Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Tag: storms

  • Help from Martin

    Following several strong storms this summer, I have often seen an elder person using a grabber/reacher to pick up myriad branches and twigs dumped onto the sizable lawn.


    This day, since the person was very near the road, as I rode by on my bike I spoke, “It is a beautiful morning.”

    Shocked to hear a female voice reply, I circled my bike back around. “You are a woman,” I blurted out! I had only seen this person dressed in worker attire, wearing a baseball cap and a mask, and I had assumed it was a man.

    She told me she has a lot of allergies so she wears a mask everywhere she goes and always has it on when she is working out in the yard.

    Fifty-two years ago they bought this house. Her husband, Martin, passed in 2015. Her name is Gloria.

    “He is still taking care of me,” she says as she uses her grabber-reacher tool to pick up another twig before going on to explain,”had I gone to get the roll-out trash bins, I could have been right there when that big limb came crashing down.”

    The vulnerable trees in their back yard are scheduled to be removed soon….

  • Calm the Storm

    This post was inspired by my early morning reading of Barbara Brodsky’s most recent blog about the summer she could not swim because of an infection in a toe bone and the risk of amputation. Reading what she wrote of her experience, along with her appreciation to again be basking in her love of swimming, I had memories to share.

    I told her of a time when I had briefly overcome fear of deep water (in this lifetime generated by a near-drowning while a pre-teen). I was taking an adult non-swim course at the YWCA in preparation of leading high school youth on a wilderness canoe/camping trip. Buoyed by confidence, I quickly enrolled in the next level class. But that class had a different instructor.

    Something about the combination of that teacher’s style and the tasks required for this next level set me back…. by the end of the session my competency had digressed. Fear had set in again. I have not yet regained the joyful jaunting Barbara thoroughly enjoys.

    I told Barbara how much I appreciate the way she and John Orr teach the dharma by telling their own experiences. The term “dharma” has no single-word English translation, its exact meaning depends heavily on the context in which it is used. Derived from the Sanskrit root dhr — meaning to hold or to support — dharma is the truth of what is. Dharma represents the truth of an underlying order that sustains the universe.

    Last Sunday’s sharing as guest pastor at St. John United Church of Christ in New Buffalo was about “Mindful Morality” — differentiated from morality as a concrete idea. We were not looking at something always being right and another something always being wrong. We touched on an understanding of how the insular cortex processes physical disgust (like tasting rotten food), and also lights up during moments of moral disgust (like witnessing unfairness or cheating).

    I told Barbara when John and I were here in our 42-year-old mobile home while tornado warnings were going off last evening, I calmed myself by sweeping the floors. I could not control what was going to happen. I could only do what I could do in the moment. I remembered the story of Jesus calming the storm. I remembered when my colleague/mentor Dr. Mary Jo Bulbrook had a group of indigenous healers from all over the globe at her place in North Caroline with a hurricane coming. They created a healing circle and each did what he or she drew from his or her lineage to “calm the storm” both literally and figuratively. That hurricane dissipated all around them! The group gave great gratitude that they did not even lose electric power.

    Before the storms came through last evening, I had filled a bucket of water to be able to flush toilets if we lost power. John can use that to water flowers in a day or so.

    “I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.” ~ Edward Everett Hale, American author and clergyman

  • Life’s Squalls

    So many sweet friends and family members are going through major STUFF right now. One of the dynamics is how stuff comes out of the blue.

    That reminds me of the Captain Ron movie. Kurt Russell, who plays Captain Ron, says, “It’s just a little squall. They come on you fast, and they leave you fast.” Hear this message in a gravely, pirate-style, voice and you will get the picture.

    I enjoyed my daughter, Stacey, belting that out several times while we were at Cayo Costa. We went for a beach day. It was sunny when we got dropped off at the dock, and sunny when we started walking along the beach on a shelling adventure.

    Off in the distance was an amazing cloud formation—what at home we call a “front”.

    As we shelled, that front drifted right over our heads. Before we got back to where we had left our chairs and cooler, the sky overhead was very dark, the wind was quite cool, and the mist that was blowing our way was definitely more than sea spray.

    This week, a good friend ended up in ER with chest discomfort and high blood pressure. Her heart checked out fine, but they spotted two lung nodules. She will be having a lung biopsy.

    Captain Ron’s words popped into my mind. “It’s just a little squall. They come on you fast, and they leave you fast.”

    Over the years, I have been privileged to witness so many folks weather storms in their lives.

    From Presence, Kindness, and Freedom: Aaron’s Teachings on Living from an Open Heart by Barbara Brodsky:

    Certainly, there are issues that need to be resolved, but you can relate to them in loving ways. First, know that there are no problems, only situations that ask for your loving attention. If you are willing to risk being undefended in a place of pain, as you open your hearts to these difficulties, then there is no “problem,” which implies a negative experience, only a situation that asks for attention. (p. 37)

    I am enjoying a poetry group. The group leader, Gail Berreitter shares different poetry forms. The current assignment, Found poems, take existing texts and refashion them, reorder them, and present them as poems. The literary equivalent of a collage, found poetry is often made from newspaper articles, street signs, graffiti, speeches, letters, or even other poems.

    A pure found poem consists exclusively of outside texts: the words of the poem remain as they were found, with few additions or omissions. Decisions of form, such as where to break a line, are left to the poet.

    As a sort of poetic prayer for loved ones, I took that quotation from Presence, Kindness, and Freedom, and I created a Found poem.
    No Problems
    by Debra Basham 2/24/2017

    Certainly (3)
    there are issues (4)
    that need to be resolved (5)
    you can relate to them in loving ways. (10)

    First, know that (3)
    there aren’t problems (4)
    just situations (5)
    asking us for our loving attention. (10)

    If you are (3)
    willing to risk, (4)
    be undefended (5)
    in a place of pain and with open hearts (10)

    to these (3)
    difficulties (4)
    there is no “problem“ (5)
    nothing negative, just a call for love. (10)

    After that squall, the sun came back out. We had a marvelous day.

    May all beings relate to the issues that need to be resolved in loving ways. They come on you fast, and they leave you fast.