For today’s reflection I wanted to send along a meme I found on social media that I thought expressed a very helpful sentiment for us personally – but also in our work here with one another and with residents.

Sometimes the most caring thing is simply companioning with someone else in the difficult thing they are going through and assuring them that we will be there with them through it.

Friends, we know that life is short and we have too little time to gladden the hearts of those who travel with us. So be swift to love and make haste to be kind and may the blessing of God or all that sustains you, keep you safe, grant you peace and fill you with all that you need, just for today. Amen

Warmly,
Joel

This will be my last musing of the Star Magnolia outside the door entrance to the HSC. The petals are starting to fall already. If you haven’t taken a moment, pull down your mask, and put your nose right into one of these blossoms….do it today. It is a mild sweet fragrance and such a delight. All too soon the petals will cover the grass and pavement out on that corner. The cycle of blossoming will end and the tree will push out more hardy leaves for the summer. It is the CPE intern’s last day today and we have savored our shared time together this week. Sweet.

So what sweetness is bursting into your life of routine today? Can you share it with someone else?

Prayer for Today

Oh God of musing fragrance,
I so want the beauty and connection to stay
But there is a bigger more grand reality
Unfolding before me
And I must yield to its changing nature
Even as I weep in the shifting sands beneath my feet.

The magnolia has been a gift to me this season
May it invite me to look at the next unfolding gem
In the vastness of your creation

More than anything today, I want to say
Thank you, thank you thank you.
I feel wrapped in the grace of beauty today.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.

I pray that all of you rest a bit in nature’s rapturous beauty, or in the smile of your child, or revel in the wrinkles of your favorite resident today. Let it wash over you and cleanse you for the day ahead.

Warmly,
Michelle

Today I am facilitating, with Bill Bushnell, a conversation on the “Book of Joy” by the Dalia Lama and Desmond Tutu. We read two chapters a week and the last few have been on the more difficult feelings. Sadness, grief, fear, anxiety and envy. You would think it would be depressing, especially now with COVID but surprisingly each chapter, along with talking about the harder emotions, gives examples of how to find and appreciate joy. This week we are talking about illness and death. Something we all are familiar with; if not for ourselves than in those around us.

It was my turn to find a quote that is sent with a reminder zoom link and this is what I found:

“Part of the problem with the word ‘disabilities’ is that it immediately suggests an inability to see or hear or walk or do other things that many of us take for granted. But what of people who can’t feel? Or talk about their feelings? Or manage their feelings in constructive ways? What of people who aren’t able to form close and strong relationships? And people who cannot find fulfillment in their lives, or those who have lost hope, who live in disappointment and bitterness and find in life no joy, no love? These, it seems to me, are the real disabilities.”

― Fred Rogers, The World According to Mister Rogers: Important Things to Remember

Fred never disappoints me with his words of wisdom. He reminds me that if we stay connected to our interior world than the exterior world is manageable. Feelings shape our reality. We can be disabled and walk and talk “normally”.

So today feel empowered by Fred and name and claim your feelings. Fred doesn’t care what they are (he has a song for every feeling). Sad or joyful rejoice in your ability to feel at all.

The star Magnolia tree that is just outside our entrance door is bursting with blooms in the morning sunshine this morning. There is nothing like the early heat of spring like what we had over the last couple of days. Spectacular. Even the more “regular” trees of oak and maple and birch (at least I think that is what they are) are starting to burst out their red buds. As the news of COVID-19 continues to linger in the larger community and now the mid-west is seeing spikes, it is hard to keep up spirits. The challenges created by 2020’s upheavals are still very real for so many.. debt, housing insecurity, loss of good work, for some health and the loss of so many lives. The reverberations of all of the suffering will be with us for a while.

When it breaks into to my shell of personal protection (emotionally speaking) I always try to focus on something outside that reminds me that everything changes and everything is renewed in some way in the big picture. Natural beauty is a great balm for our soul.

So stop and say hello to the Magnolia tree on your way in and out of the building this week. Let it sooth your aching soul and let it be enough for today.

May you find beauty and good companions in your day today. Let someone be the light for you and you be a light for someone else and we will move on together a little better for the sharing.

Warmly,

Michelle

Since the start of the pandemic, it’s felt important to me to occasionally look at some online lists of names and faces of those we’ve lost to the virus. I didn’t want to just see the ever-growing number on the television screen and discount or dehumanize the enormity of our loss. I didn’t want to forget that every person lost is someone’s child, parent, friend, sibling, neighbor. Every person was loved.

