When things go wrong

I spent this morning testifying in court over in New Jersey. I've done this before, and I don't enjoy it. When it was over I felt several thousand pounds lighter and my mood improved enormously.

This had to do with a man who is adept at pinching other folks' identities. Credit cards, driver's license, the works. Strangely, he never seemed to spend much on himself; he had nice clothes for important events, but mostly he looked pretty much like the average guy. He didn't own a car, or even his own place.

As far as I know, that is. I suppose when you're good at stealing other people's lives, you could have as many of your own as you wish. He is obviously intelligent, but somewhere along the line of his own life he opted to use that intelligence to harm others. I guess what he got in return was a sense of power — perhaps limitless in scope. I don't know.

It was quite strange to be testifying for the prosecution. I knew him as a clever, funny, charming guy, and he didn't filch anything of mine so I have no anger or resentment toward him. I understand some of the best crooks are charming indeed; but there I was, offering information that was going to help provide him a lengthy stay in the local federal prison — and there he was, smiling at me with that same impish charm as if he firmly believed every word of the lie his life has become.

He thought he was happy; I thought I might cry. What a waste of a human life. All that cleverness could so easily have been channeled in wonderful directions. I don't know what happened to him; I doubt anyone else does, either. Perhaps he can't explain it himself. He is so deeply immersed in his charade that no one even knows his real name.

How much sadder can a life be than to not be known for who you really are?

Free—free at last!

Thanks to the advice of an experienced "duck man", we've learned that Muscovy ducks do an amazingly fine job of coping with cold weather. Even when it's -15°.

Well go figure. Here we've been turning ourselves into pretzels, climbing in and out of the newly insulated duck houses (hey, the ducks got the first straw bale residences on the property), and now we find out all they need is non-frozen water, a bit of food and a shelter—and a simple open-sided lean-to would meet that requirement. They never did have to be confined to their fine houses when it got cold.

No wonder the ducks wanted to escape. They must have thought we were nuts.

I guess they were right, though; when we learn something new about what it means to live in harmony with the land and its wonderful creatures, our prior efforts often end up looking a little crazed. It's just like us humans to think animals need us to survive "out there".

They don't. When we take animals into our environment, we do owe them a safe and sustainable living situation, of course, but that's it. They can figure out the rest of it all by themselves.

That's a hard lesson to learn—that the Earth can take perfectly good care of itself without our help, and has been doing it for, oh, some four billion years or so. In fact, most of what we do to the Earth is detrimental, not helpful.

Maybe that's why most creatures don't have egos.

Of prophets ... and hometowns

Today's gospel (Luke 4:21-30, RCL) includes that oft-quoted passage about how anyone with a prophetic message (which is pretty much always bad news) isn't going to get a fair hearing among his/her friends and family. "No prophet is accepted in the prophet's hometown" Jesus says among his homies; and they are so angry they try to haul him off to the nearest cliff so they can throw him to his death.

Talk about not being accepted. Thankfully, Jesus — in true shamanic fashion — walks right through the middle of the angry mob, apparently unnoticed, and makes good his getaway.

On hearing this passage our minds usually drift toward empathy with Jesus' statement about inevitable rejection from our hometown crowd. But this morning, as I listened once again to this familiar passage, my attention was yanked, and then glued (I missed the rest of the gospel and a fair amount of the prayers that followed), to the whole idea of prophecy.

I have often said that we religious are (or at least should be) today's prophets; we are the ones commissioned to stand out there on the edge of things, challenging, inviting, cajoling the rest of the church and anyone else who will listen to leave that proverbial comfort zone and follow Jesus into the future.

Common understanding notwithstanding, a prophet isn't a fortune-teller, and s/he isn't the designated doom-sayer, either; there are no crystal balls involved. A prophet has the amazing ability to be obedient to today.

Come again?

OK, "obedience" is not saying yessir/nosir to the ones standing on the rungs above you. This lovely word comes down to us with roots in "toward" and "listen" (ob - audire). To be obedient is to "listen toward". Imagine leaning toward a speaker so you hear and understand every word. Quite a challenge when those lips are spouting something we don't want to hear, something that yanks our emotional chain, something we don't agree with and don't enjoy hearing.

