Monthly Archives: February 2011

Aging, Commentary on Religion, Humanities, Retirement, Woolly Mammoths

Words.

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Imbolc                                                            Waxing Bridgit Moon

“Belief in the truth commences with the doubting of all those ‘truths’ we once believed.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

This intellectual bomb-thrower has always been a favorite of mine though I’ve not ready any of his stuff cover to cover.  A recent bio tries to make him into a closet hyper-religious, but if he is he did the damndest job of hiding it.  Sometimes I think an atheist is just an atheist and not a cigar.

I have felt the force flowing with me ever since the retreat.  There’s something about being lifted in the mosh pit of old friends that buoys the soul.  I’ve got out the pages of Missing I’ve written so far and am finishing an edit/revision I began a while ago, then I’m going to pick up the keyboard and set byte to screen.  Kate and I also identified a week in March when I can go back out to Blue Cloud and work intensively on the novel.  I’m still weighing it since it seems indulgent, but, hey, maybe it’s time for this kind of indulgence.

We had our business meeting this morning and I had a post-retirement anxiety tremor, so we ran numbers out past 2012.  Hah.  As if it matters.  After 2012.  Just in case, though, we ran them anyhow and the numbers do begin to make sense when looked at over a period of time.  My tremor quieted.

Had a call this morning from a brother asking for some reassurance.  I gave it, though I’m not sure how my input helped. It’s humbling to be asked for such a thing.

Met with Leslie, the UU student at UTS that I’m mentoring this year.  It’s fun to watch a young person, she’s my age when I was in Sem, go through the back and forth of this strange vocation, ministry.  Had I a chance to do it over again, knowing what I know now, I would have worked at McDonald’s.  No.  Not really.  But, I wouldn’t have gone into the ministry.  Maybe art history.  Maybe politics full time.  Maybe something else, but I wouldn’t have ended up in the ministry.  But, I did.  Go figure.

Aging, Commentary on Religion, Woolly Mammoths, Writing

Back From The Cloud

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Imbolc                                                           Waxing Bridgit Moon

The drive home with Frank is over.  We followed route 12 back east, away from Blue Cloud Abbey and the snow which had claimed a semi and an SUV on the road away from the Abbey, stopping only in Litchfield for a Chinese lunch, a buffet.  We talked as usual about many things religion, politics, women and family history.

Another Woolly retreat has finished, our 24th by some counts.  The 25th will break with our two decade long tradition of late January, early February dates and move us into the last days of September and the first of October, September 29-October 2.  We hope this will encourage more of us to get outside, walk, hike, enjoy the weather and the place.  We’ve opted for our fourth retreat at Blue Cloud Abbey.  It suits our sensibility as a place dedicated to the sacred and brotherhood and is far enough away to count as a trip.  It also has individual rooms and prepared meals.

We have also developed a relationship with the monks, two brotherhoods with different founding purposes, yet a common focus on the life of men together.  We explore different facets of common ground each time, this time the chanting with Father Michael and some time with Father Tom.  We will, I believe, prove resistant to their attempts at evangelism, hamfisted as they are, but not done in mean spirit.

Now I’m on my study computer where I’ve just entered the upcoming activities from calendar, trying to spot the time to get back to work on Missing.  That will emerge this week, as I plan to get at least an hour a day in until I can squeeze out more.  I may still go back out to Blue Cloud for a quiet and solitary place to write.

Woolly Mammoths

Last Day Under the Bell Tower

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Imbolc                                 Waxing Bridgit Moon

Last day.  We leave this morning, having already taken breakfast with the monks.  At the table I learned that someone had noticed I left the dome light on in the truck.  I know what happened.  That damned seat belt.  When we finished unpacking, exhausted from the drive, I parked the truck, slipped out of the seat and closed the door.

But.  In an otherwise excellent vehicle, the seat belt does not retract all the time, sometimes staying elongated and falls to a point  where it blocks the doors.  Most often I would notice, but after the drive I must have been careless.  Now the Tundra will require a jump.

Sigh.

General

Snow on the Prairie

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Imbolc                                     Waxing Bridgit Moon

The snow comes down here like a fluffy waterfall.  Behind its flowing curtain pine trees bend to greet it, a gentle wind bends it slightly toward the southeast.  The limestone of the Monastery stands out brown and tan and rust, a wainscoting for the horizon while rising above it is the gray sky, its up turned pitcher still full with frozen water, still pouring on us here.

The interior here, the monastery rooms and church have become more welcoming, our shelter in the face of this quiet storm.  My interior, too, rejoices at the calm the snowfall brings.  It is a time for listening, for being with those I care about, a time for retreat.

