Wrapping my roots around Your Love

Posted on May 29, 2010 by a moment with god — Leave a comment

Saguaro cactus taken in the Golden Light period before dusk

Good Morning, God!

I just read an email from my youngest daughter saying she had her own retreat yesterday — sitting next to a small stream in the Sabino Canyon National Park and reading her Bible and journaling.

I’m back to WATER, God. Sitting beside a flowing stream and “being with You” as a chosen action — connecting with You — the Living Water.

And I just looked up an my indoor anthurium plant and took it into the tub for several doses of water and had a glass myself. We need water. And I need YOU.

In looking up how to spell saguaro I discovered that they grow slowly (one inch a year) and live to 200. They also have short (3 foot) tap roots. BUT they have smaller roots that extend out the height of the cactus and encircle big rocks to steady themselves in high winds.

I like that! I like it that I’m not the only Slow Grower You created! And I loved the idea that they are able to have anchoring roots. We ALL need anchoring roots, God! It’s a Windy World.

Photo from Friends of Sabino Canyon website

Now back to sitting by a stream. Water in the Desert is even more appreciated. And somehow streams are more intimate than rivers.

I am sitting here thinking about how the Saguaro flowers feed the birds in the Spring and their fruit feed birds and many other creatures in the Fall. I’m pondering the fragile yet durable web of life in the desert.

And, I guess, thinking of the sheer numbers of species — how many millions of insect species — and how EVERYTHING is CONNECTED to EVERYTHING ELSE.

That can cut both ways — it can make us seem insignificant — or it can invite us into a far deeper meaning than our mind can comprehend. We are INVITED to join into the CHORUS of PRAISE for the GIFT OF LIFE.

And to wrap our roots around Your Love! Smile. THANK YOU!

Posted in A God given diversity, a matter of scale, an invitation to abundant life, appreciation, attunement, clapping our hands in joy, embedded in God's Time, intentional and invited sacred space, small meaningful moments, stopping, The Flow of God's Love, web of life

Wake UP, Women of Planet Earth!

Posted on May 28, 2010 by a moment with god — Leave a comment

Looking toward Waikiki from the Outrigger

Good Morning, God!

It’s another Ocean Day . . . well Ocean morning. I LOVE Your World, GOD!

And, I love all the wonderful people in my life. FAMILY! And Friends! And people met just for a few moments.

You did a really GOOD JOB with us, God.

I’m sort of amazed at all the trouble we get ourselves into . . . how badly as a GROUP we seem to manage.

But I have an idea! I think it goes back to Women! I think older women have not USED all the gifts You have given us. That is what I think!

That wonderful quote by Edmund Burke about “All that is required for Evil to Triumph is for good men to do nothing”. Well, it seems the real evil happens when WOMEN DO NOTHING!

I remember reading that our species took a LEAP FORWARD when women lived long enough to help our daughters with their children. GRANDMOTHERS! That is what helped our species progress. (Yes, God, progress is not defined correctly by us!)

So! WHAT I SAY IS THIS! IT IS TIME FOR ANOTHER LEAP FORWARD FOR OUR SPECIES. TIME FOR THE GRANDMOTHERS AND GREATS TO GET OFF THE DIME AND HELP!!!

Yes, Thank You, God! That feels RIGHT! And since women are not leader dependent we can each one of us get going and DO WHATEVER! Hmm. Yes, if we DID TURN TOWARD YOU that might be another leap forward!

Now — off to ponder this — with friends.

Posted in a hand up, accepting my ability to REDESIGN, accepting my need for help, the importance of Grandmothers

Breakfasting in Beauty — Pondering Oil Disasters

Posted on May 27, 2010 by a moment with god — 1 Comment

breakfast at The Kahala

Here I am , God.

I’m looking forward to having breakfast this morning at the Plumeria restaurant at the Kahala hotel. I love this place. I love the green grass, the palms, the ocean and the sky. Then there is the view of Koko Head and Koko Crater.

Koko Crater and Koko Head

Then there are the pools of fish and even dolphins which seem to be having a good time with their trainers — although captivity bothers me. I have swum in the bay the the builders created many years ago — alas, by blasting out the coral reef.

The builders couldn’t do it now. And, as far as that goes, Henry J. Kaiser couldn’t have built Hawaii Kai. He built it on wetlands. Indeed, Waikik was marsh and wetlands, too.

How easy it is, God, for us to REMAKE the Earth. We see it as IMPROVING. But, of course, it is upsetting the delicate balance of the Web of Life. And, there are consequences. The trouble is, God, that we are not able to predict the Unintended Consequences.

I woke up this morning early to the light of the full moon shining on my face. What a delight! The next time I awoke it was to news of the BP oil disaster. The news was confirming that it was MUCH LARGER than reported. Oh my goodness. What to do?

