Graceful Community

I am humbled-- these days, more than ever, I can tell you!-- but I am referring especially to the response by different churches and persons I knew long ago to the death of my mother.

Cards of condolence have been coming in from all over, from a variety of churches in our Region, and from a number of former parishioners. In fact, one woman, 90-something years old, called me from her new home in Florida during the time I was with my family!

I must confess, when I was a pastor and would receive these notices of the deaths of relatives of other pastors, I would take my care for them into prayer, but I never sent a card... Now that I am the recipient of such cards, I finally understand how much they mean.

At least, they mean a lot to me! Sometimes I have missed that as Church, we are to be communio sanctorum, a communion of the saints. But I must say, in the sadness of these days, I feel comforted in a special, and even sacred way, by these expressions of love and concern.

I am grateful for the grace being shown to me by the church.

A Table Before Me

How is it that one of the first things we Christians learn in our religious education also turns out to be one of the most enduring and consistent messages we need to hear?

I am referring of course to the 23rd Psalm, so simple a child can memorize it, so complex and apt that as adults we can, indeed, need to, remember it!

This morning I awoke with: Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies... And I'm imagining this actually happening! At the height of adversarial tension, God arrives like a waiter, calls a pause to the hostilities, and spreads a tablecloth, and a meal-- but not for everyone, necessarily! Maybe just for me! Then it would be up to me to share... Could I be that generous? Ah, the rubs...

When I was growing up, mealtimes were sacred. We didn't realize it at the time. At the time we were just all showing up to put on the feedbags. I don't think we realized while it was happening just how much our mealtime interactions were shaping our senses of family, of ourselves, of the importance of being together once a day, of the experience of eating (sharing bread) together, and so on...

I am, you know, at a time of mourning and remembering my mother. Many of my most enduring memories of my mother happened over meals. At our family gathering last week, we remembered how my mother would take it well when she was the one being kidded, how she would laugh, and then how we would conspire to keep her laughing, so that when her laughter would die down, and she'd let out this little squealing sigh ("ooohhhh.."), we would renew our efforts to make her laugh, and this would go on until all of our sides hurt! We took such joy from my mother's laughing, we could be almost cruel in sustaining it...

So "spreading a table" meant engaging in engaging interactions: like laughter!

Of course it meant many more things than that, as well, but today I am remembering the laughter part-- because I wonder whether when God spreads the table before me in the presence of my enemies, does it not mean more than just eating? Maybe it also means that the atmosphere changes, that the adversarial seriousness evaporates and is replaced by an ability to see the absurdity amidst the conflict. Maybe when God spreads the table, we, both those who make themselves my enemies and I, have our mutual humanity restored. Maybe we even come to laugh!

After all, there's lots of ways we can hurt each other, but if our sides are hurting from laughing instead of the many other ways, maybe we can more easily find a way to forgive each other?

At the end of the day, indeed at the end of our lives, I believe it's all about the giving and receiving of forgiveness. My hope is that that forgiveness is mutual-- but then, maybe the laugh is on the one who is unforgiving? We only know when God prepares the table...

May your life be full of laughter, even amid the adversities.

Scattered Thoughts

I'm back from the East Coast and my mother's memorial services. On the up side, it was great being with a good portion of my family, and seeing people I had not seen in decades. Funny, isn't it, how funerals and the losses that prompt them bring us together when other occasions don't? We would comment on that grimly, acknowledging that maybe we'd not see each other again until someone else among us dies...

I'm learning about this grief/mourning phenomenon slowly. My energy/focus/concentration is just not what I knew it to be in the former "normal." By the same token, it is difficult for me to say just what it is I feel. I feel... stunned... numb... slowed... I don't know: something that escapes words. One thing is clear: Although no one has said this to me yet, it is common to hear someone say something like, "I lost my mother, too. I know just how you feel..." Well, I'm thinking, good for them! Because I don't know just how I feel! So I'm glad that they do...

