...And Moon Danced With Venus

Two years ago, while spending a few days vacationing in Mexico, I read Brian Swimme’s book, The Universe Is A Green Dragon: A Cosmic Creation Story. The effect it had upon me was transformative: All of creation is a direct expression of the Creator; all of creation is unified in perfection, from the tiniest, deadliest spider in the Amazon hanging on the giant Kapok tree, to the distant planets spinning in reflected light of our sun. All is All.

While in Manzanillo, I sat on a sea wall, looking out into the universe appearing in the night heavens. The clarity of Earth Moon and Venus in the western sea sky was stunning. On two particular evenings, these celestial bodies appeared together. This is my reflection. May it warm your winter evening. 

And Moon Danced with Venus

Rising in an indigo sky

Holding onto the ragged shoreline,

Venus appeared on the dancing floor of the Universe,

Shyly followed by her curved mate.

On the first evening,

Earth Moon held back, barely daring to approach.

Gaining courage to draw near and light her planetary expression.

There they stood, face to face,

A finger’s width and half a galaxy’s distance separating them

While they contemplated the vastness in which they were created.

Pausing in the ochre hue, left by the breath of the electric plant.

The Stars came to attend them.

Sea sang its eternal rhythm. Coaxing, calling them out.

But, Earth Moon hastily departed leaving Venus staring into the night.

Next evening, they returned.

He, overcoming his timidity, held her at the tip of his pale crescent finger

Before the Sun God even left the sky.

Their decision was ordained in the span of time and space.

They would dance together this evening.

Blazing orange Cosmic fire lighting their backs,

Pale blue faces turned toward each other in sheer allurement to the Creator’s.

Orbits unseen, unified in stillness until…

Excusing himself with grace, he took leave in the midnight blue.

She stayed until dawn, listening to the Sea play it’s eternal refrain.

                                                        

~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  ~  

 This is a great website for night skies and this planet we call home.

Earthsky.org

Mommy, They Killed a Black Man Today

It was a quiet afternoon in an even quieter neighborhood. In a few minutes, my youngest daughter, age six, would be bounding up the walk having leapt from the bottom step of the big orange school bus. I smiled knowing she would arrive dragging her backpack in one hand, a fist full of crumpled papers in the other, with her pink and white beaded hair bouncing above her ebony forehead.

I cherished greeting Mary at the door and joining her in a snack as we unraveled her school day over a juice box and a granola bar. But, as I looked through the window towards the corner bus stop, I knew immediately something was wrong…really, really wrong this day.

Mary’s boots barely touched on the last step of the bus before she hit the cement curb, running. Her mouth was wide open, with fright twisting her usually happy face. Her almond eyes intently focused directly toward the door of our home. She cut across the snowy yard, flying up the stairs and into my arms as I opened the door.

“Mommy, they killed a black man today!” she blurted. “They killed him!”

“What? Who?” I said, quite certain I heard her incorrectly.

“They killed a black man. His name is Martin. They killed Martin because he is black. Are they going to kill me, Mommy?”

I drew her tightly against my breast, feeling her body stiff with fear. Gently, I wiped tears of terror from her beautiful brown eyes.

“Sh-h-h-, baby, it’s okay, you’re safe,” I reassured her with the tips of my white fingers stroking her thickly plaited hair.

“You are safe,” I repeated, kissing the tears from her cheeks. “No one will hurt you. Let’s have some juice and talk about it, okay?”

I rose and turned toward the refrigerator and stopped: The kitchen wall calendar said Monday, January 17, 2001: the day the United States honored Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

My little daughter, newly adopted from a foreign country, had neither the cultural background nor the maturity of age to help her comprehend that the “news” of Martin Luther King's death was American history. What her six-year-old mind told her was that simply because of the color of her skin, she was in danger in this new land.

I spoke to her of Dr. King, Jr., and how he had died years before. How he and so many others, black and white, worked tirelessly so that all people could have equality and justice, and most of all, safety wherever they lived in the United States.

Ten years later, I stood alone in front of the Reflecting Pool surrounding the tombs of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King on a quiet Atlanta morning. I wept. I said a prayer of gratitude for their bravery on behalf of millions of unknown individuals like my daughter and me.

They as servant leaders, and countless others like them, were the reason I could assure my daughter with the words “you are safe,” when she was so terrified years ago. This safety is now guaranteed by our Constitution, but it can never be taken for granted.

Tomorrow, January 16, 2012, is the 26th anniversary of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. national holiday.

Dr. King often asked his audiences, “What are you doing for others?” I repeat his question in hopes you will see how any act you do in service to others is one more step toward peacemaking and eliminating any kind of “ism” that still exists in our beautiful nation.  

Peace Be In all, Jane

15 Sunflowers, Suffering, and Grace

15 Sunflowers ~ Vincent van Gogh, 1888

“Those who have eyes to see will recognize that all light comes from the same sun.”             

Vincent van Gogh, Letters to Theo

Recently, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about suffering. What it is; what it isn’t. Usually, in the same line of thought, I end up thinking about grace. How it shows up; what it looks like when I am able to see it.

In a prosperous country with food plentiful and relative safety inhabiting our cities, words such as suffering and grace rarely, if ever, are uttered in public or polite social conversation.

 Suffering is either viewed as an archaic term in a technological age, ignored as irrelevant to one’s own personal life, or misunderstood as something belonging to other, less flourishing regions of the world.

And grace, well grace is an even more obsolete expression…a word erroneously relegated to those days where simple people sought simple answers in a chaotic universe.

Begging the pardon of my sophisticated friends: I think so many of us are walking around in unidentified suffering that we are blinded to the moments of pure grace in our lives.  The result: depression, addiction, unrelieved sadness.

Because we do not recognize or are unwilling to admit that this “just being human” opens us to the experience of unearned suffering, we also become desensitized to the similar occasions of pure grace that even more frequently come to us in ways undeserved.

Denying, minimizing, or dismissing what has happened to cause suffering in our lives, or refusing to consciously acknowledge the pain, grief and sorrow caused by that suffering—"we cannot see the light that comes from the same sun," as Van Gogh wrote to his brother, Theo.

Van Gogh was a person who knew about unmerited suffering. ¹ So too, did another Dutchman, Henri Nouwen, one of the great spiritual authors of the 20^th century.² Both also knew about the transformative power of grace in their lives.

What is this grace, you ask? Despite all the mastication of it by theologians and philosophers, it is simply this: love. Loving actions, loving thoughts, loving presence. Grace.

Grace showing up as a text message encouraging one’s day; Grace revealing itself as a neighbor clearing your driveway of snow; Grace infusing one’s body and refreshing one’s mind after a ski with friends.  A sunrise; a poem; a painting of sunflowers. Grace.

Yes, we ALL suffer. Yes, we ALL experience grace. They walk hand in hand with this being human. My hope for your 2012 is to be blessed with awareness of both in order to know the depth of love bestowed by the Creator of the Universe.
                                                                  Peace Be In All,   Jane Haubrich Casperson MA, CSD

^1. Lust for Life: The Classic Biographical Novel of Vincent Van Gogh, Irving Stone. The Penguin Group.

^2. Henri Nouwen: Following the Movements of the Spirit, Henri J. M. Nouwen with Michael J. Christensen and Rebecca J. Laird. Harper One.