On SEEING — large and small — near and far

Posted on August 22, 2025 by a moment with god — Leave a comment

Good Morning, God

These few leaves — lit by the early morning sun — caught my eye. So small. Insignificant. But beautiful.

Then just a day later, I was out on my front patio at 4:00 a.m. searching the night sky for the planetary array of seven planets. Well, Uranus required excellent eye sight and a very dark sky, but I did locate where it was (over head) on my Sky Walk2 app. I saw Venus, and Jupiter rising in the east. And then realizing that I might see Saturn — if I went out my south door and down the road to the west end of our complex — I got on my shoes and padded down the road. Sure enough — there was Saturn and, close to it (unseen) was Neptune.

I loved the contrast. Small up close. Gigantic but so far away. Then on my Wednesday night chat with my brother I learned about the Vera C. Rubin Observatory. It is seeing countless galaxies in formerly “dark space”. So many LAYERS of seeing.

So many factors are involved in selling. Presence, distance, focus and information for a few. I would never have been up at 4 a.m. to look at planets if a friend hadn’t told me about 8/20 being the last chance for centuries. Of course, my location meant that Mercury was impossible — and Mars for other reasons unlikely. So — I was not going to see this array! But, still, no matter! I was up to see what I could see. Ah, the “Last Chance” factor that advertisers love!

I marvel at how “little” I do see. On my morning walk as I look at the sky — I realize that I am seeing only in — my location and that in a tiny period of time. All this humbles me. And as information keeps flooding in — the percentage of what I know / see keeps becoming vanishingly smaller and smaller. My brother and I were talking about how the “size” of the Universe has undergone a cataclysmic expansion in our lifetime.

And all of this is stuffed into frameworks — cognitive maps — mostly to be labeled and forgotten. No wonder we humans are so easy to manipulate and manage. . .unless we have a framework large enough and sturdy enough to truly help us withstand it all.

Tagged with: astronomy, Nature, photography, Vera Rubin Observatory
Posted in beauty, connecting, mental maps, Perspective, perspectives, Planets, seeing, taking time to focus, time

On Discovering — I am Bereaved!

Posted on August 5, 2025 by a moment with god — Leave a comment

Good Morning, God

Well, this becoming SOLO after 65 years together — is filled with Surprises! At first I thought I was doing just fine. Actually, after the “waiting”. After the intensity of having to admit / face Kit is now in Home Hospice — After accepting that he isn’t going to get better!!!! There was a peace in knowing THAT PART was OVER. And that Kit was “continuing to grow in the presence of Your everlasting light and love”.

What I did not realize was how much Kit had given me — right up to the end. Having him hold my hand in a strong and loving grip. Having him tell me “You are so beautiful”. Singing “You are my Sunshine” with me . . . cocooning me in LOVE.

Apparently, this cocoon, was so nourishing that even though I would have mini bursts of cries of pain and anguish –mostly I felt OK. The residual love lingered on continuing to comfort me and stabilizing me.

The first thing I became aware of was my reduced energy level. One day I was functioning close to “normal”. The next day I would run out of gas . . . off and on . . . during the day. Then I would be “fine”. All of these UPs and DOWNs without a discernible pattern.

And, since I am monumentally not self aware, it took me a long time notice the FEELINGS of LOSS. Being inexplicably irritated, or SENSITIVE. Then after not being ABLE to talk with most people. I noticed — just this Saturday — I was lonely! Yikes! I had not felt lonely since Kit and I moved to Berkeley and he was at work all day! GOOD HEAVENS!!! But when I was asked IF I was lonely . . . I said, no, not lonely…I feel unheard. But yes! I am Lonely Ah yes, BOTH!

There is a vast assortment of stimuli involved in all this. Yes, sorrow is part of it. Grief at not having him WITH ME. But it is so much MORE! My Life as I had known it — has been FRAGMENTED. The center I revolved around is GONE. Sometimes it feels like “normal” is slowly dissolving all around me. At other time it feels like my “reality” has been blown to bits. And all the words I had heard about loss and grief just didn’t fit.

Then I went to the Episcopal Church near me –to their Service of Healing. And I heard: and uphold by the grace and consolation of your Holy Spirit those who are bereaved.

BEREAVED. That word felt big enough . . . or old fashioned enough to HOLD ME. And better yet, it showed me upon Whom to LEAN. To You be ALL PRAISE and GLORY.

