In just a moment. . .
we determine if love truly is more than a noun–a person, place or thing. . .
In just a moment
we determine if love truly is more of a verb
Where what we give to others
we get for ourselves
Where we take what’s in pieces
and stitch them back together
Where we find that a heart can weather
anything and still beat out a life
worth sharing
February 14 or not
IN JUST A MOMENT
EVERYTHING THAT WAS BROKEN
Mary Jane Oliver was an American poet who won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Her work is inspired by nature, rather than the human world, stemming from her lifelong passion for solitary walks in the wild. It is characterized by a sincere wonderment at the impact of natural imagery, conveyed in unadorned language. In 2007, she was declared to be the country’s best-selling poet.
Everything that was broken has
forgotten its brokenness. I live
now in a sky-house, through every
window the sun. Also your presence.
Our touching, our stories. Earthy
and holy both. How can this be, but
it is. Every day has something in it
whose name is Forever.
This poem by Mary Oliver expresses a sense of profound healing and renewal. The speaker reflects on a state where all the past brokenness has been left behind, and now they reside in a sky-house, symbolizing a higher, expansive perspective. Through every window of this sky-house, they witness the sun’s presence and feel the presence of someone dear (presumably a loved one). The poem highlights the significance of connection and touch, as well as the power of personal stories. The speaker finds both earthly and sacred qualities in these connections. Despite the wonderment and disbelief, the poem emphasizes that this state of renewal and eternity is indeed present in everyday life, in the form of moments that carry a sense of foreverness.
I have read this poem like a sacred psalm hundreds of times but I experienced it so powerfully differently when I heard it READ TO ME like this; there’s an ache in the reader’s voice that makes you feel your own brokenness but not in a rough, jagged way so much as feeling the stitches on a smooth baseball that was given to you by your favorite player as a gift more than just some souvenir to be put up on Ebay someday after your passing when no one really wants what was once special to you.
A little over a year ago, I was at conference at The Gathering Place where I was scheduled to speak last on the program that day. I was there, sitting in the back of the room listening to a speaker talk about our own grief and grieving and how it often leaves us feeling BROKEN; this poem of Mary Oliver’s came to mind as did these words right before I spoke. I used them as a conclusion to the presentation I gave: HOLDING SPACE–WALKING EACH OTHER HOME:
PROTECTED PRESENCE
I’m Broken
and I’ve lost a lot of my pieces
I don’t exactly remember when I
Humpty-Dumptied if off the wall
No recollection of all the Kings men
and all of the horses they rode in on
But I know. . .ohhh how I know
How I’ve not been put back together again
and when you dare to
provide protective presence
and choose to hold me
It’s not so much of an Embrace
as a specific piece that never existed
You’ve brought to me
A wholeness I’ve not known
but now never want to forget
or ever want to be without
BROKEN PIECES
PLAY A SYMPHONY ALL OF THEIR OWN
LISTEN
(or better still, bring your broken piece and play along)
THERE WILL BE BAD DAYS
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Y E S
There will be Bad DAYS
to be had
to be overcome
to be experienced
to be intimately known
to be. . .
ALL WAYS
TO BE
So the next time you feel totally shattered
once again
MONDAY MORNING
or not
R E F L E C T:
(these)
Words of encouragement for your inevitable bad day. A compilation of worldwide YouTube content, the crowd-sourced documentary “Life in a Day” by Kevin Macdonald, and local footage by Jon Goodgion. Audio is the spoken word poem “Instructions For a Bad Day” by Shane Koyczan. Rights remain to respective owners. Here is the poem in written form:
“There will be bad days. Be calm. Loosen your grip, opening each palm slowly now. Let go.
Be confident. Know that “now” is only a moment, and that if “today” is as bad as it gets, understand that by tomorrow, “today” will have ended.
Be gracious. Accept each extended hand offered, to pull you back from the “somewhere” you cannot escape.
Be diligent. Scrape the gray sky clean. Realize every dark cloud is a smoke screen meant to blind us from the Truth – and the Truth is, whether we see them or not, the Sun and Moon are still there and always there is Light.
Be forthright. Despite your instinct to say “it’s alright, I’m okay” – be honest. Say how you feel without fear or guilt, without remorse or complexity.
Be lucid in your explanation, be sterling in your oppose. If you think for one second no one knows what you’ve been going through; be accepting of the fact that you are wrong, that the long drawn and heavy breaths of despair have at times been felt by everyone – that Pain is part of the Human Condition, and that alone makes you a legion.
