Quietly seeking to meet Trust wherever Life leads, I understand service as key to gratitude and balance. Freshwater woodlands evoke the most serenity in me wherever they're found. I've shared space & time on terrain of my Ligurian and Oscan ancestors, feeling their souls guiding me, especially in silent contemplation. Today, after over thirty years of engagement in programs for children, secondary, university and adult learning, the gifts life brings on Long Island's Matinecock-Algonquin earth, I try to give & receive with grace.
For some reason, last night was rough – the cold wind, spring trying to break through, daughter’s birthday, questions of where life will be going with this crumbling all around, at home, abroad..Lives in the Balance.
Then I turn on TV in the evening and feel the news that Iran strikes Israel at 4am their time. Escalation? Some retaliation? Thoughts of children and their images imprint on what’s left of my imprisoned mind bring me to supplication and prayers of tears for what’s left of this humanity lost.
Still grateful for a night of almost sleep and quasi rest, I remember 2003 and the public ridicule for warning against war..this…by colleagues and self-defined ‘friends’.
Choosing Nonviolence is a lonely, parched road on forsaken grounds, those of a humanity refusing to see beyond its own reflection. Difficult, oftentimes excruciating, yet, one that assures the spiritual Highground from which we all rise and recede.
Torrents of rain continued up the East Coast and lingered over Long Island all day today. Sometimes stronger showers, sometimes cold drizzle but always weighing heavy, an impassible slow-moving storm system on this dragging day.
In the morning, by chance, I found a Holy Thursday celebration in Rome on Vatican Media. Pope Francis in Rome at a correction facility, Rebibbia Prison, and this year, he washed the feet of only women. The humility in his words and actions exemplified heartfelt service to be learned through His Example. To witness this, in a precarious world that we are witnessing today, brought me tears.
In 2021, during the winter of the pandemic, I met Maria. She was collecting bottles and cans for recycling in the neighborhood. We met, exchanged introductions and thus began a connection. Now, in 2024, I make it a point to call, reserve my cans and bottles for her biweekly pickup, along with any food or household items I may find during weekly shopping trips. She always stops by 1pm if she can make it. Today, I called in the morning to confirm her arrival. No answer. I left a few text messages, but no reply. The usual 1pm hour came and went, but no sign or return call from Maria. Then by about 1:40pm a message. “I am around…I’ll be there.”
By 2pm, I noticed someone at the door. Maria was standing at the front door, drenched from the rain rolling down her raincoat. She met me with a broad smile, seemingly without a concern or care in the world. “My car broke down. This is my son.” Next to her, a tall, lean adolescent boy, maybe about 14 or 15 years old with a gentle, kind gaze smiled at me. I extended my arms with a full bag of groceries and placed it in the young man’s grasp.
There he was, still smiling as he accepted the bag. Maria stood alongside him, very proud of the young man accompanying her, helping her maneuver this moment in their life, on this recreation of this Holy Thursday – the last visit of Jesus with His Disciples, in acceptance of both the positive and negative and appreciating life as it unfolds with smiles, kindness, and a gentleness that struck me as a level of spirituality that is rare these days. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God…” Matthew:5
As I waited for an arrival home tonight, I knew friends were due over for a catch-up visit, so I decided to bake something. After some deliberation I finally settled on something quick, easy, tried and tested. I had a recipe I hadn’t used in years – Tahini oatmeal cookies – 3 ingredients. Tahini, brown sugar, oatmeal and a dash or two of cold water. Mix & bake. I had found the recipe on one return trip from Italy in a flight magazine. They reminded me of yet another coincidence- a kind, soft-demeanored priest who used to preside over an Eastern rite church that I attended many years ago. He baptized family members. When in the midst of dark days, no insurance coverage, teaching layoff without recompense or recognition, and nowhere to turn, he was one of three good Samaritan souls who entered into the swirling fears to be of comfort. As I stirred the batter, my mind recalled my 3 year old daughter pushing the 911 phone buttons to relay information from me to emergency services so that an incapacitating compound fracture could be potentially healed. Without question, this priest arrived and took care of anything that needed to be arranged.
This Middle-Eastern priest helped me through some very dark days. He was shunned in later years from the church. I had heard rumors… But none of that mattered then, and as I reflect, it matters even less now… The kindness and compassion he always gave meant more to me and I am sure to so many others when feeling alone and confused, unloved and lost.
When we care for and about others, a part of their culture is also shared with you. Growing up, I had the gift of learning about differences – ethnicities, cultures, mannerisms, preferences, lifestyles…almost an introduction to an ever-changing universe of transformation. To find the beauty in diversity is to appreciate creation, to be open to Love wherever It is made manifest.
The spontaneity of a tahini cookie recipe brought all those memories of a kind, generous, loving priest willing to care flooding back to me. I pray for him wherever he is, as I am grateful that he and others reach into darkness to bring others Light, Peace, and direction.
Taking a walk on the evening of St. Patrick’s Day, I absorb the quiet in my neighborhood. Beautiful weather likely facilitates crowds at parades and people probably gather locally and in Manhattan for loud celebrations. Here, all is overbuilt, but serene.
Mockingbirds caw, laugh, mimick, upsetting the calm that seeks to be – much like the chaos that has been unleashed lately by humanity’s disregard for their own outlined path of stewardship.
Know Thy Place. Walk humbly. But instead so many impose, struggle to keep balance and tend to overrun, dominate, with little regard for others. Build bigger, taller, charge more, regardless of the overload on the system. Signs are visible in the neighborhood. Borders and boundaries stretched to limits, just because…paid in cash
The land will swell, rise, and fall. Sink holes will open to engulf and swallow neighborhoods because laws have been transformed for pieces of silver, as Earth is betrayed.
