Every morning, I tumble out of bed, usually before the sun comes up. After coffee, breakfast, meditation, and news review, I take myself back upstairs to the bedroom to shuck the jammies and dress for the rest of the day’s activities.

That’s when I glance over at the bed I share with my spouse, who is, by that time, elsewhere in the house. The covers I left rumpled are smoothly drawn up. The hem of the bedspread is aligned parallel to the floor. The useless decorative pillows are neatly arranged. The bed is made.

The bed made (not by me) demonstrates someone’s caring attention to orderly routines that bring a sense of peacefulness to the disorder of life in general. Every morning, I feel a sparkling moment of love and gratitude for the one who performs this small, intimate housekeeping chore.

It’s not a small thing, the made bed.

Not infrequently, in the advice columns (eg. Dear Abby), I read about marriages on the rocks—not because of differences over finances, childcare, politics, or in-laws; I mean over things like who empties the dishwasher, who picks up the socks, who wipes the sink, and…who makes the bed. Often there’s one who doesn’t care whether the bed is made or not, and one who does.

If I were counseling would-be couples, I might ask: Are you in agreement over Made or Unmade Bed?

Am I judging? Maybe. I grew up in a well-regulated family. That is, my father had a career in the USAF and my mother was a preacher’s kid. Certain civilities were strongly encouraged. However, in the wider world, if any number of co-habiting people agree that rumpled bed(s) can remain that way all day, I’m fine with that. Random college roommates—please relax! An unmade bed isn’t a sign of moral decay.

However, as I may have set out to say, a daily domestic life consisting of countless courtesies among partners and family members is, in my opinion, the starting place of world peace. In short, kindness begins at home.

Lucky people take for granted that our loved ones love us in spite of ourselves. But that’s no excuse for overlooking tiny, precious, everyday increments of thoughtfulness and love.

Thank you, my love, for the made bed. And I’m sorry…terribly sorry…for the scratches I made backing the car into the gate.

To begin with, I don’t believe in reincarnation. Indeed, to be honest, there are a few doctrinal tenets in my Christian religion that I don’t believe in either. (Don’t ask.) But one thing no tradition knows for sure is what happens to humans after we die. (Well, besides the obvious.)

Based on personal experience, I hold a couple of theories about life after life which I find helpful and hopeful. But on the whole, my main concern is trying to get right the life I’ve got right now, not the mystery that may or may not convey something like “me” into something like eternity. So…what was I going to say about reincarnation?

Just this: I’d like to come back as a squirrel.

Our home in a park-like midtown neighborhood of Kansas City is home to a lot of squirrels. I believe there are eight or ten who consider our yard their territory, with its blessing of black walnut trees, berry bushes, sunflower seeds flung to the ground from bird feeders, and other convenient snack sources.

These are gray squirrels and they all look alike to me—no difference in size, say, between adults and juveniles, no difference in color, in agility up and down the trees, or in chit-chit-chatter. This year’s gang may be last year’s survivors or their offspring or their grand-rodents. I can’t tell. They all look the same and behave the same and generally mind their own squirrel business, which they all seem to know from the squirrel playbook.

I use the word playbook deliberately; because play or the appearance of play constitutes their main occupation. Someone should invent a theme park ride duplicating the spiral climb of one squirrel chasing another squirrel up the trunk of a tree at top speed—and back down again. That would be a thriller for sure. Their daredevil leaps from branch to branch, or across the void between a branch and a rooftop, defy gravity and common sense. I’ve never seen one miss a safe landing. They skitter tiptoe across the overhead power cable that spans our street, thus avoiding the hazard of speeding wheels below. They lounge asleep on horizontal branches with their little legs splayed out on each side for security while they snooze. They clutter the patio table with walnut shells like they’ve been having a party. It all looks totally carefree. In fact, it looks like a fine way to spend my next lifetime.

