My Grandmother Singing

I Remember Nana Singing

I remember her voice, coming from the back of the house, when Dad started to play--- she floated toward the piano, and her voice was like a large bird--  white wings gliding through a wide blue sky;  a rich mezzo-soprano building a crescendo as it rises toward the sunlight, banking against the high wind;  perfectly descending to a soft landing, with a flutter, to the branch of a sturdy tree.   My grandmother's songs are still breathtaking to me: the emotional vulnerability in them; the strength of the love in them.  "Forgotten", "Love, here is my heart",  "Because", "Sing me to Sleep", "Your song from Paradise".  Dad found the last two, which were from her era, and carried the nostalgia we all felt for missing her voice, her songs in our lives.  Dad could play perfectly for her voice, allowing the needed pauses, so her voice could soar-- and glide through several bars on long notes--- with full-throated ease, like honey in a warm summer sun.   My grandmother's name was Ave Maria-- she renamed herself at age 5, because she loved to sing the song for Mary.  She sang every version of the song, but she especially loved the Bach-Gounod version of it.  

Reading Keats' "Ode to a Nightingale" makes me think of my grandmother singing.  

Looking back now, I can be amazed at the magic of it, the gift of it--  one could say, the miracle of it.

My grandfather died in 1952, when I was two.  They met just before WWI.  My grandmother was born in 1892, (and my son Sebastian was born 99 years later, in 1991).  My grandmother's life spanned the time in California when the bridges and roads and dams were being built, and my grandfather was an engineer and a surveyor.  He contributed to many of the big projects, like the Huntington dam.  I found a copy of Omar Khayams's "The Rubaiyat", which he signed and gave to her on Nov. 1, 1914.  I never knew him, but I felt my grandmother's love for him in the songs she loved to sing best---and I think he must have known himself to be a lucky man, a blessed man, to be loved by a woman who could sing like that.  My aunt Geraldine, their daughter with the perfect memory, told me that they met at the Ventura hotel-- where my grandmother was singing for a benefit just before WWI.  My grandfather was in the audience, and asked to be introduced to the girl with the lovely voice.   An Irishman, one thinks he understood the value of a voice for singing.  They married in 1914, as he was leaving for the war;  and my mother, their first child, was born in 1921.  

I suppose when people ask now, what Love is, and mull about it, and ask "what's love got to do with it", I fall back onto the absolute shimmering recognition of the love my grandmother felt for George FitzGerald, that went into the songs she loved to sing.  No matter the shadows and suffering and pain, the love was a magnificent thing.  I also know that the love between my dad and his mother-in-law was deep and true and coherent because of those songs--- how he played the piano for her, and loved to hear her sing them;  and he loved to give my mother, her daughter, the gift of hearing her sing them.  My mother had no voice for singing, but she also had a deep reverential awe of her mother's voice, and she would stop whatever she was doing, and come to the piano room to listen.  The songs from WWI were influenced by the operatic and complex songs sung by professional singers in France and Germany, songs written by gifted composers.  But they were made to be accessible to the public, with unforgettable lyrics, and relatively easy melodies.  Radio made them move faster through the culture.  

Later, Dad would play her songs, and I would sing them-- but my voice is not as grand or fine as my grandmother's-- not as rich and creamy and sure.  Still, the habit between us was to sing them, often in the late afternoon, as shadows were falling, honoring her memory, recognizing her absence, and carrying the melody for her.  

I went on, learning more songs, singing with Dad-- hoping to be as full-throated and to do as much for presenting beautiful songs, as had she.  Later I thought of all I have learned through music;  everything I know of heaven and love, and truth starts there.  "Love, here is my heart, one rose for your hair; whether you echo the tune, whether you tire of it soon; whether you laugh as you depart, or hear it again; something to listen to yet, or forget, here is my heart".  

