Grief and Gratitude

Grief isn't fun. It stays deep inside and comes out to surprise. Like a mouse darting across your foot.   Like being almost side-swiped by a speeding car. 

Leaving Texas last May -- and all our anchors (friends, family, institutions, gatherings) -- felt more like we were on an adventure than what it became once we arrived in Los Angeles: palpable loneliness. I didn't telephone old friends all summer because I felt worse afterwards. I couldn't talk to any new friends because I didn't have any. John and I had spent nearly 41 years in Dallas, and the shared history we had there with others was enough to deepen any conversation and to season it with laughter and unspoken understanding. The grief over the last four months has been a bit crippling.

However, two activities occurred this last week that made me wonder about grief. They were my first choir practice at our new church and a liturgical dance workshop at a Catholic retreat center. 

First, choir:  I knew that I would miss my friends, the organist, and the conductor (Josh Taylor, the Magnificent) when we started singing last Thursday night at Westwood United Methodist, but when the director had us pull out Paul Basler's Psalm 23 here with this new group of people, I felt a stab of sorrow. Listen, several months ago First Presbyterian Church of Dallas Chancel Choir had ridden on a bus together to Kansas City in order to sing at the American Choral Directors' Association annual meeting. We sang Basler's anthem. The French horn, the friends, the beauty of hard-won skill -- all of it came back to me in a feeling like when you drink a too-hot beverage. My throat felt scalded by the absence of shared history. And wouldn't you know it: we next started singing Stephen Paulus, and I wanted to cry. 

But something was different with the grief this time. What was it?

On the way to choir practice, John and I had come to a locked door. I'd seen people in the room upstairs where I'd taught Vacation Bible School, so we climbed the steps and knocked on the door. They had their arms up, a sure sign of liturgical dance if I've ever seen one. I asked what they were doing. When they told me, I excitedly shared a bit of my history of dancing in Greece and England and Chartres Cathedral. They immediately asked me to join them in two days hence to dance at a Sacred Dance Guild workshop in Encino, CA. What? Really? And, blimey, I said yes and asked if I could dance a solo. This all was so unlike what I've been doing lately, I thought I'd lost my head there for a minute.

On Saturday, in the City of Angels, I put on the dancing vestments from Westwood UMC, asked the four dancers to pray for my injured back, and I stepped on into the sanctuary to recite and dance Psalm 130. I was blown away by the whole experience. The kindness and welcome and delight they offered me in sharing this ancient art form! Their own understnding of liturgical dance! And when the beautiful teacher of the workshop (80-years old, mind you) began to unfold the day using The Prayer of St. Patrick (Rita Connelly singing) I nearly lost it. That gorgeous setting has become my daily meditation for years now. I've taught it to dancers at retreats and in the jail. I held my breath, finding myself at a crossroads. What was I going to do with the points of contact with grief-stricken me? At first, I wanted to bury my feelings or to bolt or both. 

And then it came: the deepest feelings of gratitude. I don't know these women except through their exceptional acceptance of me. I don't know the chancel choir. I don't know what the future will hold with either of these art forms. I don't know what friendships will develop. All I know is that with the grief of missing my choir and my dancing, I was surrounded by arms stretching out to me. Not to "hide in the shadow of your wings" of Psalm 17 that I'd felt all summer. No. This was piercing, lively joy, the joy that contains both happiness and grief and balances them in a tender stability. 

I know that precious friends and family have been praying for John and me in this major transition. I became the recipient of their grace. What a week. What a grief. What a gratitude. Breathe peace. Breathe dance. Breathe music. Patience attains the goal.

"I and Thou" at Ring Lake Ranch, 2017

I’ve never been a horsewoman. But I wanted to be a horse girl. In fourth grade I asked for cowboy boots and a hat (those didn’t come until I bought them for myself as an adult). I also wanted a horse. Something drew me to horses, so that in the summer, when my family traveled to Colorado from Kansas, I prayed that horses would be involved. Years later, I even hoped that the surprise honeymoon which my father and husband-to-be were planning would involve a ranch in cowboy country. And it did. (Which, by the way, was not the best choice for a honeymoon, if you catch my drift.)

