Kite flying – Release

In my pictures of my dad is one with his back to the camera. It is there because of what you can’t see. Dad was flying a kite in the picture, holding that cord tight in hands that allowed the form of bright cloth and rigid bracing to soar above.

I have a kite that hangs in my music classroom. Though it has hung still for years, it once soared on the breeze. I still can feel the tug on the string as the wind whipped it high above me, a pin prick of vibrancy in a calm cloud-brushed blue sky. There is something about kite flying. Feet firmly on the ground, your spirit and mind seem to lose their gravity and soar.

Right now, I want to let my father soar. I want to do all I can to say my goodbye from here on the far end of my kite string, here in Canada while I struggle with the consequences of having not completed my paperwork to get across the border andten  back here to the job I am passionate about. There are times to hold on and time to let go. My father will not get past the pain that lessens his quality of life right now. The tumour will keep growing. He will keep dying slowly no matter whether or not I can get there to say goodbye. His mind tires now and his words become unclear. He has had a vision of heaven. He has said he is ready to go. 

And so I work throrough all  the things on my end that may hold on to his spirit here in an entrapping way. I stretch out each memory linking them to those that come before or after. Weaving, weaving a long chord.  I weave my memories of fishing, of his appreciation and encouragement of music in me, all the HMS Pinafore songs I grew up hearing, so many little things that are so easily forgotten in the hurts we allow to take front stage in our adult lives. I weave in the memory of trips to the island, of his passion for a just way to help people deal with their finances as a true financial manager, his passion for witnessing, his quirky humour that often hid behind a serious face. I weave in stories about being half of a donkey in an opera once,  stories of his dad and mom and trips to the house that help history of our family. I add his stories of his brother and Ray P and his pride of having been in the quartet the first time Ray sang for money.  I weave in conversations where he tolerated my questions that pushed beyond the specific verses that he used for teaching at times. I weave in the accomodation he made for me and letting me sing in that choir during high school even though it wasn’t something at our church.  In my journal writing and at the moments in the day or night when memories surface, I take a moment to weave them into a cord reaching higher than the clouds.

At times some of the hurtful memories rear their heads and insist on being heard so I listen. I untangle the knot in the string by acknowledging and relatesing the hurt or anger that had been buried inside. Where there were things that pointed to future healing, I kept the memory for future work while letting the anger go.

Slowly the line grows, stretching further and further into the sky, releasing my father to travel closer and closer to heaven. The final act will be between him and God. It will be his to loosen the string so that his spirit kite can soar on up into the heavens where he will rest. He will go to the place where all that was foggy in the mirror of our finite world will come clear. He will go where the things that were hidden and the reasons for events and actions will be understood. He will be free of judgments that are not based on the truth of who a person is deep within. He will see the Father who filled his life and heart in his adult years. He will see the Son he turned to for example inhis adult life.

I am kite flying. In the way I can, I am seeking to say all my goodbyes and release my father to a spirit breeze. He will know the time to let go of the end of that cord and the others from hearts that love him. For now our cords will support him as he gets the feel of the currents in the air.

When you are ready, dad, fly free. Thank you for all the good I will remember. The rest is released into the hands of the One who understands the heart. When you are ready, dad, fly free. You will not be forgotten.

Father’s Day thoughts 2011

These images link easily in the passions my dad has shown in all the years I have known him. He is in the hospital now, Cancer has him gripped in pain and the failing of his organs. I will likely not see him again in this life but know that he is at peace with the idea of saying our hellos again in another time and place. Here is a letter I placed in a Facebook group started to allow us to begin sharing our memories while he is still here and may be able to enjoy some of them with us.

A LETTER TO MY DAD:

Daddy, Yesterday I went through my photos. My little girl inside got to remember fishing with her daddy. I saw you in your business suit and remember going to work with you. Though there was no picture of it, I remember the times you used to pull out your partial denture plate and then laugh that silly loud boisterous laugh that would have us all laughing until tears rolled down our cheeks. 

I remembered how you were the one to remember the still and film cameras so that we had a record of our family moments even though they also made me recall more times then I liked the time when I was small and thought a whitened terd on the lawn was one of the Easter eggs we were trying to find. Yes, my sisters had pleasure rubbing that in. There are many lasting legacies you left in my life. The photo albums of my own children, thanks to the camera being passed on to me in grade 4, is one of them.

