Showing posts with label Faith. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Faith. Show all posts

Sunday, March 10, 2024

Odds and ends, part two

As I get older, I am more willing to accept that I won't get the answers I seek, particularly where faith is concerned. Faith is a mystery that I will never truly decipher. My faith in God has wavered from time to time up through the years. Ditto for my desire to attend Sunday mass. But I've realized that I won't get firm proof that God exists; he/she is not going to suddenly appear before me (like in the story of doubting Thomas) and convince me that way. So I accept God's existence on faith. Attending mass is similar; I go, no matter how I feel. Ten to fifteen years ago, I often wondered why I should go to mass when so many things seemed to be topsy-turvy in my life and definitely in the world. Not anymore. It's become something I do without thinking about it too much. That works for me. I like being there, being part of something larger than me. Being together with (presumably) like-minded people, in the sense that they are also believers. Even if they aren't, it wouldn't change my wanting to be there. I've realized that I can just offer up who I am on any given day--happy, sad, moody, bored, angry, irritable--and hope that I am acceptable. Being human means being imperfect. That is my reality, even though I try hard each day to be the best version of myself (as Matthew Kelly says). 

I watched the film Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret from 2023 last night. It's a touching, funny and sweet story about a twelve-year old girl on the cusp of adolescence, and how she deals with life at home and in school. The film is based on the book of the same name by Judy Blume; I never read it when it was published back in 1970. Margaret is the daughter of an interfaith marriage--Jewish father and Catholic mother, but neither of her parents are religious and they have chosen to raise Margaret without any religious affiliation. She does however hope to eventually find some sort of religion to belong to. She is assigned a school project that allows her to explore different religious beliefs, which she hopes will give her some idea of what religion to eventually embrace. She does talk to God however, telling him about all the things that are happening in her life and sharing her joys as well as disappointments. Abby Ryder Fortson did a wonderful job as Margaret, as did Rachel McAdams as her mother and Kathy Bates as her grandmother.

I also watched the film Dog from 2022 with Channing Tatum the other night--also very good. He played a former Army Ranger suffering from PTSD who wants to return to military duty but whose superiors deny him that chance due to his condition. However, he agrees to bring his former partner's dog Lulu to his funeral (he has committed suicide) as part of a deal for him to return to active duty. Lulu is anxiety-ridden and aggressive (suffering from a kind of PTSD too) and destined for eventual euthanization, and the trip from Oregon to Arizona is fraught with different problems and troubles along the way. It's a beautiful story about the bond that forms between man and dog, and how they both save each other. 

I've spent the past four days without tv news of any kind to invade my life. Bliss. I don't want to know what's going on in the world because I know it's the same old, same old--wars, aggression, conflicts, shootings, murders, political divisiveness--the list is long. And the news media love reporting it all; sometimes I get the feeling that 'the worse, the better'. I know that's cynical, but hey, the news media are cynical institutions. You get back what you give. 

I haven't been on social media much either. Also bliss. I don't really miss it. As I've written about before, I'd remove myself from most of it if it wasn't for the fact that friends in the US still use it. It's a way of staying in touch with them, although these days we mostly chat via Messenger and WhatsApp. 

Tuesday, February 28, 2023

Some thoughts on life, roads, gratitude, and faith

I was reading through some old Time magazines, specifically one from 2019, and came across a short article--a Quick Talk with Deepak Chopra, who was promoting his book Metahuman, Unleashing Your Infinite Potential. He talked about the importance of becoming 'metahuman' in order to make the world around us a better place, and defined 'metahuman' as 'connecting with our innate beings'. He included four questions that people can ask themselves in order to get started on the path toward becoming metahuman. They are as follows: 

  1. Who am I?
  2. What do I want from my life?
  3. What is my purpose?
  4. What am I grateful for?
I don't read this genre of literature anymore, at least not like I did when I was younger and thought that such books were written by people much wiser than I was (am). It's always tempting to think that there is a guru out there who can answer all of the questions that one might have concerning life and how to live it, especially when one is younger and hits a wall of sorrows that threaten to destroy one. But there isn't a cure-all for anything in life, and there is no guru to set us on the path of enlightenment. It is the journey that matters, after all, and you find that out when you get older. The road of life is difficult and we can only navigate it by living life with all its joys and sorrows. 'The only way out is through', as one wise person once said; the quote is attributed to Robert Frost, from his poem 'A Servant to Servants'. 

