Why Pray?

photo by Michelle Bednash

"Instructions for life: 

Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it."

― Mary Oliver

“Here are the two best prayers I know: 

'Help me, help me, help me' and 'Thank you, thank you, thank you.” 

― Anne Lamott

When I was child I intermittently attended my grandparents' Foursquare Gospel church. My grandpa was an usher and my nana was in the choir, so we always arrived early on Sunday morning. I can remember standing in the church kitchen watching my nana cut up white bread and pour tiny glasses of purple grape juice on communion Sundays. I remember the little hand-held counter my grandpa ticked off as people entered the sanctuary, trying to get an accurate count of worshipers. I remember my nana's choir robe and the hard candies my grandpa kept in his pocket for me and my sister.

There was a lot of talk about the Holy Spirit in that church, a lot of swaying with arms stretched Heavenward during worship services. People did not sit quietly listening to the preacher. They moaned and thanked Jesus a lot. It was rumored that some people had the gift of speaking in tongues which, frankly, was fascinating and a little creepy to me as a child. In fact the whole idea of the Holy Spirit suddenly possessing my body was both thrilling and terrifying. I stayed on my toes. As instructed by the minister, I was forever inviting Jesus into my heart. I kept waiting to feel some kind of sign that he was in there. Couldn't he RSVP so I would know he was coming? Nothing. I must have had the wrong address.

There were many things about that church that mystified and scared me as a child. (Don't get me started on the sermons I heard about the Apocalypse.) But there was one thing I learned there that really helped me: The power of prayer. One of my Sunday School teachers, an elderly woman whose name I've long since forgotten, taught me that prayer was nothing more than having a conversation with God. She said I could talk to God anywhere and that I could do it out loud or silently in my head. Well, this was great news to me. I had a lot to talk about with God. Mostly I had a lot of questions for him about why my parents were getting a divorce. I was prepared to cut deals with him too if he would do something about that.

I made a lot of deals with God and gave him lots of deadlines which he let pass without so much as a note. I knew he was busy, but was it too much to ask to have a return receipt so I would know he had at least heard my prayer? But the deals he wouldn't accept and the deadlines he let slip by weren't really that important. What saved me was just expressing my needs, my fears, my sadness. I was a shy kid. I kept a lot of feelings inside. Prayer, those ongoing (albeit one sided) conversations I had with God helped me articulate my feelings and gave me somewhere to put them. When I prayed I did not feel so alone. And when I sent my fear or sadness out there in the form of a prayer, it lost a little of its hold on me. It wasn't perfect, but prayer helped get me through some rough times as a kid.

I don't believe in God now, at least not the way I did as a child. Gone is the old man with the white beard who ignored my bribes, but saved me a little bit anyway. Today I am a seeker who is comfortable knowing I will probably find more questions than answers in this life, more mystery than certainty. I believe the journey is the important part. The destination is out of my hands. I still believe in the power of prayer but don't do it much anymore. I've been spending far too much time inside my needy, judgmental, controlling head of late. It's a nice place to visit, but I don't want to live there. It may be time to try prayer again.

Earlier today I thought of the serenity prayer used in twelve-step programs. It's a great prayer, one I should start every day with.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.

I don't think it really matters to whom or what you pray. For me, prayer is about letting my needs, my fears, my hopes, my desires out of that cramped, claustrophobic space inside my skull. It's about paying attention. It's about letting go. It's about admitting I'm not the boss of, well, anything. It's about asking for help. It's about saying thank you. It's about opening up to something bigger than myself. It's about allowing awe and wonder in. And ultimately it's about letting love in and sending love out.

Walk The Walk

"The alternative to cynicism is to become more involved in politics.

Help create a progressive force in this nation that grows into a movement 

that can’t be stopped."

--Robert Reich

I am not the best person to write this post. The truth is I have not been much of a political activist thus far in my life. I have marched in a couple of pro-choice and marriage equality marches, worked the occasional table for these issues, donated a few bucks here and there, and been part of a few other random political actions over the years. But I have not really dug my hands into the dirt of any of the issues I care about and really worked hard. In my young adulthood, I'm ashamed to say, I didn't even always vote. 

