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Minding Your Peas and Quinoa

Rachel Henry1 Comment

When my brain gets really out of control with its negative messaging, sometimes I believe it and curl up in a ball and go to sleep. Other times, I remember that there are some things that help.

One thing that helps me is using these slightly adapted gathas (verses) from Thich Nhat Hanh as a mealtime prayer:

While serving food: In this food I see clearly the presence of the entire universe supporting my existence.

Looking at the filled plate: All living beings are struggling for life. May they all have enough food to eat today.

Just before eating: The plate is filled with food. I am aware that each morsel is the fruit of much hard work by those who produced it.

Beginning to eat: With the first taste, I promise to practice loving kindness. With the second, I promise to relieve the suffering of others. With the third, I promise to see others’ joy as my own. With the fourth, I promise to seek God’s peace. (The original says, “With the fourth, I promise to learn the way of non-attachment and equanimity”—I have a hard time with “non-attachment,” so I changed it.)

Finishing the Meal: The plate is empty. My hunger is satisfied. I vow to live for the benefit of all beings. (Thanks to The Endless Further for putting this online.)

I find that paying attention in this way quiets my mind for a few reasons. First, I have to slow down, at least for the first four bites. It’s hard to rush through a promise of loving kindness because it’s a rather large promise and always makes me gulp a little.

Second, these verses have a bunch of gratitude built into them, and it’s hard to think either that you’ve recently ruined the world or that the world is out to get you while recognizing how fortunate you are.

And third, this practice puts other thoughts in my brain. I usually mentally cross my fingers during “I promise to relieve the suffering of others,” the way you did when you were a kid and were promising to do something but knew you were lying. It seems such an onerous thing to promise. But tonight I thought, if I just worked on relieving my own suffering, other people wouldn’t have to deal with it, and that would probably do them a heap of good.

Thanks, Thich.

Encountering Mystery

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Mysteries come closer and more often than we think. I used to see a couple in their fifties or sixties walking through my neighborhood every morning as I drove to work. In my memory, they always walk hand in hand. I don’t know if this detail is true or invented, but they had an air of closeness, of having grown together over time.

They are both heavyset, almost square. He walks with a cane. The other day I saw only the man, walking alone. I worried about what had happened to the woman and about how the man would fare without his companion. I also felt negligent because I hadn’t seen them in quite some time but hadn’t been conscious of their absence. Had they been right there and I hadn’t noticed them? Or had one of us changed our routine by a minute or two, enough to no longer be a casual occurrence in the other’s life?

Another couple, slender, faster, maybe younger, maybe not, used to walk their dog farther along my route to work. The woman always wears a knit hat and the man a blue fleece jacket. I would glance at the clock every day when I passed them to figure out whether or not I was late. I have not seen them in a while either.

I wonder who, if anyone, I am to these couples. Am I the woman in the gray car who drives too fast? Do they even see me?

I know nothing of these people, despite their proximity, yet on some level they matter to me. I wonder whether I know my acquaintances at work any better. I assume we have more in common because we share certain experiences, but are they really any less mysterious? And when it comes to that, would my closest friends and family tell their own stories the way I would tell them? Is it possible to conceive of the world from inside someone else’s heart, mind, and soul.

Perhaps that’s why that couple holds hands, even after all these years—they know they are holding onto something precious, a piece of the world unlike any other that can be explored for a lifetime and remain unknowable.

Here’s a poem from the Polish poet Anna Swir that argues the opposite of what I just have. Or, at the end, maybe not.

The Same Inside

Walking to your place for a love feast
I saw at a street corner
an old beggar woman.

I took her hand,
kissed her delicate cheek,
we talked, she was
the same inside as I am,
from the same kind,
I sensed this instantly
as a dog knows by scent
another dog.

I gave her money,
I could not part from her.
After all, one needs
someone who is close.

And then I no longer knew
why I was walking to your place.

-Translated from the Polish by Czeslaw Milosz and Leonard Nathan

Reprinted in A Book of Luminous Things, ed. by Czeslaw Milosz

Don’t Drink the Rat Poison

Rachel Henry1 Comment

As usual, it appears I’m not going to attain enlightenment by the end of Lent this year. I’m giving up resentments and grudges—in other words, practicing the F word, forgiveness—and there just might be a few still hanging around at the end of forty days.

I am really good at resenting people, even people I don’t know. For example, I have a running grudge against all people who weave in and out of traffic, not a mild annoyance, an active dislike. True, their actions are unsafe, but what happens in my brain after they pass me has nothing to do with safety. It sounds more like, “How dare they make me feel as if I’m not going fast enough” or “they should wait their turn.” Meanwhile, they are several cars in front of me, merrily on their way to wherever, and I’m still fuming.

