Afraid to die

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Every now and again, and often, it seems, when I’m most discouraged, I’ll suddenly get an email from a total stranger, telling me how much my books have affected their life. As if the Universe is trying to encourage me. It’s always surprising. And humbling. I’m made aware each time of how the angels, spirits, guides, gods and goddesses, totems and devas, are manipulating time and space, to bring us our dreams and the desires of our hearts. “Buck up,” they say.

    I don’t think I was the only little girl to have pondered unanswerable questions:  Who was I before I was born? How did I ever end up on this planet of suffering and sorrow and joy and love? Or, most often: What happens when you die? Now I have to tell you I know a number of people who announce with conviction that the answer is “Nothing.” Nothing happens. The corpse is tossed underground or onto the fire, and that’s it.  It’s over. Think black void.  

     But even as a child I could see that my beautiful cat, now dead, was no longer inside her body. Something had “left.” Walked out. The Greeks called it the Psyche, George Bernard Shaw called it the Life Force, and most western religions name it the Soul. Or maybe it’s the Buddhist “I” that is observing our beautiful world and noticing the miracles and marvels around us (a tulip thrusting up in spring, the hawk in flight, the wind in the high branches of the bare winter trees that hardly touches you walking down below. . . . Such beauty.) And also that observes ourselves. Who is this “I?”  Is it possible that we really are cared for? Are there truly spiritual guides loving and adoring us, who think we are beautiful? 

     Well, here is one recent letter, and you can decide for yourself where you stand and how much you trust that cavalries of angels are riding to our help, that we have some purpose to our lives and that we go somewhere when we shed the body and (so-called) “die.”  The fact that communication so often comes in the shape of butterflies or birds should not surprise us: Don’t we, too, remember when we once could fly?  (I’m sorry I can’t find how to insert “read more.” I can no longer find the icon that allows it, much less how to add a photo, now that I’ve been upgraded mysteriously.)

Dear Sophy ~

Having worked as a doctor in a New York City hospital for 30+ years, I have been around death a lot – especially during the AIDS epidemic, when I sat at the bedside of many dying children and teenagers, and the mystery of dying has always intrigued me.

If I may, I’d like to share two near-death stories with you.

The first one is about my husband Charles. He was scheduled to have a titanium “stent” placed in his heart to increase his heart’s longevity. This is usually a simple and speedy procedure, and the surgeon who was to perform it, knowing that I was a fellow physician, had invited me to “scrub up” and observe the proceedings, which I was delighted to do. But minutes later, things went terribly wrong. Charles’ heart suddenly stopped beating, and the overhead monitoring devices began screaming their loud alarms.

I was immediately asked to leave the room so that resuscitation activities could begin. Out in the hallway a strange silence seemed to hang in the air. It felt as if time had stopped, waiting for an irreversible decision to be made.

And then, suddenly, the sound of the cardiac surgeon’s voice echoed down the hall. I leapt to my feet with joy! My beloved husband was fine! In fact, he was more than fine, for while his medical attendants were working on his body, he had gone on an adventure of his own, being drawn down a dark tunnel, at the end of which he was greeted by several “advisors” who told him that it wasn’t his time to die yet, for he still had important work to do on Earth before his final departure. And indeed, Charles has acquired a strong desire to assist others in many different ways.

The second story is about my parents. My father was a surgeon, and I grew up hearing him rushing out the door in the middle of the night, again and again, to help people who were seriously ill or injured. Meanwhile, my mother was a kind and caring person who enjoyed helping our many neighbors, and I loved her deeply.

When she developed pancreatic cancer, I took a leave from my hospital work to be with her, as I knew she didn’t have long to live, with such a serious diagnosis.

Then one night, she called me to her bedside, where I found her in tears. She reached for my hand, and, holding it tight in hers, confided that she was afraid to die.

I wanted very much to reassure her that there was nothing to be afraid of, but she was clearly overcome by her fear. Suddenly, an intriguing idea came to me. “Maybe you could send me a sign of some kind, to let me know if I was right about not needing to be afraid, Mom. I’ve heard that birds can sometimes deliver messages, and you’ve certainly been a friend of birds, what with all the bird-feeders you’ve maintained in your yard. I bet one of them would be happy to do that if you asked!”

She looked at me oddly, not knowing whether to take me seriously or not. “We’ll see,” she murmured. Then my mother closed her eyes, and that was the last thing she said. She passed away that very night. And, interestingly, my father, who liked to boast that he’d never been sick a day in his life, died the very next night. Out of nowhere, he suddenly developed acute lymphatic leukemia, and in two days he was gone. I couldn’t help but feel that he was rushing off to catch up with her!

