Sunday Morning ~ Solstice Prayers

Masiku athera ku citseko. ~ Days come to an end, a door opens to let things in and let things go.

Chewa proverb

December 19, 2021

Hi Everyone,

It’s Sunday morning and snowing. I’m just back from feeding the ducks and chickens and shake the wet snow off my boots. It’s cold but not frigid and the snow is a beautiful, clean blanket. It looks like a Christmas card out there, right on time. The moon is full making the end of the year less dark. The sun sets with an alpine glow lingering into the evening. It’s a lovely gift this timing of the full moon with the winter solstice. Apropos, I think, for a year that is bringing us out of a dark and dangerous time, despite the bleak forecast. It makes this week’s celebration more poignant for me and I feel like turning inward. I’ve come to love spending this holiday in quiet appreciation.

I am accustomed to wintry Christmases and only recently wondered how cold it was when Mary and Joseph made the journey to be counted in a census. I am thinking about them as people, not gods, and imagining what it was like to be so gravid, forced to move unquestioningly on a harsh journey. Last year the census did not require us to travel. Those who did not send in their card got a visit at home. It was so simple. I imagine the possibilities for women’s lives having been counted as equal citizens. What a different life we’d have if this were true throughout history. What if we’d learned from birth that our voices and bodies were sacred, like Mary’s? Our images of her are embossed with shining blues and whites, halos and golden rings. But she was poor and most likely dirty after travel through dust and sand. Back then, birth was the greatest killer of women and a messy, painful process at the very least. How frightened was she?  

It’s tiring to carry a child to term in the best of circumstances. As powerful as the experience is, there are moments when it feels like a parasite sucking every ounce of nourishment from your bones. As much as I wanted and loved my babies as they grew in me, I’d tire of the kicking, the heartburn, the peeing, the weariness of just standing up and moving, maneuvering through doorways, sitting, standing, all a chore. Fitting behind a steering wheel, bumps in the road, a pothole, a rough shoulder, became major irritants hurting my back and roughening my mood. These were babies I desperately wanted. And it was hard. My short stature meant discomfort was the new norm after vomiting constantly for three months. There was fatigue, back ache, hunger. All this I embraced as normal discomforts and the beginning of the many that would color motherhood. What must it be like to ride a donkey for miles on harsh terrain? Or walk hundreds of miles to a border as the safest option? I did not have to go through my pregnancies alone but many women do. I want to believe Joseph was a loving husband to Mary, traveling only because they were forced to. With or without snow for them to navigate, it must have been rough. 

Mary dominates my thoughts this week as we celebrate the birth of her child. Now I think of her as a goddess and want to feel her caring for all women who are under attack, who are forced to travel to receive care, for women without a loving husband or a donkey or a guiding light. For those women I imagine Mary walking beside them, guiding them to a more perfect light. May she open the door at the end of the day, let the hatred and fear out, and love and guidance in. 

Blessings for a peaceful Christmas.

Love to all,

Linda

Sunday Morning ~ Holiday Hangovers

Mbumba ndi anthu onse. ~ A family is made up of all its members.

~ Chewa proverb

December 5, 2021

Hi Everyone,

I grew up with very conflicting notions of family. “Family” behavior was somehow exempt from norms for individuals. “Family” could do no wrong unless it involved disrespecting elders. The concept of “respect” was vague and undefined. It doesn’t take Freud to analyze how our adult behavior and expectations are muddled, to say the least. “Respect” often meant never questioning authority which was fertile ground for flourishing guilt and self-loathing. I know some in my culture blame Catholicism for this, but I don’t. The culprit was very much my immediate family. My siblings and I were loyal comrades. As mean as we were to each other as kids, there was a deep and abiding commitment to banding together and having each other’s backs, a bond that eerily persists through opposing political ideology. I’ve spent many years sorting out what “family” means. Loyalty and love transcend genetics. I think about this a lot around the holidays when the focus on “family” can be harsh. 

I married young into a large and loving family and it felt wonderful to be absorbed into this funny and fun clan. Then, a family tragedy on Christmas Eve molded their holiday traditions into a rigid pattern, as if doing the exact same thing every year would bring her back. When we had children and moved far enough away that winter travel was difficult, this caused a big rift. We tried to comply but there was resentment and angst. I look back and it seems so ridiculous now. I referred to it as a forced march, which, I saw as disrespectful. This was well before grief counseling existed and their emotional lives depended on their tradition, so my response was hurtful to them. It was stressful and unfair. I thought it ironic that my family, who was so rigid in other ways, was fluid and accepting about the holidays. “Come whenever you can! Be safe! Don’t worry, we’ll be here whenever you get here.” was to me a loving sentiment in what was an unloving home. While the home that was supposedly loving shunned us if we were not there on time with the children. It was so strange and confusing. We fought about it a lot. I began dreading holidays until we stopped going to “family” altogether. Moving to another hemisphere helped. 

When our own family unit changed with the departure of the father/husband member, I grasped, in my grief, for some tiny silver lining. It crossed my mind, that holidays might be less stressful without him. Yes, there would be a big hole, but maybe we could reimagine a season without forced good humor and thinly veiled, unresolved, grief. I used to say, “No amount of presents will bring her back.” He’d get angry and buy more. Tension grew and the thought of holidays without this struggle was a strange balm. I grappled with reimagining what “family” would be. I had dinner at a friend’s house with a scholar who had written a book about the history of family. That chance meeting uncovered a new path forward. Fate, coincidence, energy put out to the universe, whatever it was, during my time of desperately reimagining my family I learned that our concept of this nuclear unit is quite recent. Historically, “family” was whomever was nearby. This opened a whole new way of looking at life and certainly holidays. A letting-go of expectations, competition, and obligation was possible. 

As my family spread out and elders passed on it was less and less common for us all to get together even for Thanksgiving, the holiday to which I clung. Among my own children a combination of bad behavior, bad memories, and unresolved conflict clouded the idea of being together. I’d sadly let go the idea of everyone enjoying each others company again. I’d given up it was ever possible to laugh and tell stories like the old days. This year, however, there was a shift. i’m not sure if it was maturity, the pandemic, the state of the world, or sheer loneliness, but it happened. My expectations were low and I prayed only for open hearts and minds. I didn’t expect any breakthroughs or apologies, no views being forced fed along with the turkey. It was simple and loving. It was loud with talk and laughter. It was quiet with sated bodies and muddled minds. It included family who were not related but equally loved and connected. I surprised myself by staying present, quietly thinking, “Wow, this is really happening.”  The food was not spectacular, but good. The house was warm. The grandkids learned more about their heritage, and I am grateful. It may never happen again, but we had that day. I stop thinking about what has been lost but appreciate how much I’ve had. More than many. Again, I am grateful. 

Wishing everyone a safe and simple holiday season, whatever it may be this year. May it be filled with love and gratitude.

Love to all,

Linda