After the Spirit

What’s with those of who hesitate, drag our feet, nearly refuse to “put away” Christmas?

I’m a member of this group.  And as I drove up to the store last night, I saw several homes remaining in ornamental light mode.  Some with just a tree or two in the yard lit, others “loudly” announcing Christmas with nativity scenes, Santa, reindeer, snowmen.  We don’t want the holiday feeling to go away.

My Christmas tree still holds all of its regalia in its branches.  A couple of days ago a friend let me know that she had just “unplugged” the lights on her tree ~ a start, she said.  Promptly, I walked into my dining room and took down the wreath.  I put away a wintry holiday snow globe yesterday.  Today I will begin to box up the ornaments. This got me to thinking that “dedecorating” might feel better as a process for people like us.

When most of us decorate, we set aside one day and transform our homes with not only nativity scenes, the tree, and endless stands of lights, but also with wreathes, mistletoe, garland, red ribbons, candles and gingerbread houses.  Within a matter of hours our homes change into our own personal magical kingdoms.  The air is different, the energy dances, sweet smells waft from our kitchens and smiles grow broader across our faces.

Of course if we leave up all the décor year round, then we would get used to it and the “magic” would fade.  But what if we systematically took down the decorations a little bit at a time so as to reacclimate into non holiday mode?  Well, I’ll keep you posted, because that is what we are doing this year.  The family has decided to do a little putting away each day instead of seeing the dramatic stark disappearance of the season.

The question remains though: How do we stay living in the season throughout the year?  Hark! I think the herald angels continue to sing.  Don’t store away your kindness, your sense of giving, love and gratitude with the décor in plastic tubs until next year.  I do, and have for the past several years left white lights (year round) outlining the large front window in my house~happy lights~happy reminder.

nannette

Remember what the airlines say~Put the oxygen mask on yourself first~

1. Drink eight glasses of water a day~heath practitioners everywhere

2. All happiness depends on a [leisurely] breakfast~John Gunther

3. An apple a day keeps the doctor away~anon

4. If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough~Meister Eckhart

6. It is requisite for the relaxation of the mind that we make use, from time to time, of playful deeds and jokes~St. Thomas Aquinas

7. The more that you read, the more things you will know~Dr. Seuss

8. If you are doing mindfulness meditation, you are doing it with your ability to attend to the moment~Daniel Goleman

9. If you are seeking creative ideas, go out walking.  Angels whisper to a man when he goes for a walk~Raymond Inmon

10.Sleep is the golden chain that ties health and our bodies together~Thomas Dekker

Personal Growth

11. Be grateful for what you have~not envious for what you want~anon

12. If you realized how powerful your thoughts are, you would never think a negative thought~Mildred Lisette Norman

13. Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened~Dr.Seuss

14. Twelve laughs a day keep the doc away~Mary-Anne Reed

15. If you have nothing kind to say, don’t say it at all~all moms

16. Dream more while you are awake~anon

17. Sometimes you have to let go to see if there was anything worth holding on to~Unknown

18. Find something to love in everyone~anon

19. No one is in charge of your happiness except you~anon

20. Realize there is a gift in every moment ~ even the obstacles~anon

21. Whether you say you can or you can’t, you are right ~unknown

22. You don’t have to agree with everyone, but you can agree to see things differently~anon

Your human family

23. Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born~Anais Nin

24. Each day do something good for another~anon.

25. Not forgiving someone is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die~Unknown

26. What other people think of you is none of your business~W.Dyer

Life

27. And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years~Abraham Lincoln

28. Declutter~anon.

29. Do, or do not. There is no ‘try’~Yoda

30. Allow the best days of your past to be the worst days of your future~anon

31. We Are all One ~ me and many, many many others ~

nannette

New Year’s eve is like every other night; there is no pause in the march of the universe, no breathless moment of silence among created things that the passage of another twelve months may be noted; and yet no man has quite the same thoughts this evening that come with the coming of darkness on other nights. ~Hamilton Wright Mabie

With great gratitude to all my friends and family for being part of my life this year, years before and years to come ~ for each one of you have brought me gifts that without, I would not be who I am.