We hungry underdogs, we risers with dawn, we dissmisser’s of odds, we pressers of on – we will station ourselves to the calm. We will hold ourselves to the steady, be ready player one. Life is going to come at you armed with hard times and tough choices, your voice is your weapon, your thoughts ammunition – there are no free extra men, be aware that as the instant now passes, it exists now as then. So be a mirror reflecting yourself back, and remembering the times when you thought all of this was too hard and you’d never make it through.
Remember the times you could have pressed quit – but you hit continue.
Be forgiving. Living with the burden of anger, is not living. Giving your focus to wrath will leave your entire self absent of what you need. Love and hate are beasts and the one that grows is the one you feed.
Be persistent. Be the weed growing through the cracks in the cement, beautiful – because it doesn’t know it’s not supposed to grow there.
Be resolute. Declare what you accept as true in a way that envisions the resolve with which you accept it. If you are having a good day, be considerate. A simple smile could be the first-aid kit that someone has been looking for.
If you believe with absolute honesty that you are doing everything you can – do more. There will be bad days, Times when the world weighs on you for so long it leaves you looking for an easy way out. There will be moments when the drought of joy seems unending. Instances spent pretending that everything is alright when it clearly is not, check your blind spot. See that love is still there, be patient.
Every nightmare has a beginning, but every bad day has an end. Ignore what others have called you. I am calling you “friend”. Make us comprehend the urgency of your crisis. Silence left to its own devices, breed’s silence. So speak and be heard. One word after the next, express yourself and put your life in the context – if you find that no one is listening, be loud. Make noise. Stand in poise and be open. Hope in these situations is not enough and you will need someone to lean on. In the unlikely event that you have no one, look again.
Everyone is blessed with the ability to Listen. The Deaf will hear you with their Eyes. The Blind will see you with their Hands. Let your Heart fill their news-stands, let them read all about it. Admit to the bad days, the impossible nights. Listen to the insights of those who have been there, but come back. They will tell you; you can stack misery, you can pack disappear you can even wear your sorrow – but come tomorrow you must change your clothes.
Everyone knows Pain. We are not meant to carry it forever. We were never meant to hold it so closely, so be certain in the belief that what pain belongs to now will belong soon to then. That when someone asks you “how was your day”, realize that for some of us, it’s the only way we know how to say “be calm”.
Loosen your grip, opening each palm, slowly now – let go.”
Go ahead. . .
Clear your throat
Rub your eyes
drink deeply from the cup
that endlessly reminds you
that Bad Days may be a plenty
but those are the days
you suck down
and spit out
(again and again and again and again and again and again and again and. . . .)
PICTURE off the Wall
Mabel gifted us a beautiful cross-stitch of the Twenty-Third Psalm and went so far as to have it matted and professionally framed. When we took it home I knew exactly where I wanted to hang it; right outside of our bedroom door in the hallway so that every time we walked out, it would be the first thing we saw, reminding us of the gift, the giver and the promise it contained.
I AM NOT A HANDY MAN
I didn’t look for a stud to put the nail to hang the picture.
I didn’t even put up a super-duper wall hanger that would have been just as sturdy as nailing it into a wall stud.
I just eyed it up and put a nail in and hung the piece of art.
I have no idea why framed art like that has a way of falling down at 3:00 a.m. instead of 3:00 p.m. but that’s exactly what happened and when I heard the crash, I knew immediately it wasn’t a burglar, but a poorly hung picture. 
We all have that picture, don’t we? It is the picture that each of us have been gifted or maybe even painstakingly painted ourselves; and not only paint but we frame it; we make sure we put it in the best of mats and it has glare-less glass over top of it so we could see it from any angle without any kind of shadowy, distorted glares. This preciously framed picture is the only one of its kind. It includes those we have put in our picture, who have made up our lives and painted all of the intricate strokes that would have made it impossible for us not to be US.
It is reflective our pristine PLAN A with no forethought of any kind of a PLAN B
It is THAT PICTURE, the one and only un-replicated ONE that we treasure most; that most often falls from the wall, no matter how it seems to be secured. The one-of-a-kind-picture that we have painted for our lives, for our family, for our loved ones; it’s that picture that we hang on the wall and whether we first find a stud or whether we wall anchor it, somehow, someway, that picture, usually in the middle of one of the dark nights of our souls, without any warning whatsoever, falls and gets 100% obliterated; it gets smashed, the glass, the frame, the mat. The Vision.