Tuesday's election restored some of my faith in my fellow Americans. By and large, we are good people. But the nastiness leading up to the election really started to get to me. And I'm not talking about the nastiness of the politicians and the Media. I'm talking about the nastiness that my friends and I propagated, largely through social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter. At first I laughed at the mean-spirited jokes and memes that appeared with alarming regularity in my Facebook news feed. I even shared some. But then I stopped finding them funny. It occurred to me that the politicians didn't need to pay for attack ads anymore because we were willingly and freely doing it for them. We all claim to be disgusted by the negativity and mean spirited nature of political campaigns, but there we were, participating in the negativity gleefully. As Pogo so famously said, "We have met the enemy and he is us."

So what does this have to do with my political activism (or lack there of)? Well, I started to wonder how many of my friends were like me. How many of us were joking and complaining but not doing much else? Some of my friends have been working hard for years. Sarah and Wayne did their part this election by logging hours of phone banking. Chuck is genetically programmed for political activism. Natalie has worked tirelessly for the homeless for years. And Katie recently took her passion for environmental issues to a new level by participating in a training with Al Gore. Now she is out there giving public presentations about global warming.

But what about the rest of us? What about me? What should I do? I've started following Robert Reich on Facebook. For the few who might not know who he is, Robert Reich is a Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley and was Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration. He's smart and down to earth, realistic and optimistic. And he doesn't just inform. He says, here's what YOU can do. So the first thing I did was join Common Cause www.commoncause.org, a non-partisan, non-profit advocacy group that Robert Reich currently chairs. Common Cause is a good place to start for people like me who want to do something, but aren't sure what.

That's only a first step though. Writing this is another. What I would really like is a mentor and a team. I need help focusing my limited time and energy, and I know I am more motivated and inspired when working with others. Some of the issues I am most passionate about include marriage equality, gun control, education, homelessness, reproductive rights, environmental protection and, well, lots more. I want to invite those of you who are out there working for change to share your good works with the rest of us. Right here. Leave a comment on this post telling us what you're doing and how we can help. I promise to read all of them and see where I might best use my time and talents. How about the rest of you? As Robert Reich says, "It won’t happen if you wallow in the comfort of your cynicism. But it will happen if you and others like you get fired up."

How Old Would You Be?

"How old would you be if you didn't know how old you are?"

--Satchel Paige

I saw this quote on the side of a delivery van last week while I was walking the dog. I didn't know it was by Satchel Paige at the time, and I have no idea what business the van was with. It was there and gone in an instant. But that question, "how old would you be if you didn't know how old you are?" stuck with me. It was meant for me. You see, next week, on the day the country decides if Obama or Romney will be running the show for the next four years, I will turn 50. The big Five Oh. Half a century. Aye aye aye. I have to admit, I'm having just the tiniest bit of trouble embracing that number. It seems so, well, old.

I loved turning 30. I was a big fan of the TV show Thirtysomething. Being 30 was what cool people did. Sure Hope and Michael and Melissa were neurotic as hell, but neurotic in a cool, attractive, Pottery Barn lifestyle kind of way. 40 was a bit tougher. I had a four year old and an almost two year old. I was beginning to understand why people used to have kids when they were in their twenties. 40 year old mothers of toddlers are tired, tired people. My mom ordered a bounce house for my birthday party though, so that helped. But 50? Last night I said to my husband, do you realize that you already knew my mom when she was my age? He looked at me blankly, but I was blown away by this realization. My mom came to San Francisco to help me celebrate my 30th birthday. Paul and I were living together in a Victorian flat in the lower Haight then. Bill Clinton had just been elected president. And my mom was 49! When did I catch up with her?

Now really, this should not be as hard as all that. I haven't seen my natural hair color since 1986 so my grey hair denial is rock solid. I have been wearing empire waists, A-line skirts and tankinis for the last decade so I know how to disguise my figure flaws. And I learned at least eight years ago that I should never be left alone with my thighs in a fitting room. That's why God created on-line bathing suit shopping. Sure I've got this low grade chronic pain in my left leg and I wear progressive eye-wear now, but who cares? For the most part, I feel pretty good about who I am today. In fact, I would go so far as to say I feel more at home in my own skin now than when I was 30. I saw my friend Richard at church on Sunday. He had just celebrated his 90th birthday so I asked him if he had any advice for me as I turned 50. He just looked at me and exclaimed, "you've got four more decades!" 

I'm ready to make the best of those precious decades. I'm not a baseball fan, but I think I may add Satchel Paige to my list of heroes. He didn't let age stop him and he never let go of his dreams. He played in the Negro Leagues for 22 years before finally being allowed to realize his dream of pitching in the Major Leagues. He pitched his last game when he was about 60 (no one knew his age for sure), throwing three shut out innings for the Kansas City Athletics. When asked how old he was, he never gave a direct answer. Instead he said things like, "Age is a question of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter." 

