Jesus tells me: When you are poor in spirit – depressed, anxious, alone – you are with me, in God. When you are grieving for all those you have lost, you are comforted by God. When you are humble, when you have nothing more to give, when you are empty, you are in God, you are filled with God. When you want to be relieved of pain, when you want all to be free from suffering, your prayer is heard. You are in God. When your heart is pure, free of all malice, you will see God. When you want peace for all, when you long to make peace, you are God’s own.
When you are persecuted, held in contempt because of your trust in God, then, then you are in God. When you are suffering because you have been shut out from love, from community, when you have become one with the least in the world: Rejoice! Be glad! For you have received all that you need.
In all things, be grateful to God. For you are in God.
The Beatitudes, by Mary Elyn Bahlert
“In all things, be grateful to God. For you are in God.” Photo by Mary Elyn Bahlert, 10/12/2024
Sometimes, a word is needed to describe something ordinary, something that is recognizable, something wonderful. A word is needed to describe a feeling that is ordinary, recognizable – and wonderful. Or a couple of words.
Jeff and I understand completely what a “warm fuzzy” is. We have both had moments when a sensation of happiness and contentment arrives in our solar plexus – for a moment. And then, it passes. As quickly as the sensation arrives, it passes. Unless we notice it, it will pass without our knowing. That would be sad.
And so, Jeff and I honor the arrival of a warm fuzzy, usually by noticing its arrival on the face of our partner, or maybe even a stranger. Having felt that warm and comforting sensation ourselves, we can see its presence in someone else. “He has a warm fuzzy,” Jeff might say to me as we pass a gentleman on the street who is chatting with someone on his cell phone. Alone in his world, the man has received a compliment, or something else that is good, and it shows on his face. Alone in his world, he might not even notice the sensation that has arrived, and that the sensation has as quickly left him. But we noticed!
It would be good spiritual practice to take note of the warm fuzzies that come into your life – into your solar plexus. “Ah – there it is again: a warm fuzzy!” Or maybe a journal entry could be made: “10/6/2024 – on this cloudy day, a warm fuzzy.” As life with its people and events and days and weeks and months passes so quickly, we could honor that life by noting the warm fuzzies that accompany those people, events, days, weeks, and months.
When we meet with friends, so often our conversation turns to the more difficult things: the coming election, the illness of a good friend, a sudden change or loss of health. And so it’s up to us to make room for the other things: the warm fuzzies.
We hold them in our awareness for a moment, like a prayer.
Autumn branches, Niles Canyon, California, 10/6/2024; photo by Mary Elyn Bahlert
To folks from Milwaukee, George Webb will not need an introduction. Most of us will remember a time, sitting at the counter or in a crowded booth in the neighborhood hamburger parlor, going back to at least the 1950’s. I googled George Webb Restaurants and learned that the first restaurant had, indeed, opened in Milwaukee in 1948 – the year before I was born.
Most days, my family ate Mom’s home made dinners, often peasant food recipes that she had grown up with. We had borscht – still my favorite – a couple of times a year. And Holubtsi, Ukrainian stuffed cabbage. I can firmly state that I have never cooked that dish – since I tried my best to peel the cabbage off the ground hamburger meat, to eat the best part, to leave the boiled cabbage on the plate, as a child. That didn’t work; as children, we were expected to eat what was on the plate. Remembering, I have to think that my Dad liked those meals, or we would not have eaten them. He was not a fussy eater, in my memory – although I learned that my mother’s order at the local bakery – “dark rye without caraway, sliced” – was free of seeds because Dad didn’t like caraway. Maybe she did cater to his tastes, the bread earner in the family.
“Once in a great while (a favorite expression that my Dad used, and which Jeff repeats to this day)” Mom cut the coupon to George Webb’s Hamburger Parlor out of the Green Sheet in the Milwaukee Journal, and we had a trip to the closest George Webb Restaurant to pick up the bag of 7 hamburgers – for 99 cents. That’s right: 99 cents! Hamburgers were a special treat; I expect that Mom had carefully figured that splurge into her weekly budget, just as carefully taking the cash from the folder that held the weekly food allowance, as well as other budgeted items: rent money, Christmas savings, utilities.
In the 1950’s, Mom still cashed the paper check that Dad brought home from work on Friday afternoon – his union wages enough to raise a family, and enough to set aside something for a rainy day, and elder years – at the local grocery store, standing in line with the other housewives whose families waited for shopping to begin. Before Mom learned to drive in the 1960’s, Daddy drove us all to the grocery store after work on Friday, and we followed Mom through the aisles as she carefully read from her shopping list. The end of the week had come, and the weekend was beginning.
The shopping cart included bacon and eggs for Daddy’s daily breakfast, and cold cereal and milk for Ronnie and Suzie and me. The shopping cart included ice cream, always, and necessary ingredients for holiday baking before Christmas. Sometimes, the shopping cart carried a ham for a special holiday meal, and the necessary makings for holiday cookies, when the time came.
All of these memories point to the memory that our meal of George Webb Hamburgers was a special meal.
When I can, I like to find my way back to a George Webb Hamburger Parlor in Milwaukee, not to satisfy my taste, but as a way to remember. And I like to sit at the counter, where the cook staff still makes sure that each coffee cup is full, and where a line of workers still sits, enjoying the ambience (!), saying a few words to the person on the next stool at the counter, and quickly pulling out a newspaper or cell phone to get the local news.
Some things never change – in the midst of lots of other things changing!
She chose me before I knew Her, or maybe - forgetting - I chose Her. Silent, She's kept her peace: Though I have risen and fallen, though I have walked through the dark holding hands with demons, forgetting who I am. She observes, Her eyes deeper than mine: She sees it all - sees clearly, with a wise heart.
She took my hand before I reached out. She spoke: sometimes with words, sometimes in silence: She spoke.
One day - alone and afraid - I said: “Yes." Then, we walked hand in hand. We did not part ways again - although sometimes I forgot Her for long stretches.
She is placid, clear, deep, full. When I am angry, shaking a hot fist at the world, She is placid, clear, deep, full. She holds me then with great gentleness. My breath returns, gentle, too. - Mary Elyn Bahlert, 8/2020
Sometimes with words, sometimes silence, she speaks… photo by Mary Elyn Bahlert, Vilnius, Latvia,
