Pamela Stead Jones

“Everything beautiful has its moment and then passes away.”

— Luis Cernuda

Autumn is in the air.  It is the season of beauty and of dying.  Someday, when it is my turn to leave this earth, I hope to depart in an autumn fashion — colorful and vibrant until the very end and then quietly fluttering to the ground and dissolving back into all-that-is.

We don’t like to think of the fleeting nature of beauty — of existence — but it seems to be everywhere I turn this week.  There is no escaping it.  An elderly neighbor left behind her beautiful life.  A friend just passed the anniversary of her own loss of beauty in the death of her child.  Another friend is remembering the mother who first showed her beauty and now is beautiful only in the memories of times past.  When the time comes for beautiful things to pass away, we want to cling to them and preserve them and never let them go; but that is not the way life occurs.  All things physical must end.

What goes on is the spirit of beauty that expresses itself again and again through people and things that inhabit the world.  At the moment that each beautiful thing passes away, another thing of beauty is created to take its place.  People die, and babies are born.  Leaves fall, and seeds rest beneath the soil waiting for Spring.  Nothing beautiful ever really dies.  We carry the memories of beauty in our hearts; and it is those memories that respond to the birth of yet another beautiful thing.  Each fleeting glimpse of the creations of beauty’s spirit serves to remind us how vast and infinite beauty really is.  It touches our lives in so many fleeting ways that we never are without it.  All we need to do is open our eyes and see.

On my morning walk today, I ventured to the corner of the park where a recent storm toppled two large trees.  Workers have come and removed the branches and trunks, carrying away enough firewood to heat their homes for many days this winter.  All that remains are the stumps — one still standing straight in the ground, and one upended and sitting askew with its roots reaching upward where its branches used to be. I remembered the many Springs when I would watch leaf buds form on the branches of that tree until they no longer could contain their new growth and would burst open to reveal the fresh green color of rebirth.  ’I won’t see that again,’ I thought sadly.

Rain was beginning to fall as i neared the stump.  I walked right up to the hole that once had held the roots and peered into it.  Empty.  That was all I could think or feel at that moment.  Empty.  Gone.  Finished.  The rain began to fall harder; and as I turned to walk for home and shelter, I spied something white near the base of the stump.  There, tangled in the roots of my dear missing tree, was a large chunk of beautiful white quartz.  It was as though the tree had held onto its beauty for so long that even in death, it would not release its grasp.  Now, as I stood in the rain and mourned the death of the tree, its roots seemed to extend a hand to me and offer up its last bit of treasure.  I found a helper stone — one with a sharp edge, and began to scrape away the soil that held the quartz in place.  It began to wiggle back and forth; and I thought of my children and the way they would work at loosening a baby tooth to make room for the permanent one that needed the space.  After a bit more scraping and a lot more wiggling, I found myself holding the tree’s treasure.  Out of its dead roots another moment of beauty had fallen into my hand.  I turned toward home, extending my open hand and letting the rain reveal more and more of the beautiful quartz.  I will miss my tree, but I will cherish its gift that reminds me that beauty must go on.

“The wish for healing has ever been the half of health.”

– Hippolytus

Today I awoke with a pain in my foot.  It doesn’t keep me from walking, but it holds my attention and makes me walk a little bit more gingerly than I do on most mornings.  It reminds me of the time, ten years ago, when I fell and broke some tiny bones in that spot; and my first thought is that it’s probably a twinge of arthritis at the site of the old injury.  These things are to be expected, I suppose.  After all, being human means being vulnerable to pain.  I am distracted by the ache in my foot; and it seems that no matter how I try to ignore it, this twinge will be my companion today.  Each time my right foot hits the ground, I am aware of a feeling of resentment that I should have to suffer such an indignity.  It will be a challenge not to let it color my day.

In a message yesterday, I heard of a woman who had broken her foot.  Certainly her pain is greater than mine today; and when I consider the contrast, I feel embarrassed to consider my own aches worth mentioning.  My daughter is recovering from surgery on her knee.  Perhaps the woman with a small broken bone should put her pain aside and consider that my daughter’s traumatized leg is far more painful than her foot.  Then there is my little friend who lies in a hospital bed and endures for days on end the indignities and pain of her healing.  Should my daughter feel foolish to think that her knee pain is worth mentioning?

Maybe what my foot is here to remind me of today is that every person we meet has pain of one sort or another.  Perhaps the family of the little girl in the hospital should feel thankful when they hear of the friend who spent the weekend mourning her lost son.  Perhaps my daughter should consider her healing pain in juxtaposition to the pain of the family of her tissue donor.

