Tag: Life

APPREHENDING

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

gratitude
for minutia and large
flowing creation

and homing
family, mystery within walls
around our bedding

wealth beyond cash
and clutter
overabundance of opportunities
to engage

any strength generously

distinguishing between gifts
and hard-earned wealth
and everything seized from others

remembering greed
bondage and
warfare
gluttony all entangle
lust

yet if we love liberally
this sojourn
exposing each deception
in relentless light

reunion .  reconciliation
uttered utterly
forgives . accepts
corrects . and gives again

Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see the full set, click here.

IN THE STARS, MEANING MOSTLY PLANETS

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

I used to get quite annoyed at those at the ashram who were so deeply into the astrology, into charting every minuscule bit of mathematics (and do they ever get into the calculations! hour after hour). And the following is all very tentative, superficial scratching especially when the serious astrologer is looking over our shoulders. But then they look to see what seems to fit and what doesn’t from their findings.

The idea of celestial influences on our lives can be seen in as a dimension of Seasons of Spirit. Sometimes conditions are more favorable than others. Sometimes things go more smoothly than others. The Biblical counsel, however, is to stay faithful in one’s practice. Make no excuses. Be ready.

Those of a more scientific bent can point instead to the precision of celestial calculations. The annual sequence of heavenly turning, the appearance of various meteor showers (with their own unpredictable volume and visibility), is complicated by the individual calculations for moons and planets.

From either perspective, we watch. Two or three planets approach in the evening sky, moving through the night, to reenact an ancient mythological tale.

~*~

For more Seasons of the Spirit, click here.

SO THIS IS THE GOOD LIFE?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Why wait for the dust to settle? Here are 10 bullets from my end.

~*~

  1. Is anything more relaxing than sitting in front of a wood fire? Even when it means sitting on the floor?
  2. Gift-buying husbands? Just look! As she says, they’re subjected to indentured shop-itude.
  3. First day of winter and the flannel sheets should be on the bed by now, if not earlier. Flip the mattress and rotate, too.
  4. Our traditional Christmas dinner includes fresh homegrown Brussels sprouts, which means I’m out in the garden harvesting – sometimes in several feet of snow. Likewise with kale and chard: frost improves the flavor.
  5. Let me suggest Mary, as the mother of the church … a slightly different twist on the Nativity story.
  6. For someone who’s lived under relentless deadlines, Christmas itself can be seen as another damn deadline. Or series of deadlines. This year, I think I’m ahead.
  7. Still, I’m deeply grateful for the sense of release – notes, poems, correspondence … the logjam broken … now that the poems and novels are available.
  8. Grandfathers have grandfathers too. In case you’re in one of those inner-child perspectives.
  9. What are the theological dimensions of Alzheimer’s or dimentia? Where are the connections – the response ability – when your story gets so fragmented you’re no longer connected to anything you encounter?
  10. Tell me something true.

~*~

Our own holly, in front of the house.
Our own holly, in front of the house.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE QUOTATIONS BLUR?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

When someone speaks of an event while quoting someone else, how accurate is that quotation? How much is a recasting by the teller, perhaps years after the event being related?

In drafting my newest novel, as I turned to a first-person narrative by someone who never even met many of the characters she’s telling about, I realized that her quoting them was actually a filtering through her own voice. In other words, the precision of their voice was in question. Would it be right to put their input in quotations marks? Or eliminate the quotation marks and let the telling float in and out of some recollection?

I’ve opted for the latter. Will it work for the reader, though? We’ll see.

THE PRIEST’S WIFE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 3 Comments

The celibacy expectation for their priests and monastics leaves many Roman Catholics perplexed when they hear of the married ministers of their Protestant and Anglican/Episcopalian neighbors. Sometimes this is seen as a question of whether a pastor is able to focus all of his attention on the work of the church without the distractions of family life – or, on the other hand, the ways that family service enriches his ability to understand and counsel the members of his congregation.

(Yes, I’m aware of the male pronoun there – we haven’t touched on the matter of the ordination of women in many of those Protestant and Anglican/Episcopal churches, contrary to Roman Catholic strictures.)

While the focus is usually on the pastors, the condition of their spouses is typically overlooked. Are they fully members of the congregation or are they somehow set apart? They’re definitely in a spotlight and held to a higher standard than the rest of those in the pews. In addition, many congregations assume the spouse – usually the wife – will function as an enthusiastic unpaid full-time employee of the church, either as an unofficial co-pastor, minister of music, choir director, secretary, or some other visible role. Whatever the ultimate definition, it’s a high-stress situation to fill. Not all marriages survive. As one former pastor told me, “My wife said she married me, not the church.” For him, to take another pastorate would have led to divorce.

