Uncategorized, wisdom

The Ego – the companion

Mary Elyn Bahlert

Many years ago, to help myself not only to understand intellectually my faith, but to embody my faith, I took a very interesting class with a woman teacher in the Bay Area, Wendy Palmer.  The class was called: “Aikido as Spiritual Practice.”  I learned many things about myself in that class – takes a good teacher to offer that! – and one in particular has stayed with me through the years.  The point of the practice was to stay self-contained, to not be thrown off by an attack.  The first time I practiced the movement, my very tiny teacher stood about 6 feet in front of me holding a very big stick above her head.  (No kidding).  When she quickly brought the stick straight down in front of her, I pivoted, and in doing so, I turned to face the way she was facing, my arms out around her body, and me, still on my feet! 

I loved this practice, for what it taught me about myself.  I learned that I needed to stay focused on my own path to stay on my feet.  I learned not to look my opponent – in this case, my teacher – in the eye.  That would engage her as my enemy.  That would mean I would use my energy to figure out what she was going to do. Then, I would wobble, lose my balance, lose my own ground. Instead, I looked beyond her as she stood across from me; I looked beyond her, toward my vision, my path, my purpose. I kept my eyes on the path I meant to take.  In doing this, I embraced her energy, I protected her with my body, I saw things from her point of view, and I stayed firmly planted on my feet. I didn’t see her, then, as enemy, but as an encounter on my path: part of the journey.

Every year at Lent I think of what I learned as I practiced Aikido.  In my imagination, I engage with the Gospel story: I see Jesus, going out to teach, to heal, to feed the hungry – his sight focused, always, on Jerusalem.  To me, Jerusalem is a character in the Gospel account of Jesus’ ministry.  Jerusalem looms ahead- always.  Jesus is firmly rooted on the path he is taking.  The disciples, his companions on the journey, don’t get it.  They are worried about things: “how do we feed all these people?”  they ask.  At every turn, they get flustered, confused. 

When we start on the path – the path that is our True Self – we are like the disciples.  We are engaged in a dual with the ego.  We are afraid.  What if I let go?  What will happen to me?  How can I trust?  How can I do it?   That inner battle holds sway over us, makes us afraid. 

And when the ego holds sway over us, it holds us hostage.  We are bound to it.  We listen to what it tells us.  We are afraid.

There is a freedom, real freedom, to choose to walk the path that is yours. There is a freedom in choosing that other way. There is a freedom, inner freedom, and powerful, that sustains you, no matter what happens. You stay on your feet. You keep to the path. You encounter the people, the events, the happenings that you need to make the journey.

You stay on your feet.

***

And, today, we continue to pray with and for the people of Ukraine, the people of Russia, the world.

The Path – Photo by Mary Elyn Bahlert, Saukville, WI, 10/25/2021

beauty, nostalgia, poetry

Longing

Mary Elyn Bahlert 
Days before she died, 
Mom sat, legs over the side of her bed, 
gazing out the window onto the sunny street: 
"I wish it would snow once - just for me," she said.
I think that, too, sometimes.
There is a longing in this dry place:
when life is dry, empty.
I'd love to see the snow then,
flakes falling, silent, to the ground,
the heavens shaking their down pillows.
I'd like to be in that quiet place for a few moments,
surrender my busy mind to it,
welcome the holy silence, the emptiness -
                     all that space. 
          
Mary Elyn Bahlert, February 27, 2022





Full Moon – Moments Before Sunrise, 10:00 AM, Sunday, December 27, 2016                                                                                                                                     
                                     Unalaska, AK   – photo taken by meb                                                                                                                                                




















 




















 

		


			
		
	






	
	

		Uncategorized
Harvey
	


	

							

			 Mary Elyn Bahlert		
		
		

			

My 20’s were difficult years, as I began a professional career, moved to a city that was too small for my taste, as I floundered with relationships, and mostly, was lonely, although I had many good friends, long-time friends and new friends.  What did I want?  Who did I want to be? 





At first, I began my journey into relationship with the Holy One by reading books.  I had been confirmed in a fundamentalist denomination, and I rejected that before I was out of high school.  That’s all I knew of church.  I began to know that for me, faith and political action and perspective were needed. I read books about different denominations, all Christian.  Along the way, I encountered the first people I knew who were serious about their faith – a Baha’i couple who influenced my understanding of faith, and who encouraged me to find my own path. I have always been grateful to Joan and Nat.





I had within me the rumblings of a “call” – had had that rumbling since my late teens, when I began to think that I could be a pastor.  I had not seen or heard of a woman pastor, so I put that on a back burner, and didn’t take it out for anyone to see.  I was reading Ms. magazine from cover to cover, so the thought occurred to me: “why not?”





When I moved back to Milwaukee, my home town, in late 1975, I continued my search for a community to safely bring my questions, a community involved in the world, a community that sought for justice and wholeness. 