Growing up, there was an unspoken rule in my family that after someone passed away, their name was never to be spoken again. Then a beloved cousin, Dorothy, died tragically in a car accident while on vacation in Italy. Vinny, her husband, refused to play by the rules. He kept her alive by always talking about her, every detail of her personality, her cooking, her clothing. We’d sit down to dinner and he might say, “Oh Dot would love this!” I was maybe 10 years old, and even then I knew that this wasn’t the appropriate behavior my family expected. I could just tell that my parents were uncomfortable hearing her name. But I remember it felt right, it felt brave. This sense always stayed with me, I knew Vinny was doing the right thing by saying her name.

I recently came across Henry Scott Holland’s “Death is Nothing At All.” Here’s a portion of the poem:

Death is nothing at all.
It does not count.
I have only slipped away into the next room.
Nothing has happened.
Everything remains exactly as it was.
I am I, and you are you,
And the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged.
Whatever we were to each other, that we are still.
Call me by my old familiar name
Speak of me in the easy way you always used.
Put no difference into your tone. […]
Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word that it always was.
Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it.

I love this language of relationships continuing, of everything staying the same, of love going forward. This is what Vinny instinctively knew, that we should continue saying our loved ones’ names, that we should keep them alive not just in our hearts but with our voices, too.

Today I invite you to say the names of those you’ve loved and lost. Or maybe you’d like to spend some time online looking at the names and faces of those we’ve collectively lost from COVID, strangers we love just the same. Let’s say their names.

Blessings & peace to you,
Jennifer Andersen
CPE Intern

It has been a while since I have shared a reflection – we have been blessed with gifted interns who have shared their inspiring thoughts these past months of 2021. We will miss their writings and we will especially miss their presence among us in this community. This coming Sunday in our community worship service we will say goodbye and bless them on their way.

And we who remain will continue. We will continue in this good work during this difficult time. The Spring brings with it new air, new buds on the trees, the snow drops draw our attention the emerging tulips and daffodils. And with all this emerging life we are once again reminded of the resilience of what the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins called the “dearest freshness deep down things.” No season of loss, no winter can outlast the life hidden deep inside the earth, deep inside us. And it is with that life that we continue – through every new season. And so I offer the wise and beautiful words of the poet Maya Angelou on this theme in her poem, “Continue.”

Into a world which needed you
My wish for you
Is that you continue

Continue

To be who and how you are
To astonish a mean world
With your acts of kindness

Continue

To allow humor to lighten the burden
of your tender heart

Continue

In a society dark with cruelty
To let the people hear the grandeur
Of God in the peals of your laughter

Continue

To let your eloquence
Elevate the people to heights
They had only imagined

Continue

To remind the people that
Each is as good as the other
And that no one is beneath
Nor above you

Continue

To remember your own young years
And look with favor upon the lost
And the least and the lonely

Continue

To put the mantel of your protection
Around the bodies of
The young and defenseless

Continue

To take the hand of the despised
And diseased and walk proudly with them
In the high street
Some might see you and
Be encouraged to do likewise

Continue

To plant a public kiss of concern
On the cheek of the sick
And the aged and infirm
And count that as a
Natural action to be expected

Continue

To let gratitude be the pillow
Upon which you kneel to
Say your nightly prayer
And let faith be the bridge
You build to overcome evil
And welcome good

Continue

To ignore no vision
Which comes to enlarge your range
And increase your spirit

Continue

To dare to love deeply
And risk everything
For the good thing

Continue

To float
Happily in the sea of infinite substance
Which set aside riches for you
Before you had a name

Continue

And by doing so
You and your work
Will be able to continue
Eternally

May you be well and supported today and may the blessing of God or all that sustains you, keep you safe, grant you peace and fill you with all that you need, just for today. Amen

I was stressed on Easter morning.
I hadn’t had enough sleep. I was tired. My shoulders and neck were stiff. I had to get to church, set up a live music feed for our Zoom service, and play the organ without having had enough practice.

First I noticed the beautiful sunrise.
Then I drove along the melt-swollen river rolling downhill on its rocky bed.
I saw how the trees in the valley were showing off the reddish blush of new leaf buds.

The day was beginning as all nice, spring days are meant to begin. The world was fine.