When Charles and I finished taking care of their affairs, including selling their house to some neighbors who were delighted to acquire it, we got on the next plane we could find that was going close to where we currently live. In a short time we were tumbling into bed, and minutes later we were sound asleep. 

But not for long. Just as dawn was breaking, we were woken up by an 

insistent tapping on one of the two windows that flank our queen-sized bed—to be precise, the window on my side of the bed. There, to our amazement, was a small bird fluttering repeatedly up and down and pecking on the window with its beak, stopping occasionally to sit on the sill and peer into our bedroom, as if to make sure we were paying attention. After about ten minutes it departed, only to reappear the next morning for a repeat of this performance – and then the next morning, and the next and the next. Each time, I couldn’t help but exclaim, “I can’t believe this is happening!”

As days turned into weeks and then into months, with no apparent intention of the bird to stop these visitations, we began to worry that the poor thing might exhaust itself in its efforts to get our attention, so we tried taping a large beach towel over the window, preventing the bird from looking in and theoretically dispelling whatever odd fixation it had. But this strategy did nothing to deter the bird: the determined little creature simply flew to the window on Charles’ side of the bed, where it continued its determined tapping. One day, the bird even brought a flock of friends who perched in a tree close by, chirping excitedly as “our” bird perched on our window sill and tapped away.

And every day I repeated the same six words: I can’t believe this is happening! It became like a mantra for me.

Finally, some friends to whom we had been describing this mysterious behavior suggested that we try speaking with an “animal communicator”, and though we had never heard of such a profession before, we immediately set up an appointment. When the day came, we said nothing about my mother or ourselves, not wanting to influence her perception of what was going on.

She listened closely, then asked us to wait while she “connected” with the bird. A moment later, she exclaimed, “Why, yes, I can feel how strongly this bird is drawn to you. How strange!”

She paused, then continued with surprise in her voice, “But wait, I’m sensing another presence here too – a human presence! I’ve never dealt with humans, but this presence is saying that she’s your mother! Could that be true?

Astounded, I said, “Well, yes, I guess it could. My gosh, I can hardly believe this is happening. But can you tell me this: why is the bird still coming after all this time? I don’t want the poor thing to get totally exhausted and not be able to live its own natural life.

The answer the animal communicator got was immediate: “What you just said is exactly the issue. The reason the bird is still coming to you is because you haven’t fully believed what is happening!

Suddenly, I was flooded with an overwhelming sense of my mother’s love. My heart opened wide in response, and all my stubborn doubts melted away. I was finally able to take in her amazing gift of reaching out to me from another dimension to let me know that all was well with her. Tears of joy ran down my cheeks, and inwardly I heard myself saying, “Thank you Mom, thank you! I love you!”

The next day, I awoke just as dawn was breaking and found myself automatically listening for the familiar tapping, but alas, it didn’t come. Sadly, but rightly, the little bird never returned. It’s mission had been accomplished.

As an expression of thanks, Charles and I maintain several bird feeders in our yard, where many different kinds of birds partake of our offerings on a daily basis, just as they did in Mom’s yard.

If you have any thoughts about these two stories, I’d love to hear from you.”

And if you, dear reader, have any thoughts or want to share your own experiences, I, would love to hear from you.  I have no doubts anymore: but I admit I’m not ready yet to die. I don’t want to leave this beautiful planet or the people that we are given to care for, and to love. Sophy

Sophy means wisdom (as in Philosophy, the “love of wisdom,”) and wisdom is “experience coupled with thoughtfulness of what was learnt.”

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I’ve chosen that double-dip name for my blog (Sophy-wisdom), first because Sophy is my Christened name, spelt like that, with a “y,” and then because all my life I’ve been straining and struggling to find wisdom.

What is a miracle?

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Recently I broke my leg and right after that I broke my arm so I have not been able to post anything for a long time. However, I wanted to share with you a story of a miracle a friend just sent to me. I think of it as a miracle, and like many others there is nothing miraculous about it. Like beauty, it’s all in the eye of the beholder but to my friend Kimberly it is extraordinary. And I think it is too.

I wanted to share with you an incredible story of a miracle.

On January 29th, at 4:30 am, I was awakened by a northern mockingbird singing loudly outside our bedroom window. I thought it strange, a bird singing well before dawn. And I was a bit annoyed that I had been woken up by his noisy vocalizations. However, once awake, I turned to check on my husband. He was struggling for breath, as if he weren’t getting enough oxygen. I thought he was having a nightmare. I shook him. He wouldn’t wake up. I yelled at him, “Dan, wake up! You’re having a nightmare!”  Unresponsive.