The actual picture itself gets destroyed and we never can put it back together again because it is that obliterated. Isn’t that our life? It doesn’t matter how many goals we have set. It doesn’t matter how many New Year’s Resolutions we’ve made and actually kept; It doesn’t matter how expensive the pen we’ve used to write our script on a mystical pad; it doesn’t matter how we dream, we wish, we deem it all to be; IT IS HOW it all turns out to be, despite of all of those other concerted efforts. OFTEN it does not turn out to be that way. OUR WAY. . .
We are all a collection of jagged, smashed pieces; broken pictures fallen off the wall; constantly attempting to gather and putting together pieces that never can be put together again.
THE WORST PART. . .
We seldom see the good news of the never-to-be-put-together-again-picture we’ve held so dear to us.
THE TRUTH. . .
Sometimes it takes a good picture smashing to have what could have never been imagined. It may never be expensively matted, framed or professionally hung, but in living-vivid-color, it’s as real as your heartbeat and more desperately needed than your next breath.
The picture of the PRESENT MOMENT is never perfect, but it is very real and even more,
EvOlViNg. . .
It just could be THAT PICTURE might be better than the one that we put on the wall,
the one we grieve the most;
Crooked as it may be
keeps us from seeing
THAT PICTURE. . . .
KINTSUGIED
It’s not so much a question you want to have asked of you
AS ANSWERED:
Honestly:
ARE YOU BROKEN. . . ?
Shattered
Splattered
Splittered
Shredded
Shambled
Smashed
Shared
K I N T S U G I E D
Wait. . .
What is KINTSUGI ?
KINTSUGI is an ancient Japanese method of repairing broken porcelain that uses gold to fill the cracks. It kind of reminds me of the Leonard Cohen’s famous lyric, “there is a crack in everything and that is where the light comes in.” For some reason when I pictured being cracked up inside, I tended to feel a harsh wind coming in, not the light. YOU?
This method of restoring breakage with gold is called Kintsugi (also known as Kintsukuori) and translates as “golden joinery.” I did some quick research and discovered that Kintsugi is an outgrowth of the Japanese philosophy of Wabi-Sabi, which honors the beauty of imperfections.
The Kintsugi artisan uses gold or other precious metal mixed with epoxy to repair the broken piece. This method emphasizes, rather than hides, the breakage. The repaired piece is often considered even more beautiful than the original.
Kintsugi embraces the breakage as part of the object’s history, instead of something unacceptable to be hidden or thrown away. This is kind of the opposite of what we all have been taught. Haven’t we spend LIFETIMES learning that we are supposed to be perfect, and that we must hide any imperfections. This belief is imbedded in our culture: if something is broken, toss it out; if something is flawed, hide it.
Kintsugi is the perfect metaphor for how we might be able to find healing in a life that for a long time, often seems not only cracked, but broken apart—and, in a few places, shattered beyond recognition. . .
BUT WAIT. . .
IT CAN ACTUALLY NOT ONLY GET BETTER
BUT BE BETTER:
There are three types of Kintsugi repair. The first level is when all pieces are available and the cracks are filled with gold to restore the piece.
The next level is when small pieces are missing. Those areas are completely filled with gold:
Last, when large areas of the piece are missing or shattered beyond repair, the artisan will take fragments from unrelated pieces to create a patchwork design. This is the one I identify with the most:
Below are some of my GO TO POEMS and quotes that have brought me a CALMING COMPLETEDNESS
along with an ongoing Kintsugi
that’s more a part of us
than we’ve ever been able to notice. . .
The Guest House by Rumi
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
Meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.
Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
—Copyright 1997 by Coleman Barks. All rights reserved.
From The Illuminated Rumi.
Love your crooked neighbor
With all your crooked heart.
—W.H. Auden
The sun never says to the earth,
“You owe me!”
Look what happens
with a love like that—
It lights the whole sky.
—Hafiz
Summer Day
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
—Mary Oliver
Otherwise
I got out of bed
on two strong legs.
It might have been
otherwise. I ate
cereal, sweet
milk, ripe, flawless
peach. It might
have been otherwise.
I took the dog uphill
to the birch wood.
All morning I did
the work I love.
At noon I lay down
with my mate. It might
have been otherwise.
We ate dinner together
at a table with silver
candlesticks. It might
have been otherwise.
I slept in a bed
in a room with paintings
on the walls, and
planned another day
just like this day.
But one day, I know,
it will be otherwise.
—Jane Kenyon
Quotes:
You may not find a cure, but you can still receive healing.
—Michael Lerner, Co-founder of Commonweal Cancer Help Center, Bolinas, California
It does not really matter what we expect from life, but rather what life expects from us. We are being questioned by life, hourly, daily, moment by moment. Our answer—to respond with right action and right conduct.Life ultimately means, taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems, and to fulfill the tasks which are constantly set for each individual.