We never know, when we meet another person, just what sort of pain they might be carrying with them.  An old proverb states, “Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional.”  We cannot remove pain from the world — it is part of being alive.  We can, however, choose to diminish the suffering that goes along with pain.  Compassion, forgiveness, tolerance, and love are the tools we can bring to a pain-filled world.  If each of us can remember today that every person we meet has some sort of pain, perhaps we can be messengers of healing and light to those who suffer.

Today I will be thankful for the tiny pain in my foot.  It will remind me to take the time to look beyond myself and see the hurt that others feel as well.  Whatever your ache might be today, allow yourself to keep suffering at bay.  Together we can transform pain into healing.

“My dear friend, clear your mind of can’t.”

– Samuel Johnson

Today is day three of my daughter’s recovery from knee surgery.  She is sleeping.  In fact, she has been sleeping now for ten hours, doing one of the most important things she can be doing to encourage healing.  Yesterday was a rough day.  The second day after surgery always seems to be the most painful one.  Maybe it’s because the anesthesia has really worn off and the mind has returned to its full ability to be aware.  As I thought of the small exercises the doctor had assigned my daughter to do, I said to myself, ’she won’t be able to do those today — it will be too painful,’ but she did them.

A friend’s little girl had a far more involved surgical procedure a month ago.  Last night, she was readmitted to the hospital with a complication.  For a whole month this fiercely courageous little eleven-year-old has faced challenge after challenge and setback after setback, always coming back with a smile and a desire to play.  The adults around her are weary.  They get tired and worried and discouraged, but the child simply trusts that all will be well.

How often do we let our thoughts of what might be the outcome interfere with the “can” in our lives?  I have heard it said that children heal much more quickly than adults, and I have to wonder whether it is the spirit of “can” in a child’s trust that everything will be all right that brings them through the most difficult times with such apparent ease and grace.  If we could eliminate the doubts and can’ts from our thinking, could we also discover that we are capable of much more than we think we are?

Healing from an injury is a good tangible example of the spirit of “can,” but don’t you think it applies to the more subtle areas of our lives as well?  How much more might we learn that we can do if we simply cleared our minds of “can’t?”  Whatever it is that comes our way, let’s replace “can’t” with a sense of adventure and a bit of courage to face the challenge and learn what we can do.  It just may make all the difference in the world.  It just may cause us to reach our full potential.

“To be satisfied with a little, is the greatest wisdom; and he that increaseth his riches incresaseth his cares; but a contented mind is a hidden treasure, and trouble findeth it not.”

– Akhenaton, Pharaoh of Egypt

Some people take great pleasure in Spring cleaning.  As for me, I love the feeling of cleaning, gleaning, repairing, and streamlining that comes with the start of Fall.  Today is the day.  Until the middle of this week, Summer owned the thermometer, and any time spent working on end-of-summer tasks left us overheated, stewing in our own juices, and ready to rest after only a short time.  Now the temperatures have dropped enough that I can pull on my hooded sweatshirt before setting out to walk; and I know that even when the day begins to warm, I will be cool and comfortable as I work toward preparing for winter to come.

There is no time of year when I feel more strongly the value of simplicity.  I pick the apples that hang ripe on my backyard tree and feel the comfort of knowing that we will not go hungry.  I pull the plants from my garden that have lived their life span and now have finished their work; and I realize how much bounty we have enjoyed from only a small patch of soil.  I take inventory of the summer items that have sprouted all over our yard and porch and decide which ones will fit into the space I have to store them and which ones will be donated to new owners who now will have their turn to enjoy them.

I will straighten my kitchen cabinets — a task that most folks do in the Spring — but one that I like to do before winter.  It makes me think that maybe my ancestors lived in places that grew very cold, places where it was important to store enough food to last until Spring.  Most of all, I will walk with the energy of crisp morning air carrying me along.  I will watch the leaves fall silently, one by one, until the day arrives when the trees are bare-boned and gray; and I will follow their example and leave behind those things that have served their summer purpose.

There is a sense of loss in simplifying, just as there is a feeling of ending that comes with the Fall; but wisdom tells us that we must let go of that which no longer enriches our lives so that new things can take its place.  As I gather the Fall leaves and spread them on my garden soil, I will think of them decaying and leaving their essence in the soil of next Spring so that new life can grow on the back of their death.  I will walk toward winter with a contented mind and celebrate the treasure of a simple life.

“Discovery consists in seeing what everyone else has seen and thinking what no one else has thought.”

– Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

You are invited to embark today on a voyage of discovery!  No ticket is needed, and no destination will be announced.  This voyage will not take you to new geographical locations.  You will very likely find yourself walking the same predictable path you walk through most days of your life.  The voyage of discovery is a trip along the path with a heart; and your traveling companion will be your soul.

