Living and Loving
Sacred Stories
Posted by a Florida snowbird:
We only rent here in Florida, but we vowed eight years ago to treat it as if it is our own.
But—when it comes to the plants—I never felt like it was my job to prune someone else’s flowers. (Our owners living right next door might have something to do with it.)
This year, our owners came in late. I couldn’t stand the haphazard, scraggly growth I saw, so I really pruned before the owners arrived.
Three months later, the flowers are larger, more beautiful, than I have seen before.
I feel like this season that we are in (and I am convinced that it is just a season) is pruning away the unproductive, useless, less-than-beautiful areas of our lives, that we might blossom into caring, giving, loving people like never before…
I want to be that people!!!
I have been safe sheltering for one week because of the global outbreak of COVID-19.
Today I baked cookies.
I used all of the flour, all of the brown sugar, 4 of the eggs, and almost the last of the butter.
Canadian friends, Davey and Eli, are heading home tomorrow. Davey loves my chocolate chip cookies. I wrote: “Health Food for Your Safe Travels” on the lid.
After Fred repaired my built in microwave a few years ago, I gave him oatmeal raisin cookies and a card: A dozen cookies and a million thanks. He quipped, “I would rather have a dozen thanks and a million cookies!” Since that time, I always bake and pack the baker’s dozen for him. It is a sacrament.
Nancy Green was offered either or both. She chose oatmeal raisin. I learned today they are her preference. This is a time for learning….
Along with Nancy’s cookies, I delivered an N-95 mask for a friend-of-a-friend. (See Sacred Story: N-95.)
Yesterday, I used the last half-cup of heavy whipping cream. Our friends/neighbors generously take us out on their pontoon boat, so she received the last two vegan bran muffins with her favorite devonshire cream.
I wish I could get the oatmeal raisin cookies and vegan bran muffins to Joel Bowman in Michigan. Those are his two favorites.
I wish I could get chocolate chip cookies to the folks across the street who are back in Chattanooga, Tennessee. I had planned to take some to them when we were in Chattanooga to attend the college graduation of our granddaughter, Courtney Nicole Ross. No graduation ceremony at UT this year of COVID-19.
I told Courtney we will have Larry Britton use Photoshop to create a blast of an event for her. Their motto is “If you can dream it, you can make it.”
Her grandpa and I paid the $100 for her gown. She is the first woman to graduate college in my family line. My grandma did not, my mom did not, I did not, and Courtney’s mom did not. Congratulations, Courtney. We are so proud of you.
I would make pasta salad with nothing but dressing for you. And Kraft Mac and Cheese.
Preparing and sharing food is as ancient as human civilization.
I think of events I have been in the kitchen for.
I have worn out many an apron….
Earlier today a friend sent this powerful prose about how our staying at home is healing the earth.
“And the people stayed home. And read books, and listened and rested, and exercised, and made art and played games, and learned new ways of being, and were still. And listened more deeply. Some meditated, some prayed, some danced. Some met their shadows. And the people began to think differently. And the people healed. And in the absence of people living in ignorant, dangerous, mindless and heartless ways, the earth began to heal. And when the danger passed, and the people joined together again, they grieved their losses and made new choices, and dreamed new images and created new ways to live and heal earth fully, as they had been healed.”
~ Kitty O’Meara
Today I am no less aware of the unfathomable losses and unprecedented uncertainty related to the COVID-19 pandemic, but I am more aware how the majority of the people on earth slowing down for this time is having an immediate and potentially everlasting benefit to the planet itself.
Many are being kinder.
Many are realizing how fortunate most of us are.
Many are learning the distinction between needs and wants.
I am grateful to be part of all of this. My pantry may be running low on some things but my heart is filled to overflowing with gratitude and love….
Sacred Stories
A text came from a Michigan friend, also wintering in Florida. Everyone is navigating the COVID-19 pandemic.
“BTW – Any connections locally for finding a mask for an ailing friend-of-a-friend who needs to fly home next week?”
She asked her husband if he had seen a mask in the shed of the homeowner. He had not. Nor had she.
“Let me ask,” she responded before quickly sending an email to one of the moderators of a Facebook page for the local community during the pandemic. Then she went out to the shed.
There, on a hook behind a saw blade, was one single perfectly clean, unused, mask. Looking closely, this mask was the suggested rating: N-95.