One path is for the big oil companies to invest in solar and alternative fuels. The Rocky Mountain Institute just posted the video Reinventing Fire. YouTube – Reinventing Fire which preaches getting ourselves free of our oil addiction. Oil is easy. And You know, God, how very tempting EASY is for us.

Sigh. Well here I am, God, about to go off and enjoy myself and Your world — albeit somewhat “improved”. I am just ONE. But help me understand that does not make me powerless. It just means I have to search for like hearted Ones. Please HELP me. Please HELP US TO SPEAK UP, AND SPEAK OUT AND COMBINE OUR EFFORTS.

Posted in a matter of scale, adoring Easy, asking for help for myself, authority over my life, Balancing and adjustments, beauty, Choosing to respond, Options, responding to God's Spirit, responsibility, systematic rebuilding required, Venturing out of the shallows?

Star Makers and Day Makers – Stretching and Contracting

Posted on May 26, 2010 by a moment with god — Leave a comment

Heart and Soul nebulae

Good Morning God,

I just love it when my mind gets stretched!

WISE Has A Heart And Soul in this article in Space Daily I learned that these two active star making nebulae are in another arm of our spiral galaxy — the one we call the Milky Way. They are 6,000 light years away and our galaxy is 100,000 light years across. I think I remember reading that our galaxy makes a complete rotation every 200,000 years.

Both nebulae are busy creating stars out of dust and gas. Some baby stars are only one million years old — not like our sun which is 5 billion years old. I confess, God, that while my mind is stretched — it is not truly comprehending either Time or Space. Still, I can feel the tug of this information. And I sit here shaking my head.

Yesterday was a day of contracting — I STAYED HOME ALL DAY. I did jog up the valley, but slowly. And then I puttered about redesigning my files and tossing and filing. I still have an 18″ pile to dispose of. Hmmm. Yes, God, and two boxes of papers to sort and toss too.

Yesterday was a day of Consolidation, and it felt GOOD. It felt NECESSARY. Stretch and Contract. Just as we Inhale and Exhale. I’d really like Your Help, God to get those into balance.

Hmmm. It comes to me that I experience Stretching and Expanding as EXHILARATING! Whereas, I now realize, I have considered a Day at Home as DULL. Only yesterday wasn’t dull at all! Perhaps, it wasn’t dull, because I was listening to Glimmer: How Design Can Transform Your Life and Maybe Even the World. I was inspired. It helped me to reframe my Day at home as REDESIGNING both my Day and REDESIGNING HOW I DO THINGS. That’s a very exhilarating concept.

Please, God, help me to understand that I CAN REDESIGN THINGS! And NOTHING ever should be labeled dull! Labeling constricts and doesn’t allow for expanding.

When that is done to people, they tend to explode – or maybe collapse. That is an important thought, isn’t it God. A thought to ponder.

But, now, I’m on to a Day of Stretching!

Posted in a matter of scale, accepting my ability to REDESIGN, authority over my life, Balancing and adjustments, breathing in Your Spirit, Rethinking, so much to learn

A Slow Day at Home — Lovingly Together in our Separate Gender Universes

Posted on May 25, 2010 by a moment with god — Leave a comment

palm and fern in my office

Good Morning God,

Tuesday, is a s l o w day. Purr. What could be more relaxing and restorative than a slow day at home? Mind You, God, I love people and I love being with them. But home (not alone, but with Kit) is special.

It was Sandy who said, “Mom! Stay home Tuesdays and Thursdays and do your running around on Monday, Wednesday and Friday”.

I think it was M. Scott Peck who said something to the effect that a parent unwilling to take advice from a child was condemned to an early senility. Of course, he said, Father, not Parent. Men and Women are very different in so many ways. And one of them in this whole idea of being IN CHARGE — and I suppose, taking advice.

I think, God, that men are “leader dependent.” I first noticed this when Kit’s Wednesday morning men’s Bible study didn’t meet one morning because their leader hadn’t come. My response was puzzlement — so? Don’t you all have Bibles? Kit was dumbfounded. “We can’t meet without a leader.” We stood there staring at each other. Then he said, “Don’t you have a leader for your Wednesday women’s prayer group?” Now I was dumbfounded — a Leader for our women’s prayer group? I told him NO we don’t have a leader!

God, that became a period of several months in which Kit kept questioning me — trying to help me understand that OF COURSE we women had to have a leader — particularly in the Women’s Retreat Committee. I would describe that as a Period of Mutual NonComprehension — only I was pretty sure I understood that men and women function quite differently when it comes to leadership and being IN CHARGE.