I grabbed my phone and called 911. The paramedics came within seven or eight minutes. As they were assessing Dan, his heart stopped. Cardiac arrest. They placed him on the ground and commenced CPR. They charged the defibrillator and shocked him, too. A minute or two later, Dan took a deep breath in.

He spent five days in the ICU at Cottage Hospital. Doctors determined it was ventricular tachycardia, possibly triggered by a 90% occlusion in his right cardiac artery, which now has a stent.

Of course, I’m suffering from PTSD and all of the emotions and bodily symptoms that come with it. I wake up at 4:30 every morning thinking that I am responsible for my husband’s life. The overarching emotion I feel, however, is one of deepest gratitude, because I feel that mockingbird was sent by God to say, “Wake up. Pay attention. Something’s about to happen.” I felt called to do the right thing, and by some miracle, I did exactly that.

The paramedics are the true heroes in this story—but the bird singing in the nighttime that saved my husband’s life–that was the miracle.

The Silence of Hope

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This week I want to share a letter from a young woman, only 22, who wrote a while ago about her dismay and hopelessness as she struggled for spirituality — and what happened.  Isn’t that often how it works? You are brought to your knees, and suddenly when all is lost, remember a moment that brings you to your feet again, sword in hand.  I was giving a workshop once in Russia, where a young woman angrily told me that never in her life had she ever had a hopeful experience. She didn’t believe in hope or beauty or goodness or angels (Why was she in my workshop?). This was in the early days of Glastonost, soon after the fall of the brutal Soviet Union. Her entire life, she said was bleak, black, hopeless, horrible. Suddenly, during one of my meditations, she remembered, as a child, standing on the birch strewn bank of a lake, when suddenly the air, water, trees, were afire with light, song, hope, as if she were seeing into other dimensions. She left the workshop smiling.

The letter below begins by describing the writer, then praises my A Book of Angels (and I’m so happy to be praised that I repeat her gratitude here), and finally it tells the story of when she experienced an angel. Not the sight of one, but the extra-ordinary Signs. I have other stories of the Silence she speaks of and Time-Stop.  I have experienced it myself, and it is like no other silence I know. Here is her story:

Hello,

My name is Natalina M_______. I was born into an Italian Roman Catholic Family, though my father is Scottish (hence the last name). He adapted into the (Catholic) religion and the lifestyle. I think I’ve always believed in God, and I’ve always been interested in Religion. I used to read the Bible like it was peak fiction when I was young (I guess, I still am, I’m 22 this year). 

I recently graduated University in Canada with a degree in Religious Studies. It hurt me many times. The degree was like reading a list of all the bad things in the world, beside a much smaller list, of all the good, and I wasn’t sure it could make up for the bad like everyone said it would. I questioned not if God was real, but if he was worth worshipping. I wanted to know if all those men (and even women) who asked for forgiveness while raping, molesting, abusing and murdering innocent children and women and even boys/men would really get forgiveness. God certainly wouldn’t give them mercy, would he? He couldn’t.

I like to think I’m better now, but I don’t think so. I’ve tried to give love and was used, and I feel like there’s something wrong with me for not being lustful like everyone else my age. 

I asked for “A Book of Angels” for Christmas. Even though I’ve graduated university, I continue to study religious concepts. Right now I’m particularly interested in the lore of ancient culture and the belief in a sort of magic—protective amulets, talismans, as well as the mythology of King Solomon and the demons he summoned to do his bidding—all of that led me here, to your book, to learn more about Angels. They play such a massive part in not just catholic (monotheistic) history, but all history. 

Every few pages, I have to put the book down. My eyes fill with tears and I feel like there’s hope left. I must first thank you for writing it. For forcing it into the world, because how beautiful, to be reminded that there is hope, even if you don’t have it right now. 

Secondly, I wanted to tell you a story. Because the moment I opened the book, I remembered the day I witnessed an angel save my sister.

My Grandmother, before she died of leukemia, claimed to see an angel waiting for her in the corner of the hospital room. No one else could see it, even though my mother was there. My mother told me my grandmother visited her in the house after her death as well, and I used to wonder why I’d never gotten visited. I wanted to see one too, an angel, or a ghost—anything. I didn’t need to see to believe it, I was just jealous, I think, in a childish way.

I can’t remember exactly how old I was, but my younger sister was probably around 6 or 7, so that would put me around 8 or 9. My grandfather lived a two-minute walk from our house, just outside the neighbourhood across a busy street.

