The trees help

Our retirement community has an asset in being located above Hess Creek Canyon. A trail leads from the central building down to and around the canyon. It’s not a long trail, perhaps close to a quarter mile as it circles the creek, a bridge on both the north and south ends. Oregon trees, both evergreen and deciduous, line the creek and border the trail. Numerous beasts—squirrels, birds, deer, and, at one point, beavers—graze the meadows, scamper and chase each other, or sing from the tree tops. It’s a place of refuge for humans as well as animals. Old humans and beasts of all ages.

Sometimes I walk briskly, for exercise. Other times I meander and meditate. (The latter is, frankly, my favorite.) At all times it’s become a place I love.

I’ve also made it a habit to do prayer walks on our trail. These are slow walks with frequent stops. I’ve developed a pattern, using different “stations” along the trail to pray for certain things.

I took a prayer walk this morning. As I approached the trail I attended to the presence of God. I asked Jesus to teach me to pray. I prepared my spirit.

Here’s my pattern. At the first station, the bench on the path heading to the north bridge, I stop to pray for my family, naming my son and daughter and their spouses, speaking the needs of each grandchild, then opening the eyes of my heart to any extended family member. I spent special time this morning praying for our nephew Josh whose cancer appears to be fatal.

The second station is the north bridge, a lovely spot right over the creek as it gurgles and sparkles below me. There I pray for people in this retirement community—residents, staff administration, and board members. This morning I lifted up my friend who has just lost her husband, and another friend in the health center who is approaching the end of life. These are both experiences I’ve not had (yet), so in addition to praying for my friends, I asked God for wisdom as I accompany them.

At the third station I sit on the bench beyond the bridge and around the bend to pray for the church, for the members of my Sunday school class in particular, and for unity among the congregations in the larger community. At the fourth station, another bench, I ask God to bring to mind any people not included in the previous stations. I linger a little longer at the fifth station on the south bridge because my concern there is for the local community, the nation, and the world. Yes, that’s altogether too much to pray for at once. So I pray about any matter that swims to the top of my mind. Then I walk back up the hill to the trail head, praising and thanking God for his sovereignty and goodness.

I have another prayer walk pattern that focuses on the nation and the world, and even then the trail’s not long enough. In another pattern I lift up my personal needs and dreams; that walk’s about renewal.

I hesitate to post this because it almost sounds like I’m a super-spiritual prayer guru. I’m not. One of the reasons I take these walks, other than my need to connect with trees, is that prayer has been so hard for me lately. I sit in the chair with good intentions and go to sleep. Or I find myself off in some fantastic day dream. Walking the trail and praying keep me grounded and help me attend to what I’m supposed to be doing. So I do it, not because I’m such a strong prayer warrior or whatever, but because I need help as I try to pray.

The trees help.

Sneaky Peeks: a childhood memory

Remembering is one of the primary tasks of growing older. Not nostalgia, but a gathering of the memories of a lifetime of adventures, hardships, challenges, failures, and triumphs. And of the relationships that formed us.

Memories are not just the stuff of the past, but part of our inner life in the present. Joan Chittister tells us that

The wonder of being able to see life as a whole, at any time and at all times, is the great gift of memory. It makes all of life a piece in progress. With one part of the soul in the past and another in the present, we are able to go on stitching together a life that has integrity and wholeness. Because of memory life is not simply one isolated act after another. It all fits into the image of the self and the goals of the heart. It makes them real. It makes them whole. (The Gift of Years)

Painful memories show us inner work and healing that still needs to take place in order to fully live into today. Joyful or funny memories help us be thankful.

Several years ago I made it my practice to write into my journal concrete memories of events, people, animals, and places (etc.) from the past. An interesting thing—one memory causes another to bubble up out of the subconscious. Collecting these has been helpful and healthy. Sometimes a memory is painful; sometimes it makes me laugh; many times it stimulates gratitude. I’m seeing the patterns and coming to understand myself better.

Following is one of these concrete memories from childhood. It reminds me of the gifts our parents gave us three kids: a lively curiosity, a passion for learning, and a love of reading. The memory also reminds me of the mischief my brother, sister, and I often got into.

