Today's UPI column

So There I was...

At the intersection of Mental Health and Spirituality.

It seems like I spend a lot of time there these days.
It’s a busy place.

There is the church on one corner and the Psych Ward on the other. The address of the church is on Spirituality Street, but people track in dust from the Mental Health side all the time. The Hospital’s front door faces Mental Health Boulevard but so many of its windows look out onto Rue Religion.

On the other two corners are a coffee shop and a bar where people can medicate their mood one direction or another. The bartender does a lot of good therapy and the cute little barista sings a sweet little caffeine canticle. Some folks seek the sun at the outside tables of the coffee corner while others cocoon in the cool dark of the tavern. People stand on the corners with signs forecasting the end of the world, others ask for a handout.

The traffic control devices are kind of ambiguous. I have seen some tremendous crashes there. When delusion makes a bad turn and runs up the wrong side of religion, ugly things can happen. If depression happens to meet damnation, look out. But just as often, hope meets imagination and a parade forms.

A while back somebody gave me a whistle and a yellow vest and I take a turn at directing traffic now and then. You want to do that job with a little panache. You need a bit of a dance to get belief and health going in the same direction. You have to have enough of a presence to slow some people down, and get others to pick it up. You have to be able to tell a drunk from a Holy Roller, and both of them need to get across the street. You can’t be timid and you need to give the whistle a workout. But when it works the sun-worshipping coffee people applaud.

There’s always talk in the neighborhood. Lately I’ve heard a lot of talk about what is real and what is good. Every corner has their answer. The church says that God is real and love is good - pray every day. The hospital says that reality is good and that you have to cope in order to hope. The coffee people fill their cups and work up the nerve to do some real work. In the bar they tell a good joke and numb their jangled, overworked nerves. Sometimes they get real and walk from there over to the AA meeting in the church basement, where somebody is always making coffee. Individually, it’s all real, and most of it is good.

But I have noticed some things that are certifiably real and good on every corner. Everybody needs to listen and be listened to. Everybody needs a group of people who know their name. Everybody thinks somebody else is weirder than they are. Everybody needs a laugh. Everybody needs somebody to hold their hand when they cross the street.

And nobody stays on any one corner for very long.

Off for the annual "Longest day of the year - Longest ride of the year - Alivia's Birthday Run"

Heading for Crater Lake!

Today's UPI column

So There I was...

Walking the green mile.

OK, it wasn’t a mile, it just seemed like it. But the long hall down the empty corridor was a sort of turquoise green. I wasn’t actually condemned to death, though for a second grader I might as well have been. Dead little girl walking, and worse, I had to do it every Tuesday afternoon for all of second grade.

The call came at 2 p.m. every Tuesday, just before all the other kids went to recess. My teacher, Miss Cartier tried to be as subtle as possible, sidling up to my desk and whispering, “Peggy, its time.” But it didn’t matter because all the kids knew where I was going. They snickered behind their hands, and giggled as I got up from my seat and left the room. I was nervous and often managed to kick something or bump into something on the way out. Kids would stick their foot out and try to trip me if the teacher took her eyes off me. Miss Cartier didn’t let them get away with any words, but it didn’t matter, because there was after school, and before school, and other recesses to get the taunts in. I was labeled for the rest of grade school.

I was walking down to what the kids at school called the “retard room.” Even in 1965 nobody was allowed to call it that in from of teachers or staff, it was officially the classroom for the “handicapped” children. But on the playground that is what they called it, and they called me a “retard.”

I actually got to know the kids in that classroom. Some of them spent their whole days there. Some kids assigned to that class spent part of their days in a regular classroom. It was a pretty progressive school district. Some of them had physical difficulties, some had developmental difficulties, and some of them didn’t seem all that different from the kids in the regular classes.

I was pigeon-toed. Really seriously pigeon-toed. I tripped over my own feet all the time. I scuffed my Mary Janes all to death. They tried making me wear those special stiff high shoes, but they didn’t help. So I got sent to Miss Belknapp the physical rehab teacher.

Here’s what the other kids didn’t know. The long walk down the green hall was hell, but heaven was just on the other side of the door to Miss Belknapp’s room. The room was full of giant toys and gymnastics equipment. She wore sneakers and shorts while all the other teachers were in heels and dresses. She was kinda loud, and funny, and she was pretty masculine for a lady. She called me “Girly.” I didn’t know anybody else like her. But she liked me. I think she liked all her kids. When I walked in the door she welcomed me, like a beloved lost lamb. As if she were surprised to see me. As if I was the best part of her day. She was the best part of my week.