A prophet has great skill in just that kind of deep listening. S/he is something of a blank slate upon which all of the information spinning around us today can be written. And what does s/he do with it?

A true prophet takes it in, and then looks at it with what I call the "35,000 foot viewpoint" — avoiding the devil-in-the-details snare so the big picture zooms into focus. S/he has the ability to look at the train we're all on, and then to figure out where that train is headed.

If you see a train speeding toward a washed-out trestle, you just have to do something. Call 911. Rehearse your CPR and crash-EMT skills. Try to get the engineer's attention. Anything.

Anything at all, because you can see an inevitable disaster looming on the horizon.

That is prophetic witness. No wonder we don't want to hear from these folks. We're sipping our martinis in the club car, looking sideways at pretty scenery sliding by the window. Don't annoy us with 911 calls and red flags.

But the prophets, who see the scenery, the passengers, and the destination of the train, are trying to get our attention. Considering that the entire Earth is our hometown, it's no wonder they're having a rough time.

Perfect Balance

I suppose this picture will hike a few eyebrows. What is a nun doing showing an, um, amorous embrace between slugs on her blog?

Raciness aside, I think this is one of the more lovely pictures we have. That is saying more than you might imagine; last summer slugs were the bane of our gardening endeavors, easily consuming as much food (and I wouldn't be surprised if it were actually more) than six humans did. We confess to dispatching a goodly number of them using the tried and true beer method. They entered eternal slug-life as happy little critters; I was sure if I listened hard enough I'd hear drinking songs and raucous laughter from the strawberry patch.

But then Sr. Helena Marie took this amazing picture, and my attitude made an abrupt about-face. How can you not like creatures that mate in the yin-yang position? Suddenly I thought strawberry shortcake came in a poor second to the artistry of these amazingly beautiful creatures — and who would ever think that about a slug?

Natural conversation

Living on the farm is teaching us firsthand what lies behind some of the sayings humans use freely. Brooding. A sitting duck. To squirrel away.

It was the red squirrels' squirreling this fall that caused Sr. Lilli Ana to predict a really, really severe winter. Those little clowns laid up a supply of pine cones that would keep all the horses on our neighbor's farm in feed for months. This is just one pile; there were a lot of 'em.

We've lived close enough to the land to respect the conversation available continuously from Mother Earth. In Colorado I used to watch the height of the skunk cabbage to predict the snowfall for the coming winter. Here we "listen" to the squirrels by noticing what they lay aside to keep them going until the riches of next spring become available. Huge piles of "squirreled away" pine cones predicts a tough winter.

But with global warming, we began to wonder if the squirrels had lost their predicting touch. October. November. December. By the middle of January we'd had one snow shower and an average temperature of about 50°. Not good.

Sr. Lilli Ana stuck with the squirrels, though. "Just wait," she kept saying. "This winter's going to be severe. Trust the squirrels."

Well, it's hard to trust a little tree imp. I'm human, you know, and we have thermometers, graphs, dew points, Doppler radar, and an overdeveloped frontal lobe that helps us believe we're the brightest and most skillful creature around.

What I forgot is that all the creatures have amazing abilities, and each one has at least one skill I can't even comprehend much less accomplish myself. Global warming has certainly stirred the climate pot in dangerous ways, and one result may well be uneven weather patterns with extreme fluctuations. But whatever is behind this strange winter, the brutal times have arrived for those who live in nature's housing. Tonight, tomorrow, Saturday ... temperatures near zero and enough wind to drive them down to fifteen below.

Those squirrels were right. Brrrrrrr ....

Out of Control

You know how it is when someone does something funny in a situation where no one should be laughing?

Today during our daily conference, where we discuss the nits and lice of daily life — who needs the car, shopping needs for the day, house repairs needed and so on — one of the sisters jumped back and clapped her hands together loudly, then resumed talking as if nothing unusual had happened. Startled, the rest of us reacted. "Wow. That's quite a tic you've developed there ..." was probably the best one. We all laughed.