Let this be the year that marks the beginning of real peace. Begin at home, then to take it to your neighbors and friends ~ if each us does this all the circles will overlap and we will see change in 2010 ~ every day is a holiday; every day is a new start. Get out of bed in the morning and greet the world with hope, love and peace ~ and every night be grateful for all that you have ~ and the hours in between learn to forgive ~ it is a double gift.

Happy New Year ~ love, nannette

When are some of the crazy things in our world going to stop? How will they stop? Who will stop them? Two weeks ago a student at my son’s high school threatened my 15 year old son’s life.

I was preparing to drop my son off at school~he was in a great mood when we left the house. When we pulled into the drop off area of the school, my son’s mood had changed to very agitated.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“This guy wants to beat me up because I broke up with my girlfriend.”

Not thinking, I asked how he knew…he’d received several text messages from friends that said this kid was out for him. I had the mentality: kids will be kids~there’s nothing to this.

On the contrary, this was serious enough where the school called me a couple of hours later asking me to pick up my son and keep him away from the school. As any parent can imagine, this was an alarming situation. “We cannot guarantee your son’s safety on the campus,” the dean of students said. Not very comforting words~words of worry, anxiety and question.

According to the school, many students had heard of the threat. The kid threatening my son, had shown several other students the knife he intended to use on my son. And this kid’s school counselor said he believed that the kid “may be capable of carrying this out.” Naturally, I drove to the school and pulled my son out until the administration could figure out what was going on.

After two days of my son being home from school and not hearing any new news, the student called my son and apologized. My son’s response was, “whatever.” While I wish my son would have been more accepting of the apology, I could certainly understand his feelings. It did not erase the stress of the past couple of days.

I received a call the following morning from the administration. They had found and spoken to the threatening student. The administrator asked me if the student had called and apologized and I told the person that student had, but my son was still feeling uneasy. The staff member mentioned the police and restraining orders, then said, “This kid is virtually homeless; he and his mother live in a campground and he’s being bullied by another student on campus.” My response: when does this stop?

After hanging up the phone, I told my son of the circumstances of this other kid and my son said, “I’ll be his friend. I’ll have his back.” I spoke with the school again and told the administration my son wanted to speak with the student to straighten everything out in different way, to reach out. A surprised and relieved sound came through the voice of the administrator. The school made arrangements for both boys to meet the next morning. They would speak with one another, one on one in what I call the aquarium room ~ all glass ~ where they could be monitored visually and still have privacy.

I was not in eye shot, but according to those looking on through the glass windows, both boys shook hands, sat down and spoke for over an hour. They discussed music, video games, their home lives, etc. and discovered they actually had quite a bit in common. According to my son, near the end of the conversation, the other boy asked why he was willing to meet with him. My son said, “My mom says that Abraham Lincoln once said, ‘I don’t like that man. I must get to know him better.”

Don’t wait to make your son a great man – make him a great boy.  ~Author Unknown

One night when my now 15 yr old son was 6 or 7 we we’re having dinner, just us, when Dixie Chicks song “Godspeed” came on the radio~Casey stood next to me at the table and put his hand out and asked me if he could have this dance. We danced all around the living room & when the song ended, he said to me, “Mom, when I am a very old man, I will never forget this dance with you in the living room.” I held him close & cried with joy. If you have a son, please give this song a listen~I love you Casey~

Without forgiveness life is governed by… an endless cycle of resentment and retaliation~Roberto Assagioli

Jump ahead six years to when I visited my cousin Gail in Pennsylvania.  For no other reason than proximity and lack of spare time, we had lost touch with one another for over fifteen years.  She called one hot July day out of the blue and suggested I come out to visit her.  After little more than a twenty minute “reuniting” phone call, I made airline reservations and two weeks later flew to her hometown about an hour south of Erie, in a small town called Meadville, Pennsylvania.

Gail picked me up from the airport—we recognized each other immediately.  We hugged, kissed, laughed and cried.  Once in her car she burst out, “I hope you don’t mind, but I made appointments for us with a psychic-spiritualist-medium up in Lilydale, New York.  It’s a whole community of psychics and new age people.”

I’d been to a  psychic or two in my life years earlier.  They were okay experiences, but nothing which compelled me to begin seeking out psychics on any kind of a regular basis.  Edgar Cayce, in my opinion, was blessed and an anomaly.  What was I going to say?  Gail had already made the appointments.