In the midsummer, we were walking back from visiting him, and were quickly rushed across the street in the little break the cars had given us. There was no stop-light near by, or a safe spot in the middle of the road to pause and wait for traffic from the other direction like there is now. 

My sister’s hat flew off her head, and she turned around to grab it without thinking. Her hand slipped out of mine ,and I turned—and then the time stopped. I’m not really sure how to explain it. . . . it just . . stopped. I swear it—a car would have hit her if it hadn’y. I didn’t really see an angel, not like the white dress, long hair, sets of wings and halo. Just the time stopping, and there was this sense of calm, a patience, and I wasn’t afraid. 

I waited for my sister to pick up her hat, put it back on her head, and walk back over to me. We made it across the street safely, and then Time started up again, and the cars zipped by. I must note there was no noise either. At first I thought this was my memory failing me, but I don’t think so. Because the second she was safe, the sound came back, and I remember that sound, all the cars speeding down the hill. Over the noise, my mother scolded my sister for being so reckless. I don’t remember anything after that.

I care about my sister very much, to the point where an event like that would make me over-worried and angered as my mother was. How could she choose a hat over her own life? What a fool!  But at the time, I wasn’t scared. I’m not scared when I think of it, either, it’s so calming. Such a gentle peace in the frozen picture of my memory. I should have forgotten it, I think, but I remember exactly what happened, exactly how I felt, and I’m still so positive that she would’ve gotten hit without the angel’s intervention. An angel stopped Time for her—for us. 

I’ve never told anyone. I’ve never felt the need to tell anyone, I didn’t need justification or a second opinion. It was real to me. 

Thank you for listening. And thank you for all your hard work. 


Natalina M_____

And one more. Thinking about death.

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After my last post, about the two angels in clouds, I came across a (lost) email that was sent to me a while ago. The writer has given me permission to use it. Who knows how many have seen angels in the sky or with their spiritual eye? Who knows how many times the angels come in our despair and we miss it? My apologies that the image does not recreate well: I can’t get it to show the original blue, blue of the sky, the white, white of the angel. Scroll down to see her comforting Toni the day after Jan 6 two years ago.

From Toni:

Subject Angels

Dear Sophy, recently I found myself thinking about what happens after death and feeling so agitated about not having any positive or hopeful feeling about it. I have believed in angels for a long time though. That same day this picture showed up randomly on my phone. It’s a picture I took the day after January six when I was outside in my hot tub thinking about the events of January sixth. On that day I spent the afternoon praying and picturing angels at the capital building to help. When I saw this Angel in the sky I was filled with joy, such a feeling. Seeing the picture pop up like that made me think of The Book of Angels which I used to own but gave to a granddaughter a few years ago. So I found the book on line and got it today. I love this book and now I can read your other books, too. Thank you. Toni Foltz, retired public school teacher from Toledo Ohio

Date: June 17, 2023 at 1:34:15 PM EDT

To: sophyburnham@gmail.com

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Two Angels

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Sometimes when you are feeling discouraged and very low, or when you think you are alone in the world, something catches your eye — and it needn’t even be anything magnificent, but suddenly your heart opens. Sometimes you see it (whatever “it” is, hope, joy, calm) in the clouds. You know it’s just a cloud, but it feels like a message. How to explain the sense you are cared for, that everything will be all right? Suddenly, in the words of St. Julian of Norwich, “All shall be well, and all shall be well. All manner of thing shall be well.”

The Heroine’s Journey

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The other day I was interviewed by Susanna Liller for her YouTube series on the Heroine’s Journey. What fun! Here is the link:  https://youtu.be/n5E5kUy-Pzc. .

I think we are all on a Hero’s (or Heroine’s) Journey, all our lives long. We are always in transition — from infancy to adolescence to adulthood to aging, and then on into the Great Mystery. (Those who report Near Death Experiences all agree that THIS part is wonder-full—wondrous, exciting, warm, welcoming, loving; a Coming Home; the Beloved running to meet us, arms outstretched.) For more about NDEs, look at the link below.

Right now I’m in another Heroine’s Journey transition, as I sell my Washington DC apartment and move permanently (as much as anything is permanent in this temporary world) to Massachusetts. Leaving Washington, my home since 1958, where my family has lived for 300 years, where every alley holds memories—has been physically exhausting and emotionally and spiritually harder than I imagined. Letting go. Giving up. Giving away. Moving on. So here I am at another step on the Heroine’s Journey.