But somewhere deep inside each of us, the funny bone had been tickled. Snickering evolved into guffaws. This was really, really funny. Of course there was a reasonable explanation: the sister was trying to dispatch a bothersome gnat, buzzing around her head. Not all that strange, really.

But funny.

We resumed our meeting, and the day went on. I turned a newly made cheese every hour. A phone appointment occurred. A dog coat was constructed to protect Simon from the frigid weather to come. The duck houses were gussied up with tarps, straw bales and new hasps and hinges so the -12° temperatures to come wouldn't harm those fragile feet and caruncles. Plans were completed for the trip to upstate New York and the NOFA conference.

At 5:30 we headed out to the chapel for Evening Prayer. There we were, beginning one of the most solemn and lovely offices in the daily round of prayer. "Now that we have come to the setting of the sun, and our eyes behold the Vesper light ... " Solemn. Beautiful. Serious.

Until the first snort of laughter exploded.

I don't know what triggered the connection to that gnat-killing hand-clap, but there it was. And all of us were laughing and crying at the same time, unable to stop.

As far as I can tell, this was the first time in the seventeen years I've spent in this Community that we thought we might have to memorialize an office due to hysterics. We just couldn't stop. We tried everything: saying rather than singing; laughing uncontrollably for awhile, to see if we could get ourselves under control. It got better, but it never disappeared entirely, even when we sang the final respond for a double feast. Poor Paul; not an entirely respectful honoring of his conversion.

We meant him no harm, of course; we tried our best to reign in the snickering. But sometimes you just have to let laughter have its way. Time will fix it eventually.

Our apologies for this unorthodox celebration of your life, dear Paul. We hope that you, too, had an occasionally quirky sense of humor that carried you away from your speaking goal on the wings of silliness. Or at least some tolerance for those of us who do.

Winter woe, springtime promise

The ducks are out again today, and we're all glad about it. For the past two days they've had to stay in their houses, protected from the bitter cold. That means that two of us haul five-gallon buckets of water down to the duck houses, along with two dishes of duck feed and the empty water pans. While one of us sets up the food and water in each house and collects the eggs, the other keeps the ducks from escaping.

That is not quite as easy as it may sound. A twelve-pound duck with talons who wants to fly out of the house can pretty well do it. Imagine an un-neutered feral tom cat with wings and you'll get the idea. The whole procedure is reversed at night. We have to re-hay the houses then, too; if we don't, the ducks' fragile feet could suffer from spending the night on wet (and probably frozen) hay—the inevitable result of their feather and nose hygiene, and the very disaster we're trying to prevent by keeping them locked up.

Duck house-arrest happened quite a bit last winter, but this is the first time this season. Strange. I guess that's good for the ducks, because they certainly prefer to be roaming free, noshing on whatever tasty greens they find and soil-dwellers they can dig up. For the ducks, being cooped up, literally, is miserable—to say nothing of stinky. The sisters aren't too happy with added labor the confinement requires either.

On the other hand, those cold, cold days are necessary to maintain the health of the whole environment around here. Maple tree sap needs to "rest" in the roots for long periods of time to be fortified with nutrients from the soil. Good for the tree, good for making maple syrup. The cold maintains a balance among the tiny critters, like virii, bacteria, deer ticks, slugs, beetles and ground bees. Cold triggers hibernation in some of the local animal community. Cold sends the geese south each year. Cold keeps some of the more "challenging" plants, like poison ivy, from growing dangerously large and powerful. Cold is our friend.

So, I'm sorry Basil, Henrietta, Clementine, Petra and Macrina, that you have to suffer days of confinement. But the payback comes this spring, when you'll each have two strong, healthy feet and those amazingly strange facial decorations (caruncles). That's when you'll really have a great time, rooting around in the mud and finding the most delicious tender greens. Hang in there. It's coming ...

A Word About Bob

I think I mentioned awhile back that another drop-off critter had joined our ranks: a (mostly) snuggly black cat. Buzz Lightyear is his official name; but over the months since his arrival his true nature has been revealed, and it is clear that he is a Bob.