So, how old would I be if I didn't know how old I was? I'm not sure, but I'm going to try really hard not to get stuck on the numbers and start taking Satchel Paige's advice. He was also the guy who said, "Work like you don't need the money. Love like you've never been hurt. Dance like nobody's watching." I'm far from done yet. There's a lot I want to do. And there's a lot to love in this life. I'd be a fool to let a number stop me. Satchel also said, "Don't eat fried food, it angries up the blood." Wise man, that Satchel Paige. I want to be like him when I grow up.

The Importance of Sugar Skulls

"Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them."

--George Eliot

El dia de los Muertos is not part of my cultural heritage. But every October for the past eight years I have created an alter for my dead with photographs, flowers, candles, food,  and sugar skulls. Gifts for the dead. It is not a slap dash affair either. I try to place each item with presence and purpose. There's my father-in-law's pipe, a mandolin pick and a beer for my step father, a can of sardines for the cat, my grandfather's bolo tie, and a box of Constant Comment tea for my Nana. As I carefully arrange these things, I begin to feel my dead gather around me. Time slows down, then rewinds. The smell of my nana's fresh baked dinner rolls wafts in on a breeze; the faint sound of my grandparents' baseball game on the radio, and the music from my step father's mandolin fill the room. 

When my daughter Frances was in second grade we spent one day a week "homeschooling." One of our homeschool days found us at an exhibit of Day of the Dead alters (or ofrendas) at a local museum.We were captivated by the bright colors, the humor and the personality of these creations.  Frances wrote a little report about the tradition of El dia de los Muertos in Mexico and we created our first ofrenda at home. We found a bakery that made pan de muerto (bread of the dead), we made spicy Mexican hot chocolate, and we spent an evening telling family stories about the beloved people and pets on our alter. Almost immediately I appreciated how much richer this tradition was than a typical American Halloween with its blood, gore and fear factors.

We still celebrate Halloween of course. We carve jack-o-lanterns, go trick-or-treating and eat plenty of candy. Not to worry. But we also spend an evening telling our kids family stories. Stories about how every Thanksgiving my Nana would say that her pie crust "wasn't fit to eat," or how she broke her ankle tripping over a kneeling parishioner at her church. My husband tells the kids how his dad always smoked a pipe and worked on complex scientific equations in the evenings after dinner, smoke curling around his head. We pass around one of his pipes and smell the aroma of the sweet tobacco that still lingers in the bowl. I tell them that my grandfather loved to drink Dr. Pepper and had crushes on the women on The Lawrence Welk Show. I share stories about how my step father traded his first car for a Martin guitar, and how he would play the mandolin and teach us old folk songs and sea chanteys around the campfire. Last year we remembered how we all lay on the bed with our cat Effie the night before we put her to sleep, gently petting her, telling stories about her, saying goodbye to her.

My kids are lucky. They have not yet suffered the loss of someone close to them. Other than the cat, everyone on our alter died before they were born. But this is a special time for us as a family, an opportunity to help our children see their lives in the context of a long heritage, and an opportunity for my husband and I to gather our dead around us and remember them. I hope that by taking this time every year to honor our dead, the kids will know some comfort when they do lose someone they love. 

Traditionally sugar skulls are given as gifts to both the living and the dead for el Dia de los Muertos, often with the name of the recipient written on the forehead in icing. They gently remind us that death is a part of life. Through memories, stories, and symbols, our dead come home to us.  If just for awhile. We share sweet bread and and spicy hot chocolate. And we introduce them to our children.

Step Away From the Screen

"...please, oh please, we beg, we pray,

Go throw your TV set away,

And in its place you can install

A lovely bookshelf on the wall.

Then fill the shelves with lots of books,

Ignoring all the dirty looks,

The screams and yells, the bites and kicks,

And children hitting you with sticks"

--Roald Dahl

from "Television"

***

When my daughter Frances was in kindergarten, I helped rally the class to participate in National TV Turnoff week. The kids buried a TV in books, they ate a TV (a TV shaped cake), and I wrote and taught them a song about all the things they could do instead of watch TV. It was a fun week at school. At home, it was a week like any other for Frances. We did not own a TV.