The four questions are worth asking ourselves every now and then, especially if we feel we have strayed from the paths we intuitively know we'd like to be on. We have to take stock every now and then and ask ourselves if what we are doing in life is what we ought to be doing. Is it good for us? Are we wasting time on things that give us nothing or have no real meaning? For example, are we glued to our screens many hours during the day, wasting time on social media that really doesn't make us or the world a better place. Do we want to take risks or make changes that would be good for us, but are too fearful to do so? 

One of the simplest ways to find our true paths again is to start by being grateful for something in our lives. That has helped me in tough times. There is always something for which we can be grateful. Just the fact that we have been given another day is a gift. I find that gratitude comes easier to me now, perhaps because I am older, but also because I know how difficult life is for some people in my life. They have sorrows in abundance. Yet they plod on. They have faith in God and that seems to help them. I don't purport to understand faith and how it strengthens people. I have faith but I also have dark times where I question it. I do know that it is a solace, albeit a mysterious one. But life gets simpler with each passing year. It's getting easier to say yes, to accept, to let go, to not argue or want to dissect or overanalyze. Perhaps that's one path that will put us in touch with our innate selves and strengthen our faith. Your will, not mine. There is a lot of power in that. I just never knew how much before. 

Saturday, September 24, 2022

Random reflections on this autumn day


  • I'm one year retired. No regrets. I love my free time and am enjoying life in a whole new way. 
  • Since I retired, I've published three books: a poetry collection (Movements Through the Landscape); a memoir about growing up in Tarrytown, New York (A Town and a Valley. Growing Up in Tarrytown and the Hudson Valley); and a meditative book about gardening (The Gifts of a Garden). All of them are available for purchase on Amazon. I am working very hard to market the latter book, although I'd like all of the books to sell a bit if possible. Sending prayers into the universe for support.
  • Marketing books is a job unto itself. I wonder how well other authors do this job.
  • Forty years ago, I started working at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. A wonderful workplace, one I will never forget. It changed my life in all good ways and showed me what good leadership really is (professional generosity and wishing others well). 
  • I think about those friends and colleagues who are no longer with us. I wish they were still here--Liza, Thu, Debby. You left us too soon. 
  • I think about friends who are ill and what they go through every day, living with anxiety and the knowledge that they cannot do what they once could do. 
  • Enjoyed visiting the new Munch Museum: Munchmuseet in Oslo today with my husband. We visited the old Munch Museum at Tøyen when I first came to Oslo; I was only vaguely aware then of Edvard Munch's paintings. Over the years I've developed an appreciation of his works. The museum is worth visiting. 
  • We ate dinner at Villa Paradiso (Italian restaurant) afterward. I thought how nice it was to do this together, go out on a Saturday afternoon, and I mentioned to him that we should do things like this more often. He agreed. He will be retiring soon, so it will be interesting to see what life will be like then when we have more time together. 
  • Munch was preoccupied with sickness, death, mortality (his mother and sister died of tuberculosis when he was young). Illness in general, including mental illness. His was not a very happy life. But he was an amazing artist. The acknowledgment of our mortality. Some say it becomes more acute once one turns sixty. All I know is that I've been living with this knowledge since I was a teenager and watched my father experience heart attacks and strokes. His first heart attack occurred when I was twelve years old; he died when I was twenty-nine. Mortality became real to me as well once I read Gerard Manley Hopkins' poem 'Spring and Fall--to a young child' as a teenager. Perhaps I shouldn't have read it and internalized it. But I did, and it has stuck with me since then, especially the last two lines: 'It is the blight man was born for, it is Margaret you mourn for'. Do we mourn for ourselves, for the knowledge that our lives will eventually merge into the river of time that sweeps us all onward?
