... the seasonal darkness....

Today will be a hard day.  I have now shared in three song services for the young man, 22 years old, who died last week.  It was natural causes but still no easier to deal with.  At the song service last night there were two other deaths announced as friends and family were grieving for the boy.  I have already shared funeral and spirit dance with a family earlier in August.  This is troubling.  How does a nation of people, a small community deal with so much death.  It makes me think of the train crash in Quebec and the trouble in Syria right now .... trauma in the world.  How do we keep from being crippled under all the trauma?  What is the hope? 

I am numb to a certain degree because of my own historical trauma ... the good news is, I have come through and can see where it takes steely determination not to let it emotionally cave you.  There is life after death and it is only through the gospel message that we can survive... but not the old gospel message, the new partnership with Jesus as he attempted to shake up the world in his life ... not the creation of his divinity after his death.... but his work and his practices and his voice!  I am trying to be that voice ... a new face for Jesus, in the flesh if you will.... 

As I embark on a chemical addictions counselling course at the local college my eyes are opened yet again.  I can see where those who have suffered pain, who are trying to get well, and who are struggling day to day want better for others.  Our own pain breeds a desire to help others with theirs.  That is the spirit moving among us, teaching us there is life after death; breathing life into death-like situations.  The folks I am sharing time with here in this community are all walking around affected by the residential school trauma. 

Inter-generational Trauma is real and alive and it is not only affecting Canada's First Nations people.  It affects those families affected by all addictions, abuses and past stories.  We are a broken people all swimming in a pool of infected water.  Driven to distraction by our own pain and running incessantly trying to outrun our own demons.  A darkness of our very soul that we cannot avoid.

So STOP!  Stop running!  Stop avoiding ... just stop.  Listen to the word of the Spirit as it breaths life into your soul.  Listen to the energy of the earth as it circles and circles the sun, year after year,  time after time.  You are but a blip on the radar of the great universe and its existence.  If you think you can change it you are kidding yourself and will die trying.  It can change you though, if you let it.  Mother Earth, Father Sky, The Great Spirit, the Mystery of God, the breath of life.  Find it feel it and rest in it.  Let your demons catch up with you and then fight them down to their death, only then can you live again. 

As you go to bed at night you go knowing and trusting the sun will rise the next morning. Some days it is brilliant in the sky and others it is behind the clouds.  But you know it is there.  It is in this deep understanding and trust of the universe and its consistency you live.  So trust it fully and know the sun will come out again for you no matter how dark the night may seem.  It is in the core of this rooted trust you will find hope to tackle anything that comes your way.  Have a wonderful day and remember God is not just in a book (the Bible) God is everywhere you look and far bigger than the boogie man! (Veggie Tales)  Thanks for reading, pray for me as I pray for you that today I can find the light, love and hope which I know is in my own heart.  Light, love and hope in which only I can connect.  Light, love and hope that I share with my God, my divine source, my peaceful place to rest. 

Lessons in life through knitting

Most recently, since my grandson was born I have taken up knitting again.  My mother taught me when I was very young how to knit, follow a pattern and understand the craft.  I am a good knitter and know how to follow a pattern.  So I knit Hunter a sweater earlier this year.  It should fit him this winter and he will look terrific in it.  As I was working on the edges there were a couple of times where I knit where I should have purled.  Darn! But really it makes no difference to the function or the purpose of the sweater, I just know they are there.  Most wouldn't notice, but I do.  I chose not to go back and fix them. I call them Gramma's mistakes.

So now I am in Bella Coola and I decided to knit another sweater.  I picked up some wool from the local Co-op store and searched out a pattern on the internet and began.  It is a lovely pattern but also just some straight knitting.  As I looked back over my work I found one of "Gramma's mistakes". Darn!  Well that is okay the person I am making this for, while not my grandchild, will likely never notice as it is not that visible to the overall eye, but again I know it is there.  Then lo' and behold, one of "Gramma's mistakes" made it right smack dab into the middle of the back panel.  I could not avoid fixing it.  It was just too obvious!  So I undertook to drop the six stitches of the pattern down about 2" of knitting and fix the mistake.  I couldn't do it!  I had to rip it back~ again, darn.

So I tore out 2" of knitting which is about two full patterns in order to go back and fix my mistake.  I did it inadvertently and without realizing it but I had to go back and fix it.  I could have left it and it would have bugged me as log as this sweater is around, so I chose to go back and fix it.  I tried to short cut it and fix it without taking all stitches back to that row but again it was better to just tear it out and begin fresh before the mistake was made.

Don't we wish life was like that?  Don't we wish we could tear out the years, days, hours or minutes between when we made the mistake and make it right, like it never happened?  But even so I would have known I made it and had to go back to make it right. Only in sharing it in this blog will anyone ever know I made that mistake, however, the one I did not go back and fix is still there.  So it reminds me, I do make mistakes and some can be fixed and others cannot.  Some mistakes just alter a pattern others ruin the sweater, all in all 'tis life.

Here I bear my "Gramma's mistake" in this sweater which I chose to leave to remind my friend that I am human and make mistakes.  The sweater will still keep her warm and she will know I prayed love into every stitch, even when I knitted when I was supposed to purl and even when I totally forgot to pull the stitches from the front to the back when I should, all in all 'tis life ... the grace of forgiving ourselves of our mistakes is part of the whole picture and the grace of letting others know we make them gives them a chance to forgive also.