Category: reflecting

reflecting, wisdom

be here now

Mary Elyn Bahlert

I had been meditating for several years. I had learned to meditate – been given a particular mantra by my teacher, a healer I’d studied with over the course of those years. She required that her students practice meditation, twice a day. I was faithful to my practice. In the morning, I’d meditate for the first time as I sat up in bed each day. In the afternoon, I’d often close the door of my office and sit in silence, repeating the mantra to myself, for 20 minutes.

At the time, I’d heard stories of the healer’s other students when we gathered. It seemed that out-of-this world, even strange experiences were common to them. I listened with interest. And I knew that I had not experienced any of those things. Was I doing something wrong? I didn’t think so. And I continued the practice, twice a day, morning and afternoon.

Jeff and I were traveling. We were staying in his mother’s house in Brookfield, in the room that Jeff and Randy had shared as boys. I woke up and lay in bed for a few moments. I sat up in the bed. Then – I sat in complete, utter silence. I didn’t hear the sounds of Jeff’s mother moving around in the house. I didn’t hear the distant sound of traffic along Capitol Drive – a major traffic artery that held bumper to bumper traffic each morning. I sat in a complete and total silence.

And then – my busy mind began its constant chatter – again. Monkey mind, it’s been called. I knew that mind well. By any name, it’s the way of minds, it seems.

*

As I continued to meditate faithfully, twice a day, another, more subtle movement of my mind became clear to me. I realized – a surprise to me that simply arrived – that I was fully present in my life. When I sat with someone, I was present to them. My mind was not planning what I needed to do next. I was not constantly worrying about the day’s events. I was present to the person I sat with.

Now that I’m retired, I no longer practice meditation – although I still know my mantra. From time to time, Jeff asks me to tell him my mantra – he knows that a rule I was given by my teacher was to never share my mantra with anyone else. EVER. And I haven’t.

But my busy mind – some have called it “monkey mind” – no longer rules my life, as it did for so many years. I’m sorry I acted on its foolishness when I was younger. I hope that some of the decisions I made were good!

A few years after I had retired from full time ministry, I was serving a small congregation alongside another pastor. We were each 1/4 time (figure that out! ). I preached every other week and kept in touch with parishioners and visited in hospitals when needed. It was an easy gig, and the particular people at the little church made it easy. They were a kind group of folks, and together with them and the other pastor, I negotiated a move to another congregation, and gave up the church building to a large group of Korean language people who still call the place their home.

Early one Sunday morning, I woke early, long before the alarm clock was set to go off. My busy mind – my “monkey” mind – was busy, turning over and over again some unfinished business of the last week. Then – I wish I’d known this was possible, long before this moment – I told myself I wasn’t going to do that anymore. My mind stopped. The thoughts that had seemed in control a few moments before were quiet.

And I have never done that again. Ever.

BE HERE NOW

What a joy to be present to life’s precious moments… photo by Mary Elyn Bahlert

reflecting

Me and Mister O’Reilly

Mary Elyn Bahlert

Mr. O’Reilly was my Junior High Science teacher. I don’t remember much about him, except that he was old – most of my teachers were old by my standards… after all, I was in Junior High, and that he had gray hair and always wore a suit. Teachers dressed formally in those days. Other than the memory I’m about to share, all I remember about Mr. O’Reilly is that, on a warm, warm autumn day, when the windows of Peckham Junior High School were open to let in the clean, fresh air of the city, he sat at his desk, and – commenting on a fly that had flown into the window – told us a strange bit of information: if the fly were to land on a piece of food we were eating, whatever the fly had lit on before – the edge of a bedpan in a nearby nursing home, for example, and if said fly then landed on our hand, and if we did not wash our hands before we ate a meal – the germs that germy fly carried would transfer from the edge of the bedpan onto our food. And then into us/me.