Clearly that lifetime would be brief, two to six years (I’ve learned) for these backyard guys. Our local squirrels may have inherited a certain amount of intelligence, because the dumb ones often succumb to vehicular squirrelcide while the smart ones know to use the cable bridge. Surely I would come back as an intelligent squirrel? Squirrels probably have no sense of time, so six years could be six hundred for all they know. And every one of them fun-filled.

I’ve never seen a skinny squirrel. I’m pretty sure they know where to get tasty food year-round without much effort. More time to play! The huge leafy clumps of squirrel nests high in the trees hold tight, even when rocked madly in the wind. They look cozy enough for long nights in winter. From way up there, the squirrels have a great view. Even when snow covers the ground, squirrels play their perpetual game of “find the buried booty and dig it up” which seems to keep them busy without much concern for success.

Yes, if You please, I think I would like to come back as a squirrel. Amen.

As a resident of Missouri, where benighted state legislators are following the lead of conservative GOP governments in other states (eg. using the same wording for proposed laws), I’m worried.

The GOP in Florida is proposing legislation which will require teachers to use pronouns for students (and others in the school) based on the sex identified on their birth certificates.*

Here’s a made-up scenario:

—A Student walks into a (4th grade, 7th grade, 11th grade) classroom on the first day of school. She appears to be a girl. She is wearing an outfit similar to outfits worn by other girls in the room. Her name on the official school enrollment printout is Tracy Smith.
—In the classroom, the teacher addresses Tracy as “she” and “her.” Tracy uses the same bathroom as the other girls, where there are, of course, private stalls.
—Another student in the classroom reports to the teacher (or to administration or to his/her own parents) that Tracy is a boy, as previously known in their (kindergarten) class.
—Administration calls Tracy’s parents, who affirm that their child is a girl, with considerable indignation, not to say fury, at being asked the question.
—Will the parents be required to produce the student’s birth certificate on the basis of somebody’s “suspicion”? What if they won’t? Will the school administration demand a genital inspection of the child? Will the teacher be fired for using the “wrong” pronouns?
—Whose rights are being respected and/or violated in this case? Who has been harmed?
—Why the (expletive deleted) is this the state’s business?

Here’s my own TRUE scenario:

As a docent at a major art museum, I host groups of student guests, 3rd grade to high school age. From time to time, I cannot tell from appearance—clothing, hair, or any other visual or verbal cues—whether an individual is male or female. I have learned to avoid using pronouns when speaking to or about individual students. Once is one time too many to have a sweet-faced, long-haired child pluck at my elbow and quietly correct me, saying, “I’m a boy.” I resort to “their” and “they” when necessary.

Among other challenges, I cannot cover up all the nudes in the museum. And, yes, someday these young art students may learn more about Michelangelo than his talent with a chisel. Meanwhile, without judgment, I hope to bring light to the minds inside whatever kind of bodies they occupy as they discover life and art for themselves.

*Proposed legislation: Expand ‘don’t say gay’ (HB 1223/SB 1320)
What it would do: Prohibit classroom instruction related to gender identity or sexual orientation in prekindergarten through eighth grade. Currently, the state outlaws any such lessons in kindergarten through third grade. The proposal would also ban the use of personal pronouns in public schools that do not correspond to a teacher, administrator or student’s sex at birth.Article

Recently I enjoyed reconnecting with a friend. Three decades ago, we shared our respective life experiences going on then, which included a number of letters and poems I wrote. She kept them. Back in the day, letters typed or handwritten–unlike emails, texts, and tweets—could actually be saved in a folder. Now downsizing to smaller quarters, she wanted to return the collection to me, retaining only some of the letters most meaningful to her. What a joy for me to discover forgotten meditations and inspirations among the returned papers, with gratitude to my friend who saved them. Among these was a poem, half-remembered, never published as far as I know. Now that Easter comes with the lengthening light and renewed life of spring, this poem comes to light as well.