She sent a text message to the home owner, explaining the need of the mask and asking permission to pass it along. The home owner graciously said the person could have it!
She quickly took a photo of the mask, sent it via text message to her friend who had made the request, sharing where the mask had been located so quickly.
“Verrrry interesting,” her friend replied.
“A SACRED STORY for sure! Please let your friend know,” she added.
“Are you offering it?” came the inquiry.
“OF COURSE. THIS mask is for your friend’s friend.”
Sacred Stories
This “Sacred Story” is shared with permission from Facebook:
Yesterday upon entering the grocery store, I was left speechless as my eyes took in the barren shelves of produce. Not one tomato, not one onion, not one…a lot of things! Granted, my first choice was to retreat to a place of ‘panic’, something we have all recently been faced with choosing or not.
I was amazed as out of the corner of my eye I saw a huge display of beautiful flowers with a huge sign that read; “FLOWERS 50% OFF!”
I ran to the display and chose the flowers you see here.
As I have traditionally given my husband at least one bouquet of flowers each week since we met over 5 years ago…my decision to buy was automatic and quite healing to say the least.
The moment I presented my husband with these flowers and he flew into my arms and simply hugged my fears away…I knew! I knew that my lesson/message from whatever is controlling this universe was this; “What we choose to see, is what we choose to live with!”
Keep seeking love in all things during these troubling times…if you seek love, you will find love.
Remain safe all, and remain within LOVE!
Sacred Stories
The daughter of her mom’s friend sent some old photos. In one of the photos were her mom, her dad, and her sister, along with the woman who sent the photos and that woman’s brother.
The daughter of her mom’s friend had no idea the day of the sending and receiving of the photos was her dad’s birthday….
Sacred Stories
She had collected match books for aeons. Some of them she does not remember where they came from, and most of them she actually cares nothing about at all any more. She will use them to light a candle every once in a while. She keeps some of them in a fish bowl in the dining room of their home.
She took the book of matches out of the bowl and added them to a special “box of memories” which also holds love letters from her husband, who passed away just two months ago….
Buttering my bread, I wonder if I will run out of either or both before this is over. I notice the habit pattern of the worry brain. Will John continue to have cream for his coffee?
Being comfortable or satiated will end long before risk of malnutrition or starvation.
Questioning the ethics of having someone deliver food to me: my desire to have my favorite tea overriding the safety or even the life of another.
Last evening, choking on a piece of anniversary steak, not quite able to swallow (even saliva) for a few seconds, compassion for those dying from this virus without breath flooded my body.
COVID-19.
Tucked within all of this inconvenience is such tender truth. I am at this moment still among the more fortunate. I am not separate from anything that is happening, although I am insulated from the worst of it.
Remembering a small book I read about the children orphaned by the bombing raids of World War II. “Someone had the idea of sending each child to bed with a piece of bread to hold. Bread, real food to hold. And they could finally sleep because they knew that they would wake up and have something to eat in the morning.” (See Sleeping with Bread: Holding What Gives You Life, by Dennis Linn.)
Perhaps I should sleep with a favorite bag of tea.
When I exit the master bedroom, having been on Zoom with my writing group, John has made egg salad. I say, “Oh, Honey, I wish you hadn’t used the eggs. Did you not hear me say I had found a couple cans of tuna in the cupboard?”
“I didn’t want tuna,” he snapped. “We can get more eggs.”
“How are we going to do that?” I ask.
“You can call and have deliveries made. They will deliver food right to your door.”
Whether his tone, words, or energy, I feel and inquire, “Are you annoyed with me?”
“I am,” he admits, as he walks out of the kitchen.
I take the lump in my throat back with me to the master bedroom where my laptop is and I put my fingers on the keyboard.
Breathe….
Earlier this morning I had a phone conversation about the ethics of going to the bank to make a deposit. It is a rather large check. It felt safer to do what was familiar: to go to the bank. Safer for all sentient beings?
Whose lives are put on the line to deliver our eggs to the grocery store, to move them from the grocery store to the people who order them from their safe shelter?
I feel that familiar tension—sadness— of sharing life with those who view the world so differently. I am so mad at him for his self-centered world view. It frightens me. In that feeling, I gently witness the sense of “selfing” I have created again.
No individual “I” is separate, neither are “mine” exempt.
The pandemic will end more easily as I see the truth about this distinction….