St. Augustine (detail) - Botticelli

There are so many biographies out there. Should I start the new one of Steve Jobs that everyone seems to be reading?

What about getting the recent one of Catherine the Great, instead ? I’ve always wanted to learn more about her. Or what about reading the new Metaxas biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (a book which has been called “groundbreaking” by the NY Times)? I begin to feel restless and distinctly unwell.

 Perhaps I should get organized with my biography-reading. I should start with the ancients and read chronologically; this way I could ground myself in history and broaden my education. Now there’s a life plan (and I calm down). But — where to start?

Well, now it’s obvious. Go back and start with the first biography every written. Many people would say that this would have to be St. Augustine’s Confessions.

 I downloaded a free Kindle version of this work and found the translation had too many thees and thous and other archaic words (very distracting!) and I was almost ready to give up. Then I learned of an audible book club with a 30 day free membership and I ordered Confessions – very positively reviewed, as it is read by an actor who uses a new translation. Within minutes I was at the start of thirteen hours worth of listening.

But then another problem rears its ugly head. An audio Confessions is a difficult listen because the spoken ideas of Augustine follow one another so densely that there is no space or time for personal reflection. Pretty soon my mind had been amply overfed and I was sound asleep.

I realize now that there is no way that I can avoid a trip to the library. Luckily the Vancouver central library is a pleasant stroll away. The building itself is beautiful and a destination in itself.

Soon I had a copy of the Confessions (trans. by E.M. Blaiklock) in my hands and I am very happy because the first ten books included in this translation are all broken into sections with subtitles. This makes it very easy to read one section at a time and ponder it before moving on.

I find that Augustine’s conversation is directly aimed at God, though he has also the reader in mind and wants to instruct the reader.  He does not, however, want to pile up theological truth claims. He wants to show his journey to the truth, as he sees it and he invites the reader to do likewise.

Well, I couldn’t resist!

 Today –on a cloudless sunny afternoon in Vancouver (rare in February) I was not out walking the seawall cherishing the warm sun’s rays on my face or looking for crocuses in Stanley Park. I was reading Confessions. It was as if I had jumped headfirst into a pool of water and was swimming towards lovely news ways of thinking. There were Augustine’s thoughts and my own now intertwined with his – like plants growing together underwater. Every once in a while I came up for air – made myself some coffee or watched a few minutes of a Sean Connery movie taped on my PVR (oh, the joys of retirement!).

Book ten of Confessions is all about the memory. So I dip into one small part of it and try to understand Augustine:

I arrive at the fields and broad mansions of memory, where there are laid up thetreasures of countless images, brought there by all manner of experience. There is stored away also whatever we think by way of enlarging or lessening, or in any way modifying, what sense has encountered, together with anything else approved and put away, which forgetfulness has not yet devoured and buried.

 When I am there I order what I wish to be brought out, and some things appear right away, others require longer search, as if they are produced from remoter storerooms. Some things rush out in a heap, and while something else is sought and looked for, they crowd forward as though to say, “Perhaps we are what you want…”

 This is so beautifully written.  Augustine’s memory is a kind of pantry where he goes in search of things in much the same way that a cook looks for ingredients for dish to be made and then served. 

Now I truly understand why the man had such a prodigious intellect; he catalogued his memories in storerooms within vast mansions and could retrieve them fairly easily at will!

a modern memory

My experience of my memory is so different from his. Their substance is more like the subject of this painting by Martha Wakefield:

Memories of Home

 My memories seem glow in a kind of dim light just below my conscious mind and they seem to “rise up” when I open a kind of floodgate. I don’t go in search of memories the way Augustine does. It has always bothered me that I do not have many vivid memories of my childhood. I rather remember more my feelings around events.

Augustine says far more about the memory and a whole lot of other things, but I need to stop.

As someone said to me yesterday, you could easily spend your whole life revisiting Confessions.

