What was I saying so long ago? That difficult day that I was referring to was actually a difficult year that began in late 2021 and seemed to never end till late 2022. I'll summarize rather than drag out into a whole novel about 2022! So the difficult year.....

A series of mishaps began with very aggressive physical therapy, better suited to high school athletes than post-stroke senior ladies. This put me in the hospital with fractured tibia and ankle. The hospital sent me home with a wheelchair and instructions for complete bedrest for 6 weeks. (No cheating, TOTAL bedrest!) Once released to continue care with a different therapist, I was reinjured there and put back on bedrest for another 6-8 weeks. Then a fall, more bedrest. During this time, I had a series of infections and had to take 3 rounds of antibiotics plus antivirals combined with - you guessed it - bedrest! After being on bedrest for more than half the year, taking powerful medications and seeing more doctors and therapists than I would ever wish on anybody, I ended 2022 trying to regain strength and balance and learning to walk again with a walker. Finally 2022 ended and we went straight into 2023 to catch covid.  Sounds like a repeat of 2022? No. It gets better and we can move ahead to new cycles, new ventures, a new home......

But that's for the next time....

I like to welcome each morning with anticipation, inviting in everything the new day has to offer. Next I like to sit quietly and observe thoughts and feelings that drift in as they please. At the end of the day before I go to sleep, I take time to give thanks for all the day has brought. I try to enumerate different things from the day before, growing and expanding my gratitude list each day.

I have noticed recently that my enumerating has become more fluid. It is less about linear lists and more about circular inclusion. I feel as if I have entered a new realm of gratitude, unforeseen and unbidden, in which everything is embedded in everything else. And while specifics (as in lists) remain unnamed, they are implicitly included. I say nothing at all, but gratitude abounds, freely.

"In everything give thanks."  I Thessalonians 5:18

Gratitude

Thank you for air
and for the spaces in air
for creation in spaces
for animating in creation
for thoughts in animating
for emotionality in thoughts
for wounding in emotionality
for forgiveness in wounding
for Thou in forgiveness
for I in Thou

Thank you for the Sacred

For the Sacred in I
for the Sacred in Thou
for the Sacred in forgiveness
for the Sacred in wounding
for the Sacred in emotionality
for the Sacred in thoughts
for the Sacred in animating
for the Sacred in creation 
for the Sacred in spaces
for the S​acred in air

Three families that I know have recently lost a loved one. These three families know nothing about one another. In fact, they are separated by many factors. Geographically, there are many miles and states between them. Cultural differences and economic status contribute to a wide range of life circumstances, from wealth and privilege to average middle class to poverty. Yet, they have one experience in common: their loved one has died and they are grieving.

​One set of parents lost their middle-aged son to terminal illness. The mother of a middle-aged daughter died suddenly and unexpectedly. An elderly father in the care of his daughter, died after a long struggle with a terminal condition.
​
​How do they cope? How do they hold these moments of grief? I know they are each sitting with their own private feelings and sharing feelings with family members. They talk about their loved one who is no longer suffering. They all wonder what the feeling of passing was for their loved one .... and they go on.

​Blue

Take the old heavy iron in hand
press it gently into the folds of pure linen
make straight the path
for I am going Home
through the mist
into the Blue.

- 2023 paboernke​

I had planned to return to "A Difficult Day" but then covid entered the picture and stayed longer than we expected. Both my daughter, who lives with me, and I succumbed and were sick for two weeks and have had various symptoms lingering and reappearing over the past two months.  We were very careful but, alas it is a virus, and we caught it. Now it is behind us. And spring is on her way. And we are here to celebrate her renewal all over again, in our surroundings and in our particular lives. Hallelujah!

Here we are again perched equally
between Winter that gave rest 
to our weary bodies and wounded souls,
that whispered "Peace, be still . . ."
​and Spring that wakens us
​urging us to arise with zeal and a brilliance
that rested for a season of healing,
and now emerges strong and resilient,
​choosing Life!

​-A single note from a meadowlark on a fencepost, wakens the prairie.
                                     -pb 2023​

"Today was a Difficult Day," said Winnie the Pooh.

There was a pause.

"Do you want to talk about it?" asked Piglet. 

"No," said Pooh after a bit. "No, I don't think I do."

"That's okay," said Piglet, and he came and sat beside his friend.

"What are you doing?" asked Pooh. 

"Nothing, really," said Piglet. "Only I know what Difficult Days are like. I quite often don't feel like talking about it on my Difficult Days either.  
"But goodness," continued Piglet, "Difficult Days are so much easier when you know you've got someone there for you, Pooh."

And as Pooh sat there, working through in his head his Difficult Day, while the solid, reliable Piglet sat next to him quietly, swinging his little legs....he thought that his best friend had never been more right.


    -and we will continue-

​Standing on the cusp of my life
a thin wisp of a moment granted me
for musing, for questions

Looking at the past, its fleeting seconds,
what have I gleaned, what will I keep
to cherish, to ponder deep in my heart

Looking to the future from the edge of forever,
can I see dimly, what can I dream into being,
what is mine to do

In this place at this moment, hushed,
I stand still with the sun,
Solstice Being I Am​

​​ through the nights of deepest darkness
of far awayness and all aloneness,
dawns the Daybreak Star declaring:

‘Look here! And here! Look everywhere!
Love is born today! Always and forever!
​Love is all there is!’

Who is Jesus to you? Thousands of books have been written about him, thousands of sermons have been preached about him, thousands of conversations have attempted to define him.  During this Holy Week I have been asking myself, "Who is Jesus to you?"

Notice I'm not asking, "What have you learned about Jesus? What do others say about who Jesus was?What do we know about him?" These questions are impersonal, past tense and of the intellect. I'm not asking "what" but "who." Not "was" but "is." I asked all these questions this week. I thought about all that I have learned about Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday. I thought about death and resurrection and faith and denial and hope. Then on Saturday, without thinking about it, came my answer: Who is Jesus to you?

to be continued ......