Beauty and Silence

I cannot separate thoughts of beauty and silence from thoughts of Alan.   And I want to continue to reflect on these things because they are so central to my heart and my well being -- silence, beauty and Alan.

I first met Alan on Good Friday in April of 1981.   The day is embedded in my life not because it was the day I met Alan.   It was a day that marked an end of an era in my life.  And interestingly it had to do with what I perceived as an enormous, unforgivable betrayal by a man I loved.   Appropriate for Good Friday.   I never thought about that before.

In those days I always allowed the imperative to be polite to override my own intuition.   So I allowed myself to be dragged to Alan's architectural office.  Penthouse offices on Park Avenue at 34th Street.   In those days I was living in a basement "apartment" in New Rochelle, doing peace and justice work at the College of New Rochelle, and doing graduate work in religious education at NYU.   I was suspect of money and ostentation.  Everything about Alan and his offices exuded both.  I was not pleased to be there, and not about to be caught up in his hospitality and flirting.   He offered me a job that day and on many occasions afterward much to my dismay.   He persisted and months later I agreed to have dinner with him.

We were an odd pair -- he was 20 years my elder.   He was conservative, imbedded in the country club life that I found boring at best and the "root of evil" at worst.  He was playful and elegant.   I was serious and sad.   For him politics and religion were for cocktail conversation.   For me they were central to my life.   I was deeply religious and spiritual.  He was a self-declared atheist.  Yet we began to reach across those divides to come to know each other.  

He couldn't figure out why I would work so hard at a job for so little money.   He insisted that the most important thing in life was to have money and I insisted it was to know love.   I think we taught each other a great deal in the fifteen years we had together before his untimely death in 1996.

So back to beauty, silence, Alan and money.   My older brother Joe was living in Houston and I missed him in a fierce way.  Alan had an architectural project in Houston and traveled there on a regular basis.   In early September of 1981 he offered to take me to Houston with him to visit my brother.   I was suspect.  "And what do I owe you for that?"  I asked.   I hardly knew him.  His response was that he had to be there over a weekend and all he wanted was the pleasure of my company.  He wanted me to go to a restaurant on a pier in Galveston with him over the weekend and he wanted me to attend a business dinner with him while he was there.   Other than that my time was my own.  My desire to see Joe overrode my apprehension and off we went to Houstonl.

The trip changed my life forever.   I learned why it was worth having money.   Because money could buy me silence and beauty.   For a working class girl from Brooklyn who really only found silence and that deep beauty in church or alone in nature, living in the midst of that kind of elegant silence and beauty for days at a time was transforming.

Alan was kind, gracious, caring and true to his word.

For the first time in years during that trip I heard the sound of my own laughter again.  My heart, frozen with sadness since my teen years, was thawing and opening in the presence of someone for whom hospitality and playfulness was so real.   And someone who was genuinely interested in me.   In who I was, in what I thought and in what he called my "presence". 

So my life began to change.

Here he is years later with my dear friend Cathie at my dining room table!

 and forever and always I will associate Alan with all things beautiful, silent, gracious and creative.

With thanks for all he brought me!

Donna

The Peace in Silence

This beautiful landscape by Eric Jean-Louis of Haiti has graced my bedroom for over 30 years now and it never ceases to bring me a sense of deep peace and silence - soul silence.    I woke in the early hours of this morning relishing the silence around me and the words of the poem "Desiderata" came to me " . . . and remember what peace there may be in silence . . .".    Desiderata . . . that for which we yearn.

I am grateful beyond words for this time of silence.  For days of work without speaking.   For a feeling of restfulness to be returning to me. For feeling a sense of restfulness here at home, not only when I leave to go on vacation.

I am grateful for the peace of silence and grateful beyond words for the artists of all sorts that share their gifts and grace my life.

Many blessings,

Donna

To Move as Spirit Moves You (Me)

I was talking to my friend Cathie the other night and we were commenting on the fact that this "blog" is starting out like a journal of sorts.  I realize that I am letting it take me where it will without really thinking about what next or planning to convey someting in particular.    And as I realize that, I am mindful of spiritual teachers that helped me to leave behind moving in ways that I think I SHOULD move, so I could move as spirit moves me.   That was in the 1990's and it was challenging -- very, very challenging.   One of the things they asked me to do was to pay attention to the language of my thoughts and speech and look for how much of it was conditional . . . you know, "if this, then that".   It was horrifying to me to realize that almost all the language of my thoughts and speech were conditional.   It seems obvious that if you really believe that life comes from Grace, that our life lives within the larger life of God, then conditional thinking creates a kind of block from being able to live with the resources available to you.   Obvious maybe, but it took a lot of discipline to change what had become automatic.

