Category: writing

Oh, my goodness! It is mid-way through October. Last week, I was derailed. If you followed the news at all, then you know that South Carolina was slammed by the worst flooding in more than a century of keeping records. We had record rainfalls for a single day, some places receiving more than twelve inches in less then twelve hours. So many people have been displaced; some are still in shelters. Schools were disrupted for up to a week, and the city of Columbia’s water system was contaminated for eleven days. Roads are still closed, bridges washed out, sink holes still forming and collapsing under roadways.

On top of that, the students of the school where I teach lost a classmate, and we all dealt with unspeakable sorrow and grief.

My camera and my voice went silent.

In Joseph Campbell’s discussions of the archetype of the hero’s journey (or the quest), the hero must descend into the abyss, the lowest point of his journey. It is in the abyss that the hero often receives a boon, or a gift of some sort, to take back with him or her when he or she returns to the known world. Sometimes, the gift is a tangible object or a talisman; sometimes it is a scar from a battle wound. This talisman, gift, boon (whatever you want to call it) reminds the hero of the journey and the lessons learned.

Last week, I fell into an abyss and slowly I am working my way upward.

This week, I am resetting myself on the 31 days in October journey. My boon, if you will, was a day spent with my mother on what would have been her fifty-ninth wedding anniversary. Daddy has been gone for two months now, and the grief is still present, still fresh, and still deep. We bought apples from an orchard in North Carolina, and we tasted delicious wines at a local vineyard. We talked, shared memories, and cried a few tears. My mother has been more like my best friend since I was a little girl, and this trip was just another way to celebrate that special bond.

By the way, my mother is a bit “camera shy” and there are not many pictures of her in my archives.

So, today, I begin the 31 days reset. And today, I will seek out other gifts to bring along with me for the journey.

Sometimes I wonder if St. Paul was even human. How did he keep his spirits up when his world was falling apart around him? How can he say that we should give thanks in all circumstances? There are times I just shake my head and stick my tongue out at him.

Paul says in just about every letter he wrote to the early Christian church that believers should give thanks in all circumstances. He implies, if he doesn’t say so directly, that there are blessings in everything. Ann Voskamp reiterates that message in her wonderful book One Thousand Gifts.

The last four weeks have been difficult. If I had to count, the last eight weeks have been hard. My father was hospitalized right after Independence Day (the week after) for severe dehydration. At the time, we also knew that he had some sort of “blood disorder,” perhaps myeolofibrosis. The tests indicated later that not only was he having this blood disorder which caused his hemoglobin to be very low (two pints of blood transfused before he left the hospital), but he also had pancreatitis, which caused the nausea that led to the dehydration. Later, the blood work would indicate lymphoma.

On August 11, Mama readmitted Daddy to the hospital. He was weak and could not stand without assistance. After a long spell in the ER, he was admitted to the intermediate intensive care unit. He was sedated and fell into a sleep. On the morning of the 12th, the doctor told Mama that there was nothing more that they could do: his uric acid level was very high as was his potassium and magnesium levels. His kidneys were shutting down. His blood sugar was very low. Daddy never woke up. At about 10:15, Daddy took a breath and slipped from this world into Paradise, his family surrounding him.

John Donne wrote a poem to his wife before leaving for France on a diplomatic mission called “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning.” In the first stanza, he wrote:

As virtuous men pass mildly away

And whisper to their souls to go,

Some say the breath goes now,

And others say no. . . .

These lines describe beautifully the quiet passing. Pastor Beverly had not yet arrived, but when she did, she spoke the words from John 14, “let not your hearts be troubled. . . . where I go there are many rooms, and I go to prepare a place for you.”  These words also comforted me.

So, how do I be thankful during this hard month of grieving as sorrow? It hasn’t been easy.

First, I have continued my daily practice of listing at least three things for which I am thankful. Sometimes, they are trivial: that cup of warm coffee with foamy Bailey’s Creamer and a splash of salted caramel syrup and honey; or the slant of light through the window blinds at my living room window. Sometimes it’s more “serious,” as the forgiveness I received from a neighbor for something I had been led to believe I had done wrong. And other times, I express the thanks that my father did not have to suffer from the lymphoma (mantle cell lymphoma was the final diagnosis) that had attacked his eighty-eight year-old body.

Second, I am in the process of establishing a meditative photography practice. I take my camera out once or twice a week to walk it (much as we might walk our dogs!). And I gaze at the world around me and notice what an awesome Artist our God is. There is beauty everywhere.