This morning I offered to make a call for him to help with a state tax problem and he joked, “Are you trying to seize control of the ship?” Well, mostly he was joking. But I got the point, and smiled. Thank You, God, for Kit – and Life – and Differences.

Posted in adjusting, appreciation, Balancing and adjustments, gender universes, interspecies contact, Perspective, recovery time, relationships, relaxation

The Land, Lying Fallow, Increasing Yields and Us

Posted on May 24, 2010 by a moment with god — 1 Comment

The book by Joyce Appleby, The Relentless Revolution

I’m up early, God!

My mind filled with a factoid from the book The Relentless Revolution. It seems that starting with the Dutch at the end of the 1500s the Land was no longer allowed to lie fallow. The Dutch didn’t have enough land to feed all their people and they found that if they rotated their crops they got more yield from the land.

The idea is that some crops PUT BACK into the soil nitrogen, etc. — while other crops TAKE OUT nutrients. So they BALANCED what they planted and yields went up enough to support industry.

Then right around World War I we learned how to create nitrogen chemically and BOOM! We used it for explosives AND for fertilizer. The use of artificial fertilizer created the Population BOOM!

What got me UP, God, was when the relationship between the Land and Our Bodies came to me.

How can we be surprised at the use of steroids, uppers, etc. TO INCREASE YIELD for people, when we have been pumping chemicals into the land to increase yield?Sigh. What to do? I think vitamins are sensible and I’m fond of tea and coffee. But, steroids scare me. With steroids it is so clearly a case of SHORT TERM BOOST — LONG TERM COST.

I have this most uncomfortable feeling that the same is true of artificial fertilizer. At least, my experience in growing basil in a pot has shown me that it flourishes with organic fertilizers and dies with artificial ones. Food for thought, God, food for thought.

And, yes, I haven’t missed the connection with Your Command that the Land lie fallow one year in seven — and that refraining from work on the Sabbath Day is a sort of “lying fallow.” My guess is that You are doing A LOT while we are NOT.

Posted in a matter of scale, lying fallow, Perspective, sabbath rest, time, web of life

Pentecost, the Holy Spirit and US — more than Spiritual Spring Cleaning

Posted on May 23, 2010 by a moment with god — Leave a comment

Pentecost and the Coming of the Holy Spirit

Thank You for Pentecost, God!

Even after the followers of Jesus had seen him ALIVE after the crucification — they were still AFRAID. They were afraid with good reason, God.

Jesus told them to WAIT until power came to help them:”Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. ⁵For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”

The Holy Spirit came with the sound of a great wind and tongues of fire appeared over their heads. Then Peter went out into the streets — where thousands of Jews had come to Jerusalem for the Feast of Weeks — and preached!

But the truly amazing thing was that everyone heard him speak in their own language. It was the opposite of the Tower of Babel event.

What is particularly precious to me, God, is that You spoke to me many years ago as I read Acts, Chapter Two. My whole being reverberated with the knowledge that this was exactly how it happened. It was TRUE!

The Holy Spirit comes in POWER for each of us - TO BLESS and TRANSFORM

If I had been raised as a Baptist that would not have been a shock. But I was raised as a low church Episcopalian. The Bible was historical, but also poetic and allegorical. I just never thought that Pentecost really happened that way. Well, mostly, I never thought about it at all.

Here I sit — and YOU are asking: Will you say YES to ME? Will you receive MY SPIRIT? I have CHANGES I want to make in you.

YES YES YES YES!

Oh, but, GOD, I will need SO MUCH HELP. Because I am fearful . . . and self satisfied . . . and . . . slothful . . . BUT NO MATTER! YOU KNOW YOU HAVE TO HELP. My job is to say Yes to the ten thousand tiny requests You will be making. YES!

Posted in a hand up, a series of molts and upgrades, A Spiritual Spring Cleaning, accepting gifts sight unseen, accepting my need for help, being repotted, Choosing to respond, fears, Focus on what unites us, God as an Ongoing Gift

Helping Caregivers start businesses — Economic “Reforestation”

Posted on May 22, 2010 by a moment with god — 2 Comments

Good Morning, God!

Well, You woke me EARLY and with this photo in my heart/mind
— or whatever part You work with

A woman and child in Swaziland

The message that has been running around and around in my mind is THIS:

If you want to care for your children — then CARE FOR MINE.

And, I give you PRAISE, GOD, because everywhere I look — well at the churches I know and at Rotary clubs — people ARE working to do that. Here in Hawaii where Angel Network (helping the homeless) will have a booth at the new Farmer’s Market at Kaiser High. And Advocates for Africa’s Children, also in Honolulu, has a great new project with Africa Works to loan money to the CAREGIVERS of ORPHANS to set up and run a broiler chicken business. A One time investment of $3,000 launches ONE CAREGIVER on a path to economic self sufficiency. The image that has been coming to my heart, God, it that this is like PLANTING TREES in a barren ground — sort of an economic reforestation!