Another is a lasting desire to make a difference in the lives of others. There are many stories I could tell but one story sticks out in my mind. You had taken me to work with you that day at your job in credit management at some department story and that day, you were assigned the job of repossessing a TV. We drove out to a more run down part of town and on the way you told me that the family was not able to pay for it. I don’t remember what reasons you gave. I do remember that you stopped to buy a bag or two of groceries. The TV was not yours to give them, you told me. But you could at least share food. You taught me that even where there are boundaries in what we can do, there is always a way to show compassion.

I remember the long haired guys who came to stay at our house from somewhere back in the days when they were labeled hippies and seen as undesirables. I remember many hurting people who you and mom let have meals and beds under our roof. I have a greater ease with people from all walks of life because you opened our home in a way that respected us as well.

 I take things quite seriously like you too and when I get it in my head that something is important I am not easily able to let it go as something I need to do and say. Sometimes, over the years, I have felt hurt because of this. I forget that I have that same characteristic and that sometimes it takes time to get a new perspective. Yet this characteristic I inherited from you has helped me seek ways to live for justice in my work and in the world around me. Though you may not always agree with my choices, I know that you honour the heart behind what I do.

 You took me fishing. Getting to go fishing with you or going on family outings to the kids’ trout pond near Sandy are some of my most vibrant childhood memories. I can feel that little girl pride when the trout I had caught became a part of the supper eaten that night. I remember the thrill and fear in pulling that salmon out of the ocean on trolling boats you hired space on. I remember being a passenger in the motorboat you used near the mouth of the Columbia trying for those sturgeons which seemed to be the most elusive fish. I remember fly casting and streams with you in your hip high boots. Fishing equipment still draws me with its familiarity of shapes, textures and smells.

 In the last few years I have had the chance to try fishing again up at a lake in the north part of Manitoba.  I sure could have used your guidance with the first three fish that I had on my line but the tenacity you gave me did see me finally nab a fish. My memories were of that trout pond as we trolled a line along in the placid waters the first day I tried. When a fish snagged on my line I was still thinking of those mini-trout until that jack came alongside the boat. It was huge! I jerked in surprise and, unfortunately jerked the line as well setting it free.

The next day I went down to the local rock for diving and fishing. I was determined to get at least one fish. Got my line out to the water and quickly got a fish on a hook. Reeled it in, slowly and carefully until I could see it just below me, reached down with my net with its 6 foot extending handle …. and came up about half a foot short of the water.  How was I to get that fish into the net when even laying on the rock with my arms stretched down, I couldn’t reach the water? So I decided to try it another way and slowly tried to lift the fish up to the net. As soon as it left the water, as you may have guessed it would, it gave a quick sharp flick and broke the line. One more lure gone as that fish broke free. So what to do as I was determined to catch a fish?  Seems my mind was remembering fishing trips with you.

 There was a chink that had fallen off the rock leaving a standing room only ledge about 2 feet down so I climbed down there and bracing my hand on the rocks edge made sure the net could reach the water. It did so I cast my line and waited. It wasn’t long before another fish took my hook and I slowly reeled it in, of course, tangling my line in the process. I ended up setting down my rod and pulling that line in hand over hand but I got the fish up to the rock. I kept the line taught enough but let the jack swim some there in the rocks shadow while with my other hand I grabbed my camera and took some pictures to prove I actually had a fish on my line in case this one got away too.

 The dreaded yet anticipated moment came. It was time to try once more to net that fish. I got the net down into the water and almost had the fish in it when the fish gave another flip tangling a fin into the outer side of the net. There was not going to be a chance to get the fish in the net so I pulled up the net with the fish thrashing on the outside of it held by that one fin. I gingerly carried the handle over and flipped the lid off the cooler depositing the fish directly into the cooler since I was intimidated by its sharp little teeth. But I got my fish. Tenacity and stubborn determination paid off. I waited for my friend to gut it though. My desire to fish didn’t quite go that far.

