Wrapping Gifts

Here's a 1998 photo of my old basset, Buddy, (deceased) and he was just as sweet as he looks. It was a black and white photograph. I colorized it in PhotoShop and sell it as a Christmas card through Cafe Press. I did it more as an attempt to immortalize him, and his goodness, than to make a buck. I put this image on a cup and ordered one for myself. But it is bittersweet to drink from it.

Here's a bit of a festive looking tree at the garden store we went to on Saturday. They had spectacular pointsettias. There was a very nice labrador retriever, too, and I petted her, but she was camera shy and trotted off before I could snap the shutter.

The day has escaped me. No editing done, nor work on the collage. Three bags of cranberries strung but not yet draped on the tree. It will need two more bags.

Wrapped Angus's presents, downloaded a few photos of pointsettias from our shopping trip on Saturday.

Sent an e-mail to Senator Nelson opposing the defense bill into which, at the last minute, a provision has been added to allow oil drilling in the Arctic's National Wildlife Refuge. There is no end of dirty tricks by the Bush administration to further its plundering agendas.

Sunday Caroline and I went shopping at Masonville for two hours. We had a good time. I really like Caroline - Angus's daughter.

At one point a salesclerk remarked to her, about me, that "I like your mother's boots." [the red ones I wear everywhere] Of course, I'm not Caroline's mother. I don't feel I can even claim "stepmother" as a title.
Besides, the word has such a wicked and unfeeling connotation.

Yet Caroline did not correct her, but let it stand. And it was nice, for that instant, to pretend to be her mother, to be allowed to be thought of as her mother.

Caroline's mother is beautiful and competent and has always been in her life. She is an excellent, intelligent and caring person; so Caroline hardly needs me to fill that role.

The best I can ever be, I suppose, is like some sort of aunt.

In any event, I am grateful for the time I got to spend with her.

Angus could not find his Santa Claus tie this morning so I gave him the tie I bought him for Christmas. It's quite lovely, I think, although its pattern is snowmen. He called and said it was a great hit at school today.

I think I'll walk downtown and buy some wrapping paper, maybe a coffee. I need to get out for a bit even though the sun is low and the afternoon nearly spent.



Shams
and actual sunlight,
help me now,
being in the middle of being partly in my self,
and partly outside.

From The Illustrated Rumi

Christmas, Dickens, Icicles

As Calvin said: “The days are just packed.”

Especially around Christmas.

That’s our tree, not quite complete. I still have to string the cranberries.

On Thursday, after working a few hours on the edit, I went down into the basement and brought up boxes of Christmas ornaments.

Alas, I could not find the lights for the tree. Since I had not torn myself away from the computer in time to make dinner, this worked out well. Putting on my long coat, red hat, scarf, boots and gloves, I walked downtown. (These icicles photographed on today's walk.)

It snowed almost all day Thursday, so by late afternoon it was a winter wonderland. I felt full of cheer as I walked. My black coat was glistening white by the time I reached Covent Garden. But I was warm. My secret? Long underwear.

Went first to Strano’s. Bought delicious lasagna for dinner. The man who runs the stand does all the cooking. Italian, he’s broad and graying. He wears a white apron and a black hat rather like a fez to keep his hair covered. His smile is great. I told him I was supposed to have made a meatloaf, but hadn’t and he was a lifesaver. He said, “That’s why I’m here.”

Went on to Field Gate for organic milk.

Next stop was the Red Apple store for Christmas lights. Since I was just down the block, I also stopped in at Starbucks for a coffee and a friendly word. Before heading home I bought Angus a sundae at McDonald’s as a surprise, since he likes them. It was below freezing outside so I figured it would keep on the walk home. (My neighbor Sylvia put out this little evergreen bear.)


On Friday I took a break from the edit because I had an idea for a new story. I spent the day writing down my thoughts and doing research on the Internet to see if it would be realistic to place my story where I was thinking.

After quitting the laptop for the day, I made what turned out to be the best meatloaf of my life, put it in the oven and decorated our tree. I had just finished and was vacuuming up pine needles when Angus came home.

