The Beginning of a Spirituality ~ Part III

The Lilac Sanctuary

The walk to school every morning was purposeful and timed. If I left the house on time and walked without delay I could arrive with breath to spare and time to visit with my classmates, an integral exercise in what continues to be the most attended class of the newly blossomed adolescent years - socialization. But the walk home was different. Instead of a preoccupation of what was to come, which often filled my thoughts along the morning trek, my mind assumed a memory mode as it soared through the past events of the day. It was almost an effortless thinking, an effortless being. It just was and it mattered not what time I left school, for I was going home and need not worry about arriving before the bell.

On the way home I took a different path ~ a path that would take me past the huge brick house on the corner. It was not the house I liked, it was the bushes. The bushes filled with luscious green leaves that stroked my bare arms and legs like gentle kisses as I walked through their midst. The bushes filled with aromatic blooms of lilac, white and pink that towered well above my head and made me feel as if I had entered another space in time entirely. Each day I ventured in and through and out feeling full and filled, and for reasons I did not care that I did not understand, I emerged whole and fulfilled. I loved those bushes and their space and how they made me feel.

Once I grew and moved away from my place of origin, each visit home I would venture past those bushes – just to be sure. But one summer afternoon as I arrived in the city, something seemed odd and I began to feel an almost nauseating pain in the pit of my stomach. I thought it was the hot weather and the length of time I had traveled in an un-airconditioned car. But as I approached the huge brick house, I quickly forgot about the heat. The bushes were gone! My temple had been destroyed. And even though it has been gone several years now, I cannot help but venture past where it once stood each time I return home – just to be sure.

The Beginning of a Spirituality ~ Part II

Under Kelly’s Front Porch

I was 10 years old and loved gumball machines. At that time you could put in a penny and out would come 2 gumballs and, depending on the machine, a tiny trinket would accompany the colorful spheres. The tiny plastic object was no bigger than a thumbprint and usually possessed a ring at one end so as to be strung like a charm from a necklace or bracelet. For me, those trinkets were treasures, my most prized possessions. Perhaps because they were cute and colorful; perhaps because they were mine. They all meant something to me and I loved them for it. I kept them in a box my grandmother had given me and in it they were transported back and forth from my hideout. Actually, it was our hideout, Kelly’s and mine. Kelly was my friend and we used to take my trinkets underneath her front porch and set them up here and there. That’s all we did – we took them out and set them up, one by one, and then sat there looking at them and being with them – often in silence. If someone had asked I doubt we could have explained why; we just did and it was good and that was enough.

And then one day Kelly stopped coming to the hideout and so it became my hideout. I continued to enter the place, box in hand, alone from then on. Soon the summer ended and Kelly went back to her school and I went back to mine. The weather turned colder and I visited my little temple less and less.

Thirty-plus years later my temple is housed in a sacred corner of my bedroom and continues to contain trinkets which represent my life, my love, my connections. Reminiscent of the altarcitos of Hispanic popular religion (small places common in many homes where Holy images and objects of meaning are placed), a simple mission style bookcase serves as my altar’s base upon which currently rest the following items: a small weaving from the altiplano or high mountainous regions of Peru; a candle; prayer cards and service programs containing small photographs and prayers of eternal rest for two dear friends; a miniature earthenware container filled with pinches of dirt from 12 countries in which the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas minister and reside; a petite bottle of holy water from the shrine in Mexico decorated with a colorful image of Our Lady of Guadalupe; a little clay vessel given to me 26 years ago at my entrance ceremony; a piece of stone etched with the words Be still and know that I am God; the crude clay bird hand-fashioned during a retreat; a piece of weathered driftwood from the lake at Stillpoint; coral from the shores of Belize; and my drawing journal displaying a mandala I created for Mary. I try to visit my mestiza temple daily and sit in silent reflection amidst the visual fronteras of my soul.* Some people call it meditation, others call it contemplation. I learned a long time ago to call it prayer, even when it does not feel like it.

*With experiences and devotions in two distinct worlds and not comfortably fitting completely into either, my spirituality embraces mixed traditions; lives in the borderlands. From the poem “To live in the Borderlands means you” by Gloria Anzaldúa in Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza

The Beginning of a Spirituality ~ Part I

WAY UP HIGH, SERAPHIM ...

As a small child of no more than four, the Mass was mostly in Latin and very little made sense to my young ears. Except for one word - one word spoken one time within that hour of babble when I knew that I was being named specially among the crowd and recognized - the word was seraphim. And even though it was not Sarah, I knew it meant Sarah because after all, it wasn’t English anyway and that was just the other language’s way of saying Sarah.

A few years later the babble turned familiar and my curiosity waned until one Sunday I noticed what had been there always, hanging high above the altar. It was way up high, so high that if you sat too far up in the body of the church, you could not see what I oftentimes saw and oftentimes did not. It was rectangular in shape from the angle just below it, a box which hung by four chains made of what looked like wood and decorated on the bottom with colors of turquoise and cream and something of a darker hue from the perspective further back. There seemed to be no light attached to it and nothing hung from it to identify its purpose and so I would look at it and wonder “Why is this here?” and “What is that for?” And sometimes, because the box hung from chains and there was a rather large space between it and the ceiling, I saw it. It was a cross, but not a real cross, more like a shadow cross sitting between the box and the ceiling. But there was no real cross making the shadow cross so maybe it was some other kind of cross. Sometimes I would see it and look around at the other faces in the community gathered and wonder if they too could see it. Other times it was nowhere to be found and I would still look around at the other faces and wonder if they too could not see it. And even though I could not see it every time, I was sure of it; I knew it was still there even if I was the only one who knew about it. Somehow I think I was.

dear ann,

i'm aided to my feet and proudly stand alone ... i read your wisdom admire your honesty relate to your feelings love your wordsmithing appreciate your theology enjoy your life-pictures follow your bliss while i cannot find my own ... and then i stop want no more ... i envy your insight resent your vulnerability desire your approach begrudge your creativity covet your faith spite your gratitude despise your bliss while i cannot find my own ... until i fall once more and cannot rise alone ...

ann, it seems i have a love/hate relationship with reading your blog ... more accurately, i suspect, it reflects my relationship with myself ... sometimes a prayer; sometimes a swear ... what i would not give to share a comfortable cup of tea with you one day. blessings, sarah

Thank you, Kim

Remember Kim of hues of nature ~ the wonderful artist who designed and crafted the darling pixies which make up Three Friends? She has decided to offer Mary's Fairy in her Etsy Shop to aid ovarian cancer awareness, and will donate $5.00 from each doll she sells to Gilda's Club of Detroit.

She then put together a Treasury at Etsy entitled A Tribute to Mary ~ check it out here. Thank you, Kim ... you have been an angel of comfort amidst the pain of our loss.

Namaste.

Can Mijo come out to play?

"Mijo, guess who's coming to get you tomorrow?"

"Your Aunt!"

"No, not that one ~ your FAVORITE one."

"Yeah, that one, Aunt Sarah!"