 Thinking about it, I have yet to net a fish in this new round of fishing. I have pulled them out onto the ice though. But when I see pictures of small fish that look like smelt, I remember those nights when the smelt ran in the Cowlitz and we would go help line the banks swishing our nets down into the water to catch buckets of the small fish. I can image the bridge on the trout pond and see your hands cleaning and often cooking our catch. I feel the wind of the ocean as we trolled on the rolling waters on the ocean or near the mouth of the Columbia. I hear the gulls along the shore and the muttering of the motor of the small boat we used on those river excursions. I can hear the cadence of your voice as you told stories and listened to mine.  Yes, what the little girl in me remembers most about fishing was that it gave me time with daddy.  Fishing will always give that remembering  to me.

Tomorrow is Father’s Day and I am hoping someone down there will be able to read this to you. I read a quote somewhere that children spell love T-I-M-E.  Then you must have loved us. You gave us time.

Listening inside

I have been letting go of my control – not in a negative way. I am simply allowing myself to have the peace of not controlling and censoring myself as much artistically. I am also listening to odd suggestions like a dark blue wash over an already dark painting that is then wiped off leaving a deepening of all the colours or a sky that holds more red then I had anticipated. I even laughed my way through a painting I thought of as garish that ended up being something I actually like. I am finding my voice beyond the limits I have walled myself in with for so long. It is an exciting journey and gives me a taste of where I can go if I am willing to keep risking new choices.

Still Life – Letting my soul speak

Rim Of Life-  based on “Walk with me out to the rim of life beyond security (Sue Monk Kidd)

The bread of Life. Based on John 6. Do we have too small an image of what this means?

In You is Life

“The Exquisite Edge of Courage”

Based on the line from Sue Monk Kidd’s prayer. “Take me to the exquisite edge of courage and release me to become.”:

Until I went into the sanctuary of God (Ps 73)

“But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task, until I went into the sanctuary of God…” Psalm 73 16-17a (NRSV)

I struggle with verses like this that capture my heart and yet are surrounded by images that don’t fit where I am at the time. This phrase captures me though — the sanctuary of God. That protected, defended place in the presence of the Holy. What is it I need to have a change of perspective of in that place? What am I not seeing?

I am also reading a book by Sue Monk Kidd called “When the Heart Waits”. She has found her image of waiting in a chrysalis, an image that had in the past been a part of my own journey. Another woman found her image in a spider spinning a web. Exploring this phrase from Psalm 73 has led me to my present image — that of a baby bird. Sue has a phrase in a poem prayer that resonates with the longing of the baby bird who is beginning to feel the power of its wings and yet is not yet released by the parent bird: “Take me to the exquisite edge of courage and release me to become.”

This is from my morning journal:

Sanctuary

Drawn away in these moments

I rest in the shadow

Your wings protect, defend

But I am small in this place

I am young and unsure

Fledgling to flight, wings untried

Less than my pride thinks I should be

But more than my fears think I am

I am loved by the mother

Held in her care

I am fed by the father

Nourished by his might

I am child of earth and heaven

Wings untested in flight

Wanting to stand on the edge

And soar out into the sky

Yet knowing my father, my mother

Watches me and knows

When I am ready to fly

When loss leads to finding what really mattered in the first place

In every ending are the seeds of a new beginning. In every loss there is the potential of something else being found.

Have you ever found yourself thinking about that question about what you would take with you if there was a fire and you only had time to take one thing? Somehow, I found myself thinking about it the other day and decided my computer external  drive that held the back up, and in some cases the only copy, of writings and pictures would be the thing I would take.

It held all that mattered most to me – the memories of those I love and loved and the seeds of creativity in my writings and painting. It also held a chronicle of my work history and an archive of older picture placed in it as back up for hard print pictures in my home that were fading with time but could not find room on the limited space of my laptop. Yes, that is what I would choose because so much of what mattered to me was held in its chips and metal.

I chose to give away something the other day. An older working monitor that was given to me for my creativity but was needed more by a person pulling their life together after great losses of their own. In the process of moving it out, I did not notice the wires of my TG drive had hooked to its base until the drive went crashing to the floor.

A piece of my mind acknowledged that it would probably be damaged but in that moment, I began to learn something about myself. Things aren’t the most important to me. People are. In that moment, helping the other person and respecting that person’s feelings came first. We got the monitor to the person’s house and then I went on and ran my other errands.

In the errands, I had to drop something off to a person of my past who I still do not feel comfortable about. The person made a joke about something that hinted at the past in a way that was crass and, should have been hurtful, but it wasn’t. Somehow all I did was tell the person how the past was no longer something I was holding on to and I found a way to leave soon after.

