray!

It is this invisible messenger of God that allows us to be open to the future, to be open to God's surprises, that overlooks our journey - and carries us forward.

The Gardener Within

Remember the old saying: “April showers bring May flowers?” It takes more than just showers to have beautiful flowers in May. It also takes digging and planting, nurturing and patience, faith and prayer.

My maternal grandfather was a strong typical “type A” personality, but when he worked in his garden, he was calm, happy and peaceful. His special joy was in finding many varieties of iris. He would drive all over Southern Illinois in search of new iris plants. Studies have shown that in a similar way, Alzheimer’s patients who are placed in a garden all day are no longer violent.

Even when I lived on my sailboat for five years, I had hanging baskets of cherry tomatoes and pots of aloe plants for sunburn and wounds. I needed that bit of plant material to make me feel like I had a garden. Various cultures around the world have special tales about the healing power of plants on all levels.

Some of my favorite times as a small girl were spent in a special cherry tree in the back yard of a parsonage. We only lived there a couple years, but as long as we did, I would climb up onto a high limb and read. As a lonely child, it was my way to escape. Many of us have had spiritual experiences with trees but we don’t discuss them for fear of sounding silly. We rarely talk about the spiritual aspects of gardening, until someone of like mind brings up the subject.

Maybe I’m a little strange, but I talk to my plants. I haven’t really heard them talk back, although they do respond by growing and producing. I used to think people who talked to their animal pets were weird, too!

Today, I live on an acre of a’a in Hawai`i. A`a is lumpy, rocky lava that blew out of the depths of our volcano. The only way to plant something is to move aside the rocks and dump in a bag of soil, which filters down after a rain or watering and I need to add more soil. Still, there are nutrients in the greedy porous lava. Plants do grow, with a lot of prayer and patience.

Peter and Eileen Caddy were founders of the Findhorn Community in Scotland. They moved to a barren plot on the northernmost tip of Scotland, a place where nothing should have grown. Yet they made it work, through meditation and conversations with the nature spirits and “devas” - the angels of each plant. They claimed to receive gardening advice from those beings. No matter what we may believe about it, the results were incredible. I hope for the same results in my lava.

I believe that if you are open to it, the process of gardening will tell you everything you need to know about life. There is a definite spirit of cooperation and communication between plants and humans. It is easy to see how we cultivate ourselves when we cultivate a garden. The idea is to relate to all living things as if they can understand, because they can! It is a living prayer.

St. Fiacre is the patron saint of gardens and gardeners. He carries a shovel in one hand and a book in the other. He gave up his life as a prince of Ireland to live as a monk on the edge of a forest in France. Many people came to him for his healing through herbs and flowers. His reputation grew and ultimately, he built his own monastery that featured his healing plants.

Being There with Peter Sellars is a wonderful old movie. It is the story of a man who started out as sort of an idiot child who learned to garden, and could speak of nothing but gardening. Through a minor accident, he was brought into a home where he gradually worked his way up to international significance with only his gardening remarks. Everyone thought that his words were profound, and they became metaphors for everything from politics to world finance to love.

Please leave a comment and tell me what you love about gardening. What spiritual experiences have you had with plants?

A Touch of White

Mardi Gras (French for Fat Tuesday) recently ushered us into a season of reflection that lasts forty days (not counting Sundays). The point of the original celebration was to have fun for the last time before the sacrificial, solemn period the church calls “Lent.” It was a time to use up all the fats in the house before Lent began. The traditional way to do that was to have a Pancake Supper on Mardi Gras evening, even though many had no idea why they were doing it.

Then on Ash Wednesday, people would receive a dab of soot on their foreheads to represent this time. I always forgot what it was all about and would say to a friend, “You didn’t wash your face!”

One other celebration came out of the early church and into the 16th century: “The Feast of Fools.” It was a time to make fun of church rituals and wear bizarre costumes. It was a license to be bawdy and crude.

I like using the image of a CLOWN, which comes from the Anglo Saxon word for “clod,” a meaningless clump of dirt, the “lowliest of the low.” So the clown became a fool to lift up someone else – to give power to the other. The clown would do something to make the other person look like a fool, and follow that up with something to raise the person up even higher.

There are other words that give us permission to be clowns. For example, the original meaning of the word “silly” was “holy.” So to be silly was to be holy. The next time you think you’re being silly, substitute the word “holy.”

And don’t forget that the root word for “human” is “humor!” We were created to have humor (when we are not being so humorous that God laughs at us)! Laughter keeps us from taking ourselves too seriously.

