Author: Mary Elyn Bahlert

I am a spiritual seeker, a seeker who has "taken a drink from many cups." I love to accompany others on the deeper journey to witness to their True Self. Now a writer, photographer and poet, I have retired from full-time ministry as a pastor in downtown Oakland, CA.
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“Will the circle be unbroken, by and by, Lord, by and by…” words by Carter A.P.

Mary Elyn Bahlert

IMG_0646Verbena (verbena x hybrida)

 

Life as circles…

Have you observed how life seems to circle around? Maybe it does for you, maybe it doesn’t. I’m trying to wrap my mind around this way of looking at things as I get older.

As people grow older, they experience more and more loss. That is a fact of life. And when we experience a loss, we experience the circle of our lives seeming to grow smaller and smaller. At the same time, our memories of those we have lost, those we will never see again, circle into our minds from time to time. We see them again in our mind’s eye, and sometimes – if we are honest – we talk to them. Maybe we say the same things to them, things that have been circling around in our minds.

One day, the phone may ring and someone you have not spoken to in years will be calling. Our minds circle around to someone we have not thought about in years. We remember conversations, we remember feelings, and we experience those feelings again. The feelings circle around, they circle back to us. Like the ring on a merry-go-round, we are free to feel those feelings once again.

Several years ago, an important mentor of mine, the Rev. Harvey Stower, died. Harvey had listened, gently and patiently, to my growing awareness of an inner movement, a spiritual awakening. He listened and he encouraged me to leave my work in federal service to go to seminary – a dream I had held inside of me for a long time. He introduced me to Jesus, gently and without judgement: “If you can just think of Jesus as your friend,” as we stood under a night filled with stars in northern Wisconsin. Those simple words became a guide for me.

I had met Harvey when I was a lonely young woman in my 20’s, drifting through life, thrown about by the winds of social change and my own inner complexity and uncertainty. I was looking for a community, although I did not know it then. And so I searched. I began with books. I read about religions, not only Christianity, but other faiths. I rarely spoke to others about this search, but it continued, in spite of my ordinary outer life. Then, I began to go to church! I went to many churches one time. When I was not acknowledged, when I saw that my life space was different from the people I saw there, I did not return.

Then, because of the kindness of one “older” woman (Verdell, I am sure you were the age I am now!), I was gently invited to meet Harvey.

When Harvey died, I debated for days about whether to return to the Midwest for his funeral. Finally, encouraged by my husband, I made plane reservations, found someone to cover for me in my work, and made the trip to western Wisconsin just in time for the funeral. I sat in a row of people I did not know, strangers, that day as a whole community came out to remember and to grieve Harvey’s loss. He was a loss to many communities, outside the church and inside the church.

For a moment, as I remembered Harvey, as music was played and the gathered people sang together, a feeling came to me. I can’t name the feeling, but I knew it. The feeling I had during Harvey’s funeral was the same feeling I had when I was a younger woman, searching, lonely, looking for a place, my place in the world.  When I finally made my way to my own community, where I would meet Harvey, who was so important to my life, that was the feeling I had felt.  There it was! It had circled back again, to me, into my experience. Then, it was gone again.

“Will the circle be unbroken, by and by, Lord, by and by…”

I trust that your circles will come circling back to you, today or tomorrow. I trust that mine will, also.

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“Notice,” by Steve Kowit

Mary Elyn Bahlert

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This evening, the sturdy Levi’s
I wore every day for over a year
& which seemed to the end
in perfect condition,
suddenly tore.
How or why I don’t know,
but there it was: a big rip at the crotch.
A month ago my friend Nick
walked off a racquetball court,
showered,
got into this street clothes,
& halfway home collapsed & died.
Take heed, you who read this,
& drop to your knees now & again
like the poet Christopher Smart,
& kiss the earth & be joyful,
& make much of your time,
& be kindly to everyone,
even to those who do not deserve it.
For although you may not believe
it will happen,
you too will one day be gone,
I, whose Levi’s ripped at the crotch
for no reason,
assure you that such is the case.
Pass it on.

Steve Kowit (1938-2015), The Dumbbell Nebula

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Taking the long view…

Mary Elyn Bahlert

IMG_0634“The long view,”  from my camera…

These past few weeks, I have watched, as much of America and the world has watched, the aftermath of the death of a black man in police custody – in Baltimore, MD.  People have gathered in the streets to protest the death, and to bring the country’s – and the world’s – attention to the matter of racism and police use of force in the United States.  Having marched on many occasions in my lifetime, I am from a generation and a family of people who understood that sometimes the people must take to the streets to take back our democracy.  Like so many of us, I do not condone the violence that has erupted, the fires started in Baltimore, the reckless among the marchers.  But I also know that some things will happen, some people will not march peacefully; so many things in this situation – as in our lives – are out of control, and can become out of control.

