April 2014 – BethSings

Adventure

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor.

Catch the trade winds into your sails.

Explore. Dream. Discover.

~Mark Twain

Last Thursday morning I threw off the ‘bowlines’, ‘caught the trade winds’ and ‘set sail’ for points north: Boston and beyond. It’s a trip I’ve postponed. One I’ve looked forward to. Easter journey. Family. Friends. Freedom from schedules, commitment. Alone time. Ten days of rest and relaxation. Wandering. Wondering. It’s been too long….

Rejuvenated. Renewed. C.S. Lewis writes:

“Here the whole world (stars, water, air,
And field, and forest, as they were
Reflected in a single mind)
Like cast off clothes was left behind
In ashes, yet with hopes that she,
Re-born from holy poverty,
In lenten lands, hereafter may
Resume them on her Easter Day.”

Time to find THAT Easter Day. Pray for those special ones who are still with me: heart, heaven… cherish…..take time. Breathe. Journey. Adventure.

Cathedral of the Holy Cross-Boston, Easter Sunday

Adventure….

Embrace the reflection of who I am still becoming…..

A mystery of motherhood and middle age….

sometimes leading, sometimes following.

Fun. Spontaneous. Serendipitous. The magic continues……next week….in living color… Explore. Dream. Discover. Catch the trade winds. Who knows where they may lead….

Passion

“What is that feeling when you’re driving away from people and they recede on the plain you see their specks dispersing?- it’s the too-huge world vaulting us, and it’s good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.”

Jack Kerouac On the Road

Some weeks.

Seem special. Every word is cherished. This is one of those weeks and it’s not even Wednesday. Every moment cherished. Every word treasured. It started Sunday with an adventure…….

How many of us have convinced ourselves we’re the only ones that had ever been betrayed, injured, humiliated. My hand is raised: Guilty!

Broken, often oblivious to the brokenness. Complicated. Confused. Come on!

Odd adventure. Stop. Breathe. Letting go. Surrendering to the possible. Passion!

“Our life is not given to us like an opera libretto, in which all is written down; it means going, walking, doing, searching seeing….We must enter into the adventure of the quest.”

Pope Francis, America Magazine, September 2013

Often, the comfort of what is familiar hinders our desire for the quest. My mother used to stay “a lady always knows when to leave.” That had become my life’s prayer. Knowing when and how to leave….is an ARTFORM. I’m splendid at entrances, it’s the exits I haven’t mastered.

Passion. Journey. Sunday I FINALLY remembered something I’ve known all along. None of the moments are about hurts or injuries, entrances or exits…..but LOVE! As much as we don’t like to admit it, we’re broken people…. At least I am. Love puts it right.

An adventure is good for the spirit, soul…peace of mind. Perspective.

So with renewed vigor, the adventure continues…

with Passion…..Today….Tomorrow….Color me GRATEFUL……….Music to Long By

Foolish Consistency

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds….

~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Rarely at a loss for words, I was stumped for this week’s blog until today. Writer and photographer’s block!

Saturday afternoon I found myself at a women’s gymnastics meet sans camera. I’m not certain I would’ve or COULD’VE taken pictures. Oh, people were certainly snapping away. I even took one from my phone. Having never attended a meet before I didn’t know what to expect. By the end I was frazzled by the hustle-bustle-circus-like atmosphere of the event. I longed for quiet, peace, reflection~spent Sunday recuperating. When I was younger I liked the circus. Most of us grow. Up or otherwise.

When I first rediscovered photography I took lots of photos of clouds storing them in a folder labeled: “Up in the Air”. The click of the shutter quietened my mind, heart and spirit just as surely as any metronome ever did when I practiced the piano, singing or studying a score. The new vision was spontaneous yet consistent and comforting, like an old friend. I couldn’t place why until this week.

“While she danced without a net upon the wire….”

Decades ago, I learned that comforting dance with a camera. Mr. Gallien, my science teacher was inspiring, patient and creative. He built a dark room in the corner of the science lab so we could learn to develop film. He took us on adventures beyond the classroom, exploring the world through the lens. It was mysterious, magical and musical…red light, clicking of the shutter. “Up in the Clouds.” The journey from there to here……from clouds to circus has sometimes been circuitous. I’ve discovered I like spontaneity balanced with consistency.

Quiet. Foolish. Consistency.

The Journey by Mary Oliver

Today in quiet I reflected on journeys….

Casavant Mechanical Action Organ 2 Manuals, 25 Stops, 33 Ranks, 2011, St. Aloysius Church

choices…..

while sparkling through “a foolish consistency”……

Baptism Window~St. Aloysius Church, Baton Rouge, La. Stained Glass Art~Dufour-Corso Studio

Journey Window~St. Aloysius Church, Baton Rouge La. Stained Glass Art by Dufour~Corso

In the quiet, it all seems less foolish and much more consistent…

April Abandon

April.

Spring is dressed up in all her finery. I’ve learned to appreciate Spring without waiting for the other shoe to drop. Discovered order out of chaos. I’m a person who likes traditions and memories as much as I like knowing there is hope in tomorrow, being aware of the possible of each moment. SERENDIPITY!

Once, April began an adventure to a yesterday I chose not to remember. Now the journey is creative, collaborative, filled with a different abandon. Paradigm Shift.

“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.”

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

Recently my daughter Sarah, a graduate film student asked people to submit experiences about “loss” or being “lost”: anything from losing keys to more profound experiences. St. Anthony certainly came to mind since I’ve evoked him plenty during my life: “Tony, Tony please come round…..”. Ultimately, I submitted something a little more reflective.

Shout for joy, O daughter Zion! Sing joyfully, O Israel! Be glad and exult with all your heart! Zephaniah 3:14

Beauty. Loss. Struggle. Finding a way…

When I was very young I went with my parents and older brother to the Louisiana State Fair in Shreveport. I remember the bright lights and music of the midway, the smell of the carnival food. Somehow I was separated from them. Hazy memory: the loudspeaker blares my name, my mother calls for me, my father picks me up. I am safe. I used to dream that memory.

April 19, 1985. I’m called to the phone during a choir rehearsal. Busy, I say. Take a message, I say. Urgent. Come with abandon. I take the call. My brother with news. The minute I hear his first word….. I know.

The unsettling confusion I remembered encountering on the midway returned. Loss. Lost. Change so visceral you can taste it. Until that day if anyone had ever asked my greatest fear I would’ve said: ‘losing my mother’. I was twenty-five. Naive. Sheltered……Unconditionally loved.

My mother had experienced loss: her only brother in his 30’s, the

month before I was born; her mother, other relatives, friends . I witnessed her strength, her intelligence, her faith in life’s scenarios: joys and struggles. It has been one of her greatest lessons to me. In her short life, 59 years, she showed me how to live with style and grace.

I’ve wondered how I could ever be the person my parents were: honest, involved, fun, loving, warm. They raised me to live an independent life…as me, not them. Exactly want I for my own children. Because of that example there is no loss; I am not lost or abandoned.

My parents words have stuck with me, reminding me to be a person of faith and not fear, guiding me along the right path, to love all people and walk humbly. Even when I have stumbled, their wisdom and spirit have brought truth to a world often absent of it. Not the least of which: I was born in their heart. Because of it I carry a piece of theirs in mine. . . for the journey. . .with sheer abandon…but never abandoned.

Here’s to the beautiful people finding a way….