Years later John and I took another horseback ride, this one in the Hollywood Hills. We were accompanied by our Los Angeles family of grown children and their spouses. The six of us headed up and up the hills, as the sun set over the Pacific and the lights of the city twinkled below. Over the last hill we rode, finding a Mexican restaurant that felt like Shangri-La (we never could find it again by car). However, climbing into the saddle after dinner, my “sit bones” cried out for mercy. I think I stood up in the stirrups the entire ride back, moaning. John and I made a promise never to get on a horse again.

But yesterday my notion of horses shifted in the most magical of experiences. At Ring Lake Ranch in Dubois, Wyoming, the wrangler invited us to come to the corral. Several of us gathered on the porch and he told us the story of eleven-year old Martin Buber, the great Austrian born, Jewish philosopher. That summer Buber was once again visiting his grandparents on their estate. Whenever he could steal away unobserved, little Martin walked to the stables to be close to his favorite horse, a dapple-gray. One day, as he was petting the neck of this beautiful creature, his hand began to feel a connection he had never known with another creature. Instead of his horse being an “it,” the horse became the Other: not an object, but a subject. Connected to God.

Dewitt, our wrangler, wanted to find out if that connection might be possible for us. He began his introduction to the experiment by remarking that the only difference between a horse brain and a human brain is the absence of the prefrontal cortex. Like us, horses have a limbic system, emotions, and the ability to connect. Dewitt had created his plan last summer when he realized that we humans are always doing things to horses: saddling, riding, brushing. It was time to let them call the shots.

Our group stood in silence for ten minutes, quieting ourselves in order to be open to what might happen in the corral. Being a bit scared of horses, I was the last one to enter the corral. I found a spot near the gate and stood still with my eyes closed, repeating my mantram (mantra) of Deus meus et omnia, and listening to the sounds of creation – waiting to see if any horse would approach me.

Not a minute passed before two horses shuffled by, sniffing me up and down. As the one on my right began nibbling my arm (I could feel the TEETH), the one on my left began licking my face and my jacket. I tried not to jump. Of course I opened my eyes. That’s when I saw how enormous their feet were. And these two were so tall. My cowardice battled with a sense of wonder at the link that was building with these behemoths, and in an instant, the wonder won, and I fell in love.

Oddly, my fear didn’t entirely leave me, but was surrounded by a caress, like the caress I was giving the necks of these animals if they came and nudged me. My heart melted as I felt them responding back to me with gentle pushes and playful nips, trying to remove my hat. I continued the silent recitation of my mantram (in English: “My God and my all”) as we related to each other; I persisted in repeating it even as they grew curious elsewhere and moved on. Over the next several minutes, other horses came by to size me up, and as coached by the wrangler, I let them make the first move.

I was experiencing a physical meditation, I realized, much like the thirty minutes of Passage Meditation I commit myself to each morning as I silently repeat scripture and prayers. Except that this time, I witnessed giant teeth, huge nostrils, stomping hoofs, and strange, alarming mouth noises. I descended into a visceral contemplation, and the distance between horse and human dissolved.

My stress and brittleness of this summer began to soften. Here was a creature that needed choice as much as I did, whose very life was as important to creation as mine. I thought about how John teaches the first two chapters of Genesis that instead of dominating the world, we are called to protect and serve it. I thought of all the times these horses – and other animals – are employed to serve our needs. Now it was time to see us as equals.

We could just hang out, luxuriating in the connection. I and the Other.

Deus meus et omnia.

    Tigger and me.

In the Jail Last Night

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We're not allowed to take photographs in the jail.

Texas Bluebonnets

So I'm using the Dallas spring flowers instead -- because something like spring happened in the Dallas County Jail last night.

A shake-down had occurred earlier in the day because one of the women had taken a pen. That means that everyone's possessions and bodies are searched. Everything is thrown away that isn't standard issue. Photographs of family, make-up, artwork, creative writing, journaling. All gone.

***

Tulips from the Dallas Arboretum

What's left of you when everything is gone? When you don't see daylight? 

And the only picture of what's happening in the world outside is from your memory?

Daffodils

After we'd all danced an invigorating series of "Saturday Night Fever" (looking ever so much like John Travolta), Cynthia Wilson's "Woke Up Dis Mornin' with My Mind Staid on Jesus," and "Jai Ho" from "Slumdog Millionaire," we formed a circle of chairs.

I introduced the Prayer of St. Patrick, saying that each morning I recite this several times in my meditation.