Hopefully, the violent few will not stop the message of many from being communicated:  change is needed.

I especially appreciated the simple and clear statement made by David Brooks on the Public Broadcasting System New Hour last Friday, May 1:  “We know what the problem is:  we don’t know what to do about it.”  Hopefully, that is a statement of progress, a statement that those of us who are white are coming out of denial, that we realize that we are implicated in the systems, the structures that are our system, and that we also will be looked to for solutions for our part in these systems.  I pray that strong leadership will arise that will allow us as a country to confront the institutionalized racism that is in the fabric of who we are.

I was also touched by the interviews by members of the news media as they talked to people on their front porches in the neighborhoods directly connected to the violence that had broken out in the protests.  I heard the comments of an African American man who lives in the neighborhood where buildings had been burned:  “When I was young, the police walked on our street.”  He was remembering that there was a different relationship with the police in those days.

I remember those days, also, and I often think about how times were different then, in the 1950’s and early 1960’s.  I remember that we knew the names of the officers who walked down the streets of the city where I lived.  I know that we respected those officers.  I was a white girl, of course.  I was also raised in a generation – for good or not – that was expected to respect adults.  When I was with other children in the neighborhood, we knew each others’ parents, and we called them by their last name:  “Mrs. Smith.”  “Mr. Schmidt.”  When I look back now, I realize there were many things we did not talk about, that were an unconscious part of those streets and of the lives of the children who played there – domestic violence, drinking, sexual abuse.  We held adults and authority with respect, to be sure, and that has, like anything in life, positive and negative realities.

Something has been gained with our growing consciousness of the whole reality of life.  We know we cannot go back to those times, but those of us who have lived 5, 6, or 7 decades now have the ability to “take a long view of history.”  What happened to the neighborhoods we knew?  What happened to the semblance of safety we all had?  What happened to the days when children walked to school – safely, for the most part?  What happened to our innocence?  When did we stop treating one another with respect, the respect we give to another human being?

Was it as simple as the end of our naivete?  Was it the Watergate scandal?  Or Vietnam, and the lives of so many sacrificed in a war that was never really called a war?  Was it 2001?  Was it the resignation of the President?  We are the generations that remembers  the assassination of a young President whose election had brought many great hope.  We are generations that saw immediately and horribly the assassinations of a great civil rights leader and prophet, The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Bobby Kennedy, within a few months.  I remember my brother shouting from in front of the television that day:  “He shot him!”  Like millions of others, my brother had witnessed that moment, on live television.

What is the role of the Internet in all these changes, and the ability we have to see events as they happen, all witnesses to the world’s quickly changing borders and the identities of its people?

What do these things say about us as a people?

I don’t expect any of us to have the answers.  There are many among us who are looking for the answers in scholarly ways, searching through the annals of history for the answers.  Some simplicity (was life ever really simple?) seems to have been lost.  And there are many among us who are remembering with friends, and asking questions, talking, ruminating.

I also am not offering these thoughts as an exercise in nostalgia.  We are here, now, given our history, given our mistakes, given our greatness as part of the creation, and even given our questions.  This is who we are – and who we are not.

As I enter the Wisdom Years, I can see that those among us who have lived a long time have something that those younger folks among us do not have.  We have the scope of history, a scope that has driven us through tumultuous and rapidly changing times.  We also have the scope of our own histories, reflections on our own mistakes, some simple learnings, and we also have the ability to hold questions, to know that we do not have answers.  We are wise enough to know that the questions may be all we have.  We are people who can take the long view.

I am grateful for the life I’ve had.  I know I have had privilege  that I did not earn, by who I am, a white woman, an educated woman, a woman who has lived through times that women of no generation before has experienced.  I know my mother did not know the freedoms – internal and external – that I have had and yet, she, too, is part of this history.

I am also filled with questions.  I think we all are filled with questions.  It would not seem to be wisdom to strike out to make changes without deep considerations.  But we know change must happen.  Change means loss, and change means that something new is coming.

I am certain that others who are the elders are ruminating, also, and although not quickly coming up with answers, considering, turning history and the changes of history over in our hands, as one turns a rock over to see the other side.  Political correctness and opinions and views that we have held onto for so long don’t hold the answers we need, and I think they will have to be set aside.  How can we stop being so afraid of one another, how can we stop taking offense so quickly, how can we hold a space for answers, new answers, new behaviors, to take up space?

These are my questions, these are my wonderings, these are my considerations, not all stated here, but the crust of all that is churning in me as I face the Wisdom years.

What are yours?

 

 

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Crows Calling

Mary Elyn Bahlert

220px-Corvus-brachyrhynchos-001

American Crow, Singing Sands, Bruce Peninsula National Park, Ontario, Canada – 6, 2007

 
The crow yells orders to the city birds:
“this is my place, my space!”
Isn’t the call of the crow our call, too?

