In her sermon titled We Shall Go Forth, Reverend Lo from the Unitarian Universalist Church in Eugene speaks of wanting to build a wall of lamentation, a place to help with “the inlay of compounded fractures and compounded grief in our lives. There’s something about that ritual of writing down one’s prayers or wishes, or even the things one wishes to let go of or release, and placing them in the cracks of a wall.…
One of the mental fallacies I’ve worked on reframing has been the idea that every change I make must be all or nothing. I’m either sedentary or I’m walking for 30 minutes every single day. Eating fast food or cooking wholesome healthy meals three times a day. Not drinking any water or drinking some complicated formula’s worth of ounces each day. This approach has never worked for me. Not once. And I tried for decades.…
Suzuki Roshi once said about questioning our life, our purpose, “It’s like putting a horse on top of a horse and then climbing on and trying to ride. Riding a horse by itself is hard enough. Why add another horse? Then it’s impossible.” Long Quiet Highway by Natalie Goldberg While this quote is usually placed within the context of questioning oneself, I’ve found it useful when expanded out to anything that is already “hard enough”…
Have you ever been injured and gone through physical therapy? Maybe it took several months, or longer, of doing routines that evolved based on your situation before you started to feel well enough to forget to do your routines. After a while, the ache might come back and you realize it’s been far-too(only a week, I swear)long since you did your “daily” exercises. No? Yeah, who does that? Anywhoozle. Lately, I’ve been focused on understanding…
Begin the day by landing it My morning begins with the vibration on my wrist. 4:45 am my watch gently shakes me from sleep. It will not stop until I tap it. Usually, I do so with my eyes mostly still closed. I am not awake enough for ritual. This is instinct, this is habit. This is routine. 4:50 and the moon starts to glow on my nightstand. Not the literal moon. A lamp I’ve…
There’s a meme going around that nails how many of us feel about practically everything happening in the world right now, especially the climate crisis: One of the problems this creates is that it’s hard to get traction when you’re vacillating wildly between hope and nihilism. It’s exhausting. For a while now, I’ve been trying to figure out a way forward. One that creates a sense of hope that’s rooted in action, awareness, and understanding.…
First and foremost, the transition into awareness each morning. The knowing that I am breathing and alive. And that when my eyes open, I can still see. Blurry though it may be some days. That next to me is my amazing wife and that we are waking into a life we have dedicated ourselves to building together. For the morning flurry on workdays because we each have work to get to and enjoy spending our…
Like a convention of drunks, we weave our way from car door to church door, navigating islands of relative dryness among seas of sunken grass and slippery clay. The women struggle with sinking heels, even while working hard to maintain the appearance of not working hard at all. I remind myself to care about staying clean, to quell the impulse to puddle jump and become one with the filth. Mamita’s tight grip on my upper arm reinforces the reminder.
and guns and moving the furniture in front of the peg-board wall displaying his collection of knives. With the green recliner creating a barricade in front of the bayonets and machetes, she stops in the hallway and stands there, not moving but not quite still either. Like she’s part of a cadre of soldiers on the battlefield nervously staring each other down, waiting for the signal that sets chaos into motion. Only whatever enemy she is facing, it’s not visible on the field.
The woman from the island has called again. She has visions of me, arms outstretched, barely one, smiling and teetering toward my father.
I am marked.
She calls again: My father dressed in uniform in the Korean jungles. My father boxing for the Army.
He is marked.