The podcast audio version on her website is: https://susanna-e-liller.mykajabi.com/podcasts/the-real-life-heroine-s-journey-podcast

It’s not easy. How do you recognize a “Knowing,” the subtle guidance of intuition? How do you learn to trust the Still, Small Voice of God, the nudge toward a new path? The first part of your life seems to be about acquiring abilities, confidence and Stuff, and the second about shedding them. I wrote about this in my novel, The President’s Angel, a book I’m sure was dictated, “channeled,” since it speaks so profoundly of things I don’t even know. It’s the story of a President of the United States who sees an angel; and the course of history is changed. The book offers a plot interrupted by “commentaries” on what is happening on this strange planet where we find ourselves. In one passage I found myself writing about loss.

‘In those days people were terrified of nuclear war. It had become a metaphor for the terror of their souls. . . . As soon as people named something of value, they found they were afraid of losing it. The more they valued it, and the more precious it appeared to them, the more they feared its loss, which would bring that sharp reminder of the void. Yet life is nothing but loss, beginning with the loss of the darkness at birth, when comfort explodes into pain, then the loss of childhood, the loss of innocence, the loss of friends, the loss of much-loved animals, of brothers, mother, father, the loss of investments, the loss of homes with their creaking floorboards and cribs and cozy nooks, the loss of jobs, the loss of dreams, and the repeated loss of self-esteem, and always hanging over them the loss that would be produced by their own death, the loss of the self that they would not even have gotten to know before it would be gone. Which to say, the loss and extinction of the whole subjective world.”

There is also a freedom in loss, in letting go. but the freedom also requires trust. Do I trust that the Universe is on my side? Do I trust the goodness of the spiritual dimension? Do I trust myself? Forgive my fears, my blunders and human nature? Here are many YouTubes on NDE’s that put things into perspective. For the truth is, there is no loss. There’s always MORE!

As for NDE’s, look at the wonderful book by Barbara Bradley Haggerty’s FingerPrints of God. I’m especially taken by the story about the woman, blind since birth, who died during surgery, then came back to tell the surgeon everything she had seen and heard, including all the colors! Or Proof of Heaven by Dr. Eban Alexander, a neurosurgeon who was in a coma for a week and even brain dead, yet came back to report what he had seen. Or this which is only one of many others on the web:
(1) DR MARY NEAL AMAZING NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCE – YouTube

The fact is, we are ALL on The Hero’s Journey, the Heroine’s Journey. It’s called life.

Keep My Sheep

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  Occasionally I get a letter (imagine that!) or an email so evocative that I can’t stop thinking about it, like the one I’m about to tell you about concerning sheep. The only thing I know about sheep is that my horse refuses to step one hoof into a  pasture that contains these white, strange-smelling aliens that dash nervously away, ears pricked and tails twitching, as they scramble into the safety of their flock, bumping deeper into the middle at sight of my threatening horse.

   Or I think of the Bible, both the Hebrew and the New Testament with its images that we are the sheep of a loving God. Who does not love the 23rd psalm, in which the shepherd leads his flock into green pastures beside still waters and even safely through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, guiding them with his shepherd’s rod?  I used to sit in church, even as a child, comforted by this image of myself, the lovable lamb.  In the National Cathedral in Washington, my favorite Chapel of the Good Shepherd is so small that it can hold only two or three people; and it’s best if you are all alone in a one-person pew to gaze at the stone carving of Jesus cradling a lamb in his arms,  looking down at it, loving it. 

    It’s metaphor for how we, too, are loved and cared for by the Shepherd. Until we remember that the lamb will be slaughtered in the springtime, as was the Lamb of God, His Son, Jesus.  A tremor runs through me, therefore, considering sheep and my associations with lamb chops and butchery.  So it was a pleasure to receive the following letter, inspired by my blog, which the writer has kindly given me permission to reprint.  I had no idea that being with sheep, like therapy horses, helps heal the traumatized and lost. I had no idea that sheep were affectionate, or smart.  You see I’ve never known a sheep. There’s so much I don’t know.  

    I too, have loved an Arabian horse, thank you so much for your (as usual) lucid, helpful writing. Although I am not a very good rider (My husband is the horseman–we had won him in a raffle and trained him as a young colt, then a gelding, then sold him to a family who would love and appreciate him because we lost our nearby boarding stable.) Blowing air gently back and forth and the grooming, leading, talking, feeding, formed a strong attachment and I still think of him nearly 30 years later, long after he died. For this past 10 years we have bred and shown Shetland Sheep. They are every bit as smart and loving as horses. It is a scientifically proven fact that herd animals have larger brains relative to their body size than animals that are not as social. The theory is that they need more brain to store and use all the social cues to function in a flock or a herd.