On the drive to Lilydale, Gail and I talked non-stop about our similarities.  We shared much in common philosophically and spiritually.  She had become a doctor of naturopathic medicine and I, while having finally graduated, had gotten married and had three children, was back in school working on my master’s degree and still reading tons of spiritual material.  Nonetheless, nervousness flowed through every vein about this psychic appointment.  I kept looking out the window, staring at the gray sky “snake oil, fortune tellers and crystal balls and eyes of newt.”

For the last few minutes of the trip there, it began to rain and I planned my approach.  Under no circumstances would I offer one ounce of information during this reading other than my name.  No way would I let any facial movements show this person any sort of approval/disapproval or agreement/disagreement with anything said.  The closer we got, the more these thoughts took on a mantra-like quality.

We pulled into the gated community, parked the car and began walking, with out umbrellas, up a hill toward rows of small Victorian homes, one right on top of the next.  The rain was cool and falling hard.  We turned on to a sidewalk leading up to one of the homes.  A sign hung on the outside door “Session in Progress.”  Wet, we sat on a covered porch in rocking chairs, mine moving at quite a clip, and chatted about how the other members of our families were doing.  A moment later the door opened and a woman of about forty held the door for the previous client.  Then she asked which one of us wanted to go first.  Gail insisted I go in first.

I followed the woman into a small room, sat in a chair noticing the frayed purple scarf wrapped around the woman’s neck.  She shook hands with me, placed a tape in a cassette player and began with a prayer.  After the prayer she quickly explained that she would do all the talking and only asked that I nod if anything made sense.

Within five minutes my jaw dropped, tears ran down my face and I was in a constant state of nodding.  The third right-on-the-money piece of information she gave, “A man is here.” The psychic turned her head as though she was listening to someone in the room.  She nodded her head.  “He is very sorry, very sorry.” I watched as she continued to listen.  “His initials are W and C.  he took his life in front of you?  He wants you to know he is so very sorry.”

By the end of the hour I was dumb struck.  My cousin Gail had no prior knowledge of the things this woman told.

After the session, I stepped out side, sat in the chair on the porch and wept the entire hour Gail had her session.  It came to me:  Warren was afraid to die alone.  I forgave him.

Incidentally, Gail came out of the reading disappointed that very little the woman had to say to her made any sense.

~ ~ ~

A year and a half ago in 2008, a young twenty-six year old woman named Vicki Van Meter, known for piloting a plane across the United States when she was 11, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.  My cousin Gail lived next door to the Van Meter family.  Gail found Vicki dead.

Gail phoned me after the incident, rattled, shaken, in shock and saddened.  She told me how hard it was to find some one who really understood.  “And, where is the gift?” she asked me.

“You may not know for some time.  I’ve just discovered another one of mine~to be the someone who can truly hear and understand what you’ve gone through.”

After an hour or so of listening to Gail’s story of what had happened, Gail said, “You know, thank God I found her and had her body taken away before her parents got home from out of town.  What if they had seen what I saw?”

“Gail,” I said, “there’s your gift.”

This story began in 1986 with the self-inflicted gunshot death of Warren.  Over the years I’ve written this story in several forms~none of which seemed to say what I wanted to say.  During the writing of this recent version, I stopped in the middle to search for the journal of letters to Warren.  I looked and looked and have decided there must be some reason I cannot find the journal (and this coming from someone who rarely if ever throws away a list, let alone a journal).  I believe the reason probably is that I don’t need to relive this story at the level.  That part I have let go.  No, it is not something I will ever forget, and sometimes I still move my head when sitting at a stoplight, but I will remember the gifts.

nannette

Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future~Paul Boese

The following Monday I sat in the Registrar’s office on campus and arranged for full time summer school.  I’d already put in my notice at the restaurant to drop back to a twelve hour week.  After I’d finished the registration procedures for the classes beginning that day, I walked over to the student center, grabbed a cup of coffee, lit a cigarette and sat at a table by myself.  I opened the textbook for the speech class I’d later attend, and another non-traditional aged student sat down at the other end of the table.  I could sense that he kept looking at me, and given my recent experience, I felt an extreme heightened awareness of everything around me.  This guy made me feel uncomfortable.  Just as I was about to pack up and leave, he spoke.