While my feelings are a bit scattered and vague, I have been collecting a few thoughts in the course of my travels. Here's some of what I've gathered at the moment:

From the Vineyard: I learned of my mother's death on my way back from being in Napa for a few days. Much of what I'd thought about while I was there has flown from my mind, but I can remember a coupla things:

First, when it comes to growing grapes that make for good wine, stress is imperative. One farmer said something to the effect of, "the greater the stress, the better the wine." Evidently, there's something about getting too little water or too much heat that makes for better grapes.

I took some comfort from the thought: Maybe what I'm going through is God's way of making me a better "grape!"

Second, it matters where the vine is planted. A great deal is made about the kind of soil the vine grows in. Napa has lots of different kinds of soils, and each of them has its own influence on the quality and taste of the wine. (Evidently. I mean, I'm not sure I could tell the difference. I just know what I like, and what I don't...)

But here's my thought: Being rooted and grounded in God has definitely helped me adapt to and survive this time...

Finally, at one vineyard the farmer taught us about "grafting," and how a grape grows differently depending less on location than on the nature of the vine to which the branch is grafted.

It reminded me of what Jesus said in John's gospel: "I am the vine. You are the branches." Not only am I blessed to be rooted and grounded in God, but also to be "grafted" to the vine of Christ. These thoughts give me great comfort...

Thoughts from my trip back East: First, "family" is its own marvelous phenomenon, isn't it? There we were, gathered round a banquet table on what would have been my mother's 86th birthday, and the sheer variety of us was astounding to me. We were like light through a prism: common source, resemblance, yet difference and variety. A sight to see.

The next day, during my mother's services, each of us her children had our chance to say what she or the moment meant to us. My sister, my brother, and I all said something very different! Each of us was true to ourselves, and to my mother. But each of us had something very different to say. One light, through a prism.

Second, it was wonderful to see how my family responded to my granddaughter! Whenever she needed holding, whenever she fussed and needed comforting or distracting or both, there were plenty of eager arms willing to receive her. If she represented "the circle of life" to us, we were ready to embrace her and the Life of our family continuing to flow through her.

Finally, being there and being home again, I cannot help but be grateful for the outpouring of love and support my father, other family members, and I have received. I often feel like we live in a time when community is more "virtual" or even absent entirely than it is actual and felt. But at this time in my family's life, we are, each and all, feeling the gracious and sincere comfort and support of many, many people. It means more than any of us can say!

But let me say this: Thank you! I am grateful for your love and support.

Non-Attachment

One of the truths of this time in my life is that I am learning more about grief--and living-- than perhaps I ever have before! I have often said that "we shape our lives by what we hold onto and what we let go of," and if nothing else, I am being faced with a number of challenges along these lines! What do I hold onto? What do I let go of?

I am guided by yet another of my favorite maxims about loss: "The world as you knew it is gone. The new world, post-loss, takes some adjusting to!" Or, to paraphrase the Bible: "The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come." Holding onto and letting go of, in this context, has to do with "continuity:" how much of the old gets to come into the new, after all?

I've begun to realize that, while I might not get to decide much of this, I can at least decide how I feel about it. For instance, The One who has made herself my enemy, has now raised the question: Do I want to hold onto my status as a minister? I can tell you that at one time in my life, I would have given this an unquestioning, "Of course!" Not so now. First, I have deeper conviction that having been called by God is one of my living truths. Second, my ordination, and any actions by the church, only confirm this in their estimation. It doesn't remove or effect the truth of my experience of God. That remains mine to hold onto.

This realization is one of many that go toward my grieving my losses of what I'd thought was valuable. And these things were valuable-- in my past! Valuing them, indeed valuing them as I did, in this present life, only gives The One who has made herself my enemy more opportunities to hurt me.