New Year's Eve: Inter-faith prayer service for peace

New Year's Eve in Santa Cruz is a special event.  I did not know about the Holy Cross inter-faith prayer for peace service until the day before, or I would have widely shared and invited people to it!   Fr. Cyprian Consiglio, a Benedictine monk from the Assumption Monastery on Big Sur, has been celebrating this event for 8 years.  He has been doing cross-cultural and inter-faith worship services for 20 years, and is a very gifted musician;  both his guitar-playing and singing are shimmeringly wonderful.  He has studied the work of  Fr. Bede Griffiths, who worked in India for 50 years in cross-cultural faith-sharing; and is able to sing and chant from the Vedas, in Hindi.   I always feel so grateful and blessed and uplifted to hear him play and sing!  So this event was held at the Holy Cross church hall, in downtown Santa Cruz, from 8 pm to midnight, followed by Midnight mass to welcome the new year.  There were so many religious traditions represented:  a Sufi singing pastor, Zen Buddhists chanting in Japanese, Hindi followers of Krishna, an Islamic teacher and a gorgeous chant from Indonesian Muslims, a Bahai elder, a Jewish rabbi, and the Shaker hymn, "how can I keep from Singing?"   A Native American named Mountain Eagle called us all family, and urged us to let the natural leaders come forth, as the old millenia of the Mayan calendar is ended and we start a new era.
Fr. Cyprian's format was to have a pastor or group do a chant or prayer, then we would be called into meditation for about 10-15 minutes with the gong-bowl, and everyone in the room was so respectful and willing to participate, and to meditate silently together!   It was the most meaningful and true prayer service for inter-faith witness I have ever had the privilege of attending.  No one was trying to convert anyone else, just sharing the best of their own tradition and faith, and the fervent desire for peace for all people.
It was warm and inviting, and sensitive, and moving.  The hall was well-lit with small white Christmas lights, and candles.  The chairs were comfortable.  The depth of attentive listening and prayerful joining into the chants was lovely.  Many of the people there have been attending a meditation group there for several years.
I loved one of the chants we sang, which had the words "It glows, it shines, it blazes up;  So lovingkindness, when it comes, will bring its freedom to the heart".
I thought of so many of the wonderful physicians I know from different faith traditions, who would probably have loved to attend and be part of this.  One of my favorite young doctors has just returned from doing the Haj pilgrimage to Mecca with his aging parents.  A new parent himself, he is a tender and dear man, and gave his parents this wonderful gift of accompanying them on the pilgrimage of a lifetime.  My own parish, Resurrection in Aptos, has been participating in an interfaith Passover/ Easter Vigil service with our Jewish temple folks for several years.  I cry every year, when we finish the Haggadah, and say "next year in Jerusalem!" to each other--- it is truly a glimpse of heaven, to be able to see ourselves in faith as God's children, overcoming our quarrelsome nature and getting along at the feast we share!   It is so meaningful to me, after the 5 years I spent at Maimonides hospital in Brooklyn, to have a prayer time with my Jewish bretheren.  It always reinforces my understanding of Christianity's roots in Judaism, and how much love I feel for the Jewish rabbinical tradition.  This prayer service carried that feeling even deeper and farther--- as we were embracing so many traditions, with respect and generous listening;  and the ongoing prayer for peace-- the kind that passes all understanding.  I thought about Thomas Merton, and how he would have loved this!
One of the printed things which was passed out was the Assisi Decalogue for Peace-- which I am glad to get a new copy of-- mine is ragged-- from 2002, when Pope John Paul, and many religious leaders met in the home town of St. Francis of Assisi, to pray together for world peace.  Each of the points in the Decalogue are important to the respectful relationship between people of different religions.  At the meeting in Assisi, each of the points was read by a pastor from a different faith tradition, trying to meet together without attempting to convert or coerce anyone, and trying to pray for peace and deeper mutual understanding.
Although I had to leave early to go to the labor room, because I was on-call,  I was so happy to experience most of the joyful event.  I hope more people will come next year-- it is a powerful thing to experience!  And, may God's peace be to all people of good will!

Merry Christmas!