We lay on the couch after dinner, I put my head in his lap and we talked and laughed.

Today, Saturday, Angus got his hair cut. Then we walked through Harris park and fed our leftover bread heels to the ducks.

Angus walks across the park with the old jail (it looks like a castle) in the background.
We caught the end of the Farmer’s Market that is held outside Covent Garden every Saturday morning until Christmas. I bought maple syrup since we were out, and asked the ladies selling it if I could take their picture. Brrr.
Took a photo of the young woman at the newspaper stand. This is where I get The New York Times or London Free Press although I'm thinking of starting to read The Globe and Mail.
We walked over to Starbucks and sat at the counter in the window. I read a bit of the old, leather bound volume I have of Dickens’s The Old Curiosity Shop. I’m up to page 108.
Although I bought this beautiful little book last year as a result of reading Robertson Davies, who wrote that it is a “must read,” I hadn’t made time for it. PBS aired a three-part series on Dickens this past week, so that clinched it. Now or never.

Yes, those are reading glasses. I’ve given in. I need them and wear them now – and this is the first year – for all reading and writing, including computer work. The line between my eyes is fading. I guess I was squinting a lot.


This is the view we had as I read Dickens and Angus read the paper.

We walked home, Caroline came over and I played a few Christmas carols on the piano.

We had meatloaf sandwiches before heading out shopping with her. But that’s another story, and more photos not yet downloaded.

No work today and it’s much later than I meant to stay up – it’s nearly two. I would like to go to church tomorrow morning, but if I don’t get enough sleep, I’m worthless.

I’ll see how late it is when I climb into bed. Angus went to sleep a couple of hours ago, but I wanted to get these posted.

Rumi:

An eye is meant to see things.
The soul is here for its own joy.

I Must Change My Ending

Editing the novel yesterday and today.

Although Angus and I feel there's a lot of good writing and good storytelling in this novel, I haven't been happy with the structure. Over dinner we agreed the progression, the arc of the story is too flat.

Nothing like a nice dinner, a glass of mellow red wine and you and your honey perched over your laptops. That was us, after dinner, face to face at the table, discussing the problems and brainstorming.

I was the one to realize the end is wrong. Once I told Angus, he admitted it was so. He liked the current ending too, and had not advised me to change it, but after discussion, now it seems obvious to me how it must end.

The old ending will not be lost, for I feel it's a good piece of writing. Eventually I'll make it into a short story on its own.

Much work to be done now on revising the structure, but I feel far more optimistic that my novel will be good reading once I complete all the editing. I knew the story wasn't right, but couldn't put my finger on what it was about the structure that was wrong nor how I could fix it. Now I think I've got it.

Our Christmas tree is up and tomorrow I plan to decorate it. Also addressed my Christmas cards.

Watched Charlie Rose interview James D. Crick and - I forget the other scientist's name. Crick and Watson mapped out the DNA molecule in 1971. The other scientist is a Nobel prize winner and professor emeritus at Harvard.

In any event, they've both written books about Darwin. Apparently Darwin was a genius. He was correct about everything except his ideas about heredity. The show was remarkable. The problem we have with the controversy over evolution is one of education. The same people who take medicine for granted reject the foundations upon which it is built, for those foundations are built on evolution.

I'm confident enough in my experiences of God that I have no problem accepting evolution. But it's remarkable that Darwin, in 1848, postulated ideas that modern scientists, with their equipment - and especially the knowledge of the DNA molecule - have proved are true. Crick said Darwin is the most important person in history because he told us how we arose and what our place is in the world. There's no more guesswork.

The next big questions are: What is consciousness? Is the Universe itself conscious? Where is information stored? There's a fascinating book, The Holographic Universe, which explores these questions.

Another book, Quantum Questions - Mystical Writings of the World's Greatest Physicists lays waiting. I almost started reading tonight, but I've run out of the evening. It's late and past time for bed. I need to walk to the post office tomorrow, decorate a tree and I really want to treat myself to a coffee out along with doing more editing.