Hurting us is how our enemies hold onto us. Pain is their only hold on us, really. The One who has made herself my enemy, used to be my friend. As my friend, mutual affection was our bond; in my sense of myself as a Christian, Christian love or apape held us together. But since she is an atheist, I have to believe she knows very little about agape, that she misconstrues affection, and that she now seeks to continue to pursue our relationship in the worst way, namely by believing she is causing me pain. Perhaps she would rather be remembered by the destruction she causes, than by the affection we shared as friends. I don't know.

But I know this: If I remain emotionally invested in the aspects of my life that The One who has made herself my enemy has targeted, she will succeed. She will cause me pain. She will continue her perverse and destructive attachment to me.

So I have decided to let them go. Whatever she values, I will de-value: I will withdraw my attachment to that aspect of my life. I will treat it as part of my past that need not come forward into my present. I will regard it as dead, as dead as my old life.

This non-attachment is not as difficult as it sounds! Indeed, what I've come to realize is that The One who has made herself my enemy is teaching me some valuable lessons about what really matters! And what I am finding out is just how much I was invested in external matters. And what remains, what neither she nor anyone else can damage or diminish, are the internal, truly spiritual matters-- about which I don't think my former friend knows very much. In other words, I'm learning something about "laying up treasures in Heaven..." It is a very valuable life-lesson indeed-- and one I might not have learned any other way.

...

Of course, if I am learning lessons of "non-attachment," I am also learning lessons of attachment. By this I mean, I guess you could say that I'm learning who my friends are!

One of my friends sent me a series of sayings once attributed to Mother Theresa, but actually penned by a 19 y/o! What a compliment to him, that this would be attributed to her!

Anyway, here are three nuggets:

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies. Succeed anyway!

What you spend years building, someone may destroy overnight. Build anyway!

You see, in the final analysis, it is all between you and God. It was never between you and them, anyway.

Ah, yes, and so it is. So I was successful-- and made a true enemy-- at least one! And I built, but overnight things changed. So what? You see, it was all about my relationship with God--anyway!

But in that good sense, it was also about friendships-- true bonds of affection and support. And while I've learned something about a "false friend," I've benefited a good deal more from true friends. I have "so much more" to be grateful about, than either sad or ashamed about.

It is all good...

...

And tomorrow, I leave for my mother's memorial service. The family is gathering-- and to my pleasant surprise, the contingent of Californians will be larger than any other of the immediate family! How nice...

The outpouring of affection for my mother has truly touched and comforted my father. From the church they joined in 1959, and at which they were members until just a few years ago, the report is: over a hundred people are planning on coming. Three generations knew my mother-- and quite evidently, loved her very much. My Dad is positively moved by this and other outpourings of affection.

I have to say, I am, too. My mother was nearly 86 when she died. One might have thought that she'd have outlived many who knew her, most who cared. Evidently, she did not! I am pleased to know who my mother was... And who my friends are!

And I am pleased to embrace and be embraced by all, as family, in the best sense. I thank God for you, and for the attachments we share. Our affection for each other is what truly matters. We can hold onto each other-- and everything else can be let go of.

Grief Counseling

My trainer was late today, so I had a chance to talk with his boss. I told him my mother died yesterday. He expressed his condolences, and he told me his mother had died when he was 12.

He said, "It doesn't matter what age your mother dies. It's a rough thing."

He said, "You gotta mourn. What ya gotta do is, go somewhere, get quiet, have a big cry, get it out. Getting it out is the most important thing. Once you get it out, you're OK."

He said, "You'll find out that you'll hear her talking to you for the rest of your life. Things she said that, at the time, you thought went in one ear and out the other, will just pop into your head. You'll hear her say, 'The grass may look greener on the other side, but it still has weeds in it!' Silly stuff like that. You'll hear her voice. She'll be with you."

He said, "You only have one mother. Everybody does. But it's true..."

I was touched. He didn't know who I was nor what I'd done, and he spoke to me as if I were a real person, man-to-man, but with feeling, with compassion. It was truly comforting.