I met Harvey Stower, Young Adult Minister, on the first Sunday I attended Kenwood United Methodist Church, across from the University in Milwaukee.  A kind woman, Verdell de Yarman (“the grandmother who went to jail” during the Civil Rights Movement), spoke to me. Often, as a lone visitor to a church, I had been ignored.  I didn’t return to those churches. Verdell told me I’d like it there. After worship, she took me to meet Harvey Stower.





I guess I became one of Harvey’s followers, learning from him, spending Sunday afternoons with his family – Marilyn, his wife, fed whoever showed up at their flat on the East Side of Milwaukee – and beginning to see that a community DID exist to “do kindness, love mercy, and to walk humbly with God.” 





Harvey and Marilyn owned a large and humble cabin in Northwest Wisconsin.  When they had time away, they’d spend time at the cabin, and they’d invite young folks who hung around them in Milwaukee to be with them there.  On a summer weekend, I made the long journey to the cabin, where I found a clean bed made up for visitors, and of course, wonderful meals, cooked by Marilyn as she held her baby girl on her hip. 





One night, Harvey and I stood out in the blackness surrounding the cabin, looking up at the stars.  Is there anything more beautiful, magical, and mysterious as the night sky, filled with white dots, shooting stars, constellations – away from city lights?  As I stood there in the dark, I confessed to Harvey: “I’m not a Christian.”  Still looking up at the stars, Harvey answered: “If you can just think of Jesus as your friend.”  





His words changed my life.  I could set aside all I had been taught to “believe” for a real relationship with the Holy One.  My own journey began that day.





One day, not long after, Harvey asked me: “Do you ever think about going to seminary?”  I told him:  “I do, all the time.  I don’t tell anyone about it”.  It became his mission to remind me, from time to time:  “what does this mean about seminary?”





Harvey was a true “evangelical,” who loved God and showed his faith by how he lived his life, by his work in the world.  (These days, the media has used the word “evangelical” to describe folks who are really fundamentalists, who take the Scriptures literally and use their faith against others in the world who do not share their values).   Harvey had studied in seminary in Washington, D.C., and he had been part of the beginnings of the Sojourners Community in Washington.  One summer week, he took several of us to D.C. to work in the Community.





Later in his life, Harvey would go on to be elected to the Wisconsin State Senate.  And even later, he was elected mayor of America, Wisconsin, his home town.










*





Harvey is gone, now.   I was privileged to be able to travel to Amery, Wisconsin, for his funeral, on October 10, 2009.  When he died, Harvey was serving as Mayor of Amery. Since I was serving a church in Oakland at the time, a good friend stepped in on short notice to preach so I could travel to the funeral.





*





Out through the 





fields and woods





And over the walls





I have wended;





I have climbed the hills of view





And looked at the





world, and descended;





I have come by the





highway home,





And lo, it is ended.”





             “Reluctance,”  Robert Frost




























































                        


















































                        






		


			
		
	






	
	

		Uncategorized
I’m a Monk in the World
	


	

							

			 Mary Elyn Bahlert		
		
		

			

This article appeared in “Monk in the World”, Abbey of the Arts (online community), Guest Post, July, 2014










‘As if the sorrows of this world could overwhelm me





now that I realize what we are. 





I wish everyone could realize this. 





But there is no way of telling people 





they are all actually walking around shining





like the brightest sun.’





Thomas Merton





The world was always there for me – gurgling with joy, shining like the brightest sun, fragrant-full, slippery and hard-edged, colorful beyond belief, and filled with grief, loss, loneliness – and there I was, walking around with my head in the clouds, my eyes toward the ground. 





I have a good mind, but living from that linear place didn’t work for me forever. My best thinking brought me straight into a long and deep depression almost 20 years ago.   Life has not been the same, since.  Today, I am grateful to be alive, and every day offers new delicacies for my delight.  The gift of being a Monk in the World is that I get to enjoy what has been there all along, and I get to enjoy it as if it is new, as if I have been witness to this beauty before.





I’m as inter-faith as I am Christian, knowing that the Light, the Universe, the Christ, the Mother, the Holy One, El, is in us all.  Or maybe we are swimming in this Holy One.  I struggle to find words.





I learned to meditate several years ago, and this practice has deepened me.  My greatest joy is that I find myself more present in the moment, moment by moment.  I see things I did not see before.  I delight in the branches of the birch tree outside my city window; I watch the seasons and winds bring change to that tree. I say:  “I love that tree, and that tree loves me.”  It’s true.  When I meditate, I find the boundaries between myself and the world dissolving.  I feel the sound of a neighbor’s voice, the boom of a truck on the street, the harsh call of a jay, the wind against the window – as much as I hear them.





Many years ago, I learned to pray after reading The Christian’s Secret to a Happy Life, by Hannah Whitall Smith (of the American Holiness Movement).  That was the beginning of a long, rich, and growing walk as a Monk in the World.  I studied theology and became a preacher, a way to offer to others the gift of knowing we are not separate, we are not alone.  I found growing self acceptance through prayer.  After all this time, I still believe we can change the world by praying, by praying for ourselves, which grows us in Love.  And that Love, which is us, changes the world.