This is so dry. Let's see what Rumi might say about it all.

Look what I turned to!

Those who don't feel this love
pulling them like a river,
those who don't drink dawn
like a cup of springwater
or take in sunset
like supper,
those who don't
want to change,
let them sleep.

This love is beyond the study of theology,
that old trickery and hypocrisy.
If you want to improve your mind that way,
sleep on.

I've given up on my brain,
I've torn the cloth to shreds
and thrown it away.
If you're not completely naked,
wrap your beautiful robe of words around you,
and sleep.

From The Illuminated Rumi

Editing My Novel Today

Here's Hobbes on the piano. When he learns to open the kitchen cupboard doors, I'm sure tuna cans will be spread out on the counter with teeth marks in them. That's the kind of cat he is. His name fits him too well.

Last night I watched a riveting PBS program entitled Alaska: Silence and Solitude It was comprised of footage filmed by Dick Porenneke who lived alone in the Alaskan wilderness for 35 years. He filmed himself building a log cabin and kept a journal about his life. His resourcefulness was astounding. I would like very much to watch the film again. I think the book about him may be a "must read."

Today worked on editing my novel. Angus went through it and gave me suggestions. Now I'm reading through it and incorporating those changes I agree with.

When you write a book, you become enmeshed with it. For one thing, I'm sure I read meaning and content into my writing that is not really there, but is only in my mind.

In other words, I may mean certain things with a sentence or paragraph, or even a word, and believe I've said it, that I've painted the picture or feeling and the reader is with me, but that's not necessarily true.

Give it to someone else and that person may not receive that feeling or sense of experience you thought you made so clear.

In any event, there is one chapter in particular that Angus does not like and would prefer I simply cut out. Before I do, I will need at least one more reader to give me the same opinion. I know when I read the original version of this chapter to my critique group, they liked it.

Angus is not a novel reader and my target audience is women, so I think it's a matter of appeal. The chapter doesn't appeal to him.

But time will tell. If one person hates a chapter and nine people love it, well you keep the chapter. If five people have no objections to it but five people clearly don't like it, well, that means it isn't a matter of taste, but substance. It's a bad chapter that doesn't work. At best it's tolerable. No writer aims for tolerable. You aim to make people feel a kinship with you, to feel what you have felt, to understand what you or your character has been through. You aim for connection, not boredom or annoyance.

It's unlikely I will get nine more volunteers to read and comment on what works for them and what doesn't. But the more, the better.

I really want to go to bed. Tomorrow is another day. You can tell from my tone that the editing did not go well. I finally got through that chapter, but it was very difficult because I really was wedded to the words, even though I thought I was not. The chapter may be better now, but I'm not sure.

That's the frustrating thing about editing your own work. If you are a tolerable writer, perhaps even a good writer, there is no real right or wrong, only something different. You aim to make it great, but a merely good writer cannot edit to greatness. Only an impartial eye can do that. My job is to stick with my authentic voice, see if I can find a great editor and then surrender the work. But to surrender it to someone who is no better than I who will only change it, not transform it to something better? Why write at all?

Truly, I will never be able to tell if what I write is good. Only the reader can make that determination for herself, and everyone has different tastes and needs in stories.

Let's see what Rumi has to say:

This moment this love comes to rest in me,
many beings in one being.

In one wheat-grain
a thousand sheaf stacks.

Inside the needle's eye,
A turning night of stars.

Ah, yes, that's what a novel should be.

Sunday Thoughts

We walked downtown today for coffee. We started out from home:


Here's our street in the photo to the right; Angus is the small green figure in the distance.

We walked over the pedestrian bridge that crosses the Thames. This is Angus walking over the bridge.
The River Thames.
We went through the Covent Garden Market and bought organic milk at Field Gate.
Had coffee at the Starbucks on Dundas and read a bit of The Globe and Mail which is Canada's equivalent to The New York Times. (That photo's blurry; so here's another of Covent Garden.)