Bob was a fine companion during my recent illness, spending most of his days purring loudly as he wrapped himself around my sore throat, cuddled on my chest under the quilt, or sat on my head so he could claim most of the pillow. I found the comfort of his warmth worth a few cat-hairs in the mouth. He purred a lot, and was extremely nice to me, even when I repeatedly rolled over on him in my sleep.

Now that I'm back to normal, so is Bob. He doesn't like it when I work at the computer; he sits on the tablet, makes phone calls with his feet, knocks my pen on the floor and swats it under the cabinet, rubs his face all over the keyboard (always dangerous to the work in progress), and stands in front of the monitor. He has a limited tolerance for the petting he begs for. He uses the latest rows of my knitting project to clean out the litter from his paws. Occasionally he yowls at a decibel level that sounds like he's being declawed without benefit of anesthesia, but all he's saying is "It's time for cookies, woman!" His main mode of communication, though, involves teeth and claws and usually draws blood. Mine.

I think Bob misses being outdoors, now that time has erased the memories of starving, running from coyotes and raccoons, and yearning to sleep peacefully (and safely) in a human lap for an hour or so. Mercifully, all he remembers now are the birds, the warm sun, the thrill of the hunt.

We struggle to understand each other, and are both grateful for those moments when we seem to have figured out what the other wants and is willing to give. So I try to be tolerant of his crabby moods; I work hard at "reading" him, which is of course impossible. I try anyway, because I love him, and to the best of cat possibility, he loves me.

And when you love something, you learn to cut it a lot of slack. After all, they do the same for you when you need it most.

Learning Another Lesson

I'm not too adept at sickness, having been disgustingly healthy most of my life. Things go downhill fast when I feel mostly good but just flat out starchless; my patience (never my strong suit) goes right out the window. Talk about crabby. Good thing I wasn't around my sisters more. Crabby drooped downhill to depression as the weeks (six, count 'em) wore on.

I've been told, by many fellow pneumonia sufferers, that staying down is critical to getting better. They tell me, if I were to try to get back to my normal life before it's really time to do so, I would suffer a relapse which would be, of course, much worse than its predecessor. Hunh. Pretty effective threat.

I should probably note that this advice comes from a perspective of some distance for each teller. Like childbirth, I suspect they have forgotten something of the agony and looniness that set in with the long days of cotton-brained, isolated, frustrating boredom. I suspect this because I've now been vertical (except for a pretty good night's sleep) since mid-day yesterday, and I'm already beginning to look backward at this experience with more perspective and less hopelessness. It wasn't all that bad after all, was it?

Wellll ... maybe, maybe not. Not enough perspective yet.

But I feel that inner rising, the bubbling to the surface of optimism, that heralds a return to health and active engagement. Everything I look at or think about is interesting again. Even the foggy, gray day is beautiful once more, the bright red of cardinals and woodpeckers a surprise visual blast of beauty that makes my heart sing—the taste of newly-made cheese a delight on my tongue, cleaning two fresh duck eggs a satisfying use of five morning minutes—in a day in which I am so grateful to be alive, to see and smell and hear and ponder and laugh and love.

Now that I think of it, those long days of feeling only minimally "alive" may have been something of a pseudo-burial; an enforced resting time during which my ability to appreciate was reawakened and focused in ways my "regular" life couldn't allow. I wrote this to a relative this morning: "Isn't it amazing how something awful, like the death of a parent, opens doors that were firmly sealed shut until the awful thing happened? Convinces me yet again that there is a Cosmic Wisdom waaaay beyond our understanding."

It is amazing. Thank you, Cosmic Wise One, for helping me sink into a place where my [st]illness unearthed a key to new life.

Duckie Update

I just realized that we had another duck re-arrangement in the past few months that I missed sharing with you duck fans out there.

Sadly, Terry (Teresa of Avila) died this fall. Somehow she picked up a bacteria that caused a severe infection in her heart. Apparently ducks appear perfectly fine, as did Terry, until they are at death's door. I know people like that — stoic to the literal end. I'm not convinced this is a great idea.