Tagged with: Being BEREAVED, loss of a beloved partner, Naming what I am feeling, Solo, UNSTABLIZED
Posted in Bereaved, connecting, disruption, going THROUGH the sorrow, Grief, pain, Sorrows of the Deep

A Stream in the Desert — Streams in our Heart

Posted on July 12, 2025 by a moment with god — Leave a comment

Energy waxes and wanes nowadays. But this Sunday I set off to see the sunrise and kept on walking all the way down to the bottom of our Hidden Valley area. And there is the Wes Miller Park. This has been set up for intermittent picnics with a locked store container. And down at the bottom of this park is the Sabino Stream. Even in early July this was flowing along happily — much to my delight!

We have just begun our Monsoon Season! It began July 2nd with a burst of rain and an evening of lightning! The lightning was too far north over the Santa Catalina Mountains to be forked lightening. But the sheet lightening flashed almost constantly for hours, delighting me — as did seeing the stream on the 6th. The visual world is where I am happiest.

My wonderful husband, Kit, was both a musician (trombone), and a music major in college. He was never so happy as in the world of sound. My brother, David, is a Super Taster! His level of JOY in talking about wine is similar to Kit’s talking about music. All of this strikes me as wonderful! We are ALL so very different and to discover a realm in which we flourish is — in a sense — to find our own “stream.”

It seems to me that education ought to be about helping us find those streams which flows through us.

And I ought to leave this piece Right There. But I want to add a tag. Not every one has talents like being a musician or a super taster. So I want to mention a very simple skill that everyone can exercise — showing respect to one another. When Kit would walk to a meeting in downtown Honolulu, he would say hello to everyone he passed, especially the homeless. He felt that greeting folks was powerfully important. A smile, a wave, a nod . . served to convey that he SAW that person as a fellow human being.fff

That “being seen” is essential to health. In fact Bessel von der Kolk said that the essence of Trauma is to be “unseen and unheard.” Help me Please, God, to see and hear those around me.

Tagged with: Bessel von der Kolk, christianity, Faith, god, life, The purpose of human communication is to confirm our existence as human beings.
Posted in connecting, gifts and giftings, Gifts of the Spirit, God's gifts, Hearing, hearing myself, people as gifts, seeing, Spiritual Gifts

A Slowly Unfolding Series of Surprises

Posted on July 3, 2025 by a moment with god — Leave a comment

Good Morning, God

It is just shy of one year since we moved to Tucson. And just a day or two over six months since I became a surviving spouse. Unless you have become one — there is no way to explain what that means. I have been caught by surprise . . . a slowly unfolding Series of Surprises.

May I acknowledge that I was incredibly fortunate. My beloved husband, Kit, of 65 years was loving, patient and uncomplaining. I would say: Praise God! Kit would respond: From whom all blessing flow!
He would tell me I was beautiful . . . He would laugh at our favorite jokes. And he enjoyed our daughters and grandsons. I had planned ahead for a urologist. I did not realize getting a Physical Therapist would be much harder. And that lack of persistent movement became the real cause of death. Our Bodies need to move.

Kit passed in his sleep . . . right next to me. We had sung and held hands. It was so good to be right next to each other in Home Hospice. He was not in pain and not in fear and not on any pharmaceuticals. Amazing. And as the Neptune folks came for him, Suzanne put on Faure’s Requiem and she and Sandy and I WEPT AND BAWLED covered him with words of LOVE.

The first surprise was that while I was SAD….I was able to get done all that many many things that had to be done. That is what I had been doing and I kept on doing what had to be done. Mind you I was also doing inside work — that cut my acuity. But, as with my Super Belly, I just didn’t let myself notice. It wasn’t until the last BIG thing that had to get done — GOT DONE! — that my Body spoke up and basically said MY TURN!

OH BOY! I am going to try and describe what happened and what I hope lies ahead — Please God help me to do it fairly soon.

Tagged with: Faith, god, Life After the Death of a Beloved Spouse, The shocking surprises of being a surviving spouse, The slow dissolving of life as I knew it
Posted in A difficult freedom, a matter of scale, connecting, disappearing routines, Disorientation, Grief, loss, Rituals, Surprises

Planet Free Will

Posted on May 21, 2025 by a moment with god — Leave a comment

Good Day, GOD

I have been in a period of Cleaning Up. And I have finally realized — accepted — that I was not shanghaied or the victim or a bait and switch. I am here on planet earth because I chose to be here. As I heard myself say the other day — I LIKE TO MAKE MY OWN MISTAKES!