Below I stand, with the fork of the Thames in the background, on the way home. I love my red boots, gloves and hat. You can't see it, but I have a "I love Christmas" pin on my hat that Angus bought me.
As I have been writing, I've been listening to CBC's Tapestry which concerns itself with religious and mystical experience and religious activism (in the best sense of the term, for the alleviation of suffering and spread of joy.)

Last week was a wonderful program. In fact, that reminds me, I was going to log onto the CBC website and get the names of the authors. I would like to read their books.

But this week's program is just unbearable. I must turn it off. A man who was raised to believe in God has come around to disbelieve and is droning on about how illogical it is to think a Divine Being would care what he had for dinner.

He doesn't have the concept or model of God right.

First of all, there is no "Divine Being" i.e. a man in the sky. We are in God. He (the author, not God) ought to study biology. For God being aware of what he had for dinner is the same as the body being aware of every minute reaction within itself. There are six billion infinitesimal reactions in the body every second which affect the entire body. Every cell is affected, in some way, by each reaction in every other part, in every other cell.

God can be likened to the Body. We can be likened to the cells, and "what we had for dinner" can be likened to those minute reactions.

Just as the body compensates, in awareness, so does God pay attention and react.

However we are talking about a different kind of consciousness, a more expanded consciousness concerned more with love than survival.

Survival without love is not the goal.

Expanding, rejoicing, living in love is the goal.

Am I deluded? Perhaps. But who wants to live in a cold world that says the experience of a loving God is a lie and we are alone, floating on a cold orb, abandoned and unloved?

But let him have his ideas, his world, and I shall have mine.

Rumi:

Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing
and right-doing
there is a field.

I'll meet you there.

The Proposal Is Submitted!

All the reading and researching and composing is over.

I submitted my proposal to the Thomas Merton Society.

Done. Now I wait while focusing on other projects.

Ran to the library today (well, walked) because I had the wrong citation in a footnote. I needed to get a book back out and correct the citation.

Now I have three books of Thomas Merton's writings that can be returned. I'm half way through a large selection of his writings and I will keep that one and finish it. Then I have four books on physics and spirituality to read.

Lots to read always. A whole world of ideas out there all beckoning.

I didn't sleep last night - couldn't get to sleep. Got up and stayed up. Angus woke around five, I think. I made coffee, we had breakfast, I kept working on the proposal.

Around nine I showered and we went out for our Christmas tree.

It is a beautiful thing. I always feel ambivalent about sawing a tree down. It was, probably, fifteen years old. But we left plenty at the base, it will grow back.

The woods of the tree farm was so beautiful, the branches all laden with snow.

The needles of the tree are so green and glossy, the tree stretched its branches up to worship the sun, worship God the maker and sustainer of all things. It reached out to me and I asked God, silently, "Do I have permission to take it? Is it willing to come with us?

Yes came the silent answer.

And, truly, it looked happy even falling, like a big, floppy dog, who is anxious to come home with you and see what awaits him. (Projection!)

Whereas the lot trees are all tied down like hostages, the joy bundled and squeezed out of them with twine, our tree spread abundantly over the car roof, waving to all. It still contains life force. Perhaps, somehow, it knows I appreciate its sacrifice.

Tomorrow I will decorate it with lights and golden, handmade ornaments, string cranberries and adorn it with love. It is the kind of tree that will look beautiful through the New Year.

We are so blessed.

I stopped on the way home from the library at the market and bought fresh Brussels sprouts. They are the best I've had in two years. Dinner: vegetarian lasagna (my contribution along with the sprouts) and liver with onions (Angus's). Sounds odd, but it was delicious, a surprising treat.

I bought a copy of the New York Times, Angus bought the Free Press. Lots to settle down now, at eleven in the evening, with my hot cup of tea, to read and just listen to the house.

Rumi: (Remember he lived in the 13th century and was a Sufi who lived in the Middle East and was referring to his world. We could change the names to Western countries and it would still apply.)

Many people travel to Syria and Iraq
and meet only hypocrites.