To add insult to injury, they’re rarely accorded any open recognition of the duties they fulfill, much less given a place of honor. Their husbands are typically addressed as “Reverend,” for starters. As for the wives, though? Only Mrs.

In contrast, the Eastern Orthodox introduce a fascinating alternative. While the priesthood is reserved for males only, they are allowed to marry – if they do it before ordination. The last year of seminary, according to the story, is a time of intense courtship. (Otherwise, it’s celibacy.)

As for the wife? In Greek circles, she’s accorded the title presbytera in English, drawn from priest or elder. Among other Orthodox, similar titles from their native tongues.

Of course, now I’m wondering how it plays out in practice.

YES AND YET

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

The mind dances here and there, rarely in a linear fashion. So what’s on my mind these days? How about counting on these fingers?

~*~

  1. She’s big on Christmas traditions, including our observing Advent these days. I’m still surprised she inherited none of it in her family! Created it like a radical quilt. Makes this array all the more remarkable, from my perspective.
  2. Slush on the windshield. Ice underfoot.
  3. Winter’s setting in, though I’m already tired of it.
  4. The earliest sunsets of the year have plateau’d and are already inching back in my part of the world. The oppressive late-afternoon darkness will soon be obviously relenting. We don’t wait for the solstice.
  5. I like the Eastern Orthodox insight of Mary as the Mother of Light.
  6. In reality, I hate being the caretaker, responsible one, cleaner-upper, put-awayer. Contrary to my self-image.
  7. It’s been a long road to here. Sometimes it feels like a hangover.
  8. In working a seasonal job, she has a curious freedom in not having to worry about being fired, losing the mortgage, and so on. Just put the hours in and go home.
  9. Whatever happened to my collection of winter scarves? (As if I really need to ask.)
  10. Authenticity: something that speaks to the bones.

~*~

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
Brussels sprouts are one of our crops that taste sweeter after surviving a good frost. We’re known to harvest some for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners, and that can mean having to dig them out from the snow. One year required us to shovel more than two feet down.

REVELATION, BEGINNING WITH GROUNDHOG’S DAY

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

BEING SINGLE AND without children for much of my adult life, I could get around Christmas without getting caught up in many of its trappings. One year, getting my holiday greetings out late, I launched my annual letter with “A happy Ground Hog’s Day to thee.”

That’s particular calendar date had seemed so weird, until I discovered there are “solar seasons” as well as the ones our calendars show. In solar winter, for instance, the solstice comes at the middle of the season, rather than the beginning; so Christmas would be right around the middle of solar winter, even though it’s at the beginning of the calendar winter. Why does my brain ever go into these bizarre leaps? Oh well, as long as we’re at it: If my calculations are right, Ground Hog’s day comes at the end of solar winter. Follow that? In other words, as far as the amount of sunlight falling on the Earth is concerned, winter is over, even if we wind up getting another six weeks or so of cold and snowy weather, right up to the vernal equinox. So what I really began asking was whether Punxsutawney Phil, the official ground hog those Pennsylvanians in tuxedos and stovepipe hats bring out every year, is stuffed or live. He sure looks stuffed in the official portrait the wire services move, but what do I know? One of my coworkers, who has witnessed the event, claims it’s a living critter.

Awareness of solar seasons puts other events into perspective. Halloween, for instance, acknowledges the beginning of solar winter. May Day brings solar summer. The Midsummer’s Day or Night, ostensibly announcing the beginning of calendar summer, really does come at solar midsummer. The beginning of August is the invisible event in our awareness.

(Neo-Pagans, incidentally, put their own significance into this alternative alignment of seasons.)

Dwelling in northern New England, as I do, presents another awareness of seasons. They are not evenly divided across the year, as a calendar would do, but are instead of unequal duration. Winter, for instance, begins around Halloween and lingers until the beginning of April – five months, rather than three. Summer, on the other hand, opens around the Fourth of July and ends by mid-August – all of a month and a half. That leaves three months for spring and two-and-a-half months for autumn. Within that there are other divisions. Winter, for example, ends with Mud Season, Black-Fly Season, and Mosquito Season. Or some Mainers see the year as Freezin’ Season, Black-Fly Season, and Road Construction Season.

It’s easy to make the leap to the emotional dimension of the seasons. Skiers and ice fishermen can view deep winter with their own appreciation. I revel in the glorious mutations of October foliage, while another friend dreads its appearance, knowing all too well the gloom that will follow.

Some creatures, of course, will hibernate.

~*~

For more Seasons of the Spirit, click here.