A form of magnolia

I asked them to imagine "light of sun, radiance of moon, splendor of fire, speed of lightening" as we brought our hands to the namasté position at our hearts. ("The Christ in me loves the Christ in you.")

I spoke them through the prayer before we put on the singing of Sean Davy's setting.

I arise today, through the strength of heaven...

Christ beneath me. Christ above me.

Christ on my right...

I stopped breathing for a split second because I saw what was on my right. It was Angela (not her real name) just where I'd motioned Christ to be.

"Christ on my left..." And there was Barabara on my left. That's where I looked when I looked for Christ.

I don't know what each person is in jail for as they wait their sentence. Prostitution? Drug dealing? Who knows. But it was those faces that I looked into when I looked for Christ.

Tulips

It is Holy Week 2012. Pain and injury continue to surround our cities and homes and hearts. It hasn't stopped in these 2,000 years. Is the death of the One who walked among us useless?

When I saw the faces of these women tune into St. Patrick's ancient prayer, I knew that the death wasn't useless. When I felt my own heart open and my ego humbled. When I saw my dancer friends scurry around trying to remember the choreography that we danced so many years ago to "Lord of the Dance." And witnessed them dancing it beautifully. And when I saw the tenderness that had taken over so many of the women's bodies and faces as they watched and listened. I knew that the death of the Resurrected One was not in vain. He goes before us. He carries our pain. He holds our memory.

Dogwood, an ancient sign of the cross

Something like spring happened in the jail last night.

***

I arise today, through the strength of heaven.

Light of sun, radiance of moon.

Splendor of fire, speed of lightening.

Swiftness of wind, depth of the sea.

Stability of earth, firmness of rock.

I arise today, through God's strength to pilot me.

God's eye to look before me, God's wisdom to guide me.

God's way to lie before me, God's shield to protect me

From all who shall wish me ill, afar and a-near,

Alone or in a multitude.

Against every cruel, merciless power that may oppose my body and my soul.

Christ with me.

Christ before me. Christ behind me.

Christ in me.

Christ beneath me. Christ above me.

Christ on my right. Christ on my left.

Christ when I lie down. Christ when I sit down. 

Christ when I rise. Christ to shield me.

Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me.

Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me.

I arise today.

For a beautifully sung rendition of this, click on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiXM5X34B0Q

Please ignore the gory, Mel Gibson like slides half way through.

Clouds

 

I've been thinking about clouds, cloudiness. 

Our Caribbean cruise in January supplied dramatic moments. 

I want to talk about literal clouds. 

I like that I, personally, have little control over clouds. I even like it that when we came back, ready to disembark early Sunday morning, our ship was stranded three miles from the Galveston port. The clouds had lowered, and we were engulfed in them. Hour after hour we waited.

See the top of another ship, just barely showing through the fog?

Yes, it was a nuisance (and expensive for those missing flights), but I respect that, in the same way that a Rangers game can be rained out, we humans have to bow to a power greater than ourselves. In this case, nature. I like the reminder that we are not the center of the universe.

An ill John rallies, while standing in line for five hours.

Customs, another hour wait. The clouds had made a huge difference.

Clouds.

I even enjoyed the cloud of fake firearms at the Civil War reenactment in Galveston, the day before our ship embarked.

 But this is what I don't like about cloudiness:

I truly don't like the abstract cloudiness of my own thinking or the cloudiness of "spin," political maneuvering, and business subterfuge. I want to see clearly, even if it's painful. I want to know, even if it's not to my advantage.

Don't cloud the issues, please. If you do, I can't trust you. And without trust, we can't have intimate relationships or even public relationships – with doctors or church leaders or food growers or governmental representatives or directors of charitable foundations. (Think the Primaries. Think the Komen Foundation/Planned Parenthood. Think Monsanto's altered food.)

But you have me over a barrel: you can keep me cloudy if I don't have access to the facts. Or, if given the facts, I don't understand them.

That's where the cloudiness from this trip to the Caribbean comes in. I'm not a scholar of economics or of culture. I am a scholar of the spirit, though. So I questioned when I saw a totally different world from the one I experienced in Guatemala and El Salvador on mission trips.

Lake Atitlan, Guatemala

In his book Travel, Joerg Rieger speaks of "Going There and Being There." That's the part I'm thinking about today.  

When we arrived at our three ports, dancers greeted us.