I took a deep breath and reminded myself that I have the skills, the practice, and the trust to handle anything unforeseen that the day might throw my way.

I’ve been doing this for years.
I’m always tired on Easter morning.
God always takes care of everything.

God did, and I was even able to enjoy a fine nap afterwards.

John Terauds, CPE Intern

Letting Go

Today I say good-bye. This unit of Clinical Pastoral Education is ending and so is my time HHH. I have enjoyed my time here and the connections I have made with so many of you are special and meaningful to me. Thank you for your kindness, your welcome, and your generous hearts. You have been an important part of my learning and my time with you will in inform my care of others as I move into my next chapter.

I will complete my 3^rd unit of CPE this summer. Instead of visiting with the residents of Havenwood Heritage Heights, I will walk the halls of the hospital and spend time with the patients, families and staff in various departments. I am both excited for this opportunity and somewhat nervous. After two units at HHH, feeling the support and care of so many amazing people, it is hard to picture myself in another setting. If I were talking to myself as if I were talking to my kids I would tell myself that I’ll be fine and that I’ll settle in and feel comfortable again. I’d probably also roll my eyes at myself (if that were even possible) and continue on swimming is a bit of apprehension.

So then, what do I do with that? What do any of us do with those times of letting go of what we know and stepping into what we don’t? I suppose we have to know what feeds our soul, what centers us, what helps us to make meaning. I often walk through the woods, play music, share my heart with a friend, journal all my feelings, pray, and sometimes say Psalm 23 out loud.

But today, today I am reciting a short little prayer I found that comes from the 12-step tradition. Because letting go is hard and stepping into new spaces is hard too, these words calm my soul:

I can’t.

God can.

I think I’ll let Him.

With that, I say good-bye and thank-you and pray that you too can lean into the practices that enrich and comfort your soul when letting go is hard and the new feels scary.

Cherie Shaw, CPE Intern

On Good Friday, Christians remember the life and death of Jesus, who was publicly crucified. Like many Christians, my family honored this day by being silent (or as quiet as possible) between Noon-3pm to contemplate the suffering and death of Jesus. It was a time of stillness and remembering.

Whatever your beliefs, I invite you to take some time today to contemplate the suffering and death we have all experienced in some way this year with a prayer, chant, meditation, or by lighting a candle. On this day, may we take a holy moment to be still and remember.

Still
By Jan Richardson

This day
let all stand still
in silence,
in sorrow.

Sun and moon
be still.

Earth
be still.

Still
the waters.

Still
the wind.

Let the ground
gape in stunned
lamentation.

Let it weep
as it receives
what it thinks
it will not
give up.

Let it groan
as it gathers
the One
who was thought
forever stilled.

Time
be still.

Watch
And wait.

Still.

Marianne DiBlasi, CPE Intern

When we get through this, I want us to set a table with all of the loaves of bread we’d practiced in our quiet houses.

I want us clutching fistfuls of the cilantro we coaxed from our city windowsills, and I want the nascent musicians, the ones who learned old songs on their new ukuleles, or warbled choruses on isolated balconies, to take the stage together.

I want all the knitted, crocheted, stitched, and mended things pooled at our feet, warming our ankles.

I want us to greet each other in unfamiliar languages, to tell the stories of those who have been lost. I want us to look, in unison, toward the world millions of miles and light-years away, to take in what is before us, and beyond us.

I want us to wake to the magnitude of our fortune against the smallness of our time. And then I want us to remember this, and to keep remembering.

Maya Stein

Over these past few months that we have been writing the Reflections and participating in worship services, it seems that we have spent time with lamenting and looking at what we have had to tolerate and dig deep for patience. We all have been experiencing the pandemic with the COVID restrictions, but we each have coped with it in our individual ways. Some of the losses are new beginnings. Although we lament that we have lost, we have also gained: new perspectives, new friends, new ways of communication. This poem reminds us to remember what we have gained.

We cannot go “back to normal.” Let us take what we have gained, and move forward with new purpose. The CPE Internship is coming to a close. Our graduation is April 11, and our official last day is April 14. I am moving forward into an unknown land with new beginnings, but I am moving with new perspectives, new friends, and many gains. I am filled with gratitude for all of the experiences I have had at HHH during these past 6 months. I will remember this for a very long time.

Grace and Peace to You,
Mary Anne
CPE Intern