     Our sheep adopted us into their flock. They come to us voluntarily and they talk with us in the same gentle chortlings that lambs and ewes only use for each other during their bonding process. As we age and grow too sore in body, we must downsize and quit keeping rams and quit breeding and showing. We have young granddaughters miles and miles away in San Francisco and older grand children in Colorado and Wyoming whose lives we need to be part of, too. So we are very carefully downsizing the flock, trying to make sure at least two go together and that they go to loving homes that will give them good care. Dispersing a flock of sheep is a huge responsibility, at least in order to do it well, in a way that the sheep will thrive–they cannot be healthy without being part of a flock. For us as well, as adopted members of their flock, it is very hard emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, to part with them. 

     Friends sometimes bring us loved ones who are in a streak of bad luck or illness, just so they can spend time with the sheep. They report that their loved ones spend a huge amount of time talking excitedly on the way home about how good, how healing, it was to be with the sheep.    

     So, we have pretty much decided to just stop breeding them, not to keep rams, and to keep the sweetest older ewes around for pets and therapy. Recently some of our sheep have won some big, competitive shows; we show to learn and to make sure we are in compliance with the breed standard. Although my husband is competitive and enjoys handling them and winning shows immensely, I consider my greatest achievement as a Shepherd was being smart enough to sell a ewe lamb and donate another to a ranch in Western Wisconsin, near the Twin Cities, that keeps Therapy animals of all types. Kids from the Inner City as well as disabled people come to visit them and the sheep are among their favorites. We have tried to tame and halter-train most of our lambs before they go to their new homes, because one never knows who they will end up helping. A friend of ours, another Shetland Sheep breeder, had grand-daughters who raised an orphaned Shetland bottle lamb in the house in diapers.  Now they dress her in a tutu and take her to nearby nursing homes, where the sheep loves being petted and socializing. Most commonly asked question when their now grown-up but still small ewe in her tutu first meets someone is, “What kind of dog is THAT?”

    Her letter shifts my distrust.  I remember the comfort I’ve always taken from the psalms, and from the words Christ spoke in the Gospel of John, “Keep my sheep,” he admonished Peter before leaving his gang for the last time. “Feed my sheep.” Meaning us. Meaning me. Meaning all of us who need to be loved so much. Meaning become the shepherd, all of us sheep. 

Grief

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I haven’t written on this site in many weeks. I had nothing to say, as I reeled from the loss of three people in three weeks. Grief is so close to depression, you hardly know what’s come over you, and it takes time to heal. I say “you.”  I mean me, of course, but maybe it relates to you, too.  You have to tell me, because right now I feel the ground still rocking, unstable, underfoot.  What have I to share? In grief, one sees through a veil; everything seems dulled: color, music, friendships. I have to remind myself to laugh, and all the time, I beat myself up for not feeling upbeat, happy, optimistic, and especially for having lost my way spiritually.  Where is God? The best I can do is to comfort myself that all things change, that everything is temporary, including life itself. 

      “Out, out, brief candle,” says Macbeth, on the death of his wife:

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
that struts and frets its hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more.It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.

    Is it true? Is there really no meaning? That’s what it feels like, and where is my generous spirituality in this?  Sometimes you cling with all ten claws to faith alone, trying to remember those times when you saw and heard the angels sing, when your heart leapt up with joy at the beauty of a tree or horse or the eyes of a friend. That’s what faith means.  That you can’t see “IT” anymore (whatever “it” is) — but you remember having seen it once (or many times!), and you cling to hope and faith.  You cling to faith that you are still loved, and that you still love, even when you don’t feel loving. You return to the cold comfort of intellect.  “We do not see things as they are,” according to the Talmud, “We see them as we are.”  Perhaps you remember St. Paul, “We walk by faith, not by sight.” You remember that grief itself is a poignant expression of love, and the deeper the grief, the deeper the love. I say you. I mean me. 

    When signs of the spiritual are absent, I walk by faith alone, by the memory of blessings poured upon me earlier, or of felix culpa moments, in which terrible things turned out serendipidously in my favor.  In grief, I walk by faith, praying, and then one day, I know, I’ll begin to blink my spiritual eyes again.  

    It just takes time. Grief is just another of these life-long journeys into love.  

My angel crow

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For a year and a half, I have tried to attract birds to my garden. I put up a birdbath, and grieved when no bird came to drink.  I put up a bird feeder, and watched the squirrels hang upside down, feeding at leisure on what had promised to be a squirrel-repelling mechanism .  And then this spring, a single crow swooped onto my bird bath.  