Most of us pay little attention to our souls as we move through the work and play and thought that defines our existence.  We seem to forget that from the very time we first arrived in the world, our souls have been with us, calling us to become fully ourselves — to be everything we were created to be.  The path with a heart leads us to share love, peace, hope and light with the others we encounter as we live our lives.  The path with a soul leads us on a voyage of discovery that takes us inward and shows us how to be true to our life’s purpose.

The only way to make this voyage of discovery is to open your eyes — not only those that see the physical reality, but also those which define what we see as beauty.  When we see with the eyes of the soul, our entire being responds to the discoveries we make.  With each new discovery, whether it is one of the beauty that surrounds us or one of compassion and love or one of a passionate need to respond with change, we find that we know ourselves just a little bit better.

You are invited to embark today on a voyage of discovery.  You will need no ticket, and there is no destination defined.  Welcome your soul as you travel today.  Ask her to show you the things you have been looking at but not seeing.  Discover with each step all the beauty and passion and love and compassion that dwells in your very soul — and walk with new energy as your footsteps grow lighter and lighter.  Know that the discoveries never will end.  Let your heart leap for joy, and know that one day you just may find you can fly.

Today has begun like every other day.  The household is awake.  The puppy is walked.  My sweetheart has left for his office.  My granddaughter is off to school.  That leaves only my daughter, Emily — Favorite Child, as she calls herself — the grand-dog, and me.  As soon as my oatmeal has landed in my belly, this ordinary morning will become the beginning of a day that will be anything but routine.

Ivy has left for school with a note requesting permission for her to ride home on a different school bus to spend the afternoon with a friend.  My sweetheart is on call in case any holes develop in the plan.  He has a take-out order for Emily’s dinner ready to phone in.  I have a bag packed with books and music to occupy me while I sit in a familiar waiting room.

Today Emily will have her fifth knee surgery.  It really doesn’t matter how often these times roll around; the fifth time is just as stressful as the first.  Adding insult to injury is the late start.  Instead of drawing one of the early-morning slots for the O.R., she is not scheduled to arrive until 1:15PM, which means her procedure won’t begin until about 3:ooPM.  Our usual afternoon routine, crucial to the smooth flow in our household, will be shattered.  Dinner will be random, Grandma will not be available for homework support, and we have no firm notion of when our day will end.

On Tuesday, Em and I spent the morning wrapping up the loose ends that she needed to care for before her post-surgery recovery.  We made our yearly batch of salsa, filled her grocery list of comfort foods, and ran a couple of errands.  When we realized it was lunchtime, we decided to duck into the China Wok Buffet and have a quick bite to eat.  At the end of our meal, the server brought our check along with two fortune cookies.  I’m always amused by the way my fortunes seem to be written just for me.  When they are particularly relevant, I add them to a small collection of slips in my desk drawer.  The one that came to me on Tuesday will definitely be added to the collection.  It read:

Before we leave today for the hospital, before the hubbub begins and the check-ins with the rest of the family start to land, I will remember to still my mind and find the peace that lies at the center of my being.  I will remember that I have the power to make it all work.

Have a peaceful day!

“Everything changes, nothing remains without change.”

— Buddha

Only yesterday, my sweetheart and I found ourselves in a philosophical conversation about change.  It started because of a chat with our daughter about finding the sort of man she would like to commit to for life.  We talked about her good friends and what it was that made them choose each other.  ”I can say anything to them,” she explained, “and if we disagree, we can agree to disagree.”  ”Agreeing to disagree works far better with friends whose lives are not interdependent with our own than it does with partners who must work together toward common goals,” I had told her. “What is important is knowing that your own view is heard and respected, whether the end result is agreement or not.”

As we chatted last night about how different each of us was now from the two young people who embarked on our marriage adventure twenty-five years ago, what seemed most important to us was the way we had learned to accept changes in ourselves and in one another.  As we accepted and felt acceptance as each of us grew, we felt free to become more than we ever thought we might be.  There is freedom in learning to embrace change — whether good or bad at the time, it is usually change that leads to its spiritual counterpart — transformation.

I always tell  my kids, especially at challenging times, that the best thing about life is that it always changes.  What seems insurmountable today may lie behind us tomorrow or next week; and when we look over our shoulders toward the places we have been, they seem far less monumental than they did at first glance.  As life changes and we learn to adapt and embrace the change, we grow in confidence and in competence for the next challenge that lies before us.  How quickly we would become bored with life if it stayed the same for all eternity.

