A Mother's Voice

  

Doux Reves - French 

by Firmin Baes

Sweet Dreams - English

A Mother's Voice

Though there will be a day when each of us joins the angels

or forms a light beyond Venus; yet today, to call and

have you answer your phone, an ordinary thing,
you with quiet joy saying my name, even now I know,
 this ordinary thing, is most sacred--and cherished. 

By Connie Nelson Ahlberg

All Rights Reserved.

                                      

A Mother's Voice was written and given to my mother before she flew up. 

Take Heart: The Weeping Willow Comes

Willow tree with woodbine honeysuckle

by Roger Griffin

Signs of Spring

'Neath our last impatient days of spring, we wait for the sun. But yesterday I was

cheered by the beginnings of hanging green, hanging green on a weeping willow tree. It

cheered me all the way home. And the grass, too, held hope like open arms. 

A neighbor used to have a weeping willow tree. To me it marked her yard. But then it 

turned noisome with all the long branches lying about in needed of picking up. I forget 

what else was wrong with the tree. But one day the tree was gone and a garden in it's place.

Weeping willows, (or weeping "willahs" as they're pronounced in the South), have captivated me. Enough to push me to write:

Prayer of the Weeping Willow

A weeping willow is grand

because it has wept

where it stands,

turning experiential sorrow

into a seasoned grace;

Lord, bless this moistened face,

for these bows of grace

simply bend to honor Thee. 

I do know of people who have turned sorrow into grace. They become your mentors. 

Heavy-Hitter Saints

"Pray, hope, and don't worry." 
"I can do more for you in heaven than I ever could on Earth." St. Padre Pio

Thought to be:

Mystic Marriage of Christ and his Church

When a beloved high-school friend told me she had breast cancer, she learned about
my heavy-hitter Saints. From the onset of the disease through her radiation and beyond,
I became her prayer advocate.

At one point she said, you really should speak about them. She found my prayer life,
my inspiration from the lives of the Saints, and my prayers to them...strength-giving.

As a little girl in a parochial school, there wasn't a lot of money in the parish coffers for a great library. But we did have books on the Saints and martyrs on a bookshelf in the back of the room. My mother feared that between daily Mass, prayers the monks say three times a day from our St. Richard's Breviary, religion class, Lent with Stations of the Cross, visiting brothers or priests, and a swing-through by our pastor, Rev Alfred Longley, there was little else than religion.

But my introduction to the Saints began there. How to explain the Saints to a non-Catholic? Here is my simplistic explanation. I view these men and women as exemplary. And just as magnificent religious art can lift you to prayer and a vision of goodness and dedication to God, so too, the lives of the Saints as intercessors, guides, and protectors.

When we pray, when we ask the Saints to intercede for us, to me--it's a spiritual tug on the sleeve. And just as it works on Earth, I feel it must work in another dimension.

Learning more about the Saints as an adult gave both information and inspiration. The Catholic cable channel Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) sometimes shows movies on the lives of the Churches' more prominent Saints.

Here is a list of My Heavy Hitters Saints - the list can vary, depending on the need of the supplicant.

Blessed Virgin Mary
Mother Teresa
St. Theresa of Avila
St. Theresa of Lisieux
St. Joseph - Protector
St. Francis of Assisi - Model of holiness in poverty and devotion; St. Francis had the stigmata (the wounds of Christ)
St. Michael the Archangel - Protector
St. Rachael the Archangel - Healer
St. Padre Pio - Healer - Stigmatist
St. Dymphna - Mental Health
St. Peregrine - Cancer
St. Maximilian Kolbe (newest addition) - Saint for the Addicted who started the militia of Mary

One of my favorite heavy-hitter Saints is Italian Capuchin priest, St. Padre Pio. I read The True Story by C. Bernard Ruffin and was swept-up with this compelling narrative. St. Padre Pio wore the wounds of Christ on his hands and his body. Non-believers can say: well, the mind is an incredible thing, meaning his religious fervour manifest his wounds. However, Padre Pio bore the wounds for fifty years.

Pio also had the gift of bilocation: he was seen in two places at the same time. We all have days we wish we could be two places at once. But St. Padre Pio actually pulled it off! He also knew sins before they were confessed and corrected the confessor. (He really knew how long it had been since your last confession.)

The Pilgrim Statute of Our Lady of Fatima came to San Giovanni Rotondo in 1959 while Padre Pio was quite ill. He cried out to her as it departed, pleading with the Blessed Virgin Mary not to leave him. The helicopter is said to have circled the building three times. The pilot claimed he didn't know what happened. Following that mysterious flight, Pio cried out that he had been healed.

Saints can be immense comfort in hard times. I have found them so. What is happening when a holy man leaves the scent of roses behind him? It must be grace.

Softly Loved, Softly Carried

Barn Swallow in West Sussex, England

By Jim Mead from Barnham Bognor Regis, England 

When Sorrow Came And I Was So Tired

I dreamt I was the smallest bird;
Sorrow came, but no one heard--
Then sunlight broke;
There I could see: an eagle's wing
Gently covered me;
Softly loved and softly carried;
Cradled then lifted
To parts unhurried;
Joy and sorrow like a lattice:
Dawn and darkness--are married.

By Connie Nelson Ahlberg
All Rights Reserved.

Finding Easter

Eagles in Late March

Easter came early or maybe we went looking for it. Today it could be seen, could be felt
along the Mississippi River in Red Wing and Wabasha.