   I was thrilled. I love crows. They are smart, social, observant, cunning.  And black.  They warn other birds and animals of peril. They caw at any illicit movement in the forest; they attack or deflect a hawk. But what my crow was doing baffled me.  Sometimes it drank the cool, clean water, but without tilting its head to swallow, as most birds do.   Apparently, it could swallow without tossing the water back into its throat. Sometimes, it bounced around the edge of the bath, dunking its beak and head. What in the world was it doing?  When I cleaned the water, I found a tiny bone and a tuft of gray fur swirling in the water.  

    The crow had come to wash its food!  I watched in admiration. They rarely kill for meat. But they’ll scavenge carrion, and now my crow appeared several times a day to shake and wash the dirt off her food. Sometimes, afterwards, she washed her gleaming black feathers in a spray of glistening waterdrops.

    A few days later a second crow appeared.  Evidently, my crow had brought her mate.  And a few days after that, a whole murder of crows settled noisily on my birdbath, four, five, six, flapping, cawing, scolding, socializing and raising holy hell on the birdbath edge or running along the fence.

   It was hilarious—a parody. I had expected my garden to attract a St. Francis image of pretty little bluebirds flitting about the feeder. These were rascally, raucous, rebellious juvenile delinquents, taking over the local swimming pool, terrifying the little kids. 

   And then something extraordinary happened. 

   One morning, no crows came.

   Instead a cardinal appeared, a swallow, some nuthatches, two American goldfinches, and woodpeckers. Birds were flitting and flying at the feeder, dipping to the birdbath, disappearing into the woods, skimming smoothly away.  But no crows. No cawing, noisy marauders , no gunslingers, strutting on the fence.

    I miss my crows.  

    But I wonder about them, too.  Why did they come?   Where did they go? They were like angels, leading the little wood birds to the clean water in the birdbath and to a feeder that had attracted only squirrels for a year. You’ll think I’m nuts, but I see angels everywhere. Angels come in many forms. They play hide and seek with us poor humans. Now you see them, now you don’t.  Sometimes they even appear as black birds, dark forces, posing as disaster, yet bringing with them, joy, hope, beauty, change.  

 

to Do or to Be

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    So, my masked-bandit daughter came over to visit and we started talking about how  the pandemic has thrown all our values into question (not to mention 6 planets then retrograde), because what can else you do while social distancing and washing obsessively except move toward the deep, inner reflection and introspection that this pandemic has inspired?  

      She said, “We’re taught all sorts of values, but what if they’re wrong? There’s aesthetics, for example, being beautiful (hair, clothing, lips, eyes, body). And then there’s the value of how to enter a room, or make an entrance. You were taught to make an entrance,” she added. “That was a value for you.”  And I had to admit that entering a room was taught to my generation the way we were taught waltz or tango steps in dancing school. We were taught which fork to use at a dinner party, and how to make the hostess feel comfortable when her party goes off the road.

    “Not to mention,” my daughter continued, speaking as much to herself now as to me, “the value of accomplishments and achievements—and all that stuff we’re judged on, like keeping up with the New York Times, knowing about politics, and art, or theater, and the latest rage:  that’s another value.  

    “And what,” she mused, “if all you had to do was be yourself?”

    “What?”

    She lost me there.  No accomplishments? No doing?  Just being?  My whole life has been a search for approval. ( If I write a book, will my father love and notice me? If I’m more tactful, will I belong?)

    She said, “Look, you don’t have to do anything to be noticed.” At which I began to preen myself, until she added to my astonishment that she’d be happy just to go away with me for a weekend, where we wouldn’t have to do anything.  “Just being with you is enough,” she said. “Why do we have to do something all the time?”

    I was stunned. Is that true?    

    Now I keep wondering—What would it be like just to Be? Certainly, it releases all obligation of accomplishing anything (like vacuuming the living room right now, which it sorely needs). 

    It had never occurred to me that someone might want to be with me, except perhaps for my quick mind, and the quirky way I see the world. But when I think of those I love, I realize I don’t really care about their achievements or what high-wire act they perform, if they will simply let me bask in their presence. I’m happy watching them (and also my grandchildren, I might add, who are infinitely fascinating, like watching a lovely waterfall, without their having to say or do or perform in any way). 

     Is that what love is about? Just being? Mindfully. Observing without judgment. Or, put another way, just allowing, accepting, admiring, in the same way that I attend to a tree or to that bird that stopped at the birdbath to dip its beak and drink at my offering.  