As I walked through the park this morning, I found myself aware of all the change that is in the air.  Fall is creeping into our land, and the light of morning is arriving later each day.  Today the full moon still hung in the daytime sky as the sun was barely reaching over the eastern horizon.  The birds are restless.  Their nesting is done, and they gather in groups as they prepare for their flight to warmer lands as soon as the air grows cold.  Fallen trees lay on the bank of the creek, pruned by the recent storms, and two stumps were all that remained of the familiar trees that once stood in a far corner of the park.  I approached an old willow that had fallen last Spring and noticed that tiny new shoots were growing from its fractured roots.

Change can seem like a bad thing at the time we first confront it, but only with change can new growth take place.  Not all changes are abrupt and obvious, like the falling of a tree.  Some take time and evolve slowly.  I turned for home today with the awareness that I was a different person today than I had been at this time yesterday.  It is a subtle thing, barely noticeable; and it was shown to me today by the trees and the sky and the restless birds.  I embrace the change that stirs me to wonder and look ahead to what may grow in the soil enriched by the change of today.

“And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places.  Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.”

– Roald Dahl

Do you believe in magic?  Well, it really doesn’t matter, I suppose, because magic will go on existing whether you believe or not.  As one who cherishes the magic all around me, I sincerely hope that you will open the eyes of your heart and revel in it, too.

Albert Einstein’s wisdom tells us that there are two ways to live our lives — as though nothing is a miracle, or as though everything is.  Some years back, after hearing constantly that I read too much into things — that not everything has a meaning, I decided to quiet those voices once and for all.  From that day on, I would live as though everything really did have meaning.  The transformation that has come to my life through seeing with my heart as well as with my eyes truly has been magical; and now I see that magic wherever I go.

Just before dawn each day, the birds outside my house begin to sing.  It is their song that awakens the sleeping sun and calls it to slowly arise from its bed below the horizon to light the day.  Drops of dew land as water on the lawn each night as we sleep; but when the sun’s light touches them, they turn to diamonds.  Crows call out from the treetops as I take my morning walk; and what I hear is “here she comes!” and I answer them with, “how are you today, and what is on your mind?” A symphony of color and aroma and sensation touches me with delight wherever I walk, and none is more spectacular than the orange-red-purple music of the sunset as it relinquishes the sky to the velvet silence of night.

A stone sits in a basket on my shelf, atop some shells I found near it on the beach.  To some, it might be an interesting rock — black and white — and I’m sure there are good explanations for the way it was formed.  When I first saw it, with the waves whispering in the background, I knew it was showing me the heart of the sea.

That’s magic for you!  Once you unleash it in your life, nothing will ever be the same again!

“Derive happiness in oneself from a good day’s work, from illuminating the fog that surrounds us.”

— Henri Matisse

The view outside my window this morning is foggy.  It rolled in overnight and left the whole world shrouded in gray.  I like my Mondays to be sunny and clear, probably because it gives me a good feeling about looking into the week ahead.  Instead, my bed felt cozy this morning, and I actually hit the snooze button on my alarm clock.  Like a caterpillar, I nestled into my fog cocoon and convinced myself that it was not yet time to emerge.  The transformation would require a few extra minutes of sleep today.  Soon the alarm declared that my rest was done, so I pulled on my jeans and sneaks and stepped out into the muffled mist of morning.

My traveling companion, grand-dog Patches, sniffed the air and then licked at it, trying to drink in the moisture.  He could feel it, too — the half-air/half-water cloud that swirled and rolled around us as we walked.  I looked down at my own arm to assure myself that I was not invisible, but even my own body seemed to lose its boundaries as I swam through the haze.  Only my feet, touching down on the familiar path through the park, reminded me that I was out of my bed and moving through a new day.

How often, I wondered, do we begin a new day in this same way?  Whether the fog is tangible and real or simply a figment of our imaginations, how often do we see our days as changeless and colorless and unremarkable?  How often do our feet strike out on an all-too-familiar path, pulling us along half-awake and unaware of anything exciting that might be happening around us?

We must bring our own light to the fog, whether it is held in a hand as we make our way through the early-morning mist or whether it shines from the heart and sheds brightness on the unremarkable day that calls us to get up and walk.  I waited all the way around my morning path, but the sun still was hidden when I stepped across the threshold and into the warmth of my home.  I raised my hands to my hair and touched the droplets that had landed there.  Running my hands over my arms, I warmed them as the moisture began to disappear.  I wiped my shoes on the welcome mat and shook my shoulders, bringing my body into wakefulness.  Only then did I notice that I had grown the most beautiful wings.

“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.”