Ugh. Enough of that memory – except to say: I’ve never forgotten that particular lesson. Wash your hands, people…

By the time I entered Junior High School, my school day began early and ended late in the afternoon. In Junior High I brought my lunch each day in a brown paper bag I carried along with my books. In each bag was a sandwich made with homemade bread, a piece of fruit, and maybe a sweet treat that Mom had baked. And by the time I entered Junior High, walked under the viaduct at 35th and Fond du Lac Avenue, I was in classes with young people who were, really, from the “other side of the tracks.” My classmates were no longer all the children of working class factory workers. My classmates often came from homes where Dad had a job that required a suit, and where Mom was not simply a housewife, but a woman who worked in an office, or who had been a nurse before she stayed at home, a home that the family owned.

And I was sensitive to all these things. I noticed.

One day, Mr. O’Reilly called my name as I passed him and another teacher, on my way to my assigned chair at a table in the cafeteria. I stopped in front of the tall teacher as he stood next to another teacher, a younger woman. They had been talking, and I somehow knew that they had been comparing the students they taught. Mr. O’Reilly – apparently to make a point – asked me where I lived. I understood completely in that moment that he expected me, a student of his in an accelerated program, to give him an answer other than the answer I gave: “I live on 28th and Locust.” Mr. O’Reilly looked at me with a surprised look on his face.

In Junior High, I was already sensitive to the homes and the kind of work my schoolmates’ parents had. I understood that I was not one of them. Later in college, I would take a class in the humanities about social class. In Junior High, I felt the tug of my difference, I saw the quality of the clothes my classmates wore – different from my often home-made clothes, and I expect I felt ashamed. I did not feel shame wash over me, wash over my body and mind as well as my emotions, in that moment in the school cafeteria, as I answered Mr. O’Reilly’s question. But I was keenly aware of what that moment was about.

In college, I would take a class about social class. These days, I’m rereading a text from that class: The Hidden Injuries of Class, Jonathan Cobb and Richard Sennet, 1972.

After my encounter with Mr. O’Reilly, I sat at the table with my friends and ate my lunch, ate my sandwich made of homemade bread. And I have never forgotten the sting of being from the other side of the tracks, for all the life of privilege I have lived.

A view of Mt. Fuji from Hakone, Japan, 2026. That’s Jeff in the bright orange jacket, seeing “the shy one” as she chose to show herself to us before we left to travel to Kanazawa. My own photo.

community, reflecting

Lake Merritt UMC

Mary Elyn Bahlert

I was serving part time in a small congregation in South San Francisco, living in Oakland. After several years of my floundering around, trying to make my way into the United Methodist Annual Conference while being married to another member of the clergy, I was grateful for the chance to preach each Sunday, to be present to the people of that community. Aldersgate United Methodist Church had been built in a post-war housing development in South San Francisco – the same development as my Uncle Pete and Aunt Athalie, who had lived there for many years. My being there was a twist of faith, or fate – or something else chosen by powers greater than myself or even greater than the United Methodist Bishop who sent me there. I was finally Pastor of a congregation that I was serving on my own. And I was grateful.

Pastor’s School that year was at Asilomar, a conference and retreat center along the Pacific Coast, south of Monterey, in January. I always looked forward to Pastor’s School, mostly for the time with other clergy, the friendships I formed among my colleagues as we sat in classes and ate meals together. Each conversation felt like a connection. I was standing outside, in conversation with Paul Extrum-Fernandez one day during Pastor’s School that year, 1996. As we stood there, Paul asked me where I’d like to go in the Annual Conference. Hmmmm… I had not considered that one, clear question – ever. And no one had ever asked me before. I stood silent for a few moments, thinking. Finally, I answered: “Lake Merritt,” I said.

Paul’s wife, Renee, was Pastor of Lake Merritt. I knew that. Paul knew that. “Oh, Renee will never leave Lake Merritt,” he said.