A few years ago I read about Bonhoeffer’s ideas around “cheap grace.” Church life can become safe and comfortable. So many of us attend church every Sunday, enjoy the service and coffee hour together, but these pleasures are a “cheap grace” when there is little else done together other than worry about finances periodically. So often sermons are about truths in general and usually not particularly memorable.

Dorothee Soelle quotes Bonhoeffer: “the church may not teach timeless principles, however true, but only commandments which are true today.”[1] She goes on to say in her own words that what is “always” true may not true today in particular and speaks against a tendency to celebrate “proclamation as a substitute for discipleship.”[2]

This makes me think because I do want to leave church each Sunday a changed person. The sermon, as Daniel Migliore points out, needs to be: “proclaiming the same words the apostles proclaimed, but proclaiming it in different words in a different time and place.”[3]

William Willimon cautions about the “therapeutic culture” where we want not so much to be saved or changed, but rather to feel better about ourselves. He also warns ministers to be on the guard against acting  as a  “free-floating carping social critic.” He says he “regrets the loss of the pastor as instigator of holy discontent, righteous indignation and dis-ease with the powers.”[4]Here I would agree and add that there is a fine line between “carping” and expressing “righteous indignation.”

Recently I was at Christ Church Cathedral and heard a sermon by a visiting minister who walked this fine line and succeeded admirably in all the ways listed above.

First of all, he did not stand behind a lectern but walked right out in front of the altar with such warmth and intention. He was “among us” and not preaching from some holier-than-thou place. There was even something Christ-like about his countenance (Willimon states that preachers do take Jesus as a model for their ministry[5] ). The minister  spoke without notes on the reign of God where we could all live peacefully though this did not mean that we were all going to adopt the Christian religion. God’s plan for us was more inclusive than this. He also spoke about our need to care for one another, the homeless in particular. He went on to explain that the feed the homeless in Vancouver would only take for the rest of us to pledge a loonie a year. All of us in the congregation walked out feeling that the reign of God was within our reach and that we in our small ways could contribute. It did not always take a radical change to be a disciple of Christ.

I came home inspired that I would do my share. It would cost a little, but not break the bank. I went ahead and sent in a cheque to the Union Gospel Mission.

This past New Year’s Eve I was at the Eiffel Tower with a friend, Ruth, who is my age.  She had journeyed all the way from California because it had been on her bucket list to spend New Year’s near this lighted tower (the most visited monument in the world!)and  to watch the fireworks at midnight. I was with her and, with my new iPod, I took this (blurry) picture:

I sent it to friends thinking that this picture was telling a story that was a bit “stretched”. It might look to some as if we are having the time of our lives but the truth is that at the time we both did not see it quite this way.  At 11 pm rain was pelting down and we were standing by the Eiffel Tower in the muck. I told Ruth I was not having much fun and wanted to go home (to spend New Year’s at the Eiffel Tower has never been on my bucket list).

I left on foot pushing through crowds and spent an hour looking for a metro.  When I found one, it was surprisingly  empty of traffic except for roving gangs of what looked like hoodlums to me (they were drinking and shouting). But I also observed some families with children on the train so I guessed that this was typical New Year’s behaviour and I didn’t need to be alarmed. It took me two hours to get home.

My friend faired similarly. She left the Eiffel Tower soon after I did because she was told that, for the first time in many years, there were to be no fireworks this night. “Well,” she said to me on the phone the next day, “if I’d known this, I wouldn’t have come to Paris!”

Here it is two weeks after this event and the memory of it is gathering veils of glamour as I retell the story to friends.