— C.S. Lewis

Ten years ago today, the world was shaken by an act of terrorism.  Ten years ago today, fear was planted in the hearts of countless people.  Ten years later, we still carry the chill of the events that forever changed our lives.

I am someone who lives in the present.  Often I would be hard-pressed to tell you what I had for breakfast yesterday, and I sometimes wonder if I could pass the memory tests given to my elderly mother to assess her level of dementia; but I can tell you all about September 11, 2001.  It is forever etched in my mind.  Traumatic events are like acid.  They leave their marks on us, burned into our psyches and hiding in the recesses of our memories.  When a day comes to remember our grief, it can feel as fresh and painful as it was at the time we first were hurt.  Today we remember.

Last week I attended a meeting of the booster club for my granddaughter’s high school basketball team.  We always meet in the same room, Room 353, in the school I attended many years ago.  Room 353.  Every time we meet, I am taken back to a day long ago.  I was sitting in that very room on November 22, 1963 when an announcement came through the P.A. system informing us that President Kennedy had been shot.  We were still in Room 353 when our teacher told us, with tears in his eyes, that the president was dead.  Every time I enter that room and take my seat for a meeting, I remember that day nearly forty-eight years ago.  It was a day that marked one of my first life-altering brushes with grief and with the fear that accompanies it.  My view of the world was never quite the same after that day, and the memory is seared in my mind and my heart — a memory that reminds me that life may not always be predictable, safe, or friendly.

On September 11, 2001, I did something unusual.  I am not a big fan of daytime television; but on that day, I had a lot of ironing to do.  I had let it accumulate, and I made up my mind that I would finish the job.  I set up my ironing board, laid the garments across the arm of the sofa, and turned on Good Morning America to distract me from the task at hand.  When I clicked the button on the remote, a picture on the screen showed a tall building with smoke billowing from windows on the upper levels.  My first impression was that I was watching a trailer for some new disaster movie that was being advertised.  I looked away, adjusting a shirt on the ironing board and waiting for the commercial to end.  It didn’t end, and soon I realized that the commentary was not a commercial.  What I was seeing on the screen was live footage of an unfolding event that would change the way we see our world.  As I watched in horror, another plane slammed into the World Trade Center.  There was no room for denial any more.  This was real; and there were innocent people inside those burning buildings.

It is said that there are five stages of grief; and I think that we, as a nation, were hustled through most of them in one day back in 2011.  First the denial — maybe this is a movie trailer — but that was soon dispelled.  Anger followed.  Who would do such a thing?  We can understand the flaw of human nature to seek revenge on someone who has hurt us, but who seeks revenge on total strangers?  Bargaining.  In spite of the dreadful pictures that unfolded right before our eyes, there was a need to believe that rescue workers would be able to evacuate the people who were trapped.  We expected to see queues of office workers walking to safety the way we all were taught to behave in fire drills as early as elementary school.  We expected to see helicopters land on the roof and pull folks from upper floors to safety.  We knew that if people did the right things in a crisis that all would be well.  We had been taught these things again and again.  And then the buildings collapsed.  The feeling of hopelessness that slammed into us at that moment stilled our bargaining.  All that followed was silence — and fear.  As the story of 9/11 continued to unfold, we heard of other attacks, of another crashed plane with no survivors; and the grief that was etched into our souls that day spelled, “fear.”

The final stage of grief is acceptance.  Ten years later, the reality of that day is something we need to accept as being real.  Still, there is no closure for our grief and no resolution for the fear that stays with us.  We walk with fear as a constant companion, because we now know that in addition to the plight of simply being human and mortal, we must guard against others who would randomly take the lives of innocent people.

But fear is not the end of the story.  When we are afraid, we can choose to handle our fear in two ways.  We can deny it, suppress it, become angry at everyone, angry at the vulnerability of our existence, angry at a God who would allow such suffering; or we can choose to grow courageous and strong and to stand in the face of our fear.  For every loss on that horrible day, we soon began to learn of a dozen acts of courage.  We discovered that 9/11 was not only about learning that we are vulnerable.  It also was about learning the depth of our courage and strength to preserve the life that so many had taken from them on that day.

Ten years later, I still remember watching those images as I ironed my shirts.  Ten years later, I still bristle at standing in lines and shedding my shoes and being xrayed as I travel by air.  Ten years later, I still feel the ache of our loss of innocence.  Ten years later, I still watch many folks act out their fear by seeing all muslims as terrorists.  The healing will go on forever.  I still find myself in a time warp each time I return to Room 353.  Ironing now has become an act of remembrance.  It is important that we remember.  It is important that we honor those who lost their lives.  It is important that we learn to stand courageously in the face of our fear.  Only then can we finally heal.