Here are some things I’ve learned from other people about forgiveness:

  • “Not forgiving is like drinking rat poison and then waiting for the rat to die.” – Anne Lamott
  • Forgiveness is a refusal to judge someone’s soul. – I forget who
  • You have to forgive yourself first. – my mom
  • Forgiveness does not mean that you are saying what the person did is OK. – lots of people, most recently Fr. John Heagle
  • It is not necessary—and sometimes not safe—to add forgetting to forgiving. – Fr. Heagle again
  • Forgiveness is a practice that takes time. – Paula D’Arcy, Fr. Heagle, other people

There are interestingly no how-to instructions on this list. What I’ve learned so far is that first we have to realize we’re the ones mixing and drinking the rat poison. What the other person did has ended—it no longer exists, and I don’t have a time machine in which I can travel back and force him or her to do it differently, though my mind incessantly recreates the situation as if that were possible.

And then we have to ask God/the universe for help. Because it’s hard and we’ve been hurt. But it’s worth asking because then all that energy that’s been tied up in being angry can be used for joy instead.

Joy Hovers

Rachel Henry3 Comments

A hummingbird has been trying to tell me something this week. He hovered outside my window for a few seconds one day, expending probably hundreds of his precious heartbeats to make sure I’d notice, then zoomed away only to return several times during the morning for a repeat performance.

According to a book I once read on Native American understanding of animals, hummingbirds bring joy and the nectar of life. The first day, I went outside to see if something remarkably joyful might bump into me. A tree had opened up the first of its delicate white blossoms, but that didn’t quite seem to be it. I stood under the tree waiting for a long-lost friend to happen along, but nothing happened.

The next day I was still trying to figure it out—I had a blog to write after all—but I wasn’t making much progress. Then he came back and hung out so close to the window it looked as if he could tap his beak on the glass.

I confess I wasn’t doing a great job of practicing joy on these days. Most of my practice consisted of self-imposed stress and feelings of inadequacy. Not everything that happens in this life is joyful. There’s more than enough pain and grief to go around. But I know there are plenty of opportunities for joy that I don’t take, that it’s not regularly my baseline approach to the day.

As I was driving home that second day, it occurred to me that perhaps there’s nothing to figure out. Joy is there waiting for us and all we have to do is open the window.

In Praise of Co-Habitation

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All of you who live lovingly with others—roommates, spouses, children, extended family members—astonish me. I asked some people what they think praise means recently, and two of my favorite responses were “to honor and recognize holiness” and to stand in awe of. Today I’d like to take a moment to praise healthy, happy—at least most of the time—co-habitation.

Sometimes after work I sit in my car and play word games on my phone to avoid interacting with my cat quite so soon. Granted, none of my former roommates clawed me if I didn’t play with them when I got home, but I started thinking about all my vanmates who get in their cars and drive directly home to care for or simply be with families and spouses.

A friend and I spent last weekend at New Camaldoli Hermitage in Big Sur. That’s three days of sitting in your own room with your own little garden, seeing people only at services, and speaking only during our afternoon walks. I always find re-entry rough, but she has to readjust not only to noise and advertisements and Starbucks but also to another human being, her husband.

Living well with others requires a certain selflessness and self-sacrifice, a willingness to give up some of how you would rather things be, an openness to negotiation and renegotiation. In essence, a daily giving of yourself that can’t help but make the world more loving.

Of course not everyone manages to be as kind as they might like to be every day, but on balance, this daily and often not-so-simple caring for one another is a great good. Huzzah to you!

The Light Returns

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Tonight is the eighth and final night of Chanukah. I’ve always loved everything about Chanukah, from cleaning the wax out of the menorah’s candle holders to eating gelt (chocolate coins) to guessing which candle is going to burn out first. My dad, the Catholic, always seemed to guess that one right.

But it’s light in the darkness, watching the number of candles grow day by day, that is the most enchanting.

Menorah on a table full of stuff

I inherited my growing-up menorah from my mom this year because her childhood menorah returned to her when my uncle died. I’ve never owned a menorah as an adult—unless you count the one I made out of a box in China—so this was the first year for me to light the lights at my house.

During the weekend that fell in the middle of Chanukah, I decided to paint my kitchen. Only I didn’t finish because of course it took longer than I thought, and my deconstructed kitchen is still occupying the dining table, the only place to put the menorah.

I restacked things and cleared a spot for it in the middle of the table and commenced worrying—that I was being disrespectful, that I would burn the house down, that it would look ugly amidst all the clutter—but I grew to like the symbolism. Even in the midst of the most chaotic disarray we can create, the light will still grow in the darkness.

And it was just as beautiful as ever, even surrounded by mixing bowls, pots and pans, and a few stray onions.

Remind Me

Rachel Henry2 Comments

This Friday, we’ll celebrate a Big Event at work. I have allowed preparations for the festivities to take over a rather significant portion of my life and mental space and use up most of my stress allowance. (Wouldn’t it be great if we really had a stress allowance and when we reached the end, we were cut off? Nope, sorry, that’s all the stress that you’re allowed this week.)

To counteract this, my mom has been sending me reminders every day of the things that are truly important, like love and smiles and miracles. We humans need a lot of reminders. The urgent easily sweeps us away from the important. I don’t know why. Anne Lamott quotes a friend of hers as saying, “Why is not a useful question.” It’s the way we are, no reason attached, like the way chocolate tastes better than broccoli.

