Father Time

Again, it's been months since a posting but this morning this called to me.

I’ve been living with my father off and on for almost five years now and he continues to be one of my greatest teachers.

Yesterday a member of the Rush Presbyterian Alzheimers study came to visit dad. He became part of the study when my mother was ill and he was trying to get her any medication that might slow or stop her dementia. That was more than 15 years ago. Now he is one of the oldest living members of the study and they come once a year to check on him. One of the questions he was asked was, “what year is it?” That simple question reminded me of the differences between what is important to us and what is important to him. Time is fluid for him. He moves back and forth between this moment and all the past moments. Each is real for him. Why would the number of this year be important? It no longer matters to him what year it is. He is alive in this moment. He marks time by what he sees. Each morning he wakes up and looks outside. What he sees gives him a sense of when it is.

“Looks like there’s snow on the ground. It must be cold out there”

For him, that is all he needs to know about time.

That simple question that Rush Pres asked had me wondering about how rooted we may be or at the very least how I may be rooted in time. Our sense of time and its measurement seems to give us a fixed point from which to move forward and backward. It gives a sense of stability and a framework for our lives. How would we react if that sense of time was stripped away? Imagine for a moment being totally fixed in the moment without the rooting of the year. I looked outside in the dark of the morning with the outline of the trees just becoming evident and tried to step out of my sense of time. For me there was a momentary feeling of disorientation, of quicksand under my feet, of a shifting that left me feeling slightly nauseous. Then, it momentarily smoothed out and there was a lifting and a sense of release. Then it all slipped away and the year was present again.

To me, there is something very important to learn from my father about this sense of time. There is something about the ease in which he moves through it...about his living in the moment that seems to be worth learning. Maybe it is simply his detachment from its importance that is the learning. Perhaps it is the letting go of the rooted feeling of time that is important. The learning beckons me.

Namaste

• Namaste

  
  

  My dogs have the great gift of namaste. The light in me sees the light in you is one way to think of namaste. It could be phrased, “the Christ in me sees the Christ in you” or “the Buddha in me see the Buddha in you” or “the divine mind in me sees the divine mind in you.” Namaste recognizes the equality of each person within the Divine. My dogs are great “seeing” dogs. Whenever I walk in the door my dogs greet with me namaste and there is something very fulfilling in having the light that is in me be recognized.

  
  

  Being seen has been an important element in my life the last couple of weeks and not just for me personally but I have witnessed the importance in other’s lives as well. I believe that in relationships there is an acute aspect of seeing. We want to be seen and validated for who we really are and not for what others perceive us to be. A friend of mine told me that she had heard this phrase: I am not who I think I am. I am not who you think I am. I am what I think you think I am. When we choose someone to love, underneath that choice is recognizing that the other person really sees who we are. In the movie “Shall We Dance” the character played by Susan Sarandon states that to know that our life matters and the other person in the relationship plays the part of acknowledging that the partner’s life matters. The partners really see each other.

  
  

  Michael Bernard Beckwith in the movie “Spiritual Liberation” greets visitors at the Agape Center during the service with the statement “We know who you really are.” How freeing! How liberating to have who you really are acknowledged and accepted. The light in me sees the light in you. It is, I believe, what we all want.

  
  

  I am blessed to have four little bearers of light in my life who see the light in me as I see the light in them. Two are my dogs and two are my grandchildren. The other day I was feeding my granddaughter her bottle and my grandson was sitting beside me. I looked down and smiled at this lovely little being that I held in my arms and she looked up at me and smiled so wide that she couldn’t suck on her bottle and then she started to laugh. She was laughing so hard it was a belly laugh and I started laughing. Then my grandson started laughing and we all sat on the couch laughing at the sheer joy of life. In that moment we experienced the divine. We saw each other for who we really are. In my grandson’s eyes, all I am is grandma. There are no perceptions, no roles as they will be defined later, no definitions by clothes, hair, physical body, etc. Just simply the sharing of love and being seen. There is something very pure and accepting in being looked at by a very small child who does not yet have “history.”

  
  

  It is the easiest and, I believe, the hardest thing we may be called to do on this earth; to see each other for who we really are. Marianne Williamson says in her book Return to Love “It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us...we are all meant to shine as children do.” Because it frightens us, it is hard to acknowledge it in others. But, I believe, that when love is reduced to the simplest terms it really is all about seeing; about seeing the light that is another. It is about validating it and making it important. It is about saying that who each of us is really matters. Not the perception but the reality.

  
  

  And what do I think the reality is? I have heard it phrased that we are spiritual beings having a human experience. I have heard it explained as the divine matrix. I have heard it described as we are a bucket full of ocean. We are not the ocean but we are part of the ocean or a sunbeam from the sun but not the sun itself. We are a divine part of the Divine. I know that at the moments when we recognize that, then we “see” each other.

  
  

  Peek-a-boo. I see you.

  
  

Observations while dog walking on a winter's day

1. I don’t walk the same in the winter on snowy, icy sidewalks. I find myself taking babysteps on sidewalks that have not been cleared of snow. Who knows what ice patches lurk beneath that white exterior? Being the savvy dog walker that I am, I let my dogs go first and watch where they slip on the snow. They have four legs to keep themselves upright and balanced compared to my two legged walk and significantly higher distance to fall. I send blessings and gratitude to those home owners who get out and shovel their sidewalks even when there has been just a minute amount of snow!
2. There is a significant amount of doggie doodoo hidden beneath that snow. It seems that dog walkers are not nearly as diligent about picking up after their dogs during the winter as during the summer. It is so easy to kick a little snow over the dark mound to hide it and the societal guilt. As even a 30 degree day will melt that snow when the sun is shining so brilliantly, those dark mounds are exposed in all their generous amounts. It is clear that there will be some very green patches of grass and some very healthy flowers come spring.
3. It is so much clearer in the winter to know what my dogs are sniffing at. Their noses, buried deep within a snowbank sniffing at what clearly was a stopping moment for another dog, come out dusted in white as if they had stuck their noses in a flour bin. The white dusting makes Gabbee and Lillee look as if they are ecru colored rather than white. I am reminded of working at Chico’s and telling women that whites are difficult to match.
4. There is beauty in the bare trees against a blue sky. They look like stained glass windows. The winter exposes those things which are hidden during the summer. Squirrel nests, wasp and hornet nests, and woodpecker holes hiding in the denuded trees are out in the open in these cold days. Winter also hides those things which are exposed during warmer days: the flower beds, the grass, water in the sloughs.
5. The slough is frozen now and the neighborhood children have swept and shoveled the snow away to make a playground for hockey. It is reminiscent of the days before indoor skating rinks...or the abundance of indoor skating rinks...when skates waited by the backdoor for the ice on nearby ponds to be frozen. When a child was bundled up from head to toe to go skating outside. When it meant frozen toes, and red noses, and fingers that couldn’t bend. When there was hot chocolate waiting and scarves, mittens, coats and hats all wet with snow were piled by the back door smelling vaguely like wet dog or wet lamb. The first Olympic training grounds!
6. Gabbee and Lillee come home with their stomachs peppered in black from what their fur attracted as they bounced through the snow. Lillee will spend a great amount of time cleaning that off. Gabbee simply doesn’t bother. It will all fall of when the fur dries. Why spend the energy? Lillee finds her lookout point in the sun in the Florida room and sets out to be clean and watchful at the same time. Gabbee merely waits to see where I will sit and finds her warmth from my body. It is winter in Chicago and this is just about as good as it gets.