Well, here goes:

 

Sneaky Peeks

My parents were Good Readers.
They had Good Taste,
and volumes of Great Books
filled the bookcases of our home.
Some of the Great Books also
had Great Pictures, and we three kids
liked to look at these, with our parents’ permission.
Being very careful, we would thumb through
The Brothers Karamazov, Ancient Chinese Poetry,
 and Don Quixote de la Mancha, fascinated, guessing
what the stories might be about

One day we made a Find.
Tucked among the Great Books
we found a collection of literary essays
from Playboy Magazine
(about which we knew nothing).
It was mostly words, but here and there,
scattered between the essays, were cartoons.
We didn’t understand the captions,
but the drawings
made us laugh. All these
naked grown-ups—both men and women—gamboling
about in fields
(“gambol” is the only verb that works here),
doing strange things.
Who could have thought this up?
It was both informative and hilarious.
We instinctively knew we must keep
this viewing pleasure a secret from our parents, and so
we found a hiding place in the bookcase.

One afternoon Mom popped in to find out
what we were laughing about. She saw the book.
She quietly left the room. I worried we might be in trouble.
But neither of our parents said anything.
The book, however, mysteriously disappeared.
We never saw it again.

The splinter

 We’ve been doing grandparent duty for the last ten days while our daughter, son-in-law, and their two older children go diving in the ocean off Honduras. The youngest grandchild, Peter, is 14 and on the autism spectrum. Like most people with autism, he needs to control his environment. One of the more difficult places for environment control is beneath the surface of the ocean. So there was no way Peter wanted to go on this dive.

Which meant we got to spend all this time with him, something we enjoy. We went on some mild adventures, played a lot of games, watched some good movies, swam in the pool, and read. That is, when Peter wasn’t on his iPhone or one of his computers. He is a genius (in my opinion) at computer technology, the one we go to with our technical problems.

During our stay, we also fed and played with the beasts (two large dogs, three cats, and one tortoise), and watered the multitude of outdoor flowers. They live in the middle of a forest and so we were outdoors a lot. Not surprisingly, one day I picked up a splinter in the bottom of my foot.

And that’s what this story is about.

The splinter was so tiny I couldn’t see it, partly because looking at something on the bottom of my foot is challenging at best. It was tiny but fierce. It made its presence known. I hobbled around for two days, not saying anything, thinking it might come out on its own. I’m not a fan of the process of removing splinters, especially in a sensitive area.

But after two days and no relief I knew I had to act responsibly, so I said to Hal, “I’m going to need your help with something.”

Always kind and concerned, Hal assembled his tools, and I knew I was in trouble. Tweezers, a needle, a knife, and a small flashlight. The flashlight didn’t bother me. He had me sit on a chair with my foot elevated on another chair near a light-powered lamp. He sterilized my foot and his equipment and got to work.

As it turned out, he couldn’t see it either. With the flashlight between his teeth, he had to poke around until I yelped. Over and over. He scraped, prodded, and pulled for an hour, while I practiced the same breathing exercises I had used years ago during labor pains. The breathing sort of helped. I kept thinking, “How can this thing be so tiny and hurt so much?”

After an hour we were both exhausted and needed a break. Hal went to a pharmacy to buy Epsom salts for our next approach. The soak in hot water felt delicious. But afterward the painful spot persisted. We tried soaking it again several hours later, and at the end my foot was numb so I felt no pain. The painless state persisted even after my foot regained feeling. I’ve been pain-free for several days now, and we believe the thing is gone, probably dissolved. Or maybe it loosened up and swam out into the salty water. We’re telling ourselves that the agonizing hour of scraping and poking and tweezing helped prepare the flesh for letting go, and the soak provided the opportunity. But, what do we know?

The next day, in the early hours of the morning, I was remembering Hal’s stoical yet gentle persistence, doing what I know for him was an unpleasant task. He knew he was hurting me, yet he also knew it needed to be done. The truth is, I don’t think I could have done the same for him. I’m too squeamish and can’t stand the thought of giving pain to others. Even when it’s the right thing to do. It made me very thankful for him.