PSALM

Intricate earth! I do not know
how even heaven could bring
Another resurrection
more credible than spring.
O laughing God who gathers dust
together into these
Green fronds, feathers, children’s
eyes, wings of bees,
Bind mine into the body
translated beyond grief
Of Christ’s astounding beauty:
Unfurl a leaf.

–Barbara Kunz Loots

Let the Spirit of the Living Christ breathe hope, peace, and love
into willing hearts.

Good morning, my dear friend. Did I mention that I hate the transition to DST?? The dark and cold and wind whipping around send me straight into winter doldrums again. Wait. I don’t think I ever pulled out.

Anyway, I’m far from the saddest, maddest person on the planet today. As little as I know about basketball “brackets,” I’m pretty sure that about 99% of them were blown to smithereens yesterday when 16th seeded Fairleigh Dickinson beat Purdue. Now can we all get our heads back into important things like saving democracy??

I’ve been reading a book about saving the poor from disease and death. Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder details the efforts of Partners in Health (founded by the astounding Dr. Paul Farmer and others) to provide life-saving medicines for TB (especially multiple-drug resistant strains) and HIV/AIDS to poor countries around the world, beginning in Haiti in the 1990s and continuing now. I read books like this mainly because someone brings them up for the church book club. This one is more easily absorbed via the documentary film Bending the Arc on Netflix. It’s truly appalling to watch money sources in international forums (mostly white of course) solemnly intone there’s not enough money to buy those drugs. For poor people, that is.

A new church friend and I attended The Lyric Opera last night. Her husband doesn’t like opera, and Bill knew he wouldn’t like this one. (He was right about that.) The Shining is an opera premiered in 2016, based on the Stephen King thriller. The composer and librettist hasten to point out that they used the book, not the grisly movie, to frame their opera. Gina deadpanned as we were leaving, “I’m not humming anything.” Indeed, this was an opera interesting to me only for the fascinating stagecraft–lighting, scenery. and a chorus of “ghosts” in party costumes–including drag. Since the cast included a little boy, I suppose the Missouri legislature would have banned this opera for corrupting his innocent little consciousness.

Bill attended the members’ reception at the Nelson-Atkins for the opening of the featured exhibition of Giacometti sculptures and paintings. He’s the guy famous mostly for tall, extremely skinny figures in bronze. In Bill’s view, over-praised. And no doubt WAY over-priced on the art market. People who have tons of money know better than to spend it on life-saving drugs for poor folks. (Except for one very wealthy couple in that documentary who literally sold everything they owned before they died so as use it all for good deeds beyond themselves.)

This morning I’m headed back to the food pantry to help hand out the bags of groceries we packed on Wednesday. In our visits there, we rarely encounter the actual recipients of such handouts. I wish I could say there was more “real food” in those bags. But I suppose boxes of mac-and-cheese, Ramen noodles, a couple of cans of tuna, and the usual assortment of snacks stave off hunger (if not malnutrition) for a few days. The pantry adds frozen meat products, fresh bread (fresh-ish, that is), a few perishable items, and some cleaning products to the handouts.

Our church has a leadership group named Matthew 25. This is a denomination-wide movement to do what Jesus said to do: love God with all your heart, and your neighbor as yourself–help the widows and orphans and immigrants among you.

Looks like there’s plenty of opportunity to participate in that, right?

I’ve just decided to put this letter on my blog, unfiltered. These are the things I’m thinking and doing, without a lot of editing. Why not??

Be well.
Love,
B

I grew up as a person motivated by goals. Scoring A’s on a report card, winning a spelling bee, achieving a diploma (or two or three), getting promoted at work, publishing a poem, or running a full 26+ mile marathon (who, me?) Check those boxes, Girl!

As of now, from the perspective of my 75+ years, many of those goals have faded into the past, dimmer than my ideal weight on a Weight Watchers chart. I’m wondering how a lifetime of meeting goals has prepared me for the unknown number of days or years ahead. Realistically, it’s a little late for me to set a new goal like starting a small business or running for public office (although I note in the news there are plenty of other geezers doing those things). What’s going to make the time I have left interesting, creative, productive, or just plain enjoyable? Let’s call it a sense of purpose.