A long, long journey began of taking care with language -- evaluating what I think and what I say and examining the truthfulness of it.   I'm better at it now, but there are times I still have to force myself to pay attention, especially when I am tired, or feeling weighted down with obligations and responsibilities.   Which is how I've been feeling a lot for the past ten years.

Two events came together that created a "foreign" and somewhat stressful environment for me (okay friends,  you can laugh now).   My father died suddenly and it meant bringing my mother and brother to live with me -- both of whom were requiring a great deal of care.   And then I told a friend I would "help" him open a community Gallery and Coffee House in Arlee, thinking since he was retired he would run it and I would continue my consulting work and every once in a while change some art work over (okay friends, now you can BELLY LAUGH).

So after living alone most of my adult life, and working as a consultant from home with enormous control over my time, I began a life totally opposite - absolutely totally opposite.   Where time became a whip or a steamroller and there wasn't a moment of privacy unless I was sleeping and that doesn't count.

So here is a photo that says it all to me:

Do I hear laughter?   There I am in the main Gallery area working on my laptop with my apron on.

So now I get back to those wonderful spiritual teachers . . . . who said to me in 1992 that I knew perfectly how to move in response to obligation but that I hadn't really tried to move as spirit moves me . . . .and that I might want to try that sometime.

The reality is that my life is most rewarding and productive when I move as spirit moves me.  When I feel that the way I engage time is my own choice.   When I have plenty of time for the in-breath before I exhale.   When I have plenty of quiet, alone time.   Because I am primarily an introvert -- I ponder things in my heart in order to understand them and know them, and in order for inspiration to arise.   So how did I get into this life that is not suited to who I am?

Pastor Steve has me on his list for his morning reflections and he is amazing . . . I hope I'm not violating copyright by sharing a part of this morning's reflection that jumped out at me . .. "the heart does not choose a way by the road, nor the inns, but the love at the far end . . . "

So even though this isn't the life configuration I would choose, I realize that what the Gallery and the care for my mother represent are things that have love both at the far end and in the days themselves.

I have realized that I need to change how I engage both of those things in order to move as spirit moves me.   And so I have closed the Gallery between Christmas and January 4th (first time since we opened 8 years ago) to give me, and the space, a break.   Time for an in-breath.   Time to re-open in a new way that is more in keeping with what is truthful for me.

Not sure what the days will bring, but I can tell you it sure feels good to move as spirit moves me again - and to trust that I don't need to see the love at the far end -- I only need to trust that it is there and follow my thirst for it!

Blessings to everyone!

Donna

Our Girl from Brooklyn

 My mother and I watched the Kennedy Center Honors last night and she enjoyed it so much she actually stayed awake until 10 PM (so did I miracle of miracles).   What an amazing group of honorees and Neil Diamond was among them.   A boy from Brooklyn!   It brought me back to an evening in my parents den in Rochester watching HBO broadcast Barbra Streisand's return to the stage after many years' absence.   We were breathless waiting for her to come onto the stage and then she made that incredible entrance and began to sing that song with the refrain "I'm still here".  I heard a sob behind me and turned just in time to see tears streaming down my father's face as he whispered to the glorious woman on stage, "You are our girl from Brooklyn and we are so proud of you!".   If I remember correctly Barbra Streisand and Neil Diamond were classmates at the NYC High School of Arts and Science.

Their music filled my life with delight -- soothed me in times of sorrow -- energized me in the good times -- called me to a deeper awareness at others.   And through it all I think all of us were so proud that the boy and the girl from Brooklyn had their names blazing in lights!

It was almost by accident that I realized the show was on at all last night - I'm not a big TV watcher and I've been knitting leg warmers for my mother and enjoying doing that in the evenings.   So I am delighted I realized the show was on and that Mom and I got to enjoy all that amazing artistry.