As a poet, I went metaphorical, of course, and started to think about all the splinters in life, especially in the process of growing older. This old growth forest is full of splinters. And not all the pains and challenges we feel are easily extracted, if at all. But there is One by our side who is strong, patient, and good, who accompanies us even in “the valley of the shadow of death.”

Belief in the goodness of God isn’t the same as being Pollyanna-ish. The valley of the shadow is real. Evil exists in the world. Sometimes we make bad choices and pay the consequences. And, as the saying goes, “Growing old is not for sissies.”

And yet…there is One beside us. And there is more ahead.

Julian of Norwich’s famous words depict a reality beyond splinters, old age, and even death: “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.” Yes.

Hansel, Gretel, and I enter the forest

 I was seven years old when I discovered I was a poet. My dad was a writer, so I knew words were good. One evening I was playing around with a tablet and a pencil, trying to do what my dad did. Writing. I began a poem with the words, “This is a story by Nancy Forsythe.” Then, knowing that poems had to rhyme, I tried to think of a word that rhymed with Forsythe. Very few words do. I finally came up with “knife,” and the second line seemed to flow from the first: “about a boy and his dangerous knife.” The rest of the words came quickly as I focused on bouncing and rhyming, with little thought about content. The end result was a poem about a serial killer. That bounced and rhymed.

I showed the poem to my dad and he seemed thrilled with it. (I would have sent my kid to a counselor.) I saw that I was on to something good and decided then and there that I was a poet.

That was 70 years ago. Poetry remains my vocation. Not that I was actively writing all those years. I spent a lot of time learning how to grow up, how to be married, how to get along in the world, and other stuff like that. I wrote off and on, and as time passed, I was more on than off. Even published a few books of poetry. Now that I’m older, writing—poetry in particular—has become more important as a way of being in this world. It’s helping me find my path through this old growth forest we call aging.

Around 15 years ago at a writers workshop, the leader gave a prompt to choose a contemporary figure of speech and write a poem, taking the metaphor literally. I chose the metaphor, “coming unglued,” imagining a person with body parts literally sliding off. It was gruesome, but I do have that side to my personality.

I began the poem in a spirit of play, finding the idea funny. But once into it, the poem turned serious. Sort of dark and scary. I recognized that it had morphed into the old fairy story of Hansel and Gretel, and they were about to enter the dark forest. Then I realized that this story was really about Hal and me. And it was, indeed, scary.

At the time I was in my early sixties, starting to notice the ebbing of energy, the loss of flexibility, and the slow malfunction of body parts. Old age had always described other people—grandparents and elders and wrinkled relatives. It was never something that applied to me, although of course I realized that I would, someday, get old and die.

But someday was coming closer. What the poem was really about was the fear of growing old, with all the possible physical and mental deterioration implied. Fear for myself and fear of what might happen to Hal.

Here’s the poem: 

Coming of Age

"It's all right," he assured me
as his ear slid
slowly
down the side
of his face.
His right index finger dropped
off
next.
He had always
known this would happen
someday.
His hairline had begun
to recede
years before.
We walked out of
the room
single
file.
I stumbled on
his left
foot.
He hobbled ahead,
scattering appendages
like
bread
crumbs.
About twilight
we entered the forest.

The poem was actually helpful in that it made me recognize my fear and try to face it. And now that I’m in the middle of this old growth forest, I don’t find it all that spooky. Light streams through the trees, brooks make their musical sounds, and unexpected meadows surprise. There are shadows, too, and beasts that don’t seem friendly. That’s only to be expected.

All this to say that I’ve come to peace with being older (on most days). Living in this retirement center helps, not only because of the activities and entertainments it offers, but more because of my neighbors, courageous women and men who still find life an adventure, no matter the challenges. And I maintain close contact with my younger family and friends. This is not a monastery or convent, but a place to live out the reminder of our time as best we can. Before the next great adventure begins.

PS: I still have all my limbs.

A wide-angle lens and a blessing

 One of the privileges of aging is acquiring a wide-angle lens in the camera of our memories. We can see from the back (sometimes way back) to the tomorrows in the family line. The march of the generations comes into sharper focus. And we come to appreciate the wisdom of the Preacher in Ecclesiastes: “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven” (3:1).