     Today is Christmas, and I am waiting in joyful hope for my boys to come home.  Isis is gnawing on a bully-stick, which is her favorite indoor thing to do.  Greg is working in the kitchen, getting the leg of lamb ready for supper.  I have lit candles, reminding me of all the people I am trying to remember clearly to pray for.  The delight of the morning was a call from Michael Oswanski on facebook.  I didn't know you could have a real-time aural chat--- I thought it was still the "typing messages" thing.  But somehow, because I don't know the technology, I couldn't see him.  So he always is pushing my technological skills a notch higher.  We talked about organ music, how hard it is to describe the beauty of those sounds! ... choral music, and the message of Christmas;  and the way time circles into the eternal NOW.  All the Christmases past, present and future--- and the moment when God breaks into history.
     I always come back to the fact that God chooses to come as a baby-- a just-born infant with eyes opening onto the big wide world--- and it fills me with such intense awe--- that God comes without words or dogma, in human skin-- baby skin, which smells heavenly-- and in those tiny hands and feet, those big eyes, full of wonder.  And such vulnerability--- no armies of angels in full battle gear!   God is willing to come to us, to let us be abusive parents, in all our self-absorbed egotism; God lets us fail to see the miracles.  He waits for us to get it.  He lets time spin out like yards of ribbons, or like the blown dandelion seeds in the dry summer--- waiting for us to come closer to the moment when we hold the baby in our own arms, let it fall asleep on our shoulder, or nestle it against our breast.
     No other religion really focuses on the human baby.  No other religion really brings our attention to the quality of our parenting a baby-- the thought of Joseph taking Mary into his home, because an angel told him to.  How Mary and Joseph together raise this child, in the hidden years--- and hide him from Herod and the slaughter of the innocents.  Most  religions start with a person in adulthood, exhorting us to connect our spirits to the Great Spirit.  But Jesus is also that baby.  He is coming in the most vulnerable, innocent, helpless way He can, to let us possess God, in the child.
     Last night we had singing carols before Mass.  A guy with a great voice sang "Mary, did you know that your baby boy..."  with several verses.  It makes me cry.  I think that we do not know.  We certainly do not know that our children are going to be piercing our hearts with sorrow and fear.  We think they will bring us joy, and we hope they will bring us honor.  We do not want to consider the way of the cross.  We certainly cannot contain, in our becoming parents, the suffering likely to come, as our children move forward toward God in their own journeys, falling and failing as we have fallen and failed.  And yet, Jesus has given us the path, shown us, in a few brush-strokes of the story, what we must endure.  "Did you not know that I must be about my father's business?"  Even if the child does not know it is about his father's business, even if he thinks he can do it with his own WILL, God will be the alpha and omega of his path.  We are in our orbits, like atoms, on our pilgrimage toward the God who made us.  I have walked the labyrinth with this so clearly in mind-- that I am being called back to the center.  The still-point in time,  the mystical rose, the existential moment, the Eternal NOW.  And my child is also called, though he does not know it clearly, is not watching for signs, is not following the stars, is not sure of his way.  And maybe that is also the point.  We see the stars, we begin to watch for wise men, we begin to hear the message in a deeper way, a new way. We begin to think it is amazing and miraculous that shepherds were the ones to see the glory first.  We begin to understand that you have to be cold and lonely and outside at night, to SEE the stars.  And that when you are watching the stars, you begin to hear choirs of angels!  And that you have to listen to your dreams, like Joseph did.  It is amazing that the messages that come in the dreams are the most important guides to your life.  And that the baby will be born without a safe place in the world, because God is always being born in new and amazing ways, outside the ordered world, outside the circle of power and influence;  NOT born to the Rabbi;  NOT born in the Temple precincts or the palace.  The whole thing is amazing.  The whole thing calls us to be filled with wonder and awe.  I circle around it again, and am glad I was able to sing along, in the cold night, in our everyday community, filled with people struggling to be good;  with those dear carols I have loved all my life--- especially the one which says "gloria in excelsis Deo!"