My mind started to go through the hurtful memories when I started to drive away and then I stopped. Instead, I found myself thanking God again that in a moment of vulnerability, I was again reminded why I had had to put distance in that relationship. Something is that rebreaking was healing and in that acknowledgement the respect I still did have of the person could stay intact while the “pictures” capturing the hurt could be released.

I came home to my worst fear. The drive did not function. I panicked and first turned to another piece of my past that could not help me before I realized I could ask my son-in-law to check it out for me two weeks from now when I see them. I cannot change what happened. It is done and I do not regret having let go of the monitor. I can still lose all the back up I still have of things but this morning I woke with a realization that this “parable” had brought a perspective into my life of what really matters.

This prayer, written by Sue Monk Kidd in her book When the Heart Waits, has been resounding in my head and heart for the last few days:

To be fully human, fully myself,

To accept all that I am, all that you envision,

This is my prayer.

Walk with me out to the rim of life,

Beyond security.

Take me to the exquisite edge of courage

And release me to become.

Granted that others have had greater losses and this is only a parable size loss for me, I also acknowledge that in every life loss has different meaning so honour that in me that feels this loss deeply.  But more, I honour that in me that I found through this.

Here is part of my journaling for this morning. Perhaps not hording it on a drive will allow these words to have meaning to someone else’s life.

July 31:

In referring to past writings, I began:

“Becoming seems to be the question in this book,” I wrote earlier.

No, the last book was about accepting your love for me. I think this book is about my accepting my love for you. – my “exquisite edge of courage” is this leap into Your arms knowing that by doing so I may finish my years on earth alone. And God, I do it not even knowing or feeling a security of what heaven is. I do it because my soul hungers for your touch with a deepness even the outer me is only beginning to understand.

One day as I was walking  I was thinking about what I would rescue from my house in case of a fire and that external drive with all it held was what I chose. It may or may not be useless now. I am sad but not devastated. For maybe the first time in my life I realize, I accept that the most important thing I would rescue – is me.

This soul in me is worth all that I am, all that I have. This soul can paint and express beyond what I ever believed I could do. This soul is not anxious or broken. It holds all of you and has held me throughout my life. Everything outside that soul can turn to dust. Whatever heaven or eternal life is, that soul lives on with You.

“Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing else on earth that I desire other than you. (more than you, I have to write. It would be dishonest to say I have no other desires.) My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” Psalm 73:  25,26

AMEN

Will I still have struggles? You bet. Remember, I still haven’t even started the journal on becoming.  As this paper one has drawn to its last page, tomorrow begins another book in the series of growing in faith.

Your love song to me – Meditations on God’s love

As stated, this is a first recording of this song in order to share it with some friends. It is a part of my recent faith journey — learning to really listen to that still small voice inside. The thing is, sometimes when you listen close and long enough you can want to just stay in the silent embrace of that love. But God called us to go and, in my life, that still small voice asks me to leave the solitude of that togetherness and live the risen Lord in my life. (Song Written July 15, 2010)

Your Love Song to Me

-

Refrain:

You can listen to the voices of the wind

Through my world I will call to you, my friend

But I’m here in the still small voice inside

I am here. I am here. I am here.

-

1. But for now, I have a purpose for your life

So my child, whether there’s joy or  strife

I’ll be here in that still small voice inside

As you walk I will be here by your side

Your friend and guide. I’ll be here.

-

2. When you need me, just call my name, I’m here

Face your life, there’s nothing there to fear

I will walk right beside you every day

Lend a hand when you need me on the way

Any day, I am here.

-

3. But I’m calling you to go into the world

Sing and dance, share laughter, share a tear

Tell your stories, build your friendships, share your home

I’ll be here, everywhere you roam

I’ll be your home. I’ll be here.

-

final refrain ……. I am here. Listen. I am here.

I am here. I haven’t gone anywhere. I am here.

It always comes back to that in the end

Have you ever wished you could go back – back to before certain events occurred, back to the past that held that someone you once thought you were but could not be sure you were remembering rightly. Today, I did just that in the reading of this testimony I had prepared to share within my first year of living in Winnipeg. In the past two years, especially then last few months, of renewed faith journey I have coming in spiral to this same type of faith. I say spiral because many of the things written have been fulfilled in the time in between and many of the struggles mentioned were heightened and lived in darker colours in those same intervening years.