Honduras

Mexico

I loved the music, the bright colors, the history they were preserving, but it was all clouded over. Were we really there?

The dancers and musicians were putting on a show for the thousands of visitors who piled out of our high-rise ship (all 14 stories), as well as the giant ship that docked beside us.

Yes, this brings them money. But at what cost? And what does it do to the impression/education of the visitors? Have we now "seen" Honduras? Belize? Mexico? Do we know their problems? Their dreams? Or is it this fantasy world, set up to keep our heads in the clouds and our feet moving towards the groaning boards of food on the ship? To keep us at arm's length from relating to people because we are so delighted in using them instead of knowing them?

I just finished reading Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner, winner of the Booker Prize. In it she talks about gray: Clouds. Mist. Men's suits. Faces. Her mother's silk peignoir from her wedding night. Overcast skies. "That last gray day." She feels herself dissolving into the grayness. "A chill spread from the untenanted lake behind..."

I won't spoil it for you. But she does see through the grayness and the clouds. In the end. Perhaps in the way you want, perhaps not.

Clouds.

This I know: that when we pay attention, when we have single-minded focus, when we clear out the gray cobwebs in our hearts and the haze in our heads, we're better off. As individuals and as a country or a business or an institution, we are only as sick as our secrets, gray and dark and cloudy as they are.

The concreteness of nature's clouds. 

The cloudlessness of an unclouded day in our souls.

I want to be there.

Why Smart Phones Are Like Praying

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You've seen it: people hunched over their iPhones the minute they walk out of a movie or out of work or into work or at work. Kids in the mall. People in their cars. It's even contagious: if you see someone with their phones under their noses, you immediately grab your own. Mustn't miss something!

But it's a comment I heard about the hunching over that got to me -- like a zinger. When I first received my iPhone (as a birthday present), my husband (the giver), realized that I was no longer present to him. Some present! And just to get my goat, he observed, "You are worshipping at the foot of The Great iPhone. Diana. When you bend over your phone, it's like you're praying."

So, not, "It looks like you're praying" but "It's like you're praying."

Hey, how's a little zinger going to do to stop me.

I haven't stopped. On and on I've gone, relying more and more on my phone. 

• Lost? I'll get you there with my GPS. 
• Wanna know who was in that movie you just saw? I'll look it up. 
• Oh, you'd like to do lunch? Let me check my Calendar.
• ESPN tells me in Norway how the Rangers are doing in Dallas.
• Weather tells me what it's like in Los Angeles. (71 right now, going down to 45 tonight. Don't forget your coat, Sarah, for when you come out of yoga.)
• Allergy Detection, Apple Store, WiredForJoy, TripAdvisor, Zippo Lighter, iWant (one of my faves), Stocks, Photos, RL Classic. 
• What do you need? I can help you.

But it's the WHITE, LOWERCASE f ON THE BLUE FIELD THAT GETS MY ATTENTION OVER & OVER & OVER & OVER & OVER...

My use of it does make me wonder if I'm not doing something like praying.

***

Yesterday I asked people (on FB, of course. Who talks face-to-face anymore?) to tell me:

Where is the oddest, funniest, or rudest place you have seen people on their Smart Phones (I'm writing a blog on phones and want to hear from you first.)

New York Philharmonic Orchestra

I got tremendous responses. My sweet niece sent me a link to what happened last night at the New York Philharmonic. A cell phone went off in the final movement of Gustav Mahler's beautiful 9th Symphony. It made that "marimba" ring that I, and thousands of others, use. It came from the first row. NO ONE MADE A MOVE TO TURN IT OFF. Maestro Gilbert stopped the orchestra, waiting until the ringing ceased. This is something that had never before happened in the history of the orchestra. Take a look. http://m.sfgate.com/sfchron/db_106665/contentdetail.htm?contentguid+EY9cX8oz

You want to hear some other responses? many of them were about embarrassing moments when friends overheard people "doing their business" in the stall next door (or seeing it in action in an unlocked stall they had just mistakenly entered), and they find the person is texting or talking, all to the accompaniment of sounds of nature.