—Viktor Frankl
Viktor Frankl taught that everything can be taken from us but one thing—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances. We cannot change these circumstances of being human, (pain, illness, loss and death)but we can change our minds and thoughts.
There is no enemy. We have stopped fighting anything and anybody.
The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous
Be kind whenever possible.
It’s always possible.
—Dalai Lama
. . .and finally my humble offering, A LEAKY VESSEL
More than nicked up
scratched
cracked
I’m a leaky vessel
often just
dripping some goodness
secreting badness
each step on my Way
for some other
Traveler of the Path
to be quenched
moistened
along their Way
as they, too
d r i b b l e
on. . .
Y E S
We’ve all felt like a cheap confetti
all cut up
not all together
blowing away forever in the wind
never to be
never to feel
connected
completed again
until we get
K I N T S U G I E D
A GOLDEN JOINERY AWAITS US ALL
. . .are you ready?
Pssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssst:
you don’t have to be. . .
it’s happening, anyway;
Why not recognize it
. . .be a part of
I T
FEELING A PULSE
U.S. Suicide Rates Are the Highest They’ve Been Since World War II
JAMIE DUCHARME reported in the TIME MAGAZINE JUNE 20, 2019 edition news that we might really be able to do something about that’s merely at the end of our our own hands and beats regularly, steadily in our own hearts. . .
U.S. suicide rates are at their highest since World War II, according to federal data—and the opioid crisis, widespread social media use and high rates of stress may be among the myriad contributing factors.
In 2017, 14 out of every 100,000 Americans died by suicide, according to a new analysis released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics. That’s a 33% increase since 1999, and the highest age-adjusted suicide rate recorded in the U.S. since 1942. (Rates were even higher during the Great Depression, hitting a century peak of 21.9 in 1932.)
“I don’t think there’s a one-size-fits all reason” since there’s almost never a single cause of suicide, says Jill Harkavy-Friedman, vice president of research at the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, a nonprofit that supports suicide prevention research, education and policy. “I don’t think there’s something you can pinpoint, but I do think a period of increased stress and a lack of a sense of security may be contributing.”
It’s even more difficult to assign causes to the uptick, Harkavy-Friedman says, because it’s happening across diverse demographic groups. Men have historically died by suicide more frequently than women, and that’s still true: As of 2017, the male suicide rate was more than three times higher than the female rate. But female suicide rates are rising more quickly—by 53% since 1999, compared to 26% for men—and the gap is narrowing. For both genders, suicide rates are highest among American Indians and Alaska natives, compared to other ethnicities, and when the data are broken down by age group, the most suicide deaths are reported among people ages 45 to 64—but nearly every ethnic and age group saw an increase of some size from 1999 to 2017.
Youth suicide is becoming an especially pressing problem, with rates rising more rapidly among boys and girls ages 10 to 14 than in any other age group. A separate research letter published June 18 in JAMA found that youth suicide rates are at their highest point since at least 2000.
The JAMA letter doesn’t identify causes of the youth uptick, but first author Oren Miron, a research associate in biomedical informatics at Harvard Medical School, has two theories.
Opioid use, he says, has been shown to drive suicidal behavior among drug users and their children and families, and so recenthigh rates of drug abuse and overdose may be tied to rising suicide rates. The opioid epidemic may harm entire communities’ mental health, Miron says. “The entire community is bleeding. Kids see less of a future, they see more of their friends dying,” Miron says. “This might give us just one more reason to crack down on” substance misuse.
His second theory is that social media may be contributing to rising suicide rates, particularly for young people. “We know that now it’s used in younger ages and more intensively, and we also see some new apps that allow more anonymity, which in turn allows more bullying and more kids talking about suicide without their parents knowing,” he says. Heavy social media use may also lead to fewer meaningful in-person interactions—which can protect against mental health issues and suicidal behavior—and encourage unhealthy comparison with others.
One other possibility, says Harkavy-Friedman, is that suicide may be better reported and identified today than in years past, as people pay closer attention to mental health issues.
Though suicide is always complicated at both the individual and national levels, help is available. Experts encourage those struggling with suicidal thoughts to confide in a trusted friend or family member, speak with a health care provider, or seek care at an emergency room in cases of immediate danger.