She taught me how to walk. How to turn my hips so that my toes would go straight. How to tuck in my tiny little butt so that my hips would open out. We practiced many walks, we walked like ducks, we walked like cowboys. She would have me put my hands behind my back as if they were tied and I would pretend to walk the plank – with plenty of pirate talk to go with it. We laughed a lot. Wednesday mornings during second grade I was always a little sore. I remember one day in the spring when she was pretty pleased with me and she said, “Well, we could quit now, Girly, but as long as we’ve taught you to walk straight, we might as well teach you how to walk pretty.” I did not object. Then I spent a few weeks walking like Miss America with a crown on my head. If they would have let me stay with Miss Belknapp for the three R’s I would have stayed. Miss Belknapp was my secret treasure.

There is a stanza in the Serenity prayer attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr that goes

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardship
As the pathway to peace.

I learned the truth of that every Tuesday in second grade. After the mocking there was grace. After the loneliness there was kind attention. After the pain came fun. I could have let the humiliation ruin the joy, but I didn’t. And in my memory the grace is huge and lively and the persecution is ghostly and pale.

Perspective is a choice.

So there I was ten years later, 1975, in the grocery on an errand for my mother. I whizzed around a corner in my three-inch platform sandals and mini skirt. I heard a loud voice from the back of the store yell, “Stop right there! – is that you Peggy? Peggy Senger? I executed a perfect pivot turn and faced Miss Belknapp, now a retired teacher. I grinned. She whistled a loud wolf whistle as all the patrons of the store turned and looked. “Look at that walk! Look at that pretty, humdinger of a walk! Give me a bit more, Girly!” So I gave her my best strut and then a hug, and we laughed. And she said “Well, Girly, when you walk that plank they are gonna remember the last thing they see! Go get ‘em.”

So I did.

Ok Major hat tip to Wess for the slide show thingy. Only took me all afternoon to figure it out, but I am sort of stupid proud of myself at the moment.
Peggy can cut and paste code! yes she can!

This slide show is of George Fox Secondary School in Kigali Rwanda. This school is run by Rwanda Yearly Meeting. I visited there in february and did some research for some Portland Friends about vulnerable students. I will write more about this project later, but for now feel free to look around. If you click on the picture the slide show will stop and give you info. Cool.
(sometimes it doesn't load right on the first try - hit refresh and you may get it)



Created with Paul's flickrSLiDR.

Today's UPI column (#64, by the way - when I get to 100 I am going to quit)

So There I was...

Sliding across the Bridge of the Gods.

Spanning the mighty Columbia River a short ride east of Portland, Oregon, this bridge connects the states of Oregon and Washington at the approximate site where Geologists and Native Americans agree there once was a stone land bridge that eventually fell into to the river.

Falling into the river was also a concern of mine that day. I had never motorcycled this route before, so the sign stating that the bridge had a metal grate deck was a surprise to me, and the sign was not visible until it was too late to make any other choice but to cross.

Here is the problem with motorcycles and metal grating. The bike has about four square inches of each tire that contact the road at any time. That is eight square inches of grip altogether. Metal grating reduces those eight inches to a few tiny strips of metal. It is not enough grip. All traction is lost. It is like riding on ice. If all other things are equal and the grating is limited, then inertia is your friend, and if you just hang on, relax and trust, the bike will continue forward without much deviation until you get solid pavement back. You do not dare steer, brake or accelerate.

All things were not equal on the bridge of the Gods that day. I was traveling north to south and the winds coming up the Columbia Gorge from the west were about 30 miles per hour steady, with gusts exceeding that by a good bit. Without traction the winds were steadily pushing me to the left, towards the oncoming traffic. I had just enough warning to enter the grated section at the far right edge of a bridge that is 35 feet wide – 17.5 feet for me, 17.5 feet for the other guys. At that point it was a Hail Mary situation. Would my speed get me across the grate before the wind pushed me into the path of a semi?

That was when I made the mistake of looking down, past my feet, through the grate, and 150 feet down to the water. My head started to swim and I snapped my eyes back up to the road. An oncoming Winnebago was laying on its horn. As my tire touched the centerline, the grate ended and I had enough traction to correct my course. I coasted down to the tollbooth at the foot of this deathtrap. I was shaking badly enough as I tried to fumble into the pockets of my leathers to find the fifty cents required, that the toll taker shook her head and waved me on. I had the feeling she had seen rattled bikers before.

Spiritual lives can also lose traction. We can loose our connection with the ground. We can get all slip slidey. Think about the places where the rubber meets the road in your life. They are not usually the most pleasant places. Friction is implied in traction. But those are the placed that keep you grounded that give you the option of relative control.

I find that if I surround myself only with people who agree with me, that I start to lose my moorings. I feel my connection to God in a very real way when I am around people who don’t share my experience of God. This is spiritual traction.

I need a regular connection with people honest enough to let me know when my spiritual slip is showing or I have spinach in my teeth. We have all seen the hard public lessons of those who surround themselves with sycophants. Honest friends supply traction.