• A pastor told me about a purse ringing in the hospital room as a person was dying, and the Keystone Cops Scramble to try to silence it. 
• A friend remembered being caught talking on her ear bud, while her purse was talking back to her, her cell phone set on speaker-phone. 
• A nurse practitioner told me about a woman texting while getting a pelvic exam (now that's calm).
• A cousin heard a phone go off in a live performance of "Romeo and Juliet."
• Many have heard them in church services or funerals or even in the line to receive the Eucharist, hearing the parting comment from the phonee, "Gotta go. I'm just about ready to receive Communion."
• One saw a cell phone being used on the Wild Mouse at Six Flags.
• Another in a drumming class, when the instructor talked on the phone as eight students banged the drums loudly.
• And the sweetest was a confession from a contrite, former parishioner who told me, "I only used it one time during your sermons, Diana, but it was to make myself a note about a book you had recommended."

It's obvious that something is happening to make people so attracted to this device.

That's where the thought re-enters about prayer.

I don't know if I'm justifying what really might be more of an addiction than a forum for connection, but I've thought about how much we humans need to link. I think we're made that way so that there will be more than one generation. But also because linking with others really is fun or interesting or provocative or tender or at least it gives us something to gripe about.

But, this is the part that doesn't happen on a cell phone: We're also made to link with something beyond ourselves. Like the difference between looking at a YouTube of beautiful trees and actually smelling them, touching them, walking and standing by them, your body in connection, through space, with those trees. Participating, not observing.

It's like the difference between reading People magazine and watching friends bring a paralyzed person through the ceiling of a house to get close to a physician who can heal her. Just saying.

And so, this need to connect, to link, to relate -- that's what compels me to get on FB or email. That very thing. I want to know what you're thinking and doing. I want to laugh at your antics. I want to have you in my life. And to some extent, it is so much like prayer, because when I pray for you day after day, you become something different in my heart. My heart softens for you. My compassion grows. And in the same way, seeing you often on FB softens my heart for you. 

But sometims, this constant striving to be connected and to get input from you does just exactly the opposite. Sometimes it keeps me from seeing what's going on in my own back yard.

Autumn 2011 in our backyard

It keeps me from seeing the squirrel outside my window right now that have been trying for an hour to get access to the sunflower seeds in the bird feeder we just hung up.

Oftentimes it keeps me from being still. And quiet. Being on my cell phone often makes me more agitated, especially when there are no new postings or no new responses to what I have posted. I see glimmers of addiction, but I brush them off, just like the zinger mentioned earlier.

I read less. I learn about you but it is shallow. I could learn more by reading or by sitting down and talking with you.

Others have experienced this, too. Several folks have put a link on FB about a dinner game that's being played called "Phone Stacking." Everyone puts their phones in a stack in the middle of the table. The first one who picks up their phone to respond to a text, call, or email pays for the meal.

Do we, with this innate need to connect, use the cell phone instead of really connecting -- with each other (as this game wants to change) and with the divine?

For those of you who consciously pray, FB can seem like prayer: we say what we think, what we want, and we desire answers in return. When we get answers, we feel connected to the writer. Most of the time, it makes me feel happy to hear from you. I like connecting.

But in the end, FB and emailing doesn't really fill me up like being in your presence. Really getting to know your life and what has made you who you are today gives me so much more. And further, this technology (and I'm not going to give it up completely!) doesn't really satisfy. It's like when I wanted to please my new husband 42 years ago. He said he'd love to have a cherry pie every day. I did it. But his desire didn't last long. He wanted other things to eat and taste and enjoy.

That's where real prayer comes from, I think. 15-30 minutes a day in silence, repeating words from the wise ones that I've committed to memory over the years. Slowly going through these words that direct me beyond my own provincial experiences to a place of utter peace. And it is out of this peace that I can move into the world and get to know the person who is in front of me.

Stay connected!

Analyzing

When I first visited my boyfriend's family home (I was a college freshman; he, a sophomore), his mother said to him after I left the room, "I just don't know about Diana. She analyses things too much."

Thankfully, over these 45 years, I would propose that he either loves that I analyze, or he is a very good sport, or maybe he is a little crazy -- he certainly looks like that here.

Analyzing. Looking deeply.

The neighbor's oak in autumn

That's why I love winter. The skeleton of trees and bushes are revealed, giving us a chance to study the structure. To look deeply.

And that's why I take pictures. 

Ever since that day in fourth grade when I received my first camera (a Brownie with a bright blue body and a large silver dome for holding the big flash bulbs), everything I saw, I instantly examined in terms of structure, shadow/light, color, line. But most of all, structure. "What makes it what it is? What is at the heart of it?"