  • Everyone ages. Some are more afraid of it than others. Some feel the need to change their faces and looks in order to stay young-looking. But it doesn't really work. It changes how you look even if it may make you look younger, and if you are a celebrity, everyone comments. If it changes how you look, does that change who you are? Do you really believe that you are younger? I don't judge others if they want to go down this road, but I think it is probably easier to just accept the gradual changes associated with aging. Look in the mirror. Or don't. My mother would have said 'just live your life. Get on with it'. She was right about so many things. 
  • Does having faith make it easier to deal with one's mortality? Perhaps. I'd rather have faith than not have it. But no one knows what life is like after death, since no one has come back to tell us about it, except Christ. And one must accept his words about eternity, in faith. 
  • Faith is defined as 'complete trust or confidence in someone or something'; also 'a strong belief in the doctrines of a religion, based on spiritual conviction rather than proof'. Our society requires proof, evidence, hard facts. Hard to come by where the afterlife is concerned. If someone we once knew and loved rose from the dead before our eyes, I think we would freak out completely. 
  • I am now a gardener. That is my identity for at least six months of the year. I am happy in that knowledge. Working with the earth completes me. I don't need much else when I am in my garden. My soul is happy there. It's where I find God. That's all that matters to me. 
  • I share my garden photos with others, and they tell me that I am a master gardener. It's nice to hear, but it's not why I share the photos. I want to share the beauty that my soul 'sees'. I hope that others find peace and serenity the way I have found it. That's why I wrote 'The Gifts of a Garden'. 
  • I think about so many things when I am working in my garden. There is something about weeding that encourages reflection. I connect with my garden in a silent communion; we talk without the actual utterance of words, but they are uttered in my head. I've learned that if you treat living things well, they will shine. They will do their best to be the best versions of themselves that they can be. If it's true for flowers and plants, it's true for humans (and animals) too.
  • As a country (the USA), we need less emphasis on what divides us, and more emphasis on what unites us. The media have had far too much to say about what divides us. But we can choose to listen to it, or to not listen to it. I choose the latter, most of the time. Many women I know have done the same. There is no point in becoming an angry person if that anger does not lead you in the right direction, toward something positive--changing yourself or the situations that infuriate you. If you are constantly angry at everything, your anger is not rational or logical. 
  • The orange-haired man appears to be imploding. It had to happen at one point. He's an old man now and he looks it. His behavior borders on deranged. How he's kept up the facade for this long is anyone's guess. 
  • As Tania Tetlow--the new president (first woman president) of Fordham University--states, 'we build a common good with ethics, empathy, and faith'. Not with amorality, hardness of heart, and lack of faith. Humans must have hope in order to go on. Our job as Christians is to appeal to that hope in every person we meet. 

Friday, May 1, 2020

Some reflections on C.S. Lewis

I finished Preparing for Easter by C.S. Lewis shortly after Easter, which is a book of his reflections on Christianity for each day of Lent. Lewis was a prolific writer of both children’s books and books for adults, and I was introduced to his adult books by my father, himself a prolific reader and a great fan of both Lewis and G.K. Chesterton (who wrote The Everlasting Man). Lewis was an atheist for a good portion of his life, but found his way to Christianity by reflection and reason. Or as he might have put it, he was pulled in that direction and at some point stopped resisting.