In my Roget’s Thesaurus, the word purpose is located in Category 543. Meaning. You can find it further connected with resolution, intention, and function. Meaning is tough to pin down, yet somehow it comes down to what matters, if anything, about my milliseconds alive in the flow of Earth’s history, my infinitesimal presence in what may be an infinite universe.

Time for another cup of coffee. This thought process requires a lot of caffeine.

Bob the Cat assumes her post-breakfast position, asleep on the rug in the hall outside my door, where she can occasionally look up and watch me hunched over my computer. In cat years, she may be older than I am. Besides sleep, she cares about only two things: food above all, and a lap to curl up in whenever she craves human connection. Maybe three things if you count clean fur, as I watch her thoroughly and intensively licking her entire body.

To be clean and fed and lovingly cuddled: not bad for a way of life. For millions of human beings on the planet, these would be blessings a-plenty if they had them.

What about Meaning? Purpose? I think of the 20th century American psychologist Abraham Maslow, who placed the essential requirements for human fulfillment in a hierarchy. These requirements were sometimes (though not by Maslow) arranged on a pyramid diagram, which made it appear that one must work one’s way up from a base of physical needs to a rarefied peak of—-what? Spirituality? Non-being? Nirvana? The top of the pyramid is labeled transcendence.

Looking up and down the pyramid, I think how fortunate I am, already living rather high up. Do I still yearn for transcendence—the tiny triangle at the top? Is that where my Purpose lies for the rest of my time, with all my interim goals checked off below?

In the thesaurus, transcendence is listed as Category 36. Superiority. Superiority over what or whom, I wonder? The conviction of Superiority has not proven to be a successful strategy for human relations since the beginning of everything in history or mythology. So…not that.

I decide to ditch the pyramid. I’d prefer to think of transcendence as a pre-existing condition. Not at the bottom of anything, nor at the top, but more there than anything else on that list of human needs. Transcendence soaking the entire pyramid like water in a sponge. Transcendence dissolving the pyramid into the primeval sea of Creation itself.

Maybe it’s what Wordsworth was talking about in his Ode with the tongue-twister title: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood. “Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:/The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,/Hath had elsewhere its setting,/And cometh from afar:/Not in entire forgetfulness,/And not in utter nakedness,/But trailing clouds of glory do we come/From God who is our home….” According to Wordsworth, we’re born transcendent, and immediately (sadly) forget.

Or perhaps you, like me and millions of others, once came across the much-reprinted poem by Max Ehrmann titled Desiderata. “You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and stars; you have a right to be here.”

Or Paul Tillich’s assertion in a sermon that profoundly changed my life: Grace strikes us when we walk through the dark valley of a meaningless and empty life….and it is as though a voice were saying: “You are accepted…by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know….Do not seek for anything. do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted….”*

Or the hymn by George Matheson that I want sung at my memorial service: “O Love that will not let me go/I rest my weary soul in Thee;/I give Thee back the life I owe,/That in Thine ocean depths its flow/May richer, fuller be.”

My lifetime of words seems to have brought me a great deal of evidence, a great many witnesses, for the idea that life matters—specifically my life–beyond all goals and purposes. I do not have to do anything to be loved. It’s relaxing to think this—to remember my original—one might say God-given–transcendence.

I think I hear the voice of Wordsworth: Girl, you got this.

*Paul Tillich, The Shaking of the Foundations, New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1948.

In her daily letter emailed on January 15, 2023, my favorite historian, Heather Cox Richardson, wrote this about the hero of the day:

On April 3, 1968, the night before the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated by a white supremacist, he gave a speech in support of sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee….After his friend Ralph Abernathy introduced him to the crowd, King had something to say about heroes: “As I listened to Ralph Abernathy and his eloquent and generous introduction and then thought about myself, I wondered who he was talking about.”