There is a time to be born, says the Preacher, and a time to die, in addition to a time for all the other important life events. The ancient Israelites commemorated the Big Stuff by erecting stone altars of remembrance. We become like rock collectors, erecting stone altars in our memories for births, weddings, more births, and, of course, deaths. And the generations march on. Soon we’ll be another memory to our loved ones (hopefully a good memory).

“A time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance.” We weep and mourn in the season of death. But we laugh and dance at weddings.

This passing of seasons, times, and generations became especially poignant for me this last weekend. Gwen Amahoro Thomas married Matthew Burgi. Gwen is our granddaughter, third child of our son.

In the weeks before the wedding I remembered our wedding 53 years ago, its simplicity and celebration, and what a new stage of life it initiated. I remembered the weddings of our son and daughter, weddings which marked another transition, not just for the new families, but for us as parents of married kids. We were very involved in the weddings of both kids, in planning, helping write the vows and blessings, even in actually officiating in our capacity as pastors. That created a huge stone of memory.

But there’s something different about the wedding of a grandchild. For one thing, we weren’t involved in the details of planning; that was the privilege of their parents. The clothes were similar, but different too. My best friend made my wedding dress, plus the matching gowns of my two bridesmaids. My daughter spent “big bucks” on her gorgeous wedding dress, which made her look like a southern belle. My granddaughter Gwenie purchased her wedding gown at a thrift store and had it altered to fit. I love it!

The ceremony and following reception were, indeed, times of laughter and dancing. Hal and I didn’t dance at our wedding; Friends disapproved. Matt and Gwen waltzed, but then the real dancing began with all sorts of lively rhythms and movements, including line-dancing. If I didn’t have dizzy-issues, I would have joined; Hal is still a “good Quaker.”

The bride and groom had asked two sets of grandparents to participate in the wedding. (Again, the generations!) Matt’s grandparents, Phil and Kay Burgi, read the Scriptures. Hal and I got to read the blessing.

I wrote life-blessings for each of my seven grandchildren before they were born. And now I’m beginning to write marriage blessings. This one was on behalf of the extended family and friends of the couple. We read it at the beginning of the ceremony, right after David and Debby “gave away” their daughter.

 

A Wedding Blessing
for Matt and Gwen
July 29, 2022

What an exciting and blesséd time this is.
We’ve watched you gradually grow from friendship to love
and now to marriage.

This is only the beginning.

We, your family and friends, bless you on this day
with our prayers that God grant you…. 

--a determination to always have Jesus as the heart of your home,

--an increasing joy as you come to know each other
better through the years and the freedom
to always be yourselves with each other,

--a spirit of fun and play, no matter
the circumstances you find yourselves in,

--lots of plants and pets that co-exist in harmony
 (meaning the pets don’t eat the plants),

--an abundance of creativity that serves and blesses the world—
whether poems or paintings, windmills or water-purifying plants,

--respect and good communication,
the willingness to say “I’m sorry,” as well as “I love you,”

--wisdom and joy as parents, according to God’s plans,

--a growing love for each other that expands
into compassion for and service to
people around the world, wherever God may send you.

What an adventure you’re on!
Know that God accompanies you at each stage of the journey.
And know that we, your family and friends,
will continue to support you, pray for you, and bless you
with our love.

[With love from Grandma and Grandpa Thomas,
on behalf of many]

                                                   Sisters

                    David, Debby, Gwen, Matt, Gwenie's siblings

The benefits of invisibility

Peek-a-boo, I see you. My dad would grab me from behind the chair and I would giggle hilariously. It felt good to be seen.

I grew up, of course. My dad is no longer with us and, if he were, we probably would not be playing hide-n-seek.

We want to be seen, and one of the hardships of growing older is that so often the stereotype of “old person” plus the values of our youth culture can cause us to become invisible. At least we’re often tempted to feel that no one sees us anymore.

I’m currently reading a book entitled, How To Disappear: Notes on Invisibility in a Time of Transparency (2019). The author, Akiko Busch, presents the challenge of our culture that inordinately values visibility. She writes, “Visibility has become the common currency of our time, and the twin circumstances of social media and the surveillance economy have redefined the way we live…. It has become routine to assume that the rewards of life are public and that our lives can be measured by how we are seen rather than what we do.” People on the margins of society—due to ethnicity, poverty, age, gender, and other factors—can experience a sense of erasure under this set of values. Invisibility.