     Can I allow myself to Be?

Easter: Christ Risen

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Easter. Rebirth. Resurrection. Spring. It is also the time when we celebrate the Resurrection. Or, if you’re like me, puzzle over it, filled with questions and doubt: did Jesus resurrect bodily, or was it a mystical return from the dead? Had he fully died? Maybe he went into a trance or coma in those last hours on the Cross, and once buried came out of it – although how he got out of the closed tomb with its great stone rolled across the mouth of the cave, to be seen by Mary in the garden— that gives one pause.

    I know people who are waiting for the Second Coming, convinced that He will return in bodily form, mature, having somehow skipped a childhood.  I’m not sure what happens then, but I imagine, as the Grand Inquisitor says in Dostoyevski’s “Brother’s Karamatsov, that we humans turn on Him and kill that exotic Other all over again.  Meanwhile, I understand nothing.  

     Yet twice I have seen Christ, and nothing can convince me the visions were not real.  Perhaps the Second Coming is happening to all of us all the time, and what is missing is recognition alone. Perhaps Christ is coming to us again and again, in tiny moments, reminders

of kindness, in bursts of laughter, or enjoyment of wine and social company. He must have been fun when alive. I’m inviting you all, dear readers, to confide your own experiences. I need to know them. I want to know I’m not alone.

    Some spiritual encounters are so fragile that you hardly know what’s happened. I remember one Easter slipping into Christ Church, Georgetown, onto a folding chair at the door, and suddenly bursting into tears, overcome by . . . what? Beauty? Flowers? Spiritual ecstasy? This, too, brought me no closer to church devotion. (I’m a hard case., it seems.) 

    Both of my Jesus sightings were similarly memorable. That is to say, I can’t forget them.  Yet, curiously, both were so ordinary that nothing changed. I didn’t fall to my knees in worship of the Son of God. I didn’t become more devout, or  churchly or “Christian.”

    Here is one.  I was living in my cabin in Taos, N. M.  For weeks I had been praying to see Jesus. You see, I’m not a very good Christian (always doubting, arguing, ready with contemptuous and critical inner commentary).

    So there I was that Easter morning, reading in my green tattered armchair by the fire, when I glanced up from my book , and out the window — I saw Christ walking toward me across the lawn. He was dressed in a long, white robe, like in the pictures, and he looked sort of as he’s depicted :  a face, a beard, though I don’t remember his face, merely his arms  opening  in welcome and the smile of greeting as he strode toward me. The next moment he was gone. The whole vision couldn’t have lasted more than an instant, less than a second, and it left no effect on me whatsoever., “Oh, that was Christ,” I thought, and went back to my book. As if I’d seen my brother.

      The problem was, the memory kept coming back, as now, writing about it.  Was it real? I have no idea.  But jut thinking of it fills me with joy. Did it change my life?  Make me go to church more regularly, stop arguing, found hospitals, build orphanages, give all my worldly goods away and join a monastery? No.  

   But I can’t forget that sense of being loved. Or His joy, the absolute delight, at seeing me.

   The other experience was totally different, and you can make of it what you will.  I was walking up the hill on the street in Washington D. C., where I lived, when I noticed a man walking slowly on the far side of the street.  He was young, perhaps in his twenties, dressed in dark, somewhat dirty and ragged clothing ,and carrying a backpack. He was pulling up the hill, slightly hunched, deep in thought, staring at the sidewalk at his feet, but what made him unusual was . . . some ineffable quality that drew me to him. He was utterly absorbed in thought (prayer?) eyes down, impervious to his surroundings.  I hurried across the street behind him, hastening to catch up. Who was he? Why did I want to stand beside him? He looked destitute, orphaned, and content in lonesomeness.  To  speak to him. would be an intrusion. He didn’t need me. He didn’t need anyone. But my heart poured out toward him.  I wanted to help.  All of these thoughts occurred so quickly I was hardly aware of them. Walking past, I reached out to offer money. He pulled back, shook his head. “No, no.” Did he say the words aloud? I don’t remember, but certainly the message received informed me that he didn’t need money.  I walked quickly on, forging uphill, curiously disturbed by him but careful not to interrupt his meditations.  After a few moments I turned to look behind. He wasn’t there.  Maybe he was someone’s son, who had just reached the front door to his own house.

   Why do I think he was the Christ?

   I would love to hear other experiences. Here was a man, or prophet, or Son of God, who has been worshipped for 2000 years; who never wrote a word and yet influenced more people than anyone on earth.  Have you too had experiences? Did they change you? Do you dare to share them with us on my blog?