Too often, we miss the humor in life. Being the “clown” allows us to laugh at ourselves, in spite of what else is going on. When I can remember, I try to see the humor in all situations – even those I think require me to be too serious.

On top of the white death mask, the clown paints the colorful symbols of life, showing how the clown brings new life to everyone. Many rodeo clowns are paramedics or fire fighters. They literally “give new life” by distracting the bull from the bull fighter, or the high-wire acrobats. They are not there merely to give us all a laugh.

The clown also is mute, requiring that we watch rather than merely listen, in order to understand the message we are to receive.

When we are the clown, we transform everything and everyone into a new and more meaningful future. We take whatever is simple and ordinary in life and lift it into something exquisitely beautiful.

The same word for clown also could mean “servant.” We are asked to be “servant leaders” if we would truly serve others and bring peace to the world, lift up the nations. Look up any scripture and wherever you see the word “servant,” substitute the word “clown,” and see how the meaning can deepen.

So in this month of March, lift up others, be a servant leader, do what others are not willing to do, and LAUGH!

Rather than ashes on your forehead, I invite you to dab white clown paint or powder on some noticeable part of your body. Let that touch of white remind you to be the “fool,” the “servant,” the “clown.”

OLD FASHIONED LOVE SONG

February is a month when Love flickers through our thoughts. We exchange tokens of endearment - chocolates or lacey cards. Allow me to recall a few experiences of Agape – Unconditional Love.

The presence of Agape was there as I sat at the edge of the Grand Canyon, watching the sun rise or set, or at the edge of the ocean, watching the surf, while the sun rose or set. At times it came streaming down through ornate stained-glass, while a massive pipe organ played a Bach prelude.

I’m sure it was present at the moment of my conception, in the love of two people, or at the moment of my birth, however many years ago, or the birth of a sibling, when I realized that the tiny infant was also a part of my world - my family.

I heard it at the birth of my four children, when I first held a new miracle that came from my own body, fully developed, fully human. At the birth of my grandchildren, I saw the look of Love in my daughter’s eyes, nursing and caring for her babies, or of my sons, as they became fathers instead of rebellious teens, knowing that Love goes on and on.

Agape has been close to me in death as well as in birth, with a Great-Grandmother, Grandmothers, Grandfathers, and finally my own Father and Mother. I saw Love as my father struggled for life after heart surgery, so new then, so routine today. I saw Love with a step-son, as he died of AIDS.

Agape is closest, however, in moments of living, when children learn to walk, run, relate with their world. I have knelt by the side of a baby’s crib, and given thanks that the fever had finally broken.

Love was there as I sailed on the ocean, in calm or storm, as I stood at the wheel of my boat, and looked up to see if all was well where the mast made a cross with the spreaders. I was aware of Agape guiding me. From a simple field of clover in the mid-west, to flying over the Valley of 10,000 Smokes in Alaska, to climbing Mt. Fuji in the beginnings of a typhoon, I found Love.

Ten clergy women from various denominations spent three days in the desert of North East Arizona. In silence we ate soup and home-made bread around a long table. In silence we spread our quilts to sleep on the floor, and in silence we rose with the sun to walk single file into the desert. Seated on top of the massive buttes, we meditated in silence, listened to the Love Song of The Universe.

Another time I knelt quietly on top of another mountain, Mount Koya outside of Kyoto in Japan. There I meditated with my God in my own way while a dozen Buddhist monks chanted in Sanskrit. Incense swirled around the room, centuries-old statues lined the walls. My knees ached and I remembered the padded pews of my church back in the United States. The tinkling of a bell brought me back and I listened to the Love Song of the Universe.

A friend and I stood in the middle of a tropical rain forest on the island of Yap. We watched in awe as thirty Yappese women knelt in the light of bamboo torches wearing only dry grass skirts, as they practiced their dance for the new Peace Corps group arriving the next day. They danced the Gospel story, faces glowing, singing the Love Song of the Universe.

From the primitive music of that Pacific Island, to magnificent choirs and symphonies, to a simple child’s song taught to me by a massive, but loving woman who spent her life in a little village in South Africa, the Song goes on.

As an adult I visited a missionary friend in Kagoshima, Japan, with her Japanese congregation. Our only communication was that Old-Fashioned Love Song. In small Southern churches I have fanned the flies away, while we sang, swayed, clapped, and worshiped. In great cathedrals with several thousand other voices, I have sung great hymns.

“O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing...”

There are other times in a person’s life when we recognize the Love Song. For me, many of those took place before an altar. There I was baptized, confirmed, took communion, married, or stood there with my children for their baptisms, their confirmations, their marriages. Then as I knelt at the altar before hundreds of people and several Bishops, I was ordained as a United Methodist Minister.