...It's nearly 24 hours later now, since I heard from my Dad. It is a strange experience, this, neither like nor unlike what I'd expected. It is full of paradoxes: I'd planned to go to PA next week in part because I knew my mother was failing, but also somewhat anticipating that it'd be a good week for a funeral. So in that way, in a world in which there can be no planning, everything is going as planned.

Also, even my sister and my father, who were with her when she died, had no sense that it was coming at that moment, until it happened. True, Mom had had a weekend in which she'd been coughing, and might have had pneumonia. Not having been placed back on hospice, my mother had to refuse to be sent back to the hospital on Sunday night; thankfully, the SNF personnel complied. Yet in the time since Sunday, Mom rested more comfortably. And over the course of the day she died, she slept almost continuously, waking mostly when the SNF personnel were ready to serve her, first lunch, then dinner.

Was being awakened a bad thing? Most likely would not have happened on hospice. But in this case, my mother woke in order to be served dinner. (Lunch had been her first meal that she had not fed herself; Dad fed her chicken noodle soup, in which mother was not much interested.) While awakened, she sorted through some mail, which included a note from my daughter and pictures of their family, especially the newest one, Elizabeth. Mom made a special place for Elizabeth's picture on her side table. There was light conversation. Mom was awake and aware.

Then, she began coughing and looked to be a bit stressed. My sister and father found their places on either side of her bed, Dad at the left, Sue at the right; they held hands. They formed what I call a "prayer circle." Then Mom died. Just that simply, and in a way, that swiftly. She left.

By now, I'm sure she's begun her singing lessons, for she wanted nothing more than to be a Singing Angel.

...For my sister and my father, at her side when suddenly she was "lifted up," it was a stunning experience-- anticipated, yet not expected. I might say more about that, sometime.

But for me, here, across the country, it has been, well, a little surreal.

I have often said that when one of our loved ones dies, the world as we knew it is suddenly gone with them, and we are living in a new world that looks an awful lot like the world as we knew it to be, but is actually totally different. I've often said, as we mourn, as we work through the grief that we feel, we discover just how different this "new" world is.

Well, I was driving when I heard my father's voice tell me that my mother had died. Thankfully, I was soon stopped, at a light. But when the light turned green, and my car started forward, I could already feel the world was different. Was there a different sun in the sky, a different light in the air? Was it that the car seemed to drive differently? I went through the motions of doing what I had to do to get home, mosly numb, and aware that I was numb. That's part of the unreality of acute grief: I was aware that I was not feeling everything I was feeling! I was just trying to keep it together until I was safely home...

This AM, I was still sleep-walking to workout. I had no heart for living, no heart for engaging in this life. Now that it is afternoon, I'm "better." For me that means I have begun to feel my body again. I've begun to adjust to living in this world without my mother...

...One of the other things the head trainer said to me had to do with values. He said something to the effect that I'd learn just to what extent my mother's values influenced the choices I'd made in living in this world.

This a funny thing, too. Although I'd realized that my parents' religiosity and the fact that my mother's father was a preacher had had their influence on my life and my choices, I'd never really considered that I became a minister because of my mother and her values.

But now, in the year of her dying and death, I am facing a deep challenge to my credentials as a pastor-- the organizational sanctions that allow me to claim that to be my profession. This goes toward my present "identity crisis:" I've often said, that when we experience a loss we are faced with the challenge of re-discovering ourselves-- who we are and who we are to be, in this "new," post-loss world. Well, with job loss throwing me into professional transition, and mother loss throwing me into personal transition, I can now, for the first time, ask myself: Who are you, in this world without your mother? And: Who are you to be, in this "new" world?

In a radical sense, am I to be a minister any more? Am I to be a pastor or a chaplain? Am I to have religious ties, to denominations and congregations and the like? As important as they were, how important are all of those credentials to me--now?

Of course, I cannot yet say. But since this year seems to be one of The Great Stripping Away, a year of Being Laid Bare, a year of Great Change, I cannot help but wonder and marvel at the meaning of the coincidence of my present changes and challenges.