But Busch goes on to elaborate on the positive counter-cultural values of invisibility. In the introduction, she describes a time she entered a forest, found a suitable tree, climbed it, then quietly and deliberately tried to make herself invisible in order to observe the wildlife. It took time and patience, but she saw things she would never have seen under any other conditions. Of that experience she writes, “I am reminded of the grace of reticence, the power of discretion, and the possibility of being utterly private and autonomous yet deeply aware of and receptive to the world.” This experience becomes an extended metaphor for the benefits of invisibility in life outside the forest.

On the value of intentional invisibility, Busch says, “A reduced sense of visibility does not necessarily constrain experience. Associated with greater empathy and compassion, invisibility directs us toward a more humanitarian view of the larger world. This diminished status can, in fact, sustain and inform—rather than limit—our lives. Going unrecognized can, paradoxically, help us recognize our place in the larger scheme of things.”

Retiring from our profession, recognition, or even the central place we held in our family provides the opportunity to cultivate the inner life. As Busch believes, embracing invisibility can mature us into greater empathy, compassion, and wisdom. It reminds me of C.S. Lewis’ description of heaven in The Last Battle as a place that is much larger and splendid on the inside than it is on the outside.

I see another, not nearly as grand, benefit of invisibility. It’s related to Busch’s experience in the forest, hiding in the tree. And that is—my invisibility greatly enhances my vocation of being a spy.

One of the things I love about living in this retirement community is discovering my neighbors as the interesting, experienced, and funny people they really are. Since I’m better at listening than I am at talking, I’m able to overhear many fascinating conversations. Here’s a sample of some overheard comments: “What I hate about aging is my jiggling arms. I try to buy things that hide it, but my clothes don’t work that way.” “If I bought all the insurance I should buy, I’d have to live under a bridge.” “What I hate about this walker is that it destroys my dream of skipping down the halls. I used to skip a lot.”

Sitting in the auditorium, waiting for some event to begin, I overheard the gentleman behind me ask this riddle of his friend: Question—"What sound does an aging sea lion make?” Answer—“AARP! AARP!” If I hadn’t been hiding up in my tree, I wouldn’t have heard that riddle.

A recognition of the benefits of invisibility doesn’t negate the very human need both to see and to be seen. I think these are part of our being created in the image of God.

I don’t want to over-emphasize the invisibility of older people. While there is truth to this experience, it’s not the only thing going on. We are all visible to some people—family members (although not always) or close friends—even as we’re friendly to many others, people who could become close friends as we come to know (see) them better. Maybe we should be content with that small circle of people who see us, which is of great value.

And there is One who sees us to the core of who we are. And cares about us.

I love that strange Bible story about Hagar, the Egyptian slave girl. Hagar was the epitome of an invisible person. A foreigner, a slave, and a female. She served as servant to Sarai, Abram’s wife. Sarai, being barren, gave Hagar to Abram as a concubine. Did Abram even know her name? He used her in order to produce an heir. When Hagar foolishly bragged about her pregnancy, an infuriated Sarai abused her to the point she ran away into the desert.

There in desert, Hagar experienced complete isolation, a brutal kind of invisibility. But there was One who saw her. An angel of the Lord found her, conversed with her, promised her survival and many descendants, then sent her back home. Once again alone, Hagar prayed, “You are the God who sees me.” She then said, “I have now seen the One who sees me” (Genesis 16).

Psalm 33 says, “The eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him, on those whose hope is in his unfailing love….”

It may seem like we older folks are invisible to many, but that’s not the whole story.

There is One who sees us.

A gradual process of erasure

I’m part of a book club with good selections and lively discussions (that don’t always stick to the book). Our reading for this month was Kristin Harmel’s The Book of Lost Names, an historical novel based on the people who forged documents to help Jewish children escape capture by the Nazis. The book deals with the problem of a person’s identity being lost or “erased.”