The Song is always there, but often our attention is on other things, and we miss it.

Often I only recognize the Love Song when it is called to my attention and it connects me with Spirit. I have heard it called the Sabbath of Location. Life becomes a celebration in that moment, not a spectator sport. It is a moment when I experience reality, touch life.

The Song of the Universe is right now - as I study, pray, teach, act. I listen for that Song in each moment of my life, and it always brings a change.

When do you hear that Old-Fashioned Love Song?

Step Out

Did you know your feet can symbolize your spirituality?

After several foot surgeries, I discovered it is only when we no longer have healthy feet that we learn their importance.

Feet were important in biblical times. Joshua talks about putting one’s foot on someone’s neck as a conquering act. He also says, "Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, to you have I given it..." All belongs to us!

The Metaphysical Dictionary of the Bible says our feet represent our contact with earth, with the material things of life. When Jesus washed the disciples' feet, he washed away the material aspect, allowing them to connect with the spiritual aspect. Washing someone’s feet can become a ritual where you clear up any discord.

Another reference has to do with grabbing someone's feet as an act of respect, honor, humbleness. We talk about sitting at someone's feet to learn, to be a disciple.

A friend can “read toes!” Since she explained it, I look at people's toes in order to try out my newfound knowledge.

Our little toe represents "Earth," the physical stuff - buildings we put up, space we need for our worship celebrations. It's our money situation, how we create it, how we use it. It’s how we use our bodies, whether we embrace others or force them away.

If the little toe represents physical hugs, our fourth toe represents our heart connections, or “Emotion.”

Can we look each other in the eye lovingly? Are we compassionate? Do we have time for each other when someone is hurting? Or are we so busy running fast that we don't have time to connect? If we neglect these first two toes, there's no foundation.

Our middle toe is "Fire," our passion. Is your passion focused? Even if we say all the right words, do we say them with passion? This toe is also our creativity, but we can't let it become overdeveloped without the grounding. Do we use our fire to make heart connections so that the middle toe almost climbs over the others?

The second toe represents "Air," the mental - our ideas, our mind, our intellect. Do we become involved in study? Do we need to be more intellectual? My second toe has become "fixed" since my surgeries, so I think about it in terms of how I'm "fixed" in my stuff. Because my second toe is clogged and swollen, it must represent too many books in my personal library!

Our big toe is “Spirituality.” In Leviticus, a ram was slaughtered for the ordaining of priests. Moses took some of the blood, put it on the right ear lobes of Aaron and Aaron's sons, on the thumb of their right hands, and on the big toe of their right feet, before dashing it on the sides of the altar! Is our spirituality floating out there, not really grounded with the rest of our life?

There's other stuff to help in reading your toes.

If your toes are curled under, they are grasping in fear, trying to hold on. When one toe leans on another, it is coming over to help the next one.

If our feet stink, does that mean our foundations stink? When one toe doesn't touch the ground, that aspect isn't grounded yet. Work on those areas by massaging your own feet to get them to change and open up.

Everyone's feet, toes, are different between the left and the right.

The LEFT foot represents what you’ve received in the past. If the second toe is wider, you emphasize the intellectual stuff. Have we taken it in and used it, or blocked it?

The RIGHT foot represents what's going on now, how to express it in the future. It's time for some new visioning. Have you become stuck?

Your LEFT foot may show that you’ve been open to new ideas before, but does your RIGHT foot show that you are still open?

Our feet are our foundation, so they reflect UP. They are also our grounding, reflecting DOWN. In Oriental Medicine the characters for humanity show us as the connector between heaven and earth.

God said to Moses: “Take off your shoes, for you are standing on holy ground." By taking off our shoes, nothing comes between us and our connection between God and earth. And that burning bush - are we being consumed by the Holy Spirit , or are we simply being consumed?

Do we take time to stand on Holy Ground? Are we stuck somewhere? Are we so fragmented that we never take time to stand on holy ground? Don't let anything stand between you and your grounding. Keep the head and feet and heart connected. Take off your shoes, for the ground on which you stand is HOLY!

So what is the point of all this? It is about Community, about connecting.

St. Paul talks about the feet being a part of the Body of Christ, and how we can't do without them. The head doesn't say to the feet, "I have no need of you." We can become disembodied at times, head separated from feet. We can get too disjointed.

During this month of January, 2008, give yourself and one other person a foot massage. It can be the most transforming thing you do. A well-done foot massage makes your whole body feel better. Since all of your "stuff" reflects right down where your feet are, this is a practical "baby step" toward transforming the world, one person at a time.

What is your footprint in this world?