...Meanwhile, I am grateful for the responses of many, who are uniformly comforting and compassionate. I feel I must face my own life's challenges as all of us must, myself. But unlike many, maybe, I do not feel that I have to face my own life's challenges alone.

I am grateful for all of you who walk this winding path with me.

It Has Happened to Me

One of the things that I used to be told when I was providing bereavement services to other people was that I wouldn't know how it felt to lose a loved until I actually did!

Well, now I do: My mother died today. She died peacefully, with my father and sister with her...

It has only been a couple of hours since I heard, and I am not at all sure how I feel at the moment...

Except I am feeling rage and exasperation at the One who Has Made Herself my Enemy. For in the middle of trying to pass on information and make arrangements with other family members, I received an official call from my denomination. My Enemy has lodged a formal complaint with them, and they are "investigating."

The timing of one's enemies is always exquisitely painful...

Your prayers for me and my family are very much appreciated, now and always.

The Reason for Repentence

Word has reached me, from a friend of a friend of a friend (etc.), that the One who made herself my enemy, is experiencing extreme remorse and regret. She did not mean for "any of this to happen"-- or so she says.

Hearing this as I have makes me think of what others have asked me: What would you say to her? Honestly, sometimes I don't know. Anger is wasted on the hard of heart, so I would not give her the gift of my anger. Likewise, appealing to reason is wasted on the unreasonable, so I could not ask if she realized before she acted both how much she would hurt me AND how much she would hurt so many others?

She is an atheist, as I've said in this space, so I have only a scant sense of what one whose spirit is set that way might come to some peace. I mean, when one discovers within oneself one's capacity for evil, one's capacity for inhumanity, doesn't that frighten one to one's depths? How then does one deal within oneself with the fear? How does one deal with the existential shuddering?

I know that all of the world's religions take this capacity for evil into account in their assessment of the human condition. In Judaism, there is a Day of Atonement. In Christianity, there is belief that the sacrifice Jesus made on the Cross provided atonement, and there are processes for repenting, and for receiving forgiveness.

Because our capacity to be inhuman to each other is universal, the rituals various religions have established for restoring one's integrity when one shudders to discover just how far out of integrity one has placed oneself, are necessary to the project of continuing to live. Otherwise, the prospect is for a miserable life indeed.

Every 12-Step program has within it a process for "making amends." I like that phrase, because of the sense of "mending" what has been ripped or torn.

What I would say to the One who made herself my enemy goes along those lines: I believe she has a lot of "mending" to do. I would hope she would set about doing that.

God's Good Time

As you know, my mother is dying. She and we, her family, have all known she is dying, at least since I was last back in Pennsylvania in July.

At the time I left, my mother was on hospice. When last I saw her, I said to her, "Mom, I'll be back before you go..." She looked at me with the sad-eyes-but-glad of one who "knows" her time is short. She said, "Oh, Brad, I won't wait that long!" So we said our "good-byes"...

I wanted things to be that way for my mother. She had been longing to go home to her Lord for a long time. She was relieved to look forward to the prospect of being freed-- at last! She was truly happy in her circumstances.

Yet I suspected that she had a little bit of living yet to do... And while I wanted it to be the way she wanted it to be, I also knew from experience that dying is not something over which we have a lot of control. When it comes to dying, things often do not go the way we want.

This is how it has been for my mother: she is living longer than she ever wanted. Living has become torturous, for both her and my father, who has to watch her dwindle. Each in their own way has begun to wonder about God's mercy.

Dad tells the story of how Mom called out to the head nurse of her unit: Why am I still here? It is not a medical question, but it is a question she asks of God every morning.

There is no answer.

Like so many truly spiritual questions, there is no answer, or at least, no good answer.

There is just the waiting... Waiting for Nature to take its course. Waiting for God's intervention. Waiting...