“Nannette?” he said.

So much for my heightened awareness—it was Marty, a guy I knew from a philosophy class I’d taken.  “Hey Marty.”

He moved down to my end of the table.  We small-chatted for a moment or two and then suddenly I felt like I was suffocating.  I grabbed my throat.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

After shaking my head, Marty helped me outside where I dropped my backpack and sat on the ground.  “A guy shot himself Saturday night at the restaurant.”  I gasped for more air.

“I read about it in the paper.”  He shook his head in a pitiful way I’ll never forget.  “I’m a card carrying nut from all the shit I saw in Vietnam.  Breathe.”

Marty and I talked for over an hour when he recommended a post-traumatic stress counselor he knew.  A week later, at twilight, I sat in the veteran’s administration office—a hundred year old house turned into offices that smelled stale and looked more depressed than I felt.  It was dark, but not dark enough to hide the maps of Vietnam on the walls, or the pictures of local men who never made it back.

Apparently, the work day had ended for most workers in this office as the unnatural quiet screamed its presence.  While I waited to talk to Doug Mark the therapist, I flipped through an entire magazine—it could have been upside down for all the attention I paid it.  I returned the magazine to the stack on the table next to me and decided to leave.  As my hand turned the doorknob, I heard a gravely sounding, distant voice, “Nannette?”

“Yes?”

“What can I do for you?”

What kind of therapist talks to you when they can’t see you?  I leaned around a corner as I answered, “I’m not sure.”  Papers rustled and a chair scooted across a hardwood floor.  I still couldn’t see anyone.

“Marty tells me you saw an ugly the other night.  That right?”

I poked my head into another room, and through that room toward the back in a smaller room, I saw the voice.  “I guess you can call it that.”

“Come on back,” he said.  “What can I do for you?”

I walked toward the unseen person.  “Make me forget I ever saw that guy shoot himself.”

A rounded body stood from the desk.  His face was hidden with a graying beard and thick mustache.  He still didn’t look up at me as he placed a file in a drawer.  “Go ahead and use the front door.”

“I’m sorry?” I stood two feet from him.

“Can’t make you forget and if you think I can, might as well leave now.”

I turned to leave.

“Easier than staying.”

I was not happy.  “All I can think about every day all day is what I saw.  I’m so scared that somebody is going to shoot me, that every stop light I came to on the way here, I made sure to keep my head moving so that I wouldn’t be an easy target.  I can’t go into the grocery store or a bar or restaurant because somebody is going to have a gun.  And so many people come into my restaurant and want a ‘guided tour’ of where it happened.  If I’m going to have to think about this everyday of my life, I’m going to lose it.”

“Stay and I might help you to live with it, let it go.”

“Might?  Let it go?”  I raised my voice.  “What’s with let it go?  I have no idea what that means.  Isn’t that the same thing as forgetting about it—which is what I want to do?  You know,” I raised my hand, made a small circle with my thumb and forefinger.  “I had this one small innocent spot left and this jerk took it from me.  I did not need to witness this.  He could have done it in his bathroom or car or drive into the mountains.  He stole part of me.”

Doug motioned to the overstuffed, worn chair.  “Sit.”

I sat, crossed my legs and folded my arms.

“Hear me out for a couple of seconds?”

I nodded.

“Good.  Figure out if this might help.  Go home. Write this guy who offed himself a letter.  Say what ever you want.  Tell him you’re pissed off.  Tell him you’re scared.  Tell him whatever comes to you.  Don’t worry about the order of things.  Just let him know how you feel.  See if you can talk to him about forgiving him.  After you’ve written a good long letter call me back.”

With all the books I’d read, lectures I’d attended, coaching I offered to others, I knew I had the tools to move forward, but couldn’t wrap my hands or my head around any of them.

Eventually, I did write.  I wrote letter after letter after letter for almost a year.  I wanted answers to why I couldn’t let it go, why, why, why, would anybody take their own life, why was I there?

For the time being the gift, as I saw it, was getting out of the restaurant business and going to school.  But forgive Warren?  No.

conclusion tomorrow

I huddle, hidden in the darkness on the staircase and hear Nat King Cole sing “Unforgettable” and between the balusters, I watch the party below, like it’s a movie scene unfolding just for me.

