what I've learned from life, by Mary Elyn Bahlert
“I Am Not I”
By Juan Ramón Jiménez (translated by Robert Bly)
I am not I.
I am this one
walking beside me whom I do not see,
whom at times I manage to visit,
and whom at other times I forget;
who remains calm and silent while I talk,
and forgives, gently, when I hate,
who walks where I am not,
who will remain standing when I die.
When I was a young girl, my mother told me the story of Jesus dying on the cross on Good Friday. I know she had told me the story to explain why I couldn’t go off and play that afternoon, and so I stayed dutifully in front of our flat on Ring Street.
I don’t remember Mom telling me the story, but I do remember hanging from the iron hand-rail that led to the sidewalk, thinking about a man who was dying somewhere that afternoon, on a cross. I remember looking out across the street, imagining the scene in my child’s mind. I wondered about him. I had a sense of loneliness, as if loneliness hung in the air that day. I couldn’t see what was happening, but it was somewhere, then, in present time.
It was a quiet afternoon. In the 1950’s, activity stopped and stores closed from 12 to 3 on Good Friday afternoon. Folks who went to church, did. And many folks did in that Midwestern city, good and faithful church folks who sat for 3 hours listening to sermons about the 7 last words Jesus spoke. Then, they returned to whatever else they were doing. In Milwaukee, I’m sure, Friday fish fry meals at taverns across the city and state would be full that evening, as they usually were.
My family were not church-going people, and so it seems strange, in a way, that Mom told me the story, but she did. Stories have power even when they are not our stories. Stories that are told, again and again, have more power. Stories have more power than fact or history, truly. And stories we tell become our stories, have a way of working their wonder and fear and meaning inside of us, all the time.
***
Now, I love the quiet season of Lent, that time of year when winter gives way to spring, slowly, with each lengthening day, with early buds on slender branches, with each storm that may be the last for the season. And I love the movement of the moon across the sky. I wait for the evening when I see the Pascal moon, the full moon that heralds Passover and Easter, an off-shoot of Passover. That same moon marked the day and time for the telling of the story, Jesus taking a meal with his closest friends, honoring the ancient story, also. The moon marks the time when winter slinks into spring, when green appears, when life that was under the earth comes back from the death of winter.
I watch the moon. For as much as we modern folks know, moon is mystery. For a time, it gives reflected light that lights up the white cover on my bed as if it was lit from within. In the evening and night, moonlight comes into the bedroom, and by morning, it is far across the sky, hanging over the Pacific in the west.
Moon is mystery enough. All those other things, those theological understandings and explanations, do no justice to the moon. The passing of time is mystery enough, also, that I would reach back in memory today to see myself hanging from that bar, on that lonely day, the street quiet, and me, safe in the assurance that Mom was close by, checking on me from the upstairs window, often.
Practice seeing, seeing the first blossoms of spring
How can I live my life as a practice, a practice of whole-ness, a practice of connecting with the infinite, the Holy, the Universe?
There is only this: practice, practice, practice…
The sages of all traditions knew this. the Mother knows this, the monks in their cells in the hidden corners of the earth know this. It may be that the person in the next cubicle knows this. And you know it, too. There is only practice, from one moment to the next, from one day to the next.
What is your practice, today? In my life, my practice has often changed. For a time, I spent hours every day in my car, driving from small town to small town in rural Wisconsin. Then, I began this practice, this practice that has become my life. I talked to God. I talked out loud to God, crying sometimes, laughing, sometimes, and sometimes shaking my fist at God. And I began to observe my life in its unfolding, as if I was looking at my life from another perspective.
Sure, I have had to make the choices we all make. I have had to decide whether or not to go on to school, where to live, what to do on Friday night, whether or not this person was my friend – or not. All of the external choices have been the same. On another level, though, I have discovered that life is a constant of only this: practice.
Practice is only my own way of connecting the Divine, to the Holy that is in me and is in you. I have not been limited by my practice; rather, my practice has broadened my life, my experience, and even my mind. Through my practice, I have learned to question everything I have been taught is true or real. There are no limits to my practice. Like the sea, which rolls onto the beach and roils into the deepest depths, my limits are limit-less. Through my practice, I have questioned my deepest beliefs, and I have discarded some, and still question others, continuing to wonder what is true, what holds to be true not only for me, but for all of humanity, and all of creation.
I have learned that the Holy can hold all this, all my faltering practices, all my failures, all my ignorance, all my less-than-loving self.
