Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Tag: Debra Basham

  • Four-leaf Clovers

    She was attending an 8-day silent meditation retreat. The retreat was being held virtually, on Zoom, but she had gone to a lovely retreat space in the lower level of the home of friends who had owned and operated a retreat center for decades. She had been there many, many times over the 20 plus years. This was her first time in their new space.

    Walking the grounds she noticed a lot of clover growing and thought to herself, “I have never in my life found a four-leaf clover.”

    Later, going out on the patio to enjoy her meal in the sunshine and listen to the birds singing she found a delicate little ceramic vase. Floating in water was a four-leaf clover. It had been left there by her host.

    How could he have known her earlier thought? Her heart was so touched by this precious gift and the deep knowing of the workings beyond the mundane.

    Starting off for her next walking period, very near the patio, her moving glance saw it. She, too, found a four-leaf clover!

    Spiritual meaning of four-leaf clover: Four-leaf clovers, aside from being considered good luck, are said to be symbols of faith, love, hope and good fortune.

    Just exactly the themes of the retreat…. Amen.

  • Shhhhhh…. On Retreat


    Last evening Nancy Green came for dinner. Stacey had driven up from Tennessee the previous day. I have been cooking for days…. all in preparation for my coming on an 8 day Deep Spring Center for Meditation retreat with Barbara Brodsky and John Orr. This retreat will be on Zoom, and I am the volunteer Zoom “host” but I am blessed beyond words to be staying in a very sweet retreat suite at the home of my dear friend, Delcy Kuhlman.

    Delcy and Tom owned and operated Still Waters Retreat House for decades. I started going to Still Waters the year Adam was born, 1995. They sold Still Water, and you can take the retreat center out of the picture, but Delcy is still a loving and inspiring spiritual director…. so, here I am in this sacred space.

    John and Stacey came to help me unload the van and to see the space. I know they were impressed and touched to see what has been provided. “Living from our Unlimited Essence Through Meditation” is the theme of this retreat, which runs through 1:00 pm on Saturday, June 10.

    This is the first time since November of 2019 that I have been away from John other than when one or the other of us was spending the night in the hospital. Every retreat I have attended in the meantime was done with my balancing life at home. This opportunity feels most decadent.

    I held back tears on the drive out.

    Tears made up of unfulfilled longing for solitude. Tears of concern: what will it be like to have surrendered John’s day-to-day companionship and support to another? The experience of caring for a loved one is a slippery slope. It is easy to lose yourself. Perhaps it is truer to say it is easy to find your true self.

    I am grateful to Stacey for coming to be with her dad. This is a first for them, too. I was imagining this post a few days ago and thought I should add, “If you know where the bail money is hidden, stay on high alert this week.”

    Just kidding.

    Not kidding about the tears, however, so I brought along a box of Ultra Soft Kleenex….

  • Sensibilities and Sunglasses

    Buddhist philosophy offers a list of eight worldly concerns (Eight Worldly Dhammas) that lead to suffering. We pursue pleasure, fame, gain, and praise while avoiding pain, insignificance, loss, and blame. They are laid out in pairs so, like two ends of a stick, you cannot pick up one without also picking up the other.

    In Essence of the Dhammapada, The Buddha’s Call to Nirvana, by Eknath Easwaran, we learn that ‘The best thing is not to say either “I’m all good” or “I’m worthless; I’m no good.” The best thing is not to think about oneself, not talk about oneself, not dwell upon oneself at all — to be neither overconfident nor self-deprecating.’

    We have a friend who is always complimenting his wife by putting himself down. He does it by making self-deprecating jokes. A few days ago I asked him if he would want one of their grandchildren to do that. He got that. It is so subtle, this being critical of oneself, especially humorously so.

    I remember well Betty Lue Lieber and Robert Waldon telling us how our every action is teaching the world. Sri Ramakrishna says, “If you go on saying you are a sinner, you become a sinner.”

    I sure had that insight last evening.