Two years later, I was Pastor at Lake Merritt United Methodist Church, a congregation formed by the merger of old First United Methodist Church of Oakland – whose building had burned to the ground – and St. Stephen’s United Methodist Church – where the people of Lake Merritt began to worship after the fire, before the new congregation built an entirely new building on the shore of Lake Merritt. The merged congregation became one: Lake Merritt United Methodist Church. I was excited, happy to be sent to Lake Merritt. And I was happy for 16 years – a long tenure, by any account, for a United Methodist Pastor, whose parishes are appointed by a resident Bishop. And I was grateful. I loved the people, in large part because I understood that they had chosen to continue to do ministry after their merger, and with insurance money to carry them into the future – in downtown Oakland.

I was right there with them, in downtown Oakland – and in my view, in heaven.

Sixteen years is a long tenure for a United Methodist Pastor, whose fate is held in the hands and heart of the resident Bishop, but Jeff and I worked it out as best we could as a clergy couple who chose to live together, to not be separated by an appointment to a church by a Bishop. He received training as an interim pastor, which opened doors for him to serve locally in churches of other denominations as well as United Methodist parishes.

*

Every Sunday during my tenure at Lake Merritt, I opened worship with these words: “Welcome to worship at Lake Merritt United Methodist Church, an open and welcoming Christian congregation serving downtown Oakland”. And I served, together with the wonderful lay people of the congregation, who accepted and understood the diverse community of Oakland, and had chosen to stay and serve among that often unruly and difficult community. I was – I am – proud of them.

*

I’ve been retired for 12 years now. I miss many things about being a parish pastor, but as time has gone on, I’ve taken other, shorter gigs, and even traveled some to be with one or another community of faith, to lead worship, to preach, and to connect with the folks of another faith. To be honest, there are many things I don’t miss! I’ve preached at other United Methodist Churches – filling in for friends and colleagues who are taking a Sunday away, and I’ve gone to Mass at a local Roman Catholic Parish that serves the African American community of the Bay Area. Until this past year, I had not stayed closely connected to the community at Lake Merritt, but the current pastor has invited me to preach, to be present for her and to the people of the parish.

This past weekend, while the Pastor is on Sabbatical, I have been one of the clergy she has invited to preach in her absence. And as fate would have it, I was called upon to offer pastoral care and finally to perform the memorial service for a woman with whom I have a strong connection; I buried both her husband and her son, a police officer (see “The day they died,” thewisdomyears.org, May 18, 2025).

And what I have seen in my visits to Lake Merritt UMC is “an open and welcoming Christian congregation serving downtown Oakland.” The vision that the people and I held in our hearts and minds, in our openness to diversity of all kinds, has created a truly open and welcoming Christian congregation. I think this is rare reality among churches. Congregations are well-known for holding tight to old, old traditions, to be unable and unwilling to make changes, for the unwillingness to step on the toes of folks who’ve been around for a long time and have their own ways. Congregations will not be moved from “the way we’ve always done things.” But Lake Merritt has outgrown and surpassed those ways. I credit their witness and determination to serve the community of Oakland – a community that can be gritty and hard, a community that is colorful and rich in diversity – as a strength that continues to blossom in the people there.

I’m proud of them.

Virginia Turner and me – after worship at Lake Merritt United Methodist Church, Oakland. Virginia Turner is my 102 year old friend.

reflecting, remembering

Watching the Sky

Mary Elyn Bahlert

Fourth of July has passed for another year. On Saturday night, Jeff and I fell asleep to the sound of booming skies, carried to us from around the whole Bay Area. For several years, we’d climbed to the strip of land that attaches itself to our property to the South East of our property – a strip of land that is almost sold to the people whose house behind ours faces a different street – to watch the fireworks from what we had come to call “The Panhandle.” Not this year. We started to go to bed earlier during COVID – waking earlier each morning, too – and so we were in bed at the end of daylight.

The booms from all over the area filled the air as I lay awake, always falling asleep later than Jeff, who falls into sleep soon after his head hits the pillow. I listened for a while before I, too, fell asleep. As I listened, the sounds took me back to a Fourth of July many years ago.

Some memories shine, as if lit by a magic light from within.

