The Smells of Home

Well, actually, they aren't all good ones. Dog pee in carpet does not tend to bring tears of joy to my eyes! But the smells of fall in Michigan are luscious and help me to be grateful for home. Re-entering after being gone so long is awkward and tiring. Yet how can I be anything but grateful? I have a home to come to. It is relatively peaceful, if you don't count the little yapper I'm hearing just now. It is warm and cozy, even if a bit cluttered and dirty. And modest though it is, it is more luxurious than that of millions, billions, of people in this world. So I give thanks, especially for the smell of wet leaves on the ground, of wood burning stoves, and even of pee from a sweet little dog.

But dear young friends who share this fair city, are struggling, terrorized, because a young man was murdered a block from their home. How does one feel safe in such a place? The evil perpetrated by the shooter only begins with taking a life, horrible as that is. It ripples out into the whole community, adding to the cumulative evil that is always there, but is highlighted by events such as this one. The evil of ripping away a life, of devastating loved ones left behind, of igniting powerful and understandable fear, even panic, among the neighbors, of destroying young people's dreams, of wasting community resources to find and prosecute and institutionalize the killer, and on and on it goes. One act on the part of one person and he/she has caused all sorts of evil repercussions. The evil didn't begin with the shooter either, so it goes backward and forward, bringing untold ramifications in the lives of countless people.

When I hold this horrid event up against the days of peace and beauty I have just been privileged to experience, I know not what to think or how to feel. There is evil where I was, too. It is everywhere and it is when something hits close to home that we are forced to acknowledge it. We are not forced, however, to give it power over us, hard as that is to do. It is there, at the place where decisions must be made, that I ask for God's help. Help us to hold fast to the good, to the just, to the beautiful. Help us to face evil and tell it to go to hell. Help us to love one another in whatever ways are most kind and healing. Help us!! Someone said all prayer could be summed up in these four words: "Wow", "Help", "Please" and "Thanks". That may not be accurate, but for today at least, those are my prayers.

Let's not forget to breathe--deeply and gratefully.

Leaving Ghost Ranch

This is my last day at the Ranch for this time. Tomorrow morning we will pack my bags in a Ghost Ranch van and I'll leave the mesa for Santa Fe.

While I have been in this "dwelling place", I have met many interesting people. From where? Connecticut, Hawaii, California,
Arizona, New Jersey, North Carolina, Florida, Kansas, New Mexico, and Texas--at least. Not to mention the wonderful ranch staff --from the cooks, to the housekeepers, to the maintenance guys, to program, gift shop and front desk people, to the many volunteers who do such things as keeping Casa del Sol, the library, the front desk, the two Museums, the elder hostel program, and countless other things running smoothly. I am grateful to and for them all, including Debra, the GR Director.

I have watched a large group of men flying kites in the alfalfa field, a 40 year old horse named Lady roam freely on the grounds, a group of burros who live wild in the desert out toward Casa del Sol. I've seen birds and little varmits and deer and heard the howls of coyotes. I've interacted with sun, wind, rain, earth. And I've looked deeply into the universe through the most amazingly brilliant darkness I could ever imagine. I have laughed heartily and I have cried with abandon, realizing once again how much I miss my husband. I have written and prayed and listened and shared. It has been a truly whole experience, here in a mysterious place, laden with all kinds of history and legend and the bluest sky there is! How grateful I am for these days, this land, these people, and the time and space to see, hear, smell, touch and taste God in every bit of it.

Dwelling in the Desert

I have now been in the desert of NW New Mexico for nine days. I led a week-long retreat with eight other interesting people--5 women, 3 men; one couple was married; one person has dementia, as well as hearing and vision loss and was a joy. They were from NM, NJ, FL, NC and KN and represented five Christian denominations. Four were clergy; four were lay. It was lovely to have such diversity, albeit we were all caucasian and middle to upper middle class.

Several evenings we sat around the fire pit, gazing at the incredible part of the universe visible to us here. The Milky Way wafted across a huge expanse of sky behind "billions and billions of stars", as Carl Sagan used to say. The first time, after we sat in spontaneous silence for a while, one woman softly started to sing "For the Beauty of the Earth" and one by one we joined her. Later, we sang "How Great Thou Art". Nothing we could say, sing or even think could begin to describe the sight and our feelings about it.

A couple of mornings, I heard people say, "What we saw last night is still out there, we just can't see it." We can't see it because we are turned toward "our" star, whose light blinds us to anything beyond it. Food for thought, n'est pas? Considering our knowledge about our place in the solar system, don't you think it's odd that we continue to speak of the sun rising and setting? Is it not this little earth, that spins daily and travels around the sun each year? So we turn toward it and away from it every day and yet we arrogantly speak of its rising and setting.

Just a part of many thoughts as I begin this second week in a new dwelling atop a mesa above the main Ghost Ranch campus. The silence is palpable. My heart is full. "How lovely is Thy dwelling place" indeed!!

Tomorrow I head for a "home place"--one of several to which I repeatedly return. This one, Ghost Ranch, has a lively history and offers a place of such spaciousness, I can scarcely comprehend it. Each time I'm there, I grow somewhat tired of its remote and empty feeling. I long to go "home" to Michigan. And, each time I go home to Michigan, I feel a magnetic pull to return to "the ranch".

While I'm out there, I know I will experience a myriad of thoughts and feelings. I will meet new people and renew acquaintances with those who live there permanently. I'll pet the burros, walk the labyrinth surrounded by high stone mesas, eat good New Mexican food in the ranch dining room, curl up in the wonderful library with more than one book, and walk--a lot.

I'll gaze in awe at the night sky, so incredibly dark and brightly illumined with light which has traveled eons of time to greet my wondering eyes. The strata of colors in the rock faces tell the story of more eons--earth time. And my little life, my little body, my little soul, will seem infintesimally minute, yet precious. What an honor to know one is part of such a mysterious and amazing creation! What a privilege to have a mind to be able to notice and appreciate, if not understand, it all.

I hope to write more from there in the days ahead, to share some of the joy of participating in a home place, one which both welcomes me and doesn't need me in the least. "How lovely is Your dwelling place, O Lord of Hosts." Psalm 84: 1

Our children need nature and nature needs them

I'm promoting the Fourth Annual Norris Ingells Walk for Nature and here's one of the reasons why.

In church this morning, the priest asked the kids what was the most wonderful thing they'd ever seen in creation. (He had been referring to sunrises, etc.) Only one child answered and she said, "Disney World." He responded with respect and understanding, but it wasn't the answer he was looking for. He was trying to show how children see the world with fresh eyes, with excitement and delight. And of course they do that at Disney World, too. But what a commentary on our current life, that the most exciting, impressive thing is a copy of the inexpressibly wonderful creation we live within and are part of.

I also watched most of the National Parks series on PBS this past week. As usual, Ken Burns did a superb job of teaching, impressing, inspiring, encouraging. Friends, if our children lose their ability to fall in love with the natural world, to be curious about all that lies around them, near and far, we are doomed. I believe it is that serious.

So, of course I want people to go to the Walk because it's in honor of the man I love! But more than anything else, I want us to hand down the mantle of caring for this earth, so that our children and their children will love and cherish and preserve it. Others before us did this, often at great personal sacrifice. We must not drop this mantle.

Saturday, October 17, 2009 - 10-11 a.m. - Fenner Nature Center, 2020 E. Mt. Hope, Lansing. Register in advance at http://fenner.homestead.com/events/norris_ingells.html