    People who are dominant on the visual side are very picky and can always find ways to improve things — ways that something could have been better. This reminds me of our time in Florida. Larry loved being out in the screen room. Linda could not go out there with him because the wicker love seat was too short for them to sit on together for her to put her legs up. I was compelled to find a way for them to enjoy being out there together. Dominant visuals are usually sensitive people who do our jobs very well because we are great at adapting and creating something new, but we can be in danger of not getting over things and often get stuck over-analysing the past.

    When we play cards I like the cards to be placed right side up, in order, and well-spaced. I totally know this is not a big thing, except that it is for me. In our group, I am clearly the only one who cares and as a defense mechanism, I had developed a self-deprecating manner of saying, “Its my sensibilities….”

    According to the Oxford Dictionary the official meaning of “sensibility” is a person’s delicate sensitivity that makes them readily offended or shocked; the ability to appreciate and respond to complex emotional or aesthetic influences; sensitivity. True confession: If I walk into a room and a picture is hanging on the wall crooked, I will notice it. In fact, it is difficult to get my mind to notice much of anything else. Many times I have straightened a frame in a public place, but it is not about the frame. It is about making space within myself to be at peace.

    I am seeing this all with deeper insight and compassion after last night’s hissy fit when I shoved the cards to the center of the table and let the shuffling be done by smearing the cards around and around. That was not at all something which fit well with my “sensibilities” but it is certainly ground for the beautiful practice of metta.

    This morning’s Daily Aaron Quote:

    When you do metta, you’re not trying to generate some kind of altered space. You’re not trying to force the heart open or create special kinds of moods or ways of being that you can’t sustain out of the metta practices. Metta is a way of taking off a blindfold, so to speak. It’s as if you’ve been walking around with very heavily shaded sunglasses and the whole world looks dark. There’s a certain appearance to it, and you begin to believe that’s how the world really is. It only takes a moment to lift off the sunglasses and see the true colors. When you put the sunglasses on again, you know you’ve got sunglasses on. You know that’s not the color the world really is. ~ Aaron

    Sadness sits high in my chest and tears lie very near the surface as I put my sunglasses back on and release a lifetime of tension. I pray the great prayer: May all beings come to the end of suffering. May all beings love and be loved. May all beings know perfect peace.

    What are other words for sensibilities?

    Feeling, sensitivity, sensitivities, feelings,
    emotions, sensibility, sensitiveness, responsiveness.

  • Walking Each Other Home

    “…we might almost say silence is the tribute we pay to holiness; we slip off words when we enter a sacred space, just as we slip off shoes. A ‘moment of silence’ is the highest honor we can pay someone; it is the point at which the mind stops and something else takes over (words run out when feelings rush in).” ~ Pico Iyer

    A few days ago as I was riding my bike, I stopped to pick up a Coke can. I give them to friends who let their grandson take them back for the deposit. In Michigan that is ten cents per can or bottle (carbonated or alcoholic beverages). It was an oversight to not include water or juices.

    Just a bit further on the ride when I did not stop to pick up a Gatorade bottle I felt a twinge. As I rode past the second non-deposit bottle I heard a voice inside say, “So, is it that you are concerned for and care for the planet, or are you just interested in the dime?” Wondering how familiar the average person is with that level of awareness of thought, feeling, impulse or insight.

    The following day I came home with two non-deposit bottles and one ten-cent can.

    This past week I was Zoom host for an online forum called Dying and Death: A Conversation. I hope many of you will have an opportunity to read the transcript when it is available, if you are interested. Some of the teachings were related to Buddhism, but even those which are specific to that path are relevant to any human being. I think you will easily see what I mean by taking a quick look at “Subjects for Contemplation” (or five facts that one should reflect on often, whether one is a woman or a man, lay or ordained).

    1. I am subject to aging, have not gone beyond aging.
    2. I am subject to illness, have not gone beyond illness.
    3. I am subject to death, have not gone beyond death.
    4. I will grow different, separate from all that is dear and appealing to me.
    5. I am the owner of my actions,
    heir to my actions,
    born of my actions,
    related through my actions,
    and have my actions as my arbitrator.
    Whatever I do, for good or for evil, to that will I fall heir.