I tell them about not being about to see my way forward in the crowds.  People didn’t seem to understand that I needed to get home and they didn’t make space for me (!) To get away from the hordes I started to walk down the dark narrow walkway through the Pont d’Alma tunnel. Suddenly I have an intuition that to walk alone in a dark tunnel would not be wise,  plus this passageway  has an unsavoury history (this is where Princess Diana met her fate so many years ago).  I backtracked and found myself surrounded by people again. I pressed forward along a busy road by the Seine and finally located a metro entrance, went down inside and waited a few minutes for the train to come. On the train a few young men were whooping it up with shouts and laughter.  I moved away from them and went to sit close to a family with two toddlers in tow. After another change of trains I was walking up Rue de Gambetta  in the 20e and before long fishing for my key to enter the little studio apartment where I was staying.  Soon after, I climbed into bed savouring the bliss of being warm and safe and sleepy.

Now that I think about it, I had a really exciting New Year’s – full of me having to navigate through disappointment then danger then on to security. What a good story!

Chagall

I don’t think so. Here is a story:

In March 2008 my three brothers and I stood by father’s body as he lay for viewing in the funeral home. One brother asked for us to do something unexpected; he asked that we say a prayer for my father. This was an unusual request because he is not the least religious. Neither was my father, but to say a prayer at this time seemed to be the most natural thing to do so the four of us recited the  Lord’s Prayer together. I am sure that my brother asked for this because he felt it would bring comfort, which it did.

When my mother died a year later the exact same events happened. Since I am the only one in our family who attends church with any kind of regularity, you would think that it would be me that would remember to say a prayer as we stood beside her in the funeral home, but no – it was this same brother who asked for us to say a prayer.

Since these deaths I have been interested in finding out more about the power of prayer and why
people pray and what prayers they use.

I came across an interesting story told by John Cassian, the 4^th Century Desert Father. He had visited a respected elder, Abba Isaac, who had told him a “formula” for prayer which is: “Oh God, come to my assistance;  oh, Lord, make haste to help me.” The person who invokes God as his protector is made aware that God is ever present and at hand.

I can’t say that I understand anything more about this prayer. By the use of his word “formula” I understand that this prayer is a sure-fire way making God feel close to you in every circumstance.

I had an occasion to try out this idea just two days ago.

I was at St. Paul’s Hospital for the second time in 3 months. I was undergoing another endoscopy
because, the first time, the doctor had found some precancerous cells in my upper duodenum. She had nipped them out at the first visit but wanted to do a second procedure to see if anything had grown back.

I lay on the hospital bed feeling grateful for the chatty, cheerful nurse who lay a warm flannel sheet over me and took my blood pressure.

I was also feeling nervous about getting the results and also about the procedure.  For one who gags at the thought of a doctor even touching the back of my tongue, let alone allowing her to lower a camera down the throat and thread it through my innards — well, let us just say that I tried to calm myself by breathing deeply.

I remembered the prayer formula and said it to myself several times: “Oh God, come to my assistance; oh Lord, make haste to help me.” I then came to the conclusion that I could handle the results. If I were free from cancerous cells I could deal with this. If (and I’m being morbid here) cancer was found raging everywhere and I needed to be given last rites soon — well, I could deal with that also. On the up-side of this latter diagnosis I would pass away happy with all the fun that I’ve had in my post-retirement years and also I would saved the trauma of watching myself grow feeble and toothless in a slow decline.

In this frame of mind I was wheeled into the procedure room where the doctor administered a sedative. I could feel the scope going down plunging left and right through my digestive system. It seemed to know just what it doing down there and where it was going. I could relax and allow it to do its work and before I knew it, the procedure was finished. The doctor came right over and
told me that she could see no trace of anything abnormal growing.

You might think that I shouted for joy at this news, but what was interesting to me was that I did not experience a huge sense of relief that I was being spared the awful spectre of treatment for cancer. My first thought was – “Oh, this is the plan for me”. I was to be healthy for a little longer.

It was wonderful to feel this sense of peace in the hospital and that my being content did not rest in using prayer to manoeuvre for a particular outcome.

Did the Abba Isaac prayer help me to be receptive to thoughts that would bring calm?  And did these thoughts come from God? I can only speculate.