Others go all the way to India
and see just merchants buying and selling.

Others go to Turkestan and China
and find those countries filled
with sneak-thieves and cheats.

We always see the qualities
that are living in us.

Parables Of Faith And Love

This is from the blog Muslim in Dubai. I think it is beautiful.

It is said that one night, a burglar crept into the house of Malik bin Dinar (one of the pious predecessors) looking to steal something only to be disappointed to find nothing worth stealing. Also, he found that the occupant of the house (Malik bin Dinar) was busily praying in the night.

When Malik noticed the thief, he calmly told him: "Oh brother, may Allah forgive you, you entered my home and did not find something worth taking, but I will not allow you to leave without gaining any benefit".

Malik brought him a jug of water, and told him: "If you were to perform ablution and pray two units of prayers, you would leave with something better than that which you came to find".

Needless to say, this shocked the burglar and he was quite humbled by this request, and he agreed.

After performing his ablution and praying, the thief said: "Oh Malik, would I be imposing on you if I were to pray two more units of prayers?"

Malik told him he could pray as much as he wanted, and the thief kept on praying till morning.

After finishing his night prayers, he asked Malik: "Oh Malik, would I be imposing on you if I were to spend the day with you, for I intend to fast."

Malik told him he could stay as long as he wanted, so he stayed a few days with him, fasting in the day time and praying in the night.

When he left Malik's house, he met a thief whom he knew, and the thief saw happiness in the repented one's face, he told him: "I think you have found your treasure," to which he replied, "I found Malik bin Dinar, I went to steal from him, but he ended up stealing something me, my heart!"

As I posted, in response to reading this, there is a parallel teaching in Christianity. In the Bible Jesus is quoted in Luke 27-30:

But I say to you who hear: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you, and pray for those who spitefully use you.

To him who strikes you on the one cheek, offer the other also. And from him who takes away your cloak, do not withhold you tunic either.

Give to everyone who ask of you. And from him to takes away your goods do not ask them back.

Still Reading Merton

Worked all afternoon on trying to get through the last half of Thomas Merton, Spiritual Master with very slow going.

Whereas on Thursday I ate it up, reading two hundred pages and taking relevant notes, I kept losing my focus, getting distracted on aspects of Merton's life and philosophy unrelated to the proposal I'm writing.

Angus got home from teaching and I told him I had gotten through a whopping 31 pages. I have no idea how it happened. The phone kept ringing, Hobbes, our wild kitty kept trying to climb on me and the keyboard, I was tired from inadequate sleep and, perhaps, simply unable to absorb any more ideas.

Struggling through another twenty pages after dinner - it isn't just reading, but searching for supportive material for my premise and writing down the quotes - I fell asleep in my chair. I slept fitfully, but was unable to rouse myself to go to bed. I was that tired, with a sleepiness that borders on nausea when one is awakened.

I woke and went to bed around one, but lay there, awake, and unable to sleep. So I'm reading again - it's nearly two in the morning - but have taken a break for this post.

We are to go for our Christmas tree this morning.

I had a half dream/perhaps half thinking about the hostages, about being in the room with them. I felt it was, perhaps, possible they would be released.

Ah, and was it last night that Steven King came into my dream? I was in a book store, perhaps I worked there (it makes sense since I have written two books, one of which I've just finished) and Steven King walked in. He went to the back, looking in the shelves, and then came back up front and we sat at a table talking.

He didn't say whether he liked my books, or had read my books, but told me he knew what I was "trying to do" and thought my blend of nature imagery with the theme of my novel was good.

It's always an encouraging sign when successful, creative people make appearances in my dreams. Somehow, I'm sure it is the mind/consciousness integrating something about that person - who has become an archetype in our collective consciousness - into my own. In this case, I could do with a bit of Steven's success and, of course, writing habits.

Here is a prayer from Merton's work Thoughts In Solitude:

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.

But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it.

Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

It was a prophetic prayer, for he died soon after he delivered it.

