a comfortable cup of tea

a comfortable cup of tea

Sunday, June 29, 2008

“You still don’t understand but I’ll try and help you to”…

Having spent two years in the middle 1990s living and working with the Sisters and people of the barrios of Argentina, I returned to the states with a yearning to continue the profoundly Spirit-filled relationship with which I had been gifted among the Latin American community; not to mention an additional desire to maintain the language I had so painstakingly acquired. Hence, I found myself once more settling into the barrio, this time in the southwest of the United States, where I would spend the next four years discovering and enlightening others about the heart matters of living in a multicultural world. And in the process, like with any endeavor toward further learning and hopefully growth, I had once more discovered that the more enlightened I became, the more I learned how unenlightened I actually was. One warm, spring day (which in south Texas is most difficult to identify from “any other” day of the year!), having recently completed a full day’s presentation on the perceptions of power and their affects on styles of communication, I decided to get a bit of fresh air with my co-presenter whom also had become a good friend. She needed to run an errand and I agreed to go along for the ride. We arrived at a major computer retail store where my friend was returning a pricey laptop she had purchased the week before. While she bargained with the salesclerk who was refusing to give her a cash refund because he claimed the store did not have that kind of cash on hand, I looked around at the numerous innovative technological inventions. After some 20 minutes or so, I returned to the counter where my friend had finally convinced the manager that she was not leaving the store without the deserved cash in hand. When the manager appeared from the back and saw me talking with his customer, he went to a nearby register and returned with a plethora of twenty-dollar bills and promptly placed them in my possession. As he apologized for the misunderstanding, I thanked him and meticulously counted the amount to be sure that all was accounted for. I asked if he might have an envelope with which to contain the tall stack of bills and when he produced one from behind the counter, I placed the money inside, handed the envelope to my friend, and turned to depart from the same door through which we had entered. “So, you want to get something to eat?” I asked my friend once we arrived at the car. I was pleased she was able to complete her errand and we still had more than an hour before our next presentation. She looked at me with a compassionately concerned expression - that half-grin-half-frown look that says “you still don’t understand but I’ll try and help you to” - and then she replied, “Do you know what just happened back there?” In all my educated ignorance I had to admit, I had not the slightest clue. And in the process of our conversation, like with any endeavor toward further learning and hopefully growth, I had once more discovered that the more enlightened I became, the more I learned how unenlightened I actually was. My friend was a dark-skinned Mexican-American female; the year was 2001; the city, an overwhelmingly Hispanic-populated San Antonio, Texas. Questions for reflection: · When might you have been involved in the blatant discrimination of another/others and been too ignorant to have recognized it? · Has anyone ever pointed out your involvement in a situation of discrimination, prejudice, or racism and, because you did not experience the situation as such, you denied it? · If you say something that offends another person but you do not mean it to be offensive, is it your responsibility to apologize or the other person’s responsibility to get beyond it? from A question and a cutie for your Friday Nothing is more loving than God and more hateful than the devil. Nothing is what the rich always want and the poor always have. Abuse nothing and you shall live; consume nothing and you shall die.

Thursday, June 26, 2008

gram

Clearing out a house which has been full of life for 40+ years of yesterdays yields nearly forgotten treasures of family history. One of those treasures is a handmade prayerbook that belonged to my maternal Grandmother. It was made of a simple, vinyl 4"x6" binder that she filled with holy cards, and typed and handwritten prayers.


After suffering a debilitating stroke in the early 1960s which left the right side of her body paralyzed, Grandma learned to walk anew, as well as to write and eat with her left hand. She then lived between her two daughters, spending spring and summer with us in the north; fall and winter with my aunt in the south. In her last years when her health declined, Grandma remained with us until her death in 1981. When Grandma died, I wrote a poem about her life, aging and death as experienced through the eyes of her once little, then pre-teen and teen, now young adult grandaughter, in which her homemade prayerbook was well remembered.
gram
i remember oh so well,
saddled on your loved one's knee,
rocking and bouncing til his muscles ached
with pain and boney leg ceased
its satisfying movement.
i remember disappearing,
leaving you the role of seeker,
and being coddled in your arms
once my hideout was discovered.
i remember butterscotch and lemon drops
so generously shared with all
and the bag filled with bars of chocolate
placed strategically out of my reach.
i remember riding the elevator chair,
and walking crippled with your cane.
i remember helping you up
off that frowned-upon church chair
and turning the pages
of your homemade prayerbook.
i remember your angelic voice
becoming broken and unable to keep up.
i remember short conversations
becoming longer and so painful to endure.
i remember pushing you
through unwanted exercise,
and watching your eyes bellow with tears.
i remember feeding you
in infant-size spoonfuls,
when you simply wanted milkshakes
through a straw.
i remember your forlorned features,
as we told you you couldn't come home,
and your sigh of desperation
feeling trapped with no place to go.
i remember the day we left you,
and the next when you left us.