In the first part of the story, the protagonist, now an older woman, has this encounter with a younger co-worker in the library:

“Mrs. Abrams?” It’s Jenny again, addressing me by my surname, though I’ve told her a thousand times to call me Eva, just as she addresses the younger librarians by their given names. But alas, I am nothing to her but an old lady. One’s reward for marching through the decades is a gradual process of erasure.

While Eva is obviously not a Jewish child being given a false identity, erasure happens in other spheres of life. Old age is one of them.

Erasure leads to invisibility. A gradual slide into invisibility is a challenge of growing older.

I remember my first hint that this would someday be my experience. My pastor—a funny, intelligent, and very outgoing man—said the hardest part of aging for him was becoming invisible the moment he stepped out of his home. A youth-oriented culture stereotypes people in different ways, “old man” and “old lady” being examples. “Old man” and “old lady” don’t have names, just white hair, wrinkles, and maybe a cane or a walker. Easily overlooked.

This may be changing somewhat, due to an aging population that makes up a greater number of voters. At certain times in the political calendar, candidates running for office see us. Sort of. And numerous TV adds attest to the value of aging consumers. I’m not sure if this means actually seeing older people or merely tweaking the stereotype.

In a sense I’ve been invisible a good part of my life, due to being an introvert. Especially as an adolescent and young woman, I was painfully shy, hardly daring to speak up in a class or group of over three people. No kidding. I remember once at the end of a church party, a friend ran into me at the door and exclaimed, “Nancy! Have you been here the whole time?” I had been. And it wasn’t a big party. That remark has stayed with me.

Through the years I gained experience and a measure of social confidence. In short, I grew up, got married, had a career, and somewhere along the way stopped being invisible. But now that I’m growing older, a different kind of invisibility is raising its ghostly head.

I talked with some of my friends here in the retirement community. The moment I asked the question, “Do you ever feel invisible?” I got emphatic Yeses. One friend told me, “When I went to Paris as a young woman, men ogled me. When I went back a few years ago, no one even noticed I was there.” To combat invisibility, this friend wears bright colors and talks to as many people as she can. This comes naturally to her as an extrovert, but she still feels invisible at times.

Novelist Ayelet Waldman said in an interview, “…I’m used to being taken seriously professionally. And suddenly, it’s like I just vanished from the room. And I have to yell so much louder to be seen…. I just want to walk down the street and have someone notice that I exist.”

Living in a retirement community such as ours helps. Since all of us are more or less in the same age group (roughly 70-100, quite a range!), we don’t need to feel alienated because of age. At least from each other. But even that’s not always true. Another friend told me that because she is not part of the Friends Church, the group that founded this retirement community, she often feels invisible, noting all the long-time relationships and shared values among the Quaker population. She often goes to the local coffee shop when she wants to engage in conversations and feel “normal” again.

Several have told me that the sense of invisibility is most painful when it happens in the context of the extended family. One of my neighbors told me of a recent multi-generational family reunion where the younger generation totally ignored her. It was as if she wasn’t in the room. She confronted her erasure by walking around and speaking with each youngster.

I understand. As a child I sang the old song, “Over the river and through the woods to Grandmother’s house we go,” and imagined that when I became old, Grandpa and I would host holiday dinners and be the center of the expanding circles of the generations.

That’s not how it happened. Our apartment here in the retirement center barely has room for small dinner parties. As the family grew and kids married and had their own kids, the center shifted. We are no longer in the middle, which is right and good. But it doesn’t always feel good. We increasingly find ourselves on the periphery. Sometimes we feel more like relatives than family. We’re visible only when someone makes the effort and actually looks at us.

Why is the invisibility of aging so painful? Maybe it’s because we’re still fully human beings and we want to be seen as such. We want to be known as we really are. The stereotypes make that difficult. Changes in family structure make it difficult. Changes in the way we look and the ways our bodies work (or don’t work) make it difficult.

I love that old movie, Avatar, a fantasy about life on a distant moon. I especially enjoy the idealist depiction of relationships between the inhabitants. The way friends greet each other is by looking into each other’s eyes and saying, “I see you.”

I see you. Whatever our age, we need people to see us. And we need to see them back.

[To be continued….]