There has also been growth and maturing into a richer childlikeness in faith that I value in my todays. The God I believed then is the God I still know now and the faith that sustained me then, never did let go. I have learned more about the love that gave reason for that faith. I have learned the stability of knowing where true acceptance lies. And the still small voice that I spoke of? I have been learning to trust that inner guidance even more.

I will let the me of that time speak here in the words she wrote.

For Bible Study – November 7, 1992

OVERVIEW

I’m not going to paint you a cozy picture of Christianity free from doubts, questions or confusions because that is not the truth about Christianity for me. I’m not often good at humour or taking things lightly. I struggle with right and wrong, goals and values, attitudes and actions and even what God is really like. I want answers to be concrete and easily recognizable. I want to know exactly what I should do and how. Sometimes I feel like the rope in a tug-a-war – being pulled back and forth between my desire to be accepted by others and strong convictions about what I believe is right for me to do.

I am often painfully aware of the extent of my failures and quick to put down my successes. I may not show that part of myself to you because it is often easier to just say thank you for a compliment or to parrot positive observations rather than to have someone feel it necessary to accure me that I really did do okay – while, inside, I feel embarrassed by mistakes I made. If I talk, if I tell you what I want you to see, maybe you won’t see the glitches. Yet even as I speak I realize I am talking too much and feel more inadequate. It is a progressive spiral of words on words to hike the pain and humiliation I am experiencing inside. Sometimes it doesn’t work and scathing or sometimes even kind words ignite or illumine the useless garbage I perceive in me. However, most of the time I think it works too well and I end up pushing away the very people I need.

BASIC LIFE PRINCIPLES

There are certain basic ideals by which I long to live. Living up to them is a process rather than a static goal I have achieved. These premises are like signposts along the road continually directing me back to the path that spells peace and confidence in my life. They are not principles for everyone, perhaps, but they are good guides for the activities I have chosen to be involved with. Some of these values are:

1. I believe the greatest gift I can give to a local church family or to any organization I am a part of is the gift of being a FACILLITATOR. What I mean by that  is that I believe that any talents or skills I possess or leadership positions I hold are of the most benefit to the church when they are used to encourage and develop the gifts and potentials of others in the church.  A musical solo or one-person dramatic presentation, for the most part, should be used when there is no alternative method to develop the topic. That is one of the perks I find in editing the Link. It is a job that allows me to fully express my ideas and yet is based on the assumption that I will be seeking out the gifts, talents or wisdom of others to make the paper all it can be.

Most people seem to be glad when their ability to contribute is recognized and affirmed. A lot find it scary – I still do in ways – but are willing to give a lot when questions and feedback are used to help them clarify their ideas and space is provided for the end product to be theirs instead of a parroting of my own personal views.

1. Within any leadership position whether teaching, leading singing, discipling a young or new Christian, or even parent, my ultimate goal must always be to WORK MYSELF OUT OF A JOB. That goal requires that I not maintain a role of ultimate authority and experience or of a guru sitting in my cave dispensing pearls of wisdom to those who come before me. Instead I am continually challenged to teach the skills necessary for thinking not just regurgitating. I must also risk providing opportunities for them to stretch their potential and experiment with self-control and self-direction.

It is hard when those you train strike out on their own.  There is a real closeness in helping others that leaves a hollow when they move away to try their wings. Also, you can’t get too comfortable in what you are doing because hopefully you’ll soon be loking for a new job, or new student or new whatever.

MY FAITH WALK

If I were to give one reason why I am a follower of Jesus, I would say it is because I have no choice. Where else could I find such unconditional acceptance? Sometimes if scares me to know that, like Romans says, nothing can separate me from his love. It seems like such a big thing to live up to that at time I feel weakest or feel I’ve failed miserably. A part of me wishes I could run away from it.

The choices aren’t always easy. Sometimes it means standing against the status quo not just of those outside the church but often the perceived standard of Christians around me. Yet over the years I’ve noticed that when I pay attention to a certain place in me, no matter how horribly the rest of me feels about something, the end result of whatever action I take ends up being good. Sometimes I set back in amazement when something has happened beyond my wildest imagination. I’ve learned to recognize God’s voice in that still small place since often the push from there goes against my inclinations and yet ends up so well.