    Think about how familiar number 5 is to all of us. As ye sow, so shall ye reap. What goes around comes around. Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.

    Yes, terms are for sure more conditioned to specific beliefs or traditions, but it is easy to see the universal meaning. The last question in the Q&A time was whether the term ‘our eternal soul that was created by the Divine from the beginning and is ongoing’ is the same as “our true essence’ which was used often by the facilitators.

    Barbara Brodsky clarified that we are not ‘created’ but expressions of the divine. “We are that, otherwise there is duality. If we are not the divine (however we name that) but the Divine is out there and created us there is duality.” Arron says his experience is that there is no duality and we are all expressions. He uses the sun and the sunbeams as an example. The sunbeams are not created – the sun beams are the sun.

    Interesting for sure that this was the last question. It certainly makes the point.

    During the upcoming live-streaming retreat (June 3-1)) I will be staying in the efficiency apartment at the new home of my dear friends, Delcy and Tom Kulhman, who owned and operated Still Waters Retreat House for decades. I was a frequent guest at Still Waters during that time and this will be the first opportunity since October 2019 to have solitude during a retreat. Stacey will be visiting John during my time away. I know they will have a great time. They always do. And I will be a little envious and a lot grateful.

    This morning I opened email from a friend and read this daily thought with the heading: “Taking a time-out will benefit everyone.” It went on to say, “Reacting too quickly to any situation, grave or mundane, can lead us astray. Only by pausing first to hear God’s suggestion can we be certain of doing the right thing or saying what’s best. Somebody has to be willing to back away from an ugly conflict, or it can turn violent. Let’s be the ones.” This reminder came from the book, A Life of My Own: Meditations on Hope and Acceptance rings so true.

    The deepest work of my heart at this time is softening around judgment and comparison. My aspiration is to be more legitimate with the commitment to care for and about the planet without feeling like others who do not recycle or choose to use disposables without thought to the environment are somehow making a wrong choice.

    John Orr spoke of a friend from his youth who has expressed some fear of an “eternal” judgment following death. Here is John’s precious reply to his friend:

    I said to my friend, ‘Nobody’s going to judge you but yourself’. The judgment, any judgment that’s going to be happening is going to be happening within your own mind. And we have the opportunity to look at that judgment of ourselves, judgments of others, in our practice. And if we work with this, if we work with judgment in the judging mind now, in this lifetime, and see that a lot of that judgment comes from our fear, comes from our negativity, especially negativity and hatred towards the self. Judgment comes from the memories of unskillful things that we have done, or the feelings of unworthiness or inadequacy, these different habit pattern energies we experience in being human.
    ~ John Orr, Dying and Death: A Conversation, May 20, 2023

    Oh, yes, Ram Dass is so right. We are all just walking each other home….

  • A Novel Mother’s Day

    Mother’s Day was this next Sunday.

    While working on her Mother’s Day service for the sweet little church where she was to be guest speaker, including the “Observing Your Feminine Teacher” information from An Experiential Guidebook based on The Celestine Prophecy had her in deep process.

      You got some positive qualities from your mother:  Like my mother, I am…

      “Outgoing and hard working,” she wrote down.

      You also got some negative qualities you got from your mother: Like my mother, I am…

      “Judgmental and critical,” she noted with some pangs of guilt as memories flooded her mind..

      From your mother, you learned that in order to succeed, you should: ___________( fill in the blank). These are beliefs and values that influenced many of your decisions either positively or negatively.

      That was an easy one, ” Work hard.”

      From observing your mother’s life, what do you want to be more of? For what are you grateful to your mother? For what would you be willing to forgive your mother? From your list of what was missing from your mother’s life, what, if anything, have you chosen to develop?

      “What was missing from my mother’s life was a spiritual ease, a genuine sense that her life had been well-lived. I am willing to forgive her for teaching me to be judgmental and critical, especially of my own life,” tears filled her eyes as she wrote these words.