I feel for my mother. Hers is a not uncommon spiritual dilemma. This waiting, with one's bags packed, as it were, at the station, for the Train that never seems to come, without a schedule posted, looking down the tracks, pacing, increasingly discouraged, despairing over when the Train will come and even wondering whether it ever will...

I feel for my father. There is nothing to do. There is nothing to be done to make the Train come sooner. There is nothing but waiting at the station with my mother, pacing with her, feeling the sad conflict of wanting her to be taken and not wanting her to be gone.

It is difficult for most of us to believe in God without having expectations of God. How do we believe-- in God or in each other-- without expectations? How do we love-- God or each other-- without expectations? This is very difficult...

Jesus' prayer at Gesthemene is always our guide. We are to pray whatever we want! Speak our minds! Unburden our hearts! Get our agenda, our expectations out, on the table, made explicit, known. Be honest! Let God know what we prefer-- and why. Plead. Rail at the heavens. Make our case. Engage the Creator with every fiber of ourselves! It's all good, and important to do.

Yet it is also important to come to the place that Jesus did, to reach the same conclusion: Not my will, but Thine be done. This is not merely a matter of acceptance, both of the situation and of the way things are-- so as to avoid God's question to Job: Where were you when I created this world to be the way it is? (OK, a rough paraphrase!) But we are, like Jesus, to come to this conclusion in order to restore us to ourselves and to our right relationship with God. We are to come to this conclusion in order to discover the "right spirit" within us-- in order, in other words, to find our way out of the despair and anxiety, and in order to find our way back into some sense of patience or peace and even perhaps joy for whatever the day will hold.

And there's no one else who can give us that patience, peace or perhaps joy, than God. In their Gesthemene moments, my father cannot give these things to my mother. Nor can my mother give them to herself. They cannot make this exchange with each other, for that matter.

But they can pray. And they can reach the conclusion Jesus did-- with the similar serenity that settles in the soul.

I've arranged to return to PA for the week of the 17th. My mother's birthday is the 19th. Perhaps she'll still be there for us to celebrate together. Perhaps not. I told her I was coming, and I told her not to wait! If the Train comes, get on board! But I know the timing of this is not up to her, nor to any of us.

We are all on God's Good Time. Always. It is just that, sometimes we are more aware of it than others.

Feeling at Home

I just want to take a moment, before my day begins, to share what has become somewhat rare for me lately: the Quiet, the serene feeling of being at home.

I have been swirling in such a maelstrom of emotions! I have worked to hear and quiet the multitude of voices within and without, to pay heed, to acknowledge, to be attentive. I have benefited from the support and the encouragement. But I have also missed the Quiet.

I have persisted in activities-- and I have been busy! There are phone calls to be made, letters to be written, arrangements and re-arrangements to be done. More often than not, I have felt a sense of accomplishment for what I have attended to. But I have rarely set aside time for the Quiet.

This AM I arose, made coffee, watered the plants, and fed the birds-- and made my way to my Spot, where let the sounds of the day flow through me. Birds have been to the feeder. Cars have hit the street. Waste Management has begun its noisy work of removing the remains of our yesterdays. Occasionally, the wind chime adds a tone, but the air is cool, the sky dark, and the stillness only gently disturbed.

I have tried to say nothing. It is easier not to speak than it is to silence the chatter in my head, so it is the latter conversation that I try not to pick up. And when I am successful, in conditions such as this, sitting in my Spot... I can enjoy the Quiet.

This morning, I am indeed enjoying the Quiet.

And I can be still... and I can know again the I AM who is God...

Thank you for praying with me...

Down From the Mountaintop

OK, well, not exactly the "top" of the mountain... But a ways up, anyway. And if I wasn't like Moses by any means, at least I took in the experience, and had time to reflect, and maybe got some things out of going that I wouldn't have otherwise.

The occasion for driving to Lone Pine, and climbing Mt Whitney as far as Lone Pine Lake, was the annual "memorial" climb my partner, Anne, makes. Her friend, Gene, died on Mt Whitney, at Consultation Lake, eight years ago. She's made a climb on September 3 every year since. This year, I was her companion.