The prayer needs further testing.

A friend told me a bad-luck story of his artist-friend. I found it compelling and wanted to write it down. Of course, as I did so I embellished the story and added my own details. It was compelling to me because even though the artist’s outer world became smaller, his inner world did not. He did not allow himself to be filled with despair, but instead kept hopeful and moved forward finding solutions. I hope I captured that aspect of the story which impressed me when I first heard it. 

A young artist
applied geometric shapes to painted canvases.
He sold a few.
On bright sheets that he coloured himself,
he wrote letters to strangers, which they answered.
Once
he spent a whole morning pasting coffee grounds and sand together
marveling how easily they mingled.

To support himself, he tidied and mopped, wiped surfaces,
happy because, this way, he kept his own life
free from darkness and clutter .

One day a sharp pain arrived in his right shoulder
travelled down his arm and remained.
Work was not possible.

Doctors, baffled, could offer only painkillers.
Exploratory surgery would not guarantee anything,
so
the artist waited for the pain to subside
which it did, somewhat.
But still he could not work.

Money dwindled. He used his savings and help came from friends
but there was not enough anymore to pay the rent.
One day
he woke up, opened the curtains and the window
Leaning out over the frame, he found
that the heavy heat on his shoulders
and the backs of his arms made him happy.
He hummed as he dressed, then went outside.

Later in a coffee shop an older woman,
with long hair, brown and brittle, smiled at him across the tables.
Drawn by her flouncy pink feathered shawl,
he went over to sit with her.
Giggling ,they exchanged their stories.
She laughed uproariously at his bad luck,
but he did not mind.

Then she looked serious for a moment.
She offered him the small bedroom in her apartment for free.
And he moved in.
She slept in the living room, was glad of his company.

He wrangled a small disability pension
from the government, now he pays her a little rent.

Sometimes they share a meal.
Her laughter is outlandish but he has perfected his smile.
He uses it when he needs space.
She sees it and understands at once
that the area between them must become larger,

The pain in his arm has lessened.

He has set up a working space
in the corner of his bedroom where
he can paint and move paper around.
The window faces south.
In the mid-afternoon on clear days
he stretches out on the floor
glad
to feel the sun’s rays warm his body.

Recently I was very interested to read a New York Times article (Oct. 9, 2011) about the celebrated atheist, and essayist, Christopher Hitchens, who is dying of cancer. He has written books with titles such as: God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. Hitchens now confesses that he cannot eat much or drink alcohol or smoke but his life is enjoyable to him in a way that was not possible before. His friend, the writer Martin Amis, says, “Hitch’s buoyancy is amazing…he has this great love of life…it’s an odd thing to say….it’s as if he’s become religious.”

I have to marvel at this. Isn’t there a passage somewhere in the bible which says: “He who abides in love abides in God and God in him?”

If this is true and that God’s substance is love, then he is at work everywhere, even in the soul of arch-denier Christopher Hitchens.

This man has a formidable intellect. Camus said that an intellectual is “someone whose mind watches itself.” My question: is there a possibility that Hitchens is so wrapped up in his own mind and the strength of his own ideas that the thought of a power greater than himself is not conceivable to him? To me there is something unfortunate about this.

I once taught a feisty six year old boy with enormous self-confidence. He could out-talk anyone and could easily convince others in the class to follow his plans.

One summer his mother took him on a trip to Europe where he visited some of the great cathedrals.  Inside these churches, her son was uncharacteristically silent. He appeared filled with awe as he cranked his head sideways, looking upwards, marvelling at the huge space above him. Her comment to me afterwards was that perhaps this was the first time in his short life that it had occured to him that there was a dominion greater than himself.

I can’t help but wonder if there are not some aspects of Hitchen’s life which are similar to this story. Of course I would never say all this to his face as the power of his rebuke would surely tear me to shreds, but I can share my thoughts about him on this blog.