Sunday, June 22, 2008

... kindergarten idioms ...

I recently read a blog that referred to the classic idiom "little pitchers have big ears" to which a reader commented:
The quote is "litte PICTURES have big ears"...not pitchers! too funny!
And yet another reader commented on the comment with:
YOU are the "funny" one. It IS INDEED PITCHERS. Do a little research before you accuse someone of being wrong: http://www.answers.com/topic/little-pitchers-have-big-ears

PHEW! Glad it wasn't my blog! I realized while teaching kindergarten that 5 and 6 year olds hadn't yet been adequately exposed to the oral learning of idioms and therefore had no idea what they were or meant. I took the opportunity ... you probably think I'm going to say "to teach them about idioms and their meanings" ... NOPE! I gave them the first part of a classic idiom, let them complete the sentence and draw a picture of their saying, and then I put them together in a little booklet that I use when I teach workshops on multiculturalism and diversity training. Here are a couple from my collection:

An apple a day makes apple juice. (That's a juicebox and an apple!)

A penny saved is in the water. (That's the bottom of a fountain!)

People who live in glass houses shouldn't kick their houses.

Where there's a will there's water and a bucket. (That is a wEll with water in the bottom, some bricks at the top ~ before the bricklayer got tired ~ and a bucket hanging from a rope!) Do you suppose this little one from the past could be the present adult who left the comment mentioned above about the pitcher being a picture?! :-]

A bird in the hand can't fly.

I hope you get as big a kick out of them as I do. And you must admit, my students were bright little people! I've MANY more where those came from. Maybe I'll share the rest in short increments.

Friday, June 20, 2008

A question and a cutie for your Friday

Can you answer the following riddle with ONE WORD:

It is more loving than God and more hateful than the devil.
It is what the rich always want and the poor always have.
Abuse it and you shall live; consume it and you shall die.
__________________?


And I just have to share a few recent pictures of Mijo.


Could you not just eat him up?

Monday, June 16, 2008

i am happiest when i am creating ...

Several months ago a good friend asked me to complete the following sentence: I am happiest when ... That question has remained in my heart and mind ever since and I would still answer it exactly the way I did when it was first asked. I truly am happiest when I am creating, be it writing ... drawing ... sewing ... drumming ... brainstorming ... that is when I feel I am most at home with myself.

My siblings and I recently moved my 81 year old parents from the family home ~ they/we lived there 46 years! ~ into a 2 bedroom senior living apartment. Inspired by Dana of
Old Red Barn Company, I decided to transform my mom's old card table into something I could use.

 

I didn't take any before pictures but it was in pretty bad shape. I painted it a barn red and used ModPodge to adhere 4x5 inch rectangles of Thimbleberry print fabric that I received from a PIF (sorry, my cell phone doesn't take pictures like Dana's!!). Now I just have to find out what kind of acrylic she used to seal it.

Thursday, June 12, 2008

sages and fathers ...

The first sage to grace my path became well known to me at a very early age. With the patience of Job and a profound love of simplicity, he accompanied me for long periods of time in animated conversation and debate. His earliest words of wisdom, that I am able to recall, came in the form of a song that I proudly shared with my Kindergarten teacher and classmates at the age of five:

♫ A smile is such a funny thing it wrinkles up your face;
And when it’s gone you’ll never find its secret hiding place. ♫

That special sage is my father, who, 42 years later continues to be one of the wisest persons I have ever known. What a gift it is to have a sage for a father. HAPPY FATHER'S DAY, DAD!



There are many fathers in my large family, but I must make mention of the newest one who will be christened this Sunday as we gather to celebrate with the wisest one already mentioned.
Mert is the proud father of the little peanut from last week's Keeping Me Sane post.
HAPPY FATHER'S DAY, MERTY!

And while I am tempted to further elaboration, I will conclude here with the words of that first sage to grace my path; that special sage known as my father:

"All that you say need be true.
However, you need not say ALL that is true."