Ah, there’s the bell for 8:45.  I have to go.  The herd gathers again.

Woolly Mammoths, Writing

Transformation

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Imbolc                                    Waxing Bridgit Moon

On occasion the Woolly retreats have transformed me, given me energy for a project I had not imagined or that I had set aside.  When I talked about Missing tonight (my novel underway since sometime last year), I got feedback, positive feedback about my idea.

As it played in my head, a conviction grew, as it had in other years, before the Pilgrimage work, for example, that I had to get back to the writing, to Missing, to finish it and send it out.  Perhaps, too, I will  unbox those others, long dormant, spruce them up and send them out into the world again.

Here I was seen as myself, but also as writer, as fiction creator and that reflection back has warmed the heart and the hearth, both the precincts of Bridgit.  So the Goddess has come here, in this her holy week, to inflame and inspire me.  I will return to a new resolve.  Finish Missing and market the others.

Aging, Commentary on Religion, Faith and Spirituality, Myth and Story, Poetry, Woolly Mammoths

Old Stories, Old Poems, Old Men

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Imbolc                                             Waxing Bridgit Moon

Jacob and Esau and Rebekah and Isaac came to life tonight as we felt our way into this peculiar, even troubling story of deception, betrayal, theophany and a redemptive moment followed by a warm hearted, unexpected ending.  These stories still resonate, still have the power to grab the attention, hold the heart and propose new perspectives.  These are stories by and for men, archetypal moments held close to the heart for thousands of years.

After the reading of these stories and a conversation that followed many paths, a few left for bed:  Mark, Scott and Tom while Paul, Stefan, Charlie H., Jimmy, Warren and I sat up reading poems or, in Paul and Jimmy’s case, reciting poems from memory.  Poetry comes alive when one poem sparks another and books come out, dogeared and ragged from much use.  Rilke, Frost, Oliver, Pauly, Sarton, Rumi all visited us, speaking across the centuries or the decades, speaking directly into the heart.

A magic, spontaneous moment, the stuff of which retreat memories are made.

Commentary on Religion, Faith and Spirituality, Great Wheel, Travel, Woolly Mammoths

When the Bell Tolls, It Tolls For Me

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Imbolc                                      Waxing Bridgit Moon

Here I am, a heretic beneath the bell tower of Blue Cloud Abbey, sitting at this mobile scriptorium, pecking away at the keys.  The bell tower rises outside the window, a jet passing by, contrail at an acute angle toward the north, a metal angel streaking like Icarus toward the sun; a sun, obscured early by the western wing of the retreat center, that this morning draped a bloody red-orange mantel over the far horizon, visible for miles from this point, 900 feet above the floor of the otherwise flat prairie.

When the bell rings, which it does every quarter hour once, every half hour twice and the  number of the hour on the hour, I fly on the time machine of sound back to the middle ages when the sound of the bell determined the compass of a parish, all within the sound part of the same community, an aural community, knitting itself together every half hour.  These days, these latter days, these 21st century days the bell could not be heard over the rumbling engines of trucks bearing cookware, basketballs and note-book paper, cars scurrying here and there with people, like small loud beetles set loose on the hardened surface of mother earth.

How do we know what community we belong too, now, now the bell’s sound has become muffled?  Could it be that this very medium (there goes the bell, ringing 3:00 pm), these bits and bytes that travel from this prairie monastery, constitute our new bell tower?  A quiet sound heard world-wide, making us one people, one community, one pale blue marble in a vast ocean of airless space?

We ate lunch today with the monks in their lunchroom, a wide, long room with the animals symbolizing the gospels painted on a mural, done in a style reminiscent of Northwest Coast Native American design styles:  an ox, an eagle, a lion, a winged human.  Some of the monks wear the black robe, others blue jeans and sweaters.  Some of the monks have become stooped by age, while others, younger, would not be distinguishable from any one at the counter of a Marvin, South Dakota coffee-shop.  I had spinach, a vegetable medley, two peaches and a bit of tuna salad.  Fare fit for a simple life and just fine with me.

I find myself wanting to come here by myself, perhaps for two weeks or so, to concentrate on my Latin, on finishing the novel I’ve already well begun.  Perhaps I will, one of these days, if Kate’s ok with it.

Aging, Cooking, Health

On Weight

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Imbolc                                                                       New (Bridgit) Moon

While at the Northern Clay Center yesterday, I had a conversation about weight loss.  Weight loss can prove difficult for those of us in recovery since we often replace alcohol with calories.  The obsessive nature of the alcoholic personality tends to keep us coming back for more, of no matter what.  If we can’t have beer, we can at least have the weinerschnitzel.  Many Americans, not only those in recovery, struggle with weight gain.