Singing, dancing, artistry -- the arts.   Maybe I haven't been so far away from those things I love as I've thought . . . the blog entries have me thinking and really reflecting and I realize I have immersed myself in the arts forever.    My commitment to community development has been to utilize the arts to life people up, to inspire, to draw forward the creative spirit in all of us.   I was watching the international group that Yo Yo Ma put together perform in his honor thinking that there is nothing like the arts to bring people together, to blend our differences into a seamless unity of beauty.   And then the finale . . .  this group of modern international young people, James Taylor, a classical group and a more modern almost bluegrass/jazz group all performing together with an incredible conductor and it worked . . . it more than worked.  It was brilliant!

To be more fully human is to embrace the artist in ourselves and to know it exists in everything and everyone in the created world . . . our music is the music of the stars . . . our written words are "The Word" that was in the beginning . . . our attention and engagement of the artistry of others is what Nell Morton calls "The Great Listening Ear" that preceded "The Word" in order to hear it into speech.

Let's thank all the artists of life for giving us encouragement and joy and faith in our own artistry!

Blessings
Donna

Ave Maria

Now it is the 6th grade -- and I have the lead female role in our school play "Thirty Minutes with Schubert" -- still singing and dancing as you can see.   Hummm I wonder what happened after 6th grade because I think, other than choir while I was at Kenyon College, that was the end of my singing and dancing career.    There is no way to reflect on this photo or this time in my life without talking about my Uncle Steve because he was the one who taught me how to sing.   Not only how to hit the notes, but how to deliver a song.

My earliest memory of him teaching me to sing was in his car on our way to the summer fair in Highland Falls when I was 4 years old.   I hadn't started school yet.   And there he is teaching me to sing Tiptoe Through The Tulips -- this was before Tiny Tim made it a pop hit.   So there we are together, on our way to the fair, and I am belting out Tiptoe Through The Tulips and he keeps stopping me to talk about phrasing of all things.    I was ALWAYS happy to be with Uncle Steve.   He wasn't a "blood" uncle -- he was an uncle "in the Indian way' as people here on the Flathead Reservation say.   A dear friend of our family.   A contractor by trade and a song writer by avocation.    I have his sheet music (all written by hand, beautifully I might add) and his 78 lps and they are treasured momentos of a man who was instrumental (pun?) in who I am today.

So Uncle Steve taught me to sing.

And then there has always been this deep connection to spirit, to God, to a larger life, whatever we want to call it.   I was a loved child, and as is also true in life I had the opposite experience as well.    I loved being in church and at this time in my life I was seriously thinking about a religious life -- even though I was only in 6th grade.   I would spend lots of time in our church, alone (churches were open all the time in those days), on my knees before the statue of Mary.   I loved everything about it.   The smell of the church -- all that incense in those days some of you may remember.   The beauty.   And during mass the incredible music.   Always the music.    It was always easier to know myself as a connected spirit - and always harder, even today, to know myself as a "separate" self.   I think when I finally get the separate self part I will be more fully human and be able to use the many gifts I have been given more fully than I am able to now.

So church was my familiar, Mary was the locus of my faith, and Uncle Steve taught me to deliver a song.   I remember the tryouts.   Six of us and I was last to sing.    When I opened my mouth to sing it was one of those moments, like with Alan when I sang and something larger sang through me.   It was the voice of an adult and everyone just stared at me including the music teacher.   So even though I wasn't a great acting talent, I snagged the part.

Forty-six years after this photo was taken I went to my 40th High School Reunion - the only one I have ever attended.   And I was shocked to realize that for many of the boys in my elementary school, that performance of Ave Maria stuck with them more than any other memories of me.   Willie Van Utrech came up to me and said, "I only have one thing to say to you . . . AVE MARIA" and everyone started talking about that play.   That was a year and a half ago and I have been thinking alot about why that would stick with those boys -- and why for many of them it made me seem "untouchable".   They perceived me all these years as totally self-confident, mature beyond them.    And I think it is part of what made me a fairly lonely child even though I was always surrounded by people.

Back to reflecting on being fully human - I know now that the capacity to know myself as part of the larger life of God all my life has given me a kind of perception and depth that made people shy away from me - even my own mother who told me when I was in my early thirties that I frightened her when I was a child.   I think part of what keeps people from engaging this kind of radical humanity is that it tends to separate us from the people around us.    We all want to belong to the world in a deep way.   The truth is that I have never been able to belong to the world that way and there have been days and years, especially when I was younger, that I felt like a kid outside in the cold with her nose pressed against a window, watching people all dressed up enjoying a party in a beautiful house.