    She was reading What Alice Forgot, a novel by Liane Moriarty’s – a novel for god’s sake. The protagonist suffered a head injury and lost ten years of memory. The earlier version of herself loved her husband, but she woke from the injury in the middle of an ugly divorce. Asking him what went wrong, he replied:

    “I’d be at work, where people respected my opinions. And then I’d come home and it was like I was the village idiot. I’d pack the dishwasher the wrong way. I’d pick the wrong clothes for the children. I stopped offering to help. It wasn’t worth the criticism.” (p. 424 What Alice Forgot, a novel by Liane Moriarty)

    The previous day she had written in her journal, “I am willing to know if it is highest good. That will be my new seven- syllable personal mission statement: IF IT IS THE HIGHEST GOOD.”

    A novel for God’s sake. Definitely a novel Mother’s Day, and such a beautiful gift from her mother in heaven.

    “A Mother is one
    who can take the place of all others
    but whose place no one else can take.”
    ~ Wise Old Irish Words

  • Nine!

    During their phone conversation, he shared with his aunt that he was finally off parole — it had taken him nine years!

    They reminisced about the wonderful parole officer who genuinely cared about him, and what a difference it makes to have accountability come with love.

    After a bit more sharing, his aunt said, “Nine years. Wow. Nine is the number of completion. I will look up the spiritual meaning of nine and send it to you.”

    The number nine shows you’ve lived and learned;

    you’re engaged with living your life in a meaningful, conscious manner

    and you’re setting rewarding goals.

    Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. ~ Romans 5: 3-5

    Amen.

  • Into the Mystic

    Getting ready for bed she looked at her email one last time. An ad for the 14th Annual Tribute of Jazz JAMM (Jazz Alliance of Mid Michigan) caught her attention.

    Her dad was a big part of that group. He and his partner would go to the festival and paint, and donate their paintings that they painted while they were there together. The year he passed, he and his partner were to be honored but her dad passed just before the event. Her dad was honored posthumously. They had a chair with her dad’s picture on it… sad but wonderful.

    The event coming up was honoring Mike Eyia, a Cuban jazz artist. Mike played guitar and sang “Into the Mystic” while accompanied by the piano from the back of the church at her dad’s service! It was sooooo beautiful and memorable.

    She bought two tickets to the event and as she and her husband are driving there, she gets a call from one of her closest friends. Three girls had been best friends since sixth grade. “T” began, “I had a dream about your dad last night. I was in Las Vegas and I couldn’t find Dave, but I look on my phone and there are three recent calls. One was from you, and one was from “S” (the third of their grade-school best friends) but in the middle was this tiny line and it said James McFarland. The line was real tiny but when I pushed on it I called your dad and he answered and I said, ‘You’re kidding’.”

    He said, “Hey, gal, I’ve been wondering when you were going to call me. It is so beautiful here. I can’t decide if it is hot or cold, but I have been wondering when you were going to call me. It is so nice to hear your voice. I have been hoping you were going to call me and tell me that you love me.”

    Instantly they both felt the significance of the timing of the dream and the call about the dream. They were on the way to this jazz event to honor the guy who sang at her dad’s service!

    Then at the event after they sat through two hours and 14 minutes of jazz from many different artists this group gets up on stage – and it’s Mike Eyia’s band. One of the guys from the band says, “This one’s for you, Mike,” and then he sings “Into the Mystic” exactly the way Mike had sung it for her dad….

    She had said to herself (or to her dad) coming up to the event – “I’ll know you’re with me if they play Into the Mystic!”

    (About a year after Mike sang “Into the Mystic” for her dad’s service, his own son passed. “Into the Mystic” was sung at Mike’s son’s service, too…)

  • I Love You, Daddy!