Discernment

This morning I got up early and did my morning meditation, then came to the computer to read another article and answer questions to maintain my board certification.  I am nervous, because the deadline is in 1 week, and I have to read a lot of articles and answer very nit-picky questions about them, to keep being a fellow of the American College of Ob-Gyn.   My mind does not seem as able to retain the details as it used to.   I am feeling old;  and I remember my mother, who probably was beyond 80 when we had this conversation.  I told her that sometimes I think of St. Paul, saying "When you are young you can put on your belt and sandals and go where you want, but when you are old, someone will put on your belt and lead you where you do not wish to go."  My mom was amazed, she had forgotten that saying, and said she didn't know that St. Paul was that smart.  I have been feeling that they have put on my belt and are leading me where I do not wish to go, and my current task is to try to go along as gracefully as possible with this agenda.  I had a joy-filled weekend at the Jesuit Retreat house, with Fr. Tom Weston SJ, on the Thanksgiving weekend.  He is a great teacher, and the more I listen to the Serenity prayer, the more I like it--- I want to have COURAGE to change the things I can, and the Serenity to accept the things I can't change;  and I really want to have the WISDOM to know the difference.  I have always believed that the world is more mysterious and flexible than we think--- and that there is a lot of yeast in the dough.  So almost always, the most important thing is the gift of DISCERNMENT.  I think this is very interesting, and brings back to me the importance of St. Ignatius and the Spiritual Exercises, which have to do with Discernment.  One of the things St. Ignatius said is that we have to put faith into action, and not worry about either consolation or desolation--- they are not to be grasped at, or avoided-- we are just moving through them.  So there is no big confirmation when we are consoled, that it is truly God's will.  In fact, it may just be a false sense of security, that our ego has put there to trip us up.  Lately I have been really conscious of this problem.  Doing the best one can, on a daily basis, is enough work-- and we have to leave the judgement of it up to God.
I need to take Isis for a run down the hill and back, and my joints are feeling arthritic.  Originally I was going to try to walk her on the beach today;  but yesterday,  she got into a big argument with another dog over who is the most in charge, and I tried to pull her away, and she lunged;  and I fell over and bumped my head.  She stood by me then, as I was ignominiously replacing my glasses, and trying to get back onto my feet.  And so I am calculating whether I have the energy to deal with her ego today;  and also, it is cold out, and my joints are stiff.  So I am going to wait til it is warmer to try to walk.  Ever since I came home from the Camino, I have yearned to walk, and it has been wonderful to walk on the beach when I am energetic enough.  I really think that a 3 and a half hour walk is just about right for me.  Sometimes 2 hours is good, but 3 and a half is tiring, but not to the point of exhaustion, and I feel I am maybe able to reclaim some of the fitness and stamina I had when we were in Spain.  I also think that I will have to get a muzzle for Isis, as she is too strong for me to hold back, and I don't want her getting into battles on the beach.  She can run fast, and get in the water, which a lot of the other dogs don't do-- and the water cools her off.
I am going to be thinking about discernment a lot now.  Advent is always a time for me to feel deeply  integrated into the joyful hope of waiting for a baby-- so my whole life and job make sense.   Waiting for God in the way that God usually comes-- in tiny seeds, full of yeast and creative wonder!

Burn out

Today I read that the burn-out rate in physicians is 50%. Depending on the time of day you ask, we probably have sometimes even more than that. The pace is fast, and the ongoing load is now accompanied by more and more documentation on the computer-- and follow-up charting and phone- calls--- til one just can't stand any more. Wednesday I got out of the office at 7:30 and finished up the labor room at 8:30 pm. Back again today at 7:30 am for rounds and c/section before office hours at 9. On-call tonight and watching over a laboring patient-- not likely to go home before 11 pm--- but will be lucky if no one else delivers tonight. The burden of doing so much extra paperwork for the hospital charts, and reading journals ( skimping lately in comparison to earlier in my life) and phone calls for lab reports seems like it has made double the workload. I have been lucky to have the doctors in ISHI the institute started by Rachel Remen MD, as my friends, companions and Colleagues. We have tried to stay focused on the doctor-patient relationship, and the need for compassion and integrity, in our work. I know the young doctors are much better at the computer interface than am I; and I keep hoping the reforms of how we do things will increase both safety and quality-- which everyone says is the goal. Still I worry about the high amount of burn-out and numbness in myself and my colleagues. Trying to maintain work-life balance is hard.

poem video from Burgos

http://youtu.be/btnU0r7zA-Y

I can't seem to upload this video clip onto the blog site, but it was successfully loaded to You Tube.  So this is the link!

Bread for the Stardust Pilgrims

This is me reading the poem "Bread for the Stardust Pilgrims" in front of the cathedral in Burgos.  THANKS to Andy for filming it!  A highlight of my life!!