The oak in winter

To this day, I live these questions 24/7. They are why I became a minister, a liturgical dancer, a mother. I want to get to the heart of things. My poor children have lived with a photographer mom. I ran out of film one time on a mission trip in Juarez. I quickly asked my friend if she had a roll to spare. Handing it to me she chuckled, "I bet your daughter doesn't have one undocumented moment."

It's not that I purposefully want to rob people of their privacy (I do hope my children will forgive me for a lifetime of being my subjects!); it's that I want to know what makes things click. Especially beautiful things. I want to know how things are put together. It's not that I want to pry. It's that I want to figure out how the parts join to make the whole. In other words, photography is the way I make sense of life. 

My close-up lens

Several years ago, John gave me a new lens for my camera. When I opened the box, I was more than surprised. I burst into tears. 

To this day I can't tell you why that gift was so important. I think it may be that someone recognized this driving force underneath everything I do. And that he put money and effort behind the purchase that would enable me to see. 

I finally had a tool for looking deeply into matter. That gift was poetic.

A tiny "Christmas tree" on our front porch

The heart of a poinsettia

My skillful, gardener friend brought me a basket full of these for Christmas

I am analyzing the structure of things, to get to the heart of the matter.

***

Now, my questions to you are these (I hope you'll answer with a comment below or with an email):

1. Do I owe an apology to my children for documenting nearly every one of their moments? If so, what should I say? Or is this just what comes with having a photographer-mom? 

2. And further, is it important for us all to take more time to look at what is at the heart of things? To find out the structure? To see what makes people click?  

It's something to think about. Maybe even analyze.

Giza, Egypt

The Three Kings

Last Saturday we went to St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church to hear the Orpheus Chamber Singers. As they wove an invisible pashmina of sound (!), my eyes welled up numerous times. How can we in Dallas be so blessed as to hear such gorgeous music. Spectacular.

They sang a favorite carol of mine by the Canadian composer, Healy Willan. You can listen to it right now if you have another Internet window open by copying and pasting this: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGUE8vm0LTQ

"Who knocks tonight so late?"

The weary porter said.

Three kings stood at the gate,

Each with a crown on head.

The serving man bowed down,

The Inn was full, he knew.

Said he, 'In all this town

Is no fit place for you!'

****

Entering the Old City

Via Dolorosa 

It was late on this November afternoon when we started 

walking the Via Dolorosa in the Old City of Jerusalem. 

Such a wonderful place, the Old City.

Pilgrims carrying a cross

People at every corner were dreaming or buying.

Shops lined the narrow street. The air was crisp. 

I had to buy a shawl to keep warm.

Beautiful, old Jerusalem

Quickly our guide led us through the labyrinthine pathways. We turned the corner and suddenly were upon hundreds of people crowded into the courtyard of the Church of Holy Sepulchre -- a place of pilgrimage since the 4th century -- purportedly the place where Jesus was killed.

In the square outside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre

I am usually claustrophobic, but I felt peaceful even with this crush of people. 

The place was humming with energy as people waited. For what?

Church of the Holy Sepulchre

The sun was setting; the sky turned a rich blue and the old stones golden. 

So many people. So much energy to get in.

How could it be that this place, commemorating death, could be so full of life? What was happening?

When I went to seminary I learned a great word: proleptic. It means that we see the whole picture. One thing represents what is going to happen. To me, it explains why we celebrate Christmas and why we would visit the place where Jesus has died. We know that these events point to bigger events. Even our own lives are wrapped up in this birth, this death, this resurrection. We know this story. Life/Death/Life.

With a dozen others, I squeezed through the door of the church and turned to my right to climb the narrow stairs. Reaching the top I found the candles and the flame. It was the light of Christ I was after, the light of Christ that I celebrate right now in preparation for Saturday night. Christmas. It was the invisible pashmina of Love, enveloping us -- all of us from around the globe -- and leading us to come, remember, pay homage, and rest.

A light in the manger lit;

There lay the Mother meek.

Said they, 'This place is fit.

Here is the rest we seek!'

Come, come. They loosed their latchet strings,

so stood they all unshod

'Come in, come in, ye kings!

And kiss the feet of God.'

                                               - Laurence Houseman (1865-1959)

Lighting a candle in prayer, wearing my Jerusalem pashmina