Now in my life, I realize the emptiness that was in many of those rooms.   Now I realize the the richness of my inner life gave me more than many of the people who seemed to be more confident, more successful, more in touch really have.

When Alan died, there was no reason left to keep those deep, rich parts of myself hidden.   He was always afraid of those parts of me too, until those last three months when they helped to bring him peace.   Once when he was very, very angry with me he hissed at me, "And don't think I don't know that the the part of you I can barely tolerate makes you the woman I love!".   I laughed hard when he said it, but he meant it and he didn't think it was funny.

So I was lucky to be loved that way.   And I am lucky to be "in love".   Because LOVE is really what the creation is as well as the power that creates.   So really we are all IN LOVE because there is no life without it.   The thing we need to do is to figure out what that means, and how to share it with the people and the world around us.

Blessings,
Donna

More Fully Human

This is one of my favorite pictures -- here I am just a month before my fifth birthday ready to perform at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.  I am sitting on the stoop next door to the apartment building that we lived in then and my beloved father took the picture.   I remember that day with such joy.  I always loved dancing and singing and when I tell myself the clear truth about the ways in which I would choose to spend my days if I could do anything I wanted to, I always say "singing and dancing and playing with fiber".   Interesting that I have never brought those things I love most to the center of my life but I think that may be another story.

Yesterday, Christmas Day 2011, I went to mass at Fr. Jim Hogan's lovely home in Missoula.   It was an intimate, inspiring liturgy.    Fr. Jim has provided me an opportunity to still participate in liturgy - so dear to my heart - now that the changes Rome has made to liturgy have made me unable to practice my faith in a parish church.   It is inspiring to engage in liturgy that calls us to the fullness of life required by true discipleship - by true love of the "way" that Jesus of Nazareth modeled what is possible for all of us, if we will take the journey to be most fully human.   Liturgy that focuses on love and grace and unity.   When Fr. Jim spoke about the call to fullness of life, and to be more fully human, my heart connected me to one of the most painful and joyful conversations of my life.

On May 2, 1996 I sat in my living room on City Island with Alan, the love of my life, and we talked about the diagnosis he received that day -- Stage 4 stomach cancer with liver tumor load and a 3-6 month timeframe for the remainder of his days on earth.   It seemed impossible.   He was vibrant and alive and had gone to the doctor in April because he felt discomfort after he ate.   So we sat and we talked.   I asked him how he felt about dying and he told me that he loved living, and so was sad to think he would die sooner rather than later.   But that being said, he also told me he wasn't afraid to die.   That he had been so fortunate in his life to have work he loved, joy in his days and to have the relationship we shared.   He had told me a few months earlier that I had "redeemed" his life and I was honored, but I remembered being very surprised that a man who held firm to his atheism would use a term like redeemed.

I asked him what I could do to help.   He told me he was not going to undertake radical treatments as the doctors said there was no chance for remission or recovery - only prolonging his life a bit.   I asked him if he would like to take some time to explore what life means in a larger sense than he was willing to engage before.    He said yes, but he didn't know how to do that.   So I told him that I did, and I would be so happy to do it with him.

And so we began.

What transpired in the next three months -- he died 3 months to the day from the diagnosis -- transformed both of us.   I was desolate to be losing him and at the same time so graced to have those three months with him.

Now back to the fully human stuff . . . that night, May 2nd, as we sat together and spoke, he told me he experienced me as a person who did not find anything "invasive" about life . . . .as someone open to everything.   And he admitted to me that he felt at some level that I wasn't really human, given my capacity to life that way.    I remember being very still and quiet, and my response came from me and also from beyond me.  

I told him that I thought we were only now beginning to have any idea what it really means to be human.

So there I was, in a lovely living room in Missoula on December 25, 2011, celebrating an inspiring mass with 20 or so kindred spirits of all ages, and we were talking about the amazing call of Jesus for us to become more fully human.

And I felt such a depth of gratitude for everything in my life - and I decided it was time to start, and be faithful to, writing from my heart every day.

And so here it is - my first of what I hope to be many entries as I devote myself to becoming more fully human!

With love to all

Donna