A few weeks ago in the Palliative care ward I sat with a woman who had the same clear intelligent eyes as the woman above — only she was much older (in her nineties). We introduced ourselves and spoke about the weather and where we each born and raised.  There was a moment of silence and she said, “What shall we talk about next?” I told her that I would like to hear stories from her life if she wanted to share them. She was very happy to do this and I found myself very interested in everything that she was saying. Afterwards I said good-bye, came right home and wrote her words down before I forgot them. Here they are:

I need to sit up; I don’t want to lie in bed.
The doctor is helping me with the pain. Today it is not so bad.

I was born in Vienna, but I’ve lived in Australia and then I came back to Vienna.

Nowadays things are very bad.
When I was young my friends and I went to concerts together
We had picnics and did other things.
Now kids walk around with their little machines, pressing buttons with their thumbs.

I married and had two sons. Boys are not as intelligent as girls. I would have liked to have had a daughter.
My husband told me we were going to Australia and so we went.
We stayed five years and then my husband’s job ended and we decided to go back to Vienna.
We told the boys that we were going back to a beautiful land.
We flew to Genoa and then took the train back to Austria.
We arrived in the middle of a cold winter.
My boys looked at all the women with grim faces holding onto their hats in the freezing wind and they said, “You lied to us. You said we were going to a beautiful place.”

My husband and I found that things back in Austria were not the same.
One of our best friends had died and others had moved away.
Within three weeks we applied to immigrate to Canada.
Someone said, “Don’t stay in the east; go as far west as you can.”
So we came to Vancouver.
I worked in the cafeteria at the airport for the Pacific Western Airlines for thirteen years.
The boys left home.
My husband and I were good friends with another couple. We did a lot of things together.
In 1980 my husband died. The wife of this other couple died.
People told us that I should marry her husband.
I was not so sure it was necessary but I did it and those twenty five years were the happiest of my life.

How do you make a happy life?
Well, you have to make your own life happy.
No other person can make you happy.

My second husband and I travelled for 4 months of every year.
I’ve been to a lot of places.
He was ninety- five when he died. He was blind in one eye so I drove him around.

Before I came into this hospital, I lived with my son.
I don’t know him at all.
I raised him but I don’t know him.
He has is married but his wife does not live with him. They are not even separated. She has a big house down the road.
When she has no one else to go out with to dinner, she goes out with him.
What kind of life is this?

You are spending a lot of time with me; is there not anyone else in here that you want to talk to?

My son eats whatever does not eat him.
He eats cold food or hot food. It doesn’t matter. He eats in front of the television. I eat my meals separately.

I don’t know my son at all.
Years ago I lent him $200,000. I told him to pay it back when he is able.
He gave some to his wife to buy a $29,000 Mercedes.
He used the rest to pay down the mortgage for his big house.
A little while ago I said to my son, “You didn’t pay back the money I lent you.”
He got very red in the face.
“Why do you have such a good memory?” He shouted at me! “ You always remember every little tiny detail about everything!”

You know, I don’t mind. I don’t need that money. What would I do with it now?

  I volunteer on the palliative care floor in a local hospital. Hospice volunteers are trained to to enter the the space of dying person with no personal agenda: no words of wisdom to convery, no advice to impart.  Each visit is so unique. For me it is like taking a journey each time where I don’t know the destination, yet I can’t say that I don’t care — in fact I care very much. But I feel a kind of surrender in my interaction with the patient or the relatives sitting by the bedside. Moment by moment I have to figure out next what to say (or not to say) . There is nothing to guide me but my own intuition. Often silence seems the most appropriate action. 

                                                                         Deathbed by Munch

The bed holds her.

She lies stiff and straight,

her eyes closed, mouth

and nose pinched;

they rise like sharp peaks

on the dark knob

which is her head

Her son, all warm flesh,

sits and sighs beside the bed;

his eyes, pools of black ink,

that spill over.