Two fluted floor lamps light the room, but mostly the ceiling.  The only other illumination comes from five flickering tapers on the coffee table.  Sophie, a woman my mother has hired for this occasion, places a crystal platter filled with miniature slices of rye and brown breads, and meats, cheeses, sweet pickles, cherry tomatoes, and hot peppers next to the candles.

I look across the room and see Uncle Ted, who isn’t really my uncle, remove the white orchid from my mother’s black hair.  My mother leans her back against his body and lets a quiet laugh and for a moment they look like two loosely curved S’s pressed together.

As my father stirs another pitcher of martinis with the long glass wand, he smiles at my mother.  Mr. Carry brags about his golf swing while Mr. Johnson and Mr. Ryan look at his imaginary nine-iron, and chortle, smoke, and rattle ice cubes in their drinks.

Mrs. McGinnis fingers her pearl necklace and jokes about the stupidity of her cleaning lady to Mrs. Logan, who has on the tightest, shimmeriest black dress I have ever seen.  Her bosoms heave close to her neck like two half moons every time she puffs her cigarette.

Smoke rings rhythmically pulse from Mr. Logan’s lips and then he winks at Mrs. Johnson and her red-belted, small waist.

Across the room, Mrs. Carry stands next to the Hi-Fi, holding a martini in one hand and a fat green olive with a bulging, juicy red pimento in the other.  Her eyes are closed and she sways just slightly to the music.

Mr. McGinnis shoves another proscuitto and Swiss cheese roll into his mouth, and then licks his fingers, walking toward Mrs. Carry.

Over on the couch, my Aunt Irene, who isn’t really my aunt, sits alone, her eyes unblinking and focused on nothing in front of her, and rests a dripping drink on her right knee when her head suddenly tilts back, eyes still open.

I hear my mother’s quiet laugh again; Uncle Ted is tickling her throat with the stem of the orchid.

“A fifteen year old doesn’t belong mingling with the grown-ups,” my mother’s voice still echoes in my mind from earlier in the day.

I wonder what Father John will say to my mother Saturday afternoon, how many Hail Mary’s it will take.  I wonder what Father John will say to me.

On a ceiling
in Florence
fingertip
reaches for fingertip
to unclothe
the Divine Encounter.

Upon contact
faces evolve
and unwittingly
drop
their identities.

Hands cease
wringing
and meet sweet
Palm to Palm ~
a mirror
gesture.

In an unmarked
passageway, Time
dissolves in the Disappearance
of the Self.

And in an instant
a whisper in the Soul
bursts the notion of
“I” and “alone.”

Absolute awe
washes the mind
and at once
understands
that just as White
foaming Waves
cannot separate from the Sea
neither can the Soul
uncouple itself from God.

Fingertips
extend for the contact
to reveal and translate
the Divine Encounter:
We are One.

nannette rogers kennedy

The next morning, Sunday, I had an eight-thirty seminar. I didn’t care. I was going to the rosary instead. At 6 a.m. my eyes opened without the use of the alarm. I showered, dressed, had a cup of coffee, pulled the rosary from the bottom of my computer bag and headed off to the lobby. I couldn’t find Immaculee anywhere. Instant disappointment. I scrambled my way to the front desk and asked about it. Nobody knew anything. They referred me to the registration desk for the conference. I asked the women at the conference registration desk who all looked at me like I was some kind of nut. I explained that this was an impromptu sort of thing arranged late last night. One of the women got on a walkie-talkie and someone radioed back that Immaculee was meeting with some people in the bar. I took off running and laughing at the fact that this rosary was taking place in a bar.

When I arrived there were about fifteen women sitting on couches and chairs around Immaculee. There was one space left on one couch. I promptly sat. Immaculee was answering some questions regarding her experience during the genocide. Then she passed out copies of information about the rosary. By now it was eight-thirty and the group had dwindled (people left to get to their seminars). Immaculee explained the rosary itself, holding up her rosary. My eyes almost popped out of my head. Other than the fact her rosary was clear crystal beads (mine are blue crystal) our rosaries were identical, same crucifix—an unusual crucifix—and everything. While I’m fairly certain this rosary I held came from my mother’s home, I’m not sure just how it came to be in my computer bag.