And third, I lean on my friends. I have friends who have been a source of strength and faith throughout this long two months of sorrow, pain, and grief. And I am thankful for them.

I still have to process my images from this morning’s walk. I’m still trying to figure out, though, how to do the Cha Cha Slide while I’m walking and carrying around a giant camera—without looking silly. However, maybe I shouldn’t care! I should just be thankful that I have that kind of problem today!

Oh, gosh. What a week! I am NOT thankful that temperature highs have been hovering around 100 degrees since Monday. I am NOT thankful for the South Carolina high humidity! I do love seeing the blue sky, however, and today, I loved those large white puffy clouds that are beginning to fill the skies. It is summer in South Carolina.

The last twenty-four hours have been tragic for the city of Charleston and my beloved state. The senselessness of violence against human beings (or any living creature for that matter) seems overwhelming. I am thankful, though, for the outpouring of sympathy from so many people, for the love that has been shown, for the love that knows no boundaries. I am thankful for the lives, though they have been taken. So many of those men and women who died last night have been working for good for all of their lives—the pastor and senator, the librarian, the college admissions counselor, the grandmother, and those I didn’t name because I don’t know what they did specifically other than welcome a troubled young man into their midst last night because they knew the all inclusive love of God. I can only pray that something of what was said last night during those few minutes before the shooting will reach into that poor young man’s soul, reach him, convict him, and bring him to God.

I am glad that there is forgiveness. It’s hard to forgive when we are confronted with such evil as we have seen in this state in the last twenty-five or twenty-six hours. Yet, Jesus taught us that we forgive others as we ourselves are forgiven. When my sons were very young, I taught them to respond to wrongs done to them with “I forgive you.” I forgive this young man, but I do not excuse him; I do not exonerate him. I fold him accountable for his actions.

When I started this practice of writing about gratitude, I never thought that I would have to write about gratitude on such a day of mourning and sorrow. Those men and women who died yesterday. I am thankful for their lives, though I did not know them. I am thankful for their influence, for their gifts, for their contributions. I am thankful that they knew the love of Jesus, and that they are walking the streets of heaven now with their Lord and mine, and that they know no pain, no sorrow, no regrets.

I am thankful that most citizens of my beloved state are good people, and I pray that we are not stigmatized that the actions one troubled young man.

It has been a troubling time, but as one man said this afternoon in a news cast/interview, “weeping comes in the night, but joy comes in the morning.” I am thankful for the coming down and the joy of the morning.

I have been part of group of women who seek ways to “reframe” their vision of things. For me, reframe means to “re-see,” to look again, and to change my perspective at the same time. I go through my days often doing the same things as if I’m on autopilot. I watch the same TV shows, read the same kind of books, walk in the same places. Things become routine, not boring, but simply routine, comfortable—and safe.

Lately, though, something has been nagging me, or nagging at me. There is a call. I am supposed to do something, but I resist. I want to be like Jonah and run from this calling, but I’m afraid I may be swallowed up by a whale. And if I learned anything from Jonah, it’s that I can’t ignore the call forever, and sooner or later, I’m just going to have to “do it.”

So, today, on Friday, June 12, I am going to answer at least one part of the call: I am writing a series of prompts for a private Facebook group, and I will be sharing my journey here in this space as well. I am calling the series “A ReFrame Pilgrimage.” In part, it is based on Christine Valters Paintner’s book The Soul of a Pilgrim as well as on concepts from Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey motif. Both the pilgrimage and the hero’s journey begin with a calling or a longing for something that would take us out of the ordinary and known (and comfortable, routine) world into the unknown and the uncomfortable and perhaps even dangerous world. Fortunately, we are not alone in the journey, for there are mentors and helpers and guardians. We face obstacles, some of which we overcome, and others to which we concede defeat. We land in an abyss where we seem to “perish” for awhile until we rise to the challenge of getting out of the mess and moving forward. It’s not easy; there are still obstacles and challenges, but these get easier because we’ve become stronger. We have learned a few life lessons, and we are ready to go back. We cross that threshold one more time, but even though we re-enter the known world, it is different because we are different. I would imagine a religious pilgrimage works in the same way. Journeys must change us.

So, this weekend, I invite you to begin your own journey. Begin with a time of meditation and prayer to invite intention and contemplation. What is calling you? Receive words and images that speak to you of these longings, and write a seven-word prayer. Anoint yourself for this inner journey. As Christine Valters Paintner would say, receive the images through your camera lens or express it through some other artistic expression—writing, art journaling, music, dance. You aren’t limited to photography here. And if you feel moved, share your intentions and prayers in the comments.