The past year or two, I’ve attended quite a number of funerals and memorial services. This is a feature of arriving at an age most people think of as “old.” Whether or not I’m friends with, or even acquainted with, the deceased, each and every eulogy has made me think, “Wow. I wish I had known this person better.” Granted, except for the humorous jibes that bring a loved one to real life momentarily, a eulogy illuminates the good parts. Nobody steps up to speak at a memorial service to air dirty laundry. But still. The biographies of person after person reveal more impact for good in the world than may be known, except in bits and pieces, by most other people.

During these speeches, I often feel a fresh resolve to be the kind of person good things might be said about. Someday, listening (I hope) from a heavenly perch, would I wonder who’s being talked about?

Partly because of these speeches, I know there are more heroes among us than we’ll ever know. Quietly, barely noticed in the supermarket, in the car repair waiting room, at the bus stop, at the pharmacy window, and in every other ordinary place where we casually meet them, people with no claims to be special are handling their lives with hope and courage, kindness and patience.

Last Sunday, on the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as we stood up to sing “We Shall Overcome” in my very white, Presbyterian congregation, it occurred to me that I don’t have the right, really, to sing this song. I don’t have the right to sing this song because I have not stood in the shoes of those who, for hundreds of years, have endured with holy patience the absence of justice, the denial of their humanity, the economic enslavement, and the violent anger of people calling themselves Christians in segregated congregations.

Recently, in the brief moments I happened to catch a football game on tv, I saw an advertising campaign with the slogan, “Jesus gets us.” Apparently it’s a well-funded, cleverly-designed campaign to update the appeal of Jesus, who heals, comforts, inspires, and restores hope for people in their everyday modern lives. All good. I believe it already. But wouldn’t it be more convincing if people like me, who already call themselves Christian, were a living, appealing “advertisement” others see in the supermarket, the car repair waiting room, at the bus stop…and in every other ordinary place where we meet them? Or, for that matter, in legislatures, community meetings, and churches.

I suppose that two thousand years isn’t much time in the view of the Creator who placed Jesus among us. Jesus, now the living Christ, still has a claim to be born in each and every human being. To experience the Spirit of Christ is to be transformed for good. Then we are empowered to sing “We Shall Overcome” with divine patience, and to perform with courage countless heroic and unsung acts of justice and love.

My words of wisdom to myself in the shower this morning:
Must. Stop. Reading. Newspapers..
To wit:

–Good news is not “news.”
–Data and Statistics are not “news.”
–Research, polls, and surveys are partial and biased if not entirely wrong.
–No important decisions about the future of humanity are made by reporters and pundits.
–St. Teresa of Avila advises against relying on this source of information.*

So…I’ll put on my rose-colored glasses and proceed with the day…the week…the life.

Hope you can do the same!

*Let nothing disturb you,
Let nothing frighten you,
All things are passing away,
God never changes.
Patience obtains all things.
Whoever has God
Lacks nothing.
God alone suffices.

–St. Teresa of Avila

Hope is a choice, strengthened through practice; not a reflection of light, but light itself.– David Von Drehle, Washington Post January 1, 2023

Light. That most universal and persuasive expression of how we know, as human beings, all we can know. Naturally the light we think of first is the light that arrives through our physical eyes. But that’s not all—indeed, the physical experience might be the least of the light which brings us wisdom, compassion, and hope.

I embrace a tradition which begins with light. The Bible story launches itself in the book of Genesis: God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light; and God saw that the light was good.

As we’ve learned from physics and astronomy, the qualities of light are fundamental to the emergence of the universe and its creative evolution. That’s its physical significance. We human creatures are literally bodies of light. Further along as human creatures, we achieved the ability to use words. Through language, we comprehend light as metaphor, comparing one thing to another to unfold our understanding of life itself.