Some of my old friends will start groaning about now. They're thinking, uh oh. Here she goes again. The crazy lady with the "Turn Off TV. Turn On Life" bumper sticker on her minivan is back. God help us. -- Well, if she's back it's with her tail between her legs. Friends, I'm here to tell you, we are in a losing battle with screen time at our house these days. The Internet is ruling the roost.

We still don't have cable TV, and we currently only have one computer in our house. But when the four of us are home, that computer is rarely at rest. Miles plays Minecraft, Frances scrolls through Tumblr posts or watches Dr. Who episodes, Paul feeds his news addiction, and I wander through the time sucking world of facebook. It is harder and harder to find an evening where no one is either on the computer, waiting for the computer, fighting over the computer, or complaining that I won't let them on the computer. This addiction to the Internet kind of crept up on us. Rules were set, bent, and finally broken and ignored. And it's not just the kids.

Now, I do not think the Internet is evil, anymore than I think the library is evil for housing books I don't like or agree with. We use the Internet for worthwhile ventures too. Frances has taken an interest in British TV dramas, Miles feeds his hunger for scientific information, Paul keeps up with the NY Times, and I get to write and share a blog. What pains me is when my children act as if there is nothing else to do when we are at home. Or when they will choose the Internet over going outside on a beautiful sunny day. 

When my kids were little and we didn't have a TV, I almost never heard them say they were bored. And on the rare occasions they did, they used their imaginations to pull themselves out of the doldrums. Boredom is not a condition to be avoided at all cost. It can be the birthplace for creativity. I worry that, for all of us, the Internet is our drug of choice for coping with boredom. I worry about what it might do to wonder and imagination.

In Norton Juster's classic children's novel, The Phantom Tollbooth, young Milo returns from his adventure and discovers a world that has been waiting for him all the time. This is what I don't want my children to lose. This is what I don't want to lose either:

"Outside the window, there was so much to see, and hear, and touch--walks to take, hills to climb, caterpillars to watch as they strolled through the garden. There were voices to hear and conversations to listen to in wonder, and the special smell of each day.

And in the very room in which he sat, there were books that could take you anywhere, and things to invent, and make, and build, and break, and all the puzzle and excitement of everything he didn't know -- music to play, songs to sing, and worlds to imagine and then someday make real."  

We shouldn't fear boredom. If we stick it out, imagination will come to our rescue.

It's The Little Things

"Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were big things."

--Robert Brault

Some days are clumsy and awkward, like your first junior high school dance. Everything you say comes out wrong, you're obsessed with what people are thinking about you, and you have bad hair to boot. Your insecurity feels like a scratchy wool blanket thrown over your head. And even though you know there are people out there who are having a lot harder time than you are (in fact you can think of at least three you know personally), you still can't crawl out of your cramped little hole of self-pity. Yuck. I mean, really. If you're going to obsess and worry shouldn't it be over climate change or how you're going to ever afford to send your kids to college?

Some days are just small and crummy though, which is different and definitely not as bad as big and awful. I am not my best self by a long shot on crummy days. I tend to get all needy or whiny or grumpy. And then I worry about people not liking me because I'm all needy or whiny or grumpy. Enough! On days like that it's important to remember the little things. I should pull myself out of myself and look around at all there is to be grateful for, right? So after slogging through a needy, whiny kind of day yesterday, I tried to think of one little thing to cherish about the day. 

... Nothing. Couldn't think of one thing.

Now, I'm sure there were actually plenty of things to cherish yesterday, but I was entirely too whiny to notice them. Good thing I keep lists of things I am grateful for to refer to on days like this. I try to write down at least three things I'm grateful for in my journal almost every day. It's part of my personal campaign to start seeing the glass half full rather than half empty. And, you know what? It actually works.

Here are some little things I have been grateful for over the last year: That my husband makes coffee every morning before I get up, for thrift store shopping, for sweet potato cornbread, wild mustard flowers, and kale salad, that I am no longer terrified to sing in front of people, that my dog Zeke dragged me out for a walk on a cold blustery day, for my mom on her birthday, for a little bit of quiet in the morning, for a perfect swirl in the peanut butter jar, for the sunflowers bowing to me from the vase across the room, for all the terrific people I get to make music with, for time to snuggle in bed with my son in the morning, for Bananagrams and "Sherlock" with my daughter, for minestrone soup on a rainy day, for self-restraint at the new REI store, for the people who read my blog, for two kids who are fantastic hikers, for a lively choir rehearsal, for good friends who listen.