I'm so grateful for this warm house, for my laptop, for the light and the tea and the pumpkin bread and the gift of sight and the ability to type and the motivation to read and learn and still, perhaps, do something worthwhile in the world.

Shall I end with a fragment from Rumi?

Friend, there's a window
that opens from heart to heart,
and there are ways of closing it

completely, not a needle's eye of access.

Open or shut, both are sometimes
appropriate.

The deepest ignorance is not to know about
this window.

Over The Pedestrian Bridge

In lumine tuo videbimus lumen - In Thy light we shall see light.

Am reading the last of the four books I have chosen to prepare me for writing my second proposal for the Thomas Merton Society. This is the last, a compilation of what are considered Thomas Merton's essential writings. I had hoped to be half-way through today, since this second proposal is due Saturday. I have written a draft, but hope to make it far more compelling, using quotes from his works.

Today I was distracted by other concerns, an e-mail to Joanne which was too long and in which I sent her a few Merton quotes that I find meaningful.

Bottom line, while I meant to spend the day reading, it was five o'clock and I had not begun the book.

The sun was setting, but I set off in my long black wool coat, red scarf, red hat, red gloves, red boots, with my satchel over my shoulder (containing my laptop and this thick volume) and headed downtown.

The air felt nearly solid, it was so cold, especially after I passed over the Thames on the pedestrian bridge. The river is beginning to freeze. Ice starts at the sides of the fork and works inward.

Past the snow covered park and barren trees, but the Christmas lights are up downtown and in front of Covent Garden Market, so it is quite cheery.

I passed through the market and bought a New York Times, even though I am used to reading it on-line and just last week finally gave in and paid for Times Select so I can read the Op-Eds.

Just about ten days ago I was wishing that stand sold the Times. Until a week ago, it sold only the London Free Press and the Globe and Mail. So when I passed by and saw the Times yesterday, it felt like a small miracle, like a wish answered. I think it is an omen of other wishes - more important wishes - to be answered, such as my wish to be of real service.

The market is a beautiful place full of flowers and wonderful food. Shoppers and workers from downtown come and sit at the many small tables, drink coffee, read the paper, get a bite to eat. It always looks wonderful to me in there, but now it is filled with festive Christmas displays.

Whenever I walk inside the market, I feel a sense of wonder that I am living here, in London, that I get to walk downtown every day if I choose and that the people around me, for the most part, are in a good mood. On weekends musicians deck the market and downtown streets like small bells. You pass in and out of range of sax, trumpet, guitar and drums. I love the street musicians. They are so brave to stand out there, playing on faith that they will be rewarded for lifting the moods of passersby.

It is such a wonder to walk in such plenty, but not simply plenty, in a boutique atmosphere that is attractive and welcoming and safe. I think of the contrast between my life and that of those who live in Iraq, specifically, in Baghdad where there is intermittent electricity (and this is a new development - before there was none), ugliness, suicide bombers, an occupation of troops on top of a lack of jobs, infrastructure and even food.

God, how did I get so lucky to be here and be safe? I am so grateful.

So I walked to the Starbucks on Dundas and, of course, they are familiar with me there, it is my "home away from home" where, oddly enough, I seem to often concentrate better, amidst the hub bub and music, than I can at home in silence.

Except at night. I like the silence of sitting at my desk at night which is why I am so prone to staying up too late.

So I read and took notes for nearly five hours. I walked home after ten. Young men were playing hockey on the ice rink in front of the Market. Holiday lights shone bright. As I walked high above the river, a goose honked from somewhere in the distance. How they stay here and sleep with their feet in that icy water, I don't understand.

But then I have grown so soft, so concerned with comfort over the years. I realize I've run from experiencing extremes. Still I'm walking in the bitter weather, not driving. I think I'm tired of being a wimp. Maybe that's why I'm in Canada in winter. To learn that constantly seeking comfort is not what life is really supposed to be about.

Still, it was good to come upon our cheery looking house decorated with Christmas lights, to step in to the warmth, to make a cup of tea.

I am only to page 176. I promised I would get to 220 tonight and finish tomorrow.