I was little, probably four or five. I lay on a hill in Washington Park on the North Side of Milwaukee, next to my Dad. I expect that my mother and the baby, Suzie, and probably my big brother, Ronnie, were with us, but they did not show themselves in the memory. It’s as if Daddy and I were alone on the hill. Of the five of us, Dad – I later took to calling him FRB, a nickname which stuck with the whole family – holds center stage in the memory. He was the one in our house who talked the most, an extravert who lived with four introverts.

Daddy watched the fireworks with his extraversion on full display, along with the fireworks. “OOOOOH,” he said, loudly. “AHHHH,” the sound followed. With each burst of light, a new sound escaped from Daddy. “OHHH…” he claimed, again. I lay close to his side on the side of the hill. While the fireworks flashed overhead, I turned to watch Daddy as enjoyment and wonder flowed from him.

*

Why do some memories stick, and not others? I’d like to know. Every Fourth of July, I think of those moments, moments now over 70 years old, as the fireworks boom overhead. I’m still there on that hill, laying close to my Daddy, his joy spreading along the grass to me.

*

For many years now, the dry days of summer in Northern California surround me. Photo by Mary Elyn Bahlert, Mt. Shasta in the distance, from the Warner Valley, CA, 06/9/2026

memories, reflecting, remembering, Uncategorized

the day that Grandpa died

Mary Elyn Bahlert

I don’t remember my Grandpa Markowski, my mother’s father, but I had heard the story, many times, of how he was with me to witness my first steps. He died a few months after I had turned one – on November 25, 1950.

I don’t know much about his life, either, but I bring to mind my own thoughts about how life was for him after he immigrated to the United States. He worked in a foundry in Milwaukee. He returned to Ukraine – which would soon be swallowed whole into what was the Soviet Union – to bring his wife, my grandmother, Feodosia, to the United States. I know that many immigrants left family in the Old Country, never to see them again, to start a new family. In his new country, Vlas Markov Srebny would lose his name, to take up a name more easily understood: Alex Markowski. When I return now to stand at the grave at the cemetery on the north side of Milwaukee where he and my grandmother – her name in the new country was Frances – are buried, only the name he acquired in his new land remains. I’m always saddened to think of this. It’s a common story, I’m sure.

These past few days, I’ve been sifting through old pictures again. I like to look at them from time to time. During the early days of COVID, I spent several days sitting in our yard, sorting through large boxes of pictures. I got as far as grouping them into decades. I think that’s as far as I’ll go with them. I’d been looking for a particular photo of my mother and my brother Ronnie, but I didn’t find the one I was looking for.

I did find a treasure this time. I’m not sure how I missed it before. My mother had told me that the day my Grandpa Markowski died, he had come to the door of our family’s upper flat, asking for money. She had said no to his request for money – probably knowing he’d spend it on liquor – but he’d declined, and walked away. The treasure I found included more details, details I had not been told.

In my mother’s handwriting, two yellowed pieces of paper, apparently torn from a notebook, maybe a notebook intended for family history, recounted:

“Alex Markowski was born Vlas Markov Srebny on February 11, 1881. He was born in Kiev, Ukraine. In 1903, he joined the Army. Also, he married Feodosia Maksuda in 1903. Of this marriage were born Ivan ((John), George, Michael, Mary and Hannah, and Peter. Of these, only John, Michael, Mary, Hannah and Pete remain.
He came to America via Boston, Mass., and the Great Lakes to Milwaukee in June, 1910. He returned to Ukraine in the year and returned to America with his wife.
He received naturalization papers on May 25, 1943.
He taught himself to read and write. He was always alerted to the affairs of the entire world.

May he rest in peace.

On Saturday, November 25, 1950 at 8:30 Dad collapsed on North Eleventh and West Reservoir. It was a very cold day which stimulated his heart. Added to this, he climbed up and down three flights of stairs, and bucked a sharp wind up a steep hill, where he collapsed. He passed away immediately.”

*