When the prayer/meditation of the rosary eventually got underway, Immaculee interjected throughout the meaning of the sorrowful mysteries. From the time we made the sign of the cross at the beginning until the sign of the cross at the end I wept. It was like someone turned on a faucet. I wasn’t heaving or hysterical, but tears kept a slow steady trickle down my face. The small space we sat in had such an incredible spiritual energy that it is beyond any words. As we prayed I noticed we were now down to eight, the exact same number of women who spent 91 days in the bathroom in Rwanda together. It was so powerful. I had no Kleenex with me and at one point I stood and walked over to the closed bar to grab a napkin or two—no napkins. I’d asked the women on either side of me if they had a Kleenex and they did not. Consequently the dress I was wearing served as sponge. When we finished the rosary, I hugged and thanked Immaculee. I bought a cup of coffee, walked outside, and sat by the pool. It was Sunday morning, early still, and I was the only one there. The following is my immediate written response:

November 13, 2005

Chills surround me from my feet to my head even though it is probably seventy-five degrees out here. I’ve just said the most powerful rosary with Immaculee from Rwanda. To feel in my heart even the secondhand pain this woman has endured and her glowing energy of forgiveness is so much for me to take in and accept that the emotion has risen to the point which my body cannot contain it. My cry comes from deep within and cannot help from spilling down my face and on to my breasts, where I can feel my heart pounding beneath. I have no Kleenex now, nor did I during the rosary. The tears are so deep. Immaculee has suffered so much, spending 91 days in 3 x 5 bathroom with seven other women, going in weighing 120 pounds and leaving the tiny cubicle weighing only 65 pounds. Her father, mother and brothers were hacked to death with machetes—ethnic cleansing. I do not understand this hatred. She said the rosary everyday, several times a day, with the rosary her father gave her when she fled into hiding, and she knows that her love of Christ and God are the reason she survived. Every time she got to “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us” part of the Our Fathers, she stopped as she says she always does whenever she says the rosary because she doesn’t know how she could ever forgive those that trespassed against her family, but she knows she did. How powerfully beautiful for her to be able to say the rosary at all, but to say it with an honest knowing of those words, and to be reminded each time she professes this part of the prayer that she does know the true meaning. It’s beyond my scope of comprehension. She begged and prayed for God’s favor and had a faith that willed it so. While she led the rosary with the seven of us, every one of us cried. I have no rights to complain. Just before the sorrowful mystery of Christ carrying the cross, Immaculee said, looking into each of our eyes, “What we must remember is that Christ carried His cross under such painful conditions,” she paused and began to cry. “What we must remember, is that God, Christ, do not want us to cry, but rather remember that Christ died for us, and that all of us make sacrifices, and that we are very connected. We are all one as is evidenced by our tears.” I will never be the same person as I was yesterday, never. And here I sit beneath a gorgeous blue sky, bathed in sunlight, sobbing into a pool towel. Oh my God, thank you, thank you, thank you. Immaculee, bless you and thank you.

Not one day has passed since this event that I haven’t thought about it. The Prime Mover conducts such extraordinary symphonies. While I know the music is ubiquitous, it is in hearing each note and listening for its significance to the entire piece which creates the spiritual encounter. I am forever grateful, blessed and fortunate.

My daughter is still talking about her experience at the conference. She too, believes she has had a true awakening.

I have shared this experience with a dozen people. I even bought the recording of the night’s lecture and transcribed it so I could read parts of it to those with whom I have shared my story. The beauty is that everyone has thanked me for sharing and I feel I have made a positive impact on their lives. One elderly gentleman, that I didn’t really even know with whom I shared the story, wept and told me that I was the best thing that had happened to him in a long time, and that that in itself was a gift I must carry on: be the best thing that happens in some one’s life every day for the rest of my life. That’s a good goal, don’t you think?

While I’ve written a thank you to both Dr. Dyer and Immaculee, the best thanks I can give to them, is to tell this story and attempt to spread the inspiration. I hope it inoculates you with just a fraction of the spiritual energy it gave me.

Nannette Rogers Kennedy
Fort Collins, Colorado