I wish I had photos to post. Maybe after Saturday I'll take time to snap a few.

I better resume my reading. I will say that Thomas Merton's Seven Storey Mountain reads like a brilliant novel. But it was his life.

I will leave you with the beginning of a prayer he wrote:

Today, Father, this blue sky lauds you.
The delicate green and orange flowers of the tulip tree praise you.
The distant blue hills praise you, together with the sweet smelling air
that is full of brilliant light.

The bickering flycatchers praise you with the lowing cattle
and the quails that whistle there.

Things Have No Value, Only People Do

You sit here
for days saying,
This is strange business.

You have the energy of the sun in you,
but you keep knotting it up
at the base of your spine.

You're some weird kind of gold
that wants to stay melted in the furnace,
so you won't have to become coins.

From The Illuminated Rumi

Nicole and I took our wares - she took her wonderful cards and I took copies of my prayer book - to a winter fair hosted by a high school.

What struck me is how people did not meet our eyes, did not respond to a simple hello when they paused before our table, but like scared rabbits vacantly passed by, their eyes merely on the things before them.

Things are unimportant. There are billions of things. What makes life worth living is the smile, the kind word, the kind deed.

I think that commerce, that "free enterprise" and the rapacious ness of it, the constant advertising and beating consumers over the head with "buy, buy, buy" has created an expectation that everything is transaction, that everything is just dollars and cents. And people have an intolerance for the idea that they are just consumers, expected always to buy and have a terrible fear of the sales pitch since it virtually rules our lives.

Couple this with the fact that Wall-Mart has killed the craft trade in that, by paying Chinese laborers 49 cents an hour, there is no way an American or Canadian artisan or crafter can produce a pot or a card or a candle or a hand made purse cheap enough to compete with the prices in the discount stores.

Wal-Mart's owners, multi-billionaires - collectively the wealthiest family in the U.S. - and the share holders of Wal-Mart, most of whom are hugely wealthy, have stolen the lives and livelihoods of people who used to make a simple living producing crafts. This is on top of the exploitation of the Chinese.

Nicole's art is too beautiful, however, for her to give up.

There was a poor turnout and I realize these school fairs specialize in cheap junk. As Nicole says, if she could have sold her cards five for a dollar and I sold my book for 99 cents, we might have sold a couple.

There are markets for both her art work and my book, but that place was not one of them. Yet it was not my idea to go. My husband urged us to take a table. We tried it and that will be the last time.

Still, Nicole and I had a nice evening chatting. And it turns out she has been wanting a copy of my book. She offered to buy one, but I told her, "Nonsense. I'll give you one for Christmas."

The hostages are on my mind. The prayer for them is still up. I masterminded for their release.

Better to be a fool and have faith than turn my back and close my mind to the possibility of helping them through prayer.

The tea is cold, it's after one, I am so lucky not to be in chains, not to be used as a pawn for impossible demands, not to be in such a place of testing and fear and cold inhumanity of man to man.

God bless you, James Loney.
God bless you, Harmeet Singh Sooden.
God bless you, Tom Fox.
God bless you, Norman Kember.
God bless you, Susanne Osthoff .
God bless you, unknown man whom the press has reported just as "her driver."

May God come to you in your dreams.

Companionship

Scalding tea, sleepy eyes, but a little peace right now, to pick a poem.

Yet, now, my terror of a kitten, a golden furball named Hobbes, has chosen this moment to perk up and begin playing with the electrical cords behind my desk.

Into another room he goes, heat more water for the tea has cooled while trying to distract him from the cords. While I wait for the water to boil, here is a poem from The Illuminated Rumi translations and commentary by Coleman Barks:

Sometimes I forget completely
What companionship is.

(And Hobbes is a beautiful companion quite often, but he is a baby, only three months in this world and infinitely curious and ever chewing what catches his interest.)

Unconscious and insane
I spill sad energy
everywhere. My story
gets told in various ways:
a romance, a dirty joke,
a war, a vacancy.
Divide up my forgetfulness
to any number,
it will go around.

