Memorial Day reminds us we live in the Garden of Change…

When things change … or when WE LOSE SOMEONE ONE, it’s a loss - even if we choose it. Think about it …changing jobs… or locations: a new town or apartment… or a DIVORCE (which is a death… ) there are things you miss and things you don’t.

We don’t take ACTION until our MENTAL LIST of possible GAINS ARE GREATER THAN the pain of loss. It’s a math of living…The vision pulls and the pain pushes… AND THEN, HERE were are again … on our knees…in the garden of change.

Or maybe its not a list, but you have some wise friend encourages you in a better direction… helping us notice both the pain WE HAVE HAVE BEEN ENDURING AND the resources beside us.  This is the holy ground…of having a community.

The Lesson of the Rose: encouragement

Hafiz said it well in this poem:

How did the rose ever have the courage
to open all its beauty to the world?

It needed the encouragement of light against its being…
otherwise we all remain too frightened.

                   –  Hafiz translation by Daniel Ladinsky

Wise friends walking with us along the way are golden… It’s why we form in like-minded communities.   We need each other’s encouragement…

Change helps us to open TO RECEIVERSHIP…. We don't do this life alone… and if we do we tend to go dark…

A VERY good lesson. ITS THE LESSON OF THE ROSE

The Lotus' Lesson of  the holy muck

The lesson of the LOTUS… is that of  sacred soil amendments.
Both MY Landscape Architect brain… and my hospice chaplain brain… think of the unnoticed resources under our feet… as holy ground… SACRED SOIL AMENDMENTS.
That’s right - SACRED SOIL AMENDMENTS.

 Imagine THIS: an exquisite lotus rising above the water, reaching for the light but rooted in the most awful, slimy muck at the bottom of the pond that you can imagine…
that lotus is using it all, rooting into the resources under ITS feet, to bloom.  All the LOTUS needs is right here…

But when the losses are NOT of our making… it’s much worse. Its like the destruction of an  ancient, magnificent oak … there is a hole in the sky where it used to be.
Death of a loved one - whether it is a long decline as with dementia, or an abrupt accident  that leaves us on our knees in the muck, and breathless from the hole in our hearts - ITS A LOT

Grief is MUD BATH -

 it’s messy, and chaotic and inconvenient … and In terms of getting “over’ loss and grief… the only way OUT is through. It seems to be designed for us TO PAUSE… and LISTEN more deeply.

We can DENY GRIEF, claim a positive attitude to appear as if we are coping ………saying we are “fine” when we are not…  but if we do not stay in that healing mud long enough, or listen deeply enough, we are likely to get stuck.  The fastest way out IS NOT TO RUN FROM THE PAIN - but to face it. TO WALK TOWARD IT… AA FOLKS KNOW THIS.

We are humbled in these tender valleys … I call the the frontlines of love…

The word HUMILITY comes from the word humus, which for you non-gardeners, is the sometimes stinky organic matter - like compost, manure and well-rotted detritus that makes beautiful soil and fuels new growth.

It’s the LESSON of the LOTUS: to use ALL of our experiences as nutrients in this SACRED MUD of change, HOLY LOAM…of loss… this Holy ground of our being.

The ROAD to reconciling our losses and finding our way back to joy… is full of potholes and MUD…HEALING mud… Being on our knees in authentic grief, is an inside-out perspective  (AGAIN it seems designed to help us PAUSE… LISTEN to the whispers of what is true and unchanging… and THE NEW STORIES that match WHO WE ARE NOW.) The dreams of our 16 year-old-self are not likely to be satisfying or sustaining ones at 60.

..Trusting that whatever things it may be too late for, prayer is not one of them,  nor a chance, nor change,  nor passion,  nor laughter...  NOR JOY.

-  Excerpt from Wrestling the Light by Ted Loder

From our loss shaped hole within… we can plant seeds of a new life that fit us now.

I lost my favorite Aunt this month… my Aunt Mary. I also lost as my last kitty, a 6 lb talking cat named, Sister.  It was time for her to walk with Spirit…  

Today I am here with both an Aunt Mary shaped hole  in my heart and a kitty shaped hole. Most of my family is gone, so I have a lot of personal practice at this… but as a hospice chaplain and grief counselor, I know that in this space, sometimes I can … we can… glimpse the unhealed stories of our upbringing that THEIR LOVE filled, but did not completely heal… not all the way.

The opportunity in the MUCK of grief is that we can heal a little bit more…

THE MUD-FUELED NEW STORIES...waiting

WE CAN RECEIVE THE MUD-FUELED NEW STORIES THAT are waiting to be planted in the bare patches. THIS is where we become the gardeners of our lives.

NOTHING is really broken. It’s ALL part of the cycle in the Garden of Change…after we have tended ourselves and mourned enough, new things will start to grow on our naked earth.  Do you weed them? Or do you FEED them?

USE your Gifts…Plant THEM… Nurture that… TEND that

REMEMBER the lesson of the rose : to receive the encouragement of Light.  Remember the lessons in the MUD from the lotus -  to use it all - both the light and the shadow - to fuel your blooming.

REMEMBER the lesson of the rose : to receive the encouragement of Light.  

Remember the lessons in the MUD from the lotus - to use it all - both the light and the shadow - to fuel your blooming.

As you plant your Memorial Day bulb in the good earth today, Be awake that the bulb has EVERYTHING it needs to bloom into story…and so do WE….to the beauty that fits US now… IT may be sprouting, as we speak, in the holy ground of loss.

“It’s never too late to be what you might have been.” - George Sand

The good news is that we are not alone on this road…

EVERYONE WHO IS BREATHING is on this road.  We have company in the changes.
BE the GARDENER today and tend it all as love and with love.

Who’s ready for some sacred gardening?

-Talk prepared by Rev. Eleesabeth Hager for a Memorial Day (blub planting) ritual honoring our soldiers and our loved ones who have made their transition. 
May 26th, 2024 at San Francisco Unity.