Africa Works has done this in Mozambique and now is partnering with Advocates for Africa’s Children (AFAC) in Swaziland. That’s the small, Hawaii size, country that has the highest incidence of HIV/AIDS in the WORLD!

And, YES GOD, it is like planting trees because you do have to water and prune and protect them. Twenty caregivers have been trained already. And Africa Works will help with technical advice and with built in savings. Running a business isn’t easy. But subsistence farming (sub subsistence with the 12 year drought) isn’t easy either. THIS PROVIDES HOPE.

Yes, God, $3,000 seems like a lot. But this is all about coming together in small groups of families members or friends to pool resources HERE to help ONE CAREGIVERS THERE. And, each group of givers will know the name of the caregiver being helped — and gets updates on her and the children she cares for.

I am sitting here smiling. Helping Your Children FEELS GOOD — It makes me JOYFUL!

Posted in a hand up, Advocates for Africa's Children, Africa Works, being planted, Choosing to respond, connecting, connections, creativity in loving service, Giving, JOY

Batiks and Earning a Living and Entitlement

Posted on May 21, 2010 by a moment with god — 1 Comment

a batik hanging from Swaziland, Africa

Good Morning,God

This batik is now one of the curtains in our bedroom. I love to see it with the Light shining through.

I saw the women making these batiks in Swaziland. I asked how they did it. Others must have asked too because the woman I asked pulled out a set of 7 clothes showing step by step how they made a batik. These women were lovely people. Patient and pleasant.

But, God, I didn’t pay enough to make this a really good way of earning a living. How we “earn a living” is on my mind for a variety of reasons. Of course, unemployment in the economic downturn is one reason.

Another reason for these thoughts is having just read Life of the Party: the biography of Pamela Digby Churchill Hayward Harriman. The English upper class was not so much about EARNING a living as being ENTITLED to a living.

I suppose, God, that EARNING a living is very middle class as it implies that you OUGHT to do so and THAT YOU CAN DO SO — and, of course, THAT YOU HAVE to do so. English upper class pre World War II owned most of the land in England and had contempt for those who worked (at other than overseeing their land and tenants) at “TRADE”. This strikes me as a very unhealthy attitude for a community or country.

Entitlement — either by the Rich or the Poor — is not an attractive attitude.

Drat! No sooner did I type that than the thought prickled up the back of my neck that I, myself, might possibly have areas in which I feel ENTITLED!

Hmmm. I am not sure . . . well, yes, I am QUITE SURE . . . I don’t want to go into that right now. But, please help me to ponder this thought, God. I am willing to do THAT! Help me process it at a deeper level. Now please be with me as I am off to my day.

Posted in meaningful work, processing on deeper levels, The poor and underemployed, web of life

Churches and Copies and Choosing Easy

Posted on May 20, 2010 by a moment with god — 1 Comment

Steeple at Central Union Church, Honolulu

Good Morning, God!

When we were in Boston I was struck by how many ways our church here in Honolulu resembled the churches in Boston.

Park Street Church, Boston

I’m smiling, God! We humans do love a model!

And, although the Park Street Church is a bit thinner and perhaps, more elegant, still they are pretty much the same. And speaking of models — when we went into the Boston Public Library we saw marble busts of the donors dressed like Romans complete with togas.

That’s not too surprising as the very definition of well educated was to have a CLASSICAL education. School boys in England learned Greek and Latin into the 20th Century — and that brings up all sorts of thoughts on education, God. (I will try not to go into the fact it was the BOYS that were educated._

Our brains seem to be designed to prune away that which is not used. In fact, it seems that a part of the brain that is heavily used might well encroach on neighboring brain space. Of course, we certainly come with “gifts”. Both Suzy and Ian have amazing memories. And they seem to have had them right from the start.

Now, IF I really WANTED to improve my memory –I could exercise it. I could devote time to memorizing verses, German words, etc. Because, this whole question of gifts and effort is tightly interwoven.

However, here I sit, sipping a wee bit of coffee (after my tea) and nibbling chocolate (dark) and thinking that I am glad I have a day at home — filled with walking and talking with friends and a massage with my Mom. Easy is so appealing.

Hmmm. I am over my jet lag. My desk has been beat back to normal clutter. My TO DO LIST is not attacking me. Today, God, I shall focus on enjoying and appreciating my life and the lovely people in it. Maybe — later — I will turn my mind to Other Things? Like writing our Compassion Children?

Posted in adoring Easy, appreciation, authority over my life, days of rest as conservation days?, education, simple joys of daily life