“Who is she?” I ask

“She was everything,” he says

I want to ask questions.

He lifts his palms, exasperated

at this lack of understanding

of a grief too big to talk around.

Tears slip through his eyes,

a sluice he just manages to contain

because drowning in blackness

is a sure possibility

His wife, the daughter-in-law,

struts into the room, her eyes blinking.

She wants to talk.

I hear stories about this old woman

who shared their home,

who set the table each night

who made breakfast the next morning.

Her grandchildren called out for her

when they entered the house.

In family photos

it is the grandmother who

sits in the centre smiling;

the others find their place

around her.

The wife frets and asks

how can they live without her?

The husband puts his face in his hands.

Silence settles on this scene;

becomes an emptiness

then an empty cup, lifted up

not  noticed

or defined or filled

where nothing is needed,

or sure

or explained because

words, too heavy,

bring darkness

Yet there is movement here,

barely detectable,

(and only to an outsider)

so subtle, so joyful,

so nimble as it flows

through its body, still breathing,

on this bed, spirals round

this man and his wife;

penetrates the weight here
softens it

A glad spirit who loved much

and rejoices

This summer I joined a “Scottish Odyssey” organized by Gillian Schoemaker, a native of Scotland who lives now in Pennsylvania.  I had travelled with her and 12 others to Egypt last Christmas (just before the Arab Spring) and found that I liked this way of travelling. To journey with a group of like-minded people is for me the ultimate travelling experience because, not only were new landscapes continually appearing, but we were also in a group and we had each other as companions to help digest the new impressions.

On the trip to Scotland we were 15 including a driver and Celtic storyteller. We all met at the Glasgow airport on July 18^th and transferred to our minibus. Our first stop was the Burrell Museum with its eclectic collection in a beautiful park setting.  Then we travelled on to New Lanark with a visit with the 18^th century social experiment of Robert Owen. Next was a visit to Kilmartin and nearby Dunadd Hill which we climbed.  At the top of the hill we took turns to put a foot into the place where the early kings of the ancient Dalriada stood and were crowned.  Such power being in this place!  I stood on the raised centre of a large flat bowl with high mountains on the periphery and these mountains appeared to have their full attention on me. Did the early kings choose this place of crowning as a way to centre themselves?

Iona was another special place. Not much seems to have changed since Columba brought Christianity to Scotland. The mood here is captured so well in the writing of Fiona Macleod (‘the dream self’ alter ego of William Sharp, 19^th century Scottish writer and intellectual):

A few places in the world are held to be holy, because of the love that consecrates them and the faith which enshrines them. One such is Iona…It is but a small isle, fashioned of a little sand, a few grasses, salt with the spray of an ever-restless wave, a few rocks that wade in heather, and upon whose brows the sea-wind weaves the yellow lichen. But since the remotest days sacrosanct men have bowed here in worship. In this little island a lamp was lit whose flame lighted pagan Europe. From age to age, lowly hearts have never ceased to bring their burden here. And here Hope awaits. To tell the story of Iona, is to go back to God, and to end in God.

 Our next stop was Skye, the largest of the Inner Hebrides with its mist-laden Cuillin Hills. The Outer Hebrides followed with the Isles of Harris and Lewis and miles and miles of low-lying peat moorland and hundreds of tiny loch and tarns.  This landscape reminded me a lot of Nova Scotia. We were very fortunate to meet a remarkable woman, Margaret Curtis who has studied the Callanish stones on Lewis for decades. She and her late husband documented celestial events uniting the moon and the stones and the “Sleeping Beauty Hills” in the distance.

Callanish Standing Stones

Next we headed for Scrabster and the ferry to the Orkney mainland.  As we travelled the north coast we noticed the landscape changing – the views of empty glens and lochs and lonely cottages and grey beaches disappeared and we met villages and rolling hills and fences enclosing cattle and sheep.