Anyway, Terry was fine until the evening we tried to put her into the duck house for the night and she didn't want to move from under the bush. One of the sisters thought she might have an injured leg, as she seemed unable to get up. She picked her up, called me and we headed off for the vet. Though the doc saw her quickly, she had just died in sister' arms when the vet entered the examining room.

The vet said she had been very ill for months, but ducks just do that stoic thing. There was nothing that could have been done with the amount of bodily damage Terry had suffered by the time she began to show signs of trouble.

We've kept a close eye on the rest of the flock, but so far everyone seems to be just fine. Luckily, this seems to have been an isolated infection. I do think the loss was hard on the little duck family, though. Everyone has been a little more subdued; the egg production slacked off, Petra has been in brood mode for months ... death is a difficult part of life for just about everyone. So we do what we can, we continue to love each other, we celebrated her little duck life, and we appreciate every day, every egg, every funny little waddle that our precious duck family shares with us.

The times, are they a-changin'?

I'm sitting here in a semi-dark room (and yes, I'm still in my jammies, though I have plans to change that), it's nearly noon and I'm eyeing the bed with thoughts of another nap drifting through my head. I'm still thinking I may never feel normal again.

When I'm healthy and begin to recognize that I'm in a rut, my usual remedy is to clean my room and rearrange all the furniture. The sisters laugh about this, usually accompanied by a significant eyeball roll; but for some reason a change of scenery does wonders for my attitude. That works fine when I'm feeling healthy and full of pep. But unearthing the broom and a dust rag is just more than I can accomplish right now. Hmmmm ...

OK, I do have enough energy to sit here at the computer, at least for an hour or two. The least demanding renovation I can think of is the web site and this blog. Soooo ... voila, new looks on both.

Now I'm heading back to bed to wait for that wonderful, energetic surge that comes with change to arrive. Surely it will happen soon.

The Winter Blahs

OK, I know it's been months since I blogged last. I've been hearing about it. But really, I have some great excuses. The best one is that I managed to be "serially sick": first the flu, which swallowed up almost three weeks, followed by bronchitis and pneumonia, which is still lurking meanly in my lungs. Then my computer got even sicker than I did, so I finally had to surrender to getting a new one; I'm still trying to get it on its feet. As I'm sure you can tell, this is to make you all feel sorry for me and not get on my case about not blogging.

And no, I'm not oblivious to the fact that six weeks of feeling only slightly more energetic than the winter mud outside my window doesn't explain why I didn't blog in September, October or November last year. Guess I had an early case of the winter blahs.

You know what I mean. The garden has transformed from a wild green food jungle to a few droopy brussels sprouts and kale, surrounded by mounds of earth-toned mulch. The trees are bare sticks, through which I can see all the way to the top of our hill and across the lower valley to the depressing subdivisions to the west. There's not enough sunlight each day to keep anyone happy for long. And this year the weather stayed way too warm, which may mean the 2007 maple sugaring season won't happen at all. Now that's really depressing.

I'm sure I'd be less gloomy if I felt better, instead of sitting here in my PJs, thinking I should probably take a little nap before I finish this, waiting for GoToMyPC to drag more files from the dead computer to the new one. Here's what I think is going on: I'm just like the parsnips, carrots, turnips, Daikons and their other hearty winter friends, who are snuggled in the ground, getting sweeter every day. They're not growing, not sending up any green leaves to capture a few rays of yummy sunlight ... they're just lying there, waiting, allowing the Earth to work its winter magic in their still bodies.

I'm not so sure "getting sweeter" is precisely what's happening to me, but surely all my recent down time is allowing my body to garner its resources in service of my health. I may not feel it yet, but one of these days I'm going to wake up and feel more like my old, energetic, cheerful self than I do now. And when that happens, I'll probably notice that the sun is already up longer every day, that the maple trees have survived the scary warm spell, that I'm thrilled to have fresh turnips and potatoes and carrots for dinner.

It's worth the wait.