Beneath the bluffs on route to Red Wing we left the urban complexities behind
and looked at mauve and taupe trees on hillsides and bluffs we wanted to embrace.

Hearing the weather was going to be less desirable for an outing tomorrow, we sought
the beauty of Lake Pepin today.

At first the "lake" was shrouded in a bluish gray under an overcast sky. But then the sun
lifted everything and the shadows, the brilliance of the frozen river, held us captive.
My friend and I talked to a bartender who found his spot overlooking the river and there has stayed for nine years. He'll never have an office view so wondrous--and he knows it.

I think my friend was once a Native American. She spotted the eagles and osprey,
hawks, and barn swallows that to me are so fluid in flight.

No one picked today to seek the river out. So it was ours. On the one hand there was still
snow that has it's own unmarked beauty, and on the other, spring was also near.
It was like winter and spring were holding hands.

Fifty seagulls had a family reunion on a block of ice and road the river.

"Do you think they know they're moving?"

"Yes, they know," I answered.

Once an eagle was pointed out for me, I couldn't let it go. I kept watching it sitting on a branch of a tree near the open water. We saw more eagles higher in the sky, but they had a mission they weren't sharing.

We had a feast but it wasn't table food; it was the soul food of nature.

We topped off the day by finding Serendipity Co-Op Art Gallery. I scooped up wondrous photos of perhaps the last healthy moose in MN, Split Rock Light House with the sun reflecting off it's windows in a God-wave, geese with goslings, and sailboats set against sunsets.

Aren't we always looking for redemption? We draw inspiration from an altar, a belief,
and rejoice in the saga of early spring finding God was there--all along. What a prayer.

Angels Over Us - A Letter to my Congressional Representative

Valencia Castle, Valencia, Spain

Congressman John Kline

US House of Representatives

Saturday, March 23, 2013

Dear Representative Kline,

I am one of your constituents; I am a poet. I’m writing on one over-riding issue and that is the pandemic of violence in our culture.

How I long to see, to hear--you step forward on universal background checks, mental health services for troubled children and their families, and the removal of assault weapons off our streets. School safety, yes, but more than school safety is required.

I wonder as the days have gone by since the immense tragedy at Newtown, how all those we've lost can bear looking through the clouds. For when they look down, they see the blood of precious human beings bathed in the color of violence. Each luminous face must look at the others and say—not today. Not today. No, change. These links below speak to us—saying act!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/22/gun-deaths-us-newtown_n_2935686.html

We’ve all been rocked by Newtown, Connecticut. But the purpose of this letter is to urge you to look at the whole picture, not merely part of it.  I urge you to step forward with the dignified voice you possess. Later doesn’t work anymore. It’s a new day. It has to be now. It’s what the people want.

I pray your aids look at each other and say: Give him this one (meaning: Give Representative Klein, give you this letter.)

Every story of violent loss bears the name of a human being sent to bless the planet, not be slaughtered on it.

In that light, I wish to support the Mokos family who lost Diane Kriz: a sister, a daughter, a friend in Chicago in July of 1986. At 46, she was a mother of four. No solace can be taken for them in seeing someone arrested for the crime that forever changed Bob Mokos’ family. Imagine how important some controls on gun accessibility are to them. It is everything since they’ve lost someone who meant the most to them.

I ask you to look at causes vs. how to deal with results—on the attack on an elementary school in Connecticut. We must, as the majority of NRA members agree, put in place background checks across the United States. Along with that, we need a data base second to none.

But we also need to honestly look at the horrific amount of assault weapons in the hands of those who shouldn’t have weapons at all. Fear, crazy fear, and unfounded paranoia have lead to many Americans arming themselves like a militia to fight an imaginary army that doesn't exist (to take anyone’s rights).

We’ve created our own hell on Earth.

Focusing on school safety isn’t enough. As the visuals on the Huffington Post today show, it’s almost by doing nothing—we nearly bless the bloodbath.

Let’s change the view below the clouds as those we’ve lost to violence look down upon us.

May they say, with your help, with your courage to step forward: TODAY! Today is the day they’re sanctifying the loss of our lives and over two thousand more. Today they’re taking steps to save more lives.

                                      

Please make the difference only you can make. Stand for protecting us all.

Respectfully,

Connie Nelson Ahlberg

Writer in Residence

705 E Burnsville Parkway, Unit 106

Burnsville, MN 55337

Since the World Needs Blessing

 Saint Benin's Church Window, St. Patrick

Kilbennan, Ireland

County Galway, Ireland by Andreas F. Borchert

Since the World Needs Blessing

Ay Be Blessin' Thee

Held by Ye Heavenly Mother

Are Ye

From the day you were born;

Not just for the road ahead

But Grace for the road behind;

In gratitude for Thy father and Mother

That bore ye whether

Mornin' or night;

And what of luck, me darlin',

if not the Grace you

live out under God

In the Trinity Three in

 Thy daily walk,

Not ever proud 

But as quiet an' purposeful as the birds

Soaring above the sea wall,

Making no fuss

Of their flight or wings;

But prayin' as ye go;

and livin' that prayer:

Blessing as you meet

All Irish children 

And those that aren't:

Ye are blessed, Ye

are worthy 

of Abundant Grace!

Look at your face

in the glass;

Put a smile on God's 

Eternal Blessing 

for all of ye days!

Amen.

By Connie Nelson Ahlberg

March 16, 2013