I lose traction when I get disconnected from the real physical needs of the least among us. I have learned that I cannot fix all the problems that I see. But I can do something, every day, every week, every month, to address those problems. Real, fulfilling work increases traction.

All of these conditions describe places where the road falls below the minimum required grippiness. Sometimes the warning signs are there; sometimes we learn the hard way and mark our own mental maps for the danger.

We have to pay attention to the road because our culture has some prevailing winds: rabid individualism, materialism, affluenza, addiction to addictions. It does not matter how big my spiritual engine is, how strong my personal braking system is, if I am not grounded, the prevailing winds will push me out of my chosen lane, and that oncoming Winnebago will show up, horn blaring.

Last Tuesday's upi - I am going to catch up - really I am

So There I was...
In the convent chapel. Listening to the sisters of the Queens of Angels Monastery singing the evening praise. Tonight I was just listening. This is hard to do because the sisters are so hospitable that if you do not take a book of prayer out of the rack, they will assume that you don’t know where they are and will get you one. If you have a book and do not open it, they will assume that you cannot find the right page and they will try and help you. As a Quaker, a severely unliturgical heathen, I do have trouble with the book. Sometimes, the seasons, the days, songs and psalms and magnificats, get a little overwhelming. I do ok with the “Our Father,” I have even picked up the “Hail Mary” although they don’t seem to use that one so much in group worship. I once said a full Novena, just to see if I could do it, and to see how it felt.

But sometimes I just like to close my eyes and listen. The sisters read a piece of the Book of Psalms out loud every day. The service has a brief reading from somewhere in the New Testament, but a big chunk of King David’s lyrics daily. I wonder what he thinks of their rendition. I wonder if he wishes he was getting residuals – well maybe he is.

There is something eerie about the voices of a couple of dozen gentle, kind, often elderly women, intoning the imprecatory psalms. They put very little emotion into the words. David used many of his words to curse his enemies; swords in their hearts, destruction, wrath, revenge. The sisters give voice to these sentiments rather unsentimentally. I have never seen them flinch at even the most embarrassing parts – smashing the heads of the enemies’ babies on rocks, etc. To their credit they do not seem very inflated when they read David’s words making the tenuous case for his own righteousness, either. They just speak these words out into the air, a display of the best and worst of the human condition, as if to say “Hey, God, look at us – this is what we are – what are you going to do with us?”

Due to a trip to Africa, an illness, and a few other things I have not been out to the monastery for six months. This has been the longest lapse in ten years of mostly monthly visits. I try and get out for a 24-hour retreat. I spend an hour or two with a Benedictine Spiritual Director, trying to take an honest look at my own spiritual condition and whatever notion God is attempting to squeeze into my feeble heart, brain and soul at any given time. Then I spend the rest of the time resting, or praying, or doing anything except my normal work and worry. It is good for me.

They don’t like to let me work, although there is work to do out there, and they all work as part of the Benedictine Rule. My Spiritual Director thinks that I am rather bad at Sabbath, and she is right, so I rest. She also doesn’t ask me to keep silence as often as some. She thinks that as a Quaker I am probably good that this – which is not quite so true. But some of the sisters enjoy my dinner table tales of modest adventure, so I serve in my own way.

This trip out, after such a break, I was itchy. The American allergy to stillness and disconnect had me all but in hives. No ipod, no computer, no phone, no TV. No to-do lists, no calendar book, no demands on my time or attention. It is exactly what I wanted and needed and it about drove me crazy. What happened next was predictable. I crashed. Right after dinner I laid down on my bed for a minute and fell asleep, in my clothes on top of the bedcovers, and I slept like that for fourteen hours. I was not sleep deprived, I am a good sleeper – nine hours almost nightly, but My brain just couldn’t stay conscious and do nothing. It was a shock to my system. My dreams were vivid, and many, but confused and mildly disturbing.

I woke up, had coffee and did some praying and writing. Then with my Spiritual director’s blessing, I took off a couple of hours early. I got back on my motorcycle and tripled the miles between the Monastery and home. The sisters like it when I bring the bike. They get a kick out of seeing it parked in front of their home, makes people wonder, I guess.

I left so much better than I came. It is kind of a Roto-rooter for my soul. Sometimes I fly out there desperate for the break. Sometime I have to pull myself away and make myself go. It is a discipline. The Spiritual Discipline of Retreat. I have found that no matter how good I get at listening to God’s Spirit in everyday life, that I regularly need to completely disconnect in order to reboot my hard drive. Stuff just runs better.

I recommend disengagement. You cannot spiritually advance without some kind of regular retreat. It may seem counter-intuitive, but it is true. It can take many forms, and you don’t need the vocational religious,
fun though they are.

But you need it. Ask your soul.