SO here I am. Wading — swimming actually — in the smelly swamp of my choices. I like to think of it as a COMPOSTiNG period. Sigh! If I had realized how PAINFUL it would be to see — re-feel — the resulting mess of my choices. . . made and unmade. . . I might have made the TERRIBLE choice of choosing Planet Easy. . . or maybe Planet Fair.

But no. I am SLOW. So I was helped to chose to be on Planet Earth. I say, along with Job (13:15) Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him. And I have chosen to trust myself and my beloved daughter Patty to GOD. I said that back in 1980. And I reaffirm it NOW. And God, You help us!

Here, from Fr. Keatings book Consenting to God as God is –so nothing prevents the body — with its marvelous capacity for health — to evacuate the emotional sludge of earlier times. It does this through the flow of unwanted thoughts [in centering prayer]. Emotional junk is a block to the circulation of bodily and spiritual energies. Also blocked by undigested emotional debris is awareness of the movements of grace that activate the Fruit and Gifts of the Spirit. (p.91)

Sigh, I KNOW being BLOCKED! It is worse than opening to the help of our unconscious as it brings up — sometimes repeatedly — the emotional sludge of earlier times.

I weep. I cry out. I suffer. I repent. The boils of Job are mine. (well just eczema . . ) And I am thankful that I am helped to do this. That You are loving me enough to leave me — in this painful swamp — as I slowly choose to FEEL and RELEASE the blocks of my mistakes.

I trust YOU and I PRAISE YOU!

Tagged with: Composting, Faith, Free Will, god, Godʻs LOVE, hope, Jesus, mistakes, The emotional SLUGE of my past mistakes
Posted in A God given diversity, A Spiritual Spring Cleaning, Composting, freedom, LOVE, sludge, The Endless Flow of God's Love, the gift of persistent love, Tough Love

This is the Tempter

Posted on May 11, 2025 by a moment with god — Leave a comment

Good Evening, God

The temptations of Christ seem to shed such a clear light on today’s world that I wanted to talk about it. But all the artists who depicted the scene made Satan so obviously untrustworthy — perhaps part of the plan to make evil invisible to us? Satan was a fallen angel. Comely — this is a Northern European version of beauty — but whatever ones’ culture — Satan will look beautiful.

Because, surely, we like to think ,IF THERE WAS AN EVIL BEING, he would be EASY TO RECOGNIZE. Alas, not so. But back to the temptations. In Luke 4:6-7 Satan said to Jesus “I will give You authority over all these kingdoms and all their glory,” he said. “For it has been relinquished to me, and I can give it to anyone I wish. So if You worship me, it will all be Yours.”

That is an Obvious Temptation. But, then it gets prettied up. Here is a possible back story — and I am pretty sure there was at least one. For example, Satan might point out to Jesus that these kingdoms are very poorly run. People are hungry. They are frightened. And there is no justice. All very true. Next, Satan might say . . . if YOU were the Ruler think of all the GOOD you could do? Is it not selfish of you to refuse to help them?

You get the idea. Satan appears to us not just as beautiful but also as so “kind” . . . so wanting to engage us in Good Works. All he asks if that we worship him . . . and it starts in such a small way. What could be the harm in that simple act. And on it goes.

Then, when folks begin to see the truth and want to get out . . . then comes the biggest lie of all. “TOO LATE!!! You can never escape! Look at all the HORRID things you have done! God will never ever forgive you.”

IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO REPENT! Isn’t that right, God? And you point out how you chose Saul who had been present at the stoning to death of Stephen to carry the word of LOVE and FORGIVENESS into the known world. Of course, you knocked him off his horse and he was three days blind. YIKES! Some of us might need that! Still he heard. He believed. And he was transformed.

I have to admit, God, that I do wish You would do more of that. A lot of us are on our “High Horse”.

Sigh, in truth, I feel as if our whole species needs to fall on our knees and repent.

Tagged with: A time for sackcloth and ashes, bible, Faith, It is NEVER to Late to REPENT, Jesus, satan, Temptation
Posted in asking for and accepting forgiveness, Evil, LOVE, Over come Evil with Good, Repentance, The Endless Flow of God's Love, the gift of persistent love

Florence Nightingale: Upsetter of Men in Charge

Posted on April 6, 2025 by a moment with god — Leave a comment

Florence Nightingale took on the generals and doctors during the Crimean War of 1853-56 and she said: “There is not an official who would not burn me like Joan of Arc if he could.”