Monday, June 9, 2008

Grace-filled moments ...

My friend is dying. She laid atop her bed in a fetal position, fully clothed, coat and purse at the ready by the foot of her bed. Her eyes half-closed, or maybe half-open. She looked pale, tired, and gaunt. She wanted to go out for a bite to eat, but not really. Her stomach had been paining her for several days already, it was distended and hard. She wanted to pretend that she was well, like she used to be, able to rise and move quickly and join me for a Coney or Taco Bell run. But her body had gotten the best of her; the fatigue she could no longer deny.

Maybe I’ll rest just a little longer.

I removed her shoes and covered her with an afghan, hung her coat and drawered the purse. We would spend the evening inside this time, without food or talk thereof.

I watched her stir in fitful sleep. Her stomach growled in loud protest to the little room it held amidst the growing masses of poisonous consumption. I cannot fathom being in her skin; I wonder if she can understand being in mine.

Nineteen months earlier I’d been forced to bid another close friend farewell. I sat by her side as her body succumbed identical to the scene before me. Same pain, same poison, same patient. I beckoned her to remain close to her comadre, to midwife her transition and welcome her home.

The thunder in her belly grew louder and tears began to escape from behind the veil covering her eyes.

I hate this. I hate it all.

I thought the same as the words left her lips. I rose and lay on the bed beside her. She rolled to her back, handed me the pillow she’d been hugging between her arms, and tucked her toes under my thigh. I rested my hand on her boney knee and gently caressed her leg as she spoke.

She spoke of fear: not of death, but of pain … of having to say goodbye … of putting others through loss, especially her mother … of not expecting this death to have arrived so soon …

And we shared the silence. The unspoken heartache of the moment. The here and the now which would forever be one of the last. We cried and we honored the wordless ache we both harbored hidden from the other.

Then came a knock at the door: her night meds. She rose to brush her teeth and I readied her bed for sleep. I tucked her into bed and we embraced in deep love and gratitude for the sacrament shared. I arose and stepped toward the door, then turned back and told her “I love you, Mar.”

I love you, too, Sar.

Thursday, June 5, 2008

Left in the World of Right

Left in the World of Right

Plenty of moons ago
Was placed an original fate
For love produced a child
Born number six of eight

She grew in the world of right
Although she often was wrong
Condemned with ropes of restraint
Because her left was strong

In school the desks were a bother
As were notebooks, rulers and books
Her penmanship was called atrocious
For her hand resembled a hook

Padlocks, stick shifts, and butter knives
Scissors and ink pens the same
Each presented a challenge
And each she overcame

She grew in the world of right
And the same remains today
For the rest will always be left
To conform in a bassackwards way
In a world which has for centuries functioned from a right-hand dominant perspective, the only persons able to recognize the prejudice of such a viewpoint are those whose hand dominance differs from the majority, namely, left-hand dominant individuals. In such a society, right-minded individuals are thought to be sensible and fair; upright (righteous) and unlikely to make left-handed (ironic and insincere) remarks, or leave their listeners out in left field by their commentary (an erroneous or very unconventional position or state). One must strive to BE right (correct, true, accurate) and always DO right (morally and appropriately) in this world in order to stay ahead - or at the very least right behind Number 1(immediately, exactly) - never to be left behind (abandoned, alone).
Hmmmmmmm ...I wonder if handedness has anything to do with blogging. Which hand do you favor?

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Mom

Daughter, First-Born
Sister, Wife
Mother, Friend
Grandmother, Great
Irish, Lady
Proud, Proper
Unashamed
Unabashed
Independent
Determined
Creative
Giving
Self-Sacrificing
Loving
Nurturing
My Mother
My Hero

My Friend

On Monday I spent the afternoon with my Mom in celebration of her 81st birthday. Later that evening as I reflected on the wondrous events of the day and the profoundly-felt presence of a Heavenly Mother, I was reminiscent of Her spirit recognizable in a number of Earthly Women whose paths I have crossed. And I said a prayer of deep gratitude for my earthly Mother, an inspiring illustration of the Divine Feminine.

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

one of those kind of days ...

The skies are dark and dreary this morning ...

threatening to tear but not quite ready to let loose ...

Even the birds are quiet around the feeder ...

I am sequestered to write yet another correction to my dissertation proposal ...

but I think it is going to be one of those kind of days ...
[Thanks for the illustration, Mijo!]
a comfortable cup of tea ...

http://acomfortablecupoftea.blogspot.com/