You’d think with all the evidence I’d just naturally take the course I find in that quiet place but I don’t. The voices of others, especially other Christians are important to me. Yet many times their advice pulls in a dozen different directions at once. Who should I listen to? Who should I follow? I don’t like being alone or different. Besides it feels so arrogant to think I should choose against the advice of others. The crazy thing is, the things I believe often matchup with some of those voices. I just seem to pull myself apart trying to please everybody and end up pleasing nobody, not even myself or, more importantly, not even God.

Then back I go to the place I should have begun. Through books, music, poetry or writing I again tune in to the one whose love isn’t dependent on my right or wrong choices. I cry and grieve or even yell at God just like they do in the Pslams. And ike in the Psalms, I find myself remembering the reasons I believe God hears me and slowly he reminds me that he cares and that he is at my side helping me grow.

I have goals and dreams for the future that I hope to se fulfilled. I would like to get my teaching degree and begin to be more directly and regularly involved with kids with learning needs. I would like to get to know more people in Winnipeg on more than a “Hello” basis. And I would like to become a more empathetic listener, able to hear what people really are asking from me and slower to try to have all the answers I think they need. Though teacher’s training will take time and commitment, it is the last dream – to be quick to listen and slow to speak – that will be hardest to make come true and will demand a lifetime of learning.

I’m just glad that we don’t have a God who sticks his nose up at us unless we are perfect. There would be no hope me then. Maybe someday I’ll quit struggling to do it on my own and really reast on the things I believe in that still small place inside. It would save a lot of useless time and effort because it always comes back to that in the end.

MY LONGING (EXCERPTS FROM ANOTHER WRITING of my own)

“Hurt makes good walls to keep others out so, supposedly, they can’t hurt you more….. All I can say is I am trying to let go of the walls I know are around me. You may not accept the person I turn out to be but if I truly reach my goal, I will like me and feel some peace in my relationship with God. I am not there yet; maybe I will end up allowing my pride to keep me from ever being there.”

….. I can’t be a person I am not. I am a collection of strengths and weaknesses like anyone else. And these contradicting characters are often merely the flip sides of each other. I need acceptance and affirmation to encourage me where I feel worthless. I need to know I can be loved and respected for the person I am. I need to know that your love is truly unconditional, not in a degrading or disdainful way but with a balance between the knowledge of weaknesses and the celebration of the gifts I have to ofer as a part of my person. And with this acceptance I need the dignity that comes with being expected to become more than I am today – that comes because you se my potential for growth.

…… It brings peace to know we have a God whose acceptance goes beyond our greatest expectations, a God who is trustworthy to be there in ways we as humans never can be. All we can do is keep “pressing on”, keep allowing ourselves to be vulnerable even when it seems easier to walk the other direction as fast and as far away as possible.

It feels like it would be easier if I could hide the things about me that I don’t like but I know I can’t. The walls or “masks’ end up separating God and me too. Then the loneliness is more than I can handle.

With whatever trepidation you may feel, accept my trembling Hand. We need each other in this journey toward God. Walk with me as I in turn walk with you.

Your Love

Your love is painful
Filling me with desire without fulfillment
Your love is a fire
Consuming all I once knew of love
Your love is reaching
Invading the corners of my being
Your love is unkind
Shining a light on things I don’t want to see
Your love is vital
My very life is your gift to me
Your love is cleansing
Slowly the wounds are being washed away
Your love fulfills me
Somehow I feel whole in your embrace
Your love is caring
Your eyes look compassion for my bleeding soul
Your love is rich
There is treasure in each new day
Your love is jealous
You do not let me spread myself to things that would take me away
Your love is consuming
It is taking the life I once wanted to live
Your love is guiding
It is leading me to a place that is deeper me
Your love is mine
It is one thing that cannot be taken from me
Your love is here
It is not a distant dream of someday
Your love goes with me
It is closer than a phone call away
Your love holds me
When I fal you lift me up to try again
Your love is releasing
You let me make choices that may lead to falls
Your love is forgiving
You hold no record of wrong
Your love is complete
You will not let me down

I am

Through you — I am.
In you — I am.
For you — I am.
Amen