My poet friend, teacher, and mentor, the late John Frederick Nims, writes: “The poet’s preference for thinking in images…is based on the way our body and mind put us in touch with the universe….The discovery of any surprising likeness is one more clue to the suspicion that there seems to be an order, however deep and mysterious, in the universe.”

Thus we speak of wisdom as enlightenment. Thus we speak of Jesus Christ as “the light of the world.” Thus we practice any and every belief as our personal embodiment of light. (And alas sometimes of darkness.)

The Big Three are proclaimed in the ringing description written in a letter to people in Corinth in the earliest days of what became Christianity. “In a word, there are three things that last for ever: faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of them all is love.” (New English translation)

Faith. Hope. Love. These mysteries form the very order of the universe. These are the fundamental conditions of life we can choose to practice. Yet even before choice comes the deep down realization that we are, each of us, the embodiment of Light. If you like, call it God. Call it Christ. Call it whatever metaphor or story enlightens your heart, mind, soul, and strength. Faith, hope, and love are as real and powerful as the rocks, the waters, the trees, the stars.

As a little girl, I learned this in the simplest way, and the songs I learned in childhood still echo in my memory: “This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine…”… “Jesus wants me for a sunbeam to shine for him each day…” “Immortal, invisible, God only wise/In light inaccessible, hid from our eyes…”

Later in life, I was given a poem to write that has become a touchstone of my being. I share it again here and now. I believe that poetry is my practice of hope, encouragement, and love—a way of being transparent to the Light I’m made of.

WHEN I BECOME TRANSPARENT

When I become transparent,
the universe will be
a little less invisible
through my transparency.

I wish you radiance within for the new year and always. Choose hope.

In a gathering of book-loving friends the other night, each woman gave a short summary of her general perspective on life. In response to a book she’d read on cosmology—the exploration of the origins of the universe aided now by extremely sophisticated radio-telescopic instruments—one woman quoted an author awestruck in view of the vast universe: “You’re not special. You’re just damn lucky.”

As a former professional greeting card writer, I’m familiar with the word special. It could usefully be applied to any person or any occasion without being very specific (a word clearly related to special). A “special” card recipient could be the brother you’re grateful to live a thousand miles away from, the grandmother who imparted to you all the life skills you ever needed, or the kitty who gets a Christmas card from its doting human roommate.

I looked up the etymology of special in my old Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. Its synonyms include individual, particular, unique, and many more. It’s related to the word species, which means particularity and relationship in regard to certain characteristics. Both words derive from Latin and Greek roots having to do with observation or seeing, whose descendant words also include spy and skeptic.

In short, the word special is more concrete than I had thought. It’s something you see. As human beings, we have the capacity to observe, to describe, to be curious, to be discerning and discriminating, to ask questions in matters of wonder and doubt. The human perspective (can you find special in the middle of that word, too?) is situated about halfway between the smallest “stuff” of the universe which we have so far discovered—quarks and all that—and the biggest or farthest away we have seen—stars and galaxies—or even not seen—the mysterious presence of dark matter. Employing the many ways we are equipped to see, human beings are in a sweet spot, according to us.

(Parenthetically, I’ve always thought that the search for “life” on other worlds should always include the qualifier “life as we know it.” Isn’t there the possibility, if not the probability, of life with other features?)

Are we “lucky” to be human? One fundamental principle of Buddhism declares “Life is suffering.” To vastly varying degrees, suffering happens to each and every one of the eight-plus billion human inhabitants of the planet. Everyone suffers. So…who’s lucky? Look around you.

Feeling lucky to be alive comes with specifics: health, family, friends, freedom, prosperity. Name your joy. In suffering, we’re not special. In everything else, we’re mostly lucky, no matter how we ended up with it. The only response that can save the planet is letting go of it—that is, sharing it with everybody else.

It’s Christmas. I profess my personal belief that God shared the entirety of God-ness in the person of Jesus Christ, whose Spirit in the midst of suffering makes us all special indeed.