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the birthday project

2/23/2015

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Saturday was my birthday. Outside it was very cold and snow fell all day. Inside we were cozy warm, watching the snowfall, while my daughter prepared a delicious meal. Friends and family called or stopped by or sent cards. I thought of celebrations past – birthdays, Christmases, graduations, weddings, family reunions – with gratitude, some sadness, many smiles. 

 
One very treasured memory is set just before Christmas when I was 11 years old.  In St. Louis, the downtown Lutheran Mission provided after school care, food and clothing for inner city children.  My parents were regular contributors and Dad often stopped by to visit with the children and Anna, the very old and sweet director of the program.  This particular year, Dad was to be gone on a business trip for a week.  A few weeks before he left, Dad had gotten from Anna, the first names and ages of every child enrolled at the Mission, and had sworn Anna to secrecy.  Mom and Dad bought gloves for the older children, mittens for the little ones.  We spread them all out on our dining room table.  While Dad was away my brothers and I made gift cards that we thought each child would like, from old greeting cards. We cut out shapes of trees and stars and angels and put each name on a card.  We wrapped every pair of gloves and mittens, attached the cards.  We were filled with wondering about each child.  What would they look like, would they be like, where did they live, who else was in their family?

By the time Dad got back home, we were ready.  Every gift was wrapped and labeled and overflowing a large box. On the appointed night we piled into the car and headed for the riverfront section of town. With crumbling warehouses and tenements, empty buildings, small grocery stores, streetcars and buses, it was a scary place. Here was the Mission. A single wooden door led into a small darkened room lighted only by a tall fragrant tree covered with decorations and tinsel. The children stood in front of the tree, waiting. Anna welcomed us and told us that the children had prepared a surprise for us.  And then they began. Every child sang softly, angelically. An older boy read the story of the birth of Jesus. Together we all sang more beautiful Christmas hymns and secular songs. Tears were streaming down my cheeks and the room seemed magically warm and bright and lovely. They had baked cookies for us and brought out tall pitchers of milk. I was overcome with so many feelings – connection and oneness, joy, humbleness. Our gift was greeted with so much love which seemed a far greater gift than a pair of mittens.  I was immensely touched.  Years later I understood the enormity of the gift my parents gave to my brothers and me. From the idea to its conclusion Mom and Dad were teaching us how to see.  How to meet another being right where he or she is.  Not only how to give but how to be equal.  How to be given to from a generous heart, how to receive from a grateful one.  For me, I think this was the best Christmas ever.

The birthday project is my way of remembering. Long before the day of my birth and long after I’m gone, there was and there will be, someone else having a birthday.  Someone will be happy, someone will grieve. Someone will have a cozy home and family, someone will be alone.  Someone will be hungry.  Someone will be lost.  Someone will have a great need.  Someone will be afraid.  When I remember how to see, how to be equal, how to be one, I will know how to respond.  Today I'm seeing with gratitude.  I’m thankful for my Mom and Dad who gave me life and taught me to see.  I’m grateful for another day to practice the birthday project.
                                  *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

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valentines and love

2/12/2015

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Only a few more days to plan, shop, surprise your loved one. If only it were that simple! And why confine expressive loving to one special day? Is not love magic everywhere, everyday? Ask and you shall receive a range of answers fitting one's age and perception. 




Tune into most any current movie, lovesong, TV show and you will find abundant passion, lust, crazy love, unrequited love and lots of drama!  This week's episode of The Bachelor was recorded in the Black Hills, the Badlands and Deadwood, SD.  It epitomizes and exaggerates the actions of young people on the prowl for a mate.  Hopefully it is not a universal representation of everyone in this phase of life.  I like to believe that most of us have some well founded values, some sensibilities, some means of choosing that are genuine and that lead beyond infatuation to lasting love.  

Do you remember yourself at this age and stage? So young, so intense, so certain, so believing happily ever after with this one soulmate.  And so uniformed and inexperienced in real love that is not eg0-centric. 
Sammy Cahn tells us in the lyrics of "The Second Time Around" that - love like youth is wasted on the young.  But if the flirtation, the infatuation, the physical intimacy did not contain some truth and an awakening of possibilities, our species would be extinct! Young love is a requirement in our life cycle.

In "Fiddler on a Roof" Tevye asks - and persists in asking - his wife of 25 years, Golde: "Do you love me?" Golde replies with a list of all that she has done to prove she must love him: cooked his food, cleaned his house, gave him children, milked his cows, washed his clothes. And still he asks, "But do you love me?"
At last, in this stage of loving, he is asking all the right questions! This is the turning point, the mid-life crisis. What does all of this mean? How do you feel? The emphasis clearly is shifting from me to you to us. Here the road branches, the answers determine the way forward. This stage is also required in our love life cycle.

Rufus Wainright adds some lines to Leonard Cohen's original song "Hallelujah": love is not a victory march, it's a cold and a broken hallelujah.  Truly the real work of love entails brokenness.  We come to see ourselves and our beloved as the flawed and broken beings that we are.  At the same time, we come to know the valiant attempts we each make to be more than our broken selves.  To draw on strength that we didn't know we had. To be wounded and to heal. To wait when we don't know why or what the outcome will be. To stop keeping score. To be kind. Our human love is always conditional; unconditional love is God's gift, not ours.  But we strive to attain it in our living with one another.  It helps us begin another day .... and another.  

As we surrender to our humanness and frailty, our rawness, our selves that we hide from, we may grow into the beauty of deep, mature love. We may discover the true purpose of love, relationships, all the essential cycles of our love life: 

           "in streams of light I clearly saw the dust you seldom see,
            out of which the Nameless makes a Name for one like me.....
                     when I came back from where I'd been, my room it looked the same, 
                     but there was nothing left between the Nameless and the Name."
                                                       -L. Cohen, Love Itself


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    musings may delight or disturb;  musings may spark new activity, sometimes. . . . .

    Phyllis shares current musings, momentary insights, process in motion.


    All reflections are original material copyrighted by Phyllis.  Please ask permission to quote, copy or reproduce. 



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