Sometimes in the afternoon sun leaves fly and feathers, too, whole trees shake with the anger of the crows:

“this is my place, my space – I am taking my space!”

Isn’t this our call, too?

All over the world, crows are calling this morning, each morning, on and on into dusk:

“this is my place, my space – I am taking my space!”

Flapping its wings, shaking  leaves, bellowing over city streets,                                                  crow calls:

“I am taking my space!”

meb/4/2015

***

Don’t we all take up space, want our space, as children of the creation/creator?  Isn’t that why people all over the world are calling in the streets – like the crows?

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Always give thanks –

Mary Elyn Bahlert

IMG_1072

It’s easy to be grateful when things are going well.  These days, it’s common to hear folks say:  “I am blessed,” when the list of positive things, things they feel good about, makes their life feel abundant and makes them feel rich, rich in blessings.  It’s harder to be grateful when things are not as good, when we are feeling down, when the blessings we have are not nearly as apparent, to us.

I’ve always loved the New Testament verse:  “Be joyful always, pray at all times, give thanks in all circumstances.”  Years ago, I read Corrie ten Boom’s account of the years she spent in a concentration camp in Europe.  She kept herself – her spirit alive – by living out those words.  Sometimes I remind myself of that verse, to get through a day.

This morning as I write these words, the people of Nepal are digging themselves and each other out from the rubble of a major earthquake that has devastated the country.  On Mount Everest, climbers who survived the quake are scouring through the debris to find friends, other adventurers.  Internet access is limited, and so people are finding ways to let their families know they have survived – so far.  As I sit here in my sunlit basement office, I am in luxury.  I listened this morning to the accounts of survivors on the BBC news.  A mother sits with her children, grateful to be alive, wondering how they will yet survive.  Aftershocks shake the country.  How will she feed her children?

I am deliberate about making time and space in my privileged life here in the West for those people around the globe – and not far from here – whose lives are not as privileged.  I think of it as part of my world citizenship to remember the lives of people who are struggling for food, for water, for shelter, for safety.  Since news travels so quickly around this planet earth, we hear the stories so much more quickly, and so much more vividly, it seems.  I am deliberate because I want to remember that my life is richer than most human beings can imagine.  My access to food, to water – even in this drought in Northern California – to basic, basic necessities, is simply a part of the way I live, and the way I expect to live.  How can I pray for these people?  Is there a way, by changing my/our lives here, I can effect change?

And what does it mean to “give thanks in all circumstances” in my life’s conditions?

Years ago, I read about a man whose life was full.  Educated and successful, he and his family had a beautiful home.  His children were beautiful, well-educated, and successful.  He had everything he needed or desired, it seemed.  Every day, he would say:  “I am blessed.”  One day, one of his beautiful daughters left for a trip to India.  On her arrival, she called her father to check in.  The next day, she was gone – murdered.

From that day forward, as her father and her family made that long and arduous and lonely and necessary journey to grieve  her loss, her father contemplated what it really meant to him to be “blessed.”  What did blessing mean now, in the face of this unimaginable, unnecessary loss?  Would he ever be able to say again, “I am so blessed?”

That is a question for us all.  I know – through my own years of learning to pray (we are always a beginner at such things, I think) – that so many of our days are not good days, or happy days, or days filled with all we want and desire.  Many of our days – if we are honest, and if we choose to live our lives to the fullest – are filled with loss, with unfilled desires, with disappointments, with sadness, some of which will never end.  What does it mean to say:  “I am grateful,” in those days?

I am grateful to be alive.  I am grateful for my one journey.  I am grateful for the beauty of each day.  I am grateful for food on the table, for the privilege I have as an educated white person in this society.  I am grateful for long, enduring friendships – in spite of me, I think.  I am grateful for the family I had in my life – as dysfunctional as any family, but still, a family in which there was love.  I am grateful for my partner in life.

I have been challenged, as we all are, by the changing winds of life.  Life is hard for any one, any where on the planet.  I can’t compare my own challenges to the people I have on my mind today, in Nepal.  It is hard to be a human being, invested with this life.

And so, in my own feeble practice, I try to give thanks, every day.  For awhile, I wrote a note of thanks to God, to the Universe, to Life, on a little sheet of paper every day, and put it in a drawer I had emptied for the purpose of holding my gratitude.  Now, I simply try to be grateful.  I have had moments when I have given thanks – did I feel grateful then? – in the midst of some crises of my mind or spirit.  That, as I said, is my practice.  Today, it is easy.  Some days, it is not.

I stay away from saying I am blessed.  That doesn’t work for me.  Why am I blessed?  Why is someone else not blessed?  Who is to say?  What does it mean, really?  I like to stay with the tide of life, the ups and downs, and I like to be grateful, when I can.

This is my practice.  And for that, for the abundant, privileged ability at all to think on these things, to reflect on life, I am grateful, for now, for this moment.  I hope you can be, just for a moment, also.