And yesterday? I am grateful that my husband devotes his Monday afternoons to soccer with my son, that Zeke and I watched the tide come in from "our spot" on the beach, for a cold beer on a warm evening.

 Life is good.

When Food Is Love

“What can you do to promote world peace? Go home and love your family.” 

― Mother Teresa

As a child, I would sit at the table in my Grandma Eva's tiny kitchen, watching her roll out pasta dough, enough to cover the whole table. Flour dusted her hands and arms as she handed me a small ball of dough to shape and play with. Watching her make ravioli was like watching a sculptor at work. She was confident and her hands nimble as she labored over the pasta dough, the recipe coming straight from her head. I especially loved the old rolling pin with little ravioli shaped squares cut into the wood. Grandma Eva would give me a taste of the filling as she layered it on the dough, spinach, garlic, Parmesan cheese, and other ingredients. She would then gently press on the top layer of dough and roll the layers of dough and filling into perfect little pillows with that special rolling pin. When they were done, she laid the ravioli carefully into boxes with wax paper between each layer and put them in the freezer. There they waited until she was ready to prepare Christmas dinner for her eight children and their families.

On summer days Grandma Eva made egg salad sandwiches on white bread and packed them up with chips and 7-Up for a day at the beach. There were always coins for an ice cream sandwich too. And more spare change for a treat from Nicolini's snack truck before we left the beach. Nicolini's funky old truck had brightly colored pin wheels along the top to catch the wind. It was jam packed with all the candy a child could desire, so hard to choose just one thing. When we'd made our choice, we would walk to my great grandmother's house, Grandma Eva's mother "Nannie." We would sit around the kitchen table and my grandma would let us kids drink coffee loaded with milk and sugar while she and her mother and sisters shared family gossip in Italian. When we were tired of the grown up talk, my cousin and I would go outside and play among the lobster traps in Nannie's yard or climb the fig tree and eat the ripe, warm fruit.

When your grandmother is Italian, you are never hungry. Of the many ways my Grandma Eva expressed her love for her children and grandchildren, feeding us was one of her favorites. Whether she was feeding us saltine crackers with butter for a quick snack, homemade turkey and rice soup, "Green Spaghetti" (long before we Americans knew what pesto was), or her sweet delicate cream puffs, my grandma's food was always served with a generous helping of love. She even knew how to make you feel loved with a store bought Popsicle or the stash of Twinkies she kept in the dining room cupboard. 

My grandma is 98 years old now. She no longer cooks, but you can still find her sitting at the table in her tiny kitchen. And when I go to visit, I still don't leave hungry. My Aunt Lorraine makes sure of that. She lives with my grandma and has absorbed much of her wisdom about food and love. Just last Thursday evening, Lorraine handed me a plate of her homemade enchiladas and a glass of Pinot Griggio when I dropped by for a visit. My grandma taught Lorraine to serve up love and comfort with a meal. And she has learned well!

My Grandma Eva lives at home because my Aunt Lorraine loves and cares for her. I don't think Lorraine imagined her future this way when she was growing up. She simply found herself on this path as the days and years unfolded. It is hard work. She runs a home day care and takes care of my grandma. She feels anxious and tired a lot, and who could blame her. But Lorraine says her mother is her best friend and it shows. She keeps my grandmother's life purposeful. Nearly blind, my grandma can still peel garlic, fold clothes, and hold babies. Lorraine takes her for drives and they fantasize about which beach house they would like to live in. They play the lottery together and imagine what they would do with the money. They gossip about celebrities, they worry over family members, they go to the nursery and pick out new flowers for their beautiful yard. And of course they spend time in the kitchen, Lorraine cooking all the foods my grandma taught her to make, plus some recipes of her own.

This Fall I hope to spend another afternoon in my grandmother's kitchen, watching my aunt Lorraine roll out the ravioli with that old rolling pin, tasting the filling, maybe helping my grandma peel garlic. I want to witness this slow, labor intensive, time honored  process again. I hope to be able to channel some of my Grandma Eva and Aunt Lorraine's love of cooking into my own meal preparations. Too often I rush through the process of putting food on the table, hastily preparing a last minute meal. My grandma and my aunt know in their bones that preparing food and feeding your family is an act of love, a daily practice to engage in with thoughtfulness and care. I know that their love always sustains me long after the meal is over.