    Today is my dad’s re-birth day. Daddy had a fatal heart attack while rototilling his garden on May 7, 1992. He had pulled his old truck up to the edge of the garden and would do one row down-and-back, then sit in the truck to rest a bit before doing the next row. I think he knew his heart was blocked again but he was not willing to do more aggressive treatment and he was not going to stop doing what he loved doing, even if it killed him.

    As my fingers dance across the keyboard, I have greater insight into my nervousness when I catch John sitting and resting during his working out in the yard time. A flood of compassion comes into my heart for me, and for all humans navigating this moment with the memory of former moments trailing a blaze of glory across our synapses.

    This brings to mind natural horsemanship as taught by Pat Perelli. You are as kind as you can be. To begin, with your horse on a lead rope, lift up your hand and wiggle just your index finger at him as you give him the look that means you mean business. When you wiggle your finger, the lead rope shouldn’t move at all. If that does not get what you want, close your fingers on the rope and shake just your wrist. The rope should move a little, but it shouldn’t make the halter move at all. (Keep giving him ‘the look.’) If that does not produce the desired result, lock your wrist tight and bend your arm at the elbow. Move your forearm back and forth. This should cause the rope and the halter to move so your horse can now feel it quite a bit. Only if this does not work, lock your arm really straight and swing your entire arm from your shoulder joint. Your horse will really feel this, as the rope and the halter are moving hard. And most importantly, as soon as your horse takes even one little step–at any phase–stop immediately and relax your body. This is how he will know that he did the right thing.

    But how do we know when we have done the right thing???

    Yesterday, I did some drawing and writing after I became aware of a thought that “I would have expected myself to have had more awareness.” You have likely heard the phrase that the beatings will continue until morale improves? Well, that idea has big implications for each of us.

    These are the words on my page:

    Life is disorienting. You long for rules so you can always be sure what is the right way. It does not work that way. You are always making major decisions with insufficient data. (See An Eschatological Laundry list: A Partial Register of the 927 (or was in 928?) Eternal Truths, by Sheldon Kopp, 1974) You base past choices on present understanding. Notice how freeing it is for you to rest in the truth that people always make the best choices available to them at that moment in those conditions. Relax. Trust. Forgive. Release.

    I included Brugh Joy’s injunctions: Make no judgements. Make no comparisons. Delete the need to understand.

    And then I added ALL IS WELL WITH MY SOUL.

    Daddy, I am glad your spiritual being helped me to recognize you are here with me even if it looks like you are gone. People do leave their bodies, but they do not leave their loved ones. I am especially grateful you were the way my heart came to truly know that the grace of god is more gracious than any religion or dogma. I love you, Daddy.

  • Ferdinand’s Clock

    Ferdinand was born in April, 1906. His father bought a beautiful mantel clock to celebrate the birth of his first child. This clock took place of honor in the family home, unobtrusively marking the hours. It followed Ferdinand to his marriage home where the clock continued to serve the household.

    Our Dad, Ferdinand, was a quietly spiritual man, unobtrusively going about his days living out the teachings of Jesus. We three kids and a flock of grandkids learned from his quiet example how to live our lives.

    In January, 1979, Ferdinand went to his well-deserved eternal reward. Less than a week later the clock stopped working. No clockmaker has been able to successfully mend it. But it is still cherished.

    We’re still learning from him.

    “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

    ~ from Hamlet, by William Shakespeare 

    (Ferdinand’s Clock was written and submitted to Sacred Stories by Barbara Darling.)

  • Woman Doctor in a Floral Dress

    Her mother was elderly, in a care facility, and not enjoying quality of life. She knew her mother was experiencing a lot of fear of dying.

    One morning when she went to visit her mother, her mother told her a woman doctor in a floral dress had come the previous evening and sat with her and answered all of her questions about dying and she was not afraid anymore.

    One week later, her mother passed in perfect peace.

    She told a friend, “I went to the office that morning to ask what doctor had visited with my mom and helped her through such a difficult time. I was told that no one had visited my mom the previous evening. I know that the woman doctor in a floral dress was an angel….”

    Forget not to show love unto strangers:
    for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.
    Hebrews 3:2