This is the response humans in power have when their authority is questioned by new ideas and by “outsiders”. Fortunately for the soldiers and the sick in years to come, Florence had friends in high places. And so sanitation, hygiene, and fresh air prevailed. At least for a time.

New ideas are hard for us. For example, the men running the Boston Marathon refused to use the chip to determine winners.. . for decades! Why? Old men in power! My wonderful husband wrote a well-reasoned letter to explain how runners were being cheated out of age group awards by this failure. He doubted that it helped. But, I think that the younger men could well have used his “evidence” to finally prevail.

It happens in every field. It seems we are not good at building new mental maps. And we are even worse at discarding OLD MENTAL MAPS.

My goal this year will be to explore some of the new mental maps I have been building. Building slowly . . . to be sure. But mental maps affect the way information is sorted, processed and used. Information is virtually useless if it is not housed in a meaningful structure. So! Let us BEGIN!

There is much work to do. Sad to say, todayʻs hospitals are without open windows, the air is not fresh, and blue light rules. And even though STERILE is a GOAL — patients keep catching intractable infections! The “men in charge” have retaken control.”

Posted in Change Agents, Changing, connecting, mental maps, Power corrupts, The difficulty of changing

Now I can SEE how I FELT

Posted on March 11, 2025 by a moment with god — Leave a comment

Good Morning God,

I came across this photo a few days ago. I had taken it in the Tucson Medical Center, 9/27/24.
That was 3 months before Kit died. At that point I was intellectually aware of his destination.
But, emotionally, I was holding TIGHT to HOPE. So I just thought — what an interesting set of layers of reflections.

But, now that I am 2.5 months on the Road From We to Me . . . I saw this image
and instantly knew: THAT IS EXACTLY HOW I FELT — deep inside me. I was managing to function with a HOLE in my HEART. WOW!

It took a lot of energy to keep from FEELING and realizing that. But I guess, DEEP INSIDE I believed it would have been impossible to feel and “carry on” doing what felt like it HAD to be done. This was something that I never even considered bringing up to consciousness — let alone taking conscious control over. Hmmm. Conscious Control in my life has been noted by its ABSENCE.

So…here I am — occasionally finding myself in a Sea of Feelings. Brief Bursts of Crying or Bursts of Candor or…..Mostly, I feel good about FEELING. But that is my least developed Jungian function. Intellectually, I welcome this opportunity to bump around and explore this new world. I need to work with my feelings so they become my friends.

Pray, Margie! Pray, Open, Receive, and Give Thanks

Tagged with: An EXCESS of FEELINGS, healing, Love, Moving through WE to ME, Resisting Labels like Widow
Posted in a hand up, a prayer for healing, connecting, Feeling our feelings, Moving from WE to ME, Thinking and Feeling

I said it — but I didn’t MEAN IT

Posted on January 11, 2025 by a moment with god — 2 Comments

Good Morning God,

Having been married to my Wonderful Husband for 65 years — I did learn a few things that totally surprised me. Some of them were HOW different we were. And every once in a while I discovered how little I knew about myself — why in the world I did certain things — when they alway got me what I didn’t want.

And because I am basically a StoryTeller — when I mostly figured out what was going on — I set out to share it. This story was one that saved me a lot of heart aches. Not because I could change my behavior! But, because, when I explained what was going on inside me to my husband, he REMEMBERED. What an enormous help THAT WAS!

So, in the hopes that maybe there are other people who are just as perverse as I am — I am sharing this story.

However, there was a 3 month gap between when I understood and when I was able to share with him. Why was that? Because sharing made me feel VULNERABLE. For some reason being angry made me feel safe. Hmm. Maybe that is how quite a few folks feel?

Posted in connecting

Kit’s Safe Landing

Posted on January 7, 2025 by a moment with god — 1 Comment

Kit has
Landed Safely

🛬

I was going
To say
On a far shore
But it isn’t far
After a bit
Of a wash
And polish
Kit will join
That Great Cloud
Of Witnesses
Which somehow
Leaves him a lot
Of time for
OTHER THINGS

And I shake 🫨
My head
smiling

It is all so
Rich and Amazing
That even if
Told…or shown
My Mind has
No way to
Put it way💫
In order to
Retrieve it🙃

Aah….some day
I will know
Even as i am
Known

But i am
Hoping. .
I have more
Time HERE ♥️

Then Suz played
Faure’s Requiem
Freeing my
Tears to flow…
Flooding my
Beloved with
Tears and words
Of love 💕
Love and Gratitude

Yes, indeed💫
Praise GOD
From Whom
All blessings
FLOW