My own weight gain crept up on me over a period of years until I was ten to fifteen pounds overweight.  I’ve tried weight-watchers, nutri-system, exercise all to no avail, at least eventually, though I lost weight with the first two each time I tried them.

Oddly, only a couple of weeks before the new national guidelines hit the newspapers, I decided to finally make up my own approach.  Eat half of what I would ordinarily.  Add fruits and vegetables to each meal.  Don’t eat in front of the TV.  That’s it.

The key to my approach is, I think, that it is my approach.  I identified three troublesome areas:  too much on my plate each meal, inadequate fruit and vegetables during the non-growing season months and mindless eating while I watched mindless TV.  I figured I could make these modification without feeling deprived and without giving up my favorite foods.  So far, so good.  I’m back in my old pants, using my old belts.  My energy level is up and the amount of work I can do on the treadmill has advanced impressively for me.

So, if my example amounts to anything, it’s this:  identify some dietary problem areas.  Decide on simple, manageable solutions.  Apply them consistently.  Most of all, be kind to yourself.  We all die of something.  We all have times when we look great and when we look terrible.  Befriend the part of you that wants to get real about weight.

Aging, Family

The Truth from Ruth

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Imbolc                                                                New (Bridgit) Moon

A couple of things I’ve been intending to write here.  First, granddaughter Ruth.  At gymnastics she was given a bracelet with a word on it.  She removed one cube with a particular 6702011-01-15_0625letter and showed it to her mother.  “Look, mommy, I got a bracelet with my name on it.”  Sure enough the bracelet read Ruth.  It was only later that her mom discovered it had been handed by a Christian woman to this Jewish young girl.  The bracelet originally read, Truth.

Another Ruth story.  In a store with her mother, Jen, and Tennessee Grandmother, Barb, a clerk complimented Ruth on her color sense.  “Oh,” Ruth said, “I’m an artist.”

Something else I enjoy are authentic obituaries, where the usual formula of passing on, entering heaven, being received by Jesus or into God’s arms get replaced with something it’s obvious someone said.   A recent favorite from a 50-year old man, “Good-bye and bite me.”  Says a lot.  Good epitaph material.  The classic for me was, “We thank Jesus for this fine Norwegian.”  Another one this week, which I don’t remember all together, went, “He liked his Camels, his whiskey, and ?I think it was, his women.”  Give me honesty or give me death.  Or both.

Great Work, Politics

Mr. Ellis Goes To St. Paul

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Imbolc                                                                          Waning Moon of the Cold Month

Got in the Celica this am and took off for the MNDOT building where I parked.  Three hours for $4.50 in quarters, paid at a central pay station.  The only argument I had with it was that the pay station was outside when there was a perfectly warm building within 20 feet of its location.  Anyhow it gave me plenty of time to have lunch in the MNDOT cafeteria, favored of lobbyists, with Justin Fay, the Sierra Club lobbyist.  We talked politics, a favorite activity of mine, somewhat akin to fly fishing or racquetball for others, I imagine.

The cafeteria has a wide expanse of windows, a hundred feet by 30 foot room full on non-descript tables.  Files and briefcases and blackberries sit slumped by chairs or flat on a table, folks hunched over them as if they had the latest news of breaking legislation.  And, who know?  They might.  I suspect one of this places charms is its distance from the capitol since it sits about three blocks away from the capitol itself, connected by the very sensible tunnel system that passes through S.O.B–nope, not that, State Office Building–then to the capitol and at the other end of its run the State Supreme Building.

After lunch Justin and I walked through the tiled and dimly lit tunnel to the S.O.B., an office building that houses Representatives and Senators, especially now the DFL senate, here for the first time since partisan politics began in the state thanks to the Elephant stampede last fall.  In SOB and in the capitol the hallways and benches, elevators waiting rooms filled up two and three gathered together, huddled and discussing this or that fine point of pending legislation or a Superbowl party.  Suits are the garb d’jour, but there are plenty of us non-suited folks wandering the halls, too.  That way it’s easy to tell the players from the audience.

We met with a member of the House of Representatives after a brief stop in the Senate DFL Siberia to check on talking points on legislation due for a floor vote soon.  This member, a liberal from Minneapolis, welcomed us into his office and we chatted for about an hour, sharing talking points, questions to ask about this legislation and that, getting his reading of the legislature this first day of February.  When we were done, we left, headed for the elevators, down to the basement, through the tunnel back to the MNDOT building and back out to our cars.  Time to go home.

Politics, especially legislative politics, is all about relationships and relationships are all about showing up.  It’s so physical, immediate that you can forget the essential matters being dealt with.  It is, as one veteran lobbyist said, high school.  Never ending high school.