I have prayed, an ever-changing, evolving prayer. I have meditated, and I still do, two times a day, most days. I have walked my prayers. I have talked to the grass and the trees, and to my cat. I have cried. I have laughed. I have nodded into a sky that does not answer, and yet is shouting to me. I have sniffed the sweet, wet earth, and smelled the sweet fragrance of lilacs and rosemary and lavendar, riches. I have visited holy places. I have worshiped in unfamiliar places, and I have honored those whose practice I have been privileged to encounter, although theirs might not be my own. I nod to their Holy One, who may seem different than my own, but is not. I honor that Holy One, by whatever name. I have visited dark places, and I have arrived into another morning, giving thanks for nothing in particular, but for it all.
I have not only “tried” many ways to stay connected to All; I have practiced many ways to stay connected. Some of the ways I carry with me now, like a bag filled with spiritual practices instead of groceries. I reach into the bag and take out the one I need, now. In any day, I use my practices to stay connected to Something More, Something Whole, Something Holy – something that is in me, that is me, and that is greater than I am.
Through my practice I have learned this: I do not have to be good. I do not have to do things perfectly. I do not have to work to be worthy. I do not have to know what is right or correct in any or all situations. I do not have to understand to accept. I am complete, here and now, just as I am. This is what I have learned, what I am learning.
When I remember, I can still feel my little girl’s body on the seat of my first two-wheeled bicycle. I can feel the strength of my Dad behind me, holding onto the seat, pushing me along the sidewalk, pushing me, holding on, and then, in some moment, letting go, until I felt the freedom of that ride, that long ride that has taken me to this time, to this moment, to this day. Then, I was practicing. Then, I had the safety of Dad’s strength and love and joy until I took off on my own.
As we get older, what we face is different than what we faced when we were younger. What I have faced in my life – the choices, the decisions, the moments, the sadness, the losses, the small and great griefs – is changing. It has always been changing, although now I am more poignantly aware that my choices are changing. And I can honestly say that the only thing that has gotten me through, the ever-changing practices I have gathered and practiced and discarded, and even those I continue today, are the cornerstone, and the one constant.
Make of your life a practice.
I often wake these days with a song in my heart. I begin my day with my usual routines, and sometimes I don’t notice the song that is singing in me until later in the morning. Most days, I begin to hum the tune or sing the words of the song that is in my heart.
Through my life, I’ve taken to noticing the song in my heart. I listen to the words, singing them inside my head, or singing aloud into the house. The cat notices, and I think she smiles, a bit (who knows?). When I remember the words – I am known for the encyclopedia of words to songs I carry within me – I sing them out loud, enjoying my voice, enjoying the memory of the words, and calling to mind the memories and images that arise.
When I was a girl, my mother had a lovely china music box with a tune I cannot name. I can still sing the notes, and often do. When I stop and notice the tune, my mother comes to mind. I see her face, I remember her voice, I wonder about her and her life. What a wonderful bit of beauty that music box was, in our working class flat with its narrow windows and steep, dark stairway down to the street lined with wonderful maple trees that would disappear, killed by disease, in the years ahead.
That music box is gone, too. Sometimes my sister and I mention it. Where did it go? Which one of us ended its role in our lives? Where did it come from, an unusual player in the life of my mother?
And yet, that music box, with its unnamed melody, has not gone from our lives. We sing its song, its beautiful song, still.
We sing its holy song, the song that arrives from the depths, a gift to this day.
Sometimes the tune that plays in my head is from a later time in my life. I mimic Aretha Franklin, or John Lennon. My song takes on the cadence of some rock n’ roll song, and sometimes, I dance. I love to dance, and the song takes on movement, in my body, in my heart, in my house, in my life…
Every day has its theme, a theme decided in some deeper place within me, the place from which the melodies arise. I am grateful for these songs; in earlier years, when work and schedules and calendars and meeting the needs of others – and the anxiety of meeting those needs – was so important in my life, I awoke many days without a song in my heart. Did the songs go underground? Were the songs like plants and animals that disappear in the winter? Is this time of life a spring-time?
What is the melody for this time of life?
Moving Water (an excerpt)
When you do things from your soul, you feel a river
moving in you, a joy.
When actions come from another section, the feeling
disappears. Don’t let
others lead you. They may be blind or, worse, vultures.
Reach for the rope
of God.
—Rumi