I have not remained in a blissed-out state of gratitude all day every day because of her notes, but the people around me have probably breathed a little easier. For example, when someone has said, “I have a question for you,” I’ve replied, “No” with good cheer instead of snarling.

There will always be a next big event, and we can always forget the important stuff when deadlines loom. Important stuff includes wondering at the way light falls from the sky through those specific clouds on that spot in the ocean that will never look exactly the same again, accompanying your co-worker to the storage room because there might be rats and that is creepy, remembering that it is all gift and that it is important to treat each moment, whether it is in preparation for a big event or not, as the gift it is.

So let’s remind each other—of love, of beauty, of heartbreak and the healing that comes afterward, of friendship, of grace.

You Can Do It Random Stranger

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I ran a half marathon last Sunday. In 2:05:59, just for the record, which of course is very different from 2:06.

Rachel and Katie running
Me, my running buddy Katie, and many kind volunteers at the water station

To make this event happen, an amazing number of women and men got up early on a Sunday morning not to run but to volunteer or to stand by the side of the road and cheer for the runners, most of whom they didn’t know. True, most of them came for a friend or family member, but they were generous with their applause and encouragement. I am not sure I could have finished the race without them, and I am sure it would not have been as enjoyable.

Running past them, I wondered why we don’t do this more often, why we don’t support each other so freely most of the time. But maybe people are willing to help and we simply don’t ask.

A half marathon is a societally acknowledged hard thing, which makes it easier to ask for support. Everyone knows you’re going to need it, and we’ve all agreed—for unknown reasons—that running thirteen miles is a worthwhile goal to pursue.

On the other hand, when we go through equally hard things as part of our daily lives, hard in the emotional rather than the physical realm, it’s often difficult to ask for help. Or if someone assigns us a task or a role, it becomes our job, and we may feel that asking for help is the same as failure.

I am not much good at it myself. I fear people will see me as weak or incompetent or needy. The truth is, I am sometimes all of these things. None of us is always strong, good at everything, and always capable of going it alone.

I met Bill Bellows once, who pointed out that none of us has achieved anything in our lives, from a grade in a class to a well-cooked meal to a Nobel Prize, by ourselves. Everything in our lives is a group effort, and if we have the confidence and humility to ask for help, we might find there’s a whole crowd of people cheering us on.

A Poem on Her Birthday

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Following the “It’s your birthday, you get to pick” tradition, I’m going to beg your indulgence and post a poem instead of a reflection this week.

I found Dylan Thomas’s “Fern Hill” in high school, and it has been one of my favorites evey since. It’s long, and you might want to listen to Thomas read it. He was a Welshman with a resonant, made-for-radio voice that’s nice to listen to even if you don’t understand the poem.

It’s not the easiest poem I’ve posted, but it so wonderfully conveys the timeless, innocent feeling of childhood. Who hasn’t had their “wishes race through the house high hay” or pretended to be “prince of the apple towns”? Of course, the poem takes away that timelessness even as it’s offered, so perhaps it’s a bit of a melancholic choice for a birthday poem. But what more can you want than images like “fire green as grass”?

Just feel your way through the few confusing phrases–I don’t know what “below a time” means but I like the way it feels removed from the every day–and skip the British words (a “dingle” is a valley) and spend some time playing with the young Thomas in the Welsh hills.

Fern Hill
by Dylan Thomas

Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
     The night above the dingle starry,
          Time let me hail and climb
     Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
          Trail with daisies and barley
     Down the rivers of the windfall light.

And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
     In the sun that is young once only,
          Time let me play and be 
     Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
          And the sabbath rang slowly
     In the pebbles of the holy streams.

All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay
Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air
     And playing, lovely and watery
          And fire green as grass.
     And nightly under the simple stars
As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,
All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars
     Flying with the ricks, and the horses
          Flashing into the dark.

And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white
With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all
     Shining, it was Adam and maiden,
          The sky gathered again
     And the sun grew round that very day.
So it must have been after the birth of the simple light
In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm
     Out of the whinnying green stable
          On to the fields of praise.

And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house
Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,
     In the sun born over and over,
          I ran my heedless ways,
     My wishes raced through the house high hay
And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows
In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs
     Before the children green and golden
          Follow him out of grace,

Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me
Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,
     In the moon that is always rising,
          Nor that riding to sleep
     I should hear him fly with the high fields
And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
          Time held me green and dying
     Though I sang in my chains like the sea.

With thanks to poets.org for the correctly formatted poem.

Messenger by Mary Oliver

Rachel Henry4 Comments

My work is loving the world.
Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird—
equal seekers of sweetness.
Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums.
Here the clam deep in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished.
The phoebe, the delphinium.
The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture.
Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here,

which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart
and these body-clothes,
a mouth with which to give shouts of joy
to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam,
telling them all, over and over, how it is
that we live forever.

“Am I no longer young, and still half-perfect?”—it’s something of a relief to know I’m not the only one.

Note: This is one in a series of poems selected to help those who may have been intimidated by poetry see that it need not be complicated to be beautiful and meaningful. The series was inspired by National Poetry Month but is extending a bit beyond.