Here are some things I learned:

--Be Prepared: The ol' Boy Scout motto definitely applies at Mt Whitney. I had done several months of weight-loss conditioning to get my body ready, and we had lots of water and other portable supplies. Plus we had emergency wear, in case it rained or snowed or one of us got hurt. We were as ready as we were gonna be.

Still, Anne took it easy on this old man! She stopped frequently; we rested; we paid attention to our bodies and didn't press beyond our limits. So it was a do-able climb.

Yet we saw folks, especially going up on our way down, who were without day packs or water, pushing themselves up the mountain as if they were on a walk in the park. True, we saw plenty of people (it was Labor Day) headed for the summit, with full gear and walking sticks. But we saw too many who were pretty casual about a fairly strenuous outing. One father was carrying his toddler daughter on his shoulders! I worried about them...

--God's Hand in Nature: The Eastern Sierras are spectacular! Nothing new, this is, to many. But to this Easterner, well, there was nothing like this mountain where I grew up!

Every switchback brought a new vista, a different perspective, another way of looking at things. The sheerness of the rock facings, the steepness of the trail, the narrowness of the path, the color of the sky-- so much took my breath away in air already made ever more rare by the altitude. The moon was a lingering wafer, holding herself back from going over the mountain; perhaps she, too, had to make sure she didn't hit the peak.

And the sounds... Or lack thereof. No traffic noise! A hush held by huffing hikers. The breeze whispered, the rivers roared like beasts, the birdsong, especially the jays', seemed rock-concert loud-- but came only in bursts. I thought I could hear my heart, or maybe it was the heartbeat of Nature itself.

Around Lone Pine Lake there was a cathedral of Rock and Trees. Such Beauty! Such Grandeur! Such natural holiness... Truly, it was less a climb than a pilgrimage, with a pause to worship in the middle. (Including PB&J and Gatorade for Communion!)

--The Shadow of Death: At one point we were elated to spot a mule deer lingering near the trail. We'd anticipated marmots, maybe even a bear. So to see a mule deer was a momentary treat.

Then we saw how thin she was. At a time when one would expect her to be fattened for the Winter, she was emaciated.

The drought that had left no snows on the Sierras and was melting the glaciers, had visibly diminished the foliage. Plants were yellowing; fruit was scarce on the bushes; the greenery seemed to crackle with dry frailty.

And of course there were the fallen trees, the victims of lightening and fire. This is Nature, afterall, where death is a part of life, and thus the cycle goes on.

But in the roots of many of the fallen trees was evidence of Life's tenacity: granite rocks ripped from the boulder by trees' roots, and held aloft. All of us are subject to forces greater than ourselves.

--Communing, Community & Camaraderie: This probably comes down to just how friendly everyone was to each other, the mountain making pals of passers by. But truly there was a sense of "being in this together" that came from our being on this together.

And I had to wonder: How can we, once down from the mountain, retrieve this sense of belonging with each other? How can we recover the realization of togetherness, that we all lose or gain... together?

Coming down the mountain, I had a further thought on something I'd written about in this space before. I'd talked about "dignity," and how there is "inherent" dignity (that which comes with each of us, our humanity), and how there is "attributed" dignity (that which we give to each other, say, through status or affection). But I would add to those now "communal" dignity, by which I mean the sense that we either uphold the dignity of another or disrespect them, but that in that process we either enhance or diminish our own dignity as a people. (We all remember how, years ago, at Abu Graib, our soldiers stripped people of their dignity-- and in that process, stripped us as a nation of our dignity as well. This same process happens in small and large ways all the time. But it is only occasionally we take notice.)

Anyway... These were just some of the thoughts I had while hiking-- a good activity for thinking, actually! If one can just keep some oxygen going to one's brain! I just felt that, like Moses, I ought to bring something down from the mountain, more than what I took up! HA!

Thanks for going both up and down with me...