 As a preacher, I served a community of faith.  My work as a Monk in the world was very extroverted for this introvert!  I had the privilege of being with others in their times of deepest need – learning a diagnosis that would take a beloved woman’s life, baptizing an infant who would not go home from the hospital, as she lay in the arms of her teenage mother, rushing into a hospital emergency room only minutes before the death of a vibrant woman in her 50’s, as her partner lay sobbing on top of her; I’ve sat in silence and watched the minutes tick away, waiting for surgery to end, with a frightened wife.  I’ve answered the door to find a man who has not slept in days, smelling of the street, who tells me his long and convoluted story, only to ask me for a few dollars for food.  I’ve heard many of those stories, and even though I do not understand, I have prayed with each one; I have not have ever known that particular desperation.  I’ve witnessed the suffering of the mentally ill who come to Church, hoping for something; I am blessed by my own illness to be able to see the suffering person, trapped by their mind, underneath what we call “stigma.”





For whatever service I have been able to give, I am grateful.  The gift has been mine.





All of this is to say that I am still looking to see the light Thomas Merton, one of my spiritual mentors, saw.  The light is so ordinary, I’m sure.  I know with a keen knowing that we are all light, that we are swimming in this light.  I’ve felt it for a moment when I meditate, I’ve seen it shimmer – just a glimpse! – in the green, heart-shaped leaves of my beloved birch tree. 





I am a mendicant now, begging for alms.  I am a mendicant, raising my eyes to look into the eyes of whoever crosses my path.  I am a mendicant, wanting to trust each day’s needs and gifts to the Holy One.  I am a mendicant, looking for Light.





photos taken by Mary Elyn Bahlert, October, 2021

		


			
		
	






	
	

		nostalgia
“Your dad died.”
	


	

							

			 Mary Elyn Bahlert		
		
		

			

Dad was diagnosed with colon cancer in 1975, the year after he retired as an inspector at the A.O. Smith Company in Milwaukee.  At that time, the treatment he received for the cancer was treated by outfitting him with a colostomy.  For a time, he felt restricted in his life, but Dad loved life, loved having fun, and in a couple of years he was able to travel with Mom, to California, to see Mom’s brothers, Johnny and Pete, and to Hawaii, to see their grandson, Colin (and his parents, of course!).  When I look through the pictures of that time, I see what fun they had, visiting the sites in Northern California, and playing with their grandson in Pearl City.  He and Mom had fun together – maybe the time in their lives when they were most free to enjoy retirement.





That time of enjoyment ended in 1985, when the cancer returned.  He suffered with  chemotherapy for a few months, but by the beginning of 1986, he let go of trying to fix the disease.  He spent the last two months of his life in St. Joseph’s Hospital in Milwaukee, holding on.  His grandson (and his Mom) visited him.  I made a trip from Northern CA, at least once.  Pete and Johnny came, and some friends from the steel mill.  A couple of folks from church came to see him, to visit and to pray.  During that time, my dear friend Joanne visited Dad often in the hospital, and gave support to Mom in the rest of her life.  





At the end of my last visit, I stood with the doctor at the end of Dad’s bed, and the doctor said:  “I don’t know about your father.”  I wish he’d been more honest – I always like to hear the truth, even if it’s hard.  We both knew that Dad wouldn’t last much longer.





As with Mom, the end of Dad’s life was held in the hands of some greater Spirit, which became apparent on the night he died.  About 11:30 pm on that night, my husband and I were already in bed at our home in Northern California.  When the phone rang, I answered right away.  Joanne was on the line.  She said:  “Your Dad died.”  Then, she said, “the hospital has tried to call your Mom several times, but she doesn’t answer.”  That seemed strange; never a good sleeper, Mom would jump up from anywhere in the apartment to get the phone on the wall in the kitchen.  I tried to call her; she answered after the first ring.  I said:  “Mom, Dad died.”  A moan came from her, then she said:  “What should I do?”  I told her to call Joanne, who would come to take her to the hospital.





My sister Suzie was the last of us to be with Dad the evening before he died.  She stood by his bed, adjusting the intravenous tube that brought liquid to his failing body.  He’d lamented to me on a visit that he had once been so strong, worked so hard, and now…”  As Suzie stood next to his bed, she said a prayer:  “God, please don’t let him suffer any more.”  Suzie had not prayed the prayer of letting go before that night.  Then she went to stay the night at her in-laws. 





Several hours later, after I had called Mom, I called Suzie, sound asleep.  She told me she’d been dreaming, a dream of her looking down into the casket in which Dad lay.  Then she told me, “maybe this could wait until morning.”  





As I’ve reflected before, life can be a mystery, more often than we know, I’d guess.  At the time of Dad’s death, and at the time of Mom’s death, many years later, some greater Spirit paved the way for us, and walked us through the passage of time, those holy moments of letting go, of surrendering even one we love so dearly to death.  We all stood in our places, unknowing, as the Spirit moved.





Dad in better times, in San Franciso.





Remembering now, sadness comes, of course.  But I breath deeply in remembering how we were all held by an invisible grace.  Sometimes, we forget.  I know I do.