These dark suggestions
that I follow,
are they part
of some plan?

Friends,
be careful.
don't
come near me
out of curiosity,
or sympathy.

Everyone has the dark, sad side. Even Thomas Merton, mystic and trappist monk, considered by some to be a spiritual master, a writer of books and articles on life and contemplation, action and the need for peace wrote about his.

I just finished reading Striving Towards Being The letters of Thomas Merton and Czeslaw Milosz.

Sitting in Starbucks two days ago as I poured through these letters from forty years ago - and I find them relevant to all of today's issues of living - I realized I am on some different path, reading a book that had not been checked out of the library in years.

Who would read such a book? I plead guilty.

It began because I submitted a proposal for a presentation to the Thomas Merton Society. I had an idea of what Merton wrote about, but now I find I am fascinated by his thoughts and am reading his books much as a person drinks water, not just as a means to an end. It is, perhaps, a need.

I want to understand this man who others believe is a mystic. He was a man who felt the experience of God is what is important, not ideas or theories or dogma about God.

I believe this too, and I believe I have experienced - I have felt God and known God through dreams, mainly. But it is when I glimpse God in others, when I see love and beauty within another human being, that is such a wonderful feelings.

The dreams are beautiful, yes, and I hold them to me, vowing never to forget. But we don't live in dreams, do we? Well, we do, but that is another topic, too complex to go into.

Sometimes
I forget completely
what companionship is.

My poor husband has fallen asleep on the couch. Companionship is waking him up, taking him to bed and holding him as he falls back into slumber. Companionship is not treating each other like objects, but like presences who are precious.

Hobbes is purring on my lap. He just wanted to be held.

The water was very hot, the last half cup of tea is still lovely.

Good night and may you have sweet dreams.

There Is Beauty In The World

Sitting here at my desk, with a cup of piping hot tea. The reason I'm starting this blog? A poem.

I read a poem and it touched me. I thought, perhaps, someone else might need it, might stumble upon it and find nourishment. The poem is Rumi's, that 13th century Sufi mystic who had such a beautiful way with words that I am touched, tonight, seven centuries later:

My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that,
and I intend to end up there.

This drunkenness began in some other tavern.
When I get back around
to that place, I'll be
completely sober. Meanwhile,
I'm like a bird from another
continent, sitting in this aviary.
The day is coming when I'll fly off,
but who is it now in my ear,
who hears my voice?

Who says words with my mouth?

Who looks out with my eyes?

What is the soul?

I cannot stop asking.
If I could taste one sip
of an answer, I could break out
of this prison for drunks.

I didn't come here of my own accord,
and I can't leave that way.

Whoever brought me here
will have to take me home.

To me, the drunkenness does not refer to alcohol, but the drunkenness of being in this life. In our time we are so drunk on images, on sounds, on the horrible neverending noise of television and traffic. It is a drunkenness on materialism and thoughts about nothing that have no meaning.

The only meaning is connection with others. That is the only thing that raises our days above the insects that crawl upon the ground.

And I was struck tonight by the beauty of the people I was with. I met in a real space, in an authentic space, to Mastermind.

The group is sacrosanct. I will write nothing about the members except to say that a group of strangers became beautiful in one meeting. As hopes and dreams and fears were expressed, I was struck with the wonder of my own species.

And this is good. For the news teaches us all the stupidity in our species, while the church rails about our sinfulness.

Yes, it is all there, the stupidity and the sinfulness, but who speaks about the beauty? The almost unbearable beauty of the honest and loving heart?

My faith in humanity needs restoration. Last night I fell in love with the coffee growers in Africa and Costa Rica in a documentary about coffee.

They are not besieged with images or besotted with cell phones. They are real and honest and know what is important.

But so do the people in the group that I am so privileged to have joined.

The tea is cooling in the cup. The night grows late and I've promised myself I will no longer force myself to stay up when my eyes are closing.

There is beauty in the world everywhere. I must look for it, again, tomorrow.