The very first step in saving a Pulse
IS
FEELING
ONE
Reach OUT
Let your hand be the one
that’s FOUND by ONE
Who’s reaching out blindly
to grasp a lifeline
Let them know
when they can’t feel
THERE’S A TOUCH
(Y O U R ‘ S)
If you or someone you know may be contemplating suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 or text HOME to 741741 to reach the Crisis Text Line. In emergencies, call 911, or seek care from a local hospital or mental health provider.
BROKED .9
What a License Plate, huh?
We probably all could support
T H A T
Plate
because we are all
B R O K E D
. . .none of us are
U N D E F E A T E D
but all of us
has this
R E S E R V E
that makes us
U N D E F E A T A B L E
Helping the Broked
will get you
B R O K E D
chipped
cracked
sharp-edged
slivered
never-more’d
Perfectly
I M P E R F E C T E D
unmitigatedly
totaled
(almost every time)
9 9. 9% of the Time
but
roll-the-dice-gamble
Go all in
Bet your Farm
And your Neighbor’s
on the
.9%
and until then. . .
from my brokednesss
Let Seep from me
all that is good
that I may
Refill once more
(Change is always good because it often keeps, not so much THINGS, but you, me, US, fresh and alert. For the past couple of weeks I’ve added a poem I’ve written instead of a personal story that illustrates without many words what it means to be a Caring Catalyst. So, what’s the verdict. How can I not only better represent, how can I better share what it means to be a Caring Catalyst? I’m open to suggestions. Currently, I begin the week with a video that illustrates what it means to be a Caring Catalyst and how you might become a better Catalyst. On Wednesday’s blog posting, I usually put in some bit of data based information on the good effects and the how-to’s in becoming a better Caring Catalyst; On Friday, I use a personal story. Poetry was my first love and use of sharing; it was my social media in high school and college and then it was fiction. I’ll be interjecting a new format on Wednesday or Friday that includes THE POWER OF THREE as I share what I’m watching, reading, using and name this segment: BEGGAR BITES that brings home the adage: SHOWING ANOTHER BEGGAR WHERE THIS BEGGAR GOT THE FOOD. Again, I’m looking for you feedback and suggestions that you might find most helpful, educational, inspirational and motivational. In the mean time, I humbly thank you for following and most of all for being a constant source of inspiration and awe. Thank you!)
BROKEN BUT NOT SHATTERED
Have you ever needed something
And never knew it
Until you got it?
We both parked at the same time
We both got out of our cars at the same time
We both walked up towards the building at the same time
I hadn’t seen her in years
. . .I didn’t even know she still was with the agency
And THERE she was. . .
Tearful,
Heart-heavy-burdened down
Not just with her computer and nursing bag
Wheeling behind her
Tears
We stopped and hugged
Right there in a middle of
A M O M E N T
There she was
There I was
Unplanned
Unscripted
Yet perfectly scene’d
In a backdrop of a cloudy sky
That dropped over the Lake
B R U I S E D
B E A T EN
From a storm
Far away
And yet not quite here,
Y e t
And the Best news of all—
S H E L T E R
Secured
Safe
Comforting
Assuring
Was in place
And like most times—
Not just seen
Not just recognized
Not just experienced
Until the most absolute
m o m e n t
Looking back. . .
R e f l e c t I n g
(without a mirror)
I’m a little offended now
G a l l e d
That she felt/believed
I was actually there for her. . .
For her vulnerability
For her tears
For her undressed,
fully naked,
stripped down,
Exposed honesty
And truth. . .
Which SHOWED ME
What I so-
All-the-time-behind-the-curtain-triple-locked-door-of-my-heart
Never-always-so-guarded-very-afraid-FEAR-to-show
. . .W H O was there for W H O. . .
At this early
So very CHANCE
(NOT-AN-ACCIDENT)
Maybe-to-never-happen-again-ever-the-same-way-
M O M E N T ?
Me for her?
Her for me?
The simple answer is a resounding
Y E S
As we hugged
Right there
Right then
I realized that what’s Broken
Seldom is S H A T T E R E D. . .
That often
Maybe more usual than we notice
We get tired
We get disappointed
We’re disillusioned
That
Caring
Compassion
Loving
Giving
Sharing
Accepting
Forgiving
Will get you hurt
. . .hurt really bad
Make you wounded
Get you bloodied
E M P T I E D
D E P L E T E D
E X H A U S T E D
. . .it’s a paycheck
Not deposited
When needed/expected
An Emotional Withdrawal
That can only be replenished with:
G O F I G U R E :
Caring
Compassion
Loving
Giving
Sharing
Accepting
Forgiving
Hey. . .
Have you ever needed something
And never knew it until
You G O T I T ?
G E T I T
and oh my. . .
how the clouds part