His writings appeal to me and others who have had questions about their faith, who haven’t accepted all aspects of our faith on ‘blind faith’ alone. Perhaps that makes us doubting Thomas-es, but I for one have a lot of compassion for doubting Thomas, who was a sceptic by nature. Yes, his faith was wanting when push came to shove, but life is often like that. I doubt that God loved him any less in the long run. Even Lewis suffered doubts about God’s existence when he lost his beloved wife Joy to cancer. Some of his best books come from that period and that experience; he wrote about pain, suffering, and grief in ways that you will remember long after you read his books. He never forgot to write about our humanity in our meetings with God. He understood as an academic that it was difficult to accept some of the tenets of Christian faith. So his mission was to write to help us understand them. I must admit that I use quite a bit of time to reflect upon his writings. But as he himself once said, ‘he reasoned his way to faith’. And for an atheist, that is perhaps the only way. When reason overpowers scepticism so totally, then there are no defences left to fight with.


Friday, May 24, 2019

Quotes about miracles


  • Hope... is the companion of power, and the mother of success; for who so hopes has within him the gift of miracles. --Samuel Smiles
  • God continues to work miracles in my life.--Willie Aames
  • There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. --Albert Einstein
  • Seeing, hearing, feeling, are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle. --Walt Whitman
  • His hands are miracles. I can watch them for hours, transforming wood into something it never dreamed of being. --Katja Millay, The Sea of Tranquility
  • It was possible that a miracle was not something that happened to you, but rather something that didn’t. --Jodi Picoult, The Tenth Circle
  • Miracles, in the sense of phenomena we cannot explain, surround us on every hand: life itself is the miracle of miracles. --George Bernard Shaw
  • After all, I don't see why I am always asking for private, individual, selfish miracles when every year there are miracles like white dogwood. --Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  • Since most scientists are just a bit religious, and most religious are seldom wholly unscientific, we find humanity in a comical position. His scientific intellect believes in the possibility of miracles inside a black hole, while his religious intellect believes in them outside it. --William Golding
  • When you look at all the miracles attributed to Jesus, they're all about change. --Michael Sheen


The first quote has special relevance for me now, especially this week. An unexpected phone call reminded me of the presence of hope inside me when I thought I had none, and that hope sometimes leads to miracles. They may be tiny--but miracle of miracles, any tiny miracle is about change, about a shift in the universe toward love and away from darkness. That is what I believe. 



Friday, November 30, 2018

An Advent prayer

I found this picture online (https://www.lords-prayer-words.com/times/advent_prayers.html) when I was searching for Advent prayers. I thought it was perfect for Advent--a star to guide us 'home'.



Saturday, August 11, 2018

A beautiful poem by Edgar Albert Guest--Faith

Apropos my last post, that there are no strangers when I travel, I found this beautiful poem online that sums up my feelings about the world when I travel, especially the line That strangers are friends that we some day may meet. Enjoy.......


Faith
by Edgar Albert Guest

I believe in the world and its bigness and splendor:
That most of the hearts beating round us are tender;
That days are but footsteps and years are but miles
That lead us to beauty and singing and smiles:
That roses that blossom and toilers that plod
Are filled with the glorious spirit of God.

I believe in the purpose of everything living:
That taking is but the forerunner of giving;
That strangers are friends that we some day may meet;
And not all the bitter can equal the sweet;
That creeds are but colors, and no man has said
That God loves the yellow rose more than the red.

I believe in the path that to-day I am treading,
That I shall come safe through the dangers I'm dreading;
That even the scoffer shall turn from his ways
And some day be won back to trust and to praise;
That the leaf on the tree and the thing we call Man
Are sharing alike in His infinite plan.

I believe that all things that are living and breathing
Some richness of beauty to earth are bequeathing;
That all that goes out of this world leaves behind
Some duty accomplished for mortals to find;
That the humblest of creatures our praise is deserving,
For it, with the wisest, the Master is serving.


The surreal world we live in

Holy Week for Christians starts on Palm Sunday (one week before Easter Sunday) and ends on Holy Saturday; it includes Holy Thursday and Good...