And the leaders in their neatly pressed business suits, dry-cleaned with toxicity, will feign ignorance and invent excuses. While many who have heard, listened, countered, and remembered for years will recognize and continue to proclaim their truth as laws change to bend for bankrolls.
The days have felt particularly cold these past two months. It may be some atmospheric condition…or the sensitivity of this aging, arthritic body and unyielding bones begging to cope with an icy humidity. Only soft wool tights and thick sherpa linings in sweatshirts seem to help.
After a quiet prayer to ask for a bit of understanding and relief, I decided to take a walk in the biting air…just around the block. I felt the need to think, reflect, approach the insanity of today with the intended calm and wisdom needed to return to a clarity I used to know.
Inhaling the cold air deeply through my nostrils and holding my breath for several seconds, then exhaling through my mouth remained a technique taught during intensive surgery recovery…to calm the body and mind. And in the frigid aid, that guided sense of purpose during a simple walk in an intentional moment seemed to change everything.
Then at once, a rush of security wrapped me in a wave of warm comfort and I looked up into a dappled gray sky with the sun attempting to break through cloud cover. The trees along the street reached leafless towards the sky. There in the middle of one tree was a summer remnant, who knows from how many years ago.
A wiffle ball stuck in between branches — the past frozen and hidden for at least one season, maybe more, felt reassuring. At least, to me at that moment, that wiffle ball symbolized the joys of a past, recent or far, retaining its meaning, a reminder of my past that is still present. Present enough for a smile on a dark, dull day, for my warmth in a cold, difficult afternoon, and hope for a tomorrow of clarity when an inevitable return to love and kindness regain their rightful place in life.
It has been almost two weeks since the sun has graced a full afternoon or morning here. Daffodil bulbs reach for the odd warmth, even at the end of January. Birds, usually gathering at suet feeders, remain conspicuously absent. The times trudge ahead cautiously while logic and ethic crumble both at home and abroad. Spotlights, rolling cameras blind and confuse. Insane bravado, contrived entrapment to escalation in hot zones writhe and play into smug camera profiles touting retribution and neofascism. Or will complicity and initiation of wringing hands against world threats slip into destruction & annihilation one evening unannounced? Every channel holds the same insanity and isn’t worth the time that’s left.
I switch to radio, now. Maurice Ravel – Pavane Pour Une Infante Défunte. I prepare a very late lunch, slicing the garden fennel ever-so-cautiously, believing against all indications to the contrary that Love will triumph.
As the rains and floods in the metro NY and Long Island areas came to a three-day close, the Heavens spoke silently to those who raised their eyes and hearts to feel, perceive and see.
Believe in Truth, and you shall still rise. Practice Love, and you shall still rise.
Trust in The Word, and you shall still rise. Become the Power of Goodness, and you shall still rise.
Then, The Unseen Hand began to swirl tones of French and English lavender, pinks and coneflowers onto the azure canvas that stretched from the sole horizon from East to West and from South to North into Eternity …and October began in brilliant sunshine.
An urging restlessness returned my thoughts to the usual mental debate for this autumn Tuesday. “I know no one there. No one knows me. Should I go?” Then I began thinking of New York City in the 1920s and 1930s.
Images of my father’s Brooklyn neighborhood popped in my mind. Some of these faded photographs I managed to find and tuck in a few envelopes before I left what I had called home. Now they flipped through my thoughts. I had heard and answered the appeal for tombstone contributions from an Italian-American community. Now, I felt a connection to this unknown someone who chose the moral grace of “doing the right thing” — Here is the story of Pietro Pete Panto. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/15/nyregion/pete-panto-docks-mob.html
Here was Pietro, buried unmarked, unrecognized, not far from where I now quietly live. Pete — standing, saying no to corruption, even in the face of violence, and upholding his own moral compass in favor of workers’ struggles. At another historical time, almost 100 years ago, when honesty seemed scarce, Panto remained steadfast to model workers’ collective conscience of honest travail and its rewards. How much yet how little things change! I spoke to people in attendance – open, focused, welcoming – waiting with umbrellas prepared for the threats of a downpour.
Before I left the house, I debated whether to buy flowers. A quick visual survey of the backyard revealed one perfect red rosebud, and several purple wildflowers, palm-like fronds, and plenty of greenery. I gathered the flowers and whispered a prayer for the guidance to do the right thing, and to brave the conviction to follow those whispers.
And when ready to leave, I returned to the car, shuffling through brown, decaying leaves over rows of graves. By chance, I brushed some brown leaves off one of the foot-stones and looking up, read and received the message to recognize the synchronicity and serendipity of this afternoon.
Before Ophelia brought three days of beneficial rain to a yearly regeneration of this backyard dotted with deep, destructive grasses and newly-seeded patches of microclover, I managed to remove some withered spots of crabgrass and weakening roots–a yearly chore that has continued over summers.
As the brilliant sunset of this International Day of Peace 2023 promises, we are part of cycles, tides, breezes, just as the Earth lives. And yes, it is difficult to remove the clinging damage of crabgrass that has been free to seed and spread. But, the brilliant green of microclover delights and extends by stolons–horizontal connections between organisms. They expand and reduce weeds, pests..with awareness, labor, and time…bringing beauty and healing.
Sharpen your vision after your morning sleep, however short it may have been. Pray and give thanks for another morning, despite the heat, thin air, and failures along the path of this day.
And probably, right before your eyes, a token of good fortune may remind you of the opportunities your breath today can bring. Use today for another kind word, a boost of friendship, an attitude of love, a moment of consolation, or a presence necessary to change someone’s day. L’chaim!