On the Orkney mainland we travelled to the Neolithic village of Skara Brae, and visited also Maes Howe, a huge burial mound dated to 2500 BCE. It was amazing to see graffiti dating back to the Vikings! We also spent time at the Ring of Brodgar, an impressive circle of 36 standing stones dating from 300BCE.

Skara Brae

Our journey took us back over the water to the Scottish mainland and the Cairngorm Mountains.  On the way we stopped at the eco-village of Findhorn. We were hosted one morning by Mari Hollander, a 30 year resident of Findhorn. It was fascinating to listen to her presentation. Findhorn still attracts many different groups of people who seek to put the values of living the truth of the terconnectedness of all of life into practice. I had the impression that this community was vibrant and still sustainable after so many years.

barrel houses at Findhorn

One of Findhorn’s core activities is to teach newcomers how to connect with their own inner wisdom. The people who live here follow many diverse spiritual paths and philosophies. “How does this work?“  I asked.  The simple (and wise) answer was that there were frequent round robin “check-ins” with all the working groups. All members were encouraged to speak up and share any tensions arising in their own souls. I had the impression that Findhorn had mechanisms or release valves in place for dealing with the inevitable stresses that arise in communities with a common purpose.

Edinburgh

On to Edinburgh and the Fringe Festival (I saw three shows!) and then a stop at Rosslyn Chapel and a talk about its importance by former Waldorf high school English teacher Peter Snow.

On our last day we visited Margaret Colquhoun who is active with the Pishwanton Project in East Lothian. Using art activities and the “gently empirical” method of Goetheanism science they attempt to work with the Spirit living in landscapes. More details about this approach can be found on the project’s website:  pishwanton.com

What a joy to travel this way – “on the move” with a bus load of friends. Sure, some difficulties came up but somehow they easily evaporated as our next adventure loomed ahead.

"the wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round..."

Oh –to keep this mood, back home, of being an explorer in one’s own life!

from the YojiroTakita movie "Departures"

When I was in Japan last year I learned that many of the Japanese have relaxed “pick and choose” attitude towards aspects of organized religion.

They have an innate regard for Shintoism and its practices of connecting with the deities that they believe reside in the mountains, rivers, rocks, trees, etc of the natural world. One month after birth babies are taken to a Shinto shrine for a baptism ceremony and gratitude is expressed for a new life.

The Japanese use Christian-like rites for weddings, though many times the “priest” is an employee who dresses us for the occasion.

They like Buddhist ceremonies for the end of life. See the 2008 movie “Departures” about a Japanese out- of- work cellist who finds employment in a funeral home and finds fulfillment in learning the rituals in preparation for burials.

I have a “pick and choose” mentally, myself, for some things and I have to say that I have an appreciation for Buddhist thoughts concerning the hard things in life. After my parents died, Pema Chodron’s “When Things Fall Apart” was a great comfort.

To help with my working as a volunteer in the palliative care units of two hospitals I’m reading “Stay Close and Do Nothing” by Merrill Collett, a practitioner of Zen Buddhism and hospice caregiver. The title says everything.  I have tried this approach with the terminally ill; I walk into their rooms and I have no idea who I will meet and what I will say. By creating a space and doing nothing (not having my own agenda) I am taken on some surprising journeys.

On my last shift a few days ago I entered into the room of a dying man. The week before I had sat with him and listened to him as he explained that his daughter was arriving that afternoon from Toronto. He was so excited to be seeing her and his excitement was infectious. He showed me pictures and I hoped that I would have a chance to meet her. By the end of my shift she had still not arrived by the time I had to leave.

When I next came in I was happy to learn that the man was still a patient. I hurried into his room and there he was with his bright-eyed daughter sitting beside him;  they both seemed happy as clams as they teased  and savoured each other’s company in what they both knew was the last month of his life. I introduced myself and within a few minutes I felt part of the family.

The love that